BedeHistory731

You say “blaze of glory,” I say “unearned and insincere.” From my perspective, it feels less like a deed of a good man and more like a serial killer repenting on their deathbed. If we take the PT into account, it’s essentially a school shooter getting rewarded for one good deed.

Again, the idea of Death of the Author (in the actual sense, not the “your fave is problematic” sense) plays in my interpretation here. The work should speak for itself, not the author rationalizing shit in interviews. Hell, look at what Truce of Bakura said about how Leia would find redeemed Anakin.

“Wait.” He did not move away from the wall. If anything, he seemed to shrink in size and proximity. “I am no longer the man that you feared. Can you not see me as a stranger, not an old enemy?”
She’d lived too long with the fear of Darth Vader. “You can’t restore Alderaan. You can’t bring back the people you murdered, or comfort their widows and orphans. You can’t undo what you did to the Alliance.” Old pain jabbed her like a fresh wound.
“I strengthened the Alliance, although that was not my intent.” He extended a glimmering arm. The mellow voice sounded wrong. The mild, naked face didn’t look as if it’d hidden for decades behind a black breath mask. “Leia, things are changing. I may never be able to return to you.”
She glanced away. Maybe she couldn’t harm him with her blaster, but it would feel good in her hands. If she stretched, she could almost reach it. “Good.”
“There is no justifying … my actions. Yet your brother saved me from darkness. You must believe me.”
“I heard Luke.” She crossed her arms and clenched her hands around her elbows. “But I’m not Luke. Or your teacher. Or your confessor. I’m only your daughter by a cruel trick of fate.”

I know she changes her mind later in the book, but that’s still how I view Vader as ROTJ presents him. Maybe Luke buys his redemption, but I see it as entirely unearned and rushed. The movie gives him one legitimately contemplative scene (the landing platform exchange) and then the throne room stuff is him just resigned to his fate of dying evil. The decision to save his son is a first step towards redemption and possible forgiveness, not the whole process.

I’d rather have Vader slowly redeem himself, go through hiccups in shaking his thought processes he’s had for decades, before finally joining the side of good. A purely visual confrontation of his harm would also be nice, something like this:

But we don’t get that. Instead, we have a rushed redemption for a character who (as depicted) never deserved it.

Maybe I’ll feel more charitable to ROTJ again, I don’t know. I currently find it a deeply dissatisfying end to the OT and to the six-film interpretation of the series.

The Star Wars Purist said:

I liked Halloween Resurrection.

It’s infinitely better than Halloween Kills.

G&G-Fan said:

Y’know, it kinda just dawned on me, that calling Vader being Luke’s father universe shrinking is actually pretty ridiculous. Luke’s father was already Obi-Wan’s best friend and Vader was his apprentice. They were already close, it was already pretty shrinked. You’re literally just eliminating one single person by making Anakin be Vader, both of which were already close. This is absolutely nothing compared to C-3PO and R2 in the prequels and Chewbacca in ROTS. Like damn, apparently the universe is so much more vast because of one additional person.

Eh, Vader being Luke’s father is fine within ESB and a better version of ROTJ, but it’s what it helped inspire that led the franchise down a bad path. Which brings me to my next point:

And considering how much more complex both Vader and Luke’s characters are by having them be father and son respectively and their relationship and the depth it gave to both the trilogy and the saga, it’s by far absolutely worth it.

Within a better version of the trilogy, definitely. With the ROTJ we have now, where Vader’s redemption is incredibly rushed, the first act drags horribly, the cinematography looks incredibly bland, and we have the dreaded “Luke and Leia are twins” twist (which absolutely shrinks the universe)? Not really, no. Again, this is a “sometimes” attitude. When I see ROTJ '83 or ESB '80 again, my thoughts will probably change. For the better or worse? Who knows, that’s up to my interpretation.

My only six-film canon is the HAL9000 PT (with maybe the “sanding” edits sometimes) and Revisited ANH/ESB with DarthRush’s ROTJ (which fixes some of my problems with the movie). My only nine-film canon are those movies with Starlight, Rekindled (no Palpatine hints), and Resurgent (Rey Nobody edition).

Like StarkillerAG said, sometimes it feels nice to detach the OT/SW and ESB/SW along from its mediocre franchise. I single out TPM and TLJ from their respective trilogies, because I happen to really like them.

I don’t like that some PT fans refuse to see the OT within their temporal context of 1977-83.

G&G-Fan said:

BedeHistory731 said:

Star Wars is supposed to be a family soap opera, according to George Lucas. If you don’t like it, then you just don’t really like Star Wars.

