Channel72

Superweapon VII said:

I’ve come across a few posts from folks who claim that K. W. Jeter’s The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy references the Clone Wars. Specifically, that the majority of Mandalorians disappeared from the known galaxy at the end of the wars, their fleet making a blind hyperspace jump into the unknown. None of them cited their sources, though, which is frustrating.

That’s the coolest idea ever. So naturally, it didn’t happen in any canonical material.

timdiggerm said:

I assume Palpatine created the EPA and gave Federal recognition to native tribes

Well he definitely recognized that native tribe on Endor.

double post

I agree that the sense of wonder and discovery has been absent since A New Hope, to a certain extent. But it’s hard for me to understand how Darth Vader being Luke’s father shrinks the Universe. I agree lots of things after that revelation started to shrink the Universe, from Leia being the sister, to C3PO being built by Vader, to Yoda and Chewbacca being college roommates or whatever.

But the Vader being Luke’s father thing never felt like it had a “universe shrinking” effect to me. The reason is that a “universe shrinking effect” happens when two characters who we originally assumed had no reason to be connected, turn out to be somehow connected. For example, we never expected that Vader and C3PO had any connection whatsoever - why would they? But then Phantom Menace comes along and shows us they did. So stupid.

But Luke and Vader were ALWAYS directly connected - even before the ending revelation in Empire Strikes Back. In A New Hope, we’re told Vader killed Luke’s father. So Luke and Vader are already personally connected. Vader then turning out to actually be Luke’s father doesn’t really do anything to “increase” this pre-existing connection. The Vader/Luke relationship went from “you murdered my father, therefore I want to kill you”, to “oh shit - you are my father, now I want to redeem you.” This doesn’t change the fact that some deep personal connection between Luke and Vader always existed on an emotional level, and thus the “I am your father” revelation doesn’t “shrink” the Universe, in my opinion.

But yeah, I agree everything else after that certainly does shrink the Universe. And I agree with Vladius that the majority of the “shrinkage” occurred in 1999-2005.

Superweapon VII said:

I don’t think I’m gonna watch the final season of Stranger Things. In hindsight, everything after the first season has been adventures in diminishing returns, coasting on '80s nostalgia and that first season to keep afloat. But the emperor really has no clothes. I have no investment in this show anymore.

I barely remember what happened each season after the first. It’s like the same story over and over: weird shit happens around town, some 80s references drop, then everyone fights a CGI monster (with Eleven doing most of the actual fighting). Rinse and repeat.

As many people have already said, Stranger Things should have been an anthology series. But it’s just too commercially irresistible to return to the original hit cast.

Palpatine once had Vader break into Mon Mothma’s office on Coruscant to steal documents and install surveillance equipment. Also, Palpatine was once caught on tape making highly anti-Semitic remarks.

BedeHistory731 said:

I’d want to push back on that. This view is also heavily informed by modern rejection of religious institutions, colored by decades worth of abuse scandals and cults getting exposed (e.g., Scientology and the Unification Church). The “cult that captures children and brainwashes them” doesn’t seem so unreasonable after watching Jesus Camp or any numerous videos of indoctrinated fundamentalist children. The Jedi also acting as an added branch of government doesn’t help much, given how religious institutions have invested in candidates over the years. Hell, I’m not surprised Jedi molester stories aren’t more common within AO3 fanfics.

The intention may have been noble to show monastic life in a positive light, but the execution in the films has left things open to this more critical interpretation. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong at all, but rather just operating off of what has been presented in the media/real-world context. It’s a bit of that post-Catholic scandal/post-911 antitheism of which the internet has long enjoyed.

I agree with all this - it’s just bizarre that apparently George Lucas really believed he was portraying the Jedi in a positive light. The interpretation most people on the Internet seem to adhere to - that the Prequels purposely portray the Jedi as a flawed institution (like the Catholic Church or something) - is almost certainly incorrect. Multiple interviews with George Lucas reveal that he believes the Jedi and their anti-attachment philosophy was correct, and the only reason Anakin fell was because he gave in to his fear of loss.

Another thing to consider: we often forget about this, given how awkward it turned out to be in retrospect, but in the OT (or at least for most of the OT), Luke Skywalker is implied to have a romantic interest in Leia. In A New Hope, Luke thinks she’s beautiful and she is part of Luke’s entire reason for following Obi Wan on the adventure. Towards the end of the movie, an implied love triangle emerges between Han, Luke and Leia. In Empire Strikes Back, Luke seemingly is still attracted to Leia, although his attraction is serendipitously downplayed in the actual film compared to what happens in earlier drafts. (In Brackett’s first draft, it’s implied that a major reason for Luke wanting to be a Jedi is to impress Leia and compete with Han.)

