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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On that…I was born in 1980, so my formative years were during the tail end of the Cold War, with it’s arguable height in the Cuban Missile Crisis being a mere 18 years later.

Yet….to me at least, The Cold War feels super abstract. I’m aware it was a thing, but it never felt like a thing to me.

So there is some precedent at least for short term memory.

Indeed, it doesn't take long for generations to forget things. However whilst something like the Cold War feels abstract, its still something you accept happened, even if it was mostly elsewhere. Plus you can talk to loads of prime-source people even now who went through more direct experiences of it. There's media out there about them and quite a lot of at least general information and reference.

Meanwhile in Starwars we go from an era where even a basic junkshop owner in the backstreets of the back end of a desert world on the fringe is aware of Jedi and Jedi mind tricks. Jedi were certainly rare, but decently known about. Fastforward and in New Hope Jedi are all but myth. No prime sources or people who met them; no lingering memories or references. Even mature members of the upper Imperial armed forces consider it a dead religion with no threat; and they have Vader mind-choking them.

I do feel like the pacing skipped a whole generation. That films 1-3 should have happened to Anakin's father and that Anakin should have been one of the twins who then grew up in a much more Jedi muted and Imperial controlled world where prime sources would have been lost to old age and where memory and archives were purged by the Empire. Giving enough room them for Obiwan to age up; for memories of the Republic to vanish and for Jedi to be all but legend and myth.



Or be really sneaky and throw Luke and Leia into cryo sleep for a few decades

Hey look who turned against the Empire. What a shock...

 LunarSol wrote:
Vader's backstory after the OT was always kind of a problem if you really sat down and tried to make a timeline out of it. Luke's mother was always a bit of an impossible element to work in. The only way it could really work is if the prequel trilogy was something like:

Episode 1: Adventure where Obi-Wan meets Anakain that ends in the start of the Clone Wars

Episode 2: Basically Revenge of the Sith, ending in Order 66 and Vader going on to hunt the remaining Jedi. End of the Clone Wars, rise of the Empire.

Episode 3: Vader hunts down Obi-Wan decades later on Mustafar and they have their duel. Obi-Wan discovers Anakin's children, etc.

The problem is making Padme a character in such an arc and not just... the mother. It more or less demands her loving Vader and never Anakin for the gap between 2-3 to make any sense at all and that is a really hard character to write.

... not really?
Obi-wan could have easily taken on an adult Anakin as a student during Ep1, whether the start of the Clone Wars was there or not.
However much time passes during the films (and the Clone Wars), Padme and Anakin could have easily met, actually fallen in love, gotten started on kids, and then something happens that sets Anakin down the dark side. Corruption, extreme situation, whatever. There was plenty of room for her to be a character and have a real relationship, (and not just be episode 3's plot device)

Based on what information is in the original films, the timespan of the Clone War_s_, was really undefined with plenty of room for character arcs and backstory.
Lucas simply made a mess by deciding it was short, and that a child and teenager were necessary for the start of...local but galaxy wide economic warfare, and wasted time on an extraneous teacher instigating things and dying in an embarrassing fashion.

There was lots of room for the far more interesting stories that Obi and Anni would start to reference in the prequels but then cut short as they finished green-screen walking to their next scene. Padme could have been a part of those stories rather than a random political figure of no lasting consequence.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Don't forget by the time of movie 4 the Jedi are almost legends (which considering how they were operating in films 1-3 is kind of a shock that so little time has passed; would have been better to have thrown another generation or two of time into things). Basically someone saying they have Jedi powers is like someone walking up to you in the street and saying they have the powers of Merlin.

Yes I remember as a kid watching the first film and thinking the Jedi were from a mythical long past time. Not in fact a couple of decades ago. Hell currently we have more time between the end of the Soviet Empire and today than Star Wars has from the fall of the Republic and the start of Star Wars...

I agree. The time between the fall of the Republic and start of A New Hope really bugged me once I sat down and thought about it.

Even until Palpatine dies, that is NOT a lot of time. But somehow we have hundreds of secret weapon projects, dozens of new trooper types, entire careers in the Imperial military, and all kinds of junk that make it seem like it is an empire that has been established for at least 60+ years to have that much sway and as many outposts and offices that it does across an entire galaxy.

