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General Star Wars Random Thoughts Thread — Page 129

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Imagine an AT-AT breaking the curtain of a waterfall, wouldn't that be something?

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Yes, and that would work really well with this mockup from way back in the ESB and ROTJ Wishlist thread:

Now imagine if the Imperials hid a bunch of AT-ATs behind those falls and they all walked through the falls one by one....

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There's a series of Star Wars related videos called 'kit-bashed', which expand upon the notions of Star Wars' influences from classic cinema (The Hidden Fortress makes quite a few appearances)

There are some interesting points made in these videos, but one that stands out is the music influences for the opening. In particular, this one from Ivanhoe.

There's also one from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring that was interesting.

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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Interesting.

I wonder what Star Wars would sound like with an entirely classical soundtrack...

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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Tack said:

There's a series of Star Wars related videos called 'kit-bashed', which expand upon the notions of Star Wars' influences from classic cinema (The Hidden Fortress makes quite a few appearances)

There are some interesting points made in these videos, but one that stands out is the music influences for the opening. In particular, this one from Ivanhoe.

There's also one from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring that was interesting.

To toot my own horn, see also this thread.

ROTJ Storyboard Reconstruction Project

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David Prowse sure got around in British made Science Fiction tv. ;)

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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Unlike almost everyone else on these forums, I don't think there were too many Jedi in the prequels*. IMHO, the problem with the PT Jedi lies not with their numbers, but with their portrayal; if the PT Jedi had been less dogmatic, less hierarchal, more progressive, and more spiritual, no one would be complaining about how many Jedi there were.

 

*Frankly, I think there should have been more Jedi. According to the TPM novelization, there were only about 10,000 Jedi in existence at that time, and the PT itself pretty much corroborates this small number by never showing/alluding to the existence of other Jedi training centres beyond the Jedi Temple. Frankly, I find it extremely unrealistic that a religious order with a population smaller than my own modest-sized home town could ever serve as the guardians of peace and justice for an interstellar republic consisting of millions of worlds, therefore I think the Jedi should have numbered in the billions at the very least during the PT era.  

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DuracellEnergizer said:

Unlike almost everyone else on these forums, I don't think there were too many Jedi in the prequels. IMHO, if the Jedi Order had been portrayed as a less hierarchal, more progressive religion in the PT rather than as dogmatic cult of genetic supermen, no one would be complaining about how many Jedi there were.  

I agree/disagree.  The Jedi could easily have been portrayed as a dogmatic cult of genetic supermen if only the writing, and direction had been at least ROTJ good.      

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I think I could have bought the small number of Jedi a little easier if there were 'lay Jedi', and the 10,000 Jedi which report to the Jedi Temple were more like upper level clergy.

I can buy the idea that the Catholic church is a large and influential organization with worldwide reach and branches in almost every country even though there are only about 5,000 Catholic bishops in the world. I can buy that because 'bishop' is an administrative title--they have lots of people working under them, both clergy and parishioners. The Jedi don't really have this, so it's hard to buy the idea that they have enough manpower and reach to do their duty.

I can also buy that the Catholic church is big and influential enough to be considered a sovereign body internationally, even though there are only about 5,000 bishops. There were special considerations made which resulted in this real-life arrangement, just like there were arrangements made in-universe regarding the Jedi's relationship with the Republic. (If there were only 5,000 CATHOLICS, I can't see such an arrangement being made.)

I can't buy the idea that a group whose population is maybe 15,000 tops (I have no idea if the 10k number means just Masters/Knights, if it includes Padawans, if it includes babies, if it includes people who never got up to the next rung of the career ladder, w/e so we'll say it's plus or minus a couple thousand people) can police an entire galaxy, when the NYPD alone has 35,000 officers to patrol a city of about 9 million. The FBI has a comparable number of employees, with over 13,000 special agents--and they're understaffed for the work they're expected to do. And we're supposed to believe that a group of just 10,000 Jedi can effectively patrol a galaxy with trillions of citizens, even with the support and sanction of the government? Unless the Republic sends a large detachment of workers of various sorts to serve the needs of a given Jedi (or unless the Jedi can supply their own warm bodies to do the work necessary in any given location), it's hard to imagine Jedi being able to get anything done on a galactic scale.

As an aside, any time I see the Jedi being referred to as genetic supermen, I hear this in my head, and I can't stop laughing.

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I brought this topic up on TFN once, and largely to make an argument that such a small number of Jedi couldn't possibly have contributed much to the Clone Wars, and pretty much got silly replies that went along the lines of "The Jedi have Force powers, so thats makes them able to perform feats regular people can't".

I guess in their minds, each Jedi is as powerful as the Silver Age Superman. How they square this with the Jedi's pathetic demise at the hands of mundane clone troopers I'll never know (Maybe their blasters were powered by "Sithite". *rollseyes*).