So how do they resolve the love triangle? One easy way would be to just have Yoda straight up tell Luke: “Forget about Leia. It’s not happening. Jedi can’t have romantic attachments, because it just makes it easier to fall to the Dark Side.” But that’s not what happens. Yoda never says anything about Luke’s feelings for Leia (apart from the more generic concern expressed by Yoda that Luke not abandon his training to help his friends). Instead, the love triangle is eventually resolved when we discover Leia is Luke’s sister. This is yet more evidence that the “no romantic attachment” rule was never even considered as a possible idea when the OT was written.

One last thought: it’s interesting that Return of the Jedi decided to keep the imagery of the implied romance between Luke and Leia. Luke and Leia swing together on a rope off Jabba’s sail barge, Leia dressed in a sexy golden bikini in the arms of a confident, mature Luke - implying a swashbuckling romance between the two of them. All that sexual imagery is of course defused once we discover they’re brother and sister, but it’s weird that it’s still in the movie. (More evidence of how late an addition the whole Leia=sister idea probably was.)

Raiders is obviously the best. But Last Crusade is probably the most fun to watch. Temple of Doom is also fun to watch, but the entire plot basically happens by accident, instead of Indy specifically searching for some artifact, which I always found to be kind of weak plotting.

Crystal Skull had some promising opening sequences with a fresh new 50s setting, (I actually like the ridiculous nuke fridge scene) but ultimately it devolved into a series of generic chase scenes in a boring jungle. I don’t mind sci-fi elements in an Indy flick, but the aliens and crystal skull mythology is just so shallow and uninteresting.

Dial of Destiny is just… kind of a big mess. It’s obviously the product of 2023 factory style film production, with heavy usage of CGI (e.g. the opening train sequence), instead of the old-school stunts and all that, and it just doesn’t feel like a real Indy movie to me.

Let’s be honest: Indiana Jones basically always sucks whenever it strays from Judeo-Christian mythology.

DarthStarkiller1234 said:

What Luke’s father and Darth Vader would have been like had Lucas kept them separate?

You can find out by reading Leigh Brackett’s first draft of Empire Strikes Back. In this early 1978 version of the movie, Vader is not Luke’s father. Also, Luke’s actual father appears to Luke as a Force ghost. Luke’s father is portrayed as a stereotypical wise old Jedi character, very similar to Obi Wan.

No, the “no romantic attachments” rule didn’t appear explicitly until Attack of the Clones, although arguably a more nebulous form of this rule was hinted at in Phantom Menace. But the OT definitely never even considered the idea of “no romantic attachments” as a possibility. The pre-Prequel EU of course never considered this idea either, and thus we had Jedi getting involved in romance like everyone else (e.g. Mara Jade, etc.).

You can argue further (as you point out) that the OT not only doesn’t have this rule, it outright contradicts this rule, since we hear that Anakin had offspring and the movies never indicate this was in any way weird or not expected of a Jedi.

Also, having offspring is possible without romantic attachments. The Jedi rule is specifically about romantic attachments. Arguably, some species that say, reproduces by laying eggs and then just abandoning them (as is done by many species on Earth) would be allowed to be a Jedi AND have kids.

There have been a couple of in-depth discussions about this issue in previous threads in this forum.

The general consensus around here is probably that romantic attachments were allowed until George Lucas decided to inject some Romeo and Juliet into his love story, because he didn’t know how to write a love story. I mostly agree with this sentiment, but consider it a bit too reductive, since arguably the “no romantic attachment rule” could be considered a logical consequence of the Jedi’s general dislike of emotional attachments, which was implied (if somewhat muddled) in The Phantom Menace when they bring up Anakin’s fear of losing his mom.

The reason it’s hard to figure out what to put in some hypothetical Episode 2.5 is because the whole Prequel series was poorly structured and it’s hard to figure out climaxes or cliffhangers to bridge the episodes. Ideally, Phantom Menace shouldn’t exist, and instead some kind of “Intro to Clone Wars” plot line should be Episode 1. Episode 2 should depict one or more critical missions during the Clone Wars, and Episode 3 should be either after the Clone Wars or during the end of the wars.

