yotsuya

Well, according to the R2 Builder’s group, who have extensively researched the paint colors and who have had access to the original R2 costumes and remote controlled props, the blue color for the ANH R2 had a purple base that made the blue color more cobalt blue than royal blue. That somewhat changed for the TESB and ROTJ, but the color only changed slightly, keeping a touch of the reddish hue.

These two reference photos reveal that there was a lot of red in the rocks, skin tones, and how dark R2 was on set.

Compare that to DrDre’s correction:

DuracellEnergizer said:

yotsuya said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

BiggsFan44 said:

Besides, half the SE changes are cool. That giant half buried ship that’s at a 70 degree angle in Mos Eisley is cool.
Also, the restoration of that one Biggs scene towards the end (gotta love Biggs).

If only Lucas had thought to reincorporate the earlier Biggs scenes along with it. Then its inclusion might work instead of feeling tacked on and incongruous.

How does it feel tacked on? If anything it makes the Trench run part flow more smoothly by fixing up the Biggs/Wedge nonsense.
It’s also just a nice little moment in itself, since Luke talks about Biggs on Tatooine, even in the final cut.

His introduction so late into the proceedings without any lead-up feels nothing short of abrupt. Plus it’s just more unnecessary universe-shrinkage.

And Luke flying with Biggs without any conversation doesn’t feel abrupt? He was going on and on about Biggs earlier in the film and then we meet him and there is nothing. Incidently, Biggs talking to Luke is implied in the original cut because Biggs leaves Luke at the base of the X-wing ladder in every single version. That was the best edit to ANH for the SE.

There are, what, two throwaway mentions of Biggs in the theatrical version? That’s hardly “going on and on about Biggs”. And I never even realized Red Three was supposed to be the same character as Biggs until I started getting into the reference material.

Biggs: “Luke, pull up. Are you all right?”
Luke: “I got a little cooked, but I’m okay.”

Luke: “Biggs, you picked up one up. Watch it.”
Biggs: “I can’t see him. He’s on me tight, I can’t shake him.”
Luke: “I’ll be right there.”

Luke: “Blast it Biggs, where are you?”

Luke: “Biggs, Wedge, let’s close it up. We’re going in, we’re going in full throttle. That ought to keep those fighters off our backs.”
Wedge: “Right with you boss.”
Biggs: “Luke, at that speed will we be able to pull out in time?”
Luke: “Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home.”

Are you seriously trying to say that with all the original 1977 dialog that you didn’t realize that was his friend from Tatooine? Seriously? It seems pretty obvious - no reference materials needed. I’ll give you the mentions of Biggs on the Lars homestead are throw away, but the dialog between them during the battle makes it pretty damn clear.

DuracellEnergizer said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

BiggsFan44 said:

Besides, half the SE changes are cool. That giant half buried ship that’s at a 70 degree angle in Mos Eisley is cool.
Also, the restoration of that one Biggs scene towards the end (gotta love Biggs).

If only Lucas had thought to reincorporate the earlier Biggs scenes along with it. Then its inclusion might work instead of feeling tacked on and incongruous.

How does it feel tacked on? If anything it makes the Trench run part flow more smoothly by fixing up the Biggs/Wedge nonsense.
It’s also just a nice little moment in itself, since Luke talks about Biggs on Tatooine, even in the final cut.

His introduction so late into the proceedings without any lead-up feels nothing short of abrupt. Plus it’s just more unnecessary universe-shrinkage.

And Luke flying with Biggs without any conversation doesn’t feel abrupt? He was going on and on about Biggs earlier in the film and then we meet him and there is nothing. Incidently, Biggs talking to Luke is implied in the original cut because Biggs leaves Luke at the base of the X-wing ladder in every single version. That was the best edit to ANH for the SE.

BiggsFan44 said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

BiggsFan44 said:

Besides, half the SE changes are cool. That giant half buried ship that’s at a 70 degree angle in Mos Eisley is cool.
Also, the restoration of that one Biggs scene towards the end (gotta love Biggs).

If only Lucas had thought to reincorporate the earlier Biggs scenes along with it. Then its inclusion might work instead of feeling tacked on and incongruous.

