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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Let's be honest, the new Star Wars film could be a steaming pile of brown stuff, but millions will still watch it, and the merchandise sales will make Disney very happy, which at the end of the day, is all that matters for them. I hope it's a good film, but I'm getting flashbacks of TPM. I hope I'm proved wrong.

Of course they will.

It's the Michael Bay (in particular, Transformers) effect.

Making a hojillion dollars is the foregone conclusion.

Whether or not it's a steaming pile of crap remains to be seen.

The first trailer was a start, but the more recent one... that was the good stuff.

So for now it's mostly quiet optimism with a hint of "remember how great TPM's trailer was?" 'Cause I remember reading articles about it crushing office email servers and some of the burgeoning internet's weakest points, and watching it a dozen times.

To quote Jurassic Park, "Ooooh, ahhh, that's how it always begins, but later there's running, and screaming."

 Forar wrote:
So for now it's mostly quiet optimism with a hint of "remember how great TPM's trailer was?" 'Cause

I do.

I also remember how much I enjoyed the Phantom Menace at the cinema. It was only afterwards that the 'issues' with it started to crop up, because I generally don't sit in the cinema trying to pick holes in what I'm watching... I'm just along for the ride.

Hell, I still enjoy the prequels, despite all of their faults, because I really don't expect anything from them except a bit of light-hearted fun. So we watch them periodically and glory in the lightsabers and space battles, and poke fun at the dodgier dialogue, and all is well with the world.

 Alpharius wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

I agree that in the hands of a competent director (which Abrams is IMO) the film will do well, but somebody thought Waterworld an Heaven's gate were also good ideas

Meh, I liked Waterworld.

So did I - it just didn't live up to the hype (and budget!) for many.

I don't think that will be the case here though...for most!

Au Contraire mon Alpharius! I also liked Waterworld....

 insaniak wrote:

I also remember how much I enjoyed the Phantom Menace at the cinema. It was only afterwards that the 'issues' with it started to crop up, because I generally don't sit in the cinema trying to pick holes in what I'm watching... I'm just along for the ride.

The Phantom Menace certainly wasn't a complete wash. Ray Park was in it, and any time Ray Park touches an armed martial arts role he crushes it...if he doesn't have to act. And the Droidekas make sense in a universe where projectiles delivered by relatively small arms cannot seemingly travel faster than sound, or explode.

 insaniak wrote:

 Forar wrote:
So for now it's mostly quiet optimism with a hint of "remember how great TPM's trailer was?" 'Cause

I do.

I also remember how much I enjoyed the Phantom Menace at the cinema. It was only afterwards that the 'issues' with it started to crop up, because I generally don't sit in the cinema trying to pick holes in what I'm watching... I'm just along for the ride.

Hell, I still enjoy the prequels, despite all of their faults, because I really don't expect anything from them except a bit of light-hearted fun. So we watch them periodically and glory in the lightsabers and space battles, and poke fun at the dodgier dialogue, and all is well with the world.

I saw all 3 in theatres, TPM on opening night with my mom at an actual literal midnight showing.

There were some fun moments. Ray Park is indeed great. "Does not compute, does not compute" got a laugh.

But even as a mid-tier fan, they got to 'Midichlorians' and I said "waitwhat?" The pod race wasn't remotely as awesome as they seemed to think it was. "The little kid bumbles his way into managing to destroy a small space station" was obnoxious.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue your point; if you enjoyed them (and still do), please continue to do so. Just sharing my experience/perspective. Hell, I wish I could look back on them fondly. I don't think I've seen 2 or 3 more than that first theatre viewing.

Watching The Phantom Menace in the theater was when my childhood died. I was 15, and I realized how cold and cruel the world was.

 Forar wrote:
The pod race wasn't remotely as awesome as they seemed to think it was.

I can forgive the emphasis on the pod race sequence because it led to the awesome pod race arcade cabinet.

 Bromsy wrote:
Watching The Phantom Menace in the theater was when my childhood died. I was 15, and I realized how cold and cruel the world was.

It had its good points, like the Darth Maul fight and Pod Racing. That was it.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
Watching The Phantom Menace in the theater was when my childhood died. I was 15, and I realized how cold and cruel the world was.