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DuracellEnergizer said:

I brought this topic up on TFN once, and largely to make an argument that such a small number of Jedi couldn't possibly have contributed much to the Clone Wars, and pretty much got silly replies that went along the lines of "The Jedi have Force powers, so thats makes them able to perform feats regular people can't".

I guess in their minds, each Jedi is as powerful as the Silver Age Superman. How they square this with the Jedi's pathetic demise at the hands of mundane clone troopers I'll never know (Maybe their blasters were powered by "Sithite". *rollseyes*).

I too have observed TFN's hard-on for Force-users. They think being a Force-user makes you a god. I'd like them to explain the fact that Jango had no problem dueling Obi-Wan. 

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It's hard to not see the Jedi as godly when you spend all day writing fanfiction about them doing backflips and lightsabering dudes in half and never facing any consequences, because being a Jedi is exactly the same as being a ninja with a license to kill, right?

Seriously, though,http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/rg1101.pdf"> here's another reason I can't buy only 10,000 Jedi having that much influence. There are more than 10,000 officers ranked Colonel (Captain for you Navy people) and above in the US armed forces. As we know from The Clone Wars, all the Jedi were ranked at least this high (even though Padawans held a rank equivalent to Lt. Colonel, the mundane officers always always ALWAYS deferred to the orders of a Jedi, so Padawans essentially count as a higher rank than what they actually held in the Clone Army), and as we known from TVTropes, Colonels are badasses. But 10,000 colonels is enough to populate the upper command of just one army on the planet Earth--even if we rounded them all up to generals, that would maybe be enough generals for one planet, not an entire galaxy.

Part of this issue is Lucas not understanding just how freaking HUGE the Galaxy he created really is. Based on atlases of the GFFA, it's larger than the Milky Way, and has billions of inhabited worlds with trillions of sentient lifeforms living on them. But numbers that big make people stupid, because all of the zeroes start blending together, so the Galaxy becomes the size of Earth in people's minds, and 10,000 Colonel Badasses is plenty for one planet!

(Another real-world example: the German Army was strictly limited to an army of 100,000 men after the Treaty of Versailles. What the Germans did was they let go of all of their soldiers, but kept all of their commissioned officers--then, when they decided to re-arm, they already had enough experienced officers around to command a large army, so they were able to mobilize quickly. But again, that's just one country--and they had ten times the officers the Jedi had.)

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Nobody likes a backseat director! ;)

 

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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DuracellEnergizer said:

Unlike almost everyone else on these forums, I don't think there were too many Jedi in the prequels*. IMHO, the problem with the PT Jedi lies not with their numbers, but with their portrayal; if the PT Jedi had been less dogmatic, less hierarchal, more progressive, and more spiritual, no one would be complaining about how many Jedi there were.

 

*Frankly, I think there should have been more Jedi. According to the TPM novelization, there were only about 10,000 Jedi in existence at that time, and the PT itself pretty much corroborates this small number by never showing/alluding to the existence of other Jedi training centres beyond the Jedi Temple. Frankly, I find it extremely unrealistic that a religious order with a population smaller than my own modest-sized home town could ever serve as the guardians of peace and justice for an interstellar republic consisting of millions of worlds, therefore I think the Jedi should have numbered in the billions at the very least during the PT era.  

 *sigh*

WRONG THREAD

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That's the point.  If it was just your post, fine, but those types of posts always open the floodgates for lengthy discussions I have no interest in reading and belong elsewhere.

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TV's Frink said:

That's the point.  If it was just your post, fine, but those types of posts always open the floodgates for lengthy discussions I have no interest in reading and belong elsewhere.

 Who's a grumpy gills? Do you need a juicebox? 

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That would be lovely.  Grape, preferably.

This thread is full of discussion about EU, Sith, comics, novels, etc etc etc.  It all belongs elsewhere.

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I only like the original film and Empire. No SE, PT, EU books or comics, cartoon shows, ect. I don't collect toys or cards or any merchandise. I actually don't own a single official product except for the original OT boxset on VHS and I loaned that to my sister to show my nephews over 10 years ago*. I have no intentions of asking for it back.

So... can/should I still call myself a Star Wars fan?

* the original VHS tapes are the only version of Star Wars my nephews have seen. No PT either. And they LOVE it! The OT are their favorite films. Makes me happy.

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

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ray_afraid said:

I only like the original film and Empire. No SE, PT, EU books or comics, cartoon shows, ect. I don't collect toys or cards or any merchandise. I actually don't own a single official product except for the original OT boxset on VHS and I loaned that to my sister to show my nephews over 10 years ago*. I have no intentions of asking for it back.

So... can/should I still call myself a Star Wars fan?

* the original VHS tapes are the only version of Star Wars my nephews have seen. No PT either. And they LOVE it! The OT are their favorite films. Makes me happy.

 I'd say you were, I'm much the same.....adding ROTJ......thats it

The rest I think is shite

J