Darth Lars

SilverWook said:

These elementary schoolyard level antics really need to stop. Mikeluv80, consider this a warning.

I think there are more than one poster around here that deserves a warning, some more than one.

Seriously, of all the discussion forums I visit frequently, this is by far the least mature – and I think that the actual age of most posters is not relatively low. People should know better. I think it has gone downhill quite a bit only in the recent year.

I didn’t like the times when JJA played tricks on the audience:

• Nose of Star Destroyer that has the silhouette of an X-wing
• Hologram that we are not supposed to think is a hologram when we first see it.

Yes, there are several times in the old movies when the audience is tricked … but only because we are following a character that himself is tricked.
The gimmicks in TFA were just that: gimmicks. Gimmicks like that don’t belong in Star Wars.

Smoking Lizard said:
Again, I suppose there’s some “logical” explanation why Mon Mothma does not appear at the Death Star attack run briefing, does not appear as the attack on the Death Star is unfolding, does not appear at the medal ceremony, does not appear anywhere on Hoth…

The Rebel Alliance comprised many star systems, some of which where not supporting the Alliance openly…
Putting all of the Alliance’s high-ranking members in one place that you already know that the Empire would want to target would be stupid.

Nobody should bully someone for their opinions about Star Wars.
There are many types of Star Wars fans, who love and hate all kind of things and different things in the Star Wars movies and in the Star Wars universe.

Accept that and respect each other.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

1. Who gives a damn about the political specifics? Did the OT delve into these in any detail?

Everything is relative. Compared to TFA, ANH did have a lot of exposition about the political situation.
ESB and ROTJ did not need to.

But does one really want Snoke revealing to the audience about Kylo Ren’s being Han’s son at that time or do we want to keep the revelation for later?

Matt.F said:

Snoke, I have to say, is where the movie proverbially ‘shit the bed’. It’s just not good enough fx to pass as authentic, and really shows up as a CG construct.

There are more issues with Snoke’s hologram. According to the script, in the first scene with Snoke the audience is supposed to be led into thinking that Snoke is a real person and not a hologram until the transmission ends. This means that the fidelity of the hologram has been made higher than any hologram in the OT or PT, in order to pull off this trick. Personally, I don’t see the point of that at all.
Also, the hologram room has windows with sunlight shining behind Snoke, and that light should reasonably make the holo-projection suffer, but it doesn’t and that just looks weird.

I think best would be to first reduce the shots of Snoke to a minimum – making him more of a mystery, as the Emperor in ESB.
Second, if possible, lower the fidelity of the hologram – which I think would mask the low quality of the CGI and make the hologram look more like a hologram in Star Wars should look. Mask off Snoke from the background, lower the resolution of the holo by dividing into artificial scanlines, add noise and possibly interference, give it a blue tint and add that onto a new background that does not have a light shining directly into the camera.

The deleted scenes are out there… Timecode confirmed. Effects seem to be finished, but not always good.
The scenes are mostly useless, as predicted. Could be used mostly as filler to help with pacing, I guess …
All of it 4:16 including titles.

Kylo Searches the Falcon: First part: Snowtroopers and Kylo Ren inside. Kylo steps into cockpit: “Han Solo”.
Second part: Kylo Ren and the Snowtroopers are outside the Falcon, seeing the arrival of X-wings. I would only use the second in an edit…

Snow Speeder chase: Rey and Finn on a Snowspeeder chased by a Snowspeeded with Snowtroopers. They shoot at each other, Finn does not miss. The end.

Jakku message: The Resistance receives a message from Jakku about Poe and the village, no word of BB-8. “Never understimate a droid”. C-3PO stares into the camera for half a second …
Inserting it in the beginning would ruin Leia’s reveal later in the movie. Individual shots might be reused somewhere later though.

Finn and the Villager: Finn can’t shoot a woman with a small bundle (child?).

