Michael Arndt heavily involved in writing the new SW trilogy — Page 5

The Sith and Jedi are essentially the same thing.

As such their influence is about equal in both trilogies.

They are wizards.

The Force is magic.

If you were to trim out every scene of a Jedish nature from the OT it would make no sense at all.

If you were to do the same with the PT it would make as much sense and would be thankfully shorter but Star Wars has the Force and Jedi at the centre of the mix.

Maybe they will play around with that and have it that Luke stuck two fingers up a Yoda's dying words and said "this Sith Jedi crap ends with me", I can't see that myself.

Bingo you keep making sweeping summaries of what Star Wars is....It's a Father/Son story...it's about the Force/Jedi/Sith.....

The PT just doesn't have the mix right, it's to heavily bogged down in politics and council meetings, it does have a lot of exciting scenes though but with the Jedi possessing super powers they can get out of every situation, the OT on the other hand is far more earthy, the majority of characters are not Force-y, you connect with them and thats why the OT is more respected.

When I was a kid Star Wars was OK to be a fan of, I remember in Science class when we were learning about magnetism one of the hardest guys in my year asking the teacher about why lasers bounced off the walls in the trash compactor scene, SW was not nerdy back then, it was cool.

The prequels have turned a lot of people off the franchise, it still makes money but they have made the films disposable.

The new films hopefully will have other avenues to explore, not just the fantastical powers of the force, hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid

J 

Yeah there were too many boring meeting scenes.

If the OT had huge numbers of briefing scenes or conference scenes it would be as true but even then the OT had better quality expositional sit down chats.

The conference scene in ANH where Motti gets on Vader's bad side is brilliant.

The briefing in ROTJ is as painful as anything you will see in the PT but it's a brief briefing.

It wasn't the Jediness of the scenes that were boring in the PT it was the quality and the quantity.

The same is true of all the landing and take off shots but I don't see any calls to remove spaceships.

I was accused of saying a film without Padme wouldn't be Star Wars which is clearly bunk.

But a film without Jedi, the Force and lightsabers will not be Star Wars.

It might be cool but it won't be cool Star Wars.

The hokey religions line is meant to be ironic you do get that right?

Luke's faith in the mystical energy field saves the day not Han's or the Empire's technological terror.

Vader was right.

The Han line reminds us that there is room for a non Force population in the SW universe, who get through life other ways.

The Star Wars story cannot be without the Force, Jedi's and lightsabers....but hopefully the new films will have normal grounded main characters like the OT

J

Hell Yeah :-)

Han is likeable and he makes the airey fairyness of the Force and the processional language of the Jedi tolerable and I absolutely missed a character like that in the PT and desire one to be in the ST.

But as I point out the telling thing about Han is he is intended to be wrong, as wrong as Motti on the other side of the fence.

A good blaster by your side is not enough, the targeting computer is not enough, the Death Star is not enough.

----SWEEPING STATEMENT ALERT--------

This is a core message of the saga and to lose it would be worse than having a pseudo scientific explanation for Force sensitivity or why the Emperor looks all pruney in ROTJ.

Yes that is the repetitive theme that runs through the saga, the tiny primitive bringing down the technological might, though not always using the Force

J

Technically it is always using the Force.

The Ewoks only help the Rebels break down the deflector shield protecting the second Death Star because Luke makes Threepio float in the air.

Even though the Ewoks had seen men on flying bikes and men in metal chickens and a new metal moon grow in the sky somehow this freaks them out enough to stop them from eating our heroes and seed the forest with amazing wooden traps...overnight...even though they don't know they will need them yet.

Bingowings said:

Technically it is always using the Force.

Apart from when the Gungans stand over immobilised BattleDroids, with a little help from a kid clumsily firing missiles on board the Droid control ship.....not using the Force.....the primitive bringing down the Technically superior

Or the tow-cable bringing down the mighty AT-AT's, it happens often in the SW films....not always using the Force

J

I think it's very easy for us here at OT.com to say we would prefer if the ST was PT neutral. We have to face the fact, though, that it won't be. We're talking about episodes 7, 8, and 9. In order for them to be 7, 8, and 9; there has to be a 1, 2, and 3. It's crazy to think they wouldn't be acknowledged. And is it really that bad that they will be?

There are actually quite a few elements of the PT I think would be great to see in the ST. A lot of it does have to deal with the jedi order. What's wrong with having a jedi council and calling apprentices padawans? If the answer is Luke wasn't told about in the OT, remember he had the ghosts of his father, Obi Wan, and Yoda to keep him company at the end. Why wouldn't they tell him? 

