So I for one, hope she remains a 'nobody' because an assertion that anybody can be a Jedi is a powerful one.
I'm TERRIFIED JJ's going to undo this. I really, really don't want Rey's parents to be important (not that it matters after someone writes a pointlessly overdone backstory like every other background character). If there's any secret connection I'd go for, its that her parents actually abandoned her at the academy and Kylo was unwilling to kill her and instead hid her away on Jakku as a big nod to his "failed to be Vader" origins.
I'm pretty much in the camp that Kylo is probably the most interesting character in a Star Wars film at this point and a huge part of what I love about TLJ is seeing scenes that I had imagine would play out in the prequels done right. Seeing the way Snoke asserts dominance over Kylo (and that its his undoing as Luke suggested) pays off all the way back to the broken dog we see in Vader in RotJ that is never really properly explored. It's probably the best exploration of the Force we've seen since it started being handed out as color coded skill trees in videogames.
Captain Joystick wrote: I hear that, but I don't really agree. Star Wars fans are weirdly obsessed with the characters' bloodlines and its something I blame the old EU's insistence that every force sensitive they ever introduced had to be the secret grandkid of some Jedi hero in order to lend them some sense of legitimacy, but it's something that George rejected softly with the 'Jedi forbid love' thing and Disney appeared to reject stiffly with the little orphan Jedi and Rey's apparent (so far) lack of pedigree.
Even if midichlorians muddle the waters a bit.
Rey comes into the story carrying the same baggage as those fans: She believes she needs to be from someone of significance in order to be someone of significance or else she doesn't matter. We see this in both movies: in the way she hollowly insists her parents will come back despite being otherwise grounded and aware, in the way she tries to make sense of her connection to the force by trying to figure out how her parents factor in, and in both films where being confronted with the fact that they were never going to come back for her brings her to tears.
So I for one, hope she remains a 'nobody' because an assertion that anybody can be a Jedi is a powerful one.
Which is certainly valid and broadens the scope of SW, but from a narrative perspective, the "saga" films are intentionally about the Skywalker clan and how "special" they are in the grand scheme of things.
The story is about the Skywalkers and should end still being about them (and not just Kylo)
If, however, Rey was presented as a nobody in TFA, I'd be ok with that. But instead, she was HEAVILY hinted at being important and connected. Why else would Kylo have freaked out about some rando "WHAT GIRL!?" in that movie? Or why did they have so many parallels between her and Luke/Anakin.
From a story telling pov, it's just....unsatisfying to set it up like that to subvert those expectations.....unless EpIX retcons it for a bigger payoff.
1. No totally different - the crime lords are part of the problem which has the Empire as the top evil. It supposed to be a whole new world with a vague new Republic, having one dodgy criminal / arms dealer say that oh no's he sells guns to military is not exactly highlighting the evil - its just pretending that they are trying to say something when the whole fillm is an empty of any message as a really empty thing.
2. Nope - this was just crap lazy writing - coparing Infinity Gauntlet to the gak pile that is TLJ is hilarious - in the former they take time and effort to make thier film - not throw it to a bunch of kids with crayons. Battle of Winterfell was awful -not TLJ awful but getting there. As i said the film was already hideously tedious - having a happy go lucky fun ride (escaping the inescapble pursuit) to casino world to do nothing, fail at that and then fail again when they get back was just wasting more time and showing how stupid the entire slow motion chase of tedium was.
3. The Rebels were not stupid If you look up stupid in the dictionary it has a joint entry for the First Order and the Rebels
The ring is agian massively different - if you can;t see the diffference I really don't know what to say or where you should get help.
1. Crime lords existed during the Old Republic, they existed during the Empire, they exist during the New Republic. Why would this be particularly shocking or preposterous or a 'message' or 'statement' of some kind which you think it apparently is? Hey, in very first Star Wars movie heroes employ services of a blatant criminal and killer.
2. By same logic I could say that whole battle in Wakanda was just gigantic waste of time, since Thanos was going to come anyway with enormous powers which would render the whole battle irrelevant, which it did. And I was talking about original Infinity Gauntlet storyline, the comic, which used similar storytelling structure: everything went wrong for the heroes again and again and every glimmer of hope was dashed, with nearly all heroes brutally killed or maimed until Thanos was utterly supreme - except for tiny oversight which he made and his whole scheme came crashing down. Oops. As for Battle of Winterfel, it was very well structured story with excellent poignancy but which suffered from several poor writing decisions, most notably almost none of the protagonists dying after being 30+ minutes in obvious verge of death, which lessened its overall impact.
It's common and quite basic storytelling structure. Your idea basically seems to be that the villains and heroes should always trade successes tit for tat like two pro wrestlers trading wins and putting each other over. But it is nonsensical to think that every story buildup should follow similar structure, there are number of ways to build the emotion and suspense.
3. It really seems to me that you can't tell the difference? Frodo dumped his escorts without explaining his reasons for them and proceeded alone (though Sam followed him). As a result he was caught by Shelob and then by Orcs. Sauron was not expecting them, it was just his normal security for spies etc. On the surface, whole enterprise seems exceedingly stupid, which is what Denethor called it.
I really wish you would read my posts...I have had a crap year and this sort of gak makes me want to explain yet again and /or scream my hatred at you for paragraphs - but I won't, becuase I am too tired and life is too short.
I almost hope the RLM predictions of time travel are accurate. Instead of going out with a whimper, the Sequel franchise may as well douse itself in flaming gasoline, soil itself, and then jump head first through a chipper shredder while clucking like a chicken.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I almost hope the RLM predictions of time travel are accurate. Instead of going out with a whimper, the Sequel franchise may as well douse itself in flaming gasoline, soil itself, and then jump head first through a chipper shredder while clucking like a chicken.
Was that not what they did in the TLJ.
Time travel could be good if done well - but I am highly dubious that they have the writing quality of those involved with Endgame.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I almost hope the RLM predictions of time travel are accurate. Instead of going out with a whimper, the Sequel franchise may as well douse itself in flaming gasoline, soil itself, and then jump head first through a chipper shredder while clucking like a chicken.
Its better than the probably-more-accurate rumors I saw on the Making Star Wars site a couple weeks back. They seemed entirely serious about it, to the point of warning people not to share them because 'spoilers.'
If they're true, though... Its going to be a wacky ride. Painful if you still care, but hilarious if fans flipping out in bouts of nerd rage can strike you as funny.
Though some will take it super serious, I'm sure.
Captain Joystick wrote: I hear that, but I don't really agree. Star Wars fans are weirdly obsessed with the characters' bloodlines and its something I blame the old EU's insistence that every force sensitive they ever introduced had to be the secret grandkid of some Jedi hero in order to lend them some sense of legitimacy, but it's something that George rejected softly with the 'Jedi forbid love' thing and Disney appeared to reject stiffly with the little orphan Jedi and Rey's apparent (so far) lack of pedigree.
Even if midichlorians muddle the waters a bit.
One thing that I kind of wish they'd do is sort of introduce a bit of DnD logic to force users. . . By this I mean for instance, the difference between Wizards and Sorcerers. . . Ya know, one studies for years to learn their spells/abilities, so they can do more, but less powerful things, while the other kinda just does it and as a result does "less", but does it more powerfully.
In a Jedi context, sure that may mean that *everyone* does one armed handstands while force stacking rocks on Dantooine, but the intent for each "type" is completely different.
In reference to Ren, again, I think they really screwed up/missed opportunities for great screen events. Take TFA, (spoiler, not really spoiler) the scene with Ben and Han. . . IF they hadn't fethed up by having Kylo remove his helmet so that we already know who he is, we could have this helmeted, menacing baddie having this scene with Han and right before he activates his lightsaber, he says something to the effect of "now you shall meet Ben again" . . . Gives the fans the notion that Han/Leia's kid, Ben, is "dead" even if it is later revealed in either EP 8 or 9 that Ben is in fact Kylo. I guess, really, it does bug me more than it probably should that they had such a wasted opportunity with the bad guy in the new series. There's just something that, to me, is inherently "better" about a mystery with certain characters
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I almost hope the RLM predictions of time travel are accurate. Instead of going out with a whimper, the Sequel franchise may as well douse itself in flaming gasoline, soil itself, and then jump head first through a chipper shredder while clucking like a chicken.
Was that not what they did in the TLJ.
Time travel could be good if done well - but I am highly dubious that they have the writing quality of those involved with Endgame.
TLJ was more Star Wars staring hard into your eyes while lowering its hand into a garbage disposal.
"Done well" never describes a JJ Abrams plot line.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Bloodline reveals were a big part of classic sci fi, from The Demolished Man to Dune. The OT was a love letter to the old serials and pulp stories. In comparison, the ST is a sext to the OT.
Captain Joystick wrote: I hear that, but I don't really agree. Star Wars fans are weirdly obsessed with the characters' bloodlines and its something I blame the old EU's insistence that every force sensitive they ever introduced had to be the secret grandkid of some Jedi hero in order to lend them some sense of legitimacy, but it's something that George rejected softly with the 'Jedi forbid love' thing and Disney appeared to reject stiffly with the little orphan Jedi and Rey's apparent (so far) lack of pedigree.
Even if midichlorians muddle the waters a bit.
One thing that I kind of wish they'd do is sort of introduce a bit of DnD logic to force users. . . By this I mean for instance, the difference between Wizards and Sorcerers. . . Ya know, one studies for years to learn their spells/abilities, so they can do more, but less powerful things, while the other kinda just does it and as a result does "less", but does it more powerfully.
That was done in some of the secondary media. Both the clone wars cartoon series and various RPG incarnations. The witches and other force adepts had different approaches to force spells/powers.
FWIW, they introduced Time Travel near the end of Rebels when Ezra uses it to save Ahsoka from Vader. There, they treat the Force as a point connected to all time simultaneously as a sort of way to explain a lot of how it works, with Palpatine seeking to find a way to enter it. I'm not sure I love the idea, but it was executed and presented well and could certainly work if handled properly. It could also be a midichlorian level disaster.
For clarity, I'm not saying that Rey NEEDs to be connected by blood to any existing character, but that TFA PRESENTED her as such and TLJ should have kept that, but instead subverted it. SW has never been about subverting expectations, so the only way for RoS to bring it all together is to make Rey being a nobody a lie. Otherwise TFA and TLJ just do not work with each other story-wise
Captain Joystick wrote: I hear that, but I don't really agree. Star Wars fans are weirdly obsessed with the characters' bloodlines and its something I blame the old EU's insistence that every force sensitive they ever introduced had to be the secret grandkid of some Jedi hero in order to lend them some sense of legitimacy, but it's something that George rejected softly with the 'Jedi forbid love' thing and Disney appeared to reject stiffly with the little orphan Jedi and Rey's apparent (so far) lack of pedigree.
So I for one, hope she remains a 'nobody' because an assertion that anybody can be a Jedi is a powerful one.
Star Wars - the first film, that is - went the same way. The secret to skill with the Force seems to be training, practice and willpower, not simply genetics as the two sequels went on to imply.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Rey’s family being irrelevant is less of derailment than Leia becoming Luke’s sister to tidy up a plot point.
I do hope they involve Rey's parents in some form in Rise of Skywalker. They don't need to be somebody important. But they're not, and noone is, nobodies. - Especially since all of Rey's parental figures are now very dead.
Even if they end up being nobodies in the Galactic scheme of things, having her, say, rescue her dad from Kessel, could still be something.
Honestly i dunno what JJ Abrams can do with ep. 9 honestly.
I mean this is like JJ Abrams handling a nuclear power plant and telling rian johnson to watch it for 15 mins until he gets back only for a Chernobyl incident to happen while he's away. After JJ Abrams storms in all like "WTF DID YOU DO?" and Rian Johnson just sorta raises his shoulders signaling "I dunno."
Perhaps that example is a tad extreme it's just in such a situation how do you even fix it at this point without just re-doing episode 8. Much as i think fans went a little crazy with ep. 8 supposedly not being canon or wanting to fund raise a new ep. 8. i don't think the current trilogy can really be fixed unless TLJ gets retconned.
Backfire wrote: Johnson consulted Abrams when he was writing TLJ, to make sure he was not undoing some grand plan JJA had in mind.
Did he? Or did he throw JJ's ideas and notes out the window and do things his way? It's literally been rumored to have gone both ways. Other versions say Kennedy interfered too much in the production, and yet others blame vague Disney marketing executives. Does it even really matter at this point?
I'm not sure we'll ever know exactly what went wrong with TLJ. All that really matters is that something did go wrong, and I earnestly think it damaged the brand in a way even the PT didn't manage to do.
Backfire wrote: Johnson consulted Abrams when he was writing TLJ, to make sure he was not undoing some grand plan JJA had in mind.
Did he? Or did he throw JJ's ideas and notes out the window and do things his way? It's literally been rumored to have gone both ways.
Official version is that, and really it's hard to see how or why they would do it any other way. JJA was Executive Producer in TLJ (although that title does not really guarantee anything).
Despite all the jokes, it's not like they don't have any oversight. Trevorrow was kicked out from Ep9 because they didn't like his draft.
If, however, Rey was presented as a nobody in TFA, I'd be ok with that. But instead, she was HEAVILY hinted at being important and connected. Why else would Kylo have freaked out about some rando "WHAT GIRL!?" in that movie? Or why did they have so many parallels between her and Luke/Anakin.
From a story telling pov, it's just....unsatisfying to set it up like that to subvert those expectations.....unless EpIX retcons it for a bigger payoff.
Given the tension and chemistry Rey and Kylo have between them, it would be really weird if they turned out to be close relatives. On the other hand, OT already did it with Luke and Leia so who am I to criticize it?
Since Jedi were not allowed to have families (which is kinda weird if having a right 'bloodline' helps becoming powerful Force user...why would they want to eliminate those bloodlines?), if Rey has some sort of relation to pre-existing major character, it can only be Palpatine. Perhaps Rey was some sort of clone or genetic spare or experiment who was dumped on Jakku and her parents weren't her actual parents.
I am not excited about that hypothesis, but it sounds something they might do.
Ren's villain arc is one of the saving graces for me. He starts off being a pale imitation of Darth Vader, but that's entirely intentional. And then he arguably proves a better Sith than Vader, by supplanting his master. And the Emperor talked a lot about the power of anger and hate, but he's the only Sith character who really conveys that.
My big worry for Ep9 is that they'll cave in to the fangirls and redeem him with the power of love.
The title seems to hint to that possibilty, yes. If so, movie needs another major villain. Maybe they'll whip out Thrawn? That would pander the hardcore fanbase, at least.
Kylo Ren is not a Sith, of course, neither is Snoke. But since Kylo is basically a Darth Vader fanboi, it makes sense he would try to imitate Sith tradition.
I will say that Kylo Ren is probably the one part of TLJ I haven't hated more as time goes on. He was the one interesting character in TFA, and he stayed interesting in TLJ, more so than Rey or Finn (and I think they just botched Poe's arc entirely).
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I almost hope the RLM predictions of time travel are accurate. Instead of going out with a whimper, the Sequel franchise may as well douse itself in flaming gasoline, soil itself, and then jump head first through a chipper shredder while clucking like a chicken.
Its better than the probably-more-accurate rumors I saw on the Making Star Wars site a couple weeks back. They seemed entirely serious about it, to the point of warning people not to share them because 'spoilers.'
If they're true, though... Its going to be a wacky ride. Painful if you still care, but hilarious if fans flipping out in bouts of nerd rage can strike you as funny.
Though some will take it super serious, I'm sure.
Hey, it's Disney. I think they will resort to ultimate jump-the-shark-strategy, the crossover:
insaniak wrote: It would actually be kind of cool if we wind up with the son of Han and Leia being the evil overlord, and the daughter of Palpatine saving the day...
It would. Show that evil and good are not genetic traits but rather the result of someone's choices
It may just be me being bitter, but we'll probably just end up with Rey and Kylo being siblings, as that would just be another way to ape the original trilogy.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I almost hope the RLM predictions of time travel are accurate. Instead of going out with a whimper, the Sequel franchise may as well douse itself in flaming gasoline, soil itself, and then jump head first through a chipper shredder while clucking like a chicken.
I think it's more likely they will do a Force flashback of the past, similar but more extensive what Rey saw in TFA. In fact wasn't there a plan to reshoot small part of Luke's and Vader's Cloud City encounter for Rey to see in her flashback?
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Earth127 wrote: My compliments to whomever made that poster. It looks good.
Somebody only added lightsabers but as the characters have so tense poses, them holding swords actually looks quite natural. That poster actually makes me think even more that they should have made Jakku something else than Tatooine ripoff. A misty forest or jungle world or something like that, would have felt fresher.
Apart from ROTJ: SE and Force Awakens...I've always liked SW. I think the most miserable time for SW was the barrage of hate for Last Jedi being shoved down our throats on an almost daily basis.
Looking forward to the Mandalorian and the new season of Clone Wars, not expecting much from Rise of Skywalker than a repeat of Force Awakens.
Loved Rogue One and Solo, and disappointed theres no more word of an Obi-Wan movie. The Scott Miller novel pretty much nailed that story, but it would have been nice if they could have bought it to life, or at least use it as a starting point.
Not sure what else to say about SW for the moment, but I think they should ditch the trilogies and stick with the "story" movies instead.
I mean this is like JJ Abrams handling a nuclear power plant and telling rian johnson to watch it for 15 mins until he gets back only for a Chernobyl incident to happen while he's away. After JJ Abrams storms in all like "WTF DID YOU DO?" and Rian Johnson just sorta raises his shoulders signaling "I dunno."
I'm not one to really believe JJ has ever written a mystery with any sort of working plan in mind. In my mind, the scenario is more that JJ built a nuclear power plant, RJ was tasked with blowing it up, but when he got inside just found a cardboard box with "Reactor" in Sharpie on it and had to improvise.
AegisGrimm wrote: It may just be me being bitter, but we'll probably just end up with Rey and Kylo being siblings, as that would just be another way to ape the original trilogy.
Given she's interacted with both parents, that seems... unlikely.
But if the Time Travel hypothesis hold's true, they could end up as Anakin's parents, and he'll die, she'll adopt the name 'Shmi' and hide on Tatooine, in order to start the Skywalker's Rise.
For a 'slave' household, they had far too much expensive kit and freedom anyway...
Captain Joystick wrote: I hear that, but I don't really agree. Star Wars fans are weirdly obsessed with the characters' bloodlines and its something I blame the old EU's insistence that every force sensitive they ever introduced had to be the secret grandkid of some Jedi hero in order to lend them some sense of legitimacy,
Did the EU really do this? I'm thinking back and don't really recall anyone outside of Corran Horn discovering his grandfather was a Jedi Knight (and I guess Kyle Katarn counts too). The core of Luke's academy students weren't scions of anyone (Kyp Durron was introduced as having insane levels of raw Force power, but there was no family link to anyone else). None of the Dark Jedi were related to anyone - Hethrir, C'Baoth, Brakiss etc. As the time went on you had sons/daughters of existing characters come into play - the Solo kids, the Hapan heir etc, but that's a bit different.
I do think family links were a little more prevalent in the old Tales of the Jedi series but again they were more direct than 'secret descendant'.
Maybe it changed a little when EU material surrounding the prequels came out, I didn't like the films enough to bother with EU stuff then.
I think most of us agree that Kyle Ren works. He’s good. He’s what we wanted in Anakin, and there really is the “can he be saved” question. I think seeing him as the main character offers a chance to save the new trilogy. Only because he’s the most interesting. Every scene where he was in with Luke or Rey was great. The problem was the other scenes. Poe is fun. Is he a deep character? Nope. But he’s fun. Rose is annoying, and hopefully her character is killed off between movies. The casino world could have been done way better (I like the ideas a few pages back about it). It’s just for every good or great scene, you get three bad ones. New trilogy makes pre-trilogy good by comparison. Which is disturbing.
AegisGrimm wrote: I don't remember much past what you've said, either. And to me, anyway, Corran Horn was cooler than either Rey OR this version of Ben Skywalker.
The Corran Horn book I, Jedi is what made me love star wars again after I got older and hit the "that's for kids" phase.
I don't know the order of publishing between this and the X-wing novels, but I remember a short story in one of the old WEG Adventure Journals featuring Corran Horn, he was on the run from CorSec as the ISB liaison there suspected his loyalties and he was posing a junior Imperial officer on some backwater, he ended up helping the local cell free some Rebel captives and they all escaped together, which I think is where he originally hooked up with the Alliance.
I don’t see it personally he just comes off as Kevin the Jedi mk2, I mean overall Anakin had a lot more baggage to influence him negatively than Kylo plus years of being manipulated by a real sith lord. Kylo had a strange fetish with his grandfather, anger issues and a pretty fethed up moral compass which still don’t really stack up with what Anakin went through.
He’s the literal anti Vader everything Vader went through Kylo inflicts on himself Vader lost his parents-Kylo killed his own, Vader is born a slave-Kylo enslaves himself to snoop, Vader takes part in a war trying to defend the republic-Kylo takes part in as aggressor in a war against the republic basically Kylo is all self inflicted misery there’s nothing tragic about his fall like with Anakin and is what you get when your writers desperately want Vader to still be around.
I think you guys are taking it too literally. Obviously, Ben Solo’s story does not fit the fall of Anakin Skywalker.
The point is, Adam Driver’s compelling portrayal of a person who started out as good violently struggling with fear, anger, and hatred is how we wanted to see Anakin’s struggle. As opposed to Hayden Christensen’s flat performance of Lucas’s half-assed story.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It’s also wrong to say nothing about Ben’s story is tragic.
The problem is, we have to infer Ben’s story because both of these lazy ass Disney films don’t bother to explain it.
This is the situation young Ben Solo finds himself in: as the grandson of Anakin and nephew of Luke, he has a huge amount of pressure to be a great and powerful Jedi but his role models are a dad who can’t quit the outlaw life, a mom who puts her work in politics above raising her son, and an uncle who is not equipped with either the skill or knowledge to instruct him. Ben doesn’t have the support structure to become a well-adjusted person much less a galactic hero and scion of destiny. But that is what everyone assumes he will be.
