The Empire Strikes Back

March 30, 2008 6:09 AM

So brothers Barney and Daniel Jones, aka Jonba Hehol and Morda Hehol, Jedi Masters, started their own church, and began planning their moon base, but they had underestimated the power of the Dark Side...
posted by fearfulsymmetry (25 comments total)

What did they expect, really?
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:19 AM on March 30, 2008

...a man, dressed in a black bin-bag and wearing Darth Vader's trademark shiny black helmet, leapt over his garden fence... wielding a metal crutch...

Wow. Times are tough in the post-bubble Galactic Empire.
posted by rokusan at 6:22 AM on March 30, 2008 [9 favorites]

Ah-HA!
posted by BeerFilter at 6:25 AM on March 30, 2008

Drunk vader seems like my kinda guy
posted by MNDZ at 6:33 AM on March 30, 2008

Oh Alcohol, is there no metal object you cannot make us wield?
posted by Avenger at 6:37 AM on March 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. Drinking a fifth of Everclear punch, dressing in a garbage bag and swinging a handicap aid at peaceful Jedi and camera crews, Hmpf. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.”
posted by mctsonic at 6:41 AM on March 30, 2008 [5 favorites]

First they came for the scientologist and I said nothing . . .
posted by nola at 6:44 AM on March 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

If you're going to profess to teach light saber skills it follows you should probably know some. Another church lies. "Darth Vader Lives"
posted by podwarrior at 6:46 AM on March 30, 2008

If George Lucas had grown up in Holyhead, Star Wars probably would've featured a binbag-wearing, crutch-wielding Darth Vader in the first place. The Imperial Star Destroyer would've been the ferry over to Ireland, and Yoda would be played by an alcoholic pensioner. Hang on, that's already sounding better than The Phantom Menace...
posted by malevolent at 6:49 AM on March 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

"Always two there are...no more...no less. A left crutch and a right one."
posted by PlusDistance at 7:09 AM on March 30, 2008

My name is Qui-Gon Darth. I am a Jedi. It has come to my attention that a certain individual, who shall remain nameless, had dared to besmirch the very name and tradition of the following I myself teach to others. Having walked among both the Dark and the Light sides of the Force, I am well aware of the rewardless road this person treads upon. While he is no doubt too lowly to have his name mentioned within the Journal of the Whills, I shall make it MY TASK to ensure that wretch no longer torments the seekers of Truth. My anger shall guide me to this foe, and it shall protect the peace within me as I rend him asunder.
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:33 AM on March 30, 2008

Obviously, the founding of the church falls was a new hope. In response, the Empire struck back by trashing them and their backyard. Next, the church founders will return with a lawsuit and it will all end happily. Until about twenty years from now, when the church will put out a three volume history of the church, depicting how economic competition and failure led the founders to establish the church, followed by the fact that the drunken Vader was actually one of the original founders, who had been convinced to quit after being offered a free fifth at a nearby pub by a bartender with bad teeth looking to hire an assistant.
posted by Atreides at 7:52 AM on March 30, 2008

How the assailant may have looked

Heh.
posted by Artw at 8:30 AM on March 30, 2008

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 8:56 AM on March 30, 2008

Bangor maybe?
posted by Artw at 8:57 AM on March 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Move along.
posted by Dizzy at 8:57 AM on March 30, 2008

The journalist who wrote it up was obviously a fan of the Dark Side. Well done.
posted by misha at 9:30 AM on March 30, 2008

That's what I was gonna say, misha. The article is a stitch, and really makes no pretence of objectivity. My favourite part:

"Wielding a metal crutch - his lightsaber presumably being in for repairs - the Sith Lord proceeded to lay about his opponent, whose Jedi powers proved inadequate for the task of defending himself."

Let me just repeat that:
"whose Jedi powers proved in adequate for the task of defending himself."

This is precisely the sort of article I bet journalists tack up over their desk after they write it, to remind them of how good their job can be.
posted by roombythelake at 12:46 PM on March 30, 2008

Sounds like a case of nerd envy gone awry.
posted by not_on_display at 1:36 PM on March 30, 2008

Up next: ASBO for Vader.
posted by dhartung at 4:14 PM on March 30, 2008

Obviously the drunk Vader caused the camera crew some inconvenience, and is prepared to compensate them. Shall he say the sum of one million American dollars?
posted by vrakatar at 7:16 PM on March 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Vader in court.
posted by homunculus at 4:04 PM on April 22, 2008

when [Vader] failed to arrive on time, District Judge Andrew Shaw issued an arrest warrant, adding: "I hope the force will soon be with him."

In the event, [Vader] turned up and the case at Holyhead magistrates court resumed.

...

The court heard he has a "chronic alcohol problem" and had drunk the best part of a 10 litre box of wine.
posted by Artw at 4:10 PM on April 22, 2008

10 litres? Of Wine? Yes the force was indeed strong...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:58 AM on April 23, 2008

Very well, then. Two million.
posted by eritain at 2:08 PM on April 23, 2008