Humby

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

DominicCobb said:

The Starkiller plan scene is easily the worst in the film, but even then it’s still fun in a “don’t take this too seriously” kind of way.

What do you mean?

Random Dude: A weapon of this size must have some kind of thermal oscillator

Janitor: It does. (instantly points to a specific place in a complex holographic model) right here!

Oh, right.

Am I the only one who assumed that Finn working sanitation meant that he was stationed in the “sanitation unit” as patrol/guard, not an actual janitor? And considering these guys are raised from birth, they are probably educated to some degree in engineering.

Luke having a secret long lost sister was an idea that had been around since one of the pre-ANH drafts. I remember reading somewhere that Lucas had always intended to work that into one of his future movies, but by the time ROTJ came around and he had grown tired of the franchise, he chose to wrap everything up by making Leia the long lost sister, rather than introducing a new character.

rodneyfaile said:

Sometimes that PORG, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y’know the thing about a PORG, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then… oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin’, the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they… rip you to pieces.

https://youtu.be/hLG4hXxR_UQ

adywan said:

I’m glad to see you’ve replaced the opening crawl with a “Rogue One” style title reveal. And good choice using the same outlined font! I just watched the Wampa scene and you made the right choice going with a CGI Wampa instead. I’m impressed as always Adywan. Can’t wait get another hour into this edit and see if I can spot the Gungans you added to Cloud City!

NeverarGreat said:

http://www.slashfilm.com/carrie-fisher-in-the-last-jedi-send-off/

I think he just means that her presence is really at the heart of the film, and that this movie sends her, as an actress, out on a heartfelt high note.

I don’t think any of his statements are meant to be indicative of whether or not the character makes it out of this movie alive and/or appears in episode 9.

Just my 2 cents though

TV’s Frink said:

ScruffyNerfHerder said:

First, I simply don’t see what the movie adds to the mythos. We already knew that the Death Star has a weakness, and that someone stole the plans and delivered them to Leia. Why does it really matter who made the Death Star or who stole the plans?

The Death Star’s weakness never made sense, and what they came up with to fix that was pretty darn good.

To add to your point, I think a lot of people project their preconceptions of ANH onto RO by assuming that the exhaust port was the built in weakness. But according to Galen, the weakness was actually the chain reaction of a downed reactor.

So in a way, Rogue One actually makes the Death Star’s achilles heal more believable. The Empire may have known they had a relatively unprotected exhaust port that might down a reactor, they just didn’t know that attacking it would lead to the resulting chain reaction.

Anyone else think it’s about time that we replace the pinned “Episode VII spoilers thread” with this one?

DominicCobb said:

Fuck spin-offs, characters should always explain everything at all times, whether the roof’s falling in or not!

Want good writing? Look at the prequels. Extraneous exposition is the name of the game JJ. You’ll never be a George Lucas if you keep some things mysterious and open to interpretation/speculation

But there’s a difference between leaving things open to interpretation and bad writing for the sake of convenience. I’m not saying we need Maz to tell us exactly how the lightsaber made it from Bespin to her basement. But we do need to be told WHY it ended up there. What meaning does it hold for the story and why is it important to this new trilogy, other than nostalgia and unnecessary mystery?

The same thing applies to the other things I mentioned. Rey’s history for example. We don’t need to be told exactly who her parents are and the exact course of events that led to her being left on Jakku. But we do need to know why her past is important to the overarching story. Was she a slave/orphan for sake of creating a parallel, or does her history actually have relevance to the story.

So to be more clear, we don’t need explanations of all of this stuff, we need relevance. The things in the OT that are left open to interpretation still hold meaning and relevance to the story. In TFA, there are many instances where they don’t. And my personal hope is that TLJ is able to give relevance to the convieniences of the TFA.

TV’s Frink said:

There’s no reason that can’t all be resolved in IX.

Certainly valid, and the question of Rey’s past is one mystery that probably won’t be fully realized until IX. But saving all of it for IX might make that film a little too dense considering it also has to wrap up all the events of the trilogy as well. But certain things like the lightsaber and Maz’s involvement feel like they could lose relevance to the overall story if they aren’t addressed soon, which would turn the conveniences of one film into conveniences of the trilogy. Just my opinion though.

