Gaffer Tape

Okay, even though negative 1 hasn't been back to this thread that I've seen, I'm going to start going through the exhaustive list he gathered for me.  But he did gather so much that I'm not even going to attempt to work on everything at once.  In fact, I think I'm just going to do one at a time because I know I have a lot to say about the first one.  So, just to be sure, I'm not ignoring all the work you did.  I'm just going to take it slow.

I'm going to start with Splinter of the Mind's Eye, seeing as how you listed it first, it's technically the first EU novel, and I just read it, so it's fresh in my mind.

First of all, I just want to say that, as a blanket statement, a lot of the stuff from this novel, in my opinion, gets something of a reprieve because it was written before The Force was really fully established, even in terms of just the original trilogy.  In fact, there were some things there that I was quite surprised to see and ended up being quite close to what would be in the sequels.  For example, Force-users in this book do a lot of object manipulations, ie, moving objects with The Force, a power that wasn't established in the movies until The Empire Strikes Back.  It makes me wonder how closely Alan Dean Foster worked with Lucas to write this book, if at all.  And also, it makes me wonder if object movement was something that Lucas had come up with and decided to let Foster use in his novel or something that Lucas borrowed from Foster for The Empire Strikes Back.  So, as I said, since Foster was probably only working under the first movie and whatever information Lucas might have imparted (which was obviously before Lucas invented many pivotal additions to the saga, including elements of The Force), he probably had to make a lot of assumptions about The Force and what it could do, but, in my opinion, not as many as you might think.

First of all, as I'm sure you probably know, the Kaiburr crystal was a Lucas idea.  It was the Macguffin in one of the drafts of the first movie, where Luke Starkiller had to return the Kaiburr crystal to his legendary father, The Starkiller.  He even had the crystal on board his snub fighter when Darth Vader was chasing him down at the end, and it was the Kaiburr crystal that Vader could sense emanating from it.  In fact, the leagues of the Sith could sense a disturbance in the Force emanating from the crystal from the other side of the galaxy.  And it pretty consisted of the basis of what you see in Splinter.  It's a crystal that magnifies the power of the Force in whoever uses it.  Granted, you asked how the crystal fits in with the way The Force is portrayed in the movies.  Since this plot point never made it to the movie, I guess you could argue that it might not have any place at all.  But since Lucas saw fit to use it in what might have been the theatrical sequel to Star Wars, it indicates that it was probably still connected to Lucas's concept of The Force circa 1977 which means that the original movie operates in a universe where a Kaiburr crystal is a legitimate companion to The Force.

As for its other powers, such as healing, well, like I said, Foster probably had to come up with Force powers on his own.  And I suppose you could say it doesn't necessarily contradict anything we later see from The Force if such a power is only capable through the crystal.  And if other sources do have Force-users portraying healing abilities... well, it makes even more sense that the Kaiburr crystal would be able to.

As for the rest of that stuff you quoted in the article... well, I've touched upon it already.  I still think it's silly, especially the assertion that Vader's intent was to capture Luke and Leia alive.  I never got the impression that he ever cared about bringing them in alive, even when he was miles away from the crystal.  It's just a pretty sloppy rationalization and makes quite a few assumptions.

But I actually have my own observation about what I consider to be a true anomaly in the concept of The Force as expressed in Splinter:  Size.

Towards the end of the book, Vader seems to prove to Luke that he is more adept at using the Force than Luke is by pointing out that the rock he levitated was much bigger than the rock Luke was able to levitate.  Of course, this completely flies in the face of Yoda's infamous, "Size matters not," monologue in The Empire Strikes Back.

And so, after just criticizing continuity-saving rationalizations... I'm gonna attempt to make up my own, just for fun.  While Yoda says that size doesn't matter, he immediately adds that it only makes a difference in one's mind.  And, despite Yoda's insistence in the theory that size doesn't matter, in practice it clearly does to Luke, as he is able to levitate stones but simply cannot raise his X-Wing, a much heavier object, out of the swamp.  So to one who is not as in tune with the Force or does not possess as much faith, size certainly is an obstacle. 

Anyway, that's all fine and dandy for Luke, but what about Vader, who should be competent enough to know better?  Well, I have three possible rationalizations for this.  I know, right?  The first is that Vader is simply pointing out what I said in the previous paragraph, just in a shorthand.  He knows that his faith in The Force is stronger than Luke's, therefore a larger object is possible for him to lift, while it isn't for Luke. 

