Channel72

Caston said:

Is it one of these?

Star Wars prequels were mapped out in 1981, only nothing like the way they turned out - from Rinzler’s Making Of ROTJ book.

That thread has an excellent post by a user named CP3S (from 10 years ago). It pretty much sums up my feelings as the definitive critique of Anakin’s botched tragedy:

CP3S said:

Somewhere in the depth of this forum we have a thread discussing good characters turning bad, and whether or not it is possible for it to be done convincingly. That was a fun thread, I thought of it sometime back while watching Breaking Bad.

You start off with Walt, an easy to sympathize with character and you grow attached to him. They put him in a dire situation and make him do bad things for a noble reason. So you still sympathize. As the show progresses, his dire situation turns around, and his bad actions slowly cause him to lose the noble reason for doing them. Eventually, when you take the time to think about it, you realize Walt is just a bad guy. But you still can’t shake that sympathy for him that was built at the beginning. He continues to do these bad things, but is now driven by greed and pride, rather than the intended selfless sacrifice for his family that started him off on that path. It is the best story of a fall into evil that I have ever encountered.

I don’t think it is impossible, or even necessarily that hard, to make a beloved character sink into becoming the villain. We all loved Darth Vader before, but imagine how we’d feel about him now if George had managed to make Anakin a character we loved and sympathized with as much as Luke. Instead he was just a bitch from the beginning that you couldn’t wait to see Obi-Wan smack around a bit before he finally grew a pair and donned his leather suit.

Well said.

My only criticism would be that Walt’s descent into evil was spread over 6 seasons of television, whereas with Anakin you only have 3 movies. Plus, the starting and ending point of Anakin’s arc (selfless hero to mass-murdering fascist cyborg) is more of a wide gap to cross than Walt’s journey from mild-mannered chemist to meth kingpin. So writing Anakin’s fall is definitely MUCH harder. It would be hard for even the best of screenwriters to pull it off. Lucas didn’t stand a chance.

But at the same time, Lucas also made it WAY worse than it needed to be, making tons of bizarre mistakes, like wasting the entire first film by not even including adult Anakin in it.

G&G-Fan said:

I’ve come up with a great analogy for why Anakin’s turn doesn’t work.

Imagine you have a romantic partner and they get into a terrible car accident. You’ve been in the hospital for 3 days and there’s a possibility she may die. You’re worried sick and have barely slept. Satan himself (for the record, I’m an atheist, but this is hypothetical) appears to you and says, “I’ll save her if you kill all of your neighbors, coworkers and their families, every friend you’ve ever had and their families, your entire extended family, and your partner’s entire extended family. This includes any of the children or babies.”

Who would do that?

Like, pact with the devil stories exist, but that’s just way too far. If he just showed up and said, “I’m gonna save your partner in exchange for your soul”, then sure, I can see someone doing that, even if it’s still not smart. But murdering everyone that you know for a deal that you don’t even know for certain whether they can or will actually do it, someone you know is evil and a liar? It’s just beyond stupid.

The only way it works is if Anakin has tangible evidence that there is a dark side power to cheat death and the knowledge exists to learn. Anakin should become evil, but not be stupid to agree to a bargain when he has nothing to go on except a story.

Yeah. There needed to be some reason for Anakin to actually hate the Jedi - not just be moderately pissed that they bitched about his seat on the Council. And Anakin needed to be shown experimenting with Dark Side powers himself, even without Palpatine’s prompting - and we need to see how the Dark Side is actually more powerful or useful in some way (at least in Anakin’s mind). We need to see Anakin actually realize the “power of the Dark Side” somehow.

Palpatine’s role should be to encourage and cultivate Anakin’s worst instincts, not just “trick” Anakin into spontaneously mass-murdering everyone he’s ever known with a vague promise.

There needed to be some major ideological disagreement between Anakin and the Jedi, along with some disaster that seems to prove Anakin right, at least in his own mind. (Maybe Anakin thinks the Jedi are too obsessed with their moral code, making them less effective than they should be against a wartime enemy that has zero moral qualms. Maybe Padme dies during a massive attack on Coruscant, and Anakin blames the Jedi for failing to prevent it.)

NeverarGreat said:

This is not to say that I don’t like the movie. TLJ is the sequel I have the most respect for, since it seems to be trying to say something. But the way it treats the characters and the universe seems almost flippant at times, even toward story elements of its own invention.

Who cares about Anakin’s/Luke’s lightsaber?
Who cares about Snoke?
Who cares about Hux, the First Order, or even the Resistance?
Who cares about the Sacred Jedi Texts?

Whereas prior Star Wars movies would earnestly engage with their own universe and story, this one pulls back and asks: who cares? Instead of pitting good versus evil, or even one side versus another, the story asks whether or not we should even care at all. Even if eventually the answer is yes, we should care, as it seems to be saying in the end, the question still hangs over the entire enterprise and feels like a mutation of something deep in the DNA of this surrealist fantasy. It is the dreamer pinching themselves and wondering why they don’t simply awaken from the dream, which is both the most unique strength of the film and also its greatest weakness.

Just a weird movie, and difficult to describe.

TLJ has a lot of “meta” in it. Like Rey makes a joke about how the Force is just “lifting rocks.” But why would she think this? Did she watch The Empire Strikes Back? Clearly, that line winks to the audience. This sort of self-referential meta-humor or irony never existed in the OT or PT. It’s very postmodern or more accurately metamodern. Lucas was always sincere and straightforward, working with classic archetypes. TLJ, not so much.

