“Do you think these cloners are involved in the plot to assassinate Senator Amidala?”
“No Master, there appears to be no motive.”
thereifixedit
That’s a promising idea!
Each Trilogy happens within its own self-contained universe.
In light of this, the Emperor in the OT has no Force sensitivity but has merely cultivated an illusion of its power by the use of simple tricks and nonsense in order to win and keep Vader under his command.
-All of his ‘predictions’ in ESB and ROTJ are simple extrapolations where they are not him simply claiming that things Vader had just told him had been foreseen.
-His unlocking of Luke’s cuffs could be done by remote.
-His lightning is identical in look and function to a simple ion beam such as the one used by the Jawas on R2, and such a weapon could be easily hidden in his robes. The beam seems to work only weakly on the biological Luke but almost instantly fries the electronics of Vader’s suit, just like a droid-disabling weapon. Nobody else in the OT uses Force Lightning, not even the powerful Vader, which could be further evidence that it is merely a trick.
-When he is thrown down the reactor shaft, the resulting explosion could be from his power source exploding or from striking some sort of reactor on the way down.
I don’t celebrate Life Day. It goes against my Zensunni beliefs.
And yet you use a thinking machine in heretical disregard for the Ways of the Fathers.
There are actually quite a few clouds on Tatooine throughout all three prequels:
https://youtu.be/e3NRzGrt5z0?t=11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiLVNGl8rew
https://youtu.be/6C--Zttls8I?t=128
Those devices seen around the Lars homestead are moisture 'vaporators, presumably used to pull moisture from the atmosphere, so there’s clearly something up there.
So to answer the original question, I think the presence of clouds on Tatooine in the original film is perfectly fine, even if the ones in the first scene are unusually fluffy.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)
A fairly funny romp with some fun cameos. The highlight for me was actually the end credits song, made by the man himself.
BTW, riventing avatar PKV 😉
Yeah but that doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Pre 1999 Yoda: Spiritual guru living in harmony with nature.
Post 1999 Yoda: Deadbeat father and military leader of a child-kidnapping cult who advocates for book burning.
All good points. I could have the crawl focus on the search for Luke and the concept that the galaxy is divided between the New Republic and First Order territories:
It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the light of the
Jedi Order, has vanished.
Searching the galaxy for
the legendary last Jedi,
a fearless New Republic
task force has uncovered
a clue to Luke’s location
on the borders of the
fallen Empire, sovereign
territory of the sinister
FIRST ORDER.
Secretly supported by a
few honorable Senators,
leaders of the fearless
RESISTANCE have sent
their best pilot to recover
this clue, unaware that
they are ensnared in a
rising shadow of evil…
This format has some issues, since it doesn’t really make sense to introduce the Resistance without first introducing what they are resisting, and I can’t do that without talking about the search for Luke taking the Resistance to the borders of First Order space. It’s maddeningly circular.
I did try to make ‘mysterious’ work for the First Order, but it just wouldn’t fit on the line very well. I also think ‘sinister’ works with both being evil and with being unknown.
Yep, the idea of Starkiller as massive overkill for Luke is something I had thought of earlier in the thread 😃
To your point about the Republic not believing that the First Order is threatening them, here’s the paragraph which separates the New Republic from the First Order’s threat:
With his memory fading
into legend throughout
the New Republic, the
evil FIRST ORDER has
risen from a stronghold
of the fallen Empire to
proclaim that those still
loyal to the ancient Jedi
shall be destroyed.
This is one of the tensions I’m constantly fighting with in the worldbuilding (or lack thereov) around TFA. I could suggest that the Republic is falling apart under attacks from the First Order, but that begs the question of why they don’t use their defensive fleet and take action against these obvious aggressors. On the other hand, if I make the Jedi central to the identity of the Republic, then I run into the problem you state where the Jedi don’t feel like long-vanished myths.
The trouble is that without a clear source of something which causes the New Republic to become hopelessly overwhelmed by chaos, they will simply look inherently weak and incompetent. And if I try to describe exactly how the Republic is failing due to the complex factors of the Jedi being absent and the First Order’s agents infiltrating the Senate and causing gridlock and doing terror attacks with surgical precision to destabilize the Republic’s power and increase support for an Imperial style of government, well then I have six paragraphs with no signs of stopping.
I do see what you mean though. The film does portray the Jedi as essentially extinct and forgotten. I just need to thread the needle somehow, pinning the Republic’s problems on the lack of the Jedi while not specifically saying that the Republic is grieving at their recent loss.
JEDIT: Perhaps something like this:
It is a time of desolation.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the light of the
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With his memory fading
into legend, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from a hidden stronghold
of the fallen Empire to
proclaim that anyone in
the New Republic with
faith in the ancient Jedi
shall be destroyed.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
One more slight update. I put the previous version to music and realized that there is a dramatic musical sting which happens at the fourth and sixth lines of the second paragraph. To capitalize on this I shifted the reveal of the First Order and its fortress down a line.
