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What do you LIKE about the EU? — Page 16

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zombie84 said:

Prequelsrule, I think you raised a good point about suspense. It's predictable that Han will return to save the day, but you forget about it at the time because the trench run holds your attention.

Thats like any film, too. If you stopped and thought about it, obviously Indiana Jones will survive any calamity thrown his way no matter how absurd, you know he won't die, but the film tricks you by engaging you so you can't stop and realize that. It creates the suspension of disbelief, not only of the film's world, but that the character is mortal and could die.

Any prequel film is the same. You know Obi Wan will die on the Death Star helping Luke escape so they can take stolen plans to the rebel base. But you aren't thinking that when you watch the prequels. Well, maybe you are, but if so its because the film is boring and that's the problem, not that you know where the characters end up.

Is it boring to watch Robert DeNiro in Godfather II? You know he's just going to end up chasing a kid around a garden with an orange in his mouth and plop to the ground dead as a doornail from a heart attack. Yikes, no dignity there. But no--those DeNiro prequel scenes are the best in the entire 9-hour Godfather saga.

Agree.

 

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

zombie84 said:

Prequelsrule, I think you raised a good point about suspense. It's predictable that Han will return to save the day, but you forget about it at the time because the trench run holds your attention.

Thats like any film, too. If you stopped and thought about it, obviously Indiana Jones will survive any calamity thrown his way no matter how absurd, you know he won't die, but the film tricks you by engaging you so you can't stop and realize that. It creates the suspension of disbelief, not only of the film's world, but that the character is mortal and could die.

Any prequel film is the same. You know Obi Wan will die on the Death Star helping Luke escape so they can take stolen plans to the rebel base. But you aren't thinking that when you watch the prequels. Well, maybe you are, but if so its because the film is boring and that's the problem, not that you know where the characters end up.

Is it boring to watch Robert DeNiro in Godfather II? You know he's just going to end up chasing a kid around a garden with an orange in his mouth and plop to the ground dead as a doornail from a heart attack. Yikes, no dignity there. But no--those DeNiro prequel scenes are the best in the entire 9-hour Godfather saga.

Agree.

 

Same here. Great points.

Ray’s Lounge
Biggs in ANH edit idea
ROTJ opening edit idea

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 (Edited)

Anchorhead - Ah, I didn't know that about the film.

AG was really good.  Like I said I'd seen it before but it was a long time ago... I'd forgotten a lot.  I appreciated the various character moments (duh), though I also really liked, narrative-wise, the way Curt basically wanders around behind the scenes of the "cruising" world inhabited by the other characters. 

I've currently got a story percolating through my head and a lot of things from Graffiti seemed applicable/helpful, though I guess that means I was kind of seeing it in a more inspirational/clinical way.

Good catch on the wine.  I always remembered bruallki and kaf. ;)

 

 

prequelsrule said:

wouldn't a criterion collection trilogy consisting of THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars be awesome? This popped into my head because of some of the discussion about the high quality of George's films in the 70s. I remember a movie reviewer talking about the similar themes in all three of these films - that they could be considered a trilogy of sorts; the parallels between Kurt in AG and Luke in SW are interesting.

 

Absolutely.  I can almost see the covers in my mind.  And I too remember that article on the 'thematic trilogy'; wish I could find it now.

 

 

zombie said:

Anyway, most blockbuster movies like Star Wars are predictable. Will Luke beat the bad guys? Yes. Will he save the princess? Yes. Will he survive the ordeal? Very probably. But how does he beat the bad guys, what situations does he have to get himself out of, and how does the princess get rescued? This is the suspense structure of Star Wars. That's also one reason why it was downright shocking when Luke got his ass kicked in ESB and all the good guys lost--that's not supposed to happen!!

 

I just listened to a podcast interview with Tim Zahn the other day where he talked about this exact concept, and how he purposely approaches his stories this way.

"Star Wars films are basically silent movies. And they're designed as silent movies, therefore the music carries a -- has a very large role in carrying the story, more than it would in a normal movie."  -GL

"NOO! NOOOOOO!!" - Darth Vader

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What do you LIKE about the EU?

Just thought I'd remind everyone what this thread is supposed to be about. ;-)

There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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American Hominid said: 

I just listened to a podcast interview with Tim Zahn the other day where he talked about this exact concept, and how he purposely approaches his stories this way.

