Just another Manic Monday.

I'm just kidding.  How can a Labor Day offday be manic?  Well, for me, that is.

Katie's pulling a 9-5 shift today and I'm at home getting a little more work done and watching a couple of movies in the process.  I needed to touch up some of the paint job from our work this weekend, so I did.  Now I also need to hang up a tool pinboard in the garage and patch up a couple of holes (that are not my fault).

This morning, I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still and I highly recommend it.  For a movie that was released in 1951, the themes remain amazingly applicable even more than half a century later.

I also played the first few mini-levels of Lego Star Wars on PS2.  I picked it up used the other day from EBGames and I love it.  But I'm stuck on one area.  I'm on the Naboo Escape sequence in The Phantom Menace and I'm crossing over this ravine to go into some throne room.  Once you get in there, you can't go anywhere unless you and the five characters your are traveling with each stand on these little weighted pedestals which, I would assume, trigger open a door.  However, to do this, you need all six characters in attendance in the room.  When I cross as one of the characters, only three others follow me (usually Padme, Panaka, and R2-D2) regardless of if I play as Obi Wan, Qui Gonn, Anakin, or any of the other three.  The others don't cross the ravine to stand on the pedestals.  Any tips from fellow Lego SW fans?  I know I'm not that far into the game, so it probably sounds rather pathetic for me to be asking for help this early, but I'm at a loss and I'm not a big gamer so I have an excuse.  Help.

But tonight is what I'm really looking forward to.  Once Katie gets off work, we are heading in to the Museum of Science and Industry for the Body Worlds exhibit.  This is the last weekend for the exhibit and Katie and I are finally going in to see it.  For this last weekend, the show is running 24 hours a day.  Thankfully, we are not going at some God-forsaken hour at night.  Our assigned time is 7:30.  The only worry we have is making it there in time.  I hope we do.  I paid good money for these tickets and I don't want them going to waste.  That would suck.

Hey, on a related aside, does anyone know if the guy who created this exhibit, Dr. Gunther von Hagen, is the same guy that did some of the "body" work on the German thriller, Anatomie, which features plastinated human corpses in the German medical institute scenes?  Just curious.

I'll be back tomorrow with an update on what the exhibit was like.  Maybe because it's the last day, they will allow photos.  They haven't up to now because they don't want too many shots getting out and ruining the fun.  But, if it's the last day, they might.  Here's hoping.  Not likely.

Comments

[Dave2]

Ah yes... "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is an all-time favorite of mine. Just reading your mentioning of it makes me want to see it again.

Are you talking about Chapter 3: Escape From Naboo? Could you be more specific? I don't recall any area where you have to get all your characters to stand on pedestals in that level? That's the one where you have to use the grappling gun a lot?

[Kevin]

Yes, I believe it was Chapter 3: Escape From Naboo in The Phantom Menace. It was post Podrace and you are racing through the palace after returning to it (was this Chapter 5?). There is one scene where you have to raise these two lifts and blast a pair of targets on each side of a barred entry to make the gate rise. Then you race inside and you have to use the Force to build a ramp out of scattered blocks so everyone can get up to the next platform. There is a balcony that you can only get to with Panaka and Padme using the grappling hooks and the Jedi can only get up there by using the Force to raise one life partway, jump on it, and use the Force to raise a second lift, jump on it, and then jump on a balcony outside a window.

The key to the entire room is to use the Force to turn on all these lights. Once you've done all this and use R2 to open another doorway, you race in and there is a huge ravine.

R2 can fly over, the Jedi can jump over after creating a floating platform using the Force, Panaka and Padme grapple over, and Anakin uses a hidden wall chute to get there.

Once you get across, there is a small display window with something in it that you destroy to get one of those builder pieces. Then there is a long hallway you can run down where you find a giant bronze Lego minifig statue that you can destroy (maybe I wasn't supposed to).

But, back in this room with the display window is a large door that won't open. In the middle of the room is a round... something... on the floor surrounded by six evenly spaced pedestals you can stand on and push down. Regardless of which character you are playing with, if you stand on one of them and face the middle of the room, the rest of the characters instinctively jump on their own pedestal. The problem I'm having is that I'm only getting four characters to cross the ravine into the room at any given time. If I'm Anakin or R2 or Panaka or Padme, then I will be followed by all three of the others, just no Jedi. If I'm one of the Jedi, then the other Jedi will follow along with R2 and Anakin, but no Panaka or Padme.

I think, the first time I crossed the ravine, everyone followed. But I didn't realize it was the pedestals, so I had crossed the ravine back into the other room to see if I missed a light or some such and now I can't get them all to cross back with me.