In this way, Ben is an interesting foil to Rey. Whereas Rey is suffering from a lack of context, Ben is suffocated by context. Rey doesn’t know who she is supposed to be. For Ben, it’s clear who he is supposed to be and just as clear, to his family and himself, that he has entirely failed to become that person.
This is why Ben idolizes Darth Vader. At the end of Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan sums up the life of Anakin Skywalker in one bitter, tearful groan of despair: “You were the Chosen One!” Everyone expected Anakin would bring balance to the Force but instead he utterly failed. Ben can relate to failing to live up to such crushing expectations.
But here is the crucial point: by becoming Darth Vader, Anakin forged his own unexpected path and ultimately sacrificed himself to kill the Emperor and finally end this ancient conflict between the Jedi and the Sith. Except now Luke and Snoke are keeping that going.
In TFA, Ben meditates on the ruined mask of Vader. Note, he does NOT reforge the mask. He leaves it ruined. And he asks the spirit of his grandfather to “show me again the power of darkness” and promises “I will finish what you started.” JJ Abrams could not be bothered to give us any exposition here so we don’t know specifically what the hell Ben is talking about. But we can infer that Ben believes he has to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, he must embrace the darkness to realize his destiny, and he believes his destiny (as we find out in TLJ) is to “let the past die, kill it if you have to.”
So why can’t Ben do this without becoming an evil weirdo?
In ESB, Luke asks Yoda whether the Dark Side is more powerful than the Light. Yoda answers, no but it is quicker and easier. This is the key to why Anakin became Darth Vader. Anakin was afraid that he would not have the power to save Padme from her impending death. He needed more power and he needed it quickly. So he gave in to the Dark Side.
Now, this is Ben’s predicament: he knows how much is expected of him and he isn’t getting to that level. Like his grandfather, he needs more power and he needs it faster than Luke’s training can provide.
By the way, this is also obviously why Luke is so afraid of his nephew; he sees Ben going down the same path as Anakin and he has no idea how to prevent it. Luke is terrified that all he has accomplished is to make the exact same mistake as Yoda and Obi-Wan in creating the next Darth Vader.
Ben believes he must embrace the darkness to be powerful enough to realize his destiny, which is ultimately to fulfill what Vader started: the end of the galactic conflict between Light and Darkness, to bring order to the galaxy. This is the story of a person painfully forcing himself to be evil (Rey: “You’re a monster.” Kylo Ren: “Yes I am.”) because he believes it is necessary to achieve a greater destiny. And the further he goes, the more he is willing to destroy, the further away he gets from his goal, the more his destiny becomes a prison, the more his sense of clarity crumbles into doubt and despair.
To me, this is pretty fething tragic. Ben is not a person we can admire because he just arrogantly assumes he is the new Chosen One and he’s at least hypothetically willing to sacrifice anything and anyone (not least of all himself) to achieve his presumptive destiny. But the reason he believes that is because of an accident of birth. His family are important people who failed him miserably. In that sense, we may not admire him but we can sympathize with the crushing sense of responsibility that made him what he is.
Yeah but if your infering that much we could just start from scratch and pretend the new trilogy never happened.
Ultimately what you see in the 2 new movies is a character who is flatter than Anakin even taking acting ability into account and cannot even be called a caricature because he lacks even that depth. He's a Vader wannabe who has anger issues,daddy issues and a texts books worth of other psychological problems.
Hard to criticize Christensen too much from his performance, nearly everyone was similarly flat in PT.
Talking about EU characters,do you think Mara Jade will appear again? Zahn has a veto on her use but was otherwise open for the idea. After all, Thrawn has come back too.
She probably doesn't fit to current storylines however since her character is so tied to Luke.
I collected a lot of SW trading cards back in the day. I guess this would make me sort of a fan. What do I like about SW? Episodes four to six. What do I despise? Awful characters like Jar-Jar Bings or however his vile name is spelled. In addition, all the new chars from the latest movies do I thing very well:
They suck. A lot. I didn't watch Solo and won't watch any further movie atrocities committed to the franchise.
I think that’s my problem with the new films, it’s not that I find them bad per se, but really frustrating; there are a lot of good ideas (and I think a good cast) buried in there, but rather poorly executed.
I actually think Ben Solo's character arc and background is being handled pretty decently. They are trying to show and not tell with him, which is better than the Prequels could muster.
I actually have few complaints about the Force characters side of the story so far as it stands. A few niggles here and there. It is everything else in the universe that has been weak.
The problem is, we have to infer Ben’s story because both of these lazy ass Disney films don’t bother to explain it.
Explaining all that without an exposition dump is one of the real strengths of these movies, IMO.
It's a shame that so many people aren't seeing it though.
It's almost as if it's explained really really badly and barely at all...
It isn’t even barely explained IMO. It’s there to be discovered by those who pick the new films apart under the generous assumption that there must be some kind of character arc implicit in all this jumble. For everyone else, Ben Solo is just a whiny emo loser, as has been argued a million times here on Dakka. If TFA and/or TLJ had been bothered to actually convey Ben’s story, I wouldn’t have to explain it here.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Easy E wrote: which is better than the Prequels could muster
The problem is, we have to infer Ben’s story because both of these lazy ass Disney films don’t bother to explain it.
Explaining all that without an exposition dump is one of the real strengths of these movies, IMO.
It's a shame that so many people aren't seeing it though.
It's almost as if it's explained really really badly and barely at all...
Yeah, if only they had put as much effort into explaining Ben's backstory as they did with Vader's or the Emperor's in the original trilogy...
Manchu wrote: It isn’t even barely explained IMO. It’s there to be discovered by those who pick the new films apart under the generous assumption that there must be some kind of character arc implicit in all this jumble. For everyone else, Ben Solo is just a whiny emo loser, as has been argued a million times here on Dakka. If TFA and/or TLJ had been bothered to actually convey Ben’s story, I wouldn’t have to explain it here..
Honestly, it sometimes feels like I watched completely different movies to you.
Between TFA and TLJ, they quite clearly cover the fact that Ben was immensely strong in the force, was led astray by prolonged interference by Snoke and the feeling of betrayal due to a very poor, reconsidered decision by his master, and is now incredibly conflicted and trying to bull his way through it.
I really don't know what more you needed. Again, it's more than we were told about Vader in the original trilogy.
I don't think that's really fair. In the original trilogy, Obi Wan and Luke had a pretty decent conversation about Anakin in Episode 4.
Then Episode 5 and 6 had more in depth conversations between him and Yoda. Then him, Ghost Ben and Yoda.
The new trilogy equivalents would be like understanding Vader's relationships from.
"There's too much of his father in him."
"I've felt something I've not felt since..."
And
"The force is strong in this one."
If the new films really gave us, for example, some decent amount of time with Han and Leia in TFA. Then Luke and Leia in TLJ then things could have been more explicit.
Show not telling is all well and good, but people do have conversations sometimes.
AegisGrimm wrote: It may just be me being bitter, but we'll probably just end up with Rey and Kylo being siblings, as that would just be another way to ape the original trilogy.
Given she's interacted with both parents, that seems... unlikely.
But if the Time Travel hypothesis hold's true, they could end up as Anakin's parents, and he'll die, she'll adopt the name 'Shmi' and hide on Tatooine, in order to start the Skywalker's Rise.
For a 'slave' household, they had far too much expensive kit and freedom anyway...
"It's like poetry, it rhymes"
1:20 Kylo Ren after a midichlorian-addled time travel plot where Rey is Anakin's mother (technically Great Grandpa):
Between TFA and TLJ, they quite clearly cover the fact that Ben was immensely strong in the force, was led astray by prolonged interference by Snoke and the feeling of betrayal due to a very poor, reconsidered decision by his master, and is now incredibly conflicted and trying to bull his way through it.
I really don't know what more you needed. Again, it's more than we were told about Vader in the original trilogy.
We do, but the characters have been set up differently: Vader is introduced to us as a master henchman, a former good guy turned bad who has a grudge against Obi-Wan and who apparently killed Luke's dad. The revelation that he 'killed' Anakin only in metaphorical sense, that he actually WAS Anakin, is just a bonus, an extra twist on character who was working very well already.
By contrast, Kylo Ren is build around his betrayal of his family and teacher. These are told to us relatively early - in fact very first scene we see him more or less tells this. He is not as effective as a menacing henchman as Vader was - this is not a dig towards character, he is not even meant to be. But since his betrayal is so defining character trait in his story arcs, we should know more about it. How did Snoke corrupt him so throughly that person like Luke Skywalker considered killing him - however briefly? Did he do some kind of mind trick or did he promise something really big? It sounds like Luke did know Snoke at that point already but there is no hint what kind of interaction they might have had. Did Snoke set up a rival Force school? Did he pretend to be Luke's friend and used his trust to turn his students against him? Or did Luke set up the school precisely to fight Snoke? We get that Ben admires Darth Vader and basically cosplays him. That is not a bad trait on a character but more is needed. Nobody kills his dad and participates in genocide just for cosplay.
That about covers it for me as well Backfire (and thanks for the new sig material), which leaves me wondering how they are going to introduce the Knights of Ren into the new film. Are they going to be something that just appears or some over elaborated back story? We were shown already that they helped burn down Luke's Temple but have very little info otherwise.
insaniak wrote: Yeah, if only they had put as much effort into explaining Ben's backstory as they did with Vader's or the Emperor's in the original trilogy...
All you’re doing is pointing out how the OT was not convoluted and the DT is. The OT clearly and concisely explained everything we needed to know, which wasn’t much. Vader being Luke’s father was a surprise, not a mystery teased in ANH. Luke’s father being a Jedi was a matter of his up front characterization, not a mystery box. We could go on like this ...
Between TFA and TLJ, they quite clearly cover the fact that Ben was immensely strong in the force, was led astray by prolonged interference by Snoke and the feeling of betrayal due to a very poor, reconsidered decision by his master, and is now incredibly conflicted and trying to bull his way through it.
I really don't know what more you needed. Again, it's more than we were told about Vader in the original trilogy.
What I wanted, and what the general audience clearly needed, was clear and concise exposition. What we got was a tangle of implications and missing information to be filled in by officially licensed products. Kylo Ren is probably the character we can talk most about, not because we have been informed about him but because we know the characters who are is family, thanks to the OT, and so we can make some pretty sound inferences about him.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh I see Compel and Backfire nicely explained this already.
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ingtaer wrote: which leaves me wondering how they are going to introduce the Knights of Ren into the new film. Are they going to be something that just appears or some over elaborated back story?
Almost certainly they will just appear. That’s JJ’s style. And there will be a Knights of Ren comic book series at some point.
We know they are going to appear Manchu as they are on the poster along with the new Sith troopers and TIE variant (in both Imperial and Sith colours, its called the Dagger). I am more curious as to the manner of their appearance, are they going to just sidle in or are they going to be made a big deal of (at least until Ben kills them all...).
As the prequels get so much hate (fully justified in my opinion) I wonder if many people have watched the fan edits of them? The Fall of the Jedi edit is actually pretty decent as it removes pretty much all the things that people complain about the most, like Annie the even younger, JarJar, emotion droids, flying Yoda etc.
Yea Yoda's fight with Dooku is really cool, you could tell Christopher Lee's acting pedigree in those scenes. Just the way he stands and holds himself sells the idea of Dooku as a master swordsman.
The fight between Yoda and Palpatine was pretty rubbish, in fact Palpatine had no good fights. I don't know whether that was a limitation of the actor or a deliberate choice by Georgy Porgy.
Palpatine is a planner, first and foremost. And I'd say that's largely reflected in his fighting style.
Within second he cuts down what, three Jedi Masters. Not Jedi. Jedi Masters. And that's mostly down to hurling himself into combat, quite literally. He knew their knowledge on him was limited. Who'd expect a fairly doddery old coot to come at them like that?
Indeed, it's not until Mace gets a handle on it that we see, actually, Palpatine perhaps isn't the greatest swordsman you'll ever face. Competent? Sure. But far from a champion.
Against Yoda? It's predominantly Force powers. Which strike me as far more Palpatine's thing, if not quite as cinematic.
So I can buy it was a deliberate delineation. Palpatine isn't a Warrior - hence he needs the likes of Maul, Tyrannus and Vader.
Yea those two got Warfed, which would be fine if it looked good but they literally just stood there like lemons.
Personally I would have cut 33% from Anikan's and Ob Wan's fight, which was too long, to make the scene where the Jedi try to arrest the Chancellor of the Republic more dramatic.
I fact why have Palpatine fight at all? It would have cooler imo to have Mace try to arrest him publicly, and provide the justification for the destruction of the entire Jedi order through his actions.
"The Jedi act against the Republic, they cling to the power we entrusted them with during the war... etc"
Seriously. Solo isn't a perfect film, but it is fun. And it deserves a follow up, especially with it's relatively last minute reveal.
However, I'm not sure it deserves a cinematic follow up. As I've said before, as a Star Wars story, it's actually quite 'disposable'. Fun to watch, but doesn't add anything for the fan or the casual viewer - certainly not in the way Rogue One did (ace film, and shows a new aspect of The Empire/early Rebellion).
But....as a limited run Disney+ series? Perhaps as two or three TV Movies? Heck yes that could work. And it's not like anyone involved is a particularly big name actor that might get snooty about playing on TV instead of the Silver Screen.
Seriously. Solo isn't a perfect film, but it is fun. And it deserves a follow up, especially with it's relatively last minute reveal.
However, I'm not sure it deserves a cinematic follow up. As I've said before, as a Star Wars story, it's actually quite 'disposable'. Fun to watch, but doesn't add anything for the fan or the casual viewer - certainly not in the way Rogue One did (ace film, and shows a new aspect of The Empire/early Rebellion).
But....as a limited run Disney+ series? Perhaps as two or three TV Movies? Heck yes that could work. And it's not like anyone involved is a particularly big name actor that might get snooty about playing on TV instead of the Silver Screen.
I'd agree Solo felt way better suited for a TV series than a film.
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Compel wrote: If the new films really gave us, for example, some decent amount of time with Han and Leia in TFA. Then Luke and Leia in TLJ then things could have been more explicit.
Other than Leia snubbing Chewie, (which clearly wasn't intentional, just dumb) the worst scene in TFA is the bit between Han and Leia where they explain each others past to one another. It's really clunky and forced compared to the way the rest of the backstory segments are done.
I just watched Solo. It was pretty good. I've been a Star Wars fan all my life; even made it through seeing Phantom Menace in the theater as a 14 year old. It was the day my childhood died.
That's still the nadir of SW for me. The other two prequels were ... less awful.I hated things like the yoda light saber fighting and the generally bad writing, but the set piece battles were okay, and Ewan McGregor saved a lot.
When the sequels came out I obviously didn't have 14 year old starry eyed dreams for them, but I hoped. I was okay with 7 being a retread - we kind of needed a safe movie after the prequels- even if I think they could have still been more original while hitting all the main points.
I watched TLJ a long time after it came out. I didn't love it or hate it, it wasn't great. It had a few moments, but mostly it felt like a waste of a movie. The pursuit part of the plot was boring. At least half the plot didn't need to happen, with Poe Dameon getting a bunch of people killed if Laura Dern would have trusted her subordinates with her ultimately crappy plan.
But, my only serious concern is the ending. And no one but me seems upset about it. Weaponizing the jump to lightspeed means that every other movie was full of idiots. How many lightspeed capable ships died attacking death stars and star destroyers? Any one of them could have rammed any of those things and destroyed them. Moreover, in the 30000+ years civilization has been around no one built a lightspeed torpedo? It means everyone in every other film was actually a complete idiot. And everyone in every future movie will also be an idiot for not doing that. Space battles are now ruined for the rest of Star Wars for me. Thanks, TLJ.
But, my only serious concern is the ending. And no one but me seems upset about it. Weaponizing the jump to lightspeed means that every other movie was full of idiots. How many lightspeed capable ships died attacking death stars and star destroyers? Any one of them could have rammed any of those things and destroyed them. Moreover, in the 30000+ years civilization has been around no one built a lightspeed torpedo? It means everyone in every other film was actually a complete idiot. And everyone in every future movie will also be an idiot for not doing that. Space battles are now ruined for the rest of Star Wars for me. Thanks, TLJ.
I feel like the implication was always that the lightspeed kamikaze only worked because the ships were so similar in size. You couldn't jump that same ship into the death star because the relative size would have just caused it to bounce right off. This movie wasn't the first Star Wars property to use the idea, I feel like I read about something similar in the old EU at least once.
Since the ships had to be the same size, it only works in a few very specific circumstances. Most people won't build a capital ship just to kamikaze it into another capital ship.
But, my only serious concern is the ending. And no one but me seems upset about it. Weaponizing the jump to lightspeed means that every other movie was full of idiots. How many lightspeed capable ships died attacking death stars and star destroyers? Any one of them could have rammed any of those things and destroyed them. Moreover, in the 30000+ years civilization has been around no one built a lightspeed torpedo? It means everyone in every other film was actually a complete idiot. And everyone in every future movie will also be an idiot for not doing that. Space battles are now ruined for the rest of Star Wars for me. Thanks, TLJ.
I feel like the implication was always that the lightspeed kamikaze only worked because the ships were so similar in size. You couldn't jump that same ship into the death star because the relative size would have just caused it to bounce right off. This movie wasn't the first Star Wars property to use the idea, I feel like I read about something similar in the old EU at least once.
Since the ships had to be the same size, it only works in a few very specific circumstances. Most people won't build a capital ship just to kamikaze it into another capital ship.
We can't know relative density but we can assume it's similar, so the Supremacy has roughly 2840 times the volume of the Raddus. The Supremacy internally docked ships the same size as the Raddus. Not to mention requiring ships of a certain size doesn't make any sense given physics at all, and we see large ships get damaged by turbolaser fire and bombers, and lightspeed ramming unequivocally released more energy than either of those things.
*Further*
Even if everything worked like you guessed, why have a lengthy chase - they could have simply evacuated everyone from the Raddus to the other ships, kamikazeed the Raddus into the Supremacy and then scooted with their other ships instead of letting them get picked off one by one - leading to loss of life and resources and then doing the kamikaze thing
So.... here's the thing with Star Wars. They are built on and completely riddled with moments of logic like this. Lets not forget that the previous "biggest Star Destroyer EVAR" was destroyed when it was rammed by a much much smaller ship. Sure, that one is set up better, but still....
In 5 years time there will be some dumb extended story where we learn that ships generally have shielding that protects against this to some degree, but because the Resistance ships were so small the FO dropped it to keep up while maintaining fire or something dumb like that. There's a whole extended story of why taking the bridge out of the Executor resulted in the entire ship crashing and its roughly as dumb as anything they'd add here.
LunarSol wrote: In 5 years time there will be some dumb extended story where we learn that ships generally have shielding that protects against this to some degree, but because the Resistance ships were so small the FO dropped it to keep up while maintaining fire or something dumb like that.
Come on, that's an easy one:
"Wary of the small-scale strike actions that laid low the Empire's greatest superweapons, the First Order employed shield technology that allowed them to cover massive ships and planet-sized installations in a nigh-impervious field bands comparable to that of a planetary deflector and ray shield but with only a fraction of the power requirements. The shield's fractional refresh rate proved to be a critical flaw, recognized too late when Resistance operatives led by Han Solo infiltrated Starkiller base by approaching at faster than light speed just as he exited hyperspace, and employed shortly thereafter to devastating effect by Vice Admiral Holdo against their flagship."
And I just made that up with what I remember from Force Awakens.
The problem of what exactly happens when you 'fly into a star or bounce too close to a supernova' has been answered a few times in the old EU inconsistently. The most common answer from the books in the 90s on was that you'd simply drop out of hyperspace because the safety is built in and you can't turn it off - Interdictors only work if this is true. However, we have alternatively had a planet that was totally ruined by a clone wars era ship accidentally hitting it at light-speed, and at least one comic book where the SSD could tank multiple regular star destroyers hitting its shields at light speed too.
If we go with the formerly-canonical Incredible Cross Sections, SW ships turn into tachyonic ships when they go FTL, that is instead of atoms made of quarks or whatever, they are made of tachyons. Supposedly, they can interact only indirectly with matter, such as through gravity fields. So, by the old canon, a ship engaging its hyperdrive is traveling at its normal rate until it transitions into tachyonic matter. Of course, this does not really match the visuals. And we saw a transitioning ship crash and die on an ISD's shields in Rogue One, so...
Star Wars Hyperdrive now works however it needs to work in a given scene. This is really distracting for me because I like a setting with consistency.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Seriously. Solo isn't a perfect film, but it is fun. And it deserves a follow up, especially with it's relatively last minute reveal.
Sure, Han's career as a criminal could easily fit into a crime of the week style show, but for the same reason you can make easy adventure movies for him. Isn't that what people often argue normal people (that's me, by the way) want out of Star Wars movies? Fun space adventures?
Solo got most event references in the old movies out of the way and a new movie could do two things. A, provide that fun space adventure with no baggage, so the writers are mostly free to write a good story without having to worry about fitting in events we already know about. And B, flesh out Han's early life for moviegoers who don't have a clue about tie-ins and extended universes (that's me, too) that may have already done so.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: If we go with the formerly-canonical Incredible Cross Sections, SW ships turn into tachyonic ships when they go FTL, that is instead of atoms made of quarks or whatever, they are made of tachyons. Supposedly, they can interact only indirectly with matter, such as through gravity fields. So, by the old canon, a ship engaging its hyperdrive is traveling at its normal rate until it transitions into tachyonic matter. Of course, this does not really match the visuals. And we saw a transitioning ship crash and die on an ISD's shields in Rogue One, so...
Star Wars Hyperdrive now works however it needs to work in a given scene. This is really distracting for me because I like a setting with consistency.
Alternatively, it takes some time for a ship to make the transition as it accelerates (as seen in all the films by the ships being visible as they accelerate and decelerate from lightspeed) and Holdo was just close enough that she could hit right at the edge of that transition from realspace to hyperspace.
No. Star Wars technology is mature tech, most of it tens of thousands of years old. Flawed shields make very little sense. Also, how would the resistance know about these flaws and how to exploit them?
Frankly, technobabble should not be the solution nor the source for problems in Star Wars movies. TFA and TLJ both screwed up on that score. They both harmed the consistency of the setting.