Voss wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Vader's backstory after the OT was always kind of a problem if you really sat down and tried to make a timeline out of it. Luke's mother was always a bit of an impossible element to work in. The only way it could really work is if the prequel trilogy was something like:

Episode 1: Adventure where Obi-Wan meets Anakain that ends in the start of the Clone Wars

Episode 2: Basically Revenge of the Sith, ending in Order 66 and Vader going on to hunt the remaining Jedi. End of the Clone Wars, rise of the Empire.

Episode 3: Vader hunts down Obi-Wan decades later on Mustafar and they have their duel. Obi-Wan discovers Anakin's children, etc.

The problem is making Padme a character in such an arc and not just... the mother. It more or less demands her loving Vader and never Anakin for the gap between 2-3 to make any sense at all and that is a really hard character to write.

... not really?
Obi-wan could have easily taken on an adult Anakin as a student during Ep1, whether the start of the Clone Wars was there or not.
However much time passes during the films (and the Clone Wars), Padme and Anakin could have easily met, actually fallen in love, gotten started on kids, and then something happens that sets Anakin down the dark side. Corruption, extreme situation, whatever. There was plenty of room for her to be a character and have a real relationship, (and not just be episode 3's plot device)

Based on what information is in the original films, the timespan of the Clone War_s_, was really undefined with plenty of room for character arcs and backstory.
Lucas simply made a mess by deciding it was short, and that a child and teenager were necessary for the start of...local but galaxy wide economic warfare, and wasted time on an extraneous teacher instigating things and dying in an embarrassing fashion.

There was lots of room for the far more interesting stories that Obi and Anni would start to reference in the prequels but then cut short as they finished green-screen walking to their next scene. Padme could have been a part of those stories rather than a random political figure of no lasting consequence.

Well, the limiting factor is Luke's age. If you want more time between the founding of the Empire and ANH than you either have to have Luke's mother stick with Anakin after he helps extinguish the Jedi or you have to have Anakin's corruption occur long after the fall of the Republic. The latter is an interesting idea. Have Obi-Wan and Anakin survive Order 66 together in Episode 2 and have Episode 3 take place a decade or so later, with the two of them looking for a way to stop Sidious with Anakin going down increasingly dark paths that ultimately leads to his corruption. Certainly the past way to do it while keeping Padme more or less the same character or even having an opportunity to do more. This does kind of require a competent fall to the Dark Side storyline, which honestly has never really been done.

Ultimately when it comes to "fixing" the prequel trilogy, I think no matter how you slice it the problem comes down to Episode 1/2 covering a lot of the same ground. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Episode 1's premise and plot is a lot stronger and better left intact, but would greatly benefit from the characters and consequences of Episode 2. Like its pretty obvious having Padme, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon encounter Hayden Christensen on Tatooine as this overconfident podracer who doesn't realize he can do it because he's Force sensitive is a way better hook than what we got. By the same token, you make the debate in the senate chamber about whether to send (clone) troops to break the blockade and have Dooku there threatening to leave the Republic if military action was taken or something like that. Episode 1 ends with Palpatine in power and the first battle of the Clone Wars and away will go.

As an aside, one of the things I think Episode 3 does really well is establish that by the end of the Clone Wars, the Republic had already been the Empire for years in all but name. Always kind of appreciated that, though to a degree I think its undermined by the Clone Wars cartoon a bit.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Yes I remember as a kid watching the first film and thinking the Jedi were from a mythical long past time. Not in fact a couple of decades ago. Hell currently we have more time between the end of the Soviet Empire and today than Star Wars has from the fall of the Republic and the start of Star Wars...

Never underestimate the power of propaganda.

Uh...?
Ok, Luke's age isn't a limiting factor at all (not to mention that we weren't talking about time between founding the Empire and ANH, but 'making Padme a character')

But even then, it isn't a problem. As you say at the end:

As an aside, one of the things I think Episode 3 does really well is establish that by the end of the Clone Wars, the Republic had already been the Empire for years in all but name.

The formal declaration of the Empire doesn't actually matter.

----
The other part of it is that, going by what's in the Original Trilogy, the weird reversal where the Jedi were fighting _for_ the burgeoning Empire against the (catspaw) Separatists didn't have to be the narrative. Palpatine could have declared the Empire decades before that and the Jedi could have aided legitimate Separatists against the already established Empire.