NeverarGreat said:

…it’s supposed to be confusing and defy interpretation - not through subtlety or inter-textual clues, but through withholding of essential plot information. And that irritates me.

QFT

Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy TFA, but this is my biggest issue with it (aside from perhaps Death Star 3) but it doesn’t ruin my enjoyment of the film as a part of the larger story. As its own film however, it takes me out of the narrative. But it’s fairly obvious that this movie was never intended to be its own film. It was always intended to be a nostalgia driven segue, so they could buy time to figure out the details and get to the meat of the story later on.

Now the reason I think this is relevant in an Ep.8 thread is because all of this now falls on the shoulders of Rian Johnson. TLJ, in my opinion, really needs to establish a legitimate backdrop for the conveniences of TFA. Luke’s saber, Rey’s history and possible connection to prior events, and Maz’s relevance to all of these events needs to be addressed. And while I don’t think they need to be spelled out for us in detail, they do need to be given thematic and logical relevance.

Now I have complete faith in Rian Johnson to make a great film, and a great Star Wars film at that, but I really hope that he can also make the events of TFA hold more weight after viewing TLJ.

Frank Machin said:

How about just saying that the information was not available?

He basically did. And on top of that he told you when said information WOULD be available. And although there was obviously a bit of sarcasm in his response, it was quite civil.

“Move along, move along…”

Fang Zei said:

Slavicuss said:

It’s been five years and still nothing. They’re too busy catering to the lightsaber-waving crowd by producing mediocre crap.

Oh, there’s no doubt.

If people were to stop buying Star Wars merch tomorrow, Lucasfilm would immediately look for other ways of making money and you-know-what would be right at the top of the list.

Disney doesn’t acquire distribution rights of 1-6 until May of 2020 (and Fox will ALWAYS own 4, unless Disney can strike a deal with them). Even if they were planning on releasing the OOT, they would stay mum until late 2019 at the absolute earliest.

I have a feeling that after Episode 9 comes out, we will start to hear some rumblings, and by 2020 Disney will push marketing for an ultimate box set. If there was ever a time to release the OOT, it would be with a box set, forcing everyone who wants it to dish out $$$ and double down on any of the films they already own.

Frankly, I’m already assuming that they will instead give us yet another updated special edition, but we can pray to Vader that they show some damn respect and include the OOT as a bonus.

I think there are two reasons the designs can come across generic in the prequels.

The first being because there is so much of it thrown around on screen. Each design might look great on paper, but when there is so much happening in each frame it just becomes an orgy of visuals (which are often very similar) competing for your attention.

I think the second reason is the fact that these were the first films that really relied this heavily on CGI, and as great as it was for its time, it has a tendency to come across as very flat- especially in those ground based scenes with CGI backgrounds and landscapes, where things tend to blend together and nothing pops (Coruscant and Geonosis scenes come to mind). The color grading also plays a part in this. Although the space scenes tend to fare a little bit better in regards to this.

That being said, I do think there are at least a handful of designs which could be described as generic at best.

Some examples (in my opinion)…

Generic- Most of the Droid Army
Bad- RotS Jedi Starfighter
Destinctly not Star Warsy- Grevious

I feel like the severe lack of extras is because they will release a “deluxe” version of it probably around November, just before the holiday season kicks off, with more content and an E.VIII preview. It’s all about the long game when it comes to franchises with large fandoms. Please the general audience with a normal release, and then keep the fanboys coming back for more. After all, it is Di$ney we’re talking about here. Personally I’m gonna try and hold off until they announce a juicier release.

imperialscum said:

This does not make any sense. If you abandon the conceptual ideals of the Jedi then you are not Jedi any more.

That’s the point though. Once Luke abandons them, the Jedi no longer exist. He was the Last Jedi.

Edit: After rereading my original post, I think the confusion might be near the end where I said he “truly is the last Jedi”, where perhaps I should’ve said he “was” rather than “is”.

I think ‘The Last Jedi’ refers to Luke abandoning the conceptual ideals of the Jedi, which is what led to their downfall in the first place (and possibly what led to his failure with Ben and the loss of his students).