Frankly, technobabble should not be the solution nor the source for problems in Star Wars movies. TFA and TLJ both screwed up on that score. They both harmed the consistency of the setting.
Star Wars Hyperdrive now works however it needs to work in a given scene. This is really distracting for me because I like a setting with consistency.
You're never going to be happy with Star Wars then. This is a setting where decisions are made based on what looks good on screen, rather than what fits the established continuity. And that's not a new thing - Lightsabers were originally only red or blue. Luke has a green one in RotJ because the blue didn't stand out against all the sky in the Tatoine scenes.
You can choose to take the TLJ scene as breaking the continuity, or you can choose to assume that there was some reason that this only worked in that specific situation and wouldn't have been a reliable enough way to take out enemy ships as a standard tactic. For me, I prefer to not over-analyse everything and just enjoy the movie, but YMMV.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: No. Star Wars technology is mature tech, most of it tens of thousands of years old.
I hear that a lot but it doesn't hold up in the actual materials: Ties have a clear iterative design even if we ignore instances where the EU said the Empire hadn't included shields on them because their ion engines interfered with them and they hadn't solved that problem yet. The X-Wing is often described in the old fluff as a revolutionary fighter design but they still tried to improve upon it with the E-Wing and by Legacy era its gone completely. Extending that backwards we see the Republic adopt 'new' technological ideas over the course of the Clone Wars which are in turn refined into things we recognize in the Empire, right down to the blasters they carry.
The Disney fluff is even more explicit about it: the A-Wing is now about as old as the Tie, and is less speedy, more shieldy and about evenly gunny around the time of New Hope, then got overhauled into the lighter armed and shielded speed demon of RotJ, Tie fighters post-Jakku are upgraded with better weapons to close the 'shield gap', and the First Order is explicitly pushing technologically superior weapons and ships despite maintaining the empire aesthetic.
If technology can't improve or change paradigms then every single star wars movie falls apart when no one thinks to use the perfect floating imprisonjng field from Attack of the Clones or ray shields from Revenge of the Sith.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Flawed shields make very little sense. Also, how would the resistance know about these flaws and how to exploit them?
The real question in either case would be 'how did Han know' as Holdo would simply be attempting to exploit the same weakness that he'd demonstrated a few days ago - with the added difficulty of trying it on a moving target.
Star Wars Hyperdrive now works however it needs to work in a given scene. This is really distracting for me because I like a setting with consistency.
You're never going to be happy with Star Wars then. This is a setting where decisions are made based on what looks good on screen, rather than what fits the established continuity. And that's not a new thing - Lightsabers were originally only red or blue. Luke has a green one in RotJ because the blue didn't stand out against all the sky in the Tatoine scenes.
You can choose to take the TLJ scene as breaking the continuity, or you can choose to assume that there was some reason that this only worked in that specific situation and wouldn't have been a reliable enough way to take out enemy ships as a standard tactic. For me, I prefer to not over-analyse everything and just enjoy the movie, but YMMV.
n
Sure, I could choose either of those choices. Or I could choose to ignore everything but the OT, R1 and Solo, and even then squint through certain scenes. The OT maintained remarkable consistency in terminology and the apparent limitations of the setting. Luke's green lightsaber is a non-issue because they don't make thousands of supposedly-competent Rebels look like morons for not using their green lightsabers.
Yes, the more movies they make, the harder it is to maintain a consistent setting. However, I would find minor mistakes more excusable than the in-your-face own-goals of Disney Wars. Theyjust don't care about the details, and it shows.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: No. Star Wars technology is mature tech, most of it tens of thousands of years old.
I hear that a lot but it doesn't hold up in the actual materials: Ties have a clear iterative design even if we ignore instances where the EU said the Empire hadn't included shields on them because their ion engines interfered with them and they hadn't solved that problem yet. The X-Wing is often described in the old fluff as a revolutionary fighter design but they still tried to improve upon it with the E-Wing and by Legacy era its gone completely. Extending that backwards we see the Republic adopt 'new' technological ideas over the course of the Clone Wars which are in turn refined into things we recognize in the Empire, right down to the blasters they carry.
The Disney fluff is even more explicit about it: the A-Wing is now about as old as the Tie, and is less speedy, more shieldy and about evenly gunny around the time of New Hope, then got overhauled into the lighter armed and shielded speed demon of RotJ, Tie fighters post-Jakku are upgraded with better weapons to close the 'shield gap', and the First Order is explicitly pushing technologically superior weapons and ships despite maintaining the empire aesthetic.
If technology can't improve or change paradigms then every single star wars movie falls apart when no one thinks to use the perfect floating imprisonjng field from Attack of the Clones or ray shields from Revenge of the Sith.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Flawed shields make very little sense. Also, how would the resistance know about these flaws and how to exploit them?
The real question in either case would be 'how did Han know' as Holdo would simply be attempting to exploit the same weakness that he'd demonstrated a few days ago - with the added difficulty of trying it on a moving target.
The old EU was all over the map on this stuff; I tend to ignore it. I also ignore TIEs not having shields, based mostly on the trench collision and X-Wings and Y-Wings having f-huge cannon. The X-Wings and Y-Wings we see in the first movie look tired as dirt. They were clearly intended to be surplus fighters from some previous conflict, perhaps more expensive and capable than TIEs individually since the Rebels had more money than pilots. As for the TIE iterations, there are lots of reasons to have different ships all with the same tech base designed for specific mission profiles. Plus, you gotta sell new toys.
The clone wars were part of the prequel trilogy, so they don't really count, but even then the evolution of the fighter designs probably reflect more on the changing needs of the Republic armed forces and the broadening scope of the war. There does not need to be any technological innovations to explain why wartime vehicle designs will change to adapt to changing pressures as each side tries to find the rock to the other's scissors.
Disney fluff is garbage that doesn't fit the setting. That was my whole point. Using Disney fluff to justify Disney fluff doesn't work.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Remind me again what the Ray shields did in RotS, please. I find only a blank entry in my memory.
The whole shields thing isn't really important. Nothing is flying around with it's shields running all the time, and they'd have no way to raise them after you fire a droid flown x wing at them after jumping in or sneaking up.
A superluminal ship could kill planets. All of this used to be gentleman's agreement. It's sci fantasy, they never got to technical with how stuff works, it just works. Now this works.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Remind me again what the Ray shields did in RotS, please. I find only a blank entry in my memory.
Ray shields were this spotlight thing in Revenge of the Sith that block people or ships from moving through them, as opposed to the shields we see in episode 1 or Empire that block incoming fire but can be walked through.
Also in New Hope they have to use torpedos because they now do the opposite or something.
Also they have to say the whole name every time. Ray Shields.
Edit: As for the rest it, if you're ultimately only going off of what is said and seen in the OT I don't think they really make a case for technology being stagnant either. But at that point if we're just talking about your interpretation of a handful of movies I don't really see the need to argue if that's just the part you enjoy.
I disagree with those saying the Disney era fluff is garbage just by virtue of it somehow being 'Disney', as it is by and large the same people who made the previous fluff with the benefit of hindsight. I enjoyed Alphabet Squadron as much as any of the Rogue Squadron books I read as a kid, and I actually do prefer the Disney post-endor timeline to that of the old EU.
Of the OT movies, Empire Strikes Back has the most 'technobabble' of sort and many of the points revolving around technology do not really make much sense or come across contrived. For example, whole assault on Hoth looks quite weird and counterintuitive. Admiral Ozzel fails to achieve surprise by "coming too close"? Rebels have super-shield which can withstand a sustained bombardment from a fleet of Star Destroyers, but not a land assault? Han flies to another star system without his FTL drive? (They'd repeat this later in PM).
EU stories of course threw all caution to the space wind. For example in Dark Empire, the belligrents constantly one-upped each other with new supertoys. It was so tiresome and weak.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Remind me again what the Ray shields did in RotS, please. I find only a blank entry in my memory.
They get used all of once, inside General Grievious' ship, in one of the hallways. They snap on and the jedi can't walk through them, because reasons. Why there are shield projectors to turn on in the middle of a hallway (rather than to protect critical systems or a saferoom) is left to the viewer as a puzzle to solve.
Its one of those throw away moments that make other plot elements make no sense. If used again it breaks the narrative multiple times in key places, as various doors, people, computers and things are now safe from the protagonists forever.
After all, if someone is sneaking about your ship, you can either just kill them (didn't work well in Phantom Menace), or incarcerate them, find out who they are, where they came from etc, then kill them/let them go as you see fit.
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Backfire wrote: Of the OT movies, Empire Strikes Back has the most 'technobabble' of sort and many of the points revolving around technology do not really make much sense or come across contrived. For example, whole assault on Hoth looks quite weird and counterintuitive. Admiral Ozzel fails to achieve surprise by "coming too close"? Rebels have super-shield which can withstand a sustained bombardment from a fleet of Star Destroyers, but not a land assault? Han flies to another star system without his FTL drive? (They'd repeat this later in PM).
EU stories of course threw all caution to the space wind. For example in Dark Empire, the belligrents constantly one-upped each other with new supertoys. It was so tiresome and weak.
Shields are good against energy weapons, and fast moving things (hence we later see in Rogue One ships going splat against it). AT-ATs et all are slow moving. So like in Dune, they can penetrate the shield.
I want to say it's similar to a Newtonian liquid thing. Like custard or ketchup (or is it non-Newtonian? Dammit, science isn't my strong suit!). If you slap it, it behaves like a solid. But if you gently press your hand against it, it acts like a liquid.
And those shields can hold out as long as the generator does (hence why we see snub fighters knocking the shield generators in RotJ, and indeed why the AT-ATs target the shield generator in ESB). If it's strong enough, and it's power supply constant, you can't break them. This is also demonstrated in TLJ, where because reasons, the First Order can't get enough hits against the Rebel shields fast enough to prevent regeneration (and in spin-off media, it's made clear those were particularly spanky shields, which enabled Holdo's ramming move).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Remind me again what the Ray shields did in RotS, please. I find only a blank entry in my memory.
They get used all of once, inside General Grievious' ship, in one of the hallways. They snap on and the jedi can't walk through them, because reasons. Why there are shield projectors to turn on in the middle of a hallway (rather than to protect critical systems or a saferoom) is left to the viewer as a puzzle to solve.
Its one of those throw away moments that make other plot elements make no sense. If used again it breaks the narrative multiple times in key places, as various doors, people, computers and things are now safe from the protagonists forever.
Considering that these shields also seemed to be used to keep the atmossphere / oxigen within the ship during space battles, (see coruscant) one could assume that it is a basic security meassure if the ship generally transports species that require breath.
Kinda like with emergency hatches?
With shields, and my comment about the snub fighters? It does seem incongruous that a Super Star Destroyer wouldn't have shield comparable to a planetary installation.
I myself am unaware if there's a canonical (old or new EU) explanation for this. It could be they're by necessity different kinds of shields, or whether the fact a starship is always moving changes things any.
Solid shields are well established though, they spit up Obi Wan and Qui Gon in the fight against Darth Maul, and prevent the fighter bombers flying inside the 2nd Deathstar until the shield generator on Endor is disabled.
The Gungans even show mastery of both shield types, the Bongo has hard shields which must be lowered for the passengers to get out, whilst the grand army shield is permeable and can be walked through by the battle droids.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: With shields, and my comment about the snub fighters? It does seem incongruous that a Super Star Destroyer wouldn't have shield comparable to a planetary installation.
I myself am unaware if there's a canonical (old or new EU) explanation for this. It could be they're by necessity different kinds of shields, or whether the fact a starship is always moving changes things any.
I think that would come down to different functions - the planetary shield around Endor is designed both as protection against attack and as a traffic barrier. It has to be lowered for ships to pass through. That wouldn't be an idea setup on a capital ship equipped with fighters... The last thing you want to do is lower your shields in order to let your fighters in and out. So they would be tuned to keep out fast moving projectiles to ward off attacks, but while still allowing comparatively slower ships to pass through (in the same way as the battle droids walk through the Gungan's shields in Ep1).
So a fighter inside the shield bubble would be able to target the shield generators unimpeded... and why all of those super-huge capital ships are so vulnerable to snubfighter attacks, when their fighter screen is pulled away.
That's just off-the-top-of-the-head rationalising, though. I don't know if it was ever explained like that. In the novels, from what I remember, they generally overwhelmed the shields with mass torpedo strikes rather than getting in close and taking out the shield generators directly.
Automatically Appended Next Post: There's also the wording of ship shields - Deflector Fields.
We hear Han specifically say 'angle the deflector fields'. That suggests they're akin, 40k wise, to a Knight's Ion Shield. Rather than an encompassing bubble ala Void Shields, it's instead a barrier you have to vector to best repel firepower.
And if as the name suggests (never a sure thing!), it could be the intent to deflect incoming fire is to preserve power compared to absorbing and disappateing energy. Kind of like how angle armour on tanks works?
Even aboard a Capital Ship, your energy/power is limited. The same reactors that power your engines, weapons. environment, lights, computers etc also power your shields. Going down the deflection root, rather than absorption (as in Star Trek) could help prevent sudden critical power drains should a sufficient bombardment/single powerful occur?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Interestingly, again relying on a quote (risky as already noted, the script not especially noted for technical consistency), Ackbar says 'our cruiser's can't repel firepower of that magnitude.
Not absorb. Not resist. Repel. So one can fairly reasonably infer MC-80s at least pack Deflector Shields (and one of their canonical advantages is the projectors are in the blister pods. Still vulnerable, but harder to identify what's what and eliminate than massive Golf Balls that might as well have 'FOR A GOOD TIME, SHOOT HERE' painted on them.
You also have 'all power to front deflector screens' - a line of dialogue that inspired an entire core mechanic in the X-Wing games and a lot more besides.
I remember at one point it was something as stupid as there is a single, all encompassing field around the ship, but the bridge stuck out so far it was outside of that shield and needed its own.
The first movie was pretty explicit that Ray shields stopped lasers, not torpedoes. Particle shields presumably hold back torpedoes, atmosphere, and wayward Jedi. But again, prequels don't count. Just ask Disney.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: With shields, and my comment about the snub fighters? It does seem incongruous that a Super Star Destroyer wouldn't have shield comparable to a planetary installation.
I myself am unaware if there's a canonical (old or new EU) explanation for this. It could be they're by necessity different kinds of shields, or whether the fact a starship is always moving changes things any.
I believe the SSD's shields were knocked out before the fighter hit them. The Rebel fleet did concentrate all their firepower on it.
I think the intention of that sequence was to show that big radar dome above the tower explode to show that they'd lost effective shield cover, but the EU subsequently interpreted it to mean those domes were responsible for the ship's shields entirely. A concept that worked great in video games but feels really bone-headed otherwise.
Alot of this stuff came from a belief in the 90s (and certainly earlier as seen in parts of RotJ) that the Empire needed to be cripplingly incompetent in order for the Rebels to stand a chance against them at all - so it informs a lot of the groundwork of the expanded universe and even some elements like the shieldlessness of the ties and yes, those same dumb shield towers, still has purchase in the new canon.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: No. Star Wars technology is mature tech, most of it tens of thousands of years old.
I hear that a lot but it doesn't hold up in the actual materials: Ties have a clear iterative design even if we ignore instances where the EU said the Empire hadn't included shields on them because their ion engines interfered with them and they hadn't solved that problem yet. The X-Wing is often described in the old fluff as a revolutionary fighter design but they still tried to improve upon it with the E-Wing and by Legacy era its gone completely. Extending that backwards we see the Republic adopt 'new' technological ideas over the course of the Clone Wars which are in turn refined into things we recognize in the Empire, right down to the blasters they carry.
I'd read somewhere years back that a TIE fighter has no shield (and no lifesupport) because they wanted to keep it as small as possible, to fit more onto a star destroyer (wolfpack tactics and all that).
But to push against your idea a bit. . . I agree with Bob, and can pull some real life examples. Look at a car race like Le Mans. Automotive tech is by and large a "mature technology" but that hasn't stopped Porsche from making improvements to their boxer 6 engines. That didn't stop Ford from making improvements from the GT-40 to the GT-40 Mk II and Mk IV. The difference between a Lamborghini Diablo and a Huracan are staggering, and its down to a series of incremental improvements and making new use of "old" tech.
Captain Joystick wrote: I think the intention of that sequence was to show that big radar dome above the tower explode to show that they'd lost effective shield cover, but the EU subsequently interpreted it to mean those domes were responsible for the ship's shields entirely. A concept that worked great in video games but feels really bone-headed otherwise.
Alot of this stuff came from a belief in the 90s (and certainly earlier as seen in parts of RotJ) that the Empire needed to be cripplingly incompetent in order for the Rebels to stand a chance against them at all - so it informs a lot of the groundwork of the expanded universe and even some elements like the shieldlessness of the ties and yes, those same dumb shield towers, still has purchase in the new canon.
Should probably clarify!
I was meaning the efficacy of the firepower levied at them, and the snub fighters being able to bypass the shields, on account their firepower wouldn’t be enough to punch through the shields.
Captain Joystick wrote: I think the intention of that sequence was to show that big radar dome above the tower explode to show that they'd lost effective shield cover, but the EU subsequently interpreted it to mean those domes were responsible for the ship's shields entirely. A concept that worked great in video games but feels really bone-headed otherwise.
Most problems with the Force are a result of ideas that worked great in videogames...
That said, I need me some great Star Wars videogames....
Ensis Ferrae wrote:I'd read somewhere years back that a TIE fighter has no shield (and no lifesupport) because they wanted to keep it as small as possible, to fit more onto a star destroyer (wolfpack tactics and all that).
Thats the most common explanation and the one Lucasfilm had settled on well before the Disney acquisition, and they carried it through to canon now, I think.
But to push against your idea a bit. . . I agree with Bob, and can pull some real life examples. Look at a car race like Le Mans. Automotive tech is by and large a "mature technology" but that hasn't stopped Porsche from making improvements to their boxer 6 engines. That didn't stop Ford from making improvements from the GT-40 to the GT-40 Mk II and Mk IV. The difference between a Lamborghini Diablo and a Huracan are staggering, and its down to a series of incremental improvements and making new use of "old" tech.
I really don't know enough about cars to speak about them with any degree of confidence, but my understanding is that innovation with how you implement known technology still puts them in the 'maturing' category as opposed to say, a stapler or a bicycle, where no truly meaningful innovation has happened in 80-100 years and one can expect it to remain the same for as long as the need for such a device remains.
But even compare the amount of technological change you see in high-end cars today with what we see in the ships of Star Wars: where we go from the Z-95 and the ARC-170 to the X-Wing and people see a lineage despite them all being radically different from each other. (Admittedly, the choice to make the sequels feature next-gen x-wings and ties does rattle this a bit, but both have in-universe excuses)
LunarSol wrote:That said, I need me some great Star Wars videogames....
I liked X-Wing Alliance as a kid, unfortunately it and the XWAU mod are pretty unstable on windows 10.
More recently I actually like Battlefront 2 in its current state, it's grindy as all get-out but if you don't take it seriously enough to be suckered into the loot boxes you're left with a pretty decent shooter that looks great irregardless of the license - and the story mode ain't half bad.
But A-Wings are smaller than TIEs and have shields and hyperdrives. It gets even worse if you countenance the prequels and their tiny little fighters. (I like to call them fightelehs.) Sure, TIEs are mean to be cheaper to build in bulk, but all the OT evidence points to cheap, even disposable, hyperdrives and shields.
TIEs are honestly pretty huge assuming the cockpit can actually fit a human being.
The Shields thing is weird. Mostly it seems to exist as a videogame convention to give Rebels a health bar when outnumbered. In the first movie where the distinction is largely made, they seem to sometime protect against a shot, but more often than not the X-Wings go down just as easily as the TIEs.
I had that exact argument with a friend to the point where I made him sit down and watch the whole death star battle, to prove to him that Ties were just as capable of taking down x-wings as vice-versa.
Of course, actually watching with that in mind, we realized Darth Vader is the only imperial scoring any confirmed kills in a fighter in that entire sequence.
TIEs are what they are because they were cheaper to manufacture enmasse.
And when you’re trying to hold an Empire in an iron fist, quantity makes sense.
In the new EU, particularly the new Thrawn novels and Rebels, the TIE Defender was part of the Tarkin initiative. And man, had Hera’s cell not effed over the production lines, the Rebellion would’ve been crushed.
But to push against your idea a bit. . . I agree with Bob, and can pull some real life examples. Look at a car race like Le Mans. Automotive tech is by and large a "mature technology" but that hasn't stopped Porsche from making improvements to their boxer 6 engines. That didn't stop Ford from making improvements from the GT-40 to the GT-40 Mk II and Mk IV. The difference between a Lamborghini Diablo and a Huracan are staggering, and its down to a series of incremental improvements and making new use of "old" tech.
I really don't know enough about cars to speak about them with any degree of confidence, but my understanding is that innovation with how you implement known technology still puts them in the 'maturing' category as opposed to say, a stapler or a bicycle, where no truly meaningful innovation has happened in 80-100 years and one can expect it to remain the same for as long as the need for such a device remains.
But even compare the amount of technological change you see in high-end cars today with what we see in the ships of Star Wars: where we go from the Z-95 and the ARC-170 to the X-Wing and people see a lineage despite them all being radically different from each other. (Admittedly, the choice to make the sequels feature next-gen x-wings and ties does rattle this a bit, but both have in-universe excuses)
Off topic I know, but, as someone who "specialized" in innovation studies during my MBA, The automotive industry as a whole is a mature industry, and there certainly are "meaningful innovations" within the last 80-100 years in both staplers AND bicycles (however, in both staplers and bicycles they are incremental innovations, because of the maturity of the technology).
To go with your SW example, there may be leaps and bounds of "minor" technologies from the Z-95 and ARC-170s to the X-Wing. . .but the X-Wing is the "ford pickup" of fighters: it's the "best" and most "optimal" configuration, so we settle on that idea as a platform, and then make incremental improvements to the next-gen X-wings that Poe is flying in the new trilogy. Within the SW universe we still largely see, depending on the size of ship/vehicle some form of "manual control". . . Fighters and freighters like the Millennium Falcon use some form of joystick control, compared to other series' like Trek where it is almost entirely digital (except in emergency plot point #700 where naturally we need to rely on this ancient tech that nobody has used in forever). Even the newer/newest ships in the SW universe use some form of physical/tactile control, which shows a certain level of maturity to their tech (whether its stagnation or a ceiling to their understanding of in universe science, I dunno)
If anything it certainly seems computer science in the Star Wars universe has stagnated - basically every user interface has either unintuitive buttons, knobs and switches or self determination and a wacky personality.