Finn will be fine: Camera circles a round Finn on the stretcher. Then “Your friend’s going to be just fine” - stiff delivery. That’s it.

X-wings Prepare for Lightspeed: “Black leader: The Falcon Has Landed”. “All fighters clear for takeoff”. Cut from X-wings lifting off from the base right into space. X-wing pilots in closeup. X-wings go to lightspeed.

That_OT_Ruler said:

*MINOR CHANGES
-20th Century Fox logo and theme is implemented

Don’t you mean “21st Century Mouse” ?

( hides )

Scott109 said:

Is the romance between Anakin and Padmé really that unrealistic? I believe it is a psychologically accurate portrayal of a woman falling in love with a man suffering from Bipolar Disorder, an occurrence which happens much more frequently than you would imagine.

My sister is bipolar. You have grossly misunderstood what bipolar disorder is. Yes, I have read your follow-ups.

Critics often scoff at the moment when Anakin says, “I don’t like sand. It’s course and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.” But if you grew up on a desert planet and associated sand with slavery and with abandoning your mother at a young age, you would hate sand as well.

That line might not be the best written line of script in cinema history but I think that most of all it was badly performed. The purpose of the line is to segue from the topic that Padmé is talking about into making a compliment – as part of Anakin’s advances towards Padmé. A good actor would understand that and maybe pull it off sounding flirty instead of creepy. However George Lucas’ failed to get a good performance out of Christensen when he directed the scene.

You were only eight when you saw the movie the first time and your experience of the movie then is obviously what has stuck in your head.
I was seven when I first saw Star Wars (ANH) – and I understood first in adulthood many things that had gone completely over my head when I was seven.

If Anakin was not emotionally disturbed at all in Attack of the Clones, his transformation to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith would have been rushed and unbelievable.

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.

BillionaireHobo287 said:
The EU is popular, but writing the sequel trilogy within its canon is creative suicide.

I’m not saying that you should have it all. The EU is contradicting itself in many places, so contradicting the EU at something minor would not be a big deal.
The only things that I would consider “EU-canon” are those few things I mentioned.

Anyway, the new movies should not be about EU characters or OT characters. Some OT characters need to have been in the sequel-movie somehow to pass the torch, but they should have been in different places in their lives than what they had been back in the start of ANH.
That is one way that the movie could have been more original.

What I would do…

I would not take a crap on the EU, and on the EU fans. No matter what your opinion is on the EU, for decades the EU has been a huge part of Star Wars franchise and Star Wars fandom – some times a book or video game has been the biggest Star Wars event in that year.
I would take the fundamentals: the extended Skywalker/Organa family, Luke trained Jedi, there have been warlords and there is a sleeping Imperial “Remnant” out there – and leave almost everything else unsaid. Some events in books and video games could have happened: that should be up to the individual’s imagination. The new trilogy should validate – or invalidate – as little as possible.
The clean slate of Lucasfilm’s new continuity has angered many long-term fans. Instead, respecting that the EU exists would, I think, even help sales of older EU items (not that I have not seen a recent resurgence in interest for the EU, but it could be bigger) and help bring the original and sequel trilogies together.

But yes:

• The new films has to be primarily about new characters. Not about the ones in the old films and especially not about the ones in the EU.
• A new threat. And yes, it should involve the dark side, but it is unnecessary to have it be spoken out in the first scene that dark-side practitioners are behind it.
• “Hero’s journey”, like Rey’s (in broad strokes)
• Jedi are decimated. Not necessarily killed off off-screen until only Luke remains… before the movie even starts.
• A locale with exotic aliens. Not necessarily a new cantina.
• Han dies.
• The end scene is an emotionally strong but slow scene with a wide-angle shot, but static, not circling.
• And absolutely, no superweapon. No DS3. Period.

IsanRido said:

-Starkiller base ought to be a decoy, “These rebels will think we’re stupid enough to build yet another Death Shhtar!”. Ideally they could come up with a more clever way to be threating.