That way, Anakin could have come in the last decade of the Clone Wars as a pilot, trained as one of the last few Jedi under Obi-Wan and fallen as basically the last act of the Clone Wars. Manipulated into turning traitor against a promise of safety for his family or almost anything other than self-fulfilling prophecy is self-fulfilling.

Then you have a 50-60 year Empire rather than one that lasted ~20, and a fall of the Republic that was legitimately several generations ago, and Jedi that were slowly killed off over the course of a long war.

Instead Lucas rushed things in his mad fit of cramming as many visuals on screen at once.

Newest episode is as expected when it comes to Reva's betrayal and IMO, the fight between her and Vader wasn't exciting even if Vader manhandled her as he should have. What I don't like is the attempts at constant lightsaber stabby death fakeouts. We've already seen the Grand Inquisitor survive getting stabbed, and they try to do the same thing with Reva and little explanation why Vader didn't just finish the job with her by cutting off her head.

Also, it also kind of starts setting up questions as to how Qui-Gonn didn't survive his stabbing from Darth Maul if all these piddly dark side users who were of lower power than Qui Gonn were able to live after being stabbed.

I thought the way the latest episode intertwined the flashback with "current" action to show how much Obi Wan and Anakin know and learned (and in the latter's case still hadn't) from each other was really well done.

My initial reply was to the concern that it felt like there needed to be more time between the fall of the Republic and ANH. My point was just that this was always a tricky balance that was hard to make sense of even before the prequels existed, back when Padme didn't exist and we just had "Luke and Leia's mother" as a concept. It was always a tough timeline to not have some gap. I think the assumption has always been that she lived out her days hiding from Vader who never knew she was pregnant, but its a pretty convoluted scenario no matter how you slice it.

I don't find the reversal of the Clone Wars weird at all. Back in '99 while there was a lot of disappointment in TPM, my favorite decision was and will always be Palpatine staging a war to seize power. The fall of a republic into fascism makes the world so much more interesting than simple conquest. It's the whole reason I left TPM optimistic, even if the movies wouldn't really make good on the potential that would be left up to the cartoons.

It was always a tough timeline to not have some gap. I think the assumption has always been that she lived out her days hiding from Vader who never knew she was pregnant, but its a pretty convoluted scenario no matter how you slice it.

I guess I'm just confused by that assumption and why its a hard bridge to gap or convoluted. L&L are about 20 in a New Hope and their parents could have been together for years.

I've known people who married had kids and got divorced in less than two years, let alone decades. With a war on, it doesn't even have to be that complicated, especially given that they were clearly orphaned.

The fall of a republic into fascism makes the world so much more interesting than simple conquest

Sure, that can be interesting if done well. But it was a farcical 'Curses, foiled again... just as planned' over and over and over, with a toddler's view of political machinations.


-----
So, Season 1: Episode 5 Part V certainly lives up to the episode title.
Its definitely the fifth part.

Also, the de-aging really didn't work on Hayden.


And every. single. person. was holding an Idiot Ball.
What the hell?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimskul wrote:
Newest episode is as expected when it comes to Reva's betrayal and IMO, the fight between her and Vader wasn't exciting even if Vader manhandled her as he should have. What I don't like is the attempts at constant lightsaber stabby death fakeouts. We've already seen the Grand Inquisitor survive getting stabbed, and they try to do the same thing with Reva and little explanation why Vader didn't just finish the job with her by cutting off her head.

Also, it also kind of starts setting up questions as to how Qui-Gonn didn't survive his stabbing from Darth Maul if all these piddly dark side users who were of lower power than Qui Gonn were able to live after being stabbed.

Or indeed anyone. Hey, stormtroopers, there's a wounded rebel flopping around on the ground and she's still holding a gun. Shoot her again. Hey, she's now holding another thing up. So you can all clearly see it. Oh. Nevermind, then.

Heavy blaster cannon vs door goes on for all the some time as well. Don't try shooting the rocks next to the door or anything or... oh, no wait, she just cut it a bit and its open now. Wow, that tension melted like butter.
Good thing no one fell back. Or boarded the transport ahead of time... but I guess that didn't matter anyway.

Kept a secret for 10 years. Right now is the time to call a friend? Really. Right now? And that was a stupidly specific call to make. Murderous, too, as it managed to one-shot my suspension of disbelief.