Now, I absolutely hate TLJ, but I also respect it. It’s basically a “deconstruction”, a semi-self-aware satire of Star Wars itself. But it’s not outright parody like Spaceballs. It mostly takes itself seriously. Luke blatantly says “Do you really expect me to just whip out my laser sword and kick ass?” or something. I mean, yeah… we did expect that. But TLJ is telling us we were stupid to expect such a predictable, unironic thing. (Except then Luke actually does this at the end… sort of.)

Even the “big reveal” that Rey’s parents were nobodies has more significance to the audience than Rey herself. Like, why would she have expected her parents to be anybody significant? The audience was speculating that Rey could be a Skywalker or a Kenobi. That reveal subverted audience expectations more so than it functioned as game-changing new info for Rey herself. (Then it was retconned anyway. What a mess.)

The movie is ultimately about moving on from the past - or at least not venerating the legends of the past, and instead looking inward to the self in order to move forward into the future.

It’s an interesting take on Star Wars, but in my opinion not appropriate for one of the main line movies. Also, for an actual spiritual successor to Spaceballs, see Rise of Skywalker, directed by Mel Brooks.

Spartacus01 said:

Okay guys, it took me years to figure it out, and for a long time I was in denial, but now I can’t deny it anymore: I don’t like the way they portrayed Anakin in the Prequels. I tried to find all the possible excuses to go against what George Lucas says about the character and have my own interpretation, but in the end I realized that it’s much easier to say openly that I don’t like how the character was portrayed. I don’t like the way the character was portrayed, I don’t like the reasons they gave him to fall to the Dark Side, I don’t like anything about his character arc. Plein and simple. By that, I don’t mean that I don’t like the Prequels as movies, I just don’t like the way George Lucas did Anakin. I much prefer the Anakin that’s in my head (and that will soon be in my Prequel edits).

Yeah… I understand the pain. It’s a long healing process. (Also, insert some stupid outdated joke about 2005 calling and wanting its conclusions back or whatever.)

BTW, I love how everything Vader says sounds intimidating, even when he’s just issuing mundane technical orders like “Reset the chamber for Skywalker”. I like to imagine Vader giving mundane technical instructions, in James Earl Jones’ booming voice, like: “Click the Start Menu. Select Control Panel and click Device Manager. It is your destiny.”

C3PO certainly acts like he has feelings. In Empire Strikes Back, when R2 is standing in the frigid cold scanning for Luke and Han, C3PO gets upset when R2 is pessimistic about Luke’s chances of survival. C3PO gets irritated and says to R2 something like “Don’t say that! I’m sure Master Luke will be quite all right. Yes… quite all right.” It’s like C3PO is trying to convince himself that everything will be okay - a very human thing to do.

Barfolomew said:

Channel72 said:
There is a very strange, almost serendipitous scene in Empire Strikes Back that has always fascinated me. It happens after the scene where Chewie flips out and starts attacking Storm Troopers just before Han is about to be lowered into the carbon-freezing pit. Han intervenes and tries to calm Chewie down before things get out of control. While this is happening, Boba Fett aims his blaster at Chewie, but then Vader stops him from firing by pushing down the barrel of his blaster. Then - there’s this weird shot of Leia just staring at Vader for a few seconds. This is followed by a shot of Vader, seemingly staring back at her (although we can’t tell for sure because of his mask). Leia then walks over to Chewie and starts trying to calm him down. It’s the strangest thing, as if Leia and Vader instinctually exchanged some non-verbal agreement to prevent the situation from escalating further.

This moment had always intrigued me, too, especially since it’s underscored with a very ominous instance of the Imperial March that gives the impression This Means Something. I think I’ve more or less put it together thanks to the transcript of Irvin Kershner blocking that scene out from Alan Arnold’s Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of The Empire Strikes Back. (Excerpt: https://phantastiqa.com/unscripted-how-the-famous-i-love-you-i-know-scene-really-came-together/)

From that we can see: (a) Kershner wanted to make it clear the reason Chewie and Leia are brought there in the first place is so Han will “behave” and (b) Kershner and Fisher had great difficulty figuring out what Leia should be doing exactly before they take Han in to be frozen (at one point Fisher suggests she slaps Lando - and then she actually does it!).

I think Leia’s glare at Vader is meant to handle both those things. She’s realizing that Darth Vader knew Han wouldn’t cause trouble while she (she especially) and Chewie are there and that’s why they’ve been brought there in the first place.

I think it gets even cooler if you read into it further (and the scene makes it very easy to do so): Leia realizes Darth Vader knows Han Solo loves her. Like, he can sense it with the force and shit. And it confirms for her that Han isn’t just attracted to her or just “really really like” her, he’s seriously, genuinely, deeply in love with her. And I think here is where she goes from “attracted/ really really like” Han to being in seriously capital-L love with him herself, and admits it to him. And his “I know” response doesn’t bother her, because she also knows he loves her, too.

Yeah, that’s very interesting. The question of why Leia and Chewie are even there is also something I wondered about. Like, we see Leia and Chewie with Han and broken Threepio in the Cloud City jail cell. Then Lando takes Leia and Chewie into custody, handing Han off to be carbon-frozen for Vader/Boba Fett. So why even bring Leia and Chewie to the carbon freezing facility? (And did Lando tell someone to go fetch a net for Chewie so he could carry around C3PO on his back? And also, when Han, Leia and Chewie were “arrested” during the dinner scene, did Han or Chewie like ask one of the Stormtroopers or maybe Lando to go fetch broken Threepio from the hotel room and bring him to the jail cell?? Whatever.)

