BmB

Lord Haseo said:
It’s pretty goddamn unreasonable to believe that you can choke someone to death with The Force (even over massive distances) but choke someone to unconsciousness. Also when choking someone they are knocked out and you have to continue the choking before they eventually die.

Choking someone is incredibly unsafe. If you do not have intent to harm you should not choke someone because even if it’s just for “knocking them out” there’s a chance the windpipe will collapse entirely, killing them. That’d look real good on Vader’s monthly review wouldn’t it? No, it makes much more sense for him not to choke Luke at all if he wants him alive.

Regardless, is he able to use choke while fighting? Even as a sword master he has to be very aware of Luke’s every move to keep his defense up. The only times he uses the force in the duel is when he has breathing room from Luke’s attacks. First after knocking him into the carbon pit, and then later when Luke is regaining his composure out of swinging range. There’s no reason to assume he could use the force like that mid-swing like they do in the PT. Luke uses the force once while Vader is busy dealing with steam in his face. The power level of the OT is not in any way comparable to the PT or the EU. It is much more subdued.

George clarifies at one point that the “weight” is a metaphor he used to convey to the actors that there was a lot of energy and power that needed to be controlled. The wild swinging and twirling seen in the PT style duels is a great way to lob an ear off or get a lightsaber through your leg. The more composed two hand styles seen in the OT conveys that these people are fully in control of their weapons. Vader is supposed to be physically very strong and so we see him knocking Luke off balance with one hand, and occasionally taking one handed swings while still controlling his weapon safely.

The point is not that some magic decree from heaven says lightsabers can only be held two handed. It’s that a lot of power is needed to control it properly, and for the most part that means two hands and a proper stance.

suspiciouscoffee said:

The “dualism of the Force” is a total accident. Do you honestly think GL even considered anything like that? He just wanted to throw in his Midi-chloriens as random technobabble because it was referenced in an old rough draft. Then, he could further “prove” his “original vision” claims.

I don’t see any reason to doubt it because the PT presents an alternate view of so many things we know from the OT, if it was only that, maybe. But on the whole it is clearly subversive. And it’s well known that George was distancing himself from the simplistic black and white view already by the time of ROTJ with Obi-Wan’s “point of view” speech.

Lord Haseo said:

BmB said:
What the two trilogies do in unison, is present a dualistic view of the force.

That’s a fancy way of saying George didn’t care about he source material which should have been adhered to when making the PT.

It’s a fancier way of saying George cares and knows more about the source material than anyone in this thread.

adywan said:
And this is why the prequels failed. Star Wars was a fantasy film. He developed midichlorians in a very early draft when it was more science fiction, but throw them out when it became more about myth and fantasy. The second he resurrected them as a way to try and explain the force, he threw the fantasy element out of the window.

To say that the prequels “failed” because of a piece of technobabble you did not like is a bit shallow in itself isn’t it? I guess shallow people like shallow movies. What the two trilogies do in unison, is present a dualistic view of the force. The OT stresses the importance of the spiritual balance. TPM says no, there’s more to it than that, you don’t have to take it on blind faith, it can be understood from a rational perspective also. A complete understanding includes both the spiritual and the material aspect. Qui-Gon is presented as a more spiritual man within the more pragmatic organization of the late jedi order. He follows the force more than the code and has problems with the council over that.

They just caught the digital colour “grading” bug. I’m pretty amazed AOTC didn’t go for it before ROTS considering it was the first fully digital film.

The politics was exactly what gave the prequels depth. Without the squabbling in the senate there wouldn’t be any ambiguities about who the good guys of the war are. The prequels are primarily subversive of the OT which makes them genuinely interesting. Everyone shits on midichlorians but midichlorians are a more scientific aspect of the force. Where the OT presents a purely mystical force. The OT has clear cut black and white heroes and villains, the prequels subvert that so it’s difficult to know if anyone is good at all.

By cutting straight to the action and only action forever, TFA makes itself extremely shallow. Kylo Ren literally wants to be evil? Puh-lease, even saturday morning cartoon villains have more depth than that. It’s like a five year olds conception of what grey morality is, just switch black and white around, that’s interesting right? No.

The senate scenes add real depth where TFA adds “hilarious” temper tantrums.

Darth Lars said:
It was still rushed and unbelievable. Anakin’s fall to the dark side started in AOTC and the start should have been the strongest, most important event in the movie. I find that lack to be AOTC’s largest failing.