It had its good points, like the Darth Maul fight and Pod Racing. That was it.

No no the good points were 1. the robot army landing; 2. the Darth Maul fight up to the first jedi biting the dust; and 3. all the jar jars getting killed by the robots. I really liked that part.
Everything else was just bad.

Piston Honda wrote:There are a few great SWEU books, but there is a LOT of crap.

Like the Sun crusher and giant space otters as well as centaurs. If there is a reason to scrap the EU it is that, let the little bit of good had to die with the bad.

You will take Han Solo punching a space otter and you will like it!

Piston Honda wrote:
That said, didn't Disney say they were going to release a whole new series of novels to work around the films and be super duper official canon?

I would love to see dinsney make a star wars animation movie with the high quality art and motion of their animated films.... without the dozen or so songs...

They did. The first 4 new EU books are mostly out I think?

dogma wrote:And the Yuuzhan Vong, Hutt Jedi, and all super-weapons ever introduced into the EU.

Yuuzhan Vong were among the worst ideas ever put to paper. Hutt Jedi though, that one I (thankfully) missed.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:I hope Boba Fett is officially out of the Sarlacc pit and at least in Ep. VIII!

Just the worst. The worst.

Haight wrote:Though... Fett would be in his 60's now, maybe even 70's. Fett's age has always been relatively indeterminate... i sort of follow the paths that he's slightly older than Solo myself, but that's opinion.

Is it realistic to think that someone would still be an utter badass into their 60's bounty hunting ? Or maybe the armor (and legend!) has been passed on. Or there's cybernetics like luke's hand / vaders body, etc.... but in any event, agreed. I am really hoping that Fett makes an appearance in the new movies and is finally given some movie screen badass air time.

Because... despite his awesome air of mystery and iconography, in the 6 movies, Fett doesn't inspire much fear at all. And listen i'm a Fett fan, i love him (like most other SW nerds do), but his cult of personality is largely due to the extended universe, and not much to do with the 6 movies. So i really hope they do some justice to the legend. They'd be stupid not to - Fett is a merchandising machine.

Fett was created in 32BBY; we know this thanks to AotC and The Clone Wars. He is about 15ish years older than Luke, so with Luke being fairly old in The Force Awakens, Fett is even older. For me, I hope his stupid overhyped butt stays dead in the Sarlacc.

But he won't, because as you said and as has been the inexplicable case for years now, Boba Fett is a merchandising machine.

whembly wrote:They way I look at it... the Mandalorians seems more like 40k's Deathwatch.

Beyond the name, there is pretty much noting at all similar about the two factions.

The Mandalorians are a warrior culture/cadre built on the remains of a tradition from a now extinct non-human race, supposedly open and accepting of anyone willing to work and fight.

The Deathwatch are a bunch of xenophobic super soldiers, genetically engineered by a god being and tasked with keeping alien influences away from human kind.

 streamdragon wrote:


But he won't, because as you said and as has been the inexplicable case for years now, Boba Fett is a merchandising machine.

I just hope the travesty of the prequels gets reversed in Ep. VII, even if it's in the form of Fett getting some dialogue to the effect of "I found this beat up armor near the carcass of the sarlacc, took it, and with it, the mantle/prestige/ all that goes with being called Boba Fett

Instead of this utter ridiculous "I'm a clone, just like the troopers, but I'm somehow a better clone because, reasons" story they gave him.

 streamdragon wrote:

Yuuzhan Vong were among the worst ideas ever put to paper. Hutt Jedi though, that one I (thankfully) missed.

Leia wins, of course, but it reads exactly as ridiculous as it looks.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
Watching The Phantom Menace in the theater was when my childhood died. I was 15, and I realized how cold and cruel the world was.

It had its good points, like the Darth Maul fight and Pod Racing. That was it.