Anyway, I don’t know if I quite buy the explanation Kershner provides, which is that Leia/Chewie serve as leverage over Han so he doesn’t try to escape. I mean, usually Vader would just rely on force - his Stormtroopers - to make sure somebody doesn’t escape. That or they could just knock Han out - like drug him or something, or use more restrictive restraints. Then just leave Leia/Chewie in the cell. They wouldn’t need to be physically present in the carbon freezing facility to serve as leverage over Han. I mean, clearly Chewie is more of a liability to Vader than he’s worth for whatever leverage over Han his presence provides, since Chewie is basically a volatile 7 foot tall monster with incredible strength.

The reason I always thought Leia and Chewie were actually brought to the carbon freezing facility was because Vader already planned on “altering the deal” again, and taking Leia/Chewie into Imperial custody. Presumably, Vader would want Leia as a prisoner, since she is the leader of a Rebel cell and could provide valuable intel. Or just the fact that she was supposed to be executed in the last movie, so she’s technically an escaped prisoner, and provides leverage over Luke, so obviously Vader wouldn’t just leave her with Lando. Vader brought Chewie and Leia to the carbon freezing chamber so they would be physically out of Lando’s custody (the Cloud City prison cell), but Vader waited until after the carbon freezing experiment was finished to actually tell Lando he was being fucked over again, just to ensure Lando’s cooperation during the carbon freezing process.

To me, that makes much more sense than Kershner’s explanation that Leia and Chewie were there to keep Han in check. But I mean, he actually wrote the scene so what do I know?

^ Your point about the “I am your father” plot twist having little effect on the overall screen play is important.

This ties into another issue I’ve always had with Empire Strikes Back, even the final version. (Obligatory qualifier: the final version of ESB is one of the few films I’ve seen that comes close to being a “perfect” movie, so my criticism here is less about the quality of the script/film and more an attempt to make sense of Lucas’ thought process regarding Vader in relation to the rest of the film.)

One thing that always (slightly) bothered me about ESB is that Vader’s motivations - and how they tie in with his actions throughout the film - always seemed a bit “off”, and the reason for this I think connects back to the insight that the “BIG REVEAL” at the end has little effect on the rest of the movie. We can start with a simple question, often seen around the Internet on Quora or various fan sites: “Why is Vader so eager to catch the Millennium Falcon?”

At first, the question seems really stupid. I mean duh… it’s the ship that destroyed the Death Star, right? But Vader isn’t really after the Falcon - he’s after Luke. But Luke’s not on the Falcon. Okay, well Vader doesn’t know that, so Vader is just pursuing the Falcon because he knows the ship is at least connected to Luke, so it’s his only lead. Okay, makes sense.

But wait…

Why is Vader so interested in catching Luke? Again, at first the question seems stupid and obvious. But that’s only because we view the movie with all the foreknowledge and surrounding context of the entire saga. In 1980, when people first saw the film, they first find out Vader is after Luke in the very first scene introducing Vader and his awesome fleet. Vader sees some drone footage of a power generator on Hoth, and says “That’s it. The Rebels are there. And I’m sure Skywalker is with them.”

So this would lead to what I’ll call the “DEFAULT INTERPRETATION”: the default interpretation that a typical 1980s movie goer would assume, which is Vader just wants to kill Luke Skywalker, because Luke Skywalker is an obnoxious rebel terrorist that blew up the Death Star. Very simple, straightforward motivation. The DEFAULT INTERPRETATION is from the perspective of a 1980 moviegoer who is watching for the first time, and doesn’t yet know that Vader is Luke’s father.

With this simple “default interpretation” in mind, the whole Hoth invasion sequence makes sense. Vader’s plan is to drop out of hyperspace, and destroy the Rebel base before they have a chance to turn on their deflector shields. This means Skywalker will be killed, along with all the other Rebels. But Vader hits a snag. Admiral Ozzel comes out of hyperspace incorrectly (the logistics of this are obscure), giving the Rebels the time/opportunity to raise the shields. Vader is pissed, because now he has to go through the hassle of a ground invasion. So he kills Ozzel, promotes Piett, and tells Piett to have General Veers prepare ground troops for an invasion.

So far everything makes sense. Then after the Battle of Hoth happens, and Vader is in pursuit of the Falcon, he gets an incoming transmission from his boss, the Emperor. The Emperor tells him that Luke Skywalker is a significant threat. Vader responds: “he’s just a boy.” Then the Emperor expresses interest in converting Luke to the Dark Side. At this point, under the DEFAULT INTERPRETATION (i.e. from the perspective of a 1980 movie goer), there is NO “Sith Rule of Two” subtext going on here, or any deeper subtext about how Vader really feels about his son, and how the Emperor may suspect some disloyalty, etc. There is NONE of that. There is just the idea that Vader thinks “well, I fucked up at Hoth and didn’t kill Skywalker, and my boss is probably mad now. But at least I can keep my boss happy by capturing Skywalker alive.”

Vader then attempts to do just that: he tracks down the Falcon, tortures Han, and lures Luke to Bespin so he can convert Luke to the Dark Side. All of this happens pretty much exactly the same in both Brackett’s draft and the later drafts.

Then we get the “BIG reveal” in Cloud City.

Now, the “DEFAULT INTERPRETATION” is shattered. But when we retroactively apply this new revelation backwards through the script, as the new interpretation ripples over each scene, it creates a LOT of new questions and makes some of Vader’s actions very hard to explain.