Bringing it back to Holdo's ramming action, if per Doc the reason it works is on account of their ship's fancy new shields working so well versus the First Order's fancy new shields having a critical flaw (where does that come from Doc? The TLJ novelization?) then it still seems that these technologies are advancing in the setting - and reason enough for my why no one had tried it in earlier films.
I'm curious what that means for the setting though - the First Order is pushing technological superiority super hard, with snazzy new battle cruisers, a mainline fighter that has the bells and whistles its predecessor stripped away for speed and agility while still being faster and more agile, and any number of completed and implemented Empire research projects, including hyperspace tracking - something thought impossible in setting where hyperspace travel has been in use for thousands of years.
The shield refresh rate allowing hyperspace jump onto the planets surface thing is legit dialogue in Force Awakens. So that part we know is good. The only assumption we are making is that the same shield is used on the ship in TLJ.
That is indeed a nice looking TIE, I wish I could say that I hadn't gotten any SW items though as my bank balance could have done with the rest.
On the TIEs thing, as well as ease of production and manouverability (ha!) it was said that a reason that TIEs didn't have shields and hyperdrives was to make the chances of a successful defection less. That didn't work out too well.
I envy how your love of X-Wing has allowed you to keep loving SW, ingtaer. When X-Wing first came out, I was still pretty meh on SW as a result of the PT. But the game really brought back the magic for me and then TFA made me feel very hopeful as well, although in hindsight its flaws are pretty stark. Now that X-Wing has long exhausted the OT material (and much of the classic EU stuff), the new waves are mostly stuff I don’t recognize because Disney SW is something I can’t be bothered to follow.
Being hard into the game certainly means that I can take a bit more enjoyment out of all the films/tv/books than a lot of people seem to, as a new flashy ship appears and for me that is something new and exciting to blow up on the table top!
I will say that I really dislike the prequels, sequels and Resistance but they have not soured my perception of the franchise as a whole because (as well as the above reason) they all have at least something good to take out of it (namely pretty space ships blowing each other up) as well as there being such a wealth of other material around the universe that if I get disheartened with it I just dive into a different portion. I found TLJ a massive let down but rather than rage or whine about it I reread the original Thrawn books then got hyped to see a new type of A-Wing and bomber in X-Wing. Its like when kids are acting up, you may wish for a second to drown them but it doesn't stop you loving them.
Also on X-Wing, so hyped to get second edition Epic! Very little info so far but what has been shown looks cracking and also like most of the flaws of v1 have been fixed. Thankfully the buy in looks reasonable as well.
Not old enough myself, but yeah, I've heard this recording, and the followup one they did for Empire and they're both really good. They didn't get around to doing Jedi for many years later so its mostly entirely recast and not so great.
I always felt the guy playing Han was miscast though. In my head I picture him as Rick Moranis in the Han Solo costume. Big thick glasses and all.
Apparently this was a thing back in the day, I remember as a youngster my grandmother would let me entertain myself with her old record player and one of said records was a pretty good radio drama version of Black Hole.
But until Disney+ launches, there’s not a great deal to talk about.
Also, anytime a Star Wars thread is started, it’s roughly two pages before it just descends into the shocking, previously unheard of revelation that some didn’t enjoy The Last Jedi.
I for one hold TLJ up as one of the better films. It's certainly better then the prequels.
John Prins wrote:I just wish that the Disney movies actually told the more interesting stories that barely get mentioned. Like Luke's Jedi Academy couldn't have been several movies all by themselves? Nah, let's do another Death Star, only this time make it bigger and make the Rebellion even smaller, because we're too scared to not remake A New Hope.
Don't forgot Lucasfilms bombed hard with the prequels and their garbage tv shows before Disney rescued them just like they rescued Marvel. Yes the Jedi Academy and EU would have been awesome. A Kyle Katarn movie would have been awesome. A NO God Dang Jedi or Sith/ Just Starfighter battles movie would have been great. The problem is Disney wanted to do something to recapture the magic of a New Hope. Then the neckbeards and incels bitched so the next film was something original and while the opening scene with the bombers is a let down, the rest of film was great. I love snarky Luke, the casino planet getting wrecked, Finn and Rose, Holdo's awesome last stand. etc. etc. But then the neckbeards and incels whined that it wasn't like the originals, and how dare women have agency.
Bottom line, is Disney's take on Star Wars may have it's flaws, but it's in a much better place then Star Wars was post Episode 3 Vader does a Noooooooo!
KingmanHighborn wrote: The problem is Disney wanted to do something to recapture the magic of a New Hope. Then the neckbeards and incels bitched so the next film was something original and while the opening scene with the bombers is a let down, the rest of film was great. I love snarky Luke, the casino planet getting wrecked, Finn and Rose, Holdo's awesome last stand. etc. etc. But then the neckbeards and incels whined that it wasn't like the originals, and how dare women have agency.
Bottom line, is Disney's take on Star Wars may have it's flaws, but it's in a much better place then Star Wars was post Episode 3 Vader does a Noooooooo!
And that's where all these conversations fall down isn't it? It was the "neckbeards and incels" who done all the bitching and moaning, as opposed to the tens of thousands of just normal people who didn't like the films for what ever reason... It would be nice, just for once, to have this conversation like rational reasoning adults without people throwing histrionics, wild hyperbole or insults around.
How about lots of people didn't like the films because, shock I know, they didn't like it! That doesn't mean you cant like it, it doesn't matter one jot to me that you liked it when I didn't. I thought both new films were awful, the first because it tried to hard to be a New Hope mkii, the second because I thought the pacing was awful and the continuity was terrible.
Can't fault people too much when the damage control response these days is to flood the internet with "Those complaining are racist/sexist/man babies. Buy tickets to show them how virtuous you are" articles
Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
ScarletRose wrote:Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
Yup. That's the sad truth.
ingtaer wrote:
And that's where all these conversations fall down isn't it? It was the "neckbeards and incels" who done all the bitching and moaning, as opposed to the tens of thousands of just normal people who didn't like the films for what ever reason... It would be nice, just for once, to have this conversation like rational reasoning adults without people throwing histrionics, wild hyperbole or insults around.
How about lots of people didn't like the films because, shock I know, they didn't like it! That doesn't mean you cant like it, it doesn't matter one jot to me that you liked it when I didn't. I thought both new films were awful, the first because it tried to hard to be a New Hope mkii, the second because I thought the pacing was awful and the continuity was terrible.
Except there wasn't tens of thousands of people, just a very loud minority. The voice of the 'normal' people spoke with their dollars at the box office, the sales of merchandise, etc. The conversation is about Star Wars, and there is a lot of alt-right crybabies infesting nerd community while 'normal' people enjoy the films. I already explained why they went with a similar story to a New Hope (even though there's a lot of differences too.)
As far as TLJ goes the pacing and continuity were just fine. It was an extended chase scene plus the typical Jedi stuff. Though again, cranky, jaded, snarky Luke was a treat. That aside while that may be 'your' gripes with it, the majority of people that have disliked have used opinions that are almost always boiled down to alt-right yapping.
The other thing to consider is if the internet was around back when Empire Strikes Back came out there would have been blogs galore about how it ruined Star Wars, and then how Return of the Jedi (the best film in the series) ruined Star Wars, etc.
Truth is Star Wars will probably still be relevant even when we're dead and gone.
I am a member of loads of SW groups on various media and yes I can say lots of people didn't like it (and lots did) and I have seen a minority "of people that have disliked have used opinions that are almost always boiled down to alt-right yapping." Perhaps you should go to places which are not so toxic? Though that's all I have to say about that as I don't want to see yet another thread dragged into the same horrible rabbit hole until it has be put out of our misery.
So, has anyone read the new Thrawn book yet? I am still waiting for my copy thanks to a mix up with deliveries and would like to hear peoples opinions, did enjoy the last two (though not as much as the original trilogy).
ScarletRose wrote: Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
Alt-right. Underbelly. Gotcha. Whining that female characters should not exist, rather than criticism of certain characters. Do you have anything to add other than tar, feathers and hyperbole?
Except there wasn't tens of thousands of people, just a very loud minority. The voice of the 'normal' people spoke with their dollars at the box office, the sales of merchandise, etc.
They really did. Even with a much larger cinema going population, prebuilt audience and hype, the sequels have not outperformed their OT counterparts. Financial performance doesn't give us a 1:1 metric for quality but it shows us what 'normal' people (not fanboys) thought of the movies.
The sales have tanked and show a general apathy- the trend is clear from Awakens(the first Starwars movie in a decade) to Solo. I happen to think Rogue One was a victim of that apathy, I enjoyed the movie better than some prequels and a lot more than TFA.
The apathy is reflected in merch sales which are also in freefall- which is to be expected. Longevity in merch sales only occurs when you have a core fan base - which was rejected by Disney. They'll have another last spike after the Rise of Skywalker when new stuff comes out and than they will flatline.
Being hard into the game certainly means that I can take a bit more enjoyment out of all the films/tv/books than a lot of people seem to, as a new flashy ship appears and for me that is something new and exciting to blow up on the table top!
I will say that I really dislike the prequels, sequels and Resistance but they have not soured my perception of the franchise as a whole because (as well as the above reason) they all have at least something good to take out of it (namely pretty space ships blowing each other up) as well as there being such a wealth of other material around the universe that if I get disheartened with it I just dive into a different portion. I found TLJ a massive let down but rather than rage or whine about it I reread the original Thrawn books then got hyped to see a new type of A-Wing and bomber in X-Wing. Its like when kids are acting up, you may wish for a second to drown them but it doesn't stop you loving them.
Also on X-Wing, so hyped to get second edition Epic! Very little info so far but what has been shown looks cracking and also like most of the flaws of v1 have been fixed. Thankfully the buy in looks reasonable as well.
I was an XW/TF/XVT/XWA man myself. Battlefront never really satisfied the way the space combat sims did. I played FirstStrike mod for many years, but that mod died a sad death. There's nothing really for me in the Videogames now - might look at the tabletop.
ScarletRose wrote: Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
Alt-right. Underbelly. Gotcha. Whining that female characters should not exist, rather than criticism of certain characters. Do you have anything to add other than tar, feathers and hyperbole?
Not quite as hyperbolic as you'd think mate. At the time TLJ came out, we had some regulars at my LGW, which coincidentally had a female manager at the time, who damn near verbatim said, "TLJ sucked because there's no way a woman could ever attain the rank that admiral Holdo did". More than one regular's sole problem with TLJ lay entirely with Holdo's character. . . if that's not some misogynist/incel/alt-right claptrap, I don't know what is.
The issue there is, that's real life, there's not some link I can post and demonstrate the point with. Thing is, from my point of view, even if these people constitute only 5% of a very vocal minority in the total nerd community population, that's still a big problem to deal with.
If at all possible, I think we aught to leave discussion about the frankly embarrassing behaviour of childish adult 'fans' and whatever political leanings they may or may not have by the wayside - on account of that whole 'no politics' thing and the fact that we were able to have 14 pages of reasonable discussion without resorting to dismissing each other as such.
I was an XW/TF/XVT/XWA man myself. Battlefront never really satisfied the way the space combat sims did. I played FirstStrike mod for many years, but that mod died a sad death. There's nothing really for me in the Videogames now - might look at the tabletop.
It still blows my mind that they signed an exclusive licence with EA. Those space sequences in Battlefront 2 feel like such a tease.
Manchu wrote: Somewhere at sometime, someone said something dumb.
Who cares.
No one here is saying TLJ is bad because it has female characters.
Princess Leia was a strong female character in 1977. The overwhelming majority of SW fans have always been okay with this.
Except some people on here HAVE said that and leia was never a strong female character. Very specifically her chewie and the droids have no story arch. Her role in episode 1-3 is get captured 3 times and saved by the men while being the potential love interest of luke and then the actual love interest of han. She didnt get thrown into that bikini because she was a great character. In 79 we had ripley. THAT is a strong female character. Princess leia is the same as any other princess in any other movie.
Manchu wrote: Somewhere at sometime, someone said something dumb.
Who cares.
No one here is saying TLJ is bad because it has female characters.
Princess Leia was a strong female character in 1977. The overwhelming majority of SW fans have always been okay with this.
Agreed
I and my friends (including shock horror some women) ALL thought TLJ was a pile of gak not because it had a couple of badly written female characters who were prominant but rather for all the other major issues with the awful script, pace, story, plot, characterisation and imagery of the film.
Considering how many other Good or even average films have female leads or major roles the idea that all those who dare to find issue with this IMO stinking pile of garbage is frankly shocking. Indeed I think Wonder Woman is the best DC film so far and Captain Marvel one of the better Marvel - again not because or despite their being a female lead but because they did not have the awful script, pace, story, plot, characterisation and imagery of the TLJ.
There's literally no point in having this discussion. You're never going to persuade someone who can dismiss all criticism of something with "um, uh, urr, shut up incel!".
Yodhrin wrote: There's literally no point in having this discussion. You're never going to persuade someone who can dismiss all criticism of something with "um, uh, urr, shut up incel!".
Lance845 wrote: Except some people on here HAVE said that and leia was never a strong female character.
Which is obviously, laughably false.
Han and Leia are foils. When we meet them Han has no commitment beyond the personal and Leia’s commitments are totally impersonal. This is already a gender role inversion: traditionally, female characters are concerned with the world of personal relationships between individuals while male characters are concerned with wider political issues. Over the course of the trilogy, Han and Leia’s characters develop such that Han joins a cause that is bigger than him or his friends while Leia learns that friendship and even romantic love are what make the bigs issues like freedom matter. All along the way, Leia is portrayed as a person fully capable of taking charging and inspiring others as well as being a capable and passionate person in her own right.
Since 1977, Star Wars fans have not just accepted but full-on loved this.
Yodhrin wrote: There's literally no point in having this discussion. You're never going to persuade someone who can dismiss all criticism of something with "um, uh, urr, shut up incel!".
What does Incel mean?
Involuntarily celibate. Men that are not, or feel they cannot, meet or interact with women and often are very hostile and ignorant about women online.
Yodhrin wrote: There's literally no point in having this discussion. You're never going to persuade someone who can dismiss all criticism of something with "um, uh, urr, shut up incel!".
What does Incel mean?
Involuntarily celibate. Men that are not, or feel they cannot, meet or interact with women and often are very hostile and ignorant about women online.
ScarletRose wrote: Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
Can't say you are wrong here, but there is a huge difference between "any person that dislikes TLJ is some nazi incel" and "proper criticism of these bad movies has been hijacked by scumbags".
Because the former has been used by Disney-friendly media and I find concerning that such desperate defense is repeated here.
Lance845 wrote: Except some people on here HAVE said that and leia was never a strong female character.
Which is obviously, laughably false.
Han and Leia are foils. When we meet them Han has no commitment beyond the personal and Leia’s commitments are totally impersonal. This is already a gender role inversion: traditionally, female characters are concerned with the world of personal relationships between individuals while male characters are concerned with wider political issues. Over the course of the trilogy, Han and Leia’s characters develop such that Han joins a cause that is bigger than him or his friends while Leia learns that friendship and even romantic love are what make the bigs issues like freedom matter. All along the way, Leia is portrayed as a person fully capable of taking charging and inspiring others as well as being a capable and passionate person in her own right.
Since 1977, Star Wars fans have not just accepted but full-on loved this.
Disagree. Leia has BECOME that. Expanded materials in books comics and games have MADE her a strong character. But especially a new hope taken on its own original theatrical cut shes nothing special. Empire continues her nothing specialness. And jedi caps off her nothing specialness by putting her right back where we found her movie 1.
“Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.”
“Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?”
“Someone has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, fly boy."
"I don't know where you get your delusions, laser-brain."
“Would it help if I got out and pushed?”
"I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie!"
Yup. Total wallflower. Complete pushover. No evidence of her being a strong character in the movies at all. Just gets rescued all the time and nothing else.
That's sarcasm. I mean, I assume you got it, because I laid it on with a fething trowel, but it is the internet so yeah: SAR-CAS-UM.
Lance845 wrote: Disagree. Leia has BECOME that. Expanded materials in books comics and games have MADE her a strong character. But especially a new hope taken on its own original theatrical cut shes nothing special. Empire continues her nothing specialness. And jedi caps off her nothing specialness by putting her right back where we found her movie 1.
This is simply incorrect.
The arc I described happens on-screen, not in comics and novels. Also, it’s impossible to say Leia is “nothing special” in ANH. She is portrayed from the beginning of the film as a leader of the Rebel Alliance and a senator of the Republic. She is a principled, strong-willed person who has the ability to inspire as a leader. She is physically courageous and competent. By RotJ, she has grown as a person by coming to value personal relationships as much as political ideals. All the same, she continues to be portrayed as brave, noble, and smart.
A positive attitude about female characters has always been a part of the Star Wars setting and a part of Star Wars fandom. Disney has not added anything to this and has arguably weakened it by inventing one-dimensional, unlikeable female characters.
We also see Leia briefing troopers and pilots just before the evacuation of the rebel base o Hoth. In a clear and direct way. Compare with how Holdo managed the crisis in TLJ, and don't be surprised why people compare the two characters unfavorably for Ms Purple.
Ripley and Leia were my strong female characters in my youth. Possible honorable mention is Velasquez.
"Hey Velasquez, you ever been mistaken for a man?"
"No, have YOU?"
Rogue One and Solo have been the best of the modern Star Wars films. Not only did they feel the most Star Wars, they LOOKED the most Star Wars. Everything from the writing to the cinematography in the two new trilogy movies so far feel like sub-awesome EU fanfiction brought to the big screen.
AegisGrimm wrote: Everything from the writing to the cinematography in the two new trilogy movies so far feel like sub-awesome EU fanfiction brought to the big screen.
There's a shot in TFA where she's speeding along the desert with a crashed destroyer in the background. It screamed Star Wars to me so much it gave me a tingle - but that feeling evaporated when they slapped the "nostalgia" on too thick.
Manchu wrote:
A positive attitude about female characters has always been a part of the Star Wars setting and a part of Star Wars fandom. Disney has not added anything to this and has arguably weakened it by inventing one-dimensional, unlikeable female characters.
And I'd say you're wrong, Rose, Holdo, and Rey are wonderful characters. With Rose being easily one of my favorite new additions, but again the so called 'fans' the alt-right minority that claims to be the core that they're not, harassed Kelly Marie Tran to the point she closed her social media accounts, are the same ones saying TLJ is a bad film.
Easy E wrote:I still pine for the old X-wing vs. Tie Fighter game. THAT was a great Star Wars video game.
Edit: I was also a fan boy of the old Wing Commander series. Someone should really pick it up for a TT game.
Yeah that was one of my all time favorites too. Same with Wing Commander, which yeah would make a great TT game, but alas it's owned by EA so it'll never get back to Chris Robert's hands, and it'll never see another game unless EA figures out how to microtransaction it to death. And between loot box hell or just not having it.... I'd just rather not have it. The live action movie would be a more enjoyable product.
=Angel= wrote:
They really did. Even with a much larger cinema going population, prebuilt audience and hype, the sequels have not outperformed their OT counterparts. Financial performance doesn't give us a 1:1 metric for quality but it shows us what 'normal' people (not fanboys) thought of the movies.
The sales have tanked and show a general apathy- the trend is clear from Awakens(the first Starwars movie in a decade) to Solo. I happen to think Rogue One was a victim of that apathy, I enjoyed the movie better than some prequels and a lot more than TFA.
The apathy is reflected in merch sales which are also in freefall- which is to be expected. Longevity in merch sales only occurs when you have a core fan base - which was rejected by Disney. They'll have another last spike after the Rise of Skywalker when new stuff comes out and than they will flatline.
Despite Solo being sabotaged by neckbeards still mad at TLJ, posting negative reviews to scare people off without ever having seen it, and boycotting again cause...incels. Despite it being another fantastic movie, along with Rogue One, which is arguably the best/second best Star Wars film. (With RotJ being my personal number one).
Merch sales were in the toilet long before TFA, and are actually doing quite well, the problem is over saturation of product. Which is why stuff is sitting on shelves. People have already bought one of this and that, and their kids don't need a second 'x' figure with a different coat. And the core fan base was embraced by Disney for TFA, and then they wanted to keep things fresh since the major complaint of TFA was it was too much like New Hope. (And again...it's not.) So they did something radically different with TLJ. But apparently that innovation was pushing away that 'core'.
More to the fact, Rogue One, TFA, TLJ, and Solo are all BETTER films then Lucas's own Episode 1,2 & 3, want to call it a low bar? Sure, go ahead. But this next movie will come out, it'll gross between 1.5 and 2 billion easily and Disney will then be hard at work doing something else with the Star Wars franchise.
Here is a bizarre idea for you KingmanHighborn, how about you try to have this discussion without being rude and throwing insults around?
Just because someone does not like the film does not make them a "neckbeard" nor an incel. Just because someone thinks the characters lack depth does not either.
Just because some of the most vocal critics shared those outlooks does not mean that all people who do not like the film do.
There's very few times I've seen someone post legitimate criticism of the Disney era films. If it's not alt-right whining about the women and politics of the films, it's people complaining that the first was too much like A New Hope and TLJ was too much of a departure from formula, acting like a Goldilocks with no 'just right' option being made available to them.
There's very few times I've seen someone post legitimate criticism of the Disney era films. If it's not alt-right whining about the women and politics of the films, it's people complaining that the first was too much like A New Hope and TLJ was too much of a departure from formula, acting like a Goldilocks with no 'just right' option being made available to them.
"Sabotaged by neckbeards" and "Sequels > Prequels" are both opinions, albeit I can partially agree with the second one (in the sense that, as an example, there are some aspects of filmmaking that are indeed way better in the sequels compared to the prequels). And sorry, no. People posted a lot of good criticism for the sequels, especially TLJ. The movie has been defined elsewhere "fractally awful" not by chance. Every bad element can be de-constructed in a shrapnel of horrible choices, and so on.