How does it feel tacked on? If anything it makes the Trench run part flow more smoothly by fixing up the Biggs/Wedge nonsense.
It’s also just a nice little moment in itself, since Luke talks about Biggs on Tatooine, even in the final cut.

But even though I don’t see any "tacked on"ness, I do agree that he should have went all out and added back in the Tosche station bits.
And I’m not sure why he cut out the older Rebel pilot talking about Anakin, because it fits if that guy was around when Anakin was a General.

Incorporating the cut Tatooine scenes would do more to rewrite canon than anything else that has ever happened. Have you listened to the dialog lately? There are some major issued with that and where the saga went (even just in the OT). The only reasons those scenes even got shot was because they didn’t take a lot of setup and were the first things they shot in Tunesia. They were cut before the rought B&W cut was ever done. Lucas had been talked into writing those scenes because of his friends and what he wanted was the droids to lead us to Luke, then Ben, then Han, then back to the Princess and those scenes didn’t fit. They were filler and were dropped. And Red Leader’s missing lines about knowing Anakin would not make sense with how the PT did things.

BiggsFan44 said:

yotsuya said:

Busy for a thread just started today.

But to tackle the question of the original post… things don’t have to be perfect. Yoda is voiced by Frank Oz in all the films so it is the same character. Puppet or CG doesn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t matter that there were multiple R2-D2’s used in each film, not to mention the vast number used over the course of the Saga. Do you really watch for the hoses that hid Kenny Baker’s legs or the supports that hold him in the correct position when the 3rd leg is out? Those are movie shortcuts that you are supposed to ignore. If you want perfection, you will not find it. It doesn’t exist. Rogue One did an awesome job of replicating aspects of A New Hope, but there are flaws even in that. Who cares that Hayden’s character is especailly whiny and in Clone Wars he is more sure of himself. It was his golden age and he was elevated to Jedi Knight and assigned a Padawan. Clone Wars did a good job of hinting at the growing Darkness in Anakin.

And if you watch the Saga in order on Blu-ray, you get 3 films of CG Yoda, 1 film without Yoda, 2 films with old Puppet Yoda, another film without Yoda, and 1 film with Puppet Yoda 3.0 (my opinion is that 2.0 is best forgotten and was fortunately replaced by CG Yoda). Why complain? It is a series of movies made over more than 40 years. Technology has changed and they have managed to keep the vision pretty consistent. A lot of people can’t wrap their heads around sets, props, and models not always being built to scale. Spend some time appreciating the classics and the development of special effects and movie magic and you can ignore all of it and appreciate the grander story being told. Don’t sweat the little things. The character of Anakin/Vader was played by 7 people over the course of 6 films and Clone Wars.

But then, I am also a Star Trek fan and as a Trekkie I have to deal with recasting Saavik, changing Klingons, Romulans, ship models that aren’t in scale and seem to appear in many scales, and a whole host of issues that make what you are talking about seem pretty pathetic and ignorable. I’m also a Doctor Who fan where we’ve had 3 actors play the first Doctor, 3 versions of the Destruction of Atlantis, two origins for the Daleks and Cybermen, and so many glitches, gaffs, and outright contradictions that two different versions of Anakin between the movies and Clone Wars is nothing.

Almost every movie has its issues and you just accept them and let the illusion wash over you and don’t sweat the details. It is cool to notice them and find all the mistakes the movie makers made, but letting it ruin a movie makes about as much sense as cutting off your leg because you stubbed your toe.

Going back to Star Trek, when I finished watching 7 seasons of TNG and then was presented with Generations, it sucked. 7 seasons of intelligent stories followed by such a dud… And it only got worse when Abrams and Orci made their films. Talk about not knowing your characters and no knowing the property. Those films make the worst of the Prequels look like an Oscar winner. Trek canon was literally thrown out the window. You can argue that Luke in the ST (Rian just followed JJ’s lead and piked up where he left off) is very much like the Luke of ANH and TESB where the ROTJ Luke was quite different. But there is a 200 page topic about TLJ that frequently discusses Luke. But as a fan of many franchises I find that Star Wars has been the most faithful and consistent over the course of years where others often involve overlooking a lot more heinous mis-steps.