We have a whole thread about Lucas’ revisionism and his changing interpretations/press statements about his works. Also, Death of the Author (in the actual sense, not the “your fave is problematic” sense) opens the room up for all interpretations to be valid. Just because it’s George’s intent doesn’t mean it is what we take away from it/want from it.

Also, damn it’s almost like things from one family member get passed down to another. Sounds like you didn’t take a lot of science classes cause it seems you know nothing about genetics.

Luke’s father in 1977 was a Jedi, so yeah it’d be “passed down.”

It seems like you’re just infatuated with an idea without realizing that it just works poorly on screen. Having Vader once be the man Obi-Wan described Luke’s father as immediately adds way more depth to his character. Without combining Vader and Anakin they both become a lot less complex and interesting. Since when was the universe feeling vast more important then character depth and the characters having meaningful relationships with one another? Because if you ask me that was never.

You can still make the relationships meaningful and bring about complexity with them remaining separate. It’s only one additional character.

BedeHistory731 said:

Perhaps Leia shouldn’t be the child of a Jedi? The brother-sister twist should also be on the chopping block as it really feels half-assed.

You missed the point entirely. That still doesn’t answer why Luke is the only child of any Jedi left around. If Jedi having children is something any normal Jedi would do, why is he the only one? Why doesn’t Obi-Wan or Yoda or any of the other Jedi have any children? You mean to tell me Luke is the only child of any Jedi left in the entire galaxy?

He’s the only one we see within the scope of the franchise, doesn’t mean he’s the only one.

It’s almost like having Anakin be a morally ambiguous character who then turned to the dark side and became Vader because he broke the rules that Jedi shouldn’t get married and have children kinda ties all the loose ends, doesn’t it?

It doesn’t have to necessarily be that way.

Nah. Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi expand on the themes and the characters. It makes everything a lot more complex and interesting and further develops everybody. Vader would be 1/4 of the amazing character he is without ESB or ROTJ. Vader as we know him know is defined far more by ESB then ANH. I’d even argue Luke would be half of what he is without the two sequels. Luke is made way more complex and layered by ESB and ROTJ then ANH alone. If you just have ANH as a standalone movie his journey isn’t complete. He’s not even a Jedi by the end of the first movie.

Maybe the completion we did get isn’t satisfying to me, and I regret what the completion of the trilogy has wrought for franchise filmmaking. I think ROTJ is a deeply flawed movie (Vader’s redemption is entirely undeserved to me) and kind of renders ESB in a poorer light.

And you know my Godzilla comparison? I didn’t expect you to get so offended over it and my other points to rattle off three long posts in succession. Maybe I should have compared it to the Indiana Jones series, because at least that one had similar enough operations to Star Wars.

I really didn’t expect you to take such offense to my points. But you are right about something: I’m kind of questioning why I even got into this franchise to begin with, and what is even the appeal of it. Outside of SW and ESB, I really don’t see anything worth salvaging from this franchise. But that’s a me problem and I’ll deal with it.

Pauline Kael was right and history keeps proving her correct.

SparkySywer said:

Star Wars 77 is a fantastic movie on its own, but I don’t think it would be as worth remembering without The Empire Strikes Back

Yeah, Empire arguably has more continued pop culture relevance than '77 and more of it has joined the general pop culture osmosis we all ingest. Star Wars, for all of its successes, is pretty basic when you get down to it. It does what it does well, but it doesn’t have the ambition of ESB.

I guess the '77 purism is akin to wishing that the Godzilla series was just Gojira '54 and nothing else. It’s excellent on its own, but you’re missing out on good (and pop culture relevant) stuff if you ignore the rest. At the moment, I’m ok with missing out on that.

Servii said:

We’ve ascended beyond OT purism now. We’ve gone up to 1977 purism.

But in all seriousness, I think something is lost when you only view Star Wars 77 in isolation. It’s neat to look at how far the characters come from the start of that movie to the end of RotJ, and the two sequels recontextualize the original in a way that adds more depth to the story imo

That’s an entirely valid way to look at it and one I’ll probably circle back to at one point. I completely see how ESB and ROTJ add to the world of SW, but it’s not worth it to me.

Right now, I’m just so burned out on franchise filmmaking that I relish in the idea of standalones. Leaving on a high note > overstaying your welcome. Some people see ROTJ or ROTS as that high note, I see Star Wars as that high note in this moment. One excellent movie and that’s it. ESB isn’t a Highlander II or Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, but it’s decisions led to far worse things to come for the franchise.

G&G-Fan said:

BedeHistory731 said:

Sometimes I only want the 1977 original to be canon. Maybe I’ve soured on the long-term issues around Vader being Luke’s father, IDK.