Like… when did Vader discover Luke was his son? Was it through his brief conversation with the Emperor? That seems plausible, because before that conversation, Vader was ready to carry out an ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT to instantly kill ALL the Rebels on Hoth. It was only Admiral Ozzel’s incompetence that forced Vader to carry out a ground assault. (Even without Ozzel’s fuck up, the rebels would have been prepared because they found the probe droid, but Vader doesn’t know this.) And even during the ground assault, Imperial troops are just indiscriminately killing everyone - they could easily have killed Luke if he wasn’t lucky. And Vader KNEW Skywalker was on the base way before he spoke with the Emperor in the asteroid field.

We don’t know if Vader knew Skywalker was his SON at that point. (Some Boba Fett comic tells us Vader knew Luke was his son way before Hoth, but that’s irrelevant.) But presumably even if Vader knew Luke was his son at that point, his plan was still to KILL him via orbital bombardment - NOT convert him, nor secretly train him to overthrow the Emperor. And what about the fact that Luke’s last name is “Skywalker”? Even if Vader didn’t know for certain that Luke was his son, the fact that he stumbled upon a force sensitive young teenager with the last name “Skywalker” who hangs out with Obi-Wan Kenobi should DEFINITELY have been setting off alarm bells in Vader’s mind. At the very least, Vader should be thinking: “This needs further investigation.”

Yet Vader is happy to just instantly vaporize everyone on Hoth, including Luke. Then during and after the Battle of Hoth, the Falcon manages to escape, and for some reason Vader zeroes in on THAT particular little Correllian freighter, out of ALL the other countless ships that escaped. Why? Is it because that ship was directly involved in destroying the Death Star? Maybe, but probably it’s just that the Falcon was his best lead at finding Luke, and its hyperdrive was conveniently broken. But until Vader talks with the Emperor (which happens mid-way through the asteroid chase sequence), we can only assume that Vader’s current plan is to find and KILL Luke Skywalker. (And this fits perfectly with the DEFAULT INTERPRETATION).

Now, there’s sort of a “head-canon” version of these events that we probably all have in our heads, from 40+ years of ESB floating about in the public consciousness, and merging with later context from subsequent movies. I’ll call this the “POST-FACTO INTERPRETATION”. The “post-facto interpretation” is: “At some point before ESB, Vader learned he had a son named Luke (possibly from hiring Boba Fett to investigate). Vader then had the idea to use Luke to overthrow the Emperor, which is why Vader is a bit cagey when speaking to Palpatine about Luke. That’s why Vader was so committed to finding Luke, and why he was chasing the Falcon throughout the film. His goal was to confront or capture Luke, turn him to the Dark Side, and then team up to overthrow the Emperor. During the asteroid chase, Vader discovered that the Emperor was probably on to him, but Vader played dumb. Ultimately, Vader’s plan failed when Luke ostensibly committed suicide on Bespin.”

Unfortunately, the actual film does NOT support this “head-canon” or “post-facto” version of events, because we know that Vader was happy to simply vaporize Luke from orbit, along with all the other Rebels, via an orbital bombardment, at the beginning of ESB - after Vader explicitly mentioned that “Skywalker” was on the base. It was only after the orbital bombardment failed due to Ozzel’s blunder, that Vader seemed to switch from “kill mode” to “capture mode”.

The point of this lengthy post is just to highlight how the “big reveal” about “Father Vader” was a very last-minute addition to all this, because it doesn’t really fit logically into the mechanics of the script. It was sort of clumsily dropped into the script, without ironing out all the ripples caused by the addition. It makes little sense that Vader would want to KILL Luke on Hoth, unless we are viewing the movie through the lens of the “DEFAULT INTERPRETATION” - which is how the script was originally written.

Even if Lucas was toying with the idea of “Father Vader” before Brackett wrote her draft, the idea was still sort of clumsily forced into the script, giving the impression of a “last minute rewrite”. The fact that Vader apparently is okay with KILLING Luke at the beginning of ESB is a vestigial remnant of the original script, where Vader very much explicitly really did want to murder Luke: there’s a scene where Vader tries to force choke Luke to death as Luke escapes Hoth in his X-wing. This early motivation partially carries over into the final draft, when Vader orders the orbital bombardment; Vader’s actions were never properly updated to reflect the later revelation at the end.

TLDR:

The original arc for Vader’s motivation was: “(1) Find and kill Luke, (2) Change of plans: capture and convert Luke to appease the Emperor”

The UPDATED motivation in later drafts was: “(1) Find and kill Luke, (2) Change of plans: capture and convert Luke because Luke is his SON, and can be used to overthrow the Emperor.”

But in everyone’s head-canon, the motivation is more like “(1) Discovers Luke is his son, but hides this from the Emperor, (2) tries to capture Luke to overthrow the Emperor”

The head-canon version at some point became ACTUAL canon via some Boba Fett comics. The head-canon version also makes the most sense given the “big reveal” at the end of ESB, as well as the wider context of Star Wars lore. But the head-canon version just is NOT supported by the first act of the actual movie.

AspiringCreator said:

Thing is? That’s pretty in-line with the Force. When Yoda was telling Luke to lift up the X-Wing, he expressed doubt which led to Yoda explaining basically that the ability to use the Force comes down to patience and mostly accepting this new form of thinking. It’s about inner strength and accepting a whole new thought process. Strength and mastery in this is not about exercising some Force muscle or whatever, it’s about letting go and allowing this energy to guide you.

Learning the Force has always been depicted as a master/apprentice relationship, requiring discipline and practice. The “new form of thinking” Yoda talks about is what requires this discipline and practice. The OT makes it clear this requires a mentor and teacher. If you include the Prequels, this means years of training. What happens with Rey is completely different. For her it’s like a light-switch. She just spontaneously develops near fully-formed Force capabilities (Jedi mind trick, lifting objects, lightsaber combat). Nobody teaches her and there’s no progression. I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly say this is anything like the earlier films.