 Link, please?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

American Hominid said: 

I just listened to a podcast interview with Tim Zahn the other day where he talked about this exact concept, and how he purposely approaches his stories this way.

 Link, please?

 

http://functionalnerds.com/2011/07/episode-065-timothy-zahn/

The specific comment starts around 22:18, but there are interesting bits sprinkled throughout, depending on what you're into.

"Star Wars films are basically silent movies. And they're designed as silent movies, therefore the music carries a -- has a very large role in carrying the story, more than it would in a normal movie."  -GL

"NOO! NOOOOOO!!" - Darth Vader

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Anchorhead said:

The novel had a feeling of everything must be viewed from a Prequel point of view.


This pretty much sums up the current state of the EU.

darth_ender said:

And the capital crime is the perpetual resurrection of the Emperor! Whose clever idea was it to actually have him come back again and again and again?


It was Lucas, believe it or not. Veitch originally planned to bring Vader back in the form of an imposter for Dark Empire, but Lucas thought that Vader as the antagonist had already been throughly explored and that it would be better to bring Palpatine back instead.

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 (Edited)

A non-EU-related point, just a cool thing I noticed: Paul Le Mat (John Milner in Graffiti) would have made a good Anakin if the prequels were filmed at the time of the OT.

   

            Le Mat                         Shaw

 

Anyway, there's something I like about the Bantam era EU, even if I dislike some of the particular stories from that period.  The creators working in the SW universe during the 1990s had a very limited amount of background information from Lucasfilm, and this included things like the date of the Clone Wars ending around the time when Episode I was eventually set - which makes these stories artifacts of earlier versions of the SW story. 

Also, because there was so little official information available about the Jedi and the Republic, etc, the authors had to go off their inferences from the films, which I think often turned out to be similar to fans' inferences and different from certain prequel definitions. 

The Jedi in the Bantam era were less organized (even though Luke did train a group in a temple), less dogmatic, and less militaristic.  I think a lot of people took the OT Jedi to be "normal" for Jedi, which is why in TOTJ (for instance) some are system guardians who operate in groups of master (knight?) + apprentice(s), while others are reclusive masters like Yoda.  Ghosts were standard. 

(I think some of the above is why Qui-Gon seems well-liked.  He acted like the Jedi we all expected to see and thought was the standard - following his own rules but still acting nobly.  Especially interesting when we consider that his character traits were originally Ben's.)

Also, the Emperor was a bad guy but not a representative of an ancient faction.  Vader was the Dark Lord.  People say Star Wars was always a story about good and evil, but even if that's the case I think the prequels took this to a whole new, external level with the prophecy, the Chosen One, and the Jedi and Sith as almost avatars for the sides of the Force.  The events of the OT were always pivotal, but not necessarily to the structure of the Force or Destiny or anything larger than the characters/populace of the galaxy and their political structures. Or at least that was the sense I got.

Because the Sith were excluded from the post-Jedi Bantam EU, you had a lot of random dark siders and Imperial remnants.  This might have gotten repetitive, but I think it's even more so now, because now they all identify with the same culture (with variations).  The whole of SW history seems now to be increasingly embodied only in a struggle between the Jedi (paragons) versus Sith (always Evil - chaotic?  lawful?).  This also has the side effect of blowing the Force up to such a proportion that fewer stories can focus on non-explicitly-Force-using characters.

Sorry if that was too ranty.

 

Also, Anchorhead - another book you may like (it's one of my faves): The Illustrated Star Wars Universe.  It's from 1995.  It's set up almost like National Geographic, with profiles of the OT planets each told by different characters - an anthropologist who visits Tatooine, an Imperial scout who hates his assignment to Endor, a slimy political yes-man from Coruscant, a poet from Alderaan.  Throughout, there are pieces of art done for the films (concept design work by many artists), complimented by quite a few specially-done paintings of various planet/culture-related scenes by Ralph McQuarrie.  The stories are written by Kevin J Anderson, whose novels were not my favorites, but this book works for me.

That reminds me - it's always interesting when the film concept artists do work for the EU.  I like the consistency of styles.

"Star Wars films are basically silent movies. And they're designed as silent movies, therefore the music carries a -- has a very large role in carrying the story, more than it would in a normal movie."  -GL

"NOO! NOOOOOO!!" - Darth Vader

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theprequelsrule said:

Anchorhead said:

All goofing aside;  Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released.  The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.