But it is the strongest and most important event in the movie. In fact I’d say you could cut out the entire movie leaving just the Anakin bits and it would be nearly just as good.

The other major plot point is the creation of the separatists, and the secret of the clone army. It’s poorly scripted and is not much of a mystery even to young children. Hell in-universe a young child is able to figure it out. Which is sad because the idea of Obi-Wan playing detective with a well crafted mystery is pretty good in itself. How long did it take to write the film? 2 months? A little more preproduction and that whole thing might have actually been good.

I’d say that’s the biggest thing that’s wrong with the film. The mystery isn’t a good mystery. Poor delivery on a couple of the love scenes stands out more because it’s in your face, but is actually less of a problem to the story.

First, the effects are probably the worst out of all the films. Where TPM made a good 90’s era effort to truly integrate CGI with the shot in a seamless manner, by the time of ROTS it’s just cynically mass produced. The opening battle in particular just stands out as so obviously fake that all tension is immediately sucked out of it. Most of the action scenes suffer from this problem. And for what is primarily an action movie this to me is death.

At one point in the film, order 66 I think, a hovertank explodes with the exact same intensity as one in the ancient Battlefield 1942 video game, merely jumping into the air with magic and turning completely black. This total lack of effort tars the film completely from a visual standpoint.

The battle droids change dramatically from the more menacing and realistic looking and sounding droids from the previous two films into cartoon comic relief straight out of the upcoming clone wars cgi cartoon. They have stupid accents, make “clever” comments and seem to be made of warner brothers cartoon jelly. Again this completely defuses any tension there might have been in scenes involving the droids as enemies. Suitable for an actual cartoon, sure, but not for a live action film purporting to be of the same substance as what came before.

While key story moments from the previous two prequels were enjoyable enough, think of anakin saying goodbye to Shmi, Qui Gon’s death, going off to save Shmi on Tatooine, the final love confession etc. These types of moments are utterly absent from ROTS. And because ROTS contains most of the important story points of the prequels, that’s extremely bad. A good example is Anakin killing Mace Windu and then flip flopping from “What have I done?” to “I’ll do anything you say, my master.” in the span of seconds. Anakin finally deciding to join the dark side is such an important moment for the entire saga and it is done so poorly it would be better if it hadn’t been done at all. This is true for nearly all the important moments in the film.

Killing off Dooku right at the start of the film was a mistake since he’s probably one of the most interesting villains in star wars. His role as a double agent outwardly working against the sith but secretly using the separatists as scapegoats is criminally underutilized. Grievous is no substitute, and is almost as silly as his new cartoon droid minions.

The final fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is so hilariously overdone it almost completely undermines the seriousness of the fight for the story. It has a few nice moments like the iconic clash from the cover art, but overall it drags on for so long you tire of it and nearly forget what’s at stake.

The film’s only real high points in my mind is the ending sequence that ties the knot with the OT into a neat little bow, and Lucas’ affinity for composing a story visually really comes into its own here. As well as the soundtrack which is probably Williams’ best work to date. And in his own words is “endlessly compelling”.

There’s too much to complain about really. So the tl;dr is “everything”.

Ah, okay. So they’re new digitizations of the old album masters? That sounds like it might be worth it. Of course they’ll only have what was on those albums but that seems fine.

Lord Haseo said:
Yep and that’s a pretty good film; not perfect but leagues better than the PT and (imo) better than ROTJ. And what’s even better is that for all of TFA’s failings in certain areas there’s not a midichlorian, a virgin birth or a kid Boba Fett among them.

I suppose you can think that. But personally I would rather watch a jar jar montage interspersed with midichlorian technobabble and yoda dancing, on repeat for 8 hours than another second of TFA.

Abrams raped my childhood.

Also, midichlorians were introduced in 1978.

Lord Haseo said:
Lucas was a pretty good idea man but his ability to execute such things post ROTJ was nil. If anything JJ and Kasdan could have taken a couple of ideas George had and adapted it to Episode VII.

But they didn’t. And the result was as you see.

Lord Haseo said:

The Lucas of the late 70’s - early 80’s is gone. You need to accept that. His ability to craft a story comparable to the OT or TFA has dissipated.

I don’t think so at all, the prequel story was fundamentally good. While his directing ability is questionable, there’s no reason to think that he wouldn’t be able to write a good continuation. Indeed he very likely had a lot of it written out in notes and so on beforehand, talking about the sequel trilogy going as far back as the set of IV. He admits his dialogue isn’t great himself, but that’s not an insurmountable obstacle. Have another writer do a dialogue pass.