And what about some of the planets featured in the PT? What's wrong with revisiting Coruscant? The PT introduced quite a few planets, and I don't see why any of them shouldn't be reused in the ST.

As for Luke reforming the jedi order, and avoiding the mistakes made previously, I think it would actually be cool to have this be a plot point. It would, first of all, connect all three trilogies, and give a further continuity that I think is lacking a bit, and would give Luke a very interesting challenge to overcome.

I think, the bottom line is, though, I get that people here don't like the PT. But the PT is still part of the SW saga. I get that many people don't like how the story played out in the PT. But that's how they decided it would play out. That is part of the story of the SW saga. And I get that some people want to pretend that they don't exist because of their lackluster quality. But they do exist, and will forever be the first three parts of the SW saga, whether you like it or not. 

Jaitea said:

Bingowings said:

Technically it is always using the Force.

Apart from when the Gungans stand over immobilised BattleDroids, with a little help from a kid clumsily firing missiles on board the Droid control ship.....not using the Force.....the primitive bringing down the Technically superior

Or the tow-cable bringing down the mighty AT-AT's, it happens often in the SW films....not always using the Force

J

The Naboo conflict wasn't about the Feds and the Gungans it was about the Force empowered Sith Lord displacing the sitting chancellor under the noses of the Force empowered Jedi Knights and that worked like a dream.

And while Luke may have only used his wits and his lightsaber to bring down one or two walkers, Vader brought down the Rebel deflector shield by using the Force to terrorise his own command staff and realise staff changes. He also used it to detect the correct target for his attention The Falcon. The pursuit of which was propelled by further Force applied executions allowing him to use the Force to bait his trap for Skywalker (the tables were turned for ESB the clues are in the title).

1990osu said:

Bingowings said:

I'm merely pointing out that having a maternal trilogy (in the same sense that the OT is a paternal trilogy) is a possibility and one that need not be rubbish.

I find the resolution of ROTJ actually rather sexist as it stands.

I actually think this is a really, really bad idea...I see where you're coming from with the political correctness and everything, but people don't want to see a maternal Star Wars Trilogy- they want action and romance and adventure like the Errol Flynn movies or the Buck Rogers serials with the damsel in distress, saved in the nick of time.  To me that is what Star Wars is about- a throwback to a "more civilized age."

It's hard to get the same perspective now because Star Wars is just another "old movie" but even when it came out in the 70s, it was deeply nostalgic in its story and its execution.

One of the big problems TPM had was George had miscalculated what can be pastiched in the 21st Century within a family film.

The world can forgive the slightly pimpish aspects of Lando but while he was a artist of his day Stepin Fetchit will probably remain a comedy mistep for many more decades.

He was going in the right direction with a strong gutsy female character in the first two films but after that he seemed to bounce between bizarrely dressed clowns

to sexualised manikins for female characters.

I've been accused of making generalisations about the saga but is this the direction we want to continue with?

Star Wars (1977) was a film of it's time Episode VII (2015) can still delve into the mythic realm without being a social dinosaur itself.

Bingowings said:

The Naboo conflict wasn't about the Feds and the Gungans it was about the Force empowered Sith Lord displacing the sitting chancellor under the noses of the Force empowered Jedi Knights and that worked like a dream.

It involved the technologically superior Federation troops, weapons & tanks against primitive Gungans astride dinosaur things.....and catapults......sure if you want to go back and explain the cause of the conflict, the Sith Lord.

Thats like saying that every battle between the Empire & Rebels is the result of the Force because The Emperor & Vader give the orders.

J

In part yes.

Thrawn is one of the more popular EU characters and he makes that point with some eloquence (he still uses a Jedi though).

The point I was making is the conflict was just for show, like the war in 1984 (the book not the year after ROTJ), Palpatine is using it as a means to an end which he would have succeeded whoever won so the technology failed to the dark side of the Force in much the same way it loses to the light side in ANH.

That's why the Emperor's theme plays at the end of TPM, he won not the Gungans and the Naboo.

The same goes for the clone wars.

The Emperor uses the Force over an organic slave army to win against a robot army. Either way though he would still win because the robots are under the command of his apprentice.

If only Lucas had given those ideas to a proper writer and we wouldn't be so embarrassed by those films and more excited by the prospect of three more.

Bingowings said:

The point I was making is the conflict was just for show

Hence the movie title.

J

Indeed, the last Star Wars title that actually made sense.