David Bowie has an honorary doctorate from the Berkeley
School of Music. Kermit the Frog has an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters from Southampton
College. Both of these celebrities, upon
receiving their respective degrees, gave a commencement address and then went
home. Of course that’s what they
did. Bowie wasn’t going to hang around
teaching bonehead guitar to a bunch of freshmen, and Kermit wasn’t expected to
work toward tenure up in New York. It’s
just a way of getting someone cool to make a speech at your school.
So
what’s up with Princess Leia in Star Wars? She’s a
general now. She is General Leia Organa. I had to look up her last name and was surprised to find Organa. I thought it would be Miss Skywalker, or Mrs. Solo, or Miss Jackson is you're nasty. As near as I can tell the
only thing close to generaling that she has done is stand around the glowing
table while the fish-head “It’s a trap!” guy seems to be running things. So is she really a general or is it more of
an honorary thing? Did she get her
honorary generalship for defeating Darth Vader and the Galactic Tea Party using just pistols a Care Bears,
and after giving a speech just stick around like a house guest that never
leaves? Is she wandering in and out of
meetings, napping on the couch in the X-Wing pilot's break room, looking in the fridge for leftovers, getting free coffee from the Tatooine
cafeteria?
I’m
thinking that if you’ve got her in the movie and call her a general, have her
strategize. Have her put together a
brilliant plan on how to defeat the Empire/First Order/One Direction. I need to see a scene where the smug leader
of the bad guys, quips something like, “That’s what happens when you send a princess to do a general’s job,” right before she pulls a tactical rabbit out
of her hat, and his huge space-battle-destroyer-dreadnought-ChevyTahoe explodes
into flames and crashes into yet another Deathstar.
Oh, and if she has to sacrifice C3PO to do it, I'm good.
Oh, and if she has to sacrifice C3PO to do it, I'm good.