Interesting idea. Maybe the Republic would throw a large portion of their fleet at it, and then instead of firing – the planet or the sun explodes in a supernova, crippling the Republic’s military forces.
It would serve the same end as destroying the Hosnian system did in TFA but provide more opportunities for drama:

• Lead-up to the fight, showing the tension before the battles. Like in ANH, ESB and ROTJ but which TFA lacked. Personally, I think those moments were very emotionally important in the original trilogy.
• Fanatic Neo-Imp suicide-bomber type “pressing the button”.
• The turning point when it has dawned on the Rep forces what is about to happen.
• Remnant/First order officers when they understand that they have been led to die.
• Show the aftermath of the defeat: people trying to survive. (also something TFA lacked because the planets just popped out of existence)
• Remnant/First order propaganda after the event, blaming the Republic and cheering the “sacrifice” of the dead Neo-imps troops. That would show the ruthlessness of the Neo-Imp leaders.

… but yeah, some people would call that a rehash of ROTJ’s “It’s a trap” moment despite the new angles. 😉

Lord Haseo said:

As a mixed man I really don’t know how to respond to this but all I’ll say is that characters should transcend race. Finn for example doesn’t strike me as belonging to any ethnicity; to me he’s just a person.

Here here! Star Wars should stand above race-issues. White human, black human, green goblin, tall hairy sasquatch, crustacean, all on the same footing.
It would have been bold move if they had made Rey or Finn be another race than human - it would have been less practical with all the makeup but actors in TV-series seem to manage. I think they chose not to because they did not want to be reminded of the failure that was Jar-Jar.

BTW. Before TFA came out, I heard a rumour that the movie was going to show Stormtrooper taking off their helmets – and some of them would be of other races than human.

Dak Ralter’s line “Right now I feel I can take on the whole Empire myself.” bugs me a bit. It is too upbeat and enthusiastic. As if they are kids about to go to an amusement park, not pilots going out to war.

Bringing down AT-ATs with a harpoon seems like a crazy idea too that only a child would come up with … but hey, it worked, apparently.

Small things:

• In the opening scene there is a moment when Ewan McGregor makes a face like “oh, this is just soo corny”. And after that the movie was ruined. Even if I did not want it to feel corny, it did because of that scene.
• Starship designs like the “Uglies” of EU: cobbled together from various parts of X-wing and TIE fighters that we are supposed to recognize from the original trilogy.
  For instance, the Jedi Fighter, which has large curved windows and TIE-fighter like window, with a thick beam separating them: right in front of the pilot’s eyes.
  “S-foils in attack position”: Eh, no. S-foils have guns on them. “Attack position” is when the guns are spread wide for wider dispersal of laser fire. Tiny flapping baby wings on larger wings do nothing.
• “This is where the fun begins”, said non-ironically.
• Buzz droids
• New villain is a cartoon character
  … and that’s just the first few seconds of the movie.

Big things:

• Padmé is diminished from starship-piloting warrior queen in previous movies to … someone who dies from a broken heart … over a complete dick.
• Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side is weird.
• The Emperor’s transition to wrinkly
• So many unanswered questions in the previous movies that were not told in ROTS. Instead we had to get them from novels set before and after the movie.

Of all official Star Wars movies, I rate Revenge of the Sith last.

The Dark Empire said:

And it has the two-seater-TIE in it. And the named every cable, every thing like the engines and the weapon system. And well, there is no repulsorlift in it. Some other ships and vehicles have it.

Yeah, in most depictions, it looks as if TIE fighters are not capable of atmospheric flight - only in space close close to a mothership.

