Mithrandir

Alderaan said:

SilverWook said:

pleasehello said:

Whatever happened to re-casting characters for whom the original actor has died or is no longer able to film? I feel like having a different actor portraying Tarkin would be far less distracting than a CGI Tarkin.

When it comes to creating a convincing human character using CGI, the technology is just not there yet. I dunno, maybe it’s just me.

Episode III Tarkin looked somewhat ghastly though.

The worst thing is that his character was completely unnecessary in that awful film. Sticking him into the movie when he’s not needed and has terrible makeup and doesn’t even look like the original character gained…what, exactly?

Which brings me to Leah and Tarkin in R1: are they even needed in the film? Or are they just there as easter eggs?

Tarkin, yes. Leia, yes [just for continuity tho, no plot weight]

Just came out from a screening, and again, somethings are quite disturbing, but it is far far better than Disney Awakens the Force, and personally for me, up there with the OT.

The soundtrack feels somewhat odd, certainly not a JW OST, but the movie closes with classic star wars credit music. And I think that’s my feeling about the movie, it might be different but it indeed earns to be called a Star Wars film, probably the first since the 80s.

Things I liked:

Break out of War!!! One line -this is Admiral Raddus of the Rebel Alliance- made it for me. The previous debate (even if Felicity’s speech was a Disney® moment) was gold. Should the Rebellion risk an open War against the Empire? This was the first battle, the Rebels first open incursion against the mighty Empire, and it was on the verge of just not coming to be.
The high steaks, intelligence assasinations, etc. There is no Death Star says Vader. The Senate doesn’t know anything. There IS a lot of political tension amidst a war film.

Great, excellent prequel material. I liked seeing some Old Clone Wars vehicle at the beginning as well, and Coruscant was just criteriously used as a memory of a long forgotten past…

Tarkin. Great, great and promising technology. I agree the results are a little off, but I put it all on Guy Henry’s acting. You can Mocap his face and get it replace by Cushing, but he just isn’t Peter Cushing, nor has his gestures. This is what I think was the reason behind the uncanny valley feeling I got sometimes during the movie. For instance, they got the mouth part to be quite accurate. Eye movement is even correct, but eyebrows seldom get a vertical movement, which is a key feature when someone is surprised/tense. Now is that a fault on the thecnology or is it just an actor perhaps playing it light perhaps because he knows he is to be replaced?

In the end…OT era. Boy how I missed this. I can’t help not giving a damn about The First Order and Kiloren or Battledroids or Mace Windu. This IS the classic Star Wars Era. All the designs and schemes of the OT prove to be so timeless I wouldn’t mind if they just got stuck doing films set in this timeframe.

Things I didn’t like:

Well, the soundtrack: Both Imperial themes from the OT weren’t used enough. ANH’s wasn’t even used, and Rebel Fanfare was in a Yppieeee Disney version, not militaristic enough.

ILM/Technology: Yes, used universe and whatever they want to sell to E-Entertainment and SDCC, but there’s no point in putting half the budget in 3D modelling entire catalogues of model pieces only to use them in OT ships. What I mean is, they got Star Destroyers and the Death Star quite right [just speaking of the models, the lighting felt off, and very Star-Trek to me] but the new designs weren’t digitally built with such model pieces, so the movie ends up having on purpose low-detailed model-like Star Destroyers but classic CGI full detailed U Wings, Rebel Cruisers, Scarif Building or Krennic’s Shuttle. Perhaps I’m asking too much, but it should have all looked as those old and loved 80s models.

About the lighting of the space scenes, well I might be a nitpicker, but it’s just that it didn’t match OT’s more uniform and plain light, instead there’s a super-accurate Gravity-like approach of lighting.

And, the last thing I didn’t like is…Vader. I think Edwards cinematography didn’t help him at all. Vader is there to be filmed from below, and he just keeps putting the camera at the height of his eyes, which renders an angle not so familiar of his mask, and certainly not imposing at all. Combine it with the fact that JEJ didn’t get the tone quite right, and also the fact that well, he doesn’t quite have anything to do in the movie other than fan service and you’ll have a strange presence in the film. (which on the other hand, I welcome because what is Star Wars without Darth Vader?)