I really don’t see this supposed “anti learning from elders” message.

Yoda says the ancient Jedi texts are useless to Rey and then literally burns down the library. What kind of twisted message is this?

Spartacus01 said:

You all should stop acting like you have absolute truth, because it can be very irritating. Don’t get me wrong, to discuss and criticize other people’s arguments is absolutely okay. But to act like “Yeah bro, sure, you can continue to carry out your wrong opinions, but the rest of us, who are all superior, will continue to say things as they are” is very irritating.

Well, in this case they just posted a zero-effort link to a long video, you know? So the responses were likely to be a bit flippant and dismissive.

A better way to approach this would be to summarize Rick Worley’s main arguments and then invite debate/discussion. It’s unlikely anyone’s going to change their mind over subjective things like this, but at least that approach is more likely to generate more engagement.

The Special Editions were the first Star Wars movies I saw in the theater, so it was very exciting at the time. The new scenes and special effects initially seemed awesome. I didn’t even notice Han not shooting first when I saw it either. I bought the soundtrack to the ROTJ special edition release, which included Jedi Rocks.

In retrospect, the only special edition changes I actually like are the new establishing shots that flesh out Cloud City. I also think the new Wampa footage is okay, but unnecessary. Everything else either completely sucks (Han shooting first, Jabba in Episode IV, Jedi Rocks, etc.) or is just way too over-indulgent (new Mos Eisley footage).

What’s really ironic is how the 90s CGI has ended up aging even worse than much of the original practical effects from the 70s/80s. The Jabba scene in Episode IV is particularly bad, and the 2004(?) redo isn’t much better.

Also, the Special Editions presented a great opportunity to fix a lot of VFX issues with the original release. They did this to some extent, but inexplicably ignored some particularly bad green-screen shots, like in the rancor fight. Shots like those were ideal candidates for touching up in a later re-release, but instead they decided to edit Han’s character arc.

Looking back, it feels like George Lucas (and many other directors) just went wild after they saw Jurassic Park. They were like “Holy shit! We can just do anything now!!”. Except they seemed to have overlooked the fact that Jurassic Park used a careful combination of practical effects and CGI. In particular, many of the memorable close-up shots of the dinosaurs were practical effects. CGI was often used for shots where the dinosaurs were far away or moving fast. And very often, the CGI shots were used in dark or dimly lit environments (T-Rex at night, raptors in dimly lit kitchen). But Lucas thought he could just throw in close-ups of a giant, slow-moving CGI slug in a brightly lit Mos Eisley space port in broad daylight, and it would just all come out fine.

My favorite pro-Prequel argument is “But the Prequels have even more practical effect shots than the OT!” I mean, who cares about the concept of percentages?

Everybody always argues about Rey being too overpowered, or never failing, or definitely failing all the time, etc. Debating whether or not Rey’s “fail count” or “Mary Sue score” approximates Luke’s “fail count” or “Mary Sue score” overlooks the real underlying problem with TLJ’s themes and message.

In terms of Rey’s arc, TLJ presents three inter-related messages/themes:

1. Failure is a great teacher

2. Elders from the past can teach us what types of failure to avoid

3. Apart from learning what failures to avoid, there is little else of value we can learn from elders or knowledge passed down to us, so we must look inward to ourselves to move forward

In isolation, Message (1) and (2) are good messages. However, the way the movie connects Message (1) and (2) with Message (3) is very harmful to Star Wars (and harmful in general).

But since this is controversial, first I’ll provide evidence that TLJ actually conveys these messages. Message (1) is conveyed explicitly through dialogue by Yoda. Message (2) is presented in various ways, such as when Yoda says “Luke, we are what they grow beyond”, and when Yoda tells Luke that the most important thing he must pass on is his follies and failures, so younger generations can grow beyond them. Message (3) is an extension of Message 2, and is presented explicitly when Yoda mocks the “sacred Jedi texts” and says “that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess”, before literally burning down the library. Message (3) is also presented through Rey’s journey throughout the film, as Rey doesn’t actually learn much about being a Jedi from Luke. Luke mostly teaches Rey how the Jedi failed or were wrong, while Rey trains herself and then takes the ancient texts along with her so she can self-learn. The over-arching message here is that knowledge passed down by elders is only useful so we can learn how to avoid past failures, but in terms of going forward and learning/achieving new things, there is little our elders can teach us, so we must look inward to ourselves.

Now, while these themes are prominent throughout TLJ, the movie also muddles these messages a bit, which can easily be mistaken for intentional nuance. These messages are muddled in four primary ways:

• Message 3 is also conveyed by the famous line from Kylo Ren “Let the past die”. But since Kylo is a villain, this dialogue is presumably not meant to be taken as a teachable moment for the audience.

• Message 2 and 3 are conveyed by Yoda, but Yoda himself comes from the failed past, so why should we even listen to him?

• Yoda says the Jedi texts are mostly useless to Rey, yet Rey takes them with her anyway.

• Yoda also mentions two positive things (strength and mastery) as things that should be passed down by elders

I believe these muddled aspects and inconsistencies do not represent any intentional nuance in the overall message. They are mostly just inconsistencies/contradictions in the writing. In regard to Rey taking the Jedi texts with her, this was probably included so Rey had some way of learning more about the Force after Luke dies. With the Jedi texts, Rey can learn by herself - rather than learn from an elder. (The fact that the texts themselves were written by past elders is probably another oversight not to be taken as intentional nuance). And as for “strength and mastery”, despite this brief lip service to past knowledge, Rey does not actually learn any “strength and mastery” from Luke. She learns those things by looking inward to herself.

