BedeHistory731

I mentioned this in the Resurgence thread for the Shaw ghost, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to do a 3D model of Hayden’s head (with photorealistic textures) to better incorporate the Hayden ghost into ROTJ? Either that or convincingly deepfake Hayden’s head onto a similarly-sized costumed body double (with ROTS-like wig) duplicating Shaw’s expressions.

I may just be spitballing here, but a well-produced Hayden ghost would be my preferred version of Anakin. I’d say we’re at the point where it would be doable.

This may sound hilariously stupid, but what if somebody 3D modeled Shaw’s head and used photo-based textures for it? Then it could be composited into the shots for the redone ending. It would be a pain in the butt, but it might be worthwhile.

Given what Luke learned about the fall of the Jedi, it’d make sense to toss away the Youngling Killer 9000 like garbage.

Servii said:

Change Obi-Wan’s Krayt Dragon call in ANH to a Godzilla roar.

I’d go for the headless kamikaze scream from the Serious Sam games.

fmalover said:

Since Rey’s godlike mastery of the Force is being discussed, I want to say that if there’s one thing that bothered me most about the PT, it’s how everyone goes on about how strong Anakin is with the Force, but we never see him do anything noteworthy in AotC and RotS other than basic stuff like telekinetically moving stuff around or boosting his jumps. Now I’m not saying he should have breezed through waves of enemies Force Unleashed style, it’s just that I would consider this a case of “Show, don’t tell”.

Heck, something like enhanced precognition, complete sensory awareness, or even some large telekinetic feat (e.g., ripping ships apart) would’ve sold both his status as a “chosen one” and how much becoming Vader diminished him. I don’t know if 2002/2005 CGI and physical modeling could do that convincingly, but it would’ve sold it more.

Servii said:

Also, “Mary Sue” is not a dogwhistle. There are plenty of well known male Mary Sues/Gary Stus in fiction. I’m not sure what you’re implying about Marcia Lucas with that. I know people who avoid using the term because they don’t want to be accused of being some sort of reactionary, but it’s a valid term in character criticism.

I agree that it’s valid, but it’s been used so often by the reactionary sort that it has kind of lost a lot of its original meaning and has become a dogwhistle for some (akin to “ethics in video game journalism”). It sucks that such a useful term has been ruined, but that’s the impact of the culture war on pop culture discussion.

NeverarGreat said:

Are we sure that’s higher quality than anything we have, or is he just implying that he got a fan project?

Even so, digitizing analog video masters is just standard archival policy at this point. Analog video doesn’t exactly have the shelf life of safety film.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Omni said:

Yeah, not a flaw at all. Complaining about Carano’s firing should be a major red flag.

Strongly diasgree. What she said may have been really stupid but it wasn’t dangerous, and I’ve had with this cancel culture.

It was very dangerous. Any attempt to spread misinformation at this time should be seen as dangerous. It’s much bigger than just “cancel culture.”

ZkinandBonez said:

How is it not a flaw to fail to explain how a new protagonist far supersede both of the previous saga main characters for two movies, then retconning it to some vague super-inheritance in the third film?

But is she really all that more powerful than Anakin or Luke? Do we really need to see a training arc beyond what was in TLJ and the opening of TROS (she’s been training with Leia and on her own during the time skip)? The character still struggles and has the whole “found family” arc, so it’s not like she’s a god-mode Mary Sue (e.g., Starkiller from The Force Unleashed).

And as for killing off the OT characters, even Mark Hamill has expressed disappointment in Lucasfilm failing to bring back the old cast as so many fans were hoping for. Yes, Ford has an odd relationship with SW, Fisher’s passing was obviously out of everyone’s control, but killing off Luke was to many a step too far. And Lando’s “mandatory” appearance in TROS didn’t really serve much of a story purpose.

I get the issue around it, but I really don’t think it was an issue because the sacrifice was handled so well in the movie. I know an OT reunion scene would’ve been welcome, but I think the story is fine without it.

What annoys me is that I think the new trilogy could have been saved with just one minor adjustment to TLJ. If Luke hadn’t been killed off and Rey had received some actual mentoring in the third film, then I think the whole thing could have come to a much more satisfying conclusion.