Hahahahahahahahaha no. Star Wars would be half of what it is if Vader wasn’t Luke’s father. ROTJ would go from a beautiful story of how a father redeemed himself to save his son to a cliche, boring “Luke kills the Emperor and Vader and saves the day! Luke gets revenge on the evil bad guy who killed his dad!”. Bleh. Imagine a ROTJ without the bridge scene between Luke and Vader, Vader throwing the Emperor down the shaft and Anakin telling Luke he was always right about him. AKA the best parts of ROTJ? Sounds pretty shitty if you ask me. The entire third act of ROTJ basically becomes meaningless. Nothing.

Well, I’d rather have ROTJ simply not exist. Also, Vader’s redemption feels really unearned to me these days. Give it a movie or more to work towards, then it would feel satisfying.

Literally everything would have a lot less emotional depth too, from Luke’s journey to Vader’s character. Vader especially is given a shit ton more depth. It makes their relationship far more interesting and gives them an actual connection beyond just a shallow “I want revenge on you because you killed my dad!”.

It also shrinks the universe a little and turns the Skywalkers into the most important family in the galaxy. I don’t like the idea of lineage dictating a character’s power. Luke being a nobody who happens to be the son of a random Jedi and not the son of an all-time powerful Jedi/regional manager of the Empire sounds a bit better to me at the moment. I hate how lineage becomes so important, especially to the fan (and Abrams’) perspective.

And also, just from a simple screenwriting perspective, it makes a lot more sense to just lump Anakin and Vader into the same character. Having Obi-Wan have both a best friend and an apprentice just adds more unnecessary characters, and both characters would just be bland archetypes without lumping them together. Anakin is an interesting character because of the things that lead him to become Darth Vader, remove that and you just have a typical one-dimensional hero character. Anakin’s flaws are what make him work, otherwise he’s bland. What’s the point of having both a best friend character and an apprentice character when you can just combine them, leading to a much more interesting character with a lot more depth? In general, when you have too many characters it becomes harder to develop them all.

Not really? It’s only going to be bland archetypes if you have a bad writing or aren’t willing to develop said characters. Maybe Anakin was a bit of a POS and was an enabler for Vader? Maybe Obi and Anakin hurt Vader somehow and unintentionally led to his creation? Perhaps Vader was in the right for betraying the Jedi? There are plenty of questions one could pose if Vader and Anakin were separate.

The prequels already had so many characters to develop, lmao.

Well, cut a few glup shittos and you’d have room for more character stuff.

It also explains why Luke and Leia are the only children of any Jedi that are around. Because Anakin broke the rules, and this contributed to him becoming Darth Vader.

Perhaps Leia shouldn’t be the child of a Jedi? The brother-sister twist should also be on the chopping block as it really feels half-assed.

IMHO (which could change sooner or later), Star Wars (no A New Hope) is like Gojira. It works well as the start of a series and as a standalone, but it’s best as a standalone. Controversial, I know, but its my take at the moment.

Reshoots - a proud Star Wars tradition!

Han dying probably would have hurt the movie a little, I’d argue. Even though Han has little utility outside of the first act, he does very much earn his happy ending with Leia. Han dying would make the end a little too dark for my tastes. Having Han die in between ROTJ and TFA would have been acceptable, with Harrison only making a cameo in either a flashback or Kylo’s visions.

My bigger complaint (and one that actually hurts the movie) is that Vader’s redemption is kind of rushed. It comes off as just a brief rumination, followed by a split-second decision to save his son. Drawing his internal debate out a bit more would make it feel more earned at the end. It’s also why splitting ROTJ into two movies might have improved the overall narrative (movie one being Jabba’s Palace and movie two being Endor), as there would be more time to explore Vader’s redemption.

Sometimes I only want the 1977 original to be canon. Maybe I’ve soured on the long-term issues around Vader being Luke’s father, IDK.

Adywan did mention that the detail levels were less than those of 4K77. Silver Screen/a release print would fit that qualification. Shadow detail seemed a bit high for a release print though, right?

I just hate that the posters use Agency. Agency is one of my least favorite fonts, especially the numerals.

John Boorman really sells Zardoz short. Yeah, it’s very clearly not his best work, but it has such a cool vision to it. The film also reflects so much of early-‘70s Sexual Revolution thinking from various perspectives. Even when the movie is being bizarre, it’s bizarre in a fascinating way, which is more than I can say for a lot of bad art house films (e.g., The Jar).

SpenceEdit said:

G&G-Fan said:

I think it’d be great to have an edit that just has the gungans speak in an alien language instead. Their speech is just so annoying and hard to understand. And besides when you have them have an alien language and then subtitle them you can make them say whatever you want.

Is there a language that the movie has been dubbed in that isn’t immediately identifiable? Because that could work. But if they obviously are speaking Russian or French it kind of falls apart.