Luke will be the Last Jedi because he abandons those ideals when he trains Rey. Rey’s training will embrace both the dark and the light, but only in an attempt to do what is right and just. We saw him sort of embrace that in ROTJ, and maybe that scared him, but after losing all of his students and reexamineing the ideals of past Jedi, he realizes that suppressing the dark side isn’t the best way to go. So he teaches Rey to embrace love, and to accept possesion and attachment as a natural part of life and the force.

So he, in the end, truly is the last Jedi. That would be a good way to both acknowledge the prequels, but also distance itself from them.

But I do think he will at least make it to Episode IX

NeverarGreat said:

nightmare scenario: Alden Ehrenreich has the CGI face of young Harrison Ford.

I think it’s safe to assume that even after the general audience’s praise of CGI Tarkin and Leia, Disney still wouldn’t pump money into doing young Han this way. And as the main character, it would also be a little insulting to Ehrenreich, who was sold to us as the new “face” of young Han.

That’s one of my issues with Rogue One doing these classic character recreations. If they’re recasting a young Han for this movie, why not just recast Tarkin and Leia. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the visual callback, but it seems to take away from the acclaim that Guy Henry, in particular, deserves. It also sets up the expectation that if we ever see young Leia again, she has to look like Carrie Fischer.

But it’s a moot point, and this is just my opinion, so I digress.

But the inclusion of Woody Harrelson has me so damn excited for this movie. And I’ve been against a young Han movie from almost the beginning. But this… changes things.

Provided Luke and Leia survive Episode 8, it might be best to open Episode 9 with Luke sensing a disturbance in the force. He rushes to the source of the disturbance to find Leia (perhaps best to not see her face?) whom has succumb to injuries sustained in a First Order attack. He utters one word: “Leia…” and along with the audience, has a very emotional response.

I’m not concerned how they actually go about it, because I know they will do it in a way that both respects and honors the late Carrie Fisher as well as her surviving family. But this was just an idea I had. Poor Billie Lourd, to lose your mother and grandmother in a matter of just a day. I can’t imagine being put through what that family has experienced in the last week.

SkyderHouseMafia said:

Haarspalter said:

“Any time someone tells you that a work was secretly brilliant, and needs many thousands of words to explain why, you should be suspicious.”

This is true…but even if a film’s meaning/story ect is very hard to grasp shouldn’t completely negate the quality of that story/meaning ect…
You need to be able to separate between a failure to execute on your ideas and ideas that are a failure.

And I think that most SW fans realize that the prequels are not without any merits. There is some really good subtext in those movies, some very well thought out parallels, and it did a great job expanding and exploring that universe (even if you dislike the creative decisions, like myself). I’ll even go so far as to say that they were all very well structured movies, and they worked together as a trilogy.

But those things alone don’t make a good movie IMO. My issues lie almost solely with execution; the dialogue, the direction, much of the acting, the creative choices, etc. These elements just prevent me from truly enjoying these movies.

And that’s coming from someone who learned to love Star Wars through the prequels. I had seen the original trilogy a few times, but it wasn’t until the prequels that I became a SW fanatic. And that then turned me into a film fanatic. But now, 17 years since the release of TPM, I am equally as passionate about the OT as I was about the prequel films which hooked me. And I can see now that the PT has flaws which I have trouble overlooking, and to me they no longer hold up.

I accept them for what they are and for the role they play in canon. And I even admit that the current EU is doing a great job of both establishing the transition and connections between the two trilogies. But to me they just aren’t very good movies. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy some of what they have to offer.

Cheers

Bingowings said:

I’d love it if Maul and Ben ended up as pals and Maul ended up being killed by the Empire.

I think Disney would likely omit Maul, to keep “film only fans” from getting confused. A resurrect or continue on with those characters from the past in the New EU, but keep them out of the films type deal.

I would like to see a completely stand alone story, set perhaps 5 years after Episode III, that starts off on Tatooine with Obi-wan and Owen arguing about Luke’s future. Someone then finds out about Luke, and tries to escape and inform the Empire. Obi-wan then has to hunt this character down and prevent the Empire from discovering Luke’s existence/whereabouts. In the end, Obi-wan returns to Tatooine and Owen thanks him for stopping those events. But Owen is still too stubborn to let Luke go train with Obi-wan.

The Dark Empire said:

The standart stormtrooper “were the elite soldiers of the Galactic Empire (wookiepedia)”. If you let the movie thing that they can not hit something aside, an elite soldier is the best soldier you have. It is very strange to believe that it is necessary to make a design-variant of this elite trooper.