The last shot of Vader standing there in open space even looked fan-film like.

SilverWook said:

Mithrandir said:

Star Destroyer Bridges were grey and lighted, and should be grey and lighted, not black and dark.

Darth Vader should use both hands when handling his sabre, jokes aside.

Otherwise great movie

First Gif shows him in a two handed stance. Second one, not quite the same speed and dexterity shown in RO (which is actually closer to what we’ve seen in PT)

Star Destroyer Bridges were grey and lighted, and should be grey and lighted, not black and dark.

Darth Vader should use both hands when handling his sabre, jokes aside.

Otherwise great movie

Remembering from interviews and theorizing a bit about the images of armorless Vader, I can put together these things we already know:

-Not much Vader in the movie
-Krennic finds himself in a situation “they or us” regarding his position within the Empire. And he takes a huge bet on it.
-There’s no Krennic in ANH
-Vader in the Bacta tank
-Vader’s line in ANH (and I remember this line particularly pointed out by makingstarwars.net) : “There’ll be no one to stop us this time”

I believe that early in the movie Krennic will fire the Death Star on Jedha knowing that Vader is on the Planet. In-universe, this is explained by his rivalry with the formal hierarchy of the Empire. Out of Universe, it’s a clever plot device to get Vader (a great screen-thief) out of most of the film, since most of the time he will be just floating in a Bacta tank recovering, only to reappear at the end to get revenge on Krennic (who “stopped him” from recovering the plans) and chase the Tantive.

https://i.redditmedia.com/zjniEgTaMtZ-i3pCmWR0YIeWHwVJktYI5ahjtOaOGEQ.jpg?w=1024&s=643a12b0b8ab27b4cca58dece63a5c33

Looks like severed Anakin is also making his appearance in RO

adywan said:

The Dark Empire said:

I am not looking forward to see shoretroopers, woodtroopers, deathtroopers, watertroopers, sandtroopers or hover tank troopers and what so ever is about to come.

Then you won’t like Episode 4 because they have Sandtroopers 😉

In the OT we get introduced to Snowtroopers and Scout troopers after ep4. So, did you have a problem with those, or is this just because they are something new? Because, if you didn’t have a problem with the introduction of those, then you are being a bit of a hypocrite.

The Dark Empire said:

I think the design of the new troopers should have been more like storm- and scouttroopers with slighly little differences not a whole new design.

The design is pretty much a pre cursor to the scout trooper, and NOT the stormtrooper. So, instead of comparing the stormtrooper / clone trooper helmets as a way to prove your point, you should compare the shoretrooper/ scout trooper instead.

The Dark Empire said:
Now we have a liht brown or khaki coloured shoretrooper. To me that makes no sense. Even in green environments the empire uses white soldiers. It is because they do not hide from the enemy. The empire does use this all the same faceless black and white looking troopers to create fear.

The George Lucas clonetrooper fits more into Star Wars as this RO troopers.
And i hate to say that.

Yeh, because george never had troopers that weren’t all white …oh, wait…

The new troopers fit in perfectly with the universe. The designs are very reminiscent of the old concept designs done for Star Wars.

Actually the new shoretrooper looks more like a natural, real 20 years before predecessor to the OT’s stormtrooper than EPII Boba Fett-esque helmet.

IMO, design-wise a natural sequence would be

RO shoretrooper - OT stormtrooper - ROTS Clonetrooper (for ST)

TFA’s Apple iTrooper just looks plainly wrong to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78vN8qcU-r8

I’ll drop this most interesting discovery here.

The power of drums over the force theme could be very fitting for a lot of climactic moments in III. “It’s over now” from rebels also has a “destiny” feeling that would suit very well the funeral scene.

