Flaws, plotholes, and "could-have-been-done-betters" in the OT (alternate plot points especially welcome) — Page 5

CO said:

imperialscum said:

I like the absence of Emperor in ANH. I love how his character progression in OT. In the first film he is only mentioned in a way that it sparks your interest and get your imagination working. Then in the second film he makes short but interesting call to Vader, which further fuels expectations. And then he finally appears in last film and he is well acted and written.

 I agree, and I wish Lucas took out Jabba in the ANH/SE cut.   The buildup of Jabba leading in ROTJ was the coolest thing as a kid.  You hear about him for 2 movies from Han Solo, and we finally get to see him in his lair in ROTJ.  The CGI addition in ANH/SE ruins all of that, plus its a totally redundent scene as Han and Greedo had the same conversation at the Cantina Bar! 

Boggles my mind at the things Lucas has done to these movies!

It was fun when it first came out in theaters. Seeing the 'new' footage, and believing Lucas when he said that it was the intention from the start.

But even at the time, I was thinking that this was a version that I might not see again. A sort of quirky director's cut to celebrate the 20th anniversary and draw extra people to the theaters. Obviously, I had no idea that it was intended to erase the history of the real movie.

darklordoftech said:

I would have included more political scenes. The lack of them resulted in confusion and shallower, more boring movies.

 I know this is an old post, but ha-ha, is it ever hilarious.  It's like Lucas posted this himself, but forgot to add "That's why I made TPM the way I did, and look how great it turned out!"

There's that whole issue of time in Empire Strikes Back. That is, how long was Luke training and how the hell did the Falcon get anywhere at sub-light speeds?

^I like to think that Bespin was relatively close to Hoth -- say a light-year away -- and it took them that long to travel there. Time dilation from travelling at near-light velocities would have kept them from experiencing too much time loss (perhaps only a week or two passed between leaving Hoth and arriving at Bespin from their point of view?), and enough time would have elapsed for Yoda to have taught Luke enough about the Force for him to get as good with it as he was shown to be when he confronted Vader.

A tiny bit now continues to bother me: When Beru tells Luke to remind Owen to get a translator that speaks Bocce, LUKE DOESN'T DO IT! He just casually walks back to Owen just to inspect an R2 unit.

I guess Babylon 5 left too good an impression on me, 'cause now I really wish the starships and fighters moved through space like spacecraft are supposed to move instead of moving like airplanes flying through air.

There is nothing wrong with the OT. People can take exception with the Ewoks, if they want, but I don't have a problem with them. Anyone talking about the need for faster or more choreographed lightsaber battles, get out of here with that please. Obi-Wan was an old man in Star Wars. Vader could have killed Luke anytime he wanted in Empire. And neither Luke nor Vader wanted to hurt the other in Jedi. There was dramatic tension with complex motivations in all of those duals.

In the prequels, there was no subtext to the fights. Just swing sticks at each other until the other person dies. Boring.

Clearly that's just hoowie :-D

There are less than perfect things about the OT and things the PT got spot on.

In the round the OT is a more enjoyable experience because the focus is more on characters and plot instead of merchandising and technology but that rot began to set in in ROTJ.

The problem with the Ewoks isn't that they are there but what they are there for (to sell toys instead of tell a story).

They aren't the small furry people they should be caring about. They are a set up for some inappropriate slapstick, height jokes and gags about people from conservative cultures eating missionaries warmed up from 1935 (the clue is in Chewie doing the Tarzan cry).

It doesn't feel like a proper Star Wars episode made in the eighties, it feels like a fan-film made in the noughties using props left over from the real films and some quickly slapped together costumes. The lighting is amateurish, the direction is flat, the performances are mostly tired and some of the sets are really boring (rebel briefing room I'm pointing at you). Some of the effects work looks unfinished.

Only Mark and Ian lift the film into something resembling the first two and above the level of the PT (the Gungans are clearly the conceptual offspring of the Ewoks who are whittled down Wookiees).

There is nothing wrong with Ewoks.

They are barbaric, ritualistic bears that live in trees. They hunt and cook prey live, and even use guerrilla tactics. Tactics they use to take on an army eons ahead of their time. That takes true balls.