A prequel story? - absolutely.  Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.

The problem with the prequels - besides all the problems you listed - is that there can be no drama or tension when the outcome is already known to the audience. I mean, we know Obi-wan is not going to die in them right?

 

Oh yeah? Well what about historical movies then?

 

Take 'Apollo 13'. That movie is pretty suspenseful even though pretty much all of us know that the astronauts survived. However, it's in the execution that the movie is suspenseful.

When a movie is done well the can still be suspense, even though we know the outcome.

<span style=“font-weight: bold;”>The Most Handsomest Guy on OT.com</span>

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MJPollard said:

What do you LIKE about the EU?

Just thought I'd remind everyone what this thread is supposed to be about. ;-)

And alas, yet another potentially interesting conversation is redirected to the mundane on account of wadded panties.

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American Hominid said:

The whole of SW history seems now to be increasingly embodied only in a struggle between the Jedi (paragons) versus Sith (always Evil - chaotic?  lawful?).  This also has the side effect of blowing the Force up to such a proportion that fewer stories can focus on non-explicitly-Force-using characters.

From what I've read in various publishers' summaries in my exploration of post-1980 EU, that seems to be it exactly.  Star Wars seems to have moved from Science Fiction to Fantasy.  It went from being Lord Of The Rings in space to being Harry Potter in space.  That's something I have zero interest in.

The Zahn novels, however, are very nice so far.  I've got my Star Wars reading cut out for me for quite a while.

 

American Hominid said:

another book you may like (it's one of my faves): The Illustrated Star Wars Universe.  It's from 1995.  It's set up almost like National Geographic, with profiles of the OT planets each told by different characters - an anthropologist who visits Tatooine, an Imperial scout who hates his assignment to Endor, a slimy political yes-man from Coruscant, a poet from Alderaan.  Throughout, there are pieces of art done for the films (concept design work by many artists), complimented by quite a few specially-done paintings of various planet/culture-related scenes by Ralph McQuarrie.

That sounds very interesting.  May have to look at that as a break between the Zahn series.  Man, and having illustrations by McQuarrie is icing on the cake.  He's been my mind's eye of Star Wars since the very beginning.

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CP3S said:

MJPollard said:

What do you LIKE about the EU?

Just thought I'd remind everyone what this thread is supposed to be about. ;-)

And alas, yet another potentially interesting conversation is redirected to the mundane on account of wadded panties.

Yes, because expecting that a thread actually stay on-topic, and having these "potentially interesting conversations" spun into their own thread (or threads), is a severe character flaw. Thank you for helping me see the light! [/sarcasm]

There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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American Hominid said:

 

Also, Anchorhead - another book you may like (it's one of my faves): The Illustrated Star Wars Universe.  It's from 1995.  It's set up almost like National Geographic, with profiles of the OT planets each told by different characters - an anthropologist who visits Tatooine, an Imperial scout who hates his assignment to Endor, a slimy political yes-man from Coruscant, a poet from Alderaan.  Throughout, there are pieces of art done for the films (concept design work by many artists), complimented by quite a few specially-done paintings of various planet/culture-related scenes by Ralph McQuarrie.  The stories are written by Kevin J Anderson, whose novels were not my favorites, but this book works for me.

That reminds me - it's always interesting when the film concept artists do work for the EU.  I like the consistency of styles.

LOVED this when it came out. Lost it many many years ago. I'm gonna track down another!

Ray’s Lounge
Biggs in ANH edit idea
ROTJ opening edit idea

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greenpenguino said:

theprequelsrule said:

Anchorhead said:

All goofing aside;  Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released.  The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.

A prequel story? - absolutely.  Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.

The problem with the prequels - besides all the problems you listed - is that there can be no drama or tension when the outcome is already known to the audience. I mean, we know Obi-wan is not going to die in them right?

 

Oh yeah? Well what about historical movies then?

 

Take 'Apollo 13'. That movie is pretty suspenseful even though pretty much all of us know that the astronauts survived. However, it's in the execution that the movie is suspenseful.

When a movie is done well the can still be suspense, even though we know the outcome.

Or movies with known sequels?

