NeverarGreat

Unless the US is going to try and overthrow the government of NK entirely, there’s no point in making Kim feel less safe. The whole reason they have nukes is because they have absolutely no other options to protect themselves from being destroyed by their better armed and equipped neighbors. They can’t win economically or with conventional military strength. Their two options are:

1. Diplomacy
2. Nuclear deterrent

The US has made clear that we’re not interested in diplomacy, so the only thing they can do is build nukes.

What are these watermelons doing in the politics thread?

Bonus points for referring to the Animated Series episodes simply as ‘logs’.

In terms of setting the mood for a space fantasy, a name like ‘Leia Organa’ is very Space Princess. Luke Skywalker, on the other hand, is quite down to earth while still being a little space-ish. This makes sense when he’s the audience avatar in ANH. When he’s some super magical unicorn space wizard in TFA, putting ‘Luke’ in the crawl still feels to me like he’s a farmboy who hasn’t gotten his Jedi name yet, hence the brother and sister speak.

It also cuts down on the number of terms being name-dropped in the crawl and the potential confusion for first-time viewers of Leia Organa also being a Skywalker also being a Solo.

I’m not going to change the title, it was just an idea.

I agree with this. After all, nobody seems to be in a hurry to leave the base after the Starkiller destruction. Because of the editing, it feels like at least a day has gone by between that and Rey leaving.

I’m pretty happy with the crawl I posted above. However, I’ve been thinking about the specifics of the crawls and realized that all of them are out of sync with the music except for the 1977 version of Star Wars.

The addition of an episode number and title mean that there’s now essentially three more lines of text in the first paragraph, throwing off the music. In the original, the second paragraph is accompanied by the middle section of the main theme, but it now starts during the first paragraph. For the Force Awakens, the final paragraph is in the right place to sync with the music, but its five lines are too short.

With this in mind, I believe I’ve figured out the proper number of lines in each paragraph for musical sync:

TFA Original Crawl -
First Paragraph: 7 lines (10 with number and title)
Second Paragraph: 7 lines
Third Paragraph: 5 lines
Total: 19

Proper TFA Crawl -
First Paragraph: 4 lines (7 with number and title)
Second Paragraph: 9 lines
Third Paragraph: 8 lines
Total: 21

Original Crawl (1977) -
First Paragraph: 6 lines
Second Paragraph: 8 lines
Third Paragraph: 7 lines
Total: 21

Note that each paragraph in the proper TFA crawl is one line longer than in the 1977 crawl, due to the entire sequence being sped up for all subsequent movies.

Here’s a crawl that makes use of that format, even if it’s a bit verbose:

Episode VII
The First Order

The Empire has survived.
Founded on his secret first order,
the Emperor’s legions have built
a weapon that devours the stars.

Twisted by vengeance against
its ancient foe, the First Order
and its evil knights have driven
the last of the Jedi into hiding.
Without the Jedi to protect the
New Republic, Only General
Leia Organa, sister of the exiled
Jedi, recognizes their deadly
peril.

Mobilizing a brave Resistance
with the reluctant support of
the Republic, Leia sends her
most trusted pilot on a mission
to find her long-lost brother,
now her only hope in
restoring peace and justice
to the galaxy…

Although I like my previous crawl better, it would be nice to get it into this format.

I tried to work the supreme leader, or evil overlord, or Snoke in there somewhere but it felt like too much information.

Maybe something more like this:

Episode VII
The First Order

The Empire has survived.
Founded in secret by the
Emperor himself, a loyal
FIRST ORDER has been
working for generations
to build a weapon that can
destroy entire stars.

Meanwhile, the last of the
Jedi Knights has vanished,
leaving the New Republic
blind to this deadly threat.
Only General Leia Organa,
sister of the Jedi, has the
foresight to mobilize
a covert resistance.

Desperate for allies,
Leia has sent her most
trusted pilot on a mission
to find her long-lost brother,
now her only hope for
a galaxy in peril…

Not really a serious idea (Yet!), I was kicking around the concept that the First Order is actually as old as the Empire itself:

Episode VII
The First Order

The Galactic Empire lives.
Formed in secret as the first
act of Emperor Palpatine,
Generations of his loyal
servants have been building
a weapon that can destroy
entire stars.

Believing this First Order
is merely a weak imitator,
the New Republic is blind
to this deadly threat. Only
General Leia Organa mobilizes
a covert Resistance in response.

Desperate for allies, Leia
has sent her most trusted pilot
on a mission to discover the
whereabouts of her brother,
the last of the Jedi Knights,
and who has mysteriously
vanished without a trace…

This thread ran its course about a hundred pages back.

Dice potatoes with a variety of peppers for a hearty stew, such as the one I made tonight.

My first post was in 2012, when I expressed interest in -1’s project. I’m sure I lurked on the site for quite a while before that though, and frequented other sites such as Save Star Wars.

Remember when a 35mm preservation was a ‘crazy proposal’ and we were all busying ourselves with the GOUT and Laserdisc? Such innocent times.

Mavimao said:

Well as soon as she arrives, she says “we haven’t much time” and they plan an attack centered around the Death Star coming to them…

The line in the movie is ‘we have no time for our sorrows, commander’. Which would be true whether or not the station was on its way, since they would be keen to avoid another loss like Alderaan.

From the Revised Fourth Draft:
LEIA
We don’t have time for our sorrows,
Commander. The battle station has
surely tracked us here.
(looking pointedly to
Han)
It’s the only explanation for the
ease of our escape. You must use the
information in this R2 unit to plan
the attack. It is our only hope.