The second and third rationalization depend on which version of Vader you're working with.  If you go with the version of Vader that this book was originally working with (ie. when Vader and Father Skywalker were two separate characters), it might be that Darth Vader abandoned his Jedi training before he was taught this tenet.  While not explicitly stated in the movie (although hinted at in the previous Kaiburr crystal draft), Vader left Obi-Wan before he mastered the Jedi Arts.  And then we can just assume that the whole size issue is not touched upon by Sith. 

Finally, if you go with the Father Vader version of the character... well, we'll just have to accept that Anakin must have been sick the day Obi-Wan was going to explain this, or that it was part of that basic Force education package that Anakin missed because he didn't train with Yoda as a... *shudders* Youngling.  Oh, yeah, and we also have to accept with this theory that the Sith don't care about size.

Well, I think that just about covers Splinter.  I'll try to address the others later.

^_^

Heh, I somehow doubt that Peter MacNichol's character in that movie was gay considering he spends most of his time making googly eyes at Dana.  =P

Well, if you need any more clarification, here's a quote from EU (yeah, I know, right?), specifically X-Wing Rogue Squadron by Michael Stackpole:

Wedge folded his arms across his chest.  "I was there when Biggs died.  I got hit and pulled up out of the trench on Luke's orders.  Your cousin and I both knew we were really there as an added set of shields to keep Luke safe, but we didn't regret that.  We knew he'd have done the same thing for us and we also knew he had to blow the Death Star.  Biggs stayed there, keeping the TIEs back, and died there.  And even though he died, he bought Luke the time he needed to destroy the Death Star."

So, yeah, that pretty much confirms what Scruffy said.

Heh, I actually liked Worf's explanation in DS9:  "Trials and Tribble-ations."  You know, the whole, "We don't speak of it to outsiders," thing.

skyjedi2005 said:

Slimer survived you can see him in the end of ghostbusters 2 which was supposed to hint there would be part 3.

Actually, he's all over Ghostbusters 2.  He's in the montage in the middle of the movie.  He drives the bus that takes Louis to the art museum, and he's listed at the end of the main character sequence at the end.  His appearances can actually be attributed more to the success of the character on the cartoon series (where the name Slimer originated) rather than a look forward to Ghostbusters 3 (Aykroyd and Ramis only did #2 under duress).

Glad I just watched Return of the Jedi last night.

Who sat directly behind Luke Skywalker in the stolen Imperial shuttle?

C-3PO.

Lorenzo Music (RIP) and Arsenio Hall, respectively.

They would later be replaced by Dave Coulier and Buster Jones, respectively.

To C3PX:

That's definitely a logical way to look at it, but at the same time, it's really not bad news.  Had they gone with either of the other options you suggested, we would have gotten more bonus material, but we wouldn't have gotten the OOT at all.  Granted, all... oops, sorry, don't want to get in trouble again, most of us here have either already gotten the GOUT or don't want it.  This release isn't for us anyway.  But it's still nicer to have the OOT still be commercially available to show it a wider audience, especially since it will soon be two years since these so-called "Limited Editions" were released.

Besides, if they did have new bonus material, wouldn't you be pissed that they expect you to buy the same '04 SEs again in order to get them?  The way they're doing it now at least makes the purchase a no-brainer.  ^_~

Hmm, I wondered that, too, but having played a lot of the Rogue Squadron games makes me have another theory.  Based on that and Biggs's line, "We'll stay back far enough to cover you," makes me think that they were assuming the fighters would go after the leader, and they could provide cover fire when that happened.  Other than that, yeah, they probably were meat shields, trying to stay evasive enough to give the leader enough time to pop off a shot.

Good Lord, man, I wasn't "picking" on you or your post in any way.  I was just making what I thought was a humorous observation about the way something was written.  I actually hadn't gotten around to addressing the information you presented to me yet, but that doesn't mean I wasn't going to do so at some point after I'd thought about the matter enough to say something that someone else hadn't already addressed.  I believe you assume too much.  Also, yes, I made a generalizing statement.  When sunday so "thoughtfully" called me out on it, I nearly explained myself then, but then decided it wasn't worth it.  But since you won't seem to let me get away with it, even though I already apologized, well, that's your problem.  Most of us here do dislike the concept of the midichlorians.  I thought it would be fun to explore alternative routes they could have been implemented.  Most people who have replied seem to think we would have been better off without them at all.  However, I proposed a possibility that might have been able to please Lucas and the fans.  Just for fun.  But apparently I don't need to explain to you the purpose of my thread because two posts ago, you already tried to tell us what the purpose of my thread was. 

