Did you know “I have a bad feeling about this” is a star wars reference? I didn’t. I don’t think most people who say it do. Not until maybe last year did I find out when I read it online, and then I forgot it until today when I read it again. And I’ve seen all the Star Warses! I contrast this with “I love it when a plan comes together,” which I know is from The *A* Team without having ever watched the A-Team or wanted to. I know that “kneel before Zod” and any remarks regarding a “son of Jor-El” are Superman references even though I’ve read less than 5 Superman comics my entire life and they weren’t about anything. So yes, I know a few things about distinct, unusual phrases which people quote for no reason.
Nerf herders and fuzzballs which laugh it up are Star Warsy. Bad feelings are not. Nerf fuzzballs are also not. I wish they were, though. The galaxy would be a much more peaceful place, then. One rarely experiences bad feelings when struck by the orange projectiles. In the situation of decimating, vaporizing destruction caused by photon torpedoes, death-stars and the like, it may well be nerf or nuthin’ [but scattered invisible atoms which I have no use for].
I don’t think bad feelings really are Star Wars references. The legend goes that every star wars movie contains that line at least once. But a lot of movies contain that line at least once. I don’t know if it was totally unheard of before 1977, but I do know that by 1994 it was absolutely generic, and so a nameless character saying it in a situation which there is good reason to have bad feelings about is unremarkable. I hardly think mentioning every time this is mentioned every time is not stupid. However, I wouldn’t dare attempt to amend a wiki page about Final Fantasy threevi or Star Wars. I can hardly handle the scrutiny, doubting and abuse when I edit pages that I keep to myself. I have a bad feeling about telling people to stop reporting on others’ reports of bad feelings.
I’ll grant that “I have a bad feeling” is a stupid, awkward, hackneyed thing to write into a script, but stupid hackney enthusiasts rarely realize they are that, tending to be somewhat stupid and hackneyed themselves. Saying “oh, well, I copied it from Star Wars” amounts to less than a valid excuse.
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Mxy sez:
I hate the people who write trivia bits for Wikipedia, although trivia bits is usually the only thing I go to Wikipedia for. The stupidest “reference” I’ve read so far was someone claiming that a character calling his current girlfriend by the name of his previous one was a reference to the Friends episode in which Ross calls someone by Rachel’s name. That’s right, nobody in human history ever made that mistake before the airing of that show.
There are even more idiotic examples in the talk pages for each article (which, yes, I check in search for additional trivia bits that didn’t make it into the real article).
Kesglarbix sez:
I’ve unfortunately not been able to work any of the truly stupid, tenuous wiki trivia connections into any of my complaints here. The tv show “Joey,” despite being, as I hear it, hated by everyone, had a considerable list of direct, vague, and non-existent references to Friends, the show it was spun off from. Who’d have thought, ehhh? I need more space to address this properly.
Razor Blade Casserole Pinged With:
[…] I said to mxy, and in fact exactly what I said, as I merely copied the text, I’ve unfortunately not been […]
Kesglarbix sez:
What the ping? I’ll never get used to that.