And you waited until after he was no longer distracted to sneak attack. That was... no, that was just dumb.
(Why was her lightsaber pinwheel intact at the end after Vader broke it apart?)

And of course you don't do maintenance on your underground railroad escape routes OR escape transports. No.


I'm going to go watch more Disney musicals with teenagers to remind myself that Disney is capable of better shows with more competent characters

 Lance845 wrote:
To those saying Vader had no idea that Kenobi was on Tatooine, Old Ben Kenobi is known on Tatooine, his old home planet where they first met. You don't think the empire put out some kind of APB on the name Kenobi? Especially after the events of this show?

And then...chase about millions of leads?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On that…I was born in 1980, so my formative years were during the tail end of the Cold War, with it’s arguable height in the Cuban Missile Crisis being a mere 18 years later.

Yet….to me at least, The Cold War feels super abstract. I’m aware it was a thing, but it never felt like a thing to me.

So there is some precedent at least for short term memory.

Also jedi were so few many planets would not see one in generation and most humans wouldn't even be near one ever hearing about them just in news.

Seems I was less impressed with this episode than most.

Hayden doesn't exactly look fresh in those flashbacks. I guess they didn't de-age him?

 Grimskul wrote:
Also, it also kind of starts setting up questions as to how Qui-Gonn didn't survive his stabbing from Darth Maul if all these piddly dark side users who were of lower power than Qui Gonn were able to live after being stabbed.

He lost the will to live and the others didn't?

Slipspace wrote:

Spoiler:

The line-up and shoot the door Storm Troopers just looked stupid to me, as did the sudden lightsaber-to-door solution, which was especially annoying because we saw in Episode 1 that it takes lightsabers a long time to cut through a reinforced door. Then we had a repeat of the BoBF finale as people stand in the open and run away without getting shot.

but the actual lightsaber fighting continues to be underwhelming

Well that is a core problem with the tech. They want swingy fights that look dramatic, whilst ignoring if you had a weapon that could pierce anything you would use it like a rapier trying to stab them with the tip... Would keep your guard up better to, to deflect blaster shots.

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
To those saying Vader had no idea that Kenobi was on Tatooine, Old Ben Kenobi is known on Tatooine, his old home planet where they first met. You don't think the empire put out some kind of APB on the name Kenobi? Especially after the events of this show?

And then...chase about millions of leads?

WHAT millions of leads? You think there is a planet of Kenobis out there some place? Obi Wan is the only Kenobi we ever heard of until we found out he had a brother. And yes. Vader would go find his brother and execute him and his entire family in his rage filled fury.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

but the actual lightsaber fighting continues to be underwhelming

Well that is a core problem with the tech. They want swingy fights that look dramatic, whilst ignoring if you had a weapon that could pierce anything you would use it like a rapier trying to stab them with the tip... Would keep your guard up better to, to deflect blaster shots.

I'm more talking about the dynamic choreography (or lack thereof) than any realistic interpretation of lightsaber combat. One of the few redeeming features of Episode 3 for me were the lightsaber fights.

 Lance845 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
To those saying Vader had no idea that Kenobi was on Tatooine, Old Ben Kenobi is known on Tatooine, his old home planet where they first met. You don't think the empire put out some kind of APB on the name Kenobi? Especially after the events of this show?

And then...chase about millions of leads?

WHAT millions of leads? You think there is a planet of Kenobis out there some place? Obi Wan is the only Kenobi we ever heard of until we found out he had a brother. And yes. Vader would go find his brother and execute him and his entire family in his rage filled fury.

Well yeah we only know a stupidly tiny number of characters.

The setting is based over a whole Galaxy. There likely IS a planets worth of Kenobi's out there. Or at least a small moon's worth.

Plus he's not Obi-wan; he's Ben. His name is changed. So long as Kenobi is like Smith in our world that might well be enough to hide him.

This weeks episode felt a bit stretched, like it was a 15 min movie sequence spun into a telly episode length, but hey lightsabers a go go so ill go 6/10

 Lance845 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
To those saying Vader had no idea that Kenobi was on Tatooine, Old Ben Kenobi is known on Tatooine, his old home planet where they first met. You don't think the empire put out some kind of APB on the name Kenobi? Especially after the events of this show?

And then...chase about millions of leads?

WHAT millions of leads? You think there is a planet of Kenobis out there some place? Obi Wan is the only Kenobi we ever heard of until we found out he had a brother. And yes. Vader would go find his brother and execute him and his entire family in his rage filled fury.