Yet, at the end of ESB when the Falcon escapes Cloud City, it is pursued by TIE Fighters. Those TIE fighters must have had repulsors or they would not be able to fly there. (or the pilots would have had to fly with the engines angled towards the ground)

I would agree that the end-scene is a lure to go see the next movie, yes. Disney probably gave instructions to Lucasfilm to make the movie have that property, which made Arndt and the others design the movie to be that way from the beginning.
And yes, I also have a feeling of cheapness about it, but I have that about about the whole of Disney’s New Star Wars Empire. It appears to me that with a movie being released every year as if Disney are in it only to milk it as much as possible. What I am afraid of is that they would milk it so dry that the franchise and the fan-base would be spent after episode 9 …

To expand on the comments above about the movie being “a waste without Luke” (in decreasing importance):

• Finding Luke is the “end of the beginning” for Rey: an important waypoint in Rey’s journey. Rey’s journey is the focus of the movie: it is about how the Force awakens in her.
• Luke Skywalker is the MacGuffin of the movie. I would like to change the MacGuffin in my edit but I think it would be difficult. The mention of the Skywalker Map could be cut here and there except for the dialogue between Han, Rey and Finn on the Millenium Falcon – and I don’t (yet) see a way to rearrange or go around that dialogue.
• Luke is the classic character that I think most people wanted to see in TFA. (Personally I don’t care about this either even though Luke has always been my favourite character)

It is also difficult to predict how cutting the end-scene would work together with the next movie in the series. I anticipate that when we next first see her, some time will have passed during which she has undergone some Jedi training by Luke.

Darth Lucas said:

I found more people pissed that they said he’d be in the movie and was basically a glorified cameo. I just personally think it would’ve worked better if his reveal had been saved for 8 instead of just tacked on to the end of 7 as a cheap cliffhanger.

I don’t think it is a “cheap cliffhanger”. The movie needed a bright point at the end to counter all the negative.
Compare with The Empire Strikes Back’s end scene. There was Luke being out of pain on the path to recovery, Chewie and Lando following a lead on Han and the Rebel fleet being safe - all positive things. Imagine how the movie would have felt without those things.

By the way, that scene is IMHO the only time in the movie where the music is really good.

Tobar said:

Anyway, yes, they’re called refreshers in the Star Wars galaxy. The most memorable thing I recall about them in this context is that apparently on Coruscant dianogas have been known to snake their way up through the plumbing in people’s apartments. =|

I remember ‘freshers from EU novels’ although I can’t quite remember which ones. Refreshers are canon now, apparently as per the new-canon novel “Before the Awakening”.

The use in the EU seems like “bathroom” in US English: noting a place that could have a toilet and/or shower/bath.

Replace Oscar Isaacs with a man dressed in drag, because he is Dame Ron.

(ducks)

TFA VFX Reel with some green-screen shots. Maybe some could be ripped and salvaged…
https://vimeo.com/151719063

Hmm… Instead of Rathtars, how about one of the monsters from the Dejarik table?
The Klorslug seems to have a similar mouth to a Rathtar, if there is going to be any gangster-munching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU0bnsSMXrk

I have been toying with the idea of scaling down 1080 material exactly 2× and cropping to SD in anamorphic widescreen for DVD.
With the source material being 2.35:1 (1920×818), the result would be 2.09:1 (854×409 upscaled).

Yes, that would be pan-and-scan with image lost on the left and right side, but the advantages would be:

• Scaling with an integer factor would retain the most image quality from the source.
• You would fill 12% more of the 16:9 screen.

Addition to wish list:

• When Han and Chewie has boarded the Falcon, somehow, somewhere add Han saying this line about it off-camera.
  Indiana Jones reference done. No need for Rathars.

I still prefer the idea of the Starkiller being an ancient doomsday weapon that the First Order had mostly just stumbled upon and managed to make operational.
Doomsday weapons are not designed to be used more than once.

Maybe a dialogue such as this could be pieced together from some of C-3PO’s many lines:

C-3PO: You received a transmission?
R2-D2: Beep Boop Beep
C-3PO: From Master Luke?
R2-D2: Beep Boop Beep
C-3PO: For the girl? What girl?