I really don’t think that. Rey gets enough mentoring in the movie and it serves the story well.

I still would have had some complaints, sure, but it would have felt more consistent and like a proper “passing of the torch” story. It would have given Luke more of a complete arc and a position in the saga worthy of what was set up previously and how he is perceived by the fandom, and it could also have helped give some much needed limitations to Rey’s abilities (which TLJ did kind of touch on), while still allowing for her grand powers in the third film. And hopefully this would have resulted in a third film that gave Finn and Poe more to do.

I’d say that TLJ did all of that. That was the worthy ending that fit with the Luke of the OT.

I personally can forgive TFA for it’s unoriginality due it having the massive task of having to bring back fans after the PT, and I can appreciate the depth and nuance that Johnson attempted to add to Luke (though I’m still torn on whether it should have been done or not), but in the end I think the lack of an organic ending made the whole trilogy crash and burn. With Luke as a strong link to the OT and ideas more akin to Trevorrow’s planned finale I think the ST could have been quite good, if not a fair bit derivative.

I’m not all that keen on TROS, but it still feels like a decent and fairly organic ending to me. Rey has her found family and much like Luke in ROTJ, there’s room to speculate on her next move. Heck, the claiming of the name with ghostly approval works well as a torch pass to me.

Granted, I’d have set the ST 100 years after ROTJ with only Chewy, R2, 3PO, and ghost Luke returning. All the themes could be explored without causing unexpected disturbances with OT fans.

LexX said:

BedeHistory731 said:

I think she sounds bitter and spiteful more than anything else. Like the guy who played Boba Fett for the Jabba scene in ANH whining about the name of Fett’s ship. OK, maybe not that bad…

Still, I find her critiques paper-thin more than anything else.

Those are pretty much the same critiques anyone has had if they have had any.

Yeah, whining about killing the OT characters and trying to argue that Rey is a bad character. That’s a bit more shallow than some of the more substantial critiques. Surely she knew that Harrison would only do the movie if Han died. Luke’s sacrifice was handled beautifully in the movie. No “magic is gone” because the OT characters died.

There are always people who take critique as bitterness if they can make a possible reason why whatever the subject would be. I can’t see how the fundamental flaws of the films are paper-thin.

Killing the OT characters was not a fundamental flaw. Not explaining everything about Rey is not a fundamental flaw. She came very close to dropping the “Mary Sue” dog whistle.

I think she sounds bitter and spiteful more than anything else. Like the guy who played Boba Fett for the Jabba scene in ANH whining about the name of Fett’s ship. OK, maybe not that bad…

Still, I find her critiques paper-thin more than anything else.

SparkySywer said:

oojason said:

Servii said:

It’s important to understand that, when it comes to liking or disliking a fictional space movie, morality has no bearing on a person’s opinion. Whether or not you like a space adventure movie says nothing about you as a human being, because it’s just a movie.

I remember after TLJ came out, and for the next couple years, there was a massive wave of articles by journalists that tried to either trivialize or vilify criticizers of the film. “It’s just Russian bots.” “It’s just a small group of racist trolls online.” “They’re not real fans, anyway. They’re just manbabies who don’t understand the true meaning of Star Wars.” I heard all of these repeatedly from journalists, with similar sentiments even being repeated by Lucasfilm employees. Of course, antagonizing your own customers is never a good idea, no matter how little you care about them. But the whole thing was so bizarre, I still can’t fully wrap my head around it.

That was because it was true (the part about Russian bots, trolls spammers - the racists, sexists and homophobes - we even had numbers of them on here). There is a massive disconnect between criticising and outing these fuckwits - and ‘antagonizing your own customers’, as you claim.

This is true, but it’s at least worth mentioning that there’s a vocal minority of trigger-happy ST fans who’ll happily lump valid criticism in with bad faith actors.

Definitely. I’m kind of guilty of that myself, if only as a defense mechanism when interacting with people online. I see dislike of the sequels as a red flag about certain attitudes that needs to be disproven by the disliking party. If they start ranting about Gina Carano’s firing, a “Lucasfilm civil war,” or even how there will be a “retcon of the sequels through the World Between Worlds,” then I feel the urge to disengage.