EDIT: So I just got hotminded and tried a little edit about the feeling IMO ROTS could have given it’s a moment when the Force changes tides.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Kx80VdTyyobG1nbnJVVnJrSlE/view?usp=sharing (I hope your brains do the job of filling the SFX gaps)

Looks like they used flat lenses for Vader again instead of OT’s bubble-shaped eyes.

Me not like this.

Windows7Guy100 said:

Density said:

That does give me an idea - What if someone re-scored the OT to incorporate PT themes that didn’t exist at the time like […] Battle of the Heroes for the Obi-Wan/Vader duel, etc.? Too crazy?

Adywan actually did that in Revisited.

I’d rather re-score Vader’s creation and Padme’s funeral in ROTS with Ahsoka’s final theme from the season finale of rebels (the last theme heard, with drums), which kinda has a strong “turn of the tide” or “destiny’s cards revealed” vibe; and by that I’d free Qui Gonn’s funeral theme to be reused in the duel between ObiWan and Vader in ANH.

That sort of tragic music fits the re-encounter between former master and apprentice.

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTFNwROFWaA (starting at 20). I totally see Vader waking up and the funeral in Naboo with that score. It even changes the feeling of the ending, from tragic to “what now?”, reminds me a lot of Nolan’s The Dark Knight ending.

Bingowings said:

If he is never called Skywalker in the prequels Luke’s dad could have died back at the temple for all we know so that aspect is not really a problem.

Then we’d be wandering in ANH about Vader’s children called Luke and Leia, which ObiWan took in Episode 3, only to curiously have the protagonist of ANH be called Luke.

Unless, the babies are not seen receiving a name in ROTS, but we would still have the doubt about Anakin “the chosen one”'s children and why would they suddenly dissapear.

Unless there is no pregnancy subplot at all, but then we would wander why does Anakin fall to the darkside.

There is no way to preserve the moment in ESB without loosing more than what’s necessary in the PT. And then, even if you manage to preserve it, it’s only to the awe of people living inside a thermos, without any contact with the last 35 years of pop culture.

Smoking Lizard said:

Mithrandir said:

Maybe she leaves to Coruscant after the battle. Maybe she’s requested for an emergency session of the Imperial Senate where some good old Emperor decides that due to the Empire being attacked it is about time to dissolve the Congress. Maybe.

The Emperor dissolved the Senate before the attack on the Death Star.

I said attack on the Empire, not on the Death Star. And by that I mean the events and battles that are to be shown precisely in Rogue One. The stealing of the Death Star Plans is to be the first major operation by the Rebels, the moment they go out of their cover.

And if you are a good politician, you would take this massive intelligence breakthrough as a good chance to finally get rid of the opposition…

After all we have seen in the trailer some military movement that can justify the word attack…specially coming from someone who has been able to justify a dictatorship out of events that didn’t at all happen.

Smoking Lizard said:

Bingowings said:

She was in ROTS played by the same actress wearing different clothes.

The prequel trilogy is stupid.

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…

But now, hey! She’s hanging out in a leadership role in the Rebel alliance in a movie scene that predates the 1977 movie.

Disney did not waste any money on continuity experts.

Maybe she leaves to Coruscant after the battle. Maybe she’s requested for an emergency session of the Imperial Senate where some good old Emperor decides that due to the Empire being attacked it is about time to dissolve the Congress. Maybe.

But that’s just what I would have done to solve the continuity issue. Perhaps they just do not care.

Tobar said:

Mithrandir said:

Oh, and polished floors to the Empire are an addition that comes straight from TFA. OT Star Destroyers and sets had dull floors I think. (everything reflective screams non-used universe to me in star wars).

Looks pretty shiny to me:

=P

That’s reflective, but not 100% polished. It does look used. Compare it with TFA.

The size of the helmet has always been out of proportion, maybe except in ROTS.

But it does feel OT doesn’t it?

I wander who the cloaked figure is, why does he have Imperial Guards custoding him (could it be Palpatine?) and why do the steps release smoke…

Oh, al polished floors to the Empire are an addition that comes straight from TFA. OT Star Destroyers and sets had dull floors I think. (everything reflective screams non-used universe to me in star wars).