So I find it quite easy to ignore all of it and focus on the story. That is what is important after all.

Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.

But that is what I’m saying. They are 9 parts of one story (more than 9 with the side movies and series). Some things have changed a bit along the way. The movies are inconsistent with sets, props, costumes, actors, so what is a bit of story inconsistency thrown in. So you have to do some reconning to make it all make sense. You have to reconn the Falcon interior to fit in the exterior. What really is the difference? For me each trilogy is a separate entity. So far I have yet to find any discrepancy between the PT and ST, so that leaves discrepancies with the OT as the entire point of this. The way I’ve looked at it since the SE and PT came out was that you have different waves. First you have the self contained Star Wars from 1977. It stood on its own and was a unique film. Then you have the OOT. Episodes IV, V, and VI. This was Star Wars for many of us for the longest time. Then Lucas came back and launched into the SEOT and then the PT. His changes to the OT were consistent with the PT. He culminated his epic saga with ROTS and an ending that brought us back to the beginning. Now we have the PT not done by GL. So that creates a different aspect yet again. How the ST ends will color a lot of things. It will color how we look at the entire ST in the future and the entire 9 part saga. But it will never change what came before. If you don’t like the ST, don’t watch it and stick to the OOT if that is what you want.

But right now many are judging the ST and it is an unfinished product. We need IX to know how to judge it and see the story arc it is trying to tell. We knew the PT story arc and when we saw TPM we knew where it was headed and what was likely to happen. You have to go back to 1980 to be where we are in a trilogy. No one in 1980 had any clue what to expect in the next movie. We have no clue now what to expect in IX. But when ROTJ came out, it gave us a solid end to a great story. And I can tell you that back in the 80’s, my ranking for the Star Wars trilogy was ANH was the best, ROTJ the next best, and TESB the weak installment. It is quite different now, but that may be what happens with the ST. TLJ could be considered the worst now and the best later. Only time will tell. We have to get IX first. Until then we are looking at an incomplete product. JJ says this one will tie the saga together and wrap things ups. I hope he succeeds in his goal.

As for canon changing… it can do that without disrepcting what came before. but I seriously have not seen anything major in canon change because of the ST. People claim that Luke is different because of the ST, but seriously, how does that change the events of the OT? I don’t see it. The ST doesn’t change the end of the OT at all. It still is about Vader’s redemption just as it was in 1983. The rebels still blew up the second Death Star and saw the end of Vader and his Emperor. Just because the new republic that replaced it didn’t last doesn’t change the end of ROTJ. The OT canon is untouched by the ST.

Ronster, R2 is supposed to be very purple/cobalt. And you have taken most of the red out. Your two postings are very bland and grayed out. The film should be vibrant and colorful and in the desert scenes the skin tones should lean to the pink side. I think DrDre is pretty much on the nose with his colors. I’d pull it a touch to the yellow, and if you do that right it does not reduce the saturation. This shot is tricky because it was done in a canyon on a cloudy day so the colors are pretty muted to start with. If you don’t do it right, the entire scene looks off.

Busy for a thread just started today.

But to tackle the question of the original post… things don’t have to be perfect. Yoda is voiced by Frank Oz in all the films so it is the same character. Puppet or CG doesn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t matter that there were multiple R2-D2’s used in each film, not to mention the vast number used over the course of the Saga. Do you really watch for the hoses that hid Kenny Baker’s legs or the supports that hold him in the correct position when the 3rd leg is out? Those are movie shortcuts that you are supposed to ignore. If you want perfection, you will not find it. It doesn’t exist. Rogue One did an awesome job of replicating aspects of A New Hope, but there are flaws even in that. Who cares that Hayden’s character is especailly whiny and in Clone Wars he is more sure of himself. It was his golden age and he was elevated to Jedi Knight and assigned a Padawan. Clone Wars did a good job of hinting at the growing Darkness in Anakin.