Now, I still intend to talk about the examples you listed, and I thank you for going to the trouble of finding them.  If I presented myself in a manner that was anything less than grateful, I apologize, as that was not my intention.  I also apologize if it appears that I was trying to pick on your post.  But don't take it so personally.  Just because I was picking on something you quoted doesn't mean I was attacking you personally (unless you wrote that portion of the wiki, in which case I apologize for attacking you personally, although my opinion still stands that it was a humorous bit of rationalization). 

If you do find it pointless to discuss things like this, then there's no reason for you to be here, criticizing those of us who do.  But as it seems to me, you do enjoy presenting arguments about aspects of Star Wars, then I encourage you to continue voicing your opinions, despite the fact and, even more importantly, because of the fact that your opinion differs from most of ours.

What's next?  A lightning bolt followed immediately by being knocked off a bridge by a star-using opponent?  Yeah, I see where this is going...

^_^

Heh, I love how the Star Wars wiki tries to retcon Vader's desire to kill Luke in Splinter.  Oh, no, of course it wasn't because it hadn't been invented that Luke was Vader's son!  It was simply because the crystal made him lose control!

Yeah... That's the impression I got from reading it.  ^_~

Would you care to elaborate?  Over the past week or so, I've had a desire to read more EU, so I picked up Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the first book in the X-Wing series.  I've also read Shadows of the Empire, the Thrawn trilogy, The Courtship of Princess Leia, and The Han Solo Adventures.  I don't recall seeing anything weird about The Force in those books.  So I take it these references are in books I haven't read.  So I can't really answer your question until I can put it in a common frame of reference.

Well, they technically don't charge anything anymore since the Dragon Boxes were limited edition and haven't been sold in a few years.

Still, it turned out better than FUNimation's faux-remastered cropped "season" boxsets.

Never mind.  My apologies to sunday for lumping him in with the rest of us.

Geez, now I'm not sure what to do.  bkev broke all the rules, so I'm not sure if this round should even count or not.  Meanwhile, I'm not sure how ethical I would feel answering a question he happened to get right even though I already knew the answer.  But I also wanted to answer the tools question, but HotRod beat me to that (grr! stop doing that!), except that he left out a couple of the tools Han asked for (since it was plural), so I'm not sure if that question's still up for grabs anymore or not.

And by the way... what's a blue turtle shell?

Eh, sorry, HotRod, I just gotta go for it.  If I'm outta line, I guess I forfeit my points this round.

What tools does Han order Chewie to bring him just before entry into the asteroid belt?

Horizontal boosters, alluvial dampers, and a hydrospanner.

Yeah, both of you make sense, and both of your ideas are probably better than what was in the movie.  I personally think that his line about needing an objective way to measure was simply his rationalization for wanting to add science to the Force and a defense against those of us who didn't like it.  I just like to argue that, if he really wanted them that badly, there was a better way to do it. 

Then again, I guess you could say this whole thing started in ROTJ with all these references to the Force running in one's family.  Of course, at the time, I always thought about it as more of a coincidence than any kind of serious genetic trait. 

Heh, it would just be me.  I've tried the "Show Picture" option and even went to the URL directly.  Neither would work for me!

And, yeah, $180 is pretty steep, but, still, it is 25 discs.  That's only a little over $7 a disc.  Quite a bit less than $4,000, though, right?  ^_~

Wow, that's great!  I loved that show... still do.  But a 25 disc release has gotta be pretty damned expensive.  How much is it?  And is anybody else having trouble seeing the picture?  I can't see it at all.