KingmanHighborn wrote: Again haven't seen one. And I've said before the bomber scene was badly done, but even then the rest of the film was solid.
See, you say you're not insulting anyone, but you're also insisting you've never seen a criticism of TLJ that isn't motivated by bigotry. That means either you've never read any of the discussions on the subject on this forum or you're saying the people on this forum who've criticised TLJ are motivated by bigotry. Which, you know, sounds pretty much like you're insulting folk.
KingmanHighborn wrote: Again haven't seen one. And I've said before the bomber scene was badly done, but even then the rest of the film was solid.
Those are the least offensive elements. The movie is not even built like a movie of its genre. Other defined it properly "a comedy of errors". It also fails to inspire, and is conflicting in its themes. The whole core of TLJ is rotten.
KingmanHighborn wrote: Again haven't seen one. And I've said before the bomber scene was badly done, but even then the rest of the film was solid.
Have you read this thread? I posted my criticism like two pages back and it has nothing to do with any female characters. The Last Jedi fundamentally altered how space battles work in the Star Wars universe and ruins them(all space battles in the past and future) for me. Also, if Admiral Holdo had done her suicide run at the beginning of the movie it would have saved a lot more lives. It's bad writing to stretch the movie out with that dumb chase mechanic. And it's still a better and more enjoyable movie than the Phantom Menace.
Okay people, lets stop the thread going in this direction. We all have our opinions on the beloved SW (even if you don't love it) and we can discuss the films without throwing around slurs and painting with a broad brush. So please don't continue to engage in that or with that.
Now tell me about the Thrawn book, someone must have read and this is in orange so you have to.
I tried to start a discussion back on page 7 I think but people were banging on about whether Return of the Jedi was good or not. And I guess not enough other people have read it to engage with the subject.
Riquende wrote: As an aside, I was stuck at an airport yesterday and smashed through about 80% of the new Thrawn book, having enjoyed the previous.
Other than Zahn writing Thrawn as godlike in his deduction powers (which he always did) it's an enjoyable story of dutiful, non-villainous Imperial officers dealing with threats both without (Grysks) and within (corrupt officials). The fact they've woven the power games between Tarkin and Krennic into the jumping off point for the story gives it more of a connection to concurrent events (Thrawn starts the story at Lothal, and has one week to deal with Krennic's literal vermin problem or he loses all funding for the TIE Defender program that will then go to the Death Star).
Rogue One, Rebels, the Thrawn books. Canonically hammering home the sense of nostalgia that is entirely missing from the rest of the Star Wars output.
The one thing I'm not really behind is the buildup of the Grysk threat, they're talked about as extremely dangerous by both the Chiss and Thrawn (as in, dangerous to the existence of the Empire) but a force that powerful coming from nowhere seems a bit off - they're described as able to subtly influence populations somehow but there's not even a hint at how that works, and because there are no Grysk POV characters it's all just speculation and worry by Eli Vanto. Do they use the Force somehow? If they did, then you'd expect Palpatine to take Thrawn's warnings more seriously. Is it pheromones somehow? Or just bribery/blackmail? Who knows, but they seem to have this uncanny ability to 'seduce' whole populations into serving their cause.
As much as the NJO books were ultimately a bit crap, at least with the character of Nom Anor you got inside the head of the Vong at times to get more of a sense of purpose/method.
Riquende wrote: I tried to start a discussion back on page 7 I think but people were banging on about whether Return of the Jedi was good or not. And I guess not enough other people have read it to engage with the subject.
Riquende wrote: As an aside, I was stuck at an airport yesterday and smashed through about 80% of the new Thrawn book, having enjoyed the previous.
Other than Zahn writing Thrawn as godlike in his deduction powers (which he always did) it's an enjoyable story of dutiful, non-villainous Imperial officers dealing with threats both without (Grysks) and within (corrupt officials). The fact they've woven the power games between Tarkin and Krennic into the jumping off point for the story gives it more of a connection to concurrent events (Thrawn starts the story at Lothal, and has one week to deal with Krennic's literal vermin problem or he loses all funding for the TIE Defender program that will then go to the Death Star).
Rogue One, Rebels, the Thrawn books. Canonically hammering home the sense of nostalgia that is entirely missing from the rest of the Star Wars output.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Riquende wrote: I tried to start a discussion back on page 7 I think but people were banging on about whether Return of the Jedi was good or not. And I guess not enough other people have read it to engage with the subject.
Riquende wrote: As an aside, I was stuck at an airport yesterday and smashed through about 80% of the new Thrawn book, having enjoyed the previous.
Other than Zahn writing Thrawn as godlike in his deduction powers (which he always did) it's an enjoyable story of dutiful, non-villainous Imperial officers dealing with threats both without (Grysks) and within (corrupt officials). The fact they've woven the power games between Tarkin and Krennic into the jumping off point for the story gives it more of a connection to concurrent events (Thrawn starts the story at Lothal, and has one week to deal with Krennic's literal vermin problem or he loses all funding for the TIE Defender program that will then go to the Death Star).
Rogue One, Rebels, the Thrawn books. Canonically hammering home the sense of nostalgia that is entirely missing from the rest of the Star Wars output.
The one thing I'm not really behind is the buildup of the Grysk threat, they're talked about as extremely dangerous by both the Chiss and Thrawn (as in, dangerous to the existence of the Empire) but a force that powerful coming from nowhere seems a bit off - they're described as able to subtly influence populations somehow but there's not even a hint at how that works, and because there are no Grysk POV characters it's all just speculation and worry by Eli Vanto. Do they use the Force somehow? If they did, then you'd expect Palpatine to take Thrawn's warnings more seriously. Is it pheromones somehow? Or just bribery/blackmail? Who knows, but they seem to have this uncanny ability to 'seduce' whole populations into serving their cause.
As much as the NJO books were ultimately a bit crap, at least with the character of Nom Anor you got inside the head of the Vong at times to get more of a sense of purpose/method.
I enjoyed the old Thrawn books. He was always Batman level competence but there was always the suggestion that had the Empire been less prejudiced, he would have had more opportunity to affect events in the OT. That sidelining and prejudice and his relationship with other Imperial notaries made him an interesting character for me.
Should I re-read those books before picking this one up?
Should I re-read those books before picking this one up?
No. For good or ill, those stories are completely expunged from the new timeline (and in any event happen some time after these).
Book 1 features Thrawn's early career with the Empire, despite already being a decorated Chiss officer he is placed into the academy where he takes on a protege, Eli Vanto. It charts his rise to Admiral, dealing with the bigotry etc and taking on smugglers, insurgents, etc.
Book 2 sees Palpatine send Thrawn on a mission with Vader to an area of space very near Chiss space to investigate a threat that is somehow bound up with the Dark Side (hence Vader's presence). Cleverly, the book jumps through time to time during the Clone Wars where a younger Thrawn, investigating the Republic for the Chiss, ends up aiding Anakin Skywalker on the exact same planet as he travels secretly to rescue Padme, who had been captured by the Seperatists there.
Book 3 has a wager between Tarkin and Krennic - Krennic's supply lines to the Death Star are being compromised by a larger version of a Mynoc so Thrawn accepts the challenge to deal with the vermin inside one week, if he succeeds then the funding for the TIE Defender project will be retained but if he loses then the money will be diverted into the Death Star.
Now tell me about the Thrawn book, someone must have read and this is in orange so you have to.
Book?
Book???
Mon Frere! This is a trilogy!
Timeline wise, there's a bit of everything. His first contact with The Empire, a mission alongside Anakin during the Clone Wars, and other bits set in and around Rebels.
Hard to say more without giving spoilers (also, it's a while since I read the first two!). And having not read his original stories, I can't offer a comparison. But I enjoyed them for what they are. Thrawn is definitely a very clever cookie, and wears his influences on his sleeve (rightly so!). Plotwise, it fits in very nicely, and to me didn't feel shoehorned. There's rivalry between Thrawn and Krennic due to their pet projects (TIE Defender and Stardust), both of which fall under The Tarkin Initiative. These, along with Rogue One, really help explore the personality and failings of The Empire.
Defo start with the first, as there is an arc throughout the three.
Out of the new novels I've personally read (Thrawn, Bloodline, Aftermath Trilogy, Tarkin) this is right up there with the best of them. Heck, even the story of Aftermath is pretty good - if you can stomach the writer's prose (he's a screen writer first and foremost).
Thanks very much for the write up Riquende, sounds interesting but not as good as the first two. Shame they didn't take more of an opportunity to delve deeper into the enemy but I guess it would then cause problems in the new continuity if they had. Did they at least expand upon the new canon Chiss at all?
MDG, I did mean the newest one as I have been waiting for my copy to arrive from whatever postal hellhole it has disappeared into. I did enjoy the first two (not as much as the original trilogy though), Aftermath was too much of a slog, Bloodline I have not attempted yet but you missed out Catalyst which I thought was great! Nice to add some more depth to the characters that were introduced in Rogue One.
One I've not been able to finished is the Luke Skywalker one. Heir to the Jedi I think.
Oh gods I just cannot get on with that book. Too much of just how very much Luke totally fancies the woman he's paired off with. Just. Eurgh. Too much.
The third Thrawn book is pretty decent. We get to meet the Chiss Ascendancy, and more on those alien things, the name of which I can never remember. Lots to enjoy, and certainly up to snuff in terms of its two predecessors.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and have also read 'Lords of the Sith'.
I mean.....it's ok. I guess. Just.....Solo levels of disposable. Enjoyable enough, but far from compulsory.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Loose, vague rankings?
Thrawn Trilogy and Tarkin. Really expand on The Empire and it's servants.
Bloodline. Has an interesting take on post-Endor stuff, especially how nobody knew who Leia's dad was. Also feeds into the new trilogy.
Aftermath. As noted, the prose is kind of offputting - they're not an easy read. BUT, the plots I feel are solid enough to make it worth persevering.
Heir To The Jedi and Lords of the Sith? Just....meh. Nothing added, but don't detract from owt. Both remind me more of average level fanfiction.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and the new Vader comics are pretty ace! Not only because of the wonderful Dr Aphra.
I started Lost Stars and the first Aftermath book, but got distracted from both.
The only new canon book I've finished was Alphabet Squadron, which I liked - both for its story, characters, etc and it's window into their new take on the nascent New Republic vs fragmenting Empire after Operation Cinder but before the battle of Jakku.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But Flubber Yoda is one of the highlights. I'd always wondered how he did combat, seeing as he's somewhat on the smol side.
That, and his 'benefits cheat' walking stick immediately before anyone else shows up.
And I thought it was tedious pandering to the masses, and made the Jedi even more one-dimensional. Before that, I thought it was clear that Yoda was there as a more philosophical kind of Jedi, with Obi-Wan (at least, as he appeared in Star Wars, not so much the prequels) as the warrior type. Then we get that daft fight at the end of Episode 2 (and later on, Palpatine with his lightsabre in Ep 3) and no, apparently all Jedi must fight with swords. It was bad enough when TPM revealed that they all dressed like Tattooine hobos for some reason.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But Flubber Yoda is one of the highlights. I'd always wondered how he did combat, seeing as he's somewhat on the smol side.
That, and his 'benefits cheat' walking stick immediately before anyone else shows up.
And I thought it was tedious pandering to the masses, and made the Jedi even more one-dimensional. Before that, I thought it was clear that Yoda was there as a more philosophical kind of Jedi, with Obi-Wan (at least, as he appeared in Star Wars, not so much the prequels) as the warrior type. Then we get that daft fight at the end of Episode 2 (and later on, Palpatine with his lightsabre in Ep 3) and no, apparently all Jedi must fight with swords. It was bad enough when TPM revealed that they all dressed like Tattooine hobos for some reason.
Yeah, Jedi hobo chic threw me at the time also. It's another example of Lucas' obsession with explaining and linking *everything*. But to be fair, I also understand the usefulness of a 'uniform' to identify the Jedi on screen, and that Obi-Wan's Tatooine robes were an easy visual shorthand for accomplishing that.
Yeah, Jedi hobo chic threw me at the time also. It's another example of Lucas' obsession with explaining and linking *everything*. But to be fair, I also understand the usefulness of a 'uniform' to identify the Jedi on screen, and that Obi-Wan's Tatooine robes were an easy visual shorthand for accomplishing that.
Vader has a hint of the same style in the OT as well with the inner robe under his cape but over his armor. Truthfully, the answer comes down to both being lifted from samurai films to a degree, with Obi-wan having a very ronin styled garb and Vader wearing something of a shogunate armor. Putting the prequel Jedi in something a bit more like Samurai robes follows that trend pretty well thematically, even if it doesn't make a ton of sense in universe. I think it would have worked better if the Clone Wars armor had been a part of the look in the films and not just the cartoon (which pretty much describes the entire prequel era honestly)
It's never explicitly stated, but it wouldn't make much sense for Luke to be the 'last hope' if there's a bunch of Jedi still out there. At the very least, sending an untrained boy off by himself to fight the strongest Jedi of his time seems somewhat irresponsible if they could have backed him up with more Jedi...
That being said, it's always been possible that there were other Jedi still out there in hiding that Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't know about. The old EU certainly unearthed a few, along with introducing all manner of non-jedi force users.
Though I’ve often wondered if by ‘last hope’, they were referring to being able to tackle Vader and Palpatine.
Luke’s connection to The Force was of course strong. And Vader meeting his son was how he turned back.
Keep in mind that the OT never describes Luke's force potential as particularly exceptional. He tells Leia in RotJ that the Force is 'strong' in his family, but it's only in the prequels that Lucas introduced the prophecy and the idea that the Skywalkers were stronger than everyone else.
In the OT, is it ever explicitly stated that Yoda and Obi-Wan were the last survivors of the Jedi order?
I’m wracking my brain, and I can’t think if or when it’s actually stated. So I’m thinking it’s either an old EU thing, or a Fan Assumption?
It's heavily implied, but never confirmed. Tarkin states that they are extinct, but of course, Obi-wan and yoda were still kicking, so he's clearly wrong with his guess of zero. I think most people felt that when Obi wan said that Luke was their last hope, and Yoda responded with "there is another," that meant leia, but also meant those were the final two Jedi.
The EU leaned hard the other way, with multiple Jedi surviving Order 66: Joruss C'baoth most notably.
If the current SW trilogy has any point to make, it's probably that not all force users are Jedi, and that the Jedi order may not have been the best way to move forward.
The 'there is another' line referring to Leia was a matter of some contention before RotJ came out - keeping in mind that the best confirmation in Empire is the pointed moment where she hears Luke calling to her; in fact I've heard it argued that it was supposed to refer to a completely different person, but settled on Leia when they decided to end Star Wars as a trilogy - her being awkwardly declared his sister similarly coming from confusion as to whether Yoda meant there was another hope or specifically another Skywalker they could train.
Polonius wrote: If the current SW trilogy has any point to make, it's probably that not all force users are Jedi, and that the Jedi order may not have been the best way to move forward.
This is something that Lucasfilm was clearly courting by the time of the acquisition what with the Night Sisters in Clone Wars. They clearly wanted to diversify the galaxy and part of that was by making more and varied practices around different interpretations of the Force.
Polonius wrote: I think most people felt that when Obi wan said that Luke was their last hope, and Yoda responded with "there is another," that meant leia, but also meant those were the final two Jedi.
Although that was only the post - RotJ conclusion. When ESB was made, Leia wasn't Luke's sister (hence the infamous kiss)... That was going to be a new character introduced in the next movie, but plans changed when it came time to actually make RotJ.
Captain Joystick wrote: The 'there is another' line referring to Leia was a matter of some contention before RotJ came out - keeping in mind that the best confirmation in Empire is the pointed moment where she hears Luke calling to her; in fact I've heard it argued that it was supposed to refer to a completely different person, but settled on Leia when they decided to end Star Wars as a trilogy - her being awkwardly declared his sister similarly coming from confusion as to whether Yoda meant there was another hope or specifically another Skywalker they could train.
Polonius wrote: If the current SW trilogy has any point to make, it's probably that not all force users are Jedi, and that the Jedi order may not have been the best way to move forward.
This is something that Lucasfilm was clearly courting by the time of the acquisition what with the Night Sisters in Clone Wars. They clearly wanted to diversify the galaxy and part of that was by making more and varied practices around different interpretations of the Force.
I mean, that's always been the case outside of the films, which were specifically the saga of the Skywalkers and the Jedi. The Nightsisters were invented for an EU novel in the mid 90's.
What annoys me about the "kill the past" sentiment as it relates to the Jedi is that it's unnecessary. The old EU clearly established that the Jedi as they existed at the time of the Clone Wars was preceded by several other monastic orders of Force wielders also known as "Jedi" or something similar, and each incarnation was a different spin on that core idea. Even the idea of a group of not-Jedi who're not strictly light side or dark side but seekers of "true" balance within the individual rather than between two opposing factions has already been done in the EU during one of the Old Republic eras. There's absolutely nothing preventing Lucasiflm from establishing a new "version" of the Jedi through Rey et al, save for the combination of the fact many of the high heidyins at the company are firm devotees of the Cult of the New(their only real doctrine: old bad, new good, always and in every context, and anyone who has a different opinion is merely blinded by nostalgia) and too self-regarding to admit that most of the good bits of their new work is just recycling the better ideas from the old EU with the serial numbers filed off.
Though I’ve often wondered if by ‘last hope’, they were referring to being able to tackle Vader and Palpatine.
Luke’s connection to The Force was of course strong. And Vader meeting his son was how he turned back.
Keep in mind that the OT never describes Luke's force potential as particularly exceptional. He tells Leia in RotJ that the Force is 'strong' in his family, but it's only in the prequels that Lucas introduced the prophecy and the idea that the Skywalkers were stronger than everyone else.
Only that Anakin was, specifically. Luke's 'power level' is never a thing the movies care about. To be honest, he comes off as... not particularly good at his lessons. Leia's power is outside the scope of the films, barring her Superman impression in TLJ.
The EU novels, on the other hand, posit the idea in several places that 'strong' Jedi are to be feared, as they almost always go too far and fall to the Dark side. The Thrawn trilogy in particular jumps on that
The EU novels, on the other hand, posit the idea in several places that 'strong' Jedi are to be feared, as they almost always go too far and fall to the Dark side. The Thrawn trilogy in particular jumps on that
A line they should have stuck to. The idea that is presented early on (fairly sure that was from the Thrawn books) that some of the New Republic's members were worried about Luke being too powerful was a good hook. They took it too far as the books went on, with it gradually morphing into the idea that pretty much every Jedi sooner or later goes Dark, if only briefly, and that just got old.
What you just said, essentially, was "the fan fiction I adhere to" and then also argue people are using nostalgia to incorrectly adhere to something. Seems a bit odd. There was some good EU stuff to be sure but in relation to the canon it has zero bearing or weight at this point.
Edit: I'm not saying I agree with the disregard for it, but it also wasn't my choice either.
I stuck with it, partly because Rebels wasn't great in S1 either.
It's was essentially 15 odd episodes of waffle to set up a handful of decent ish episodes towards the end of the season.
I'll give S2 a go should it air in the UK (no sign yet, might debut in early Sept when the kids go back to school) in the hope it keeps on the same trajectory, but won't lose any sleep over its disappearance.
I think it is for the best that Resistance quietly dies, whimpering in a corner somewhere. I have watched it and there was maybe one or two episode that could be called okay, the rest are just bad (outside of cool ships, FO TIE/in, T-85 X-Wing and the pirates uglies) but with CW series coming up it would be left hanging in the breeze.
Yodhrin wrote: I mean, that's always been the case outside of the films, which were specifically the saga of the Skywalkers and the Jedi. The Nightsisters were invented for an EU novel in the mid 90's.
What annoys me about the "kill the past" sentiment as it relates to the Jedi is that it's unnecessary. The old EU clearly established that the Jedi as they existed at the time of the Clone Wars was preceded by several other monastic orders of Force wielders also known as "Jedi" or something similar, and each incarnation was a different spin on that core idea. Even the idea of a group of not-Jedi who're not strictly light side or dark side but seekers of "true" balance within the individual rather than between two opposing factions has already been done in the EU during one of the Old Republic eras. There's absolutely nothing preventing Lucasiflm from establishing a new "version" of the Jedi through Rey et al, save for the combination of the fact many of the high heidyins at the company are firm devotees of the Cult of the New(their only real doctrine: old bad, new good, always and in every context, and anyone who has a different opinion is merely blinded by nostalgia) and too self-regarding to admit that most of the good bits of their new work is just recycling the better ideas from the old EU with the serial numbers filed off.
For however much that's true (and we can debate forever exactly how 'clearly' the EU established anything) their decision to jettison the EU has nothing to do with adopting or refining the ideas it had and distancing from its failures (of which the novel you referred to earlier, The Courtship of Princess Leia, is a good example) and everything to do with not wanting to beholden to the web of continuity Lucasfilm had been steadily tangling over decades of novels.
We saw this with George Lucas when the Old Republic, Clone Wars, and fall of the Jedi turned out to be nothing like what EU authors had alluded to. There were massive pushbacks against it even back then, when it was Lucas at the helm - and after the prequels were set in stone the authors bent over backwards trying to fit the pieces together. And that's despite the fact that the EU generally stayed away from the Old Republic and the Clone Wars precisely because George told them he didn't want them contradicting something he might write later. The Post-Endor timeline had no such restriction and the novel writers ran wild with it.
So after deciding they'd make a sequel movie, Lucasfilm had three choices:
- Attempt to keep the sequel trilogy in continuity with 30 years of novel plot points including the deaths of major characters, resurrection of others who died on-screen, and an Imperial Remnant and Republic Successor trading places in dominance every six years or so and risk hamstringing the narrative and alienating audiences who hadn't consumed any Star Wars media in a decade.
- George Lucas it, insist the Republic has been in power for 30 years between movies and let the authors figure it out - risking alienating the alienating the die hard fanbase.
- Acknowledge that they don't want to do either of the previous two options. Set the existing continuity aside in as graceful a way as you can, and be upfront with the fanbase that you intend to take another crack at the extended universe concept with a stricter eye towards forward looking continuity.