And if you watch the Saga in order on Blu-ray, you get 3 films of CG Yoda, 1 film without Yoda, 2 films with old Puppet Yoda, another film without Yoda, and 1 film with Puppet Yoda 3.0 (my opinion is that 2.0 is best forgotten and was fortunately replaced by CG Yoda). Why complain? It is a series of movies made over more than 40 years. Technology has changed and they have managed to keep the vision pretty consistent. A lot of people can’t wrap their heads around sets, props, and models not always being built to scale. Spend some time appreciating the classics and the development of special effects and movie magic and you can ignore all of it and appreciate the grander story being told. Don’t sweat the little things. The character of Anakin/Vader was played by 7 people over the course of 6 films and Clone Wars.

But then, I am also a Star Trek fan and as a Trekkie I have to deal with recasting Saavik, changing Klingons, Romulans, ship models that aren’t in scale and seem to appear in many scales, and a whole host of issues that make what you are talking about seem pretty pathetic and ignorable. I’m also a Doctor Who fan where we’ve had 3 actors play the first Doctor, 3 versions of the Destruction of Atlantis, two origins for the Daleks and Cybermen, and so many glitches, gaffs, and outright contradictions that two different versions of Anakin between the movies and Clone Wars is nothing.

Almost every movie has its issues and you just accept them and let the illusion wash over you and don’t sweat the details. It is cool to notice them and find all the mistakes the movie makers made, but letting it ruin a movie makes about as much sense as cutting off your leg because you stubbed your toe.

Going back to Star Trek, when I finished watching 7 seasons of TNG and then was presented with Generations, it sucked. 7 seasons of intelligent stories followed by such a dud… And it only got worse when Abrams and Orci made their films. Talk about not knowing your characters and no knowing the property. Those films make the worst of the Prequels look like an Oscar winner. Trek canon was literally thrown out the window. You can argue that Luke in the ST (Rian just followed JJ’s lead and piked up where he left off) is very much like the Luke of ANH and TESB where the ROTJ Luke was quite different. But there is a 200 page topic about TLJ that frequently discusses Luke. But as a fan of many franchises I find that Star Wars has been the most faithful and consistent over the course of years where others often involve overlooking a lot more heinous mis-steps.

So I find it quite easy to ignore all of it and focus on the story. That is what is important after all.

moviefreakedmind said:

yotsuya said:

moviefreakedmind said:

I’ve made it pretty clear before that I don’t believe that anybody actually likes the Holiday Special. I know that’s really conspiratorial and ridiculous, but I refuse to believe that anybody claiming to enjoy the Holiday Special is telling me the truth.

I love it.

I don’t believe you. I’m sorry, I just can’t bring myself to believe that.

Believe it. I saw it on TV and then promptly had to get 4 Chebacca action figures so I could have the whole family. Even painted one to be older. I still enjoy watching it, though I now cringe at Harvey Corman. So much better than the droid or ewok cartoons or the two ewok movies.

moviefreakedmind said:

I’ve made it pretty clear before that I don’t believe that anybody actually likes the Holiday Special. I know that’s really conspiratorial and ridiculous, but I refuse to believe that anybody claiming to enjoy the Holiday Special is telling me the truth.

I love it. The Harvey Corman scenes are the only really horrid parts.

I think I am ready to rate the 3 newest films. So here goes.

1 - The Empire Strikes Back - Irvin Kershner and Leigh Brackett raise this one above Lucas’s original.
2 - A New Hope - The classic that started it all.
3 - Return of the Jedi - The story of redemption and the conclusion to the original trilogy lift this one and make it hard to compare to.
4 - Rogue One - An awesome war movie that is nicely self contained.
5 - The Last Jedi - It doesn’t quite come up to the originals, but it is the closest since 1983.
6 - The Phantom Menace - The Republic, Jedi, a bad ass Sith warrior, some familiar faces and just an all around epic story set in the Old Republic. It felt right when it came out and I still love it, even with its flaws.
7 - Solo - Hard to pin this one since I haven’t seen it as many times. I think here because while it captured the spirit of the character and the universe (especially the old Brian Daley novels), it failed to really expand the Star Wars universe and go beyond the character. It also had some predictable story points. It was safe and well done.
8 - Revenge of the Sith - The major flaw of this film is it was produced as the last of 6 films, not to be the third. Other than that it was awesome and probably the highest quality of the prequels.
9 - Attack of the Clones - Well, Lucas tried. The basic story is sound, but Anakin is too … many things. The film is greatly flawed and the only one of the Lucas made films that I wanted a fan edit the first time I saw it.
10 - The Force Awakens - A good film, but it is the only one that has such egregiously unrealistic scenes that it yanked me out of the film. The character scenes were great, but the overall story is the weakest of any of the films. But even as the weakest it is still an awesome movie.

