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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Flag of Ravenclaw - from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2

Ravenclaw Banner
Harry Potter & TDHP-2

A flag for Ravenclaw makes an appearance in the last Harry Potter film - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II - 2011. It appears during a psychic flash when Harry falls into the water after riding a dragon that guards treasures at the Goblin Bank.

The flag features the livery of house of Ravenclaw on a heraldic shield. Upon the shield is a standing raven facing sinister with wings spread pride. In the the helm is crested with a white eagle head with mantling - blue and white. Along the compartment is the name of the house - 'Ravenclaw.'

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Flags from Beetlejuice - 1988

Betelgeuse or Beetlejuice
the unscrouplulous bio-exercist played by Michael Keaton

In 1988 Tim Burton created a timeless horror-comedy with a smallest of heart warming messages. You may not have caught it. Mr. Burton's message of choosing to life over suicide is almost imperceptible - introduced as a running joke. Burton covers up the moral message with magic, love, humor, art, silliness, and a bit of absurdity. In the end the emo/goth daughter Lydia chooses to live.
Although the movie title and star of the movie was officially spelled Beetlejuice - in the movie the outcast professional bio-exorcist was spelled Betelgeuse.

Is that Jack from the Nightmare before X-mas?

Is this Jack? Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas? Five years before it was released in 1993? It seems this image has been haunting the imagination of Burton for some time. The 'Jack' finial appears as a finial on Beetlguese's merry-go-round hat.




Can possession can be fun? With good Ghosts?

Here Lydia (played by Winona Ryder) shows that possession by friendly and respectable ghosts can be fun! After she does well on her exams Lydia is allowed to levitate and be possessed by songs and dances from the those that live no more?

Notice the badge of her school features a yellow wreath with royal crown at the crest.



US flag in Beetlejuice - 1990

The US flag makes a brief cameo at the end when we see Lydia's new school - Miss Shannon's School for Girls. This became the focal point of the animated Beetlejuice cartoon series 1989-1991.



Friday, March 23, 2012

Imaginary Bulgarian Kingdom Flag from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968


In the fantasy sequence of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang our cast visits the imaginary and evil Bulgarian Kingdom that does not like children. The main colours or livery or purple, black and white.




Solders with lance pennons with livery










Notice Flags along upper left wall

Grand hall with people in 'team-gang' colours - purple, black and white.












The Royal Arms

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Flags of Success!

Flags from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 1968

Before Indiana Jones rescued the children in the Temple of Doom there was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 1968. The movie is based upon the author famous for giving life to Bond, James Bond that is - Ian Fleming.

In this scene we learn that the "Rose of Success" depends blooms out of the ashes of failure.

There are two flags waved in this scene a red flag with a white 'X' and a white flag with five small navy blue crosses in dice pattern.



The flags in this movie are coincidentally used by NATO for symbolize 'zero' via the white and small blue flag, while the red flag with white saltire represents 'four.' But the time frame of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is set before WWI and before the creation of NATO. It's all just a coincidence beside the sequence is derived from imagination adventure sequence from Caractacus Potts.


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Monday, March 19, 2012

Lebanon and Tahiti - Fraternal Twins, Heaven on Earth

Flag of Lebanon
aka the Holy Land

The flags of Lebanon and Tahiti are connected in the winding the mysterious way of providence. Providence is kinda' like officially recognized superstition. But there is a fine line between superstition and providence. Just think of the movie Pulp Fiction - when Jules Winnefield and Vincent Vega debate whether an assissin's bullet missed them by divine intervention (Rated R link - Adult Language and graphic violence). Vincent (John Travolta) chooses to embrace a purely objective point of view - the brush with death was simply a statistical event, since stuff like that happens all the time. While Jules (Samuel Jackson) embraces it as more than chance and is touched by a higher power. Subsequently he chooses to amend his ways. Jules felt providence while Vincent saw it as dumb luck. Although gangsters and nations seem like different entities - aren't nations simply gangs with written codes of conduct? Cross the law of a nation or gang, one too many times or in the wrong way and they will summon the angel of death with extreme prejudice.
Flag of Tahiti
aka French Polynesia

Also note in modern days, providence lost a lot gravity due to modern scientific objective thinking - subsequently the concept of providence was cast out of the modern western mind with superstition. But a few academics thought this was a bad idea. It wasn't until work of a Carl Jung PhD, that the modern rational Western mind revisited and re-recognized the power of providence under a new scientific academic terminology - synchronicity. Synchronicity is basically a modern academic word for providence, and providence was one of George Washington's favorite adjectives for the footprint of the divine. If Mr. Washington were alive to day he'd totally buy into synchronicity - yet a kind of synchronicity tempered with a healthy respect for the rational mind. If you loose the capacity to be rational and objective then all you have is primitive superstition, and Washington was not superstitious.

In the modern era both Lebanon and Tahiti were adopted by the modern French Empire. Lebanon has since then gained total independence while Tahiti remains under French control. Coincidentally they exhibit a similar pattern amongst their flags. Both are horizontal tri-bars of red, white, and red. In the middle are cultural icons with deep religious significance.

When compared they hi-light a comparison from the natural divine world - the tree - with something made with by the hand of man - a boat. The tree is a cedar which is mentioned with respect in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. The boat of Tahiti is an outrigger in front of the sun on the sea with five human shapes.

Geographically they are at opposite ends of the earth - they are nearly antipodal. If you were to dig downwards from Lebanon, you'd reach French Polynesia. They are both at cultural centers of the earth. Lebanon at the center of three continents - Africa, Asia, and Europe. Likewise French Polynesia is geographically in between the Americas, Australia, and Antarctica. Believe it or not a few of the southern islands of French Polynesia are closest to Antarctica rather than the Americas and Australia. What this means is, from one geographic rubric of rules - the eastern isles of Tahiti are a part of America, the western isles are a part of Australia, while a few southern isles are a part of Antarctica.*

















*whichever continent an island is geographically closest too, then it is a part of that continent.