But there’s usually a rhythm or pattern in a Star Wars trilogy. The first episode ends with a triumph for the good guys. The second episode ends in defeat. And the third episode ends with a final triumph. Since the Prequels have to end in disaster, perhaps the Prequels should mirror/inverse that pattern: so we get a defeat, then triumph, then final defeat/disaster. So that pattern would suggest that Episode 2 would depict a major turning point in the Clone Wars where the (ostensibly) “good guys” get a major victory.

Imagine buying that shoe for like $50,000 and displaying it in your house. Then people come over and ask what the hell it is, and you’re like “That’s the shoe from Return of the Jedi!” And then your guests would be like “What? There’s no tennis shoe in Return of the Jedi, are you insane?” And then you’d have to explain, “Well actually it’s in this one shot during the space battle, but they removed it in 1997 or something.” At which point, your guests are likely to respond “Suuuuure they did. Are you sure you didn’t get scammed?”

Vladius said:

The Lucas idea that crime bosses fill the power vacuum left by the empire is a really good one. I could take or leave everything else, but that would at least be a unique enemy that isn’t just more of the empire (though some stories with the imperial remnant are cool too,) and it makes a lot of logical sense.
I think some of that bled into The Mandalorian, at least in season 1. It starts with all frontier bounty hunting stuff because this is the aftermath of the empire’s defeat, though fragments of it are still there.

Some of Lucas’ crime-boss trilogy ideas definitely seem to have bled into other Star Wars media. Like Darth Maul actually appears as a crime boss in a cameo at the end of the Han Solo movie. In fact, the Han Solo movie seemed like it was building up to depict a world of criminal organizations vying for power.

But then again, I don’t think Lucas’ “crime boss trilogy” idea appeared on the Internet publicly until very recently (maybe like 2021?), which makes me wonder if the crime boss trilogy was ever real, or just extrapolated from other material after the fact. It’s also totally unclear how the microverse/midichlorian stuff fits in - was that a completely different idea for a sequel trilogy that George pitched at some point, or is it a subplot of the crime boss thing? Who knows.

honestabe said:

WookieeWarrior77 said:

Superweapon VII said:

Boba Fett should’ve just never showed up post-TESB.

Or pre-ESB (Clones)

Who came up with the absurd idea to make all the clones Boba Fett? Out of all the universal shrinkage in the prequels, this one has to be my “favorite.”

George was like: “Hey, so the fans all like Boba Fett right? So what if we had like millions of Boba Fetts? What if every character was actually Boba Fett?”

Seriously though, Boba Fett was always vaguely connected to the Clone Wars in some way, even before the Prequels. The marketing material around Boba Fett in the 1970s spoke of him as being associated with troopers who fought in the Clone Wars. Of course, that vague source material never suggested that all clones in the Clone Wars were Boba Fett clones. Because that would be stupid.

Amazingly, AoTC took this vague backstory and somehow produced the least interesting possible story.

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I find that answer vague and unconvincing.

Another thing… after the Prequels came out, everyone got a sense of what a Jedi was capable of doing. Taking out a room full of armed goons with a single laser sword seems firmly within a Jedi’s normal capabilities. But when ROTJ came out, we had never seen a Jedi do anything remotely like that. The most impressive thing we saw was Yoda lifting the X-wing, which suggested that a powerful Jedi would probably be able to use telekinesis to devastating effect in a fight. And Darth Vader does just this in ESB when he knocks Luke out the window on Bespin.

But when I first saw Luke just start flipping around and stabbing or slashing at everyone onboard the sail barge, it kind of just came off as completely unbelievable and silly. Like… why can’t any of Jabba’s guys just shoot him from a distance? He can’t reflect every single bolt, can he? (To be fair, he does take a hit in his hand.) Plus Jabba’s henchmen have the high ground! Luke is basically fighting an upward battle from inside a pit, with gravity against him. Regardless, I had imagined that Jedi were more about subtle mental trickery and telekinesis rather than just straight up doing backflips and stabbing people. I thought lightsabers were almost ceremonial, used mostly for Jedi vs. Jedi combat.

But after seeing the Prequels, Luke’s lethal acrobatics in ROTJ seem a lot less far fetched now. If only his lightsaber actually worked correctly, instead of turning into a baseball bat. (To be fair, he just constructed it. Maybe factory default settings are “baseball bat” mode.)

This thread is fake news.

