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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The opportunity for that has been lost.

It makes me wonder if Phasma shot more scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, perhaps just because the film was already getting too long.

That would explain a lot. Some extended scenes would fix the problems.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The opportunity for that has been lost.

It makes me wonder if Phasma shot more scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, perhaps just because the film was already getting too long.

That would explain a lot. Some extended scenes would fix the problems.

I don't know about that. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if all her other scenes consisted of infomercial style attempts to plunge a toilet or hang a picture. Whoever wrote the script had no respect for her character.

Is it that you guys are Christie fans?

Otherwise, I can't quite process how a minor character in its first appearance can be considered to be given short shrift.

Maybe it really is just a minor character?

Yeah, I think suggesting that the writers had it in for Phasma as a character is over thinking the matter. I agree she was underused, but she wasn't portrayed as incompetent or inept. The one time she does anything other the provide exposition is when she's captured by Han and friends, and that's hardly a situation any stormtrooper, captain/character or not is going to shine in. The rest of the time, she's just there to explain stuff.

 Paradigm wrote:
Yeah, I think suggesting that the writers had it in for Phasma as a character is over thinking the matter. I agree she was underused, but she wasn't portrayed as incompetent or inept. The one time she does anything other the provide exposition is when she's captured by Han and friends, and that's hardly a situation any stormtrooper, captain/character or not is going to shine in. The rest of the time, she's just there to explain stuff.

I didn't say they had it in for the character. I said they didn't respect the character. And they clearly didn't. Also, not sure how you can claim she did nothing incompetent when literally everything she did as a commanding officer reeks of incompetence, from evaluating one of her men clear for fitness of duty who was clearly not fit for duty to betraying the lives of everyone she is responsible for, as well as every ideal she (probably) swore an oath to uphold, for craven self preservation. She didn't even try to pull an alarm to warn her brothers and sisters in arms. She is the "Oh, you mean this gate key" guy in a fancier costume...only he was played for laughs in a comedy movie and she was supposed to be the next Boba Fett.


As a viewer, I felt like Phasma was written with about as much thought as a 12 year old would write for the head Viper in an army of COBRAs.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The opportunity for that has been lost.

It makes me wonder if Phasma shot more scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, perhaps just because the film was already getting too long.

That would explain a lot. Some extended scenes would fix the problems.

Did they have an "extended" release of the two Star Trek films Abrams did? I only ask that because I don't know if Abrams is the type to do "director's" cuts or not.

 Breotan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The opportunity for that has been lost.

It makes me wonder if Phasma shot more scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, perhaps just because the film was already getting too long.

That would explain a lot. Some extended scenes would fix the problems.

Did they have an "extended" release of the two Star Trek films Abrams did? I only ask that because I don't know if Abrams is the type to do "director's" cuts or not.

I have yet to see a major film which didn't have deleted or extended scenes which eventually get put in an extended or collectors edition. Though given the history of star wars such a thing might be a little too close to home given Lucas's abuse of extended/collectors editions.

 Breotan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The opportunity for that has been lost.

It makes me wonder if Phasma shot more scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, perhaps just because the film was already getting too long.

That would explain a lot. Some extended scenes would fix the problems.

Did they have an "extended" release of the two Star Trek films Abrams did? I only ask that because I don't know if Abrams is the type to do "director's" cuts or not.

Npe, Abrahms doesn't like 'Director's Cuts'. Including deleted scenes on the disc is a possibility, but that's about it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:
Is it that you guys are Christie fans?

Otherwise, I can't quite process how a minor character in its first appearance can be considered to be given short shrift.

Maybe it really is just a minor character?

The problem I think is that she was promoted as a fairly big, if not exactly major, character. So people were expecting her to have some significant part in the movie.

Instead, she just wandered around looking shiny, and then got captured and thrown in a trash compactor.


If she was just 'Nameless Stormtrooper Officer #147' that would have been fine.

 insaniak wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Is it that you guys are Christie fans?

Otherwise, I can't quite process how a minor character in its first appearance can be considered to be given short shrift.

Maybe it really is just a minor character?

The problem I think is that she was promoted as a fairly big, if not exactly major, character. So people were expecting her to have some significant part in the movie.

Instead, she just wandered around looking shiny, and then got captured and thrown in a trash compactor.

If she was just 'Nameless Stormtrooper Officer #147' that would have been fine.

Let's be honest about it -- the character was in promotional materials and such because it's a female character in a production that tried very hard to feature its cast diversity. None of that ever meant it was going to be a major character. Captain Panaka from TPM had action figures and everything too, but was a fairly minor character with only a few lines.

If people were coming at this from a perspective of Phasma being a fascinating character that deserved more screen time, fine, that's potentially a legit beef. Same thing if you just like the actress. But personally, all I see with this line of criticism are people bothered by a minor, unimportant character acting like a minor, unimportant character. Others can feel how they feel, but I really don't understand it.