That’s a flaw on my part.

Hal 9000 said:

I love how the character of the original saber effects still comes through and isn’t totally overwritten.

Definitely. It feels more “alive” than other saber repaints.

Overall, I’m very impressed with your work, Ady!

So, are people who like the ST awful people for liking it?

I’d be more open to watching “The Edwards Cut” (the mess the movie was before reshoots), because that would at least be a hilarious mess and not a dour mess.

Like, let’s be real: the Snyder Cut is still a mediocre-to-bad miniseries/movie. It’s just good-looking compared to the Whedon Cut.

I think the hallway scene is the worst part of that already-awful movie. It just feels like a slasher movie bit got stuck in the wrong series. I tend to dislike people who like that scene, especially the ones who want roughly two hours of it in an “R-rated horror movie.” I also find that a certain crowd that likes this scene also enjoy harassing people who worked on the ST, so…

R1 fails the “eight deadly words” for me. Not even AOTC and TROS did that.

Rewrite all the title crawls and credits in Aurebesh.

screams in the void said:

I think he was right in the context of the original unaltered trilogy , before the prequels , back when it was widely believed by a lot of authors that the Clone Wars took place 35 years before the original film .

Definitely. The timeline chicanery of the prequels is a bit of a pain.

Ideally, David Prowse should’ve been unmasked Vader/Ghost Anakin. He was only a few years older than Anakin’s post-PT canon age!

Mocata said:

recontextualizing the world, characters, or events of the original film in a way that makes them better in hindsight

Yup. That’s why I like Better Call Saul. It makes Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill’s arc more compelling, as well as the Salamanca family-Gus Fring conflict. It also makes Walter White’s achievements all the more impressive in Breaking Bad, as he was able to annihilate all of these people.

I made the joke before, but I now kinda want an HD remaster (or at the very least, a Steam/PSN/Xbox Live Arcade release) of Super Bombad Racing or even a new Star Wars-themed Mario Kart clone.

Meh, call me when Super Bombad Racing gets an HD remake. 😉

I’m excited for this!

thebluefrog said:

Prequels barely work in general.

Can people really come up with any prequels outside of SW that enhance the original?

Better Call Saul

Stardust1138 said:

I respectfully disagree. I don’t really see George as someone who was trying to max out on profits with the Prequels. I see what he did as giving endless creativity to collectors and recouping his investment in order to stay independent. He had to make his investment back in more ways than just the films. It’s the complete opposite of what Disney did with X-Wings and TIE Fighters. They made everything look like the Original Trilogy as they wanted to make something that they felt was Star Wars. It may look like it to an extent but I don’t think it entirely feels like it.

That’s a fair assessment of it and I can respect that. I do miss the “evolutionary” trajectory of the ships in the PT-OT and I wish it continued in a more substantial way in the ST beyond minor adjustments.

They did carry over a few things but it’s the execution of the ideas that seems to be different. J never saw midi-chlorians as a weakness to the story. I think they add an extra layer. Especially when you consider the Whills angle. I equally don’t mind the political storybeats as Star Wars has always been political.

Indeed, I don’t mind the political aspects of it. Heck, it’s one of the parts of the prequels I enjoy and I wish there had been more of it in the sequels. I respectfully disagree about midi-chlorians and the Whills due to how they “de-mystify” the Force.

Then again, I feel that way about a lot of stuff. I’ve never been keen on Raava-Vaatu in the ATLA series, as I like the idea of the Avatar being completely obscured to even the wisest sages of the four nations. Granted, the Raava-Vaatu conflict gave us all the bits of Korra Books 3 and 4 that I liked, so it’s a wash.

I honestly would’ve been right there with you if the story that George started didn’t feel incomplete.

I’d say I-VI is pretty complete if that’s any consolation. ROTJ is a pretty conclusive ending for me, with those bits of poetic cycles completed. I even like how the film cuts from the heroes of the PT (Shaw or Hayden, take your pick) to the heroes of the OT in the last two shots.

