Mocata

Channel72 said:

The Viet Cong analogue is probably more relevant in Return of the Jedi, when the Ewoks fight the Stormtroopers. But even as regards the whole Original Trilogy, the “WW2 in space” analogy can only go so far (and refers mostly to the visuals and special effects), because the Original Trilogy is not about a war between political equals (despite the fact that A New Hope confusingly refers to a “Galactic Civil War” in the opening crawl). Rather, it is about asymmetric war between insurgents and an all-powerful totalitarian regime.

Yes the Ewoks, however poorly executed, at least resemble low-tech fighters against a much larger and more advance power. I just don’t see it as a metaphor for the US military action during that period. The iconography just doesn’t work.

However, the WW2 thing is more clear since you can take the Battle of Britain era with one small island against the whole of the Third Reich. Or resistance fighters in places like France and Norway. Later they gain more allies and fight on a more equal scale which turns the tide, etc. George saw movies about that in the 1950s after all.

It could stem from the time he was trying to make Revenge of the Sith seem deeper than it really was.

“That was the period where Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term,” Lucas told the Chicago Tribune in 2005. “[That] got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.”

Then the later interview with James Cameron seems to be the source of the Viet Cong idea which he probably just made up there and then to sound cool in front of the camera. Unless the Making Of books have anything in them to back this up.

Something I thought of recently after a few weird interviews, as usual, with George. Two separate incidences:

George insisted: “The purpose of Star Wars was – it was during the Vietnam War, I was going to do Apocalypse Now and I couldn’t do it. So, I took a lot of the ideas and put them into this movie."

“When I did it,” Lucas replied, “they were Viet Cong.”

Except the whole of Star Wars was WW2 in space. The Imperial uniforms. The Dam Busters dialogue. The cutting of war footage into the temp version without finished special effects. The literal stormtroopers. Why the hell is he trying to say now it was always a USA in Vietnam analogue?

Connor MacLeod said:

Honestly, it makes little difference. Star Wars in the prequel era was just as bad or good as it is now. Lucas destroyed his own creation long before Disney came along with the suppression of the theatrical cuts and retconning the story with the prequels and with Jar Jar’s ridiculous existence and Lucas’ haphazard film making.

Fair. Nobody who saw Red Tails and Strange Magic was calling him a visionary. It’s just that people love to think about how great things that they don’t have could have been.

Framed, the movie guessing game, has failed us.

RIP to a screen legend. Hope nothing ghoulish is done with his recordings as Vader after this…

Connor MacLeod said:

Mocata said:

Wait a second… I just remembered I’ve only seen the edit where Reva just dies.

What’s your opinion? Do you think the prequels are better than Kenobi?

Both were dumb in different ways and failed as prequels by adding nothing of value to the story. I guess edited down Kenobi is just one kinda boring movie rather than three mostly annoying ones.

Wait a second… I just remembered I’ve only seen the edit where Reva just dies.

Interesting, what I saw of the remake of Shogun had those standard ugly Disney Plus subtitles, wonder if the FX version was different.

Vladius said:

Mocata said:

They just need to pick the ideas and elements that worked before and expand them. For example the best episode of the Mandalorian was the Wages of Fear/Sorcerer fuel transport depot story. A tight action set piece followed by a decent character moment. Instead of muddying the waters with yet more Jedi nonsense and failed attempts to add nuance or new dimensions to the Force, just start with classic movie homage. They did the Dam Busters, so they can do Battle of Britain. Or Cross of Iron. Or Kelly’s Heroes. Or anything. Star Wars itself was always a ‘steal from the best’ situation after all.

lol every time they do this they remake Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven again or they claim they’re doing “Rashomon.” Even in Star Wars Visions, one of the episodes was remaking The Hidden Fortress even though that’s already the original movie.

Yeah but maybe they can do it and make a decent story too? Actually watching real films and having a passion for them is what brings out the best storytellers after all. Though the handful of minutes in SW that resemble Kurosawa are pretty few and far between, it’s hardly a Fistful of Dollars.

They just need to pick the ideas and elements that worked before and expand them. For example the best episode of the Mandalorian was the Wages of Fear/Sorcerer fuel transport depot story. A tight action set piece followed by a decent character moment. Instead of muddying the waters with yet more Jedi nonsense and failed attempts to add nuance or new dimensions to the Force, just start with classic movie homage. They did the Dam Busters, so they can do Battle of Britain. Or Cross of Iron. Or Kelly’s Heroes. Or anything. Star Wars itself was always a ‘steal from the best’ situation after all.

Looks like a deep sale situation to me

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

Wrong thread.

“The finger thing means the taxes!”

I get that the whole plot is simply a way for Palpatine to move from Senator to Chancellor or whatever the ranks were, but I was never clear on what the overall scheme was. Back in the day someone gave me a bootleg of the film on video because you had to wait a long time to see a movie again (remember that?) and that must have been when I first thought about it. After the WOW of the spectacle, pod races, etc, was gone I couldn’t summarise it.

The irony is that in the sequel trilogy a serious flaw is that way it’s all so small. There are no space politics, no big picture ideas. In SW you don’t need to understand because they just talk about an evil empire, and that’s a straightforward concept. But having both governments and resistance forces? What? Anything that the franchise does next needs to strike a proper balance on this.

I don’t think AI responses count as Random Thoughts, though the answers may be been data scraped from the thoughts of others on a site such as this.

Anyway, I was thinking about how most people say the Leia twin sister plot is a bad idea. But what I would say is the best scene, Luke giving in to anger, is based on it. I’m not sure you can you have one without the other… unless Vader saying ‘You have a sister,’ is referring to someone we meet in a sequel.

That’s pushing it. But he was still my favourite, which is my point. Darth Maul was always going to sell toys based on the look alone.

Oh jeez it could have been the start of Young Palpatine Origins or something… ew.

Netflix for a while (and perhaps even now) had this rule of two seasons and cancel if something didn’t work out. I wonder in this case if the numbers were really that low? Does LFL have like low server space or something? But I suspect we will never know why they made such a big deal about a movie line-up that included Rogue Squadron… and then kept firing people. Such a waste of the IP.

They still haven’t got the X-wing engine turbines to be all the same length, what the hell.

I’m thinking of the bounty hunters line up.

Fan_edit_fan said:
Why would they admit public failure so often and officially?

That is the real mystery of the Sith.

This is a huge tangent but yes the problem is they’re old and drunk and don’t have good memories outside of Star Trek trivia. Even if they did remember why bother bringing it up? Does a deleted scene even count? They don’t care any neither does anyone else. Which goes for most SW fans these days.

Bringing is neatly back on topic, why should I care? I’m never going to watch a new SW project unless it’s genuinely ‘good’, or to put it another way gets universal acclaim.

Disney never had a spine to start with and it doesn’t care about these current day ethical quandaries and diversity inclusions. People like to argue over it but it’s not true. This is a soul-less corporation that was about to tell some guy his wife dying in their park recently was her fault because she signed a D+ user agreement. They just want money, and they thought these projects were a way to make it. When the viewers and subs take a hit then we see shows getting cancelled (or removed). That’s all there is to it; numbers in a share holder meeting and money spent versus money earned.

Rule of Cool applies to a lot of SW characters though, a lot who never speak or in some cases never even move.

Yeah they can’t run because there’s no set.

BedeHistory731 said:

My favorite RLM Star Wars video is the Darth Vader suit one, which sums up so many “lore” channels that just read Fandom wikis for 30 minutes. It’s so hard to read “EmPalSuRecon Center” and “vitapaste” with a straight face.

That is very funny because it’s mostly just reading the wiki.