The Puzzle Piece April 2021 Current Events- Daniel S. Biden Signed a 1.9 Trillion dollar COVID relief bill. New Zealand experienced an 8.1 magnitude earthquake that triggered a tsunami warning. Pope Francis visits Iraq for the first time. Guess That Picture- Christian F. 1.flower petal 2.fungi 3.centipeed (2) Lego Fun Facts-Ijah W. ● The way you pronounce “Lego” in plural is… well, “Lego.” Yeah, the word is already pluralized. ● The Lego meant for toddlers, known as “Lego Duplo,” are eight times the size of normal Lego. ● Lego is the world’s largest producer of rubber wheels. They produce more than Bridgestone, Goodyear and all other car tyre manufacturers. ● You can stack the Lego all the way from Earth to the moon. TEN TIMES. You need 40 million bricks with it being over 384,400 kilometers tall. ● Every second passed equal seven Lego sets sold. That means: ○ Minute = 420 Lego sets. ○ Hour = 25,200 Lego sets. ○ Day = 604,800 Lego sets. ○ Week = 4,233,600 Lego sets. Memes of the Month- Jeremy N. and Tom J. Star Wars: The Original Trilogy Ranked Review by Sheldon Eads The original trilogy of Star Wars is an iconic trio of films that all tell a unique story. Even if you only watched one of them, you wouldn’t really have to watch all of them. Sure, certain plot points make more sense when watched in order but I feel these films were made to be as timeless and accessible as possible. Of course, there is debate as to which one is the best in their own personal opinion. This is where I go in and decide. It might get a little controversial but hey, this is the internet. Star Wars/Episode IV: A New Hope: It’s not entirely uncommon for the first installment of a series to not be as good as its sequels. Sure, there are exceptions like The Incredibles for instance, but A New Hope feels pretty slow in comparison to the other films. Story-wise, I think it’s quite compelling, especially when Grand Moff Tarkin destroys Alderaan, making his demise satisfying to watch and all the characters in the film have appropriate interactions. In fact, this film has the most main characters compared to any other movie here and the special effects are shockingly decent for 1977. The soundtrack, while the weakest, is still pretty good. The problem to me arrives at the fact that it can be really slow. We are introduced to Luke Skywalker way later than we should’ve and Tarkin rarely makes that much appearances despite being one of the main antagonists of the film. I have no idea why the latter gets very few screen time as he works great as a villain. While the soundtrack is good, I just don’t think it’s as exciting as John Willaim’s other works. Overall a good film, but not my favorite. Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: Coincidentally, all of these movies from worst to best are in release order. Regardless, The Empire Strikes Back is outright amazing. The locations are the most diverse in any OT movie so far, the plot has so many twists and turns and convey different feelings. The soundtrack is a major improvement from the first and the production values are much better. The only reason it’s behind Return of the Jedi though is mainly because some of the issues from A New Hope are still there. Darth Vader is introduced much later than he should’ve and the Emperor and Boba Fett don’t really have that much personality. The special edition does try to change The Emperor’s and Boba’s voice to match the continuity better so there’s that but without context of the later released prequel films, it’s not anything mind blowing. It’s funny how the Emperor plays a larger role in the movie after this. There’s also not as much excitement compared to ROTJ or even ANH. Honestly, it might as well be the villains. Sure, Vader is much better than his appearance in the first one but Tarkin also showed dominance and cruelty. Vader just wants Luke to join the Empire and that’s pretty much it for his character. Maybe I just really like Tarkin, I don’t know. Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: This film has a mixed reputation from what I can gather. I hear people say it's their least favorite because of the Ewoks (which are usually compared to Jar Jar Binks), the laziness of using the Death Star again, or the overuse of prequel-styled humor. Others however praise it for doing what the previous films did right, the development of Luke’s character and Darth Vader redeeming himself and becoming Anakin Skywalker again. I’m on the latter for, Return of the Jedi. The film manages to convey a lot of tone unlike the other film. It can be mysterious, humorous, heartwarming, heartbreaking, or even straight up terrifying. By fair the best thing in this movie though is The Emperor. Unlike the original version of Empire, he is played by Ian McDiarmid who is a phenomenal actor. He manages to represent pure evil flawlessly and is straight up threatening. His lines “You, like your father, are now mine!” and "So be it, Jedi.” clearly represent a cruel dictator perfectly. One of the most epic lightsaber fights from the original trilogy comes from here. I won’t get into everything because it would take up too much of this newsletter but I bet George Lucas likely knew the pros of this film as The Emperor (now renamed to Darth Sidious) reappears in the entire prequel trilogy and he is the highlight of those films, especially Revenge of the Sith. While Richard Marquand did a great job on the film, Lucas had decent foresight on what are good ideas and added scenes that make the film the way it is. If you had to watch at least one of these films, pick Return of the Jedi. Unlike the others, I wouldn’t need things changed for me to enjoy it. Yes, it isn’t perfect, I do think Boba is an underdeveloped villain after all but at the end, I enjoy it for the story it was telling and the attempts at improving. You could skip A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but you can’t convince me to skip Return of the Jedi at all. Thanks for reading The Puzzle Piece We will see you again next month!.