Such are the perils of flying by the seat of your pants!
Haha, basically the motto for the entire franchise’s production!
Some of the vintage speculation I read in various magazines about how Episode 6 was going to go was pretty out there and would sound a bit crazy now. Boba Fett being the other for example.
Is that related to the old theory about Boba Fett being Luke’s mom? Haha.
My prediction of how the audience might view this in hindsight is that TFA and TLJ will feel like an overextended prologue while TROS will be this mega movie, the one you skip to (RotS anyone?), backed into a corner and ultimately too bloated to gracefully end the ride smoothly, if even intact.
Sounds like it will fit right into the saga then!
Speaking of Ewoks, if the wrecked Death Star is in fact the Death Star II and that planet is Endor, a small part of me would love it if Warwick Davis briefly reappeared as an old battle-scarred Wicket, now the chieftain of his tribe, who has grey, matted hair, is blind in one eye and is missing an ear. Maybe 3PO could use his god credentials and ask them for directions to the Haunted Coast!
I had totally overlooked it too, and it only occurred to me when I was watching a clip of that sequence. I think this last change should cover it though.
It is pretty irrelevant, but I think we should dub this ‘new’ wookiee Attichitcuk.
It doesn’t? I know that you can see Chewbacca and Tarful’s legs briefly in that scene. Are you just leave them as-is since we don’t see their faces?
Is there anything you guys are excited about for IX?
Hal, does your edit cut the shot of Yoda dropping his cane in shock during the Order 66 sequence?
Snoke was three ugnaughts stacked on top of each other under a golden trench coat.
With some of the more recent leaks/rumors I’ve seen, it got me thinking this morning more about Palpatine’s return and how it could potentially recontextualize the entire saga. It is a bit scary to think about, depending on how they pull it off, but honestly I don’t think I’m worried about it anymore.
I was rewatching Ian McDiarmid’s scene’s from ROTJ the other day, and thinking about them again made me realize that, if we do see him, it is going to be CRAZY to see him again as the Emperor onscreen. Think about it from McDiarmid’s perspective. In his late 30s, he got to play the old “ruler of the universe” in a few brief scenes in one of the biggest franchises of all time, and he thought that would be it. Then George comes back to him 15 years later and asks him to play the same character again in three more films. What’s even better is that since Ian has gotten a little older, and the movies take place decades before the original trilogy, he’s the perfect age to reprise the role.
Then those films wrap in 2005 and McDiarmid officially hangs up the black robe. Or does he? Flash-forward another 15 years, and sequels to the original trilogy are being made. Not only that, but they want him back AGAIN to play the Emperor in the last film in the saga. Now, being 74, Ian is actually much closer in age to the old Emperor, and he might appear as he did onscreen almost 40 years ago.
It’s just crazy to think about, and honestly one of the more unique performances an actor has gotten to experience over the entirety of his career. I think that alone will be enough for me to sit back and enjoy it in the theater. It just something I could have never imagined happening.
I appreciate your positive view on it, Haarspalter! I like how that little moment made you feel like it gave that Imperial officer a bit more depth than your average officer.
Another thing this made me think of is if Han had a last name before this moment. Han mentions that his father used to build YT freighters, so he wasn’t always an orphan. And Han makes it sound like he ran away from home, if I remember correctly. With that in mind, you would think Han would know what the officer meant when he asked him, “Han… what? Who are your people?” Was Han just being a little melodramatic in that moment, or had he also abandoned his family name when he left home?
I guess my point is that Han must have had a last name he was born with, and he knew about it, but for whatever reason chose not to recognize it. So when the officer suggested ‘Solo’, Han chose to go with that rather than correct him. Han voluntarily abandoning his family name makes more sense to me than there being a lot of single-named orphans running around, otherwise there could potentially be a lot of ‘Solos’ in the galaxy! And it seems like that was the first time the Imperial officer encountered a recruit with no family name, which to me means that other misfits and orphans who come to join the Empire usually, if not always, have a first and last name.
I know I am looking into this too much but I do think it is interesting! It’s fun to look at things in the Star Wars galaxy from an in-universe perspective.
Or maybe.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Han.”
“Han… what? Who are your people?”
“I don’t have people… I’m solo.”
“-Solo. Approved.”
The Imperial Officer does not care. He here’s ‘I’m blank’, and that’s all he registers. Gotta keep that line moving. So all you have to do is change ‘alone’ to ‘solo’, and Han, in a way, accidentally names himself.
I love the color in that Anakin photo, the darkness plus the red hair light. Do you think you could apply this color to that whole scene? Maybe the motivation could be that Palpatine’s lightning blows out the lights.
I didn’t even realize you could subscribe to individual threads, and I’ve been a regular on this site for about 5 years. My brain just totally ignored the subscribe button.
There’s really no winning with Star Wars in my opinion, it’s all so personal and perceptions change, and the next generation of fans will have a custom experience. Always in motion is the future.
I completely agree. Feels like they can’t please one group without upsetting another! But that’s why I’m trying to be optimistic about JJ’s apparent “F@#% it!” attitude while working on IX.
Even if that was a feasible idea, if Luke stole Rey’s thunder and came all the way to Starkiller base to face down Kylo Ren, what would the entire plot of TLJ be about?
