I’d be surprised if they ever killed Chewie honestly. He’s a classic character being played by an actor who could conceivable play him for decades. If they ever make an Episode X it’d be easy to have him around.
Lot of interesting things there. Figure it’s just a retail poster which is why new characters are a bit more prominent and some returning ones aren’t there.
Seeing 3PO with a blaster made me laugh until I remembered AOTC… hopefully we can avoid any head-swapping “die Jedi dogs” cringey shit, but I do like that my fav droid might have more to do. Kylo’s mask is the other thing that makes me pause, hopefully there’s a justification. Rey’s saber too, she’s rebuilt it which I expected, but I guess I need to see the final look more clearly before passing judgement.
Ultimately the thing that most excites me are the new ship designs and stormtroopers, the latter especially. Just thought at first that all the stormtroopers would be red in this, but then I noticed the design is actually quite different and there are white troopers present there too.
On the other side of it, RO is obviously stretching the bounds of what could technically have happened with the dialogue from ANH in mind. But you know what? Who cares.
It’s not a dealbreaker and doesn’t ‘ruin’ either movie, but it does bug me that the fix would be so simple - just have the Tantive waiting on the edge of the battle somewhere, with the Profundity re-transmitting the plans as Vader fights his way to its comm center.
Yeah but the way they did it is more cinematically engaging.
That being said…
Leia is spending significant time to make a detour with vital intelligence, something that makes little sense if she knows she is being followed.
Leia’s cover story concerns a ‘diplomatic mission to Alderaan’ which does not explain this detour to Tatooine, implying that she was completely unprepared for this encounter and contradicts the state of play at the end of RO.
I believe the canon explanation is that the Tantive’s hyperdrive was damaged (why they were docked to begin with), which forced them to drop out of hyperspace and for Leia to give the plans to Obi-wan, and also what allowed the Imperials to track them.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I watch these movies it’s easy to compartmentalize. When I watch ANH, I rarely if ever have the events of RO or the prequels in the back of my mind. Whether they ‘ruin’ the story of ANH is irrelevant to me, they’re separate movies - I’ve always enjoyed the original SW as a movie on it’s own and there’s nothing stopping me from doing that.
On the other side of it, RO is obviously stretching the bounds of what could technically have happened with the dialogue from ANH in mind. But you know what? Who cares.
Making some things sleeker is one thing, making it look like it came from a different universe/franchise is another. Naboo gets more leeway but the Republic in general should not look as different as it does from the Empire, aesthetically speaking. We are not talking about that big a time jump, and the idea that this is the heyday of the Republic is deeply misguided - this is the downfall of the Republic. The series’s iconic approach (used universe) would not have been out of line for the PT at all.
The other big thing too, it’s not just ship design and architecture, it’s the costumes. Again it makes sense that we’re seeing fancy outfits that we haven’t seen before, but there’s ultimately little continuity in costume design on the whole. Unfortunately that is not as easily fixed in an edit.
Anyway, what’s so special about the 70mm ESB? Didn’t ANH also have picture and sound differences between the 35mm and 70mm versions?
Sound, yes, picture, no. ESB is the only one to have visual/editing differences between 70mm and 35mm, which was just down to a few VFX shots in the final scene being unfinished when the 70mm prints were struck IIRC.
Yes but the shots weren’t unfinished, they didn’t exist. The film that was released 5/21/80 was the 70mm. After it came out Lucas realized it needed three extra shots to better establish the spatial geography in the final scene and ILM complied. They were added to the 35mm prints which weren’t screened until a month later.
It doesn’t really make sense for them not to release the OOT (but then again here we are without anything), but I personally would be a little surprised if they put out the theatrical PT. TPM maybe, as it’s the only one with obvious changes. But I doubt we’re at a point anymore where studios care about home releases all that much to be that completionist.
And by the way, if we’re talking completionist, what about the 70mm ESB?
Does anyone know how Rey/Chewie knew the circumstances of the ‘slow chase’ and how/where to come out of hyperspace in order to send Rey to Snoke’s ship?
Maybe they read the script 😉
The beacon. Finn gave it to Poe before he went gambling.
I think the question is how did Rey know that the First Order was there (as it’s a beacon to the Resistance). The simple explanation is that she saw their location as part of her vision when she touched hands with Ben.
No doubt there will be releases of every movie in the format within the year or so. What have the Disney catalogue 4K releases been like so far? That’s probably the smartest thing to go off of.
Everyone points to Blade Runner as the best way to do multiple versions on disc, but ironically for the past couple years the Final Cut has been the only one in print.
Only the PT they grew up with isn’t quite the same one they’ve got now.
They probably have no idea.