The Pod Race was bad because it served no purpose except to show off CG and tied up like 15 minutes of the trilogy. Order 66 and the murder of all of the jedi took less screen time. The entire Phantom Menace has like 12 minutes of movie that was actually relevant to the overall story. The Tatooine sub plot was a useless waste of time that did nothing except to show that Qui Gon is an idiot and morally bankrupt - if you are going into a hive of scum and villainy why would you bring the naive girl, a droid and a functionally slowed cartoon rabbit with you? Qui Gon tacitly approves of slavery unless the person is force sensitive, and shows he is willing to mind-feth anyone who gets in his way in complete contrivance to Jedi ethics (such as they are).

But it's really all just arguing about window dressing, when the real issue with the prequels - and the Phantom Menace suffers the worst from it - is that the basic plotting and pacing is absolute garbage. Any serious fan of Star Wars or your average first year film student could have thrown out a basic plot structure in 15 minutes that would have bettered what we got, both for the Phantom Menace and the entire prequel trilogy.

 Bromsy wrote:
The Pod Race was bad because it served no purpose except to show off CG and tied up like 15 minutes of the trilogy. Order 66 and the murder of all of the jedi took less screen time. The entire Phantom Menace has like 12 minutes of movie that was actually relevant to the overall story.

Hiding in the middle of an asteroid that turns out to be a giant space monster had no relevance to anything. Nor did getting stuck in a trash compactor that's got a monster in it.

TPM has a hell of a lot of problems, but little action set pieces that diverge from the main plot is not one of them - Star Wars is pretty much about our heroes stumbling from one dangerous situation to the next.

Really, the structure of the Phantom Menace is probably the strongest of the trilogy films. Make Jar Jar less insipid, add 10 years to Anakin's age and don't make him accidentally win the climactic battle, and clean up the sloppy action scenes that Ray Park didn't direct, and it could actually be a fairly solid movie.

I disagree with the Vong statement. Star Ware EU either recycled fights against a new Empire or tried something new: an enemy that was anathema to the Force. The concept was good. The execution is subject to subjective opinion, but the idea of trying something new instead of rehashing the same old plot line should be applauded, not torn down.

And for what it's worth, I enjoyed the Vong story. gak got real there. Anakin died, Chewie died, Jacen went psycho. Yeah. gak went down. The good guys seriously got their asses kicked, and plot armor didn't save them.

 sebster wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
The Pod Race was bad because it served no purpose except to show off CG and tied up like 15 minutes of the trilogy. Order 66 and the murder of all of the jedi took less screen time. The entire Phantom Menace has like 12 minutes of movie that was actually relevant to the overall story.

Hiding in the middle of an asteroid that turns out to be a giant space monster had no relevance to anything. Nor did getting stuck in a trash compactor that's got a monster in it.

TPM has a hell of a lot of problems, but little action set pieces that diverge from the main plot is not one of them - Star Wars is pretty much about our heroes stumbling from one dangerous situation to the next.

Really, the structure of the Phantom Menace is probably the strongest of the trilogy films. Make Jar Jar less insipid, add 10 years to Anakin's age and don't make him accidentally win the climactic battle, and clean up the sloppy action scenes that Ray Park didn't direct, and it could actually be a fairly solid movie.

Really? So the core plot about a trade federation blockade of a planet to make them sign a treaty to make the invasion of said planet legal except the big bad guy didn't want the treaty signed so that he could get emergency powers except that he did everything in his power to get the treaty signed was a solid overall plot? I have no problem with set pieces to build characters up; but this was all kinds of bad. Every little thing done in this movie was dumb, from the very beginning. Palpatine wanted a vote of no-confidence so he could take over, for which he would require having news of the Trade Federation invasion be brought back to the Senate, so of course he logically blows up the ship of and tries to kill the Jedi ambassadors who would of course be the natural people to return the news; Apparently the trade federation were the only people who had no idea what Jedi are capable of, understandable because they'd only been around for about 30,000 years at that point. So they try to poison the jedi with Very Obvious Gas - which the jedi are able to recognize by sight - instead of say venting the chamber into space or maybe having the droid drop off a dozen thermal detonators. Then they send their least competent soldiers in to check the room three whole minutes after the gas is introduced because apparently their bad ass guys were another minute away and they didn't have the time to waste. Then the jedi decide to split up and stow away on the drop ships that the droid army is going to use to invade the planet in order to "Warn the Naboo." bit late, as you are on the troop transports of the army you are trying to warn them of.