So as you see, all my complaints are just nitpicks. I’m in for this movie.

They already did… https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/12747577_1664945460421434_1798709718_n.jpg

The helmet in RO even looks as unpolished as in ANH next to ESB.

THAT final theme. Just Wow.

It should be used in edits of ROTS.

From the first viewing (should I say hearing), I can’t get out of my head that if I was the one to name it, I’d say that score should be called “Will of the Force”. Again, it’s tragic, but its sober and heroic, all at once. It has (difficult to express in a non native language) some kind of solemnity that makes it very fit for grand events which are determined by Fate.

ROTS should end on that note. Not as it stands now with QuiGonn’s funeral theme grieving on Anakin’s decissions as if those decissions had been truly his, but more with a sense of “these things happened because they were meant to be from the very beginning. This is how cards unfold”. I guess this angle was chosen on rebels exactly because we knew what inevitably was going to happen with Ahsoka, and the music sort of supports perfectly that very concept of greek tragedy, unavoidable fate has come to be for master and apprentice.

From a certain point of view, that should be the spirit of Anakin’s journey.

Filoni should be in charge of a Star Wars movie, preferentely featuring Anakin Skywalker. He has proven to be worthy of that more than anyone close to Star Wars in recent times. He has what it takes to redeem the character.

Jeebus said:

Mithrandir said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbFqWtaITck&feature=youtu.be

Here’s a first attempt I made a couple of days ago for brainstorming purposes of what has been developed in the Revisited saga thread.

I’ll quote a post I made after the idea that is tried to be developed currently by Aalenfae (if I don’t get it wrong) as general insight for Anakin’s character

I think Anakin should go down Harvey Dent’s route. However, i’ll make the point after some differences between Star Wars and Rings.

At some point, Anakin’s story is the exact opposite to Frodo’s story. Lucas set up an order where anakin fell because he was too human. GL wanted the jedi order to be morally more than humans, he didn’t want them to commit to anybody, nor to help or show compassion, not even to marry.

While the Jedi keep this rigid behaviour, everything develops just fine and the galaxy is in order. But then comes Anakin, who acts like a normal person, chooses his wife over his duty, and so he falls (and the republic falls) because of their forbidden love<span style=“font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.265625px;”>. Cleary it is wrong for him to be and act just as a common folk would.</span>

Now take LOTR. The ultimate success in Frodo’s mission comes from love under the form of pity, because he spared Gollum’s life, because Faramir let Frodo go when he wasn’t supposed to, etc. In a general way, we are trained (culturally trained) to identify ourselves with characters that show some human scale while heroes are determined, heroes have goals of grandeur and stay on their path. Characters we all emphatise with are the ones that are set in a path that wasn’t theirs, and solve things the best they can (Han solo, anyone?)

I’d make a hero of Anakin if I were to make these movies, because that’s what’s wrong with him. I wouldn’t want anyone to like him but to admire him. Anakin should be incorruptible, the perfect soldier, always proceeding by the book. This blind commitment to civil duty, this inflexibility is what puts him just two steps away from being a monster. He should fall because he denies his human emotions, not because he follows them.

In the end, he falls because the institutions of the republic are rotten. this is the key: The jedi are monsters which is why Luke’s Jedi Order wouldn’t be just a copy of the preceeding one. You can’t prevent humans from being humans, this should be the real tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. He was raised to be something noone can be. And he took it all too seriously.

Again: it’s the Harvey Dent route, from hero to vilain in two minutes, when he realises he’s let so much go and it wasn’t worthy. That’s the first step to messianism.

And at this point I believe it’s the only feasible way to make Anakin’s repentine turn work.