All three risk alienating people, different groups and different portions of the same groups, and all have a potential impact to the bottom line, but at the end of the day they chose the least impactful one: losing the portion of the EU fanbase that is just devoted enough to refuse to consume any of the new media but not so devoted that they'll consume it anyway.
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Azreal13 wrote: I stuck with it, partly because Rebels wasn't great in S1 either.
It's was essentially 15 odd episodes of waffle to set up a handful of decent ish episodes towards the end of the season.
I'll give S2 a go should it air in the UK (no sign yet, might debut in early Sept when the kids go back to school) in the hope it keeps on the same trajectory, but won't lose any sleep over its disappearance.
Pretty much in agreement. Its not like Clone Wars and Rebels didn't have this problem in their first seasons, but it's worse than both of them in that respect and if anything you'd think with the same showrunners they'd know better.
I do like Poe's interacting with First Order troopers while neither faction has officially started fighting each other yet: "Easy fellas, I don't want to engage with you... Not engaging, not engaging... I'm just pointing my blaster at these explosives."
Well if you can mange that then yes you will be fine, actually I don't think fine is the right word here...
Its a shame on how it turned out as they did go for a similar thing to Rebels, but in that instance Ezra being how he is excusable as he is just a kid. In Res though they recycled the character whilst forgetting that he is an adult pilot in the New Republic Navy so it doesn't work.
Polonius wrote: If the current SW trilogy has any point to make, it's probably that not all force users are Jedi, and that the Jedi order may not have been the best way to move forward.
This is something that Lucasfilm was clearly courting by the time of the acquisition what with the Night Sisters in Clone Wars. They clearly wanted to diversify the galaxy and part of that was by making more and varied practices around different interpretations of the Force.
Semi-canonical "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" (originally written as backup sequel for ANH) had non-Jedi Force user, Halla. Of course back then whole backstory was work-in-progress, Sith did not exist yet and Force was much weaker (Luke was hugely impressed when Halla could barely float a tray).
In my opinion, TFA should have introduced Rey's character akin the lines of Halla: a hedge wizard who demonstrates some minor abilities which she uses for survival. You could set it up with scenes where some ruffians threaten her and say how they're not scared of her 'tricks'. Maybe even give her like a talisman which she thinks is the source or focus of her abilities, then have Kylo Ren (or someone) destroy it, forcing her to unleash her Force potential without a crutch.
Brackett's draft for ESB featured Luke's hidden sister, Nellith. Since Lucas had outlined the basic plot for Brackett, it seems probable that too was Lucas' original idea.
What you just said, essentially, was "the fan fiction I adhere to" and then also argue people are using nostalgia to incorrectly adhere to something. Seems a bit odd. There was some good EU stuff to be sure but in relation to the canon it has zero bearing or weight at this point.
Edit: I'm not saying I agree with the disregard for it, but it also wasn't my choice either.
What on earth are you on about? Firstly, dismissing the EU as "fan fiction" is just childish. Lucas might have had no time for it, but he was happy to take the money and allow it to exist, so neither he nor Disney can get pissy when people consider it a valid source of content, especially given despite its many many flops, at its best it's produced material that pisses on a lot of what both of them have done.
Secondly, you appear to have completely misunderstood my actual point; nobody is using "nostalgia to incorrectly adhere" to anything, my argument is that the EU has already shown it's possible to create versions of the Jedi that differ greatly from the Saga versions, without having to entirely discard the idea of the Jedi to replace it with something entirely new, which is where the Sequels seem to be going, because the people in charge cannot stomach the idea they might be thought of as anything other than 100% original and new even as they reheat old EU ideas in all but name.
Yodhrin wrote: I mean, that's always been the case outside of the films, which were specifically the saga of the Skywalkers and the Jedi. The Nightsisters were invented for an EU novel in the mid 90's.
What annoys me about the "kill the past" sentiment as it relates to the Jedi is that it's unnecessary. The old EU clearly established that the Jedi as they existed at the time of the Clone Wars was preceded by several other monastic orders of Force wielders also known as "Jedi" or something similar, and each incarnation was a different spin on that core idea. Even the idea of a group of not-Jedi who're not strictly light side or dark side but seekers of "true" balance within the individual rather than between two opposing factions has already been done in the EU during one of the Old Republic eras. There's absolutely nothing preventing Lucasiflm from establishing a new "version" of the Jedi through Rey et al, save for the combination of the fact many of the high heidyins at the company are firm devotees of the Cult of the New(their only real doctrine: old bad, new good, always and in every context, and anyone who has a different opinion is merely blinded by nostalgia) and too self-regarding to admit that most of the good bits of their new work is just recycling the better ideas from the old EU with the serial numbers filed off.
For however much that's true (and we can debate forever exactly how 'clearly' the EU established anything) their decision to jettison the EU has nothing to do with adopting or refining the ideas it had and distancing from its failures (of which the novel you referred to earlier, The Courtship of Princess Leia, is a good example) and everything to do with not wanting to beholden to the web of continuity Lucasfilm had been steadily tangling over decades of novels.
We saw this with George Lucas when the Old Republic, Clone Wars, and fall of the Jedi turned out to be nothing like what EU authors had alluded to. There were massive pushbacks against it even back then, when it was Lucas at the helm - and after the prequels were set in stone the authors bent over backwards trying to fit the pieces together. And that's despite the fact that the EU generally stayed away from the Old Republic and the Clone Wars precisely because George told them he didn't want them contradicting something he might write later. The Post-Endor timeline had no such restriction and the novel writers ran wild with it.
So after deciding they'd make a sequel movie, Lucasfilm had three choices:
- Attempt to keep the sequel trilogy in continuity with 30 years of novel plot points including the deaths of major characters, resurrection of others who died on-screen, and an Imperial Remnant and Republic Successor trading places in dominance every six years or so and risk hamstringing the narrative and alienating audiences who hadn't consumed any Star Wars media in a decade.
- George Lucas it, insist the Republic has been in power for 30 years between movies and let the authors figure it out - risking alienating the alienating the die hard fanbase.
- Acknowledge that they don't want to do either of the previous two options. Set the existing continuity aside in as graceful a way as you can, and be upfront with the fanbase that you intend to take another crack at the extended universe concept with a stricter eye towards forward looking continuity.
All three risk alienating people, different groups and different portions of the same groups, and all have a potential impact to the bottom line, but at the end of the day they chose the least impactful one: losing the portion of the EU fanbase that is just devoted enough to refuse to consume any of the new media but not so devoted that they'll consume it anyway.
See above, that's not actually the point I'm making. I don't actually blame them for striking the EU, they had little other choice if they were going to make sequels that didn't just follow along with them. The trouble I have with their approach is that the folks at Lucasfilm are just disingenuous and hypocritical about the whole thing. They disdain a lot of the story elements from the EU when it suits them, despite a lot of them being better ideas than those they went with, because they can't stomach the idea that they might be seen as needing to dip into the past content for ideas - afterall, we should kill the past, nostalgia is for losers etc - but they will take those ideas anyway when it suits them with a quick coat of paint and try to claim that they are new.
What they seem to be aiming towards with Rey and a replacement for the Jedi being a case in point - the actual idea is not a new one, it's been done several times in the EU, and those instances also demonstrated you can do it without even having to discard the fundamental idea of Jedi. So there's no actual reason they have to do the speculated "Jedi are gone now, Rey's made the new and betterer Order of Skywalkers instead 'cos Jedi are, like, totes old boomer garbo who can't change and grow" other than their egos.
I'm not sure what's so 'hypocritical' about Disney's approach. They said from the start that they didn't want to be beholden to the EU, so would ditch most of it while retaining elements they wanted to keep. And that's exactly what they've done.
While I was sorry to see it all go, that was still miles better than Lucas's approach of letting it be treated as canon while retaining the right to change or ignore it whenever he felt like it.
The EU was long dead for me by the time Disney killed it. The Vong just made a mess of things, particularly as their tech influenced the world after the invasion.
My kneejerk reaction for killing off EU was nerd rage, but when I thought about it a bit more, I was like 'meh'. If they wanted new movies to show old characters in setting understandable to viewer not familiar with SWEU, they pretty much had to dispense it.
Yodhrin wrote: See above, that's not actually the point I'm making. I don't actually blame them for striking the EU, they had little other choice if they were going to make sequels that didn't just follow along with them. The trouble I have with their approach is that the folks at Lucasfilm are just disingenuous and hypocritical about the whole thing. They disdain a lot of the story elements from the EU when it suits them, despite a lot of them being better ideas than those they went with, because they can't stomach the idea that they might be seen as needing to dip into the past content for ideas - afterall, we should kill the past, nostalgia is for losers etc - but they will take those ideas anyway when it suits them with a quick coat of paint and try to claim that they are new.
Again, you keep using the 'kill the past' line as though it were some kind of coda to the Disney films when it isn't. It isn't even that for TLJ (that Honor would go to Yoda's speach about passing on what you've learned including through failure). And through it you're attributing malice to Disney's behavior where it doesn't exist.
Let's be clear here: Lucasfilm didn't bring back the Tie Defender because they're secretly creatively bankrupt and can't think of a new set of wings to strap on the ball cockpit, they didn't reintroduce Thrawn to viewers in Rebels and give Zahn a novel series because they learned from the past and want to share the shining gems and discard the embarrassing lumps (like Zorba the Hutt, or Moffrences), they did it precisely because those things captured the interest of fans over the decades and are therefore safe bets to sell the product.
If you're going to criticize Disney (and I think it's unfair to go after Disney directly since they are generally hands-off with Lucasfilm and Marvel until things go off the rails) do so for their calousness and desperation for money - assuming they do anything out of contempt for anyone or anything you care about is vanity.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LunarSol wrote: The EU was long dead for me by the time Disney killed it. The Vong just made a mess of things, particularly as their tech influenced the world after the invasion.
LunarSol wrote: The EU was long dead for me by the time Disney killed it. The Vong just made a mess of things, particularly as their tech influenced the world after the invasion.
I rather liked Legacy.
I think the overall arc was strong, but it was hard for me to get into given how much change the Vong era inserted into the universe that I really didn't have any interest in or love for. This was also about the time when I started to feel like the OT characters had had earned some peace and would have preferred to see some fresh characters. I think I would have felt very different if it had come out in '99 instead of after 7 years of the Vong and prequels.
LunarSol wrote: I think the overall arc was strong, but it was hard for me to get into given how much change the Vong era inserted into the universe that I really didn't have any interest in or love for. This was also about the time when I started to feel like the OT characters had had earned some peace and would have preferred to see some fresh characters. I think I would have felt very different if it had come out in '99 instead of after 7 years of the Vong and prequels.
Thats what I liked about it. No OT characters in site save for the occasional briefest force ghost cameo because everyone had died a long time ago.
LunarSol wrote: I think the overall arc was strong, but it was hard for me to get into given how much change the Vong era inserted into the universe that I really didn't have any interest in or love for. This was also about the time when I started to feel like the OT characters had had earned some peace and would have preferred to see some fresh characters. I think I would have felt very different if it had come out in '99 instead of after 7 years of the Vong and prequels.
Thats what I liked about it. No OT characters in site save for the occasional briefest force ghost cameo because everyone had died a long time ago.
I mean except R2.
Oh, I was thinking Legacy of the Force. I really had trouble with the Legacy comic. Way too much Vong tech, particularly with Krayt. I've never really cared for SW comics in general; they always seem to be the source of some of the worst ideas in the cannon. I've heard plenty of people that like Legacy though, so its probably just me being stubborn (haven't read the recent Marvel stuff for largely the same reason)
This isn't complicated nor does it require name calling. The EU, for better or worse, has zero bearing or weight at this point so using it like it has either when arguing how things should be isn't useful. I get not being happy that content someone holds dear isn't important to those who actually own a property, just ask Star Trek fans about that, but that doesn't change that, for good or ill, the EU has officially been denied and discarded.
ingtaer wrote: Drink heavily before hand... This next (last) season doesn't look too bad but the first was dire. Really dire.
Frankly, it's felt like all of the cartoons have been that way.
I may have just lowered my expectations but even Rebels season 1 was not that bad a bit uneven in places but with some memorable moments and mostly coherent. I just though a lot of the flack it took was because it was not CW but considering I think a lot of CW is trash or style over substance filler I am probably in the minority.
Oh and resistance was pretty dire somewhere between xmas special and caravan of courage right around TLJ.
Yodhrin wrote: See above, that's not actually the point I'm making. I don't actually blame them for striking the EU, they had little other choice if they were going to make sequels that didn't just follow along with them. The trouble I have with their approach is that the folks at Lucasfilm are just disingenuous and hypocritical about the whole thing. They disdain a lot of the story elements from the EU when it suits them, despite a lot of them being better ideas than those they went with, because they can't stomach the idea that they might be seen as needing to dip into the past content for ideas - afterall, we should kill the past, nostalgia is for losers etc - but they will take those ideas anyway when it suits them with a quick coat of paint and try to claim that they are new.
Again, you keep using the 'kill the past' line as though it were some kind of coda to the Disney films when it isn't. It isn't even that for TLJ (that Honor would go to Yoda's speach about passing on what you've learned including through failure). And through it you're attributing malice to Disney's behavior where it doesn't exist.
Let's be clear here: Lucasfilm didn't bring back the Tie Defender because they're secretly creatively bankrupt and can't think of a new set of wings to strap on the ball cockpit, they didn't reintroduce Thrawn to viewers in Rebels and give Zahn a novel series because they learned from the past and want to share the shining gems and discard the embarrassing lumps (like Zorba the Hutt, or Moffrences), they did it precisely because those things captured the interest of fans over the decades and are therefore safe bets to sell the product.
If you're going to criticize Disney (and I think it's unfair to go after Disney directly since they are generally hands-off with Lucasfilm and Marvel until things go off the rails) do so for their calousness and desperation for money - assuming they do anything out of contempt for anyone or anything you care about is vanity.
I think I see the problem here, you seem to be arguing with someone else entirely. Have a wee read back through the posts in this chain, and note the total absence of the word "Disney" anywhere.
As for the rest, if you can't discuss something without constantly trying to attribute arguments and emotional motivations to people they haven't actually expressed, there's little point in continuing to make arguments you'll only ignore - we disagree, and I'll leave it at that.
I'm not anymore. I've wanted a Ewan McGregor Obi-wan MOVIE since the spin-off SW movies were announce way back before Rogue One.
The fact that Disney (and a lot of media in general) are moving away from traditional movie theater events makes me sad.
If this gets the green light, I will of course want to see it and own it on DVD if that's ever a possibility, but it just won't feel the same.
I was kinda hoping that the Obi-wan FILM was going to:
A) Tie into the Crime underworld set up in Solo
B) Have another Darth Maul cameo (but Maul and Obi-wan not quite meeting face to face since that happens later in Rebels)
and
C) Have a Boba Fett cameo
Basically Obi-Wan would be a Clint Eastwood style "man with no name" in the background protecting Luke on Tattooine, but gets involved in some exploits where he has to take down some Crime lord (not Maul or Jabba) making trouble. Fett could be working for said Crime Lord.
Would have been a lot of fan service, sure, but it could have worked. McGregor is one of the best parts of the Prequels and this could have been the chance to show Boba as more than a punching bag.
In all truth, an Obi-wan series with McGregor probably isn't going to be far off of what it would have been as a film. There's always been the even movies and movies that fought for attention and studios have long been happy to release the latter without depending on them being a massive success. The only difference now is the success of things like Roma and Bird Box and likely even Adam Sandler's nonsense have the industry recognizing that a lot of these things might flop in theaters but find an audience in streaming.
Between Marvel, Star Wars, public domain interpretations and everything else; Disney has enough things that they'll start cannibalizing one another if they expand. Instead, the stuff that would have fought for second place is getting used to keep people invested in Plus.
Yeah, Jedi hobo chic threw me at the time also. It's another example of Lucas' obsession with explaining and linking *everything*. But to be fair, I also understand the usefulness of a 'uniform' to identify the Jedi on screen, and that Obi-Wan's Tatooine robes were an easy visual shorthand for accomplishing that.
There already was a Jedi uniform - Luke wore it in Return of the Jedi.
Automatically Appended Next Post: How much is there for Obi-Wan to do on Tatooine that could sustain a series?
Yodhrin wrote: I think I see the problem here, you seem to be arguing with someone else entirely. Have a wee read back through the posts in this chain, and note the total absence of the word "Disney" anywhere.
As for the rest, if you can't discuss something without constantly trying to attribute arguments and emotional motivations to people they haven't actually expressed, there's little point in continuing to make arguments you'll only ignore - we disagree, and I'll leave it at that.
I'll apologize for the part about conflating Disney with Lucasfilm, it was more a thing I noticed in the thread to the point where I was starting to do it, and I didn't bother to check to see if you were also.
As for the latter, sure. Let's let bygones be bygones.
Yeah, Jedi hobo chic threw me at the time also. It's another example of Lucas' obsession with explaining and linking *everything*. But to be fair, I also understand the usefulness of a 'uniform' to identify the Jedi on screen, and that Obi-Wan's Tatooine robes were an easy visual shorthand for accomplishing that.
There already was a Jedi uniform - Luke wore it in Return of the Jedi.
Automatically Appended Next Post: How much is there for Obi-Wan to do on Tatooine that could sustain a series?
End slavery and bring true freedom to the peoples of the desert!
Fall in love, make way for the prophesied one, etc, etc.
It started as a joke and became a Dune/Star Wars crossover fanfic...
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Your vision there is sound, but I think the tv move is the better medium.
You can tell more stories over a long period, and throw in the odd ‘villain of the week’ if you so wish,
This is why I also want a Solo or at least Crimson Dawn series. Those stories just seem better suited to the small screen,
They're talking about a 6-8 episode series, which ultimately gives you the same run time as a movie trilogy, but without the massive wait time in between each installment.
Ha ha, as if Rian. Not a peep from the studio but Rian going to direct to the public with "I'm still working on this guys".
Who cares? Not a chance Lucasfilm allows him to further wreck the franchise's prospects after the TLJ debacle (by which I mean how fractured the fanbase is over it and how that eats into the profitability).
In the day of the Internet a fractured fan base may keep things relevant; we've seen in this thread how we just can't help ourselves and love to bicker! Then again, perhaps all that achieves is entrenching people into the positions of 'hater' or 'fanboy'?
Probably. It's not an outrageous suggestion that what Disney paid all that money for with SW was to get another Marvel ball rolling, with an 'Episode' film in alternating years and either an anthology film or some sort of alternate linked series (the hypothetical Crimson Dawn etc) in the off years, allowing a bit more creativity. Whilst the early MCU films weren't always the highest quality, they at least managed to keep the momentum of the series going, and it's not until very recently that there have been serious criticisms of a few specific movies (and that's specifically Captain Marvel and Black Panther, which have obvious triggers for a certain type of critic, regardless of the overall movie quality).
Sadly for Lucasfilm/Disney, TLJ poleaxed any gathering momentum for a similar SW run early on (personally I'm not a fan of TFA, it was too safe, but overall people accepted that SW was 'back'). The criticism wasn't a minor part of the reaction amidst a sea of fan enthusiasm, it came to totally define the reaction.
Maybe Star Wars was always doomed to be like this? Decades of personal investment by fans isn't easy to overcome. I guess some comic book fans aren't fans of how the MCU treats some stories/characters compared to the source either, but the films have such a larger outreach that those criticisms would seem quite small.
If thats the case I am not sure why Disney did this so wrong.
Both TFA and TLJ are really obvious remakes of the two earliest films - yeah they moved scenes around (and in TLJ) destroyed any attempt at pacing, coherent plot or characterisation, but there is very little new here.
Whereas in the MCU, the makers took comic characters and extracted (IMO) the best bits of them whilst also forging new directions and stories. I just don't see that in the recent films - is that becuase they were worried about fans or because they simply did not have the same quality of creative team? I don't know.
IMO everything points to a lack of confidence in not only the base material but also what can be done with it. I have not read the EU - is it really that bad that there was nothing for them to draw on to make a whole new Star Wars for a new generation whilst still rettaining links to the old?
Riquende wrote: The criticism wasn't a minor part of the reaction amidst a sea of fan enthusiasm, it came to totally define the reaction
I think this is a good bit. We're kind of past the point of debating whether or not TLJ was a good movie, kind of like we're long past the point of debating if the Prequels were good movies. The quality of films almost doesn't matter in the reflection of how the films have impacted the franchise as a whole.
I suppose the bright side is that TLJ need not be the end of SW. The Prequels were base breaking too when they came out, and enthusiasm and passion for the franchise lived on.
Riquende wrote: The criticism wasn't a minor part of the reaction amidst a sea of fan enthusiasm, it came to totally define the reaction
I think this is a good bit. We're kind of past the point of debating whether or not TLJ was a good movie, kind of like we're long past the point of debating if the Prequels were good movies. The quality of films almost doesn't matter in the reflection of how the films have impacted the franchise as a whole.
I suppose the bright side is that TLJ need not be the end of SW. The Prequels were base breaking too when they came out, and enthusiasm and passion for the franchise lived on.
Well there is a third film so its not the end. Even then - Star Trek survived Nemesis - took a bit of time but it came back.
KingmanHighborn wrote: The problem is Disney wanted to do something to recapture the magic of a New Hope. Then the neckbeards and incels bitched so the next film was something original and while the opening scene with the bombers is a let down, the rest of film was great. I love snarky Luke, the casino planet getting wrecked, Finn and Rose, Holdo's awesome last stand. etc. etc. But then the neckbeards and incels whined that it wasn't like the originals, and how dare women have agency.
Bottom line, is Disney's take on Star Wars may have it's flaws, but it's in a much better place then Star Wars was post Episode 3 Vader does a Noooooooo!
And that's where all these conversations fall down isn't it? It was the "neckbeards and incels" who done all the bitching and moaning, as opposed to the tens of thousands of just normal people who didn't like the films for what ever reason... It would be nice, just for once, to have this conversation like rational reasoning adults without people throwing histrionics, wild hyperbole or insults around.