Well, I think it depends on what question we’re actually asking here. Is it theoretically possible - given only the info in the OT - that the Empire was much older than 20 years in ANH? Sure, it’s possible. There are many ways to write the backstory this way, as suggested in this thread, including but not limited to: (1) Vader was secretly evil for decades before giving birth to Luke, or (2) it wasn’t a secret and Mrs. Skywalker openly supported Vader’s murderous purge, or (3) there were other Jedi-killers before Vader, or (4) Luke and Leia were cryogenically frozen for some unspecified time period, etc. etc.

But none of those possibilities are the most straightforward, natural interpretation of the OT. The most natural interpretation is probably just the Empire was only 19 years old.

Or rather, with only ANH in mind, perhaps the Empire was substantially older. But with all three Original Trilogy films, the most natural conclusion is the Empire is the same age as Luke. Yes, it’s possible to come up with ways to extend the length, but they all involve “multiplying extra entities beyond necessity”, which makes William of Occam very sad.

There’s kind of a “thematic dissonance” in the OT about this. In ANH, you really get the sense the Empire is a very old institution - the way Kenobi talks about the Old Republic, before the dark times, or how he tells Luke he hasn’t gone by the name Obi Wan for “a long time… a long time.” Plus, the whole epic fantasy vibe and the implied backstory of a Golden Age Old Republic that lasted for “a thousand generations” sort of suggested longer time scales for all of this.

But then in the Prequels we find out the Empire is less than 20 years old. But a closer examination reveals the Prequels aren’t to blame here: it’s actually the fault of Empire Strikes Back. Turning Anakin into Vader had the unintentional side effect of heavily implying the Empire is about the same age as Luke, since Luke’s father is now Darth Vader, who killed the Jedi Knights of old. (Separate Anakin/Vader characters allows the possibility that Luke’s father was among the last of the Jedi Knights, who were victims of an ongoing multi-decade purge carried out by Vader under the Imperial banner.)

The pre-Prequel Gen-X fans also picked up on this. Early fan-fiction stories about the Prequel era, written in the 1980s, generally set the Prequels around 20 years before ANH, and considered the birth of Luke/Leia to be cotemporaneous with the rise of the Empire and the fall of Vader.

Another random complaint I have about ROTJ: it’s the first time we’re introduced to “lightsaber baseball bat syndrome”, i.e. when lightsabers stop being the deadly slicing weapons they’re supposed to be and turn into baseball bats you can whack people with. When Luke slashes at Jabba’s henchmen aboard the sail barge, they sort of just get knocked backwards and fall off the barge.

Lightsaber baseball bat syndrome also appeared in the recent Disney Kenobi series.

Clearly, this syndrome occurs because a lightsaber is really a rated R weapon in a PG universe. That’s why Lucas used battledroids as disposable Jedi fodder in the Prequels. But the whole “baseball bat effect” looks so dumb. Star Wars shouldn’t be ultra-violent, but surely there’s some compromise between turning ROTJ into a violent slasher film and turning the coolest sci-fi weapon ever conceived into a stupid glowing baton.

^ I tend to ignore the age of the actors as strong evidence of any particular scenario, because it’s really just a very broad indicator at best, and doesn’t take into account any sci-fi/fantasy possibilities. But the reality is it’s tricky to extend the duration of the Empire too much over 19 years. You can say that Anakin/Vader turned evil before giving birth to the twins (and thus before turning into a cyborg). But presumably Mrs. Skywalker wouldn’t stick around once Anakin became a supervillain, so the only way to pull this off story-wise is to claim Anakin was “secretly” evil for some unspecified time period before the twins were born.

The “secretly evil Vader” scenario isn’t entirely implausible. Lucas himself has even implied this was the case in some old story discussions with Kasdan et. al., saying that the Jedi purge was sort of a stealthy affair, with Vader secretly catching Jedi off guard. (What did he like stab hundreds of thousands of people when they weren’t paying attention? I don’t know, maybe there weren’t that many Jedi.) I guess we can extend the duration of this “secret evil Vader” period to any number of decades, to extend the length of the Empire. But really, it stretches plausibility the longer we stretch it. Also, Lucas’ comments about “stealthy Vader” imply the Jedi purge happened during the waning days of the Old Republic, before the Empire.

I mean, believe me, I don’t like the idea that the Empire only lasted like 20 years. Before the Prequels, I kind of assumed the Empire was a very old institution, which is why taking it down seemed so impossible. I even came up with scenarios to explain how Vader could have turned evil much earlier than 19 years before A New Hope: maybe Ben Kenobi took Vader’s children and hid them by cryogenically freezing them for some unspecified time period. Then later (perhaps decades - or centuries? - later), when he thought it would be safe, he unthawed the twins and gave them to Owen/Beru and the Organas. But no… that doesn’t work, because Owen and Beru act like they were friendly with Anakin relatively recently.