People say the Ewoks beat the empire, but they were in fact getting slaughtered left and right before Chewie managed to steal an AT-ST and change the course of the battle. Chewie was the key to the fight on the ground, Lando the key to the space battle, and Luke cut off the head of the empire.

The OT is probably the best science fiction trilogy in the history of science fiction. Having a bitter sweet ending to the extent some of the writers and actors wanted would of absolutely killed the franchises legacy, especially when you accept that they were targeted towards children just as much as adults.

This however in no way is an excuse for the absolute failure of the prequels, but that goes without saying.

We see one infamously injured Ewok and even then we aren't sure if he is just a bit poorly or a corpse as his nickname suggests.

Jedi is a bit of a mess but the other two are really good :-D

Yeah, I kind of missed the Ewoks getting slaughtered left, right, and centre last time I watched the movie....

I dropped this into one of the fanedit threads :

http://public-bn1306.files.1drv.com/y2p8SVsI2hdXJGdwl5WNDFYmUM9TtPYFs9ac5uYwkGZ_kjj1OMbXE1CXNXR1G8AAAUko3naNiVE_6irG9MMZSGZ25K71X47FqEKxnTF1gjM4S0/Ewok%20Mash%20Up.jpg?rdrts=93312576

It's a mash up of Jedi and BFE shots (cropped because of the aspect ratio).

Empire Strikes Back is by far the worst of the OT when it comes to plot holes and inconsistent things and shuffled up scenes.

ANH & ROTJ flow far better in terms of narrative and especially most of all action. Irwin Kershner was not an action director but he really got the characters to shine.

Empire although it is perhaps the best OT film in some respects it is also the worst in some respects.

Ok check these in Empire.

Probe Droid Crashes and then the same crash happens again after the probe droid has emerged.

Han changes clothes again and again in Echo base short spaces of time (shuffled up scenes again)

3PO teleports between command center and hanger bay then back to command center (shuffled up scenes again)

Luke crashes in his speeder and runs after an AT-AT on a raging battlefield  for a couple of minutes and manages to catch up with it so he can blow it up. (shuffled up scenes again)

Luke then takes a casual stroll across the battlefield back to echo base.

Luke flys away from Hoth and the Empire are not there even though they have been bombing the planet and destroying the rebel base.

The escape from Echo base on the millenium falcon has many shuffled up scenes also.

Most of the mess is in the first third of the film then it settles down and then we come to the whole problem of as has already been mention the trip to Bespin and how long was Luke on Dagobah because there was a huge amount of training scenes that were not finished. and there is nothing to help us feel that time has even passed at this point people are right to think Luke spent longer on Dagobah the shots were never completed or put in the film.

we then get the scene of Luke arriving on Bespin pushed to far back into the film because of all the missing scenes.

Various action scenes comprise of random shots of stormtroopers in places that change location from shot to shot in terms of orientation and what characters should also see compared to what we saw previously from their POV.

This is what happens when it is an unfinished film with lots of missing shots in it.

Empire is a mess but it is still a great film but it is a real mess.

^I think you've watched TESB too many times for all the wrong reasons.

The battle of Endor has sone inconsistencies and plot holes as well:

-(Something already addressed for the rebel transport ships escaping Hoth in ESB) space has infinite directions.  How exactly the imperial fleet and the Death Star blocks all escape routes?

Later, Piett says the Emperor himself wants the imperial star destroyers to prevent the rebels from escaping rather than join the battle, because he has "something special planned for them".  Then the Death Star fires its superlaser.  Then Ackbar orders the fleet to retreat.  So the rebels can escape?  But I though they couldn't at that point.

-How exactly the rebel fleet couldn't detect the shield protecting the Death Star before the battle but they can instantly detect it's gone after the rebel garrison destroys the shield generator?

-The rebel fleet is between the Death Star and the imperial fleet.  Lando suggests to put their ships closer to the imperial fleet so at least they won't be destroyed by the superlaser.  But when the rebel fighters are flying towards the Death Star's core, both the rebel AND the imperial fleet are so close to the Death Star the Executor actually impacted its surface.  At what point did they come so close to the battlestation?  Or rather they instantly-teleported between scenes because the plot needed it?