Clone Wars 2008 - I don’t consider this a film. It is just a selection of episodes (5 I think) produced for the first season of the series that made a nice movie length story. Basicallly a pilot film.
Star Wars Holdiday Special - I love the Wookie scenes. With a fan edit it might just make a nice short.
The Ewok Films - I can’t rate these. Even though I own them on DVD, I haven’t watched them. They are aimed at kids to capitalize on the Ewok cuteness. Just trying to watch the first one I found it to be a bigger train wreck than the SWHS.

What you might consider is cutting both scenes to remove the redundancy and make both move faster. The edits we have for the Biggs scenes are just the raw dailies. Had Lucas used them he would have cut and tweaked them to flow better and move faster. And some of the things Biggs says don’t fit with the larger continuity so it would be nice to see those edited out.

And the redundancy between the Jabba and Greedo scenes can be fixed by changing the subtitles to the Huttese lines. Greedo’s lines were changes when the Jabba scene was cut.

Shopping Maul said:

RogueLeader said:

Shopping Maul said:

If Vader and Palpatine knew they intended to replace one another, then why all the song and dance about recruiting Luke? Why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill Palpatine in that first instance?

This is something I have also been thinking about lately. I think Vader and Palpatine always knew that they would both want to use Luke to take out the other, but they both didn’t necessarily want to reveal their hand either. For them, it’s like playing a game of chess.

And while I don’t think either of them ever had the intention of ruling the Empire as a triumvirate, even with the existence of the Rule of Two, it hasn’t stopped the Sith from having dark side acolytes before, such as Ventress or the Inquisitors.

But I think after Luke chose death over joining Vader in ESB, Vader no longer believed he could turn Luke on his own. He needed the Emperor, and the Emperor says as much in his first scene with Vader in ROTJ.

And I think Vader’s extreme loyalty to the Emperor in ROTJ is partly because he may not want to reveal his intentions while the Emperor might be close enough to easily sense them. On the other hand, it may just simply be that Luke’s decision to fall to his death over joining his father may have affected Vader’s own confidence in his power. Maybe at this point Vader truly feels what he says about the Emperor, especially after being his servant for so many years, and the events at the end of ESB set him back into that mindset.

But my question, like you brought up, is why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill the Emperor when Luke took that first swing at him? I mean, the Emperor even says that if he killed him, his journey toward the darkside would be complete. My only guess is that Vader knew that it would require more than that to turn Luke, and the Emperor was just toying with him in order for him to initiate aggressive combat. Luke really needed to see that the darkside was power, and he wasn’t there yet.

You’re right - I guess there’s no reason the ‘rule of two’ can’t accomodate the occasional third wheel! I just think it’s a shame Lucas made it so blatant. It detracts from the obvious but still terrifying idea that Palpatine intended for Luke to replace Vader all along. But I like your assessment of the whole situation.

I guess my beef is that there’s no subtlety in any of this. We praise Luke for resisting the Dark Side, but it’s not such a big deal when the bad guy is repeating “yes, yes, turn to the dark Side, good, good”. Similarly with Vader, Palps spends the whole exercise taunting the guy and saying “see? He will never be turned, it’s too late for him” before stating outright that Vader’s job is up for grabs. I mean what was Vader going to do once Luke was dead? “So, uh, all that stuff about replacing me? You didn’t actually mean that…did you?”…

It would have been so cool if all of this had been more like the prequel temptation - with Palpatine offering Luke power and an end to war in exchange for total allegiance. Vader would be trying to get Luke on his side and seize power as well (before his change of heart). The whole ‘just make Luke angry’ thing is so disappointing to me. If the Dark Side really is as simple as ‘don’t get mad’, then Jedi in any form are a liability and shouldn’t be encouraged! Jake Skywalker might not have been so wrong…

Anger is the quickest path to the dark side so making Luke angry was just a short cut. Neither Vader nor Palpatine knew that Luke had been trained by Yoda.