Do you have any idea how many people share name with you? Hint: it's lot more than 0. On single planet. In huge galaxy.. You have same trouble as gw in zero idea of scales...


Hint: there's lot more than 100 humans or so like you Seem to think in the galaxy. There's 6 billion here. In small planet of ours. Which is 1. From who knows how many planets out there.

Maybe study some basic math and astronomy?

Lets do it this way. How many people named Kenobi exist on Vader's home planet within non-air travel distance from a Skywalker?

Enjoyed this one. Third finally got to stop feeling like a live action version of Second, good action overall and just a solid story. Certainly the one that felt the most like a movie sequence that got stretched to fit TV, but solid none the less.

Bail's call is a little on the nose and probably the thing that most feels like "added to make season 2 happen". Guy is apparently very bad at a job he's had for a long time. Next one we'll see of him will be... Rebel... Head...arters..... on.... Aldaraan.

What I really got a kick out of

Really hoping we have more flashbacks and less on Reva for the end. Love the lightsaber stuff and you know who. Reva parts were terrible. If they extend this to season 2 I'd want Reva to be finished next episode and not return. She's been lightsabered more than once already and nearly died. Lets 3 for 3 and end her next episode.

Ep5 is the best episode so far - just rewatched it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What I really got a kick out of

Spoiler:

Was Vader really showing off his Force abilities. He’s playing with Third Sister. Driving home just how utterly pointless her attack is.

Physically, his actions are incredibly measured. No desperation, just confidence - arguably a condescending level of confidence. He’s not hurried. At all. The fight is conducted at his pace entirely.

Watch his hand during it. It’s steady as a rock. There’s no real sense of him particularly exerting himself. Combined with the expressionless mask, and it’s positively creepy.

It’s the first time, on-screen, we’ve seen Vader not driven by anger. There’s no conflict within him dealing with her. I suspect others might disagree, but it’s the first fight we’ve seen him in where he’s not that personally invested. Putting her down is business. Rogue One, Kenobi and Luke are personal, or at least urgent for Rogue One.

Oddly, I’m not entirely sure it’s something that can really be repeated. It’s impactful here because it’s so different, without being out of character or jarring. That feels like a one off matter to me. Happy to be proven wrong of course.

It reminds me a bit of when he was pursuing Kanan and Ezra in the first episode of Season 2 of Rebels. There he gets the Terminator treatment, just walking towards them as this inevitable reaper that they can't even really slow down and can only hope to escape from.

I think the Rogue One hallway honestly has a bit of it as well, but definitely not as pronounced as this one.

 Stevefamine wrote:
Really hoping we have more flashbacks and less on Reva for the end. Love the lightsaber stuff and you know who. Reva parts were terrible. If they extend this to season 2 I'd want Reva to be finished next episode and not return. She's been lightsabered more than once already and nearly died. Lets 3 for 3 and end her next episode.

Ep5 is the best episode so far - just rewatched it.

Well….

 Stevefamine wrote:
Really hoping we have more flashbacks and less on Reva for the end. Love the lightsaber stuff and you know who. Reva parts were terrible. If they extend this to season 2 I'd want Reva to be finished next episode and not return. She's been lightsabered more than once already and nearly died. Lets 3 for 3 and end her next episode.

Ep5 is the best episode so far - just rewatched it.

Prediction time! Third Sister survives the season but comes back as a rogue in season 2, still on a quest for revenge but now also gunning for Obi-Wan. By the end of season 2 he manages to cure her of that dark side revenge thing and she ends up heroically sacrificing herself to help Obi Wan escape Vader for good and make A New Hope happen.

 LunarSol wrote:

It reminds me a bit of when he was pursuing Kanan and Ezra in the first episode of Season 2 of Rebels. There he gets the Terminator treatment, just walking towards them as this inevitable reaper that they can't even really slow down and can only hope to escape from.

Or the ''fight'' against Vader at the end of Fallen Order

 Bobthehero wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

It reminds me a bit of when he was pursuing Kanan and Ezra in the first episode of Season 2 of Rebels. There he gets the Terminator treatment, just walking towards them as this inevitable reaper that they can't even really slow down and can only hope to escape from.

Or the ''fight'' against Vader at the end of Fallen Order

That was last episode