That’s just it though, the key word you used was soldier. Soldiers fight in wars, and by the time of RO and ANH, the war had ended. Yes, skirmishes and battles still ran rampant, but the Empire wasn’t fighting planet wide battles against an opposing army anymore. Their enemies now hid in the shadows, in more volatile environments, and on less inhabited planets, etc. A faceless army is far less useful in fighting these hidden enemies. And so Stormtroopers essentially devolved into armed guards, patrol, law enforcement, etc.

I’m sure the Empire kept a large number of standard Stormtroopers on their bases (just like on the Death Star in ANH) so that they could be called upon if necessary, but large scale army vs army battles were no longer common place like they were during the Clone Wars.

Long story short, when your enemy is hiding, you need your troops to be capable of working in the same way, and thus more specialized troops were trained for more specialized missions. To me, it just seems logical.

Well standard Stormtroopers tend to be more widespread and used simply as patrol, but also for simple attacks when necessary. It makes sense that we only see standard Stormtroopers in ANH, as they were simply searching/patrolling the streets of Mos Eisley, and the Death Star is such a stronghold that the Empire wouldn’t necessarily need to keep any specialized troops on it, especially as it was only just completed right as the movie begins.

In ESB we see Snowtroopers which is great, but once were off Hoth we only see standard Stormtroopers again. To me, it works. Vader and a few Star Destroyers are looking for Han and Leia, and they have the whole thing planned out with Lando. There really isn’t a need to have any specialty troops running around.

Now in RotJ, this time we have a Death Star secretly being built on a planet which has no civilized (or perhaps I should say advanced) populace or major threats-- at least in the eyes of the Empire. Keeping specialty troops around doesn’t seem entirely necessary. But it certainly does seem odd that the Scout Troopers were not camouflaged. One could say that without any major threats on the planet, the camouflage is unnecessary, so they might as well stay white just to increase their own visibility in the woods. But nevertheless, it still seems odd.

This time around in RO, the Empire is hunting a dangerous espionage team, across multiple Imperial occupied planets. It makes sense that they pull multiple types of troopers from their local bases.

That’s a good enough explanation for me, but I know others aren’t always satisfied with that reasoning. Cheers either way!

I would actually love to see Disney completely rehaul the OT adding new ships and troopers, cleaning up effects, and what not (sort of like a special edition done properly). But let me say, I ONLY want that to happen if they ALSO give us the original unaltered versions in HD on the same release.

I’ve always thought of it as Palpatine let his guard down and revealed his true appearance.

He was physically consumed by evil long before the prequels took place, but he used the force to hide his appearance and appear younger and healthier.

But doing so probably required at least a tiny bit of constant focus. So when he was in his weakest moment, about to be beaten, he lost that focus and his true form emerged.

Then he was able to use that to his advantage by saying the Jedi did that to him, and it made the senate feel sympathetic towards him. It also meant that he didn’t have to be constantly drawing from the force to hide his appearance; which, lets face it, sounds like a hassle.

I think what it comes down to is a balance of patience and “upfront-ness”. When someone comes in and starts asking those questions, rather than tell them to screw off and find the answer on their own, explain to them how it is commonly looked down upon to do so, and that we generally expect/hope that patrons will at least attempt to look for the answer rather than expect someone to be at the standby waiting to provide every one of their (often silly, and somewhat easily found) answers.

Then… If they still can’t find an answer, they need just say “hey I looked but could not find an answer, would anyone be willing to answer me this…”

A simple, yet decently courteous, response may change them into a better and more aware community member, rather than just pushing them to hate some of us and continue abusing the boards.

EDIT: Oh, and if they simply do not listen to our “nice” responses, then we can berate the crap outta them 😉

I don’t hate this force tree rumor, I would [obviously] just want it to be executed well. We don’t need Yoda explaining the events of the prequel trilogy to us. Rey doesn’t need to know that stuff. Keep the mythology of the force tree, that’s somewhat enriching to the mythology of the universe, but move on the previous films (prequels and originals, alike). The audience doesn’t need that stuff repeated to them, and the plot shouldn’t rely on having previous films explained to the new characters. Just my 2 cents.