At work today, I began to have a thought.  In fact, I might have mentioned this here in the past, but I just don't remember, so I decided I might as well start a topic about it, just to be on the safe side.  Alright, here goes:

Everybody here hates midichlorians.  That pretty much goes without saying.  I've heard interviews (and commentary) where George explains that part of the reason he used the concept in Phantom Menace (besides a desire to make the Force scientific...sadly, we can't get around that) was so that there would be an objective assessment that would cause the Jedi Council to take Anakin seriously and to help prove his Chosen One status.  I'm perfectly fine with that idea and that concept.  I just feel he could have done it in a way that didn't seem to trivialize the Force.  Okay, so it's established that midichlorians live in your blood, and the more you have, the more in tune with the Force you are.  I think it would have had the same function in the story without being so difficult for us to swallow had the concept been reversed.  Rather than midichlorians being microscopic being that channel the Force, let them be microscopic beings that are attracted to the Force.  Timothy Zahn did something similar with the ysalimiri:  creatures who repel the Force.  Anyway, the more in tune with the Force a person is, the more midichlorians he/she would attract.  Therefore, midichlorians could still be used to gauge Force potential but be a result of the Force rather than the source of it.

Any other opinions?  And, once again, sorry if I've posted this before, but I guess even if I have, there are newer users who might get a kick out of this...

Tiptup said:

Wow, Final Fantasy cost 137 million dollars to make? There's been inflation since then . . . That had to hurt. Clone Wars is probably doing a lot better than that.

Oh, yeah.  Final Fantasy was considered one of the biggest box-office bombs in history, sadly.  Granted, it didn't do that poorly, but it was just nearly impossible for it to break even with a production budget that huge.  Its huge failure was one of the main reasons that Square soon after merged with competitor Enix.

The possibility does occur to me, though, that the reason the EU has put out so many books is that they do realize how prequel-era minded Lucas has become with his own entries into the property.  Granted, there have been plenty of PT-era EU, but there still have been recent books following Luke and co.  Maybe they are going too far, but I can't help think that they realize that there is a section of fandom (like us) that is being neglected by the Lucas machine and never-ending churning out of Clone Wars-era movies, TV shows, and other merchandise.

I personally have one dog.  His name is Cubby.  He's 11 years old.  His actual birthday is only four days after mine.  He's half chihuahua and half pomeranian.  He's a bit angry sometimes (and crotchety in his old age), but I love him anyway.

My girlfriend also has many pets, and since I see them and take care of them so often, they pretty much seem like mine, so I'll mention some of them as well.  She has a beagle/chihuahua mix puppy named Brody (after Adrien Brody... *rollseyes*), a turtle named Pancake, a orange cat named Dinah that she's had for about 13 years, and her roommate has a black cat named George.

Mielr said:

Luke chopped off the front of that Speederbike with his lightsaber, and that's what sent it spinning into the tree.

I see Gaffer has an avatar (finally)! ;-)

I was going to suggest that anyone who didn't have one should be disqualified! LOL!

 And I just know there was a completely logical reason for that proposal that had nothing to do with my current lead, right?  ^_~  But, yes, it's finally nice to have a face again for the first time on the new software.  It'll go nice with my new Trivial Pursuit Champion banner! ^_^

And as for the question... well, I guess we'll just have to see what Paul and Trivial Pursuit have to say about it.  Not that it matters too much even if I do get it since I've gotten the Mario Kart treatment.  =P

First off, I want to say that I totally agree that relaxing and not stressing or blowing an artery when it comes to our fandom is a great idea, and one that I whole-heartedly agree with.  And Star Wars does hold a high place in all of our hearts.  We wouldn't be here if that wasn't true.  That said, I doubt most of the people who post here really take it as seriously as they seem.  Obviously, being a Star Wars website, our views of other people are pretty limited... limited to Star Wars.  So just because someone rants around here doesn't meant that they think much of it when they're not here.  I have to admit that, even though I haven't thought too highly of the new Clone Wars movie, it's been exciting solely because it invigorated more debate and discussion.  Up until last month I really hadn't followed the General Star Wars boards in several months.  And keep in mind this is coming from the guy who's constantly saying he wishes Star Wars would stop putting out new material entirely!

As far as a middle ground goes, I don't think there is a set criteria for people who take a middle ground.  I think of a middle ground as someone who, like you said, neither worships and reveres every movie change, release, or every one of Lucas's lies as gospel, nor bitch and moan and post about how they wish Lucas would die or something equally morbid and cruel.  Other than that, I don't think there's going to be a set fandom rule of thumb for movie evaluation that's going to fit anybody.  For example, I consider myself a mostly middle of the road fan, but I don't accept the SEs at all, and I do enjoy watching the prequels on occasion (even though they sometimes make me cringe and I don't have much respect for them, they are entertaining and a bit of a guilty pleasure), and I do have a modest selection of EU books (just bought and finished reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye).

Well, I do hope this thread inspires some lively debate!