Regardless of the inconsistencies, the overall message is pretty clear: “knowledge/ideas passed down by elders is useful mostly so we can learn to avoid past failures, but there is little the past can teach us as we move forward, so we must look inward to ourselves.” In my opinion, this is a harmful, insidious message that, when taken to its logical endpoint, results in solipsism and narcissism.

Instead, Star Wars should portray the learning process as a give and take between elder and younger generation, with the elder conveying most of the knowledge, but the younger offering a unique perspective that forces elders to reconsider long-held beliefs. The OT did this perfectly, with Luke learning from Kenobi and Yoda, but also proving them wrong by redeeming Vader.

Finally, it’s true that Rey herself also fails badly in TLJ. This is what the “Mary Sue” crowd doesn’t acknowledge. Rey gets her ass kicked by Snoke, she has to be saved by Kylo, and then she fails to bring Kylo back to the light. Now, Luke definitely fails more often (let’s get real here), but this is actually not even relevant. The important point is that Rey’s strength and power come almost exclusively from looking inward to herself and tapping into her inner strength, not by learning from an elder mentor who bestows knowledge from the past. This is an extension of what happens in TFA, where Rey’s Force powers spontaneously manifest with no prior training. It’s also why Rey sees an endless reflection of herself during her vision in the underground cave. TLJ ends triumphantly with Rey lifting tons of boulders - a feat that nobody taught her to do (apart from some meta-joke about lifting rocks). Rather, it was only her own inner strength that enabled her to do it.

And that’s the real difference between Rey and Luke. Both of them experienced failure. Both had some “Mary Sue” moments. But Luke learned from elder mentors. Rey learned that she only needed herself.

The Prequels are awesome because they’re stylistically designed to be that way.

NeverarGreat said:

Could the words ‘Father changes into Darth Vader’ be a reference to a Force vision, much like Luke’s Dagobah Cave experience? In the finished film Luke defeats Vader and his face turns into Luke’s face, but perhaps there was a version where Luke’s father appears to him in a dream or vision but then changes into Vader to represent the revenge that Luke feels that he needs to take.

I suggest this alternate explanation merely because if I suddenly had the idea to combine the two characters, I would simply write ‘Father is Darth Vader’, or ‘Father changed to Darth Vader’. It’s very strange to use the present form of the word ‘changes’ since it suggests something which happens within the film, rather than being a revelation of an unchanging fact.

It’s definitely possible. The full context only raises more questions.

The full context reads: “Somewhere the good father (Ben) watches over the child’s fate, ready to assert his power when critically needed. Father changes into Darth Vader, who is a passing manifestation, and will return triumphant. Luke travels to the end of the world and makes sacrifice to undo the spell put on his father. He succeeds and happiness is restored.” This is on page 7 of The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Rinzler claims these words are in the notes for an “early outline” of a Star Wars sequel, but no actual dates for these notes are provided.

These notes are pretty hard to make sense of, and the fact that Ben is also referred to as “father” only adds to the confusion. But you’re right that it could easily apply to some kind of vision Luke has, or some spiritual interpretation of Luke’s journey. But the last two sentences could also be interpreted as Vader’s redemption arc. Regardless, the meaning here is a bit obscure, and it’s not certain that it really refers to the famous plot twist. And again, there are no dates on these notes, so those sentences could have been written after Brackett’s first draft.

I tend to prefer Kaminski’s hypothesis, that Vader was made into Luke’s father through the process of Lucas struggling to remove the redundancy introduced when Luke’s father (originally) appeared as another wise old Jedi Force Ghost, duplicating the role of Kenobi. If the account from Marcia Lucas mentioned by Emre1601 is correct, it’s possible that Lucas ran this problem by some of his friends, and one of them suggested the idea of merging Vader with Luke’s father.

In general, it’s very common in literature and screen-writing for a writer to merge two characters into one if one character becomes redundant. Thus, I think it’s likely that Vader was turned into Luke’s father not for the sake of some amazing twist, but rather as a solution to a writing problem caused by having redundant characters. The fact that it was also an incredible twist was of course a huge bonus.

I know there’s deleted footage of Han, Leia and Chewie infiltrating the base on Endor, with some of the other Rebel soldiers in the background. This footage would require some work if it were to be incorporated into a fan edit, because it’s very raw (proper sound effects would need to be added). But at least it shows the other Rebel soldiers actually existing and doing things, if only very briefly.

https://youtu.be/gJqRPV19vKM?t=303

But this is inside the base, not in the forest. It’s also one of the few scenes on Endor that actually has a “military commando special-ops” vibe befitting an operation to take out an enemy shield generator. Hilariously, it also highlights the absurdity of Han Solo not wearing military camouflage gear like everyone else, because you know he’s way too cool for that.

There’s a lot of contradictory claims about when exactly Lucas decided Vader was to become Luke’s father. The most obvious hypothesis would be some time after Leigh Brackett was commissioned to write the script, but before the Fourth Draft was completed. The Fourth Draft contains the mysterious words “(INSERT B - DIALOGUE ADDED HERE)” where Vader’s infamous line is supposed to go (presumably this was done to keep the shocking twist from leaking).

But I’ve also read the claim that Lucas actually came up with the plot twist before he commissioned Leigh Brackett, but just didn’t tell her about it. Of course, that claim seems like typical Lucas revisionist nonsense, but it would help explain why the Emperor is now an evil Force-using sorcerer in Brackett’s draft, instead of the figurehead politician. Of course, if this claim is true, Brackett’s script would need to have been changed significantly, since Luke’s father actually appears as a force ghost on Dagobah to give Luke some Jedi wisdom. (Plus if I were Brackett I would be pissed that Lucas essentially wasted my time by withholding this vital story information).