It is a time of desolation.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With the New Republic
overwhelmed by chaos
and despair, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the shadows of a
hidden Imperial fortress
to proclaim that anyone
who seeks the lost Jedi
shall be destroyed.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
A good effort, however I have to keep in mind the restraints of word length and how they will fit into the crawl dimensions.
Taking another crack at it, I managed to get ‘hidden’ in there, and also moved the Republic so that the sentence reads more clearly:
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With the New Republic
in turmoil, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the shadows of a
hidden Imperial fortress
to proclaim that anyone
who dares to search for
the missing Jedi shall be
destroyed.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
And another not-so-slight edit to the crawl, because why not 😉
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
In Luke’s absence, the
evil FIRST ORDER has
risen from a stronghold
of the fallen Empire to
declare throughout the
wretched New Republic
that anyone seeking the
Jedi’s return shall face
obliteration.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
This has some vocabulary, but hopefully it’s not too much. The intention is to give the First Order a plan that doesn’t contradict canon or the film yet also makes them maximally threatening. The idea of them having a vendetta against people who want Luke back fits the film since all three of their major attacks occur on those in support of the Jedi.
The relationship of the New Republic to the Resistance also threads the needle between keeping the Senate in a minor role and explaining why they are not taking public action against the First Order, namely that the First Order has presumably only threatened violence against pro-Jedi factions before the start of the film and not directly attacked the Republic itself. The final paragraph also lends some tragedy to the Republic.
The only thing I wish were included in this crawl was a reference to the Imperial base being hidden, but that can be presumed.
Well that’s disappointing.
RL, that’s so cool. Showing the Ep 7 edit to a big group of friends and family was pretty great, but I expect it’s something else to have someone hear about a project you worked on independently. Very exciting!
If the Empire was trying to trick a group of people into being prisoners for life, I imagine that pretending to release them only to give them a new sentence would only work once. Maybe the prisoners are ‘released’ only to be transported to the neighboring prison building for the remainder of their life sentences, and one prisoner was accidentally placed back in the same building in a different level, at which point the game was up.
But wouldn’t they just be like “…hey I was supposed to be released!” to their new team, and then we end up with the same problem?
I’m imagining that there are two prison systems, one for prisoners who believe that they are working out a temporary sentence and one for prisoners who know that they are in for life. Whenever prisoners complete their sentence in the first system they are transferred to the second system (perhaps in a different building altogether) and so everyone there knows that they have been lied to and they are in for life.
This gets screwed up if someone who was supposed to be released is placed back into the first prison system instead of going to the second, which may be what has happened with the prisoner on Level 2.
If the Empire was trying to trick a group of people into being prisoners for life, I imagine that pretending to release them only to give them a new sentence would only work once. Maybe the prisoners are ‘released’ only to be transported to the neighboring prison building for the remainder of their life sentences, and one prisoner was accidentally placed back in the same building in a different level, at which point the game was up.
Leia as Luke’s sister is already convoluted and unnecessary, but there’s nothing to be done about that unless you’re willing to remove a significant aspect of ROTJ. All this solution does is remove the convenient universe-shrinkage and replace it with something a bit more mystical. I agree that it’s not perfect, but what more could be done?
I assume the title should say ‘before the prequels were made’, and if so, then yes, I did. An amphibious creature seems at home in a marsh. That is not to say that he never left Dagobah, but I still can’t see a nature-loving person like Yoda feeling at home on Coruscant or in charge of the entire Jedi Order.
Neither Vader nor the Emperor seem to even suspect that Yoda had a hand in training Luke, so it feels very much like Yoda was solidly in retirement for hundreds of years before the events of the prequels, and his training Obi-wan was probably a quiet, spiritual affair much like Luke being drawn to Dagobah in the OT. I imagine a lot of the Jedi Masters, which were solely teachers before the prequel retcons, lived quiet secluded lives on worlds of their choosing, living in harmony with their creatures and people and in that way keeping the peace across the galaxy. Jedi Knights on the other hand were specifically warriors who used their Force abilities to serve the Old Republic, and as such would have to find training from other Knights or from Masters whom they could convince to train such dangerous, headstrong youth.
Perhaps Vader always intended to betray the Emperor, and if he had successfully frozen Luke he would have taken him to another location where he could be unfrozen and convinced to join him before seeing the Emperor.
Alternately, Vader could have initially intended to turn Luke over to the Emperor, but changes his mind when Luke escapes the trap and he sees how strong Luke has become.
This latest episode felt very THX1138, which was cool. Feels like something a younger Lucas would have written.
Glad to hear, Hal. The same is true for me, learning Java for a change. It’s good to do new things.
As much as I would like it, there has never been a search function. Your best bet to find something is to use a search engine with Originaltrilogy in the terms, or use one of the indexes stickied to the top of the subforums if you want to browse fanedits, for example.