KumoNin

Well articulated again regarding Rogue One!

The first half flows pretty smoothly off of Andor. Down to little ways how characters react to certain names and things. I never really liked the ending of the film. Every scene in RO with Vader in it is pointless and/or introduces plot/character problems and tone problems most of all. RO is a movie that tries to present a more grounded Star Wars, but occasionally (and sometimes in very important moments, such as the ending) just throws it all aside for cringe fanservice schlock. Which feels more offensive in light of the rest of that movie’s tone, and vastly more so in light of Andor.

So mostly RO feels even more weird for me now. But other aspects of it I appreciate more.

Finale was great! I’m still kind of bugged by

what they ended up doing with the character of Bix (i.e. pretty much nothing except making her this unachievable dream for Cass), but yay Vel, yay Kleya, good that they showed Perrin, even though they probably shouldn’t have cut the scenes with him from the previous arc. Yikes what a poetically cruel ending for Dedra,

and agreed Vladius vis-a-vis Rogue One (even though it’s still not the best movie imo lol - but this for sure enriches it).

The time-jumping did rob us of a lot of on-screen character development and I still like season 1 more, but man what a show huh?

This seems to be an unpopular opinion among the American monomyth enjoyers, but

I don’t think Luthen and Kleya “have” to die. I don’t think characters that we don’t see in the OT have to die. I don’t think that characters who have done questionable things for the rebellion don’t get to experience and participate in rebuilding the new, better world, and heal together with the more pure of heart characters. Luthen has been cut out of the chain of command, and there’s no reason he can’t have continued to be a spy on Coruscant or something through the war. The rebel life he leads is one of the riskiest of all the people in the rebellion, but it would definitely be a nice subversion of the cowboy trope for the guy who’s sacrificing everything for “a sunrise he knows he will never see” to actually be one of the few OGs that do get to see that sunrise in the end.

As for Dedra, I think she finds out what they’re really doing with those rocks, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but probably the obvious thing would be for her to eventually be posted on the Death Star, right?

Anyway, I agree with all the praises of the show’s nuanced writing and music and stuff, obviously. There is room for different genres in Star Wars, but I do miss this level of subtlety in other shows (namely whenever Filoni does a politics-related plot or whenever anyone but Zahn writes Thrawn…)

Why couldn’t it have been Chewie’s idea? He is Han’s bestie, maybe he volunteered, even against Leia’s protests

I had no problem seeing what was going on

I think a scan of TPM does exist, but I remember the crawl and alien subtitles being in a different language. For me, the HDTV versions (dvd cuts but high quality) are close enough to the theatrical. TPM probably has the largest differences between that and theatrical, but with the hdtv you do still get puppet Yoda as well as the film not having been over-DNRd like the bluray.

So yea, not sure how “pure” you’re looking the versions to be, but schorman’s HDTV gets my endorsement

You know, as far as the number of cuts, I’d say yea, it does work better imho! I think I get the idea behind the backing out shot, but yea rapid cuts in talky scenes just doesn’t seem to be the MO of this movie 🤔

Really it’s the rapid intercutting plus the shots of the Knight from a different scene. You are right that the hallway scene would be a strange placement, considering the scenes before and after, where it would have made more logical sense to relay that information.

It’s a conundrum. Your original take on this, without new shots, really flows the smoothest but there was the problem of the off-screen voice which sounds too much like a Kylo impression. If JJ had shot your version, it would probably have been done either in one shot or, at most, with one insert of the knight at some point during his line.

I’ve looked back at your goal with this scene which is to characterize the knights as impulsive thugs, dangerous if imprudent. So, probably best to keep it within the conference room, but ideally I think you’d want just one shot of the knight? The problem is how to get an appropriate shot… Also, and again I don’t have a good suggestion, but “knights” implies some sort of more medieval designation than “captain” if only to distinguish from the military/navy captains seated at the table, but that’s an almost insignificant thing.

Do you think that the knight’s line could instead be integrated into the hallway walking sequence? I understand that without alteration of the line it might be confusing to hear that specific line before the severed head reveal, but the way it cuts back and forth, it is confusing the way it is imo

I’d love to reply to every single bit of that, I’ll just say different strokes 😄

An interesting tidbit from recent interviews with Leslye and Manny is that there was an idea to have them kiss at the end (and they shot it, even!), but it didn’t feel earned and the actors suggested the hand hold we see in the final version. Genuinely perfect wrap-up of their arcs for this season

Hal 9000 said:

Yeah, why was the gopher man sabotaging the ship? They didn’t make any sense to me at all.

I don’t know, but I read it as Basil being symbolically the good little angel of the show, the only person thinking straight. He knew Mae was up to no good and was the only one able to detect her, but also we saw both in episode 6 him being like uh oh what is Sol doing when he turned off the transceiver, and in the finale as well when he appeared to be targeting Mae’s escape ship. Sol’s acting irrationally as we see from all his other actions, whatever he was doing wasn’t going to work out well and Basil could smell it…

Easily the most intuitive explanation. Interesting what the creator will say if she’s asked about it though. Her interviews she’s been doing every week have been incredibly interesting reads every time. Leslye Headland is a true sw geek and she shares quite liberally about the artistic decisions behind the show, I highly recommend reading some of those for anybody curious about any decision in the show.

