The Empire Laughs Back
Some dude named Captain Chirac added a laugh track to Vader and Luke’s confrontation in Empire Strikes Back, and it is fucking my shit up. It’s so, so weird — the laughs make the whole scene incredibly unsettling to me, especially when Luke gets his hand cut off and the crowd goes wild. It’s like you’re watching the movie with genial psychopaths or something. Anyways, thanks to Dan M. for the tip.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.