The difference from my estimate and I could be completely wrong is that Gene Roddenberry got to tell his stories before someone else came into the picture to expand his work. I’ve never been the biggest Star Trek fan but I have enjoyed Next Generation in the times I’ve watched it.

It’s more that Roddenberry got kicked out of power when people realized that he wasn’t that good at writing dialogue or developing fallible characters. The “Roddenberry box” was a phenomenon that TNG writers and staff complained about, as Roddenberry told them that fallible people wouldn’t exist in his universe. I might be misrepresenting that, but the point remains. He didn’t really get to tell all of his stories beyond seasons 1-2 of TNG and the first Trek movie. He just got kicked up into a position where other directors and writers would do whatever they wanted and they just ran some basic stuff by him.

It’s all ultimately subjective. No one answer is correct but I do think the original creator no matter who they are should be given the chance to complete their life’s work. Unfortunately life doesn’t always go the way we want it to and this is a case of that.

Well said. I respectfully disagree about the “one creator completing their story” angle (I hate auteur theory and/or “protection from editors”), but I can completely see where you’re coming from. I get why I-VI is more enjoyable than I-IX to you, especially from the storytelling perspective and your interpretation of the series. I wish I could like the prequels as you do, I really do.

I do like that two people can get such different things from the series and that it can provide for respectful, thoughtful debate. I wish my Star Wars debates on other platforms (e.g., reddit and discord servers) went as well as this.

Stardust1138 said:

I recommend these videos as they touch on the subject of the poetry angle to a degree.

https://youtu.be/Btp1BoGbuiM

https://youtu.be/NvlWSsZwLn0

https://youtu.be/gUKvHwjcfIQ

It’s more than a repetitive device. It’s about creating links between the two trilogies of two different generations and families. They’re one of the same yet different from each other. The Original Trilogy on its own really follows the trajectory. Mind you it’s to a lesser extent but it’s there. The trilogy has lots of parallels within its own narrative. IV and VI correlate in certain ways. Just as V and VI do. The Prequels do it within their own narrative as well. It’s not about copying but creating moments that are poetic yet different from each other. Just like written poetry. The Sequels tried but ended up copying and pasting a lot of the time. The Last Jedi I find gets closest to getting it right in connecting the whole saga together. It doesn’t fully but it does succeed at times.

Again, it just strikes me as formulaic in a bad way when it comes to the PT and ST. Derivative, not poetic. I get the importance of the visuals and the poetry of it, along with the repetition, but it just comes off as a derivative quality whenever the PT or the ST come into the equation. It’s why I appreciate prequel rewrites that deviate greatly from the originals. Also, I find AOTC and ROTS to be on the same quality level as The Room and Nothing But Trouble, with all the after-the-fact justifications being flailing to try and counter-act the fairly correct assessment of the movies from their contemporary time.

I’d prefer the final word in the Skywalker saga being George’s vision and having what comes after it beginning the process of creating something new and more experimental. It can mix it up and go in different directions as it’s not beholden to the established rules of the saga films. I would have welcomed new takes and spins with open arms as the story that was intended as a nine part saga was completed as the original author intended.

“Original author” is where I lose interest. For me, George was the problem with the PT. Nobody was there to tell him no to his more outlandish ideas. If another director came in and gave his story beats something better, then a bunch of us would have a better opinion of the PT. I’d compare the PT to the first few seasons of TNG or Star Trek: The Motion Picture in terms of being misguided creatively. Heck, the comparisons to The Room and Nothing But Trouble are apt in how the “ultimate auteur experience” is nigh-unwatchable.

It honestly doesn’t bother me when creators of work go in a different direction than that of what fans want. They’re not there to please us. It’s when someone else has a responsibility to continuing a story that I have a problem. It’s the difference between one vision and that of a corporation in a way. One does it for the joy of telling their own tale, while the other does it to max out on profits.

As if the prequels weren’t made to max out on profits. Lionizing George’s intentions, when one considers the merch push during the PT time, is sketchy to me.