Rox64 said:

The battle of Endor has sone inconsistencies and plot holes as well:

-(Something already addressed for the rebel transport ships escaping Hoth in ESB) space has infinite directions.  How exactly the imperial fleet and the Death Star blocks all escape routes?

Later, Piett says the Emperor himself wants the imperial star destroyers to prevent the rebels from escaping rather than join the battle, because he has "something special planned for them".  Then the Death Star fires its superlaser.  Then Ackbar orders the fleet to retreat.  So the rebels can escape?  But I though they couldn't at that point.

At sublight speeds, presumably the Imperial ships would overrun the Rebels, so escape depends on plotting a relevant hyperspace course. Perhaps hyperspace routes can only be done along certain vectors, and enemy ships can block these?

DuracellEnergizer said:

^I think you've watched TESB too many times for all the wrong reasons.

 Or maybe not enough.

It's clearly explained in the film that there has been a lot of meteorite activity so the second impact is one of those.

The so called teleportations and casual strolls are just editing for dramatic reasons.

The space between Threepio being in the hanger and in the command centre could have been hours but we don't need to see that time pass to know it passed.

How the dozens of elaborate Ewok traps appeared in an improvised battlefield during ROTJ however is another story.

How Luke's plan to rescue Han was meant to work is another.

Frank your Majesty said:

Not trying to explain anything away, but I don't see any plotholes here.

- Infinite directions doesn't mean infinite useful ways to go. Hyperspace navigation isn't exactly easy.

- Just because Ackbar orders them to retreat doesn't mean that they are able to retreat.

- IIRC, Lando could detect that the shield is working as he approached the death star. During the battle the rebels get closer to it, so they are all able to notice when the shield is gone.

- We don't see the whole battle from start to end, so it's not that surprising that the ships changed their positions.

 -Before the battle starts Ackbar orders the fleet to escape, but they find the imperial fleet in the sector where they were going to.  Then Ackbar says the infamous "It's a trap!".  So the movie implies, right from the beginning, that they were unable to retreat.  Then Lando is confused as to why only the imperial fighters are fighting the rebels.

-Lando says something among the lines " but how could they be jamming us if they didn't know... we were coming", which is how he finds out the shield is active.  And when he talks with the rest of the fleet, Wedge says "I have no readings, are you sure?"

However, when the shield generator is destroyed, is Ackbar the one who says "the shield is gone".

-The problem isn't the editing.

The problem is that it has no sense from both the imperial and the rebel fleet to move so close to the Death Star.

The rebels are trying to avoid the superlaser while the imperials are trying to prevent the rebels fron escaping and waiting for the Death Star to destroy the rebel capital ships one by one.

Meaning that after the rebel fleet moves towards imperial lines(thanks to Lando's suggestion), either the rebels or the imperials move first towards the Death Star, and then it's followed by the other fleet, which has no sense.  If the rebels move first then they're open to the superlaser.  If the imperial move first then the rebels would be open to the superlaser too, but also they would be able to escape which is what the imperials doesn't want (even if the Death Star is destroyed their fleet is far bigger in number).

Either that, or both fleet move towards the battlestation at the same time, which I cannot find any logical reason for that.

Also, while the Death Star was incomplete, it still has many defensive and offensive mechanisms, like the turbolasers that are trying to destroy the rebel fighters, so why would the rebels come so close to its surface? They couldn't bring extra protection to the fighters against the imperial fleet because the TIE fighters are faster than their capital ships, and the rebel fighters are faster than the Star Destroyers too, and nevertheless they were at different places (the fighters extremely close to the surface, the cruisers at several kilometers)  And the Death Star's defensive mechanisms aren't made for one-person fighters, that's the point of the attack in both SW and Jedi.  So no need to protect them (I don't get how destroying the Executor would give them more time btw).  Maybe the imperials are trying to protect the incomplete parts of the battlestation against rebel fire, but the scene where the Executor impacts the surface suggests they're near a completed part of the station.  So you have all the cannons, turbolasers, the tractor beams... all of them attacking the rebel fleet.  Yup,  a pretty smart plan, I wonder how the rebel didn't win the war at that point.

Another rare thing: what's the hole where the rebel fighters infiltrate the Death Star?  That whole hole in the middle of the surface.  What's its purpose?