Would Hungarian (a real “odd duck” within central/eastern European languages) be a good alien language for the Gungans? That is, of course, if we have a Hungarian dub of the PT.

SparkySywer said:

I didn’t even see that the body of the post was edited. Really uncool. Even if this post was downright intentionally spreading misinformation, it shows a severe lack of maturity and restraint in the mod team on OT.com to treat it this way. This is an argument over space movies where they say “Nerf herder”. It isn’t so dangerous as to warrant this kind of treatment.

Oojason could really be an overzealous mod. I liked the guy, but he could have power trip moments. Look at what happened to Chainsawash, for instance.

Servii said:

Edit: I almost forgot about StarWarsTheory. He’s an interesting case. He seems like a decent guy. I think he just wants really badly to keep on being a Star Wars fan and keep getting excited for new Star Wars. But the sequel trilogy kind of broke him, which is why he seems so conflicted a lot of the time. (He even gave TRoS a positive review at first.)

He associates with too much of the “bad” group for me to like him. I don’t think he’s a decent guy at all. The bad group is part of the alt-right pipeline, using geek culture to radicalize young men. That “bad group” deserves to be shunned by the fandom, but Theory likes to keep their company.

HelloGreedo and Star Wars Explained are the only ones worth a damn, I find. Before you want to call SWE a shill, remember that he didn’t like TROS that much.

Servii said:

It really hasn’t. And you shouldn’t feel like you have to defend Disney Star Wars in order to be seen as on the “right side of history.”

I would say that when a decent enough percentage of negative reviews mention idpol stuff, it has. Also, when you have people like Geeks + Gamers, TheQuartering, YellowFlash, CriticalDrinker, Star Wars Girl, Mauler, and others on the dislike side, it’s unfortunately become that. The reasonable complaints get drowned out.

And I actually like the ST. Well, fanedits of the ST. Quite frankly, I need fanedits to watch any post-ESB movie in the franchise. But I did enjoy the base ST more than the base PT!

Servii said:

Fuck the Lucas Zealots

Take it easy. I don’t like what he’s saying either, but his is very much a minority opinion, even among Lucas fans.

Didn’t Stardust say similar things, albeit in more eloquent/long-winded terms?

And I don’t see what Vic Mignogna or identity politics has to do with this, either. This isn’t a culture war we’re talking about here.

It’s more evidence that he’s an idiot. Like it or not, Star Wars and most of “nerd culture” is part of the larger culture war. Liking or disliking the ST has unfortunately become a good barometer for such “sides” in the culture war.

Fuck the Lucas Zealots, especially ones who believe Vic Mignogna did nothing wrong and (as I saw on his Twitter) whining about “identity politics.” Apparently film preservation isn’t as important to “absolute creator control over franchises” to this dumb fuck.

I just see development hell in its future and a disappointing release. Ah well, us PC people have the original ready to play and the Xbox folks can play the original on backwards compatibility. Idk much about the Switch ports.

DrDre said:

BedeHistory731 said:

DrDre said:

The 2004 release was based of a 2K scan of the negative, while the 2019 release is based on a 4K scan done in 2012.

I always thought that the 2004/2011 “HD Branch” was a 1080p scan, as horrifying as that may sound.

The final master was 1080p, but the scan itself was 2K according to someone who worked on it.

Ah, that makes sense.

DrDre said:

The 2004 release was based of a 2K scan of the negative, while the 2019 release is based on a 4K scan done in 2012.

I always thought that the 2004/2011 “HD Branch” was a 1080p scan, as horrifying as that may sound.

G&G-Fan said:

enderdrag64 said:

What were some of these inaccuracies? Just curious

This pretty much explains it (I have it time coded to where it talks about Hirch’s book)

https://youtu.be/olqVGz6mOVE?t=6654

I always thought that video was needlessly hyperbolic.

RogueLeader said:

I could imagine citizens of the galaxy whispering amongst themselves one of his nicknames, Prince of Ashes.

“Prince of the Asteroids” would also be a potential nickname, probably in a timeline where Ben didn’t turn.

The whole thing reminds me of DBZ Abridged’s bit where Vegeta “the Prince of All Saiyans” experiences great euphoria upon being called “King Vegeta” for the first time. I guess he remains a prince out of respect for his father (who was also a “King Vegeta”)?

But back to headcanons - Qui-Gon learned the trick of becoming “one with the force” from traveling to ancient Jedi strongholds in the unknown regions during his knighthood (maybe Ach-To even). These readings and studies are why he doesn’t play along with the council and what he hoped to teach Obi-Wan and Anakin. He didn’t learn how to become a ghost fully until several decades into his time with the force, so that’s why he only starts taking physical form during Kenobi. His limited ability to become physical is also why he looks older and why his beard looks like a cheap fake.