I read the spoilers for TLJ at about this point and they were on one hand fairly accurate and on the other wildly misleading. Some things were in the final film and some I can’t imagine ever being part of the story. It really depends on the quality of sources and how distorted the information has become.

A New Hope

The Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

At long last, an update. I spent some time away from it working on a completely different sort of project. Thanks to DrDre and the 4k77 team, I got motivated to get back to work on this. I tweaked my gout color correction and made it lean more yellow. That was the last piece to really bring the GOUT in line with the best color corrections of the 35 mm print. Those who see yellow tint as bad are going to hate the settings I have decided on as for nearly every scene I have upped the yellow (among other things). The warm flesh tones and the general warmth of the image make it worth it. Clouds should not be pink except at sunset/sunrise but clouds at other times of day often do have a bit of yellow to them.

My color correction goal is not to make these films look exactly like they did when we first saw them, but make them feel like the films we remember seeing. Given that the GOUT is extremely flawed in many ways, I have used it as a guide for color correcting the Blu-ray versions of the OT. I have also relied on the Blu-ray version of American Graffiti as well as many other films. I am not interesting in identifying what color the Blockade Runner or Death Star walls were on set, but rather making the images come alive. I’m trying to be true to the spirit of the original colors and matching the GOUT as close as possible. In many cases the blu-ray has richer colors. A lot of the corrections are not just to colors, but to brightness, darkness, contrast, saturation, and other settings. I don’t know what process they used at ILM when they scanned the original negatives (according to Lowry, they were given drives with the movies already scanned - they never saw the negatives) but the results are horrible. All three films lean toward red/magenta with A New Hope being the worst. These have to be some of the worst digitized movies I have ever seen. So where possible I am bringing them back to where the GOUT was. Some shots are too changed and some shots are new. Again, A New Hope got the worst end of the deal. But then again, it is horribly faded (something they could fix if they used the 3 color separation George had made as a backup but that had warped so it was not usable in 93 but could be scanned and digitally aligned like they have done to virtually every old film restored with the same issues).

So warm skin tones, azure sky, cobalt R2, gold 3PO, white snow, bright light sabers, bright explosions, and bright engine glows. These things are what are driving my color corrections. Secondly trying to keep costumes the right color along with sets and props. But always comparing to the GOUT and not worrying about things that were perfect to begin with. Red Leader in ANH has more helmet colors than he should. A lot of that is from the GOUT, but to a lesser degree. So unlike my previous correction attempt, this time I followed the GOUT. That was plenty hard enough.

Thanks to the marvelous full 1080 HD preservation of the DVD version, I have chosen that as the version to focus on. I have used the blu-ray except for the scenes that were changed. I did keep a couple of changes that were fixes and I did leave a couple that tie to the soundtrack (the Han/Greedo shootout and the Dug in Jabba’s palace). I restored the correct start of reel 2 in ANH. In addition to my color correction being a touch yellow (Which actually matches The Last Jedi as well as the 35 mm prints of the originals), I also replaced the logos at the start. The OT ones weren’t original to begin with. I used a newer version of the Fox logo and the new Lucasfilm logo (from the ST) on all the films. I replaced the audio of the Fox Fanfare for A New Hope with the one from TESB. Since I have to make those edits to the 5.1 mix, I will also explore fixing some audio that is actually worse in the 2011 mix, at least in ANH.

But the most important thing to me is that for the first time I have watched the SE of the OT and not cringed. No lobster-men, dull explosions, or the other flaws that have kept me from enjoying any version on home video except the GOUT. Screen caps of the OT to follow.

I’m very interested but cash strapped.