I'd add that no one really knows what's in store for Phasma in future installments, but then I've felt from the beginning that the SW superfans (I'll stop with the uberdork stuff) critical of the film have continually been too quick to label any loose thread, unanswered question, or just unsatisfying point as a "flaw".

 gorgon wrote:

Let's be honest about it -- the character was in promotional materials and such because it's a female character in a production that tried very hard to feature its cast diversity. None of that ever meant it was going to be a major character. Captain Panaka from TPM had action figures and everything too, but was a fairly minor character with only a few lines.

Panaka didn't receive anything like the level of promotion that Phasma did, though.

If people were coming at this from a perspective of Phasma being a fascinating character that deserved more screen time, fine, that's potentially a legit beef. Same thing if you just like the actress. But personally, all I see with this line of criticism are people bothered by a minor, unimportant character acting like a minor, unimportant character. Others can feel how they feel, but I really don't understand it.

It's not surprising that you don't understand it, because that's not what's happening.

People aren't complaining that a minor character acted like a minor character. They're complaining that a potentially interesting character who was heavily promoted in the lead-up to the film turned out to be far less important than all of the promotion led them to believe.


If it turns out that she's going to have a much bigger role in the next film, then that's great... but in that case, they should have just concentrated the promotion for this movie on the characters who actually mattered, and left the build up for Phasma for the next movie.

Hey folks. Not movie related... but star wars related at least.

I'm trying to get back on track with the EU novels. Last I left off was with a Karen Traviss' Republic/Imperial Commando series. I got kind of disheartened when I found out she wasn't doing any more star wars books so I took a break. I'm looking to get back into reading through the books again.

I know they kind of redid the EU/Canon and that the old stuff is now called 'Legends' or something? Anyone know where is a good place to get a break down/ chronology of the 'legends' stuff. In fact you think I could just get one of the books published before the Disney revamp and that should have a chronology for the books right?

So yeah... in summary... need a chronology of pre-Disney EU... thanks

 djphranq wrote:
In fact you think I could just get one of the books published before the Disney revamp and that should have a chronology for the books right?

Yup, most of the relatively recent ones have the timeline in the front that lists all of the books.

It's also here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_Legends_books

 insaniak wrote:

 djphranq wrote:
In fact you think I could just get one of the books published before the Disney revamp and that should have a chronology for the books right?

Yup, most of the relatively recent ones have the timeline in the front that lists all of the books.

It's also here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_Legends_books

Okay cool I wasn't sure if the book list at the front was still a thing they did. Maybe I'll see if Tattered Covers has a copy of something published a bit just before the Disney revamp.

EDIT: haha or how about I just look at the link you provided

EDIT 2: Ack! I think I skipped a couple books between Episode II's novelization and Republic Command: Hard Contact.

I could have sworn Cestus Deception, Jedi Trial, and The Clone Wars were after Hard Contact. oh well... maybe I'll start over again since there have been plenty books added all over the timeline.

Just FYI, the current timeline printed in the books does leave out the 'young reader' stuff (Jedi Apprentice, Young Jedi Knights, Junior Jedi Knights, and the newer Anakin and Boba Fett series') although these are still a part of the continuity, and referenced in other books from time to time.


Older timelines had them in, but I suspect that they dropped them to make more space for newer titles, on the assumption that most adult readers wouldn't care.

 djphranq wrote:
Hey folks. Not movie related... but star wars related at least.

I'm trying to get back on track with the EU novels. Last I left off was with a Karen Traviss' Republic/Imperial Commando series. I got kind of disheartened when I found out she wasn't doing any more star wars books so I took a break.

She stopped because the LSG decided that the mandalorians were going to go towards a more pacifist direction (as a society) for TCW/Rebels and moving forward - "undoing" all of her precious work to flesh them out (not that the soapy she turned mandalorian life into was much of an improvement, tbh).

 chromedog wrote:

 djphranq wrote:
Hey folks. Not movie related... but star wars related at least.

I'm trying to get back on track with the EU novels. Last I left off was with a Karen Traviss' Republic/Imperial Commando series. I got kind of disheartened when I found out she wasn't doing any more star wars books so I took a break.

She stopped because the LSG decided that the mandalorians were going to go towards a more pacifist direction (as a society) for TCW/Rebels and moving forward - "undoing" all of her precious work to flesh them out (not that the soapy she turned mandalorian life into was much of an improvement, tbh).

Yeah I remember. LSG's decision kind of upset me. Personally I liked Traviss' take on the Mandos or at least from what I got from the Republic/Imperial Commando series... but I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

I enjoyed her take on the clones. She tried a little too hard to make Boba Fett into the tragic hero, though.

 insaniak wrote:
I enjoyed her take on the clones. She tried a little too hard to make Boba Fett into the tragic hero, though.

Oh really? This from Legacy or something? right? A little bit after the New Jedi Order stuff? I still have to read through that stuff.

Insaniak, do you mind elaborating on that in a spoiler or something? I'm curious, and while I'm sure not everyone wants to see what you mean (without reading it first hand), but I'm interested in the cliffs notes.

I would say Phasma played a pretty pivotal role in the film. i mean without her, the shields would still be up and nor attack could have even occurred!