I mean, they could still do it if they were that adamant about having the Shaw-Ghost in the film. Kylo could just say, “Grandfather?” and the audience would put two-and-two together.
But then again, JJ did have Ewan come in and do a few lines, like “Rey”, which they didn’t use, and “These are your first steps” which you can hear at the tail-end of Rey’s lightsaber vision in TFA. It’s also possible JJ was convinced, by public opinion or collaborators like his co-writer Chris Terrio or Kathleen Kennedy, that including Hayden could help tie the trilogies together and make IX feel like a culmination of all nine films, rather than just the OT.
But like I said, I would be surprised if we got a scene of Force-Anakin passing down some exposition to our heroes. A similar, brief cameo to what we got in ROTJ seems a lot more likely to me.
I personally think a Watsonian argument for a young Force ghost Anakin is irrelevant. If JJ wants the Sebastian Shaw version of Force ghost Anakin, they’ll make a hamdwavy explanation for it like they did to explain how our heroes could see Starkiller destroy Hosnian Prime from across the galaxy. I think a director’s concern for canon is low-priority. The story group can just say, “Well, Force ghosts can take whatever shape they want, and Anakin decides to be his older, redeemed self at this particular moment, so it doesn’t contradict the SE ending of ROTJ.”
I can see JJ making this decision. But it does come with a few cons when you look at it outside of his own personal preference.
First of all, they might need to use CGI to recreate a version of Shaw-Anakin, like they did for Tarkin in Rogue One. To me, the biggest issue would be that anyone who grew up watching any post-2004 versions of ROTJ are used to seeing Hayden-Anakin as a Force ghost, and probably wouldn’t even recognize who he was at first.
On the other hand, having Hayden come back as Force ghost Anakin has some benefits. He will be immediately recognizable as Anakin to even the casual Star Wars fan. They could just film Hayden as he is now, since he has not aged dramatically in the past decade+ since filming Revenge. While some fans might rolls their eyes at the addition of Hayden, a lot of younger fans who grew up with the prequels and Clone Wars will likely appreciate the addition, especially since online sentiment towards the prequels seems to have turned around slightly in the past few years.
To me, audience familiarity is strongest argument for Hayden to play Force ghost Anakin.
I definitely can see arguments for or against that choice. I do think if you try to look at it objectively, having Hayden return as Anakin seem to be the most likely option, if Force ghost Anakin even appears at all (I would surprised if he did anything more than pop up briefly). Even if JJ might initially want old Anakin, I could see how he might be persuaded otherwise for those reasons. Sorry if I’m just reiterating what has already been said.
Maybe Force ghosts can control their own appearance, so he can canonically appear as either version of himself.
Kylo Ren looks so cool here. I remember reading him described as a “dark prince” in an early TFA leak or merchandising description, and I think it is so fitting. The grandson of Darth Vader accomplishing what he never could. I just love the idea of the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia becoming the Emperor of the galaxy, however brief his rule may be.
The small resistance that struggles to reunite the shattered Republic is being led by none other than his own mother. And his greatest threat left, the last living Jedi, might be someone who he has complicated feelings for. The greatest students of Luke Skywalker, at odds, with the fate of the galaxy in their hands.
Sometimes I wish I was a kid again. I would probably be playing with my toys, imagining Supreme Leader Ren conquering the galaxy while Rey, Finn and Poe go on adventures to find allies and fight stormtroopers. At night I would read the books and novelizations while curled up in my bed without a worry in my mind. Just counting down the days until I get to go to the movies with my dad and I found out how it all ends.
I’m totally sold on it. That’s pretty impressive work. It makes me wish we saw this old, gray Wookie more!
At the very least, Filoni introduced Novikov self-consistency principle-style time travel. Basically, it is time travel, but they can’t really alter the past. What happened, happened. The Prisoner of Azkaban is a really good example of this.
A part of me likes to think Filoni introduced time travel this way to Star Wars so “what happened, happened” are the canon rules and no future writers can write canon stories that change the past! Pretty clever I think.
I’m pretty sure Battlefront 1 or 2 has sound bytes of random Abednedo language gibberish. Maybe someone could replace the human dialogue with that, and also add subtitles that can establish a different context for why they’re in trouble.
I think that might go beyond what Hal wants to do with his version, but it could be something for other editors to think about.
EDIT: Here it is https://youtu.be/9jb3F18dmdo
Some of the first lines are more like war cries, but the further you go into it the more normal-toned lines there are.
I really like this version. You kept just enough of the coin gag to be funny, but not overstay its welcome. I would say you could possibly throw in two or three deleted shots as well to help create a sense of time passing, but I think it still works as-is.
In that case, I think poppa’s current version of those shots, cutting Chewie from the first scene and recoloring him in his brief second scene, is probably one of the better versions to go with.
I think the hands-on-hips movement Mayhew does in the first scene is a very Chewie-like characteristic, so it would still feel like Chewie even if he was recolored in that scene, imo. And like you said, Hal, we can just infer that another Wookiee general has showed up in between scenes when Yoda gets attacked. It is just so brief that I think a hypothetical new viewer wouldn’t even think twice about it. But his extended appearance and mannerisms in the first scene might make people question it more if he were to be kept there.