Shopping Maul said:

yotsuya said:

MalàStrana said:

It reminds me that my main issue with the Vader’s plot in ROTJ is the line “I MUST obey my Master”, whereas he explicitly told his son (and his wife !) that he would rather like kill the Emperor and rule the galaxy himself. Just removing that line and leaving only “you don’t know the power of the dark side” would make things work better I guess.

It’s just a slight complain: I know ROTJ is not the same top quality as ANH and TESB and has many problems here and there, but it still is a very good movie (and still the third best SW in my opinion), as a SW and as a fantasy flick.

It is the beginnings of the rule of two. The only way out from under Palpatine is to take his place. That is what Vader suggests. It is kinda the Sith mantra - come with me and we can rule the galaxy together. Palpatine changed it up by telling Anakin that if he followed him that they could save Padme together.

But even the Sith ‘rule of two’ is dumb (sorry to be such a contrarian but my motives are pure!). Vader suggests luring Luke into the fold in TESB, clearly as a way of keeping Luke alive. Palps says “yes, he would be a great asset” and Vader says “he will join us or die”. There’s no indication that the ‘rule of two’ exists. It seems like a prequel thing that doesn’t really apply to the OT (unless you accept that Vader is a complete idiot in RoTJ).

Note I said it is the beginnings of that rule. I didn’t say it was that rule. I think the idea developed out of what we saw in the OT.

MalàStrana said:

It reminds me that my main issue with the Vader’s plot in ROTJ is the line “I MUST obey my Master”, whereas he explicitly told his son (and his wife !) that he would rather like kill the Emperor and rule the galaxy himself. Just removing that line and leaving only “you don’t know the power of the dark side” would make things work better I guess.

It’s just a slight complain: I know ROTJ is not the same top quality as ANH and TESB and has many problems here and there, but it still is a very good movie (and still the third best SW in my opinion), as a SW and as a fantasy flick.

It is the beginnings of the rule of two. The only way out from under Palpatine is to take his place. That is what Vader suggests. It is kinda the Sith mantra - come with me and we can rule the galaxy together. Palpatine changed it up by telling Anakin that if he followed him that they could save Padme together.

I just watched it. I think we need to forget that the Ewok’s look like Teddy Bears. They are supposed to be dawrf Wookies. Yeah, they came out kind cute, but if you watch how they are played, there is no cuteness outside their appearance. They are tough little things, quite capable of fighting their own battles. Too much is made of their appearance. And many of them are the same actors who played the Ugnaughts and Jawas.

And frankly I don’t really see an issue with the story. Yes, Empire added a level of gray to the story, but I feel that all three put together make a nice tale of good and evil with a bit of gray in it. I think the gray carries through to the end. I think the entire tower sequence is exceptionally well written. And I didn’t really connect with Han’s story, either in TESB or ROTJ until I was old enough to experience love myself. Then his story make complete sense to me and I could relate to Han even more. I’ve always been more of a Han Solo fan than Luke Skywalker. I love the force and lightsabers, but I love the Falcon more. So Han saving Lando, dispatching Boba Fett, leading the Endor mission (and proving his leadership with his ideas and actions) are really the culmination of him coming back and saving the day in the First Death Star battle. The part with Leia completes the romance began when the two started bickering after Leia was rescued. I’ve never had a problem with ROTJ, but I do think it is the weakest of the original three, but simply because the other two are so magnificently done. I think a better director might have been able to pull some more out of it and bring it up to the level of the other two, but as we have seen since, with 9 more films, that is hard to do. I think Rogue One, The Last Jedi, and Solo come close, but don’t quite reach the stature of ROTJ. The conclusion to Vader and Palpatine’s stories are just too powerful and well done.

And as for Lucas changing the story along the way. Yeah, that does throw some quirks in, but as a long time fan of many written SF series, that is nothing new. I’ve seen glitches that would make a Star Wars fan’s head spin. So what we see in Star Wars is ignorable. I think the story glitches are as minor as all the visual glitches that are in the films.