In Secret History of Star Wars, Michael Kaminski hypothesizes that Lucas came up with the idea to make Vader into Luke’s father after Brackett completed the first draft (and sadly died). Kaminski speculates that Lucas’ thought process leading up to this decision was as follows: Lucas read Brackett’s draft and something bothered him about the scenes where Luke’s father appears as a force ghost. Lucas realized that Luke’s father (who was a typical wise old Jedi character) was actually a completely redundant character, because he’s basically the exact same character as Ben Kenobi (who is also a Force Ghost at this point). But once the concept of force ghosts was introduced, it would follow logically that Luke’s father should begin appearing to Luke, since Kenobi always does. So now Lucas was stuck with duplicate “wise old Jedi” characters. If Luke’s father started appearing to Luke, there really would be no reason for Kenobi to have any further role in the story. So eventually, while struggling to find a solution to this problem, Lucas stumbled upon the greatest movie twist in history.

This hypothesis seems believable to me. It’s purely a guess, but it makes sense. But on the other hand, there is some evidence that Lucas actually decided that Vader was Luke’s father even before Leigh Brackett wrote the first draft. Kaminski points out how ridiculous this claim seems, because it means Lucas purposely withheld vital story information from Brackett, even while paying her to write the script (presumably out of paranoia of leaking the twist). And yeah, this does seem kind of ridiculous - but maybe it’s more like Lucas was just indecisive about the idea. Apparently it might actually be true, at least according to JW Rinzler, who claims to have many of Lucas’ handwritten preliminary notes for Empire Strikes Back, seemingly pre-dating Brackett’s draft. One of these note pages has the words “Father changes into Darth Vader”. But unfortunately Rinzler doesn’t provide a photograph of this (but provides many photographs of other notes), and Rinzler also admits that none of these notes are dated so it’s difficult to construct a precise timeline of Lucas’ thought process.

Anyway, if true, it would help explain why the Emperor turns into a Force-using evil sorcerer in Leigh Brackett’s script. Because if Lucas had already planned on making Vader into a conflicted character, there would need to be some new “ultimate bad guy” character to take his place.

Mocata said:

Rushed isn’t the word I would choose considering how it drags in the middle. They should have just done something better there; both in terms of Yoda and Endor scenes.

Yeah, ironically the movie drags so badly once they get captured by the Ewoks. That’s when it’s time to change the channel.

Actually, I think a big problem is that the entire Endor ground team sequence is really just bland and visually uninspiring. It takes place in a boring forest in California that looks like a location where Star Wars fan-films are shot. Yeah, redwoods can be majestic and beautiful, but the cinematography never captures this. The whole sequence of meeting the Ewoks, going back to their village, etc. takes forever and barely anything interesting happens. And even after the battle begins, the small Imperial base with the shield generator is visually boring (something larger like that communications tower in Rogue One would be nicer). And throughout the entire battle, it always seems like Han, Leia and Chewie are the only Rebel Alliance fighters involved, because the camera almost never shows anyone else doing anything. It would help add some tension if we saw some of those other Rebel extras get killed, or at least participate. (Also, what were all those guys doing while the main trio was hanging out with Ewoks overnight?)

But the other two ending sequences (Luke vs. Vader and space battle above Endor) are so incredibly awesome that they compensate for the mediocrity of the ground battle. Also, the speeder bike chase is still pretty cool, as are the AT-STs (when they’re not tripping over logs).

Emre1601 said:

Channel72 said:

Or… why even do the trench run at all? Just align an X-wing at a 90 degree angle to the Death Star surface and fly directly towards the exhaust port. Then fire torpedoes in a straight line into the port. Fire multiple proton torpedoes in case some are intercepted by laser turret fire, or first target the laser turrets themselves. You could fire the torpedoes from a great distance away. A computer-guided torpedo could hit the small exhaust port without a human pilot having to fly anywhere near the Death Star.

There is a line of dialogue about it being “heavily shielded” or “ray-shielded” in the rebel briefing? I took that as the reason why they couldn’t fire at it from distance or closer distances with “line of sight”, though I could be wrong on that, or misinterpreting it? I’ll have to watch go watch it, the whole film, again! 😃

I think they say that the ray shields are the reason they need to use proton torpedoes (as opposed to, I guess, just regular laser fire?). Maybe the idea is that ray shields only protect against energy weapons, but wouldn’t protect against a physical object like a torpedo.

The nuked refrigerator scene in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull is the best scene in that entire movie. Despite being ridiculous, it’s the only scene with a distinct 1950s personality befitting the premise of the film. The majority of the rest of the movie is just a bland rehash of chase sequences from earlier films set in a non-descript boring jungle, and could easily be transplanted into the 1930s if you swapped out the Soviets for Nazis and the glass skull for whatever. Instead, the movie should have taken Indy to East Berlin, and eventually culminated in an action sequence at a secret Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

(Alternatively, Indy should probably not exist in the 1950s, because Cold War Indiana Jones starts to closely approximate James Bond if you stray too far from the ancient civilization archeology angle, yet the “adventurous archeologist” trope is anachronistic after British colonial rule in the Mid-East begins to collapse.)

Superweapon VII said:

The Exorcist III is the best entry in the series.

Correct.

Finally saw this. I still think nothing beats “The Duel” from Season 1, which is just awesome. In Season 2, my favorites were “Journey to the Dark Head” (which incidentally had some very cool unique starship designs I appreciated) and “The Spy Dancer”, which had a very cool premise: a cabaret/nightclub where the clientele is mostly Imperial officers, and the performers are in the Rebellion - very World War 2.