How about lots of people didn't like the films because, shock I know, they didn't like it! That doesn't mean you cant like it, it doesn't matter one jot to me that you liked it when I didn't. I thought both new films were awful, the first because it tried to hard to be a New Hope mkii, the second because I thought the pacing was awful and the continuity was terrible.
My wife hadn’t seen any Star Wars movies until we got married. She enjoyed the prequels, seeing them as family style movies, liked the original trilogy, thought TFA was “ok”, and begged me not to ever go to the theater again for SW after TLJ. I’d call her the opposite of a SW fanatic. TLJ was just a bad movie. And we’re voting with our wallets for all SW theatrical releases after it.
Fantastic news that Ewan is interested in a tv show, but to be honest I'm content with the Scott Miller novel, and they'll just wipe that out of canon. Thats not to say they can't best it, but it was a good story for our favourite mature jedi gentleman.
Whatever happens, Ewan deserves a fair crack of the whip with an experienced director, which he didn't have on the prequels. Second chance etc...
Mr Morden wrote: If thats the case I am not sure why Disney did this so wrong.
It's not really Disney, it's Lucasfilm being left to their own devices. When was the last time Lucasfilm actually made a unquestionably good, big film? An unadulterated commercial and critical success? I just had a perusal of their filmography and I think it's 1989's Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade...
I have not read the EU - is it really that bad that there was nothing for them to draw on to make a whole new Star Wars for a new generation whilst still rettaining links to the old?
Well no, there's some really good stuff in there, and Rebels has mined its fair share, lifting Thrawn out wholesale as well as things like the TIE Defender, AT-PT & more. Of course I'd have liked to have seen more plot points and characters woven into things, but maybe there's an issue with paying the original authors?
Riquende wrote: The criticism wasn't a minor part of the reaction amidst a sea of fan enthusiasm, it came to totally define the reaction
I think this is a good bit. We're kind of past the point of debating whether or not TLJ was a good movie, kind of like we're long past the point of debating if the Prequels were good movies. The quality of films almost doesn't matter in the reflection of how the films have impacted the franchise as a whole.
I suppose the bright side is that TLJ need not be the end of SW. The Prequels were base breaking too when they came out, and enthusiasm and passion for the franchise lived on.
Well there is a third film so its not the end. Even then - Star Trek survived Nemesis - took a bit of time but it came back.
Speaking of Sta Trek, SW could learn a lot from that franchise. When Kirk, Spock, and co were played out, Star Trek the Next Generation took the franchise to new heights. DS9 did its own thing, and is considered the highlight of the franchise. Voyager and Enterprise tried to hit all the old notes again, stick to the formula, etc. and they killed the franchise.
The Skywalker story is done. The story of the Rebellion and the Empire is done. The setting has plenty of potential, but rehashing the same stories and sticking with the same characters is stifling the franchise.
Speaking of Sta Trek, SW could learn a lot from that franchise. When Kirk, Spock, and co were played out, Star Trek the Next Generation took the franchise to new heights. DS9 did its own thing, and is considered the highlight of the franchise. Voyager and Enterprise tried to hit all the old notes again, stick to the formula, etc. and they killed the franchise.
I think this is an overly simplistic take on it, to be honest. I know Voyager is the series fans love to hate, but I'll watch out over TNG most days, and it did well when it actually aired, IIRC.
The problem with Enterprise wasn't the formula, it was that it broke continuity and the crew were just dull. That, combined with Insurrection and Nemesis being less than stellar was more responsible for 'killing' the franchise... But even then, it was lack of interest by the rights holders, rather than lack of interest by fans, that caused such a long wait for anything new.
I do agree though that it would be nice to see Lucasfilm tackle some new ground with Star Wars, so fingers crossed that the Mandalorian is good and does well, so they don't get scared off that approach like they did with Solo.
Speaking of Sta Trek, SW could learn a lot from that franchise. When Kirk, Spock, and co were played out, Star Trek the Next Generation took the franchise to new heights. DS9 did its own thing, and is considered the highlight of the franchise. Voyager and Enterprise tried to hit all the old notes again, stick to the formula, etc. and they killed the franchise.
I think this is an overly simplistic take on it, to be honest. I know Voyager is the series fans love to hate, but I'll watch out over TNG most days, and it did well when it actually aired, IIRC.
The problem with Enterprise wasn't the formula, it was that it broke continuity and the crew were just dull. That, combined with Insurrection and Nemesis being less than stellar was more responsible for 'killing' the franchise... But even then, it was lack of interest by the rights holders, rather than lack of interest by fans, that caused such a long wait for anything new.
I do agree though that it would be nice to see Lucasfilm tackle some new ground with Star Wars, so fingers crossed that the Mandalorian is good and does well, so they don't get scared off that approach like they did with Solo.
Yes, Star Wars needs a Deep Space Nine. Either Knights of the Old Republic, or something about a different group during the Civil War, etc. Hell, even something decades before the Prequels could give territory to mine for a story.
I'd say KotR has already been Star Wars' DS9 once. The original RPGs were smash hits. Bioware was popular and well known before to be sure, but Knights of the Old Republic is what made them a household name (in gamer house holds) and elevated them to the level of "best in the business" for Western RPGs. This happened right after Attack of the Clones devestated the fan base with how awful it was. Like sand. See? It was so awful its own lines don't even work as insults directed in its direction!
LordofHats wrote: I'd say KotR has already been Star Wars' DS9 once. The original RPGs were smash hits. Bioware was popular and well known before to be sure, but Knights of the Old Republic is what made them a household name (in gamer house holds) and elevated them to the level of "best in the business" for Western RPGs. This happened right after Attack of the Clones devestated the fan base with how awful it was. Like sand. See? It was so awful its own lines don't even work as insults directed in its direction!
Lets do it again
That is kinda true, even though with the Disney acquisition, KOTOR is non-canon, another Heir to the Empire-style example of "non-canon" EU that is far better than anything of the prequels or the modern trilogy. The Bioware mini-movies from the Old Republic MMO feel more Star Wars to me than anything of the modern trilogy.
I’ve said it before, but this to me is one of the failures of the Prequel Trilogy; they left Anakin turning to the dark side too late, resulting in the stupid, stupid, Order 66 montage.
If they’d had him turn earlier (IMHO, at the end of the second film), you could have shown him “help hunt down and destroy the Jedi” (just like Obi-Wan described in the OT) in the third film. This would have left room for a whole wealth of stories between the films of Jedi on the run, trying to rescue and preserve key Jedi artifacts, more of the invasion and insurgency on Jedha shown in Rogue One, etc, etc.
Jadenim wrote: I’ve said it before, but this to me is one of the failures of the Prequel Trilogy; they left Anakin turning to the dark side too late, resulting in the stupid, stupid, Order 66 montage.
If they’d had him turn earlier (IMHO, at the end of the second film), you could have shown him “help hunt down and destroy the Jedi” (just like Obi-Wan described in the OT) in the third film. This would have left room for a whole wealth of stories between the films of Jedi on the run, trying to rescue and preserve key Jedi artifacts, more of the invasion and insurgency on Jedha shown in Rogue One, etc, etc.
Personally, the prequels were good as they were, and was hoping they would cover the jedi-hunt and Vader's inner conflict in another movie inbetween ROTS and ANH. Rebels did at least explore that with Asoka and Vader at the end of season 2, which is probably one of the more memorable moments in SW, to be fair.
OMG, Rogue One. Love that movie! They missed a big opportunity for Vader to hunt down the last remaining Jedi who could have easily have been Donnie Yen! The plans have been stolen, the rebels have won their first major victory and the last of the jedi knights has been exterminated! It would have given a point to Vader being in the movie besides his "Don't stop me now" moment and unleashing the big daddy of all dad jokes.
Jadenim wrote: I’ve said it before, but this to me is one of the failures of the Prequel Trilogy; they left Anakin turning to the dark side too late, resulting in the stupid, stupid, Order 66 montage.
If they’d had him turn earlier (IMHO, at the end of the second film), you could have shown him “help hunt down and destroy the Jedi” (just like Obi-Wan described in the OT) in the third film. This would have left room for a whole wealth of stories between the films of Jedi on the run, trying to rescue and preserve key Jedi artifacts, more of the invasion and insurgency on Jedha shown in Rogue One, etc, etc.
Personally, the prequels were good as they were, and was hoping they would cover the jedi-hunt and Vader's inner conflict in another movie inbetween ROTS and ANH. Rebels did at least explore that with Asoka and Vader at the end of season 2, which is probably one of the more memorable moments in SW, to be fair.
OMG, Rogue One. Love that movie! They missed a big opportunity for Vader to hunt down the last remaining Jedi who could have easily have been Donnie Yen! The plans have been stolen, the rebels have won their first major victory and the last of the jedi knights has been exterminated! It would have given a point to Vader being in the movie besides his "Don't stop me now" moment and unleashing the big daddy of all dad jokes.
Meh, the Phantom Menace was a huge waste of a film. It had like ten minutes of stuff that was actually important to the franchise. They could have covered everything that happens in the first two movies in the first movie if they cut all the dumb spectacle stuff. Have it end with the start of the clone wars, have the second movie be the clone wars and show the idealistic republic dragged down into grinding war that threatened the very soul of the republic (also, have the clones be the enemy and have one of the main characters be a regular joe who joined the Army of the Republic all full of ideals only to be disillusioned by inept generals (Jedi maybe) throwing lives away ) and then the third movie could have been Anakin's fall and the hunting down of the Jedi - and he could casually murder the regular joe guy halfway through for not following orders to show how far the republic and he had fallen.
As far as going forward, I want to see the schism that led to the Jedi casting out the darksiders and the fallout from that - how they over embraced the light side and started themselves on the path of eventual ruin by trying to cut all emotion and bonds of friendship and family from a group that is supposed to safeguard the galaxy for those same values. I want to see the Great Hyperspace War, when the darksiders came back with the original Sith and fought the republic. I want them to use Sith Alchemy and the Jedi to fight back with Protosabers, and how the war created the Jedi and Republic as we know them, 5000 years in the past.
Hmm. Well, it is according to Rian anyway. I'll believe Iger is letting Lucasfilm be that dumb when we see a quote from them on the matter that's a bit fresher than Kennedy's words from the original announcement two years ago.
In other, potentially indicative news - Resistance is a goner. People seem to be leading with the "it's just a natural place to end it, there's nowhere else to go" line, but scrolling down a wee bit you note what is more likely to be the reason it was "naturally" allowed to die off - it did terribly with adult(18-49) fans, its ratings were consistently down 30-50% on Rebels, and it evidently failed to produce the bump in Sequel-era toy sales Disney were hoping for as a result. I mean, for real, does anyone believe that if the show was blowing the ratings and toy sales out of the water, they wouldn't have found some plot thread to spin off from after RoS?
Meh, the Phantom Menace was a huge waste of a film. It had like ten minutes of stuff that was actually important to the franchise. They could have covered everything that happens in the first two movies in the first movie if they cut all the dumb spectacle stuff. Have it end with the start of the clone wars, have the second movie be the clone wars and show the idealistic republic dragged down into grinding war that threatened the very soul of the republic (also, have the clones be the enemy and have one of the main characters be a regular joe who joined the Army of the Republic all full of ideals only to be disillusioned by inept generals (Jedi maybe) throwing lives away ) and then the third movie could have been Anakin's fall and the hunting down of the Jedi - and he could casually murder the regular joe guy halfway through for not following orders to show how far the republic and he had fallen.
As far as going forward, I want to see the schism that led to the Jedi casting out the darksiders and the fallout from that - how they over embraced the light side and started themselves on the path of eventual ruin by trying to cut all emotion and bonds of friendship and family from a group that is supposed to safeguard the galaxy for those same values. I want to see the Great Hyperspace War, when the darksiders came back with the original Sith and fought the republic. I want them to use Sith Alchemy and the Jedi to fight back with Protosabers, and how the war created the Jedi and Republic as we know them, 5000 years in the past.
Phantom Menace - in a nutshell - actually has a good story to it with many layers, but the way its told is soooo damn awkward that it fails to convey it to the audience in a credible way. For example, you have two worlds - Naboo and Tatooine. Padme and Anakin. One takes pride in itself and its people and the other is cruel and neglects its people. Freedom and slavery. Neither has the respect of the larger republic, but Naboo is able to stand up for itself, while Tatooine is doomed to oppression under criminal activity.
Naboo's ability to earn its freedom relies on its two main species working together. And that is where George loses us. Character wise the two races are portrayed as Padme and Binks - but where TPM should have shown the respect and friendship between these two characters - Binks is spent trying to provide slapstick comedy, while Padme has almost no interaction with Binks to suggest such a friendship and clearly has no interest in Binks apart from his people are warriors and he knows where they live.
Speaking of which, Binks is inbetween Padme and Anakin where freedom is concerned(life debt and exiled), and had the potential to be a bridge of understanding between Padme and Anakin - them being from completely different cultures. In some parts the actors come across as if Binks isn't even in the room and the audience is left scratching its head as to why George even had the character in the film.
Attack of the Clones...the fall of Anakin is mirrored by the fall of the republic. Both are vulnerable to suggestion and retreating into a secret, double life of darkness. Sadly, neither is delivered in a convincing manner. The story of the skywalkers - when its done properly - is really the story of the entire galaxy, much like Scarlet's story in Gone with the Wind is really the story of the American South. Empire is the best so far, because when Luke duels Vader in the cloud city, it represents the greater battle happening in the galaxy - Vader is the overwhelming empire, Luke is the struggling resistence. No grand space battle this time, but the way the duel is portrayed we actually feel like its the battle for the soul of the galaxy itself. The first two prequels fail to deliver that.
I think I’m in a minority in that I actually quite like TPM, it’s the most complete standalone film of the prequels, but I see what Bromsy is getting at, in that an awful lot that happens is irrelevant to the overall plot arc. Now it could be argued that having that slow burn, where Darth Sidious is this unexplained malevolence, floating in the background, is a good thing, but by forcing the films into another trilogy, it makes the other two feel very rushed, as they have to cover a lot of ground.
Of course there are a few things I think are errors / missed opportunities in TPM; Jar Jar is overplayed into a complete goofball, putting the droids in just doesn’t make sense (and directly contradicts ANH) and I think it was a missed opportunity not to have Naboo be Alderaan, as that could have enhanced the OT by giving you a connection to this peaceful planet that the Empire obliterate at a whim, but the biggest mistake is Anakin is way too young. It makes everything about his journey feel forced from the get go.
Well, the choice to make Anakin young and Jar Jar portrayed as a Roger Rabbit-like toon was an obvious marketing decision, it was to get a new generation of kids into Star Wars merchandise. It wasn't for the story.
AegisGrimm wrote: Well, the choice to make Anakin young and Jar Jar portrayed as a Roger Rabbit-like toon was an obvious marketing decision, it was to get a new generation of kids into Star Wars merchandise. It wasn't for the story.
That doesn't mean the product didn't suffer for it as a result.
I love some of these "How I'd fix it." posts. There are so many works of fiction that fall just short because of 1 or 2 mistakes made during the writing or production. Seeing how people would rectify those mistakes in different ways is always fascinating.
Something that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread a lot is Revenge of the Sith. What are peoples thoughts on it? It was always my favorite once I stopped being blinded by my childhood love for the battle of Geonosis in clone wars. Where do you guys feel that one went wrong?
Something that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread a lot is Revenge of the Sith. What are peoples thoughts on it? It was always my favorite once I stopped being blinded by my childhood love for the battle of Geonosis in clone wars. Where do you guys feel that one went wrong?
I actually watched RotS the other day for the first time since I binged all 6 before TFA released. I ended up coining a new word to describe it, because man, my feelings towards that film are complicated...
It's... Terri-brilliant. It's not 'so bad it's good', because so much of it is genuinely amazing without that qualifier. It's not the good and bad cancelling out to just make it 'meh' (to pick a recent example, that's how I feel about Crimes of Grindlewald). It's not amazing film, and it's not a dreadful film, but it's somehow both.
In some ways, it's the most Star Wars Star Wars has ever been. The writing reaches almost pseudo-Shakespearean at times and reaches levels of melodrama that totally befit the story's status as essentially a mythology for the modern age. Some of the cinematography is genuinely breathtaking, like the opening space battle, the Order 66 scene, the wide-angle shots in the Mustafar scenes. The score is maybe the best Williams has ever composed.
Everything that's great about it is kind of summed up in this shot:
Two wizards fighting with laser swords in an erupting volcanic flow while they shout their feelings at each other over one of the most rousing pieces of music in the franchise... Doesn't get much more bombastic, melodramatic, over-the-top and ludicrous than that, nor more stirring, because that's what Star Wars is at its best: unfettered imagination let loose, not really paying heed to any semblance of reality or reason because, as I mentioned before, it's a myth, and those don't need to be constrained by such petty things.
If Athena can be born by splitting Zeus's skull from the inside, or Thor can cross into the world on a rainbow bridge, or Ra can chase the sun across the sky with a dung beetle, two good-as-brothers Jedi can cross lightsabers in a volcano as one becomes utter and irredeemable evil and the other pure selfless good. They can yell their emotions in nonsensical sentences in the middle of this fight and just tell the audience what they feel about the nature of good or evil or power or love because this isn't a really screenplay, it's a legend.
Sure, that's not to everyone's taste, and I'm grateful that the new and original films have given us movies that genuinely function as screenplays and more nuanced narratives, but it's when they hit this almost Biblical level of bombast that the prequels are at their best, and RotS does this far better than the other two.
On the flip side, though, you have the attempts to make this all seem real and natural, and those are the bum notes to the rousing chorus that is the film at its best. The attempt to inject political manoeuvring or pseudo-international relations or espionage or even military strategy into this just clangs so harshly against the parts where the film isn't pretending to make any sort of sense. Things like Obi-wan's mission to kill Grievous because that'll end the war so Palpatine can get emergency powers so he can turn the Republic into an Empire then send Anakin to kill the people he was playing the whole time are the antithesis of the basis of Star Wars as a grand drama of good versus evil.
All that shuffling of politics and strategy and power dynamics and an attempt to be 'realistic' is so jarring in a story that is essentially 'Good Knights are fooled by the Evil Wizard and cannot stop him from taking over the Kingdom'. It's not even that it doesn't work conceptually, there's plenty of room for a political drama in this narrative, but I wish it had been more Macbeth and less House of Cards. Much like the central conflict of good and evil, this secondary battle doesn't need to bow to realism, and in its attempt to do so it just makes itself needlessly convoluted and actually leads to it making less sense. Accept that it's all made-up nonsense politics and people will just go with it like they did with the Empire, but try and pretend that it actually functions as a society with power structures and extensive laws and checks and balances and all that and it all becomes totally unconvincing.
Where this all intersects, and for me the most disappointing part of the film, is Anakin's turn. The film takes its time to establish a really simple, clear, motive for Anakin to turn to the Dark Side: The woman he loves will die, and through the Dark Side Palapatine offers him a chance to stop this. Show us that Anakin's love for Padme is even more powerful than his love for the Republic and its ideals, and you have the perfect fall for this type of film. Simple, believable, and running on emotional drama rather than any semblance of realism...
But then you have Palpatine mutter to Anakin that the Jedi are attempting a coup, and Windu essentially proving this by refusing to let him stand trial, and suddenly there's a whole other, dissonant motive that makes far less sense. Anakin literally just told Windu that Palpatine was the Sith Lord, he knows this isn't a takeover attempt, Hell, he wants to be on that mission. He steps over the body of 3 dead Jedi to get there, and watches Palpatine annihilate Windu with evil magic... At that point, the film wants us to believe that he's turning not just for selfish ends but because of some greater loyalty to the Republic and thus objection to the Jedi's role in trying to remove the chancellor, except that's just not believable.
"Man does evil thing for selfish and overwhelming love" is far more plausible and dramatic a narrative than "Man does evil thing for selfish and overwhelming love but also because of a mission to assassinate the ruler that he literally just set in motion by providing them the necessary information about that ruler being objectively evil and a sudden petty hatred of an organisation who slightly annoyed him"... It's unnecessary, and just makes Anakin come across as a whiny child who's pretending to care about the ideals of the Republic but actually just wants to save his wife (hammered brutally home by the lines "He must stand trial" and "I NEED HIM" following one another directly...
Again, that story could work. If you wanted to tell the fall of the Jedi as a tale of one of their own realising their hypocrisy and becoming disillusioned over the course of a long and pointless war and ultimately committing himself to a greater ideal, which then leads to his own manipulation and fall, you absolutely could. But what you can't do is tell that story in the same film that has the aforementioned wizard/volcano/feeling-shouting/sword fight or a principal character dying of a broken heart...
The necessary corollary to this line of thought is a brief mention of Clone Wars, because while that is far more brilliant and far less terrible, it is ultimately very complicit in the terribrilliance of RotS. On one hand, it makes the best notes even better. Anakin and Obi-wan's relationship being more fleshed out and believable lends their battle a greater context and emotional weight that feeds nicely into the bombastic melodrama (and it's a pity CW never really managed the same for Anakin and Padme). On the other, it also leans into the story of Anakin, Hero of the Republic, the greatest of his age, the most devoted servant of those ideals. Which would then feed into the second-strand motivation of him favouring the Republic law over the Jedi, except that strand is crap and shouldn't be in the darn film; it makes it more believable, but also highlights how dissonant it is with a more simplistic tale of the good man being driven to evil by his own flaws.
Ultimately, then, and I might be the first person ever to say this, RotS needs to be more ridiculous. The best version of that film is the one that embraces wholeheartedly its place in a mythology rather than a narrative, and gives up any pretence of realism which just weighs it down (trade negotiations, anyone?). Of course, there are also plenty of technical problems with it which are for another time (great first and third acts, plods like a sauropod in the middle, cinematography and performances that are just as often awful as amazing, the complete lack of anything physical for any of the cast to really act around...), but thematically, I think that's probably enough for now. I'm sure a lot of people are going to immediately disagree with all of this, but at the very least it sums up how I feel about Revenge of the Sith, and as the credits roll, I shall always find myself yelling BOOOO while vigorously applauding...
You say they're shouting their feelings at each other as they're fighting.
I may be incorrect but I recall no dialogue during the actual fight. They talk before it with Padme then say nothing until "It's over Anakin, I have the high ground!"