Then we can skip past all the gungan nonsense with the note that this is where Qui Gon starts to really show his colors as a morally bankrupt a-hole. So we skip to the capital city which has fallen, and we are treated to Blandy Blandersdottir, the Queen of Monotone - I mean Naboo - who the Nemodians send off to "camp four" for "processing", despite the fact that they need her to sign their treaty to make their invasion legal. At this point we are told that the Naboo people are suffering (although we are not show this, because George Lucas is a storyteller, not a story shower). So after traveling through the planet core (notice how I'm not crapping all over that even though it's nonsensical, because it was relatively succinct?) Qui Gon and Obi Wan rescue the queen, steal a ship and take off. The ship's shield generator is hit while the shields are still up (which makes them sitting ducks, because apparently a tiny ship with a functional shield generator can easily move through a multiple capital ship blockade) and their hyperdrive is damaged.

They land on Tatooine (which is in the opposite direction of Coruscant from Naboo, but whatever. As you noted the idea of small kid Annakin is stupid and this is where we start to see the transition of the Jedi from an order of holy order of knights into creepy cult; because apparently ten is too old to properly train someone in the Jedi philosophy which is not caring about anything or anyone ever. So dill weed Qui Gon decides to go look for a new hyperdrive in the basically pirate/smuggler town, and leaves the hard bitten security chief and his apprentice to watch the ship that already has a crew and armor and guns and stuff, and brings a bumbling idiot cartoon character and a naive handmaiden with him into said smuggler-pirate town. He proceeds to try and mind-feth everyone in his way to get what he wants, and runs into lil anakin;

Midi-chlorians.

This is also where it is really hammered home that we are not smart enough to recognize that this is a Star Wars movie unless it has R2 and C-3P0, because Anakin decided to build a clumsy, overly fussy mass production protocol droid to help his mom with chores around the house. Also we find out Qui Gon really cares about freeing slaves; so long as they have force potential. He was willing to literally rape someones brain to get a part for his ship, but freeing slaves from bondage is not worth even the most cursory of efforts. Unless they are a potential force prodigy. Even if they are the mother of said potential force prodigy. Then he gets in the most convoluted and nonsensical bet to get both the part that he wants and the kid that he wants to steal to induct into the cult whose rules he cavalierly breaks whenever it suits him.

Then 15 minutes of pod racing.

Then set piece on Coruscant.

Then return to Naboo. More nonsense. Gungans have mobile shield generators that the most advanced armies of the later empire lack. But also use slings. That's more nonsense, but at least it is in keeping with ewok standards of nonsense.

Notice I am not complaining about garbage that actually served to make the story better? Stupid laser doors in the stupid basement of the stupid naboo palace giant energy room (the planet had something like this in their basement but a blockade meant immediate suffering for their people? A whole planet couldn't hang on it's own for two days?) because it made the story better and added dramatic tension without being explicitly dumb.

Seriously, the only parts of the movie that serve the overarching plots are the bits with Palpatine and Obi Wan meeting Anakin. Everything else in this movie is dross, and even some of those two parts could have been done better. Maul was a reasonably decent character for what he was - and I will give TPM this much, it's lightsaber duels are the least ridiculously over the top of the prequels.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I disagree with the Vong statement. Star Ware EU either recycled fights against a new Empire or tried something new: an enemy that was anathema to the Force. The concept was good. The execution is subject to subjective opinion, but the idea of trying something new instead of rehashing the same old plot line should be applauded, not torn down.

And for what it's worth, I enjoyed the Vong story. gak got real there. Anakin died, Chewie died, Jacen went psycho. Yeah. gak went down. The good guys seriously got their asses kicked, and plot armor didn't save them.

my biggest regret was not finishing the series, but time caught up with me and I couldnt.

...and the books have been erased from the multiverse?!?

Damn Disney is scary powerful!

 Alpharius wrote:
...and the books have been erased from the multiverse?!?

Damn Disney is scary powerful!

*checks shelf*

Whew, my Timothy Zahn shrine... err, collection is still in its place!

 Forar wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
...and the books have been erased from the multiverse?!?