I can see the editorial and sound changes slipping below the radar, but Creepy Puppet Yoda™ being replaced?
In the case of CPY, if they’re aware they probably prefer it and don’t care that the initial version is unavailable.
The idea that “most for the fans” is on the opposite side of the spectrum of “most the directors’ vision” is flawed, particularly when you talk about the Disney movies where it’s fans making the movies.
I’d also argue that Lucas conceived of the original film as for fans in many ways. He made the kind of movie which he wanted to see (throwback adventure) that he figured many audiences would want to see as well.
Only the PT they grew up with isn’t quite the same one they’ve got now.
They probably have no idea.
Is it just me or did a lot of fans turn against the unaltered versions once the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was announced? Before the sale to Disney, I always heard that Lucas was evil incarnate and that the Special Editions are unwatchable, but the day that the sale to Disney was announced, I started hearing “releasing the unaltered versions would result in the discontinuation of the Special Editions” or “releasing the unaltered versions would go against the canon”.
Perhaps it’s just more of the PT fans growing up and becoming a louder subset. If all you ever seen is the SE and all you know about the OOT is that Lucas considers them unfinished (and you don’t care about film history), why would you want the OOT to be released?
You’d have to rotoscope I think, the other options are pretty impractical. It’s just something I haven’t really done before so I’m curious about how tricky it’d be.
It’s not that big a deal, no, but considering how little I feel these films need changing it’s actually very high on my list. As for IX, a time gap is a perfect explanation for fixing it. It’s just weird and doesn’t make sense why he gets the gold back at the end of TFA (plus I actually quite like the look of the red).
How hard would it actually be to make 3PO’s arm red in TLJ?
Like many of you, I’m sure, Luke was my hero growing up. Luke was an idealist, maybe a little naive, but always cared about doing the right thing. I really identified with that and felt I was the same way in lot of aspects.
In TLJ, Luke has clearly gotten older, and with that time Luke has made mistakes and has even fallen into a depression. He’s lost that bit of idealism he used to have, becoming a little jaded by the world.
I’ve also gotten older, and when I watched this movie, I was surprised how much I still related to Luke. While I’m not as old as Luke is, I’ve also come to regret my naivety a little. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, things that have really made me hate myself at times, like hurting people I care about. Things that totally felt out of character for me, things I know better than to do, that despite how much I care about the people I love, than I can still fail them. But, seeing Luke deal with the same thing, but be able to look through that fog of depression and find hope that he can try to make things right and be who he always was meant to be, it gave me that little bit of hope that despite my own failures, it isn’t too late for me to be better too.
Maybe this won’t resonate for everyone, but I like to think that for the people who are most like Luke when he was young, who will come to realize how the world can come crashing down on idealists and leave them in a place like older Luke was in, will get it. So to me, TLJ Luke is exactly who he needs to be for certain people going through similar things as he’s going through, just like how OT Luke was a surrogate for many kids who related to him. So maybe that won’t work for everyone and I understand that, but it totally works for me. Because to me, that’s what Luke’s character is suppose to be about. Hope. Not just hope for the world, but hope for oneself. And I think what Luke goes through has to be big, because it needs to be something where someone can go, “Well if Luke can get back up after THAT, then maybe I can too.”
Great post RL. Luke was my favorite as a kid too. After TLJ, I love him more than ever.
The prequels aesthetic is wrong. It isn’t ‘Star Wars’. The Disney movies feel like ‘Star Wars’ aesthetically, with ‘old tech’ and film grain and location shooting. I just can’t make the prequels ‘feel like Star Wars’ in my mind.
Yeah. I mean it’s one thing to do “something different,” which is what all the PT fans say makes it great. But it’s not a little different, it’s practically entirely different. Which is too bad and there’s only so much that can be done.
The sound redesign was impressive, but man Williams really saves that fight. Without music, it helped me notice just how bad the choreography of the whole fight is. The fight in Empire is so good they didn’t even use music for most of it. I’m mad.
Williams even scored parts of the ESB fight that were removed in the edit. It’s really kind of indicative of how much the PT turned Williams music from a support into a crutch.
This is really cool though.
Poster is nice, but I’ll never understand why some Marvel logos look like absolute crap.
I tend to agree with Dre here (and we’re not even digging that deep honestly, except maybe insofar as we’re debating a hypothetical). But RL’s right, it comes down to execution, and how it plays out could invoke different meaning than what one might assume on paper.
Also good to get some more evidence on what I think a lot of us have speculated, that IX will have its title/teaser reveal at Celebration.
Yeah you’re definitely closer to what I’m trying to say.