Can someone not fear for Indy's life in Raiders because they know that there is at least 1 movie (maybe 2) that takes place afterwards?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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ray_afraid said:

American Hominid said:

 

Also, Anchorhead - another book you may like (it's one of my faves): The Illustrated Star Wars Universe.  It's from 1995.  It's set up almost like National Geographic, with profiles of the OT planets each told by different characters - an anthropologist who visits Tatooine, an Imperial scout who hates his assignment to Endor, a slimy political yes-man from Coruscant, a poet from Alderaan.  Throughout, there are pieces of art done for the films (concept design work by many artists), complimented by quite a few specially-done paintings of various planet/culture-related scenes by Ralph McQuarrie.  The stories are written by Kevin J Anderson, whose novels were not my favorites, but this book works for me.

That reminds me - it's always interesting when the film concept artists do work for the EU.  I like the consistency of styles.

LOVED this when it came out. Lost it many many years ago. I'm gonna track down another!

I have a copy I paid full price for, but I almost bought another for ~$2 at half.com the other day since I was already buying something from the shipper and I thought it would be criminal to leave it there...

But I didn't think my wife would understand.  Might still be there...

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time

American Hominid said:

Because the Sith were excluded from the post-Jedi Bantam EU, you had a lot of random dark siders and Imperial remnants. 

Were they excluded intentionally?  Or did no one really work them in?

I mean, they were in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, right?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time

DuracellEnergizer said:

Anchorhead said:

The novel had a feeling of everything must be viewed from a Prequel point of view.


This pretty much sums up the current state of the EU.

And even the colouring books.  I saw one the other day I was going to buy- it had OT vader on the cover.  It had the 80's double line going around the edge.  I figure'd it had to be OT.  Then I flipped through it and only saw pictures of 10 year old Annie, Jar Jar, and Sebulba.

What the H-E-double-hell??

darth_ender said:

And the capital crime is the perpetual resurrection of the Emperor! Whose clever idea was it to actually have him come back again and again and again?


It was Lucas, believe it or not. Veitch originally planned to bring Vader back in the form of an imposter for Dark Empire, but Lucas thought that Vader as the antagonist had already been throughly explored and that it would be better to bring Palpatine back instead.

I wish I could point to my thread that I made in defense of Dark Empire Emperor Clones... but it very quickly became a silly argument between me and VINH.  Ah, well....

But still, I think people that are vehemently against Emperor clones maybe misunderstand that this fictional universe includes both Cloning and Dark Magic.  You can argue with the execution, but it seems odd to argue that it should be impossible in the universe.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I went from having only four EU novels that I read every year  - to exploring the minefield that is post-1990 EU.  Man, it's so convoluted I need a damn war room to plot my course...

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xhonzi said:

But still, I think people that are vehemently against Emperor clones maybe misunderstand that this fictional universe includes both Cloning and Dark Magic.  You can argue with the execution, but it seems odd to argue that it should be impossible in the universe.


I myself don't mind bringing the Emperor back through cloning. Fact is I think Veitch did a great job with Palpatine's characterization; he really built upon the Palpatine from ROTJ.

Dark Empire fails for me, though, in it's depiction of Luke's fall to the dark side. Veitch tells us that Luke went through Palpatine's dark side tomes and experimented with dark powers, but he never shows us this happening; it's just glossed over. And I never really got the feeling that Luke even fell to the dark side in the story. It's more like Luke because a sissy and went along with Palpatine out of sheer cowardice.

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Certainly by the end of the story I don't think we're supposed to be sure that Luke "falling to the dark side" was more than an act that Palpatine sort-of didn't really fall for.

I think Luke investigated the Dark Side, maybe put himself in a position to be seduced by it, but never really strayed from his mission to infiltrate the Emperor's confidence, learn his secrets of immortality so that he could take him out for good.

At least that's how I made peace with it.  If I'm supposed to think that Luke really did turn dark, then your argument is 100% valid.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

Author
Time

xhonzi said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Anchorhead said:

The novel had a feeling of everything must be viewed from a Prequel point of view.


This pretty much sums up the current state of the EU.

And even the colouring books.  I saw one the other day I was going to buy- it had OT vader on the cover.  It had the 80's double line going around the edge.  I figure'd it had to be OT.  Then I flipped through it and only saw pictures of 10 year old Annie, Jar Jar, and Sebulba.

What the H-E-double-hell??

Got this for my boy. It contains the following:

  • CGI Yoda
  • SE Han running into Stormtroopers
  • SE Millenium Falcon take off
  • AOTC Anakin
  • ROTS Anakin
  • ROTS Vader

 

And it's only like 13 pages long!!