Damn Disney is scary powerful!

*checks shelf*

Whew, my Timothy Zahn shrine... err, collection is still in its place!

You should have kept quiet. Now a squad of Mouse troopers are heading to you location to remove the offending material.

 Alpharius wrote:
...and the books have been erased from the multiverse?!?

Damn Disney is scary powerful!

No, I got most of the series. I just dont have time.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I disagree with the Vong statement. Star Ware EU either recycled fights against a new Empire or tried something new: an enemy that was anathema to the Force. The concept was good. The execution is subject to subjective opinion, but the idea of trying something new instead of rehashing the same old plot line should be applauded, not torn down.

And for what it's worth, I enjoyed the Vong story. gak got real there. Anakin died, Chewie died, Jacen went psycho. Yeah. gak went down. The good guys seriously got their asses kicked, and plot armor didn't save them.

Are the Vong the race of people who ply the spaceways in "Biotechnological" "ships", grafting all of their tech to living beings and whatnot?


If so, I always thought the idea behind that race to be pretty cool, because it seems so utterly alien to what we know in the SW universe.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
...and the books have been erased from the multiverse?!?

Damn Disney is scary powerful!

No, I got most of the series. I just dont have time.

A little less time staring at your phone, posting in the OT Forum on Dakka = 'problem' solved!

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
If so, I always thought the idea behind that race to be pretty cool, because it seems so utterly alien to what we know in the SW universe.

Funnily enough, that was exactly the problem that a lot of people had with them... They didn't 'feel' right in the setting.

For myself, it was really nice to see an enemy that wasn't just another iteration of 'someone with an unstoppable superweapon' or 'jedi goes bad'


The YV series certainly had its issues, but overall I really liked the impact that it had on the setting.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I disagree with the Vong statement. Star Ware EU either recycled fights against a new Empire or tried something new: an enemy that was anathema to the Force. The concept was good. The execution is subject to subjective opinion, but the idea of trying something new instead of rehashing the same old plot line should be applauded, not torn down.

And for what it's worth, I enjoyed the Vong story. gak got real there. Anakin died, Chewie died, Jacen went psycho. Yeah. gak went down. The good guys seriously got their asses kicked, and plot armor didn't save them.

Are the Vong the race of people who ply the spaceways in "Biotechnological" "ships", grafting all of their tech to living beings and whatnot?


If so, I always thought the idea behind that race to be pretty cool, because it seems so utterly alien to what we know in the SW universe.

Pretty much... they were literally from a different galaxy.

I had no issues with the Vongs and their technologies... mostly. The only WTF thing for me were their use of "Black Hole" techs... that part was dumb.

But, as someone posted earlier, the Vong series was nice in that, gak got real yo.

 Alpharius wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
...and the books have been erased from the multiverse?!?

Damn Disney is scary powerful!

No, I got most of the series. I just dont have time.

A little less time staring at your phone, posting in the OT Forum on Dakka = 'problem' solved!

I have to finish Gone With The Wind, Jurassic Park.

 insaniak wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
If so, I always thought the idea behind that race to be pretty cool, because it seems so utterly alien to what we know in the SW universe.

Funnily enough, that was exactly the problem that a lot of people had with them... They didn't 'feel' right in the setting.

For myself, it was really nice to see an enemy that wasn't just another iteration of 'someone with an unstoppable superweapon' or 'jedi goes bad'


The YV series certainly had its issues, but overall I really liked the impact that it had on the setting.

Sure, what they were trying to do with the Vong was nice, but the execution was terrible.

Star Wars had basically just become super OP, so you just had to keep having mega OP bad guys/super weapons show up to actually provide a challenge. To the point where it became rather ridiculous.

Well then.....It feels like a thousand voices cried out in agony, then where silenced
http://io9.com/the-new-in-canon-star-wars-comic-just-did-something-co-1708709628

I'm not entirely surprised.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Star Wars had basically just become super OP, so you just had to keep having mega OP bad guys/super weapons show up to actually provide a challenge. To the point where it became rather ridiculous.

That actually sounds very familiar.... like, maybe a game that remains quite popular with fan run message boards and whatnot...