In AOTC he looses his mother because of duty. He gets too late to Tattoine. In ROTS, by setting the scene when he’s alone in the council chamber crying BEFORE he denounces Palpatine to Windu, it will be shown that he is RENOUNCING to Padmé for the sake of the republic, and he cries because it’s his mother chapter all over again (he is clearly proceeding like a monster at that point, no one would give up the love of his live for political stability). So when for some reason he gets to the chancellor’s office and windu is clearly not proceeding by right or law, the messianic I me mine Vader is gets to the surface (the jedi are as corrupt as the Sith, and I’m the only one who can save this Republic)

Video was taken down. Mithrandir, would you mind rehosting it on vimeo? I’d love to see what you did with it.

Sure, here they are.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Kx80VdTyyoNTA5emtic3BGakU

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Kx80VdTyyobXc0NEo3dkhpSUk

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Kx80VdTyyoaUV2NkxOdU9XMGM

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Kx80VdTyyoNTFCRHFKdjJ4UjQ

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Kx80VdTyyoX0QwV0RndG5tdVU

I have more or less the same problem with that part of ROTJ, but I think at that point in the trilogy you either accept the fairy-tale vocabulary or you just won’t learn to appreciate the original trilogy.

Though yes, for a lot of time it bothered me and felt out of place somehow. Particularly the line “It’s to late for me, son”. That just sounds like an addict’s words instead of someone who does what he does with conviction.

And then there’s Hamill’s strange delivery of the line “theconflicwithinyouletgooffyourhate”.

Aaaand the scenery. Though it is to be said that in general the OT has an accurate sense of scale which generally fits the mood and importance of what’s happening on screen, ROTJ falls short on this (not that I’m asking for a gazilion-metres-long bridge over a pit with a samurai standing on one end and a single beam of light passing trough a window to illuminate the good guy…)

Having the OT as my first visualisation of the saga, whenever I hear the name “Anakin Skywalker” I think of Luke’s mysterious father and in Vader’s past. I think of a character that has the solemnity of the original Lord of the Sith, that was on pair with Obi Wan Kenobi, that was his same age and that was the main reference for the galaxy as a warrior and as a friend.

This is what comes to my mind when I think of Anakin; a story insinuated in the OT and one I wanted to hear or see for so long, and which I didn’t get until a certain animated CGI cartoon came out and made of Anakin everything he was meant to be. (special reference for today’s episode of Rebels).

That’s why I feel angry and disappointed with the PT. But that is also why no matter how flawed, I’ll always lean and feel more related to the story of the characters I wanted to know more about when I was a kid than to Rey Whoever or Defecting Stormtrooper, or Orange Yoda or whocares. The characters I cared and care about are the Jedi, Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.

If anything, I care about the ST because of Luke, Han and Leia. To me the saga ended with a perfect wrap up in ROTJ. Luke finds closure there. I didn’t need to see him ghostly-mystic-majestic-cool master of the universe…those have always been Anakin and Obi Wan at some point in their lives to me.

obikal said:

Mithrandir said:

Oh but I wasn’t answering to you with my post! Infact, You posted your text while I was writing mine.

I still don’t understand what reason would be strong enough to completely rewrite of half the saga to keep one moment safe.

I think the PT does need to be completely rewritten… because they suck.

Personally, I don’t think we need to keep any secrets hidden for reveals in the OT.

I asked the original question because some people (even someone major in my Star Wars movie watching life, Adywan) want to have the viewing order 1-6 but still keep the Vader/father reveal for ESB; but it’s ruined in ANH, and I don’t see a way around it. I would like the PT re-written, but not trying to keep any secrets hidden.

I think it would make a worse story if you’re trying to fulfill both goals at the same time. Just make the prequels a good story that you watch after the OT, and you’re golden.

This is exactly what I’m trying to say. One thing is to make them good, which seems hard enough. Other thing is to make them fit that moment in ESB. And one thing doesn’t necessarily guarantee the other.

The prequels sucked, yes. But not because they ruined ESB’s reveal.

Oh but I wasn’t answering to you with my post! Infact, You posted your text while I was writing mine.

I still don’t understand what reason would be strong enough to completely rewrite of half the saga to keep one moment safe.

I do not agree on most of the article.

However, who wrote this has some things very clear, things that are rather uncomfortable truths specially to our forum community:

-PT is (judging pure visuality) better framed and composited than ANH

-Anakin’s journey is Faustian.