I don’t know. It’s science fiction/fantasy. Maybe humans in Star Wars live for 500 years. Maybe Han Solo was actually 175 years old at the time of ANH. Who knows? Except, we all know that isn’t the intent here. It’s pretty clear the Empire is relatively young (despite certain impressions we may get to the contrary.) That’s the most straightforward interpretation of all the evidence.

Also, the deleted scene in ANH, where Luke talks with Biggs at Tosche station, actually gives the impression of a relatively young Empire. Luke and Biggs talk about how the Empire isn’t “out here” yet (i.e. not out on Tatooine), and is just now starting to “nationalize commerce”, indicating it’s still in a growth/expansion phase. Sure, it’s possible it takes centuries for Imperial control to expand to the Outer Rim, but that’s just not the impression I get from how Biggs talks about it - warning Luke that the Empire isn’t as far away as it seems.

I don’t think any start date for the Empire was ever really implied by OT dialogue. But we can piece a few things together to work it out:

We know Vader must have turned evil no later than 19 years before ANH (due to Luke’s age), and we know Vader hunted down the Jedi Knights - meaning the Jedi Knights existed 19 years before ANH. We know the Jedi Knights were guardians of peace in the “Old Republic”. We can take this to mean the Old Republic existed 19 years before ANH. All of these add up to sort of give the picture that the Old Republic fell around the same time Vader turned evil and hunted the Jedi Knights.

So:

• Vader turned evil no later than 19 years before ANH
• Vader killed the Jedi Knights
• The Jedi Knights were guardians of peace in the Old Republic

Therefore… the Old Republic must have become the Empire 19 years before ANH. This is also what the Prequels show. So case closed.

Or IS IT??!??!???

Yes. It is. Mostly. But there’s just one nagging thing. Did anyone who grew up watching the OT actually feel like the Empire was only 19 years old?

I certainly didn’t. I had assumed the Empire might have been like centuries old. Most of the characters didn’t seem to even remember a time before the Empire, except for Obi-Wan, who, as a Jedi, may be supernaturally old. And the way Alec Guinness waxed poetic about the Old Republic - before the dark times, sounds like he was reminiscing for an ancient Golden Age of Legend. Something that existed in the remote past. And the way Han scoffed at Kenobi’s superstitious beliefs, or the way Tarkin spoke of Obi Wan as if he should be long dead, or Vader’s ancient religion.

The Empire never seemed only 19 years old. It seemed ancient - a Galactic Order that had existed as long as anyone can remember. That’s what made toppling it seem all the more spectacular.

I originally blamed the Prequels for showing the Empire lasted less than 20 years. But actually, the OT more or less implies this as well if you put the pieces together.

Mocata said:

These are minor details since Boba Fett isn’t a match for Luke.

Ehhh… maybe. Mandalorians have always been portrayed as challenging opponents for the Jedi. Even in the very earliest proto-incarnations of Mandalorians, back when they were just “Imperial Shocktroopers”, they were implied to at least be capable of giving the Jedi Knights a run for their money.

Not that Boba Fett is necessarily an actual Mandalorian, in 1983 or any time after (I can’t keep track of Boba Fett’s endless retconned origin stories), but Luke is also barely a Jedi. Maybe Boba Fett can just cheat by using some fancy tech to stun or incapacitate Luke, rather than best him in a fight.

Why is the Alliance letting their top fighters go off to save one man when such a big campaign is being fought? We never find out, and it’s odd.

One possible excuse is that Act 1 actually happened like months before Act 2 and 3. Not a great solution, but I guess it explains why the Rebels were freed up to go rescue Han.

But even worse is the fact that Luke inexplicably never returned to Yoda. He was definitely supposed to return to Dagobah to complete his training with Yoda originally. The Fourth Draft of Empire Strikes Back ends with Luke and Leia on board the medical frigate, staring out the window into space, and Luke says “I want to go with them, but I have a promise to keep. They’ll find Han. I know they will…”. This implies Luke intends to return to Yoda to finish his training. But in the actual film, Luke goes off with Lando to Tatooine, and apparently never returns to Dagobah to complete his training until ROTJ. So it’s never explained how Luke is suddenly a bad-ass Jedi with a stylish new outfit when he shows up at Jabba’s Palace. (And what were they doing on Tatooine for 3 years? I guess maybe it took 3 years for Lando to land a job in Jabba’s palace.)