KumoNin said:
red sabers are red because the crystal has been ‘bled’

damn, speaking of, am I right? 😉

Creme de la creme of live action and animation, respectively, for me:

• Andor
• Acolyte
  and
• Clone Wars (the original one, especially the later, longer episodes)
• Visions (I’ve seen maybe half of it, but what I’ve seen was very creative)

and as for the rest,

• most of the animated ones I haven’t seen enough of, for TCW I can say it’s pretty okay, sometimes great, sometimes frustrating
• same verdict on live action Filoniverse, except maybe more okay and less great or bad

I laughed when I heard it because there’s no way it would happen 10 or 15 years ago, but it does fit imo and I welcome it.

^ I did not know this, but obviously I said that because it’s not random that they gave Vader and other villains onwards red, and heroes by-and-large blue and green, even before the new canon crystal bleeding thing. It’s symbolism, it doesn’t have to be that way, of course

After a brief search, I found at least 15 instances of a yellow lightsaber in legends, from various eras, old republic new jedi order, prequel era, etc. That’s only counting yellow and not green-yellow, like Ahsoka’s in TCW, or orange or any other variant found elsewhere in legends. They didn’t appear in the OT or the prequel films, but they have appeared from time to time in canon comics, high republic stuff and in rebels.

In legends, there were some different meanings, as the post above said, that were assigned to different colors, but in canon, the most robust meaning to the colors from what I remember, is that red sabers are red because the crystal has been ‘bled’, and (correct me if I’m wrong) white sabers are made with red crystals which have been ‘purified’ or healed. As for the other colors, in canon it seems that they are specific to how the crystal responds to the person who uses it to make their saber, but as for specific meanings to blue, green and other colors, I think maybe we just have to use our imagination. I don’t think it’s of particular significance, but colors do tend to shape our perception, hence why the bad guys have red in the first place, so maybe yellow is significant in some other way idk. I think it suits Yord.

Holy moly guacamole.

I will say, the way the creators of this show managed to build up this many characters in a few episodes that the audience is inexplicably invested in and subsequently devastated about… really effective stuff.

In all honesty, I think this is some of the best Star Wars made (I don’t care about ranking stuff anymore, I’m just saying this is everything I was hoping for and more). Leslye Headland understands myth and archetypes and that’s why the storytelling choices are so intentional and methodical, but thankfully there’s more to this than good writing - they’ve found actors who embody their roles, imaginative fight choreographers, and, importantly, people who can film fight choreography well, all these little things add up.

Mae lighting the fire is a misdirect (duh).

This show is great, I have the feeling we’ll get another extended flashback down the line showing the events of ep.3 from somebody else’s perspective (the Jedi? or several perspectives). But anyway, I saw on a previous page that someone was recommending some youtubers who discuss this show, I’d like to chime in and give a shoutout to the What The Force podcast, I like their discussions because they analyze star wars from a mythological/storytelling perspective and this show has a lot to unpack in terms of symbolism and archetypes and such. They delve deep, just a little tease: they unpack how the poison tree is supposed to be a representation of the force.

By the way, do we think the sith apprentice teeth mask person was also present the night of the fire and thus integral to the whole plot from the start? Or nah

Extended edition by ebumms

Once again, very exciting project, nice work! I take it you’re leaning towards it being Luke’s notes, then? That’s the impression I got from the clip

Heyo, same here, I’d love to see it!

Uuuh Holdo’s plan is not to make a last stand on Crait, they were supposed to hide there unnoticed because of the cloaked (I believe) transports, while Hux is busy destroying their capital ships. This is foiled because of Poe’s plan going wrong (DJ overhearing about the cloaked ships). Also, in the nicest way possible, I don’t get the obsession with human sacrifices, especially those of younger characters. In the movie, Holdo realises that their best sure shot for survival, considering they can’t just jump to lightspeed, is to let the FO destroy the ships while saving almost all the people. Poe and gang come up with an all or nothing plan with too many points where everything can go terribly wrong, which we see unfold and ultimately screw up the Resistance command plan

edit: I’m all for thought experiments though!

I think you are absolutely spot on. Just imagine if LF 1) hadn’t knee jerked at the reaction to TLJ and instead doubled down on worldbuilding and expanding that era, building also on the success of their new characters, 2) hadn’t taken the wrong lesson from the success of Mando s1 and instead done more carefully low-key character projects similar to what made it so popular, 3) expanded the NR era with books and comics, as originally planned, allowing for OT characters to play a more natural role, even if the conclusion of their stories is predetermined.

Ghosts is absolutely how it feels, the least they could do if this is how they’re doing it, is recast Luke and Leia, it wouldn’t be perfect, but they wouldn’t be in limbo

Agreed with your reasoning once again. Luke’s delivery on this does sound a little flat though, or maybe it’s the timing - it’s difficult to quickly digest the connection between Leia’s choice as he tells it, and the next part about how she lost everything

I like “what’s troubling you”, because, and it does not become less true as the years go by, in tros, Leia is little more than a prop spliced in from another movie, sadly, and it always felt to me in scenes that Rey shares with her that Daisy is not playing off of anybody. A little additional line from Leia oddly enough gives her a bit more character imo, and less “here’s Carrie saying out of context lines and other characters filling in the context”. Even if it’s a basic universal line like that

JEDIT: I’ve read JJs reply after writing that, and yes, that’s precisely what I think as well 😄