-John William’s score is musically brillant, but yes, it quite underlines the moments a lot. I keep thinking of the self-undoing ball of wool Tornatore frames in Cinema Paradiso, when the protagonist comes back home after 30 years. That shot, if I remember right, has almost no music. The message is still there, but not emphatized. What whoever wrote this seemed not to know, however, is that Star Wars is designed as a myth. And yes, myths do tell people what to thing or how to feel, because they have been and still are an educational tool to every society.

-That’s why star wars is mainly audiovisual.
-That’s why no one expects a Star Wars movie to have too much dialogue about politics.

And that’s where Lucas failed.

Why does everyone asume that it is absolutely key to keep Vader’s identity a secret? Doing it will not take us 30 years back in history, and will not make us stand in awe as we did when we were kids watching the movie. There’s no point in insisting that Bespin is “the” defining moment of the saga. Infact, it all started with ANH, which did very well without any reveal at all.

Honestly, not only I do not think there is a way to pull it out, but I suspect there can’t be a strong reason to make that titanic effort as well. Of course it is a point given by Adywan that he will adress this. Furthermore he even gave us hints at how would he adress this, so I’m not questioning his decissions, but more of writing this in this thread which in a lot of ways behaves as a pool of collective thinking for more than just Ady’s edit.

Even if you manage to avoid any reference or scene featuring Anakin’s falli to the dark side in the PT, there’s still that line in ANH from Vader to Tarkin: “my old master is here” which is most problematic to the proposed scheme.

In any case, even if the PT was tweaked to have ObiWan have two apprentices, that would only reduce the chance of Vader being Anakin to a 50%.

If you show Anakin’s death in ROTS by ObiWan’s hands, then that would make a liar of ObiWan and make the whole tale he gives Luke be suspicious anyway (let alone the fact that cutting mustafar out of the movie would significantly create plot holes and drastically reduce the runtime).

If you don’t show Anakin’s death at all, then by ANH there’s the obvious question where is Anakin and why does ObiWan reference something we didn’t see.

And all of these are “grand scheme” problems. If instead we started to analyse the issues in a smaller scale there would be problems within the structure of each movie (who kills Windu, why does Padmè go to Mustafar, what happened to all the battledroids, etc)

If the saga as a whole is a project, then forcing more (considering some parts of ANH would be problematic as well) than three movies to fit one moment is as wrong as it would be to force the distribution of a house around the desire of its owner to have a certain kind of lamp. IMO it might be better to move on from that and try to make the saga a better and more complex work.

Short of having new material or being willing to edit both the PT and the OT, you can’t make Vader a plot twist. Instead, however, you can make Bespin be a very tragic moment with the material available, and always watch the saga 4|5|6|1|2|3 if you wanted to preserve the “reveal”.

Bingowings said:

Swazzy said:

So basically The Force Unleashed, maybe sans the over-glorified wielding of force powers?

More like Rebels in the sense that you have a core set of characters that are only loosely connected to the OT ones with occasional side views of what the OT crew are up to.

I doubt if the Jedi in that show are going to make it but there is an off chance Yoda is wrong about Luke being the last Jedi so their fate isn’t set in stone and the other characters are even more open to survive so we can invest more into their story not knowing that they are doomed.

Obi-wan and Yoda are never in peril in the PT if you watch the films in the order they were made because we know they are survive.
If we watch the episodes in chronological order the surprise twists in Episodes V and VI are ruined.
If they had made the PT about other people we could watch them in either order and still get the same sweep of history.

Maybe the importance of the “twist” in ESB is a little overreated if you take the saga as a whole. There’s a chance it would be too much to force seven hundred minutes of a movie to preserve just one.

Taking Bespin as the actually defining moment of the SW ethos is could neglect the phenomenom Star Wars already was in 77.

I believe we all would preserve the “secret” of Vader’s identity mostly because it reminds us of our childhood, when it blew us then rather than to keep it due to strictly artistical reasons.