Besides, a few important beats of George’s story carried through (elder Luke, female protagonist, etc.). I know it’s not enough for some, but a lot of us wouldn’t have wanted to see a story that doubled down on the weaknesses of the PT.

I wish I had more of a favourable view of the Sequels like you do. The only time I find I do is when I see them as disconnected from George’s story. As their own thing they are pretty enjoyable popcorn flicks but as a conclusion to what he started I find they don’t work for me. Star Wars was always a collection of art films with aspects of popcorn flicks to entertain. I find they’re now just the latter and nothing more.

I find them a worthy conclusion to a nine-part series that’s 2/3 questionable (or 5/9, depending on your opinion of ROTJ). Heck, I even like the idea of OT-ST with no PT at times (really, OT + TLJ). If anything, there was some relief on my part that the series can now focus on serialized programs and one-offs that fill out other realms of the universe. It doesn’t have to follow the Skywalkers, Solos, Palpatines, or the two droids.

George is now Gene Roddenberry or Yuji Naka - he got it started and built the fictional world, but other people can play with said world/story and create their own stories from it that don’t need to play by the original rules. Granted, George never interrupted a filming shoot to describe how an alien species mated or made Balan Wonderworld, so I guess he has that above Roddenberry and Naka (respectively).

I’m thankful for what George did, but no fictional universe needs to be 100% dependent on a creator or their vision. I can see where you find the disconnect, but I don’t see it as much. If anything, I see a PT-rest of the movies disconnect that fan edits can help resolve. I guess that’s all I have to really say on it.

Stardust1138 said:

I’m not saying a Palpatine can’t. I’m just saying within the framework of established rules that it comes off as a lack of care was given to what came before it. Palpatine never had these parallels in the Prequels or Originals. However if they established right away that Rey was her own character with her own sense of self with some parallels to Palpatine then it could’ve worked much better.

Yeah, that does make sense to some extent.

Like say how Anakin and Leia and Padme and Luke are one of the same. They share many of the same personality traits and qualities but they also have very clear motivations and sense of self. They’re paralleled and connected but it doesn’t stop them from being their own characters. They remain their own people. The same could be said if they showed Rey as a Palpatine from the very beginning and then you find she rejects it all in favour of a different path than that of the Dark Side. She becomes just Rey.

If you don’t have rules within your narrative and story then you create a lack of cohesiveness and consistency throughout the story. The story will eventually run its course and will have nowhere else to go. It’s just as important to respect what came before as it is about expanding upon the story.

“It’s like poetry, it rhymes” became a meme for a reason. What the parallels sounds like, to me, is a way to just make a repetitive story. Yeah, Rebels vs. Empire MKII is also repetitive, but the protagonist’s journey is something new. “Respecting” the past just means “slavishly following the standard beats of the protagonist’s journey” in this sense. I get that it may not be cohesive, but it’s different and a fun spin that fits within the franchise’s themes of found family and rising above one’s family flaws.

That’s the key though as within the fandom it’s okay to pick and choose. There’s no wrong way to enjoy Star Wars from a fan’s prospective. However the fandom and storyteller are separate entities… However it’s just as important to follow the rules of the universe and go from there. It’s about finding a natural progression and middle ground that doesn’t contradict what came before it.

I’d argue that what happened does follow the rules of the universe, but also disregards the pattern found within the PT (and retroactively applied to the OT). It builds upon it and sends the story in a new direction, with more room to expand post-TROS and growth through the other ventures (e.g., Mandalorian, Visions, Book of Boba Fett, etc.

As storytellers you don’t fall prey to what the audience wants you to make.

There has to be a balance. You go too far into one direction, you get George’s sequel trilogy/BBC’s Sherlock/Supernatural (i.e., disregarding the fans). You go too far in the other, you get two hours of the Vader hallway scene (i.e., giving in 100% to fan service).

I think the sequels fit the balance well enough. It could’ve been much much better, but it could’ve been a lot, a lot worse. Still, I’m tempted to disregard everything after 1983 as bonus fluff. Fine, but ultimately inconsequential and irrelevant to the movies. TCW is nice and all, but it doesn’t match the “OT and OT alone” method to me.