TV’s Frink said:
I remember you and I see I still disagree with every single thing you say.

I know it’s still fashionable to hate on George, but look at the expanded universe, fan fiction, and TFA itself. Others attempts at expanding the story are overwhelmingly not good, and lack the substance of George’s direction. It is his story and as such only he can tell it.

So, it seems John Williams has begun releasing studio quality versions of his work. Beginning with the 24 bit 96kHz release of Jurassic Park. And the original trilogy scores are now released in this ultra high quality format as well. But we all know the sorry state of the special edition soundtracks with their tinny, high pitched sound. Has anyone heard these new releases? Are they improved and worth bothering with or are they simply made from the same masters as the CD’s we already know?

Thing #1: Use George Lucas’ script instead of throwing it out. I don’t know what was in that script, and hopefully it will surface one day. But only he really truly knows where the story needs to go.

#2: In absence of that script, the backstory for the film is far more interesting than the film itself. The battle of Jakku, the formation of the new jedi order, Luke training Han and Leia’s kid. That kid falling to the dark side etc. It’s an amateur writers mistake to not tell the most interesting part of your story.

I can even picture the opening scene of such a film. The unknown figure of Kylo/Ben being approached by a hooded figure, the lightsabers come out, seemingly the hooded figure is an aggressor, after an intense battle the hood comes off and it’s revealed that it was Luke Skywalker, and Ben has just failed another spar.

Having done the George Lucas approved chronological, special edition marathon myself, I can safely say it does not work. The break between episodes III and IV is simply too jarring. You could also try and cut some out of the rotation because you think they suck, but you’ll inevitably miss large pieces of the story that way.

I think it’s important to recognize that Star Wars is the beginning, the opening shot, the 20-30 mins or so of exposition before anything even happens, the fact that it was originally made to be seen as a singular movie. And from there on realize that Episode I throws you right into the action and assumes you know exactly what a jedi, the force, a droid, and who Obi-Wan is and simply doesn’t work as an introduction to the universe. And from there on further realize that Episode III is the ending that brings everything full circle.

Realize on top of all this that they are indeed separate trilogies, made separately and telling two different stories. So you cannot really mix them up and get anything coherent either.

Only one order emerges from this: Release order. This is how they were made to be seen, each movie assuming only that you know what came before.

TFA doesn’t really fit in anywhere. It’s its own thing.

asterisk8 said:What I see, all too often, the common denominator among moon hoax theorists, is a distrust of the American government. We start with the conclusion that "The American government is a pack of lying conspirators," and then we work backwards to get to, "The moon landing was a hoax."

SilverWook said:All things considered, it would be a lot easier for Stanley to film a confession, and then bury it in his archives for eventual discovery after his death, than plant hidden "clues" in his films.

SilverWook said:

If that's how you really feel about this website and it's members, I wonder why you're hanging around here in the first place.

Blocking someone for saying something you don't agree with isn't helping the case that you are rational enough to lay judgement on whether the moon landings were faked or not.

SilverWook said:

If I was unable to think clearly and jumped to conclusions easily, I don't think I would have been offered a moderator position on this site. ;)

So what you're telling me is that one of my favorite cues is actually longer and better and I can't get it?

Argghh!

The curved OLED TV is just 16:9, it's not nearly big or wide enough to "surround" you. Ergo the curve can not be for such a purpose.

timdiggerm said:

Any thoughts on the link I posted?

TheBoost said:

No. Points not needed. Logic does not work against ass-craziness.

SilverWook said:

My father worked at NASA and JPL in the glory days. It's the one thing in the complicated relationship I had with him I was always proud of. (And one of the few things in a long career that wasn't classified, though I could barely get him to talk about those days.)

When I stood looking up at what's left of the Apollo 1 launch platform last summer, it really hit me that it would have been hard for him to talk about the astronauts that died. He had met them many times in the course of his job. My mom told me quite a bit about that awful day in 1967.

So, when I feel the urge to throttle these moon hoax guys, it's because they piss on the graves of brave men, and insult everyone who ever worked to put Americans on the moon and bring them home safe.

Aaand they give it to this noob.

The man has no talent. Franchise dead.

SilverWook said:

Anyone here who believes in any of this moon landing hoax hogwash, might be interested in some prime Florida property I have for sale. ;)