I think the saga should end with 9 films. I think the other films should focus on other times and other people. I think for trilogies it needs to be something epic, but for a one off film it could be about anyone. I think for the trilogies they should go back to the glory days of the Republic and Jedi. We have Palpatine saying the Republic is 1000 years old and Obi-wan saying the Jedi have been the guardians for a thousand generations, which by some estimates is 25000 years. So that is a huge time frame. It would be fun to have a Trilogy on the origins of the Prequel republic and it would be awesome to do some movies from way before that. When the Sith were the real enemy and not just maneuvering behind the scenes. There are so many corners of the Star Wars universe and timeline to explore. The possibilities are endless. We need to be done with the Skywalker story.

As I pointed out in another topic, JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson worked together on these two movies. JJ made the movie he wanted and Rian took JJ’s first story and made the second story of the trilogy. JJ was a producer on that film. They also discussed the two stories and JJ made changes in TFA in light of where Rian wanted to take the story. TLJ does not undermine a single thing in TFA. JJ was never supposed to come back for IX so he was never going to write the payoff for the things he setup until way after TLJ was done. And JJ comes from a TV background so he has experience with setting things up for others and continuing on from what others do. What I expect from IX is a continuation of the story that fits with TFA and TLJ. If they both were working from a master story arc, I predict that what JJ does for IX will make everything fit together and make sense.

Personally, Snoke’s death is one of the high points of the film for me. I could see it coming as Snoke was talking and they showed Kylo’s left hand while his right hand seemingly did what Snoke was expecting. Brilliant piece of cinema. Having Snoke carry on to IX would make this too much like the OT. I’m hoping that IX turns out to be JJ’s best film and that it has a solid ending. That hope rests on them working off of some sort of story plan based on Lucas’s treatments. If JJ is left to his own devices, I don’t have high hopes for IX.

The Chewy frame.

SilverWook said:

The whole Youngling angle is never really delved into. The Jedi takes kids off to train them, (I presume willingly) and they apparently never see their families again? Or have any contact? Ten years is a long time for Anakin not to have even communicated with his Mother. Oh yeah, they let her remain in slavery! Qui-Gon at least tried to free Shmi.
No wonder Ani was pissed off at the Jedi.

Clone Wars touches on this (and that is considered Canon by TPTB, including Lucas). They find young kids and yes, they take them and they never have ties to their family again. The Jedi are their family. But with Anakin we see that he is not a good fit for this family and he is closer to Palpatine. He argued with Obi-wan, Mace, chafes against the teachings of Yoda, complains about the Jedi accepting his appointment to the council but not making him a master. The only time we see him in any conflict with Palpatine is when Palpatine admits he knows the dark side of the force. And even then he quickly calms down and comes to Palpatine’s defense. Palpatine’s years of mentoring did their work. And if you include Clone Wars in the story, it provides even more fodder for Anakin to turn against the Jedi. First they force a padawan on him and then they kick her out of the order.

ZkinandBonez said:

I don’t think anyone here is claiming that ROTS communicates all of it’s themes and ideas as well as it should have, the point is that they are there. Lore-wise the PT works quite well, but cinematically it fails on many points.

Exactly. The points are all there for people who watch the films repeatedly. It is not clearly done for the casual observer, though a lot might catch certain things and not question his turn. I think one of the biggest issues of the PT is that is really isn’t a prequel at all, it is a flashback. We already know Anakin becomes Vader so things aren’t setup very well if you follow the story chronologically. But the points are there. Palpatine maneuvers Anakin into an impossible position - save his friend and mentor who just might be able to help Padme or save a revered Jedi master who seems to be trying to take over the Republic. Which one is his duty to the Republic? Which one is the right choice? And as we see, he listens to Palpatine. He killed Dooku on Palpatine’s order. So when Palpatine has Anakin in that vulnerable state, he uses the dark side of the force to pull him the rest of the way over. He goes and slaughters the Jedi to preserve the Republic. It becomes the very thing he joked with Padme in ATOC. In point after subtle point, Lucas reinforced Anakin’s fall.

And it seems clear that Palpatine is the one person Anakin trusts the most. So if Palpatine says something, Anakin will believe it. And he will believe it over the Jedi because of his long acquaintance and friendship with Palpatine. He probably has had more contact with Palpatine than any single Jedi. Palpatine made sure of that.

Amazing. I’d settle for even this quality in the short term. So much better than other sources.