Too bad, that pivotal role was executed so poorly at the script level.

 insaniak wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The opportunity for that has been lost.

It makes me wonder if Phasma shot more scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, perhaps just because the film was already getting too long.

That would explain a lot. Some extended scenes would fix the problems.

Did they have an "extended" release of the two Star Trek films Abrams did? I only ask that because I don't know if Abrams is the type to do "director's" cuts or not.

Npe, Abrahms doesn't like 'Director's Cuts'. Including deleted scenes on the disc is a possibility, but that's about it.

There will be no 'Director's Cut' or 'Special Edition' of The Force Awakens. We'll get a bunch of deleted scenes because the first cut of the film was over 30 minutes longer than the theatrical cut and I'm sure someone out there will edit the film to add the missing scenes.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Insaniak, do you mind elaborating on that in a spoiler or something? I'm curious, and while I'm sure not everyone wants to see what you mean (without reading it first hand), but I'm interested in the cliffs notes.

If I recall, Boba Fett, the greatest Jedi Killer there ever was, was exiled from the Mandalorians for killing his superior officer for raping his wife. All this time he's been a sad teddy bear of a perfect family man, living in exile, unable to see his wife and daughter. Out of love. And killing many Jedi.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:
I would say Phasma played a pretty pivotal role in the film. i mean without her, the shields would still be up and nor attack could have even occurred!

Too bad, that pivotal role was executed so poorly at the script level.

Let's be honest here. Nothing in the script happened as an organic outgrowth of characters' intrinsic motivations. Everything happened because it needed to in order to set up the next OT homage scene or punchline. If Phasma hadn't been there, there would have been some other contrivance to let Han drop the shield so the fleet could pull a Deathstar. Calling Phasma pivotal is equivalent to calling Han Solo's convenient appearance at Jakku pivotal or hyperspace's bullcrap physics pivotal or an incomplete map of a completely charted Galaxy pivotal.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

If I recall, Boba Fett, the greatest Jedi Killer there ever was, was exiled from the Mandalorians for killing his superior officer for raping his wife. All this time he's been a sad teddy bear of a perfect family man, living in exile, unable to see his wife and daughter. Out of love. And killing many Jedi.

Then, he becomes the leader of the Mandalorians, but is poisoned with a virus that will activate if he ever sets foot on Mandalore again, dooming him to wander the Galaxy doing Bounty Huntery things (so long as they're Honourable) and never able to go home...

 insaniak wrote:
It's not surprising that you don't understand it, because that's not what's happening.

People aren't complaining that a minor character acted like a minor character. They're complaining that a potentially interesting character who was heavily promoted in the lead-up to the film turned out to be far less important than all of the promotion led them to believe.

It's exactly what's happening, and Panaka is a similar case whether you want to acknowledge it or not. "Potentially interesting" are the key words, and I don't recall any moment at which Abrams and company promised that Phasma was important. I know -- "she's on the poster!" But guess what isn't? Christie's name! Which speaks volumes.

And it's shocking I know, but sometimes the promotion of a movie doesn't really match up with what's on film.

Note that most paying customers haven't seemed to give two gaks about Phasma's screen time or how the character was used. This just circles right back to this being a problem with SW superfans getting unnaturally fixated -- or perhaps it's better to say fixated, yet not fixated to the degree that they *wanted* to be fixated -- on a minor character in a film.

No offense, but I'm going to assume that I have better insight into my feelings towards Star Wars characters than you do.


Frankly, I don't give two gaks about Phasma's screen time either, because we weren't given any reason in the movie to identify with or like the character unless we are really into chrome.

But that's the entire point - she was heavily promoted, and turned out to be more or less a non-entity. It would be akin to them having run individual posters and magazine articles back in 1973 about the bartender from Episode 4 prior to the movie's release... People would have assumed from that promotion that he was some sort of important part of the movie, and if they were interested by what had been shown so far would have been somewhat disappointed when it turned out that he didn't actually do anything significant.

This isn't a superfan issue. It's an issue of some slightly wonky promotion, where a character was made out to be more important than she actually was, presumably just because she was a 'she'.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/oh-so-thats-why-leia-doesnt-trust-the-new-republic-in-1757108196?rev=1454609172965&utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

 reds8n wrote:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/oh-so-thats-why-leia-doesnt-trust-the-new-republic-in-1757108196?rev=1454609172965&utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Interesting. That's about the same time frame that Kylo turned, right?

Old Man Rant begins....NOW:
It is starting to seem like this whole thing is designed around needing to buy outside material for it to make much sense. In the original trilogy (thank god they never made any prequels) you could buy other stuff but the films stood on their own. Now it seems like you have to buy other stuff to be able for it to make sense.

Could that be because there's just been so much time between films?

I don't think you HAVE to go out and get stuff to get the big picture. I mean in all seriousness the movie is fun on it's own. Not stellar and definitely made for a trilogy but good. I'll judge it all on the strength of the trilogy, like I did the LotR in which the stories are obviously part of a greater whole and more exposition comes in each film.

But I like that they are going to fill in the missing years with books and an official history. I think that could tell fun stories.