Which is what ruins the fight for me. It ties into the problems of the prequels telling us that Anakin and Obi-Wan had this great friendship but not doing anything to show it on the screen outside of references to events we don't get to see. They barely interact throughout most of Episode 2, are again separated for lots of episode 3 and then when Obi-Wan is having to fight his best friend, he barely speaks to him.
That's fair. I was including those bits as part of the overall confrontation, but you're correct, while the sabers are out there's very little dialogue (apart from the 'From my point of view' exchange just before Obi-wan leaps to the land from those mining droids). I was just highlighting how pretty much every line spoken on Mustafar is so wonderfully over-the-top, and in this film that works as a climax so much better than it would in most (especially with the context of Clone Wars).
Though you do also raise another good point, some of the best moments in the film are those without any dialogue where the cinematography does the talking. Order 66 and the Temple March, the scene preceding that where Anakin and Padme stare across Coruscant in parallel to a great piece of music, some of the fight choreography doing a lot more storytelling that people give it credit for ect. (though the Obi-wan/Grievous duel is a travesty of composition and choreography.)
I think that almost goes for the prequels as a whole... The shooting of the Anakin/Padme scenes on Naboo in AtoC make their relationship far more convincing than anything that either of them actually say, for instance...
Thanks, I've had those ideas going round my head for about a week now and just needed to write them down somewhere! I do kind of want to test it with the other prequels at some point, see if I can find the same notes of brilliance in those (though I think they're probably fewer and further between).
If I had to guess, having not seen them in nearly 5 years now, TPM probably suffers the worst because it's so heavily tied up in those attempted realistic aspects for most of its run time. I still think the pod racing is great, and at the time was a probably pretty landmark moment in terms of extensive CGI spectacle sequences. The final duel is obviously brilliant and needs no excusing at all.
AotC is more of a mixed bag, and probably closer to just being a bit mediocre. I do like all the stuff with Obi-wan a great deal, his scene with Dooku in the prison is 5 minutes of some of the best acting in all of Star Wars and the fight on Kamino with Jango is great. On the other hand, the Anakin/Padme stuff is mostly just so stilted and bizarrely put together. The droid factory scene is kind of fun, and the Sand People massacre is again one of those moments where the cinematography and score come together perfectly. The last 20 minutes or so is all great, the arena battle might look a bit dated but is still good fun and the following saber duels are neat (though Yoda and Dooku's force battle is the real highlight). On the whole, it likely fairs better than TPM just because it's actually starting to be about something, and some of that subtext at least is rather fascinating.
AegisGrimm wrote: Well, the choice to make Anakin young and Jar Jar portrayed as a Roger Rabbit-like toon was an obvious marketing decision, it was to get a new generation of kids into Star Wars merchandise. It wasn't for the story.
That doesn't mean the product didn't suffer for it as a result.
I love some of these "How I'd fix it." posts. There are so many works of fiction that fall just short because of 1 or 2 mistakes made during the writing or production. Seeing how people would rectify those mistakes in different ways is always fascinating.
Something that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread a lot is Revenge of the Sith. What are peoples thoughts on it? It was always my favorite once I stopped being blinded by my childhood love for the battle of Geonosis in clone wars. Where do you guys feel that one went wrong?
Buzz droids. I remember seeing them about five minutes into the movie and just sinking into my seat muttering "oh no". After that, I couldn't take the film seriously at all, and literally every other scene in the movie from that point on--even your favorite scene, whichever that is--became hilariously awful after the buzz droids set the tone. There were no right decisions made in the filming of that movie.
That aside, I subscribe to the "TPM doesn't need to exist" school of thought.
Given the existence of the OT, there is literally no new and necessary information presented in TPM that couldn't be handled with some simple exposition in another film. Starting the story somewhere around Ep2 and having a whole extra to explore Anakins fall and the whole Clone Wars era would have improved the Prequels immeasurably without any increase in acting, writing or other creative elements, just because I think the story would have been more arresting.
Paradigm wrote: ... the scene preceding [the arrest] where Anakin and Padme stare across Coruscant in parallel to a great piece of music,
This, hands down, is my favourite bit of the prequels, it’s an amazing scene, full of tension and pathos. That’s one of the reasons the prequels feel so disappointing, not so much because they’re bad per se, but because there a hints of how great they could have been. Similarly, the scene after the sand people massacre, back in the Lars garage, where Hayden Christensen sells the hell out of a young man who knows he has something deeply wrong with him but no idea how to fix it.
My only REAL issue with RotS is the “nooooooooo!!!” moment. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be Anakin’s release of his last bits of humanity, the purging of his soul, and after that yell of pain, he snuffs out his humanity. Unfortunately, the sound is utterly ridiculous and did not translate from thought to screen.
I had zero issue with his turn when he helps Palpatine vs Mace. He knew Palpatine was what he was taught to hate. But Palpatine played him, offered help, and Anakin came in to see an old man getting his ass kicked by the best Jedi swordsman. He says he needs to stand by the rules of the Republic (a trial), and Mace tells him off, after insulting him repeatedly and telling him he isn’t good enough. What a shock that Anakin decides the man he has been told is evil all along is seen having evil done to him; regardless of the dead bodies.
timetowaste85 wrote: My only REAL issue with RotS is the “nooooooooo!!!” moment. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be Anakin’s release of his last bits of humanity, the purging of his soul, and after that yell of pain, he snuffs out his humanity. Unfortunately, the sound is utterly ridiculous and did not translate from thought to screen.
I had zero issue with his turn when he helps Palpatine vs Mace. He knew Palpatine was what he was taught to hate. But Palpatine played him, offered help, and Anakin came in to see an old man getting his ass kicked by the best Jedi swordsman. He says he needs to stand by the rules of the Republic (a trial), and Mace tells him off, after insulting him repeatedly and telling him he isn’t good enough. What a shock that Anakin decides the man he has been told is evil all along is seen having evil done to him; regardless of the dead bodies.
The "Noooooooooooooooooo!" is so bad its good. Love it! Had more issue when they re-used it in ROTJ - totally ruined the moment. I really wished George had left that movie alone....
timetowaste85 wrote: My only REAL issue with RotS is the “nooooooooo!!!” moment. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be Anakin’s release of his last bits of humanity, the purging of his soul, and after that yell of pain, he snuffs out his humanity. Unfortunately, the sound is utterly ridiculous and did not translate from thought to screen.
No, the last bits of humanity was when he murdered children for no reason. (Again, but apparently sand people don't count).
The 'noooo!' was just reacting to his wife's death. With extremely bad acting.
timetowaste85 wrote: My only REAL issue with RotS is the “nooooooooo!!!” moment. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be Anakin’s release of his last bits of humanity, the purging of his soul, and after that yell of pain, he snuffs out his humanity. Unfortunately, the sound is utterly ridiculous and did not translate from thought to screen.
No, the last bits of humanity was when he murdered children for no reason. (Again, but apparently sand people don't count).
The 'noooo!' was just reacting to his wife's death. With extremely bad acting.
That's not fair, no one can count sand people. They die single file, to hide their numbers.
Paradigm wrote: ... the scene preceding [the arrest] where Anakin and Padme stare across Coruscant in parallel to a great piece of music,
This, hands down, is my favourite bit of the prequels, it’s an amazing scene, full of tension and pathos. That’s one of the reasons the prequels feel so disappointing, not so much because they’re bad per se, but because there a hints of how great they could have been. Similarly, the scene after the sand people massacre, back in the Lars garage, where Hayden Christensen sells the hell out of a young man who knows he has something deeply wrong with him but no idea how to fix it.
I actually got the reverse impression from that scene. That he didn't see anything wrong with it, and Natalie Portman was told by Lucas that this was the crux of their love story- that Amidala would see this as something she could 'fix' with her love, so she'd just blithely ignore the fact that Anakin was a murderous psychopath, a bawling man-child who truly believed that autocratic rule and ultimate power was the fix for everything, despite the fact that such a person would absolutely disgust her character..
Nothing about that scene makes any kind of sense if you had stuck real people in it. It's a moment of sheer crazy by a writer/director with increasingly little idea of how people actually behave.
That's not fair, no one can count sand people. They die single file, to hide their numbers.
Lol, have an exalt for that one, good sir.
Though. . . because of this thread, and it was on my mind, went back and put TLJ on in the background. . . Surprised no one has mentioned the meme-worthy shot that is "wide angle" Ben Solo (ya know. . . . the scene where he's got no shirt on, force talking to Rey, and he just looks, well, wide)
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Surprised no one has mentioned the meme-worthy shot that is "wide angle" Ben Solo (ya know. . . . the scene where he's got no shirt on, force talking to Rey, and he just looks, well, wide)
What so you mean by not 'mentioned?' Ben Swolo is a meme unto himself.
AegisGrimm wrote: Well, the choice to make Anakin young and Jar Jar portrayed as a Roger Rabbit-like toon was an obvious marketing decision, it was to get a new generation of kids into Star Wars merchandise. It wasn't for the story.
That doesn't mean the product didn't suffer for it as a result.
I love some of these "How I'd fix it." posts. There are so many works of fiction that fall just short because of 1 or 2 mistakes made during the writing or production. Seeing how people would rectify those mistakes in different ways is always fascinating.
Something that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread a lot is Revenge of the Sith. What are peoples thoughts on it? It was always my favorite once I stopped being blinded by my childhood love for the battle of Geonosis in clone wars. Where do you guys feel that one went wrong?
I'm generally of the opinion TPM is both the best movie and biggest problem with the trilogy. It's structure is really great, but the details don't set up the characters for the sequels. I think most wishlisting turns into a desire to write out AotC more than anything, and two that end, there's really only 2 major changes I'd like to make:
1. Hayden Christensen is Anakin from the beginning. Introduced as a likeable rogue along the lines of Han. Lets his relationship with Padme start from the beginning and lets their discussion about the Republic's failures to protect people carry some weight. Lots of things can change from there as it also sets up a less fatherly relationship with Obi-wan. Arguably, its more interesting if he's not allowed to be a Jedi but his friendship with Obi-wan leads to the latter mentoring him throughout the remaining adventures.
2. The Clone army is a known thing available to the Republic and the argument on the Senate is whether to deploy troops to break the blockade on Naboo with Palpatine posed as the hero to save his home. Sets up the clones as the heroes who save the planet at the end of the movie. The second movie makes it clear that this also incites the separatist movement when force is used to settle a diplomatic issue.
I think those are the two biggest elements that are missing from the TPM that make it awkward in the trilogy. Move those two bits up and you free up the second movie to be something significantly more interesting and things connect a lot easier from there.
I personally love the meme where the entire prequel trilogy is summed up by Obi Wan saying "Calm down Anakin".
High midichlorians be damned, that happy boy grinning abut his podracer turned into a seriously unhinged young adult, and the relationship with Anakin and Padme on-screen was seriously weird.
Them meeting as adults would have made a better movie, especially as it would have given longer for their relationship to be "normal" before the loss drives him over the edge, rather than just being two or three edges past the initial edge he fell off of. Maybe if they ended up falling in love as they defended a droid-besieged Naboo alongside Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn, rather than kid and handmaid/politician.
Azreal13 wrote: Not the whole picture. She is pictured wielding a double sabre, but the blades are red and she's wearing black robes.
It's a pretty obvious fake out, IMO, as if she were truly going to fall then it'd be dumb to reveal it this soon.
Sure, but having her use a double bladed sabre also makes a lot of sense. So even if the red is a fakeout, it doesn't mean that she isn't going to use one.
but aren't they all for subverting expectations and slinging all the lightside / darkside nonsense cos the Wars is like serious beeswax and not a fairytale in space
Turnip Jedi wrote: but aren't they all for subverting expectations and slinging all the lightside / darkside nonsense cos the Wars is like serious beeswax and not a fairytale in space
Nah, serious Dad Rian lost the custody battle and now we are being sent back to fun dad JJ Abrams.
Hopefully he'll meet us half-way this time, although if Rise underperforms I can see the Mouse scaling way back on the Wars for the safer bet of Capes and telly stuff
At this point I can see it all staying quiet for at least another year, then when asked in some press conference/con panel Kennedy will be all like "what trilogy?"
If Johnsons trilogy ever gets made I hope it's set in such a far time gap away from anything else we've seen that it won't be of consequence. I feel like what he did in TLJ was he wanted to do his own thing, with little regard for it being a middle act and how it altered the groundwork laid out in the first movie in a negative way.
Thargrim wrote: If Johnsons trilogy ever gets made I hope it's set in such a far time gap away from anything else we've seen that it won't be of consequence.
That's pretty much how they described it when it was announced. Not that it won't be 'of consequence' obviously, but that it will not be connected to the original films, and will explore some different facet of the background.
I feel like what he did in TLJ was he wanted to do his own thing, with little regard for it being a middle act and how it altered the groundwork laid out in the first movie in a negative way.
His stated goal was to avoid just retreading over ground that had already been covered in previous films, and to do something new. Which, after Abrahms copped so much flak for TFA 'copying' ANH, seemed like a reasonable goal, really.
I'm still intrigued by Ep 9, in a morbidly curious kinda way, but now I care even more about the TV stuff thanks to the Obi-Wan announcement.
Compel wrote: I hated Rebels, until the kids tv tropey Inept Comedy Relief Bad Guys got a lightsabre through the skull.
Then I was *in* to it.
Same thing happened with me. I gave up, and someone told me that it gets good when Tarkin shows up. So I gave it another go, and watched the Inquisitor decapitate the SW version of Bulk and Skull, and was instantly back into it again.
Again, according to him. We've not heard anything from Lucasfilm on the matter since the announcement in 2017, and since then the slate has had a major shakeup. I have no doubt Kennedy still wants RJ to play a big role in Star Wars I just sincerely hope Disney won't let her give it to him.
Again, according to him. We've not heard anything from Lucasfilm on the matter since the announcement in 2017.
Yeah, it was obviously just so much marketing hype for TLJ - "This new film is so good we're going to give the man who wrote and directed it about $2bn for his own trilogy". I've absolutely no doubt that any such plans, if they were ever serious anyway, have been firmly shelved. Lucasfilm/Disney need to try to get the fractured SW fanbase pulling in the same direction again (episode 9 is likely a lost cause already so consider it a free hit) and letting Rian "I love making movies that 50% of the audience hate" Johnson have any more creative input isn't going to help that.
Edit: I'm excited for the Mandalorian, though I'm waiting to see if I can add it to my pruned canonical view of the Star Wars saga:
The Clone Wars (I get that it's a bit weird having the series without the movies that bookend it but man I never want to watch either again)
Catalyst/Tarkin/A New Dawn/Thrawn series (not sure the exact chronology of these)
Solo
Rebels
Rogue One
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
And that's it. When I was writing that list I honestly forgot Solo was even a thing, but on balance it's not bad exactly, just a bit meh.
Honestly, as much as I disliked TLJ. I would watch a Rian Johnson trilogy. Or at least the first entry in one. I think a lot the problems in TLJ came from it being a baton pass of sorts. I put as much blame on Abrams mystery boxes as I do on Johnsons "subverting expectations". If he is in full control of the story direction from start to finish, there is a chance he could put out something really cool.
Lucasfilm announce RJ is making a trilogy for them.
Iger makes no specific mention of it in post-TLJ interviews/articles.
Kennedy never mentions it again after the initial announcement, even when discussing an upcoming story meeting at which RJ was meant to(and afaik did) attend with her, the Story Group, and Benioff & Weiss.
Licensing revenue continues to nosedive.
Big shakeup of the film slate occurs, only one new trilogy is presently confirmed to be in development.
One source claims that trilogy isn't RJs.
RJ says he's still working on his.
Now as I said, I have no doubt Kennedy and RJ are still lobbying hard for him to be involved in Star Wars, but given everything that's been happening I don't really consider RJ himself making comments during an interview about a different non-Star Wars project he's working on to be a definitive source in the way you appear to. I'll save my disappointment for when we get an actual press release announcing the project is in production, in the meantime I'd rather remain hopeful that the pretentious twonk has been sidelined or shown the door entirely.
Disney has proven more than willing to jettison directors who don't tow the line. If Johnson is going to step out and announce his trilogy is a go then he has to already have some support from the studio - frankly even if it already was on and Disney was just insisting on keeping quiet about it to let Rise step out of TLJ's shadow, they would have stomped down on him, hard, but they didn't even do that.
It all hinges on this presumption that Disney has adopted some kind of siege mentality over it, but they've basically been true to form for the last four releases, answering softball questions with generic 'it's such an honour to be here' responses and teaser trailers.
Calling it now - Rey with double-bladed red lightsaber is one of 2 possibilities:
A) Just a vision. Boring
B) or more interesting, Palpatine "possessing" her.
Because he has no idea if he's doing it (I expect certain people at Disney won't return his calls now), he really wants to do it, and and by talking publicly about it wants to box Lucasfilm into a corner. Unfortunately there are only about 3 people in the world who fit into a venn-diagram crossover of 'SW fan' and 'pro-Rian' so the groundswell of public support he's expecting is clearly not going to materialise.
If Palps was going to make a clone, why would it be female? -
All I am saying is that if the premise for the Reyy clone is A) that the DNA is from Luke's Hand, or really either of the main Skywalkers so far and/or B) the clone is intended to be a new vessel for Palpatine, what is the point (in universe) for said clone(s) to be female? Both powerful Skywalkers and Palpatine are male. It's a logic jump that has to be explained.
But given a small canon reference to "Skywalkers" amoung the Chiss people (Thrawn's race) being mostly female, I could see that route. Maybe that gender has a particular connection to the Force that hasn't fully been explored, as the Force is generated by life, and most dimorphic species propagate life through females
Wow there hitting the nostalgia button hard in that trailer you would almost think trying to pretend the original movies don't exist was a bad idea.
This has the hallmark's for being the biggest train wreck in history. I mean we seem to have flipped from all the original fans are mewling woman hating troglodytes that need to feth off and die far away from our new movies. To please come see our movie it is linked to the originals and has the emparah and double bladed light Sabres and we got rid of Jar Jar finn and the non jedi super warrior with no training might go Sith and just look at all the fan service please come buy a ticket.
Galef wrote: I like that option better than the "vision" option, but less than the "possession" option.
If Palps was going to make a clone, why would it be female?
Questions like that always remind me that M. Bison cultivated an army of fighters to use one as a new permanent body - and they were all 16 year old girls.
As for a real answer, perhaps there really is some Shmi Skywalker connection? IIRC Palpatine's talking about Plaegus using midichlorians to create life was all the EU needed to conclude he was really Anakin's father, but I don't know how much of that has been retained. If that's no longer the case, we're back to wondering about Shmi, a force sensitive so powerful she wished a sentient being into existence.
And man... that's a lot of Star Destroyers. Hooray for B-Wings though.
Did my eyesight fail me, or were those Imperial class Star Destroyers?
Curious...
Yeah, I ran it in slow-mo, I can't tell if the a-wings are the new or old model, and the b-wings I can't really tell, but the y-wings definitely look like greebly OT y-wings and the Star destroyers all have the distinct ISD1 array.
Edit: it's really foggy, but I think some of the background ones have ISD2 towers, and there's one in the back on the middle-left that seems to be a different hull entirely.
So, I have a theory on the "Evil Sith Rey" - I wonder if it's like Luke's vision on the cave on Dagobah, where he faces Vader, and sees his own face behind the helmet?
Some kind of "face yourself/your greatest fear (ie turning to the dark side?)" kind of thing?
Galef wrote: I like that option better than the "vision" option, but less than the "possession" option. If Palps was going to make a clone, why would it be female?
Questions like that always remind me that M. Bison cultivated an army of fighters to use one as a new permanent body - and they were all 16 year old girls.
As for a real answer, perhaps there really is some Shmi Skywalker connection? IIRC Palpatine's talking about Plaegus using midichlorians to create life was all the EU needed to conclude he was really Anakin's father, but I don't know how much of that has been retained. If that's no longer the case, we're back to wondering about Shmi, a force sensitive so powerful she wished a sentient being into existence.
There is a Canon Darth Vader comic that implies (or outright says?) that Palpatine did indeed use the force to put Anakin in Shmi. Essentially making Palpatine Anakin's father.
Dark Apostle 666 wrote: So, I have a theory on the "Evil Sith Rey" - I wonder if it's like Luke's vision on the cave on Dagobah, where he faces Vader, and sees his own face behind the helmet? Some kind of "face yourself/your greatest fear (ie turning to the dark side?)" kind of thing?
Yeah, that's the "vision" option I mentioned above. it could be neat if they do it right, but I really hope this isn't it. They've already done it with Luke and Rey has already had her "cave" experience in TLJ
If they do this in RoS, every single Sequel Trilogy movie will have shown a "vision", so I hope they don't go this route
And besides, that lightsaber is a bit too specific for just a vision. Gotta think of those toy sales
And man... that's a lot of Star Destroyers. Hooray for B-Wings though.
Did my eyesight fail me, or were those Imperial class Star Destroyers?
Curious...
Yeah, I ran it in slow-mo, I can't tell if the a-wings are the new or old model, and the b-wings I can't really tell, but the y-wings definitely look like greebly OT y-wings and the Star destroyers all have the distinct ISD1 array.
Edit: it's really foggy, but I think some of the background ones have ISD2 towers, and there's one in the back on the middle-left that seems to be a different hull entirely.
No interdictors though :(
So, if they are ISD1s and 2s, there are three possibilities that spring to mind:
1) The bad guys are hard up and have to dig them out. They weren't exactly hard up at the end of Episode 8, though.
2) The good guys are in possession of the remains of the Imperial fleet and this is the cavalry here to save the day. Can't imagine that there were too many ISD1s left by the end of the Galactic Civil War.
Chillreaper wrote: 2) The good guys are in possession of the remains of the Imperial fleet and this is the cavalry here to save the day. Can't imagine that there were too many ISD1s left by the end of the Galactic Civil War.
In current canon there is a faction of Imperial Remnant we haven't seen I the movies yet, the faction that formally surrendered and still holds territory in the inner rim - they notably include imperial fleet elements that didn't get the First Order invite and are hiding out somewhere called the Queluhan Nebula.
Not sure what happened to them in the intervening 30 years, but maybe there's a link there?