So even then she is only making an assumption.

darthrush said:

The new Spock doesn’t work. He’s meant to be an emotionless Vulcan but actually translates onscreen to being a constantly grumpy and irritated dude. You also have no reason to believe he would become best friends with the new Kirk who is basically boiled down to being a jock flyboy who’s main thing is just to disobey every order.

TLDR: The new Star Trek movies minus Beyond (which is delightful) are dumb action movies with poorly written characters.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-cap-doc-love-spock-review-20160902-snap-story.html

Leonard Nimoy maintained that while his iconic character may have been seen as cold and unemotional, he always played him as “a guy trying to keep his emotions in check.”

Valheru_84 said:

This is pretty cool (my issues with TLJ aside), a modern trailer take on the entire saga to date:

https://youtu.be/WnrX5tag320

Val

Mrebo said:

American politics have been hideous for as long as I’ve been paying attention to them. Every single candidate has been characterized as extreme, dumb, and evil. Viewing it from the right, I witnessed extreme unfairness toward GW Bush, McCain, and Romney. And those on the left saw much the same directed toward their candidates/presidents. So while I see a difference between Trump and those previous candidates/presidents, the reaction is basically what I’d expect no matter who was elected.

Was Hillary characterized as extreme, dumb, and evil? Was Jeb[!]? Kasich?

I’ve become disillusioned about it all. When Republicans nominate someone else, we will still hear how that person is extreme, dumb, and evil (and basically the same, or worse than Trump).

MusicallyInspired said:

Something that hit me today is this whole movie is essentially a giant “Han shot last”. Everyone freaked out at changing Han in ANH from shooting first because it changed his character from a ruthless scoundrel selfish smuggler who has no problem killing who made friends and turned out to be a hero in the end to somebody who was “always good” and would never shoot first, or at least without provocation. This movie will unavoidably portray Han in a heroic light (because that’s what Star Wars is) which completely undermines his OT arc worse than shooting last did in the SE.

I can still enjoy it, though. But yeah, that guy is not Han. No way no how.

We’ll have to wait and see. It would make all the sense in the world for Han to begin as an optimistic, ambitious young man and end the film jaded and dark.

Mark’s Down On Your Syntax said:

NeverarGreat said:
In the Senate, Bail Organa has arrived unexpectedly to rally the allies of the Rebellion and force the Emperor to deal with them. There is a mad rush for votes as they hope to overturn at least some of Palpatine’s authority. Palpatine is forced into a political corner, with no choice but to dissolve the council permanently.

So Bail would have to travel from the Imperial Senate on Coruscant back to Alderaan in well under two hours in order to be there to get blown up when the Death Star arrives? Pfft, that doesn’t sound very realistic!

What did he use, Khan’s special long range transporter or something? 😉

This idea was meant as a joke, but whatever…
…Alderaan was blown up several days into ANH, so technically my timeline works!

So there!

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

Yoda is every bit as strict about the Dark Side in the OT as the Jedi were in the PT.

Not true at all.

“If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” It doesn’t get more absolutist than that. He also believes that Luke should kill those who use the Dark Side. Luke proves him wrong on both fronts. The Jedi in the PT have more explicit rules, but the underlying absolutism is the same.

Yoda is every bit as strict about the Dark Side in the OT as the Jedi were in the PT.

Anyway, I’d like to see archaeology in a Star Wars movie.

I’d like to see actual space pirates doing space pirate things.

I’d like to see a movie with droids as the main characters.

I’d like to see an alien Force user who has wildly different abilities than human users.

I’d like to see an Ocean’s Eleven style heist.

I’d like to see some good political intrigue.

I’d like to see a Jedi Knight defending a technologically Medieval population against a large, dragonlike alien and its minions.

I’d like to see a Star Wars ghost story.

Collipso said:

Were the lightsabers “fixed” in Star Wars for the 1997 SE or for the 2004 DVD?

Everything, including the lightsabers, was recomposited for the 1997 SE, and then prints were struck from this for the theatrical re-release. In 2004 they went back to the original negative, so the recompositing had to be done again, this time digitally.

At least, this is my understanding of what occurred since it appears that the lightsaber elements (which were shot on low-quality film) have degraded more severely than the underlying footage with each iteration.

TV’s Frink said:

NeverarGreat said:

TV’s Frink said:

The reason I assume YouTube reviews are terrible by default is that literally almost anyone can do one. I’m sure there are good ones but they’re 0.0001% of the total because there’s zero quality control. And often when someone recommends some great video in here (or elsewhere) they turn out to be one of the 99.9999%. So while it’s wrong to assume every YouTube video is bad, the chances of being right about it are pretty solid.

(says this having not watched the most recent video posted)

If your ratio was accurate, nobody would go to Youtube.
I find a useful metric is 90% crap, 10% good.

I thought no one was allowed to post in this thread unless they were using hyperbole, and that anyone who didn’t use hyperbole would literally have their eyeballs removed by ravenous birds.

Regardless, point stands.

Well you’re obviously mistaken because I don’t see any…

wait…

oh sh0)%*&#

TV’s Frink said:

The reason I assume YouTube reviews are terrible by default is that literally almost anyone can do one. I’m sure there are good ones but they’re 0.0001% of the total because there’s zero quality control. And often when someone recommends some great video in here (or elsewhere) they turn out to be one of the 99.9999%. So while it’s wrong to assume every YouTube video is bad, the chances of being right about it are pretty solid.

(says this having not watched the most recent video posted)

If your ratio was accurate, nobody would go to Youtube.
I find a useful metric is 90% crap, 10% good.

SilverWook said:

“Unnamed Irishman Being Crushed by a Potato”
-1891, Colorized