Basically, the argument is that (as RL stated earlier) Rey is of “purer intent” than Kylo - she’s fighting for the light and him the dark. He had a chance to take the mantle of ‘hero Skywalker’ but chose the dark path. The saber represents and recalls the weapon of the savior of the galaxy, in the PT it belongs to the “one who will bring balance,” and in the OT it belongs to the “last hope.” In the ST, the saber is metaphorical of the new mission to reignite the spark of hope and take up the fight (this is pretty explicit in TLJ, less so TFA because of rewrites). Kylo wants the saber because of his birthright, but what it represents doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to Rey. So when the lightsaber goes into Rey’s hand and not Kylo’s, in my mind the literal question of “how did it get there?” -whether the answer is that Rey is stronger in the force, Kylo was caught off guard, or the force is exerting its will - doesn’t matter. What matters is the figurative meaning of the scene - Rey has finally taken up the saber and the mantle it represents which she initially rejected, and which at this point she is more deserving of than Kylo due to who she is, and not who her parents are.
Nice one Dom! Great post! You made me appreciate TFA more!
Thanks. It’s good to know at least sometimes I say things that make sense.
What’s funny is initially Kylo’s line of “that lightsaber belongs to me” wasn’t one of my favorites. I sort of just saw it as part of an underdeveloped subplot (him collecting Vader stuff) and a remnant of an different version of the film. But I think upon further reflection, especially in light of TLJ, the line still holds a good deal of meaning for the character and story.
I’d be very curious to see what that earlier version of TFA was like, where there’s no map and everyone’s after the lightsaber. The fact that the saber represented the search for Luke/hope would have been a lot more explicit, though perhaps the biggest issue was that it was hard to figure out the non-figurative importance of the object (how would a lightsaber help them find him exactly?). But the meaning still shows through when Rey finds it and her subsequent talk with Maz, and the scene I mentioned, and of course when Rey brings it with her to Ahch-to and offers it to Luke. A meaning which continues throughout TLJ (as I believe I’ve written about before a couple times), and hopefully will continue into IX (getting back on topic). TLJ ends with the saber broken, but of course Rey’s still got it. If we were to extrapolate what TFA and TLJ are telling us, then we’ll see Rey with a repaired version of the saber, which will have something significantly different about it. In my mind losing the saber completely would go against the ethos of what’s been established for the character (i.e. not killing the past), and simply reviving the saber as it was would be lazy and also go against what has been set up (she’s forging her own path). We’ll see.
Yeah you’re definitely closer to what I’m trying to say.
Basically, the argument is that (as RL stated earlier) Rey is of “purer intent” than Kylo - she’s fighting for the light and him the dark. He had a chance to take the mantle of ‘hero Skywalker’ but chose the dark path. The saber represents and recalls the weapon of the savior of the galaxy, in the PT it belongs to the “one who will bring balance,” and in the OT it belongs to the “last hope.” In the ST, the saber is metaphorical of the new mission to reignite the spark of hope and take up the fight (this is pretty explicit in TLJ, less so TFA because of rewrites). Kylo wants the saber because of his birthright, but what it represents doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to Rey. So when the lightsaber goes into Rey’s hand and not Kylo’s, in my mind the literal question of “how did it get there?” -whether the answer is that Rey is stronger in the force, Kylo was caught off guard, or the force is exerting its will - doesn’t matter. What matters is the figurative meaning of the scene - Rey has finally taken up the saber and the mantle it represents which she initially rejected, and which at this point she is more deserving of than Kylo due to who she is, and not who her parents are.
At no point I have I moved the goal posts. I made a post, you didn’t get what I meant, and you seemingly have gotten no closer to understanding. I don’t blame you because my first post was worded weird. But in subsequent post you’ve just been arguing against a point I wasn’t making and all I’ve been saying is that you’re misunderstanding me.
Here’s the initial post
DominicCobb said:
The force has always represented meaning in the story and characters even if doesn’t always literally mean something on a literal plot level. So it’s not necessarily that the force is a sentient determiner who’s giving the saber to Rey, it’s more like Rey has the stronger force in the scene because the film is saying something about these two characters. Kylo sees the saber and claims it as his own. But ultimately the weapon and what it represents belongs to Rey.
To clarify, what I meant is that the force has always had more meaning in the story than just as a plot device. There’s a metaphorical aspect to it as well. In the original film, the force represents Luke’s calling, and ultimately his potential to do great things. It’s not all about the literal interpretation. Luke turning off his targeting computer and acting on instinct is what lets him succeed in his mission. The literal interpretation here is that acting on instinct helps Luke better utilize the force. But the non-literal messaging is that Luke succeeds because he trusts in himself and his instincts. So the force is an agent for representing meaning in the film beyond the literal.
Hopefully this makes more sense now.