“The Bandits of Golak” was also interesting - the planet/environment was clearly inspired by various locations across India, with colorful Hindu temple style architecture. Plus, the Inquisitor character was awesome - he had more personality than any of the canonical Inquisitors (and I hate the concept of Inquisitors to begin with). But the 3D animation looked very similar to something like the later seasons of Clone Wars, rather than some more unique style, and they reuse the same old stock Star Wars background aliens that they use as background characters in every 3D animated series.

But I feel like nothing in Season 2 reached the level of quality as stuff like “The Duel” and “The Village Bride” in Season 1, which not only had great animation and storyline, but very memorable original music as well.

Seeing TPM when it came out is just an impossible-to-replicate experience, due to the unprecedented and never-to-be-repeated levels of anticipation for this movie. Forming any sort of sustainable opinion about that movie on first viewing was virtually impossible. Just the fact that there was now an actual new opening crawl in existence, with a title that didn’t say Episode IV, V or VI, was to me, like seeing some kind of physically impossible phenomenon. It was insane that it was even real, after having seen the OT so many, many times on VHS. Also, the movie ended with this fast-paced, intricately choreographed lightsaber battle, complete with an operatic score, and that’s generally the last thing you’d remember when walking out of the theater on first viewing, leaving you somewhat mesmerized and elated.

I have difficulty remembering exactly when it dawned on me that actually this movie sucks. I think there was a period of time, maybe around a month after it came out, where I was basically in denial about this, and would try to downplay how unexpectedly childish/juvenile the tone was in comparison with the OT. I think I finally gave up on it when, on a 3rd or 4th repeat viewing, during that scene in Watto’s workshop with non-stop Jar Jar antics occurring in the background, my younger sister blurted out something like “Is this movie even serious?” She was very familiar with the OT, and she obviously picked up on the more childish tone, and basically said what I was thinking but wasn’t ready to acknowledge. The difference in tone from the OT was undeniably jarring. After that, I started to notice a million other problems with it, and ultimately, all my friends and I sort of reached a consensus that it sucks around two months or so after it came out. (But we still paid to see it like 5 or 6 times like idiots.)

Probably because Alec Guinness isn’t alive, so they couldn’t record any new dialogue with him (at least not without using AI, which wasn’t as mature in 2015/2019).

EDIT: daveybjones999 beat me to it

Mocata said:

Has it ever been explained why they don’t need droid control ships any more? In the old EU this was the whole reason nobody used droid armies - they relied on transmissions from a control point that could be easily jammed. But now in the other prequels and all the media that followed it’s never mentioned.

I always thought the droid control ship was just contrived specifically for Phantom Menace, so there would be a single point of attack the good guys could target to win. There’s so many cases in fiction where they setup an overwhelmingly powerful enemy force that can be taken out by some single point of attack (e.g. Death Star exhaust port, Sauron’s ring, etc.) for the sake of neatly wrapping up the story.

Arguably, ROTJ sidestepped this problem by leaving it vague what happened to the Imperial forces after the Emperor died.

Marooned Biker Scout said:

Channel72 said:

NeverarGreat said:

I agree that this keeps the film from being a perfect stand-alone, but there is a mitigating factor in that we do see a lightsaber fight so the lightsaber as an object is paid-off. The fact that it belongs to Obi-wan isn’t to troubling to me. Star Wars is a universe of unbounded promise, so giving Luke a weapon that he doesn’t use in a fight only fires the mind to imagine him using it in a future battle against Vader.

I would argue that the setup for Kenobi’s lightsaber happens in the Mos Eisley cantina, when Kenobi slices off that guy’s arm. This sets up that Kenobi is some kind of skilled warrior with an exotic weapon from a romantic age in the past. The payoff happens when Kenobi takes out his lightsaber again to fight Vader.

But Luke’s lightsaber is setup separately, and the setup connects the lightsaber to the idea that Luke’s father was a Jedi Knight who specifically wanted Luke to inherit it. (Thus, the lightsaber serves as a physical manifestation of the “hero’s call” - calling Luke away from his mundane life to adventure.) But there’s never any pay off for this setup in A New Hope. It’s kind of like setting up Excalibur in the King Arthur legends, but then just forgetting about it.

A case could also be made the Kenobi himself is the physical manifestation of the “Heroes’ call”? Which would relegate the lightsaber to being a tool of that?

I remember reading somewhere (I forgot where I read this - could be in Rinzler or could be Secret History of Star Wars) that the scene where Ben gives Luke the lightsaber was included mostly as setup for later when Ben uses his own lightsaber in the Mos Eisley Cantina. The Cantina scene where Ben dismembers someone goes back to one of the earliest drafts of Star Wars. However, Lucas realized that if the Cantina scene was the first time the audience saw a lightsaber, nobody would understand what even happened. So the scene with Luke playing around with his father’s lightsaber was added to introduce the audience to the concept of lightsabers.

So you’re probably correct. But I can just imagine an alternate reality where Star Wars 1977 is the only Star Wars movie to exist, where an audience member might easily think (especially upon rewatching it) “Hey… wait, what’s the point of Luke getting a lightsaber? He never uses it.” Usually in most of these fantasy movies, if the hero is given a magical weapon, the hero will use that weapon at some point (usually in the film’s climax) to overcome some obstacle or defeat the bad guy. (The weird 80s fantasy movie Krull comes to mind as a typical example of this happening, and of course in Tolkien there are multiple occasions where some magical object/weapon is setup for a later payoff.)