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Scruffy

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29-Nov-2005
Last activity
31-May-2016
Posts
625

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Post
#207999
Topic
ITS HAPPENED-- OOT AVAILABLE FROM LUCASFILM
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/207999/action/topic#207999
Time
Not strictly correct. The Lord of the Rings is a novel divided into three parts, each part being composed of two books. The division into six books was Tolkien's, although he did hope to see it published in a single volume. When Allen & Unwin suggested the work be divided into three parts, Tolkien paired up the books with uncharacteristically few complaints (see letter 136).

If you want, you can refer to each book as a part, in the generic sense of the word, but that is neither in accord with Tolkien's private thoughts or his published words.
Post
#207681
Topic
FS: Han Shot First T-shirts
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/207681/action/topic#207681
Time
I guess because this is the only time Anakin has used the Jedi Temple phone system to call the Emperor and discuss mass murder. I do so like the provenance of this scene -- it demonstrates that the Jedi spy on all communications going out of and coming into the Temple, and keep copies of them (for blackmail?). They really are a wacko cult. I think the peg-knocking-down of the Jedi and the quasi-rehabilitation of the Sith/Empire was the one good thing, story-wise, in the prequels.
Post
#206675
Topic
FS: Han Shot First T-shirts
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/206675/action/topic#206675
Time
link

I'm not sure whether this is shameful theft of fan sentiment, pandering, ironic, or what. But it's definitely very cute -- they've coopted their traditional enemy's mode of speech, and are now whispering these familiar words back at us. And making a quick buck off it, too. Imagine any other establishment corporate giant taking the catch phrase of their most productive critics, putting it on a t-shirt, and selling it back to them.

Microsoft: The Power to Serve (for MS-BSD)

Xenu: This is What We Actually Believe (for Scientology)

GOP: No Blood for Oil (for drilling in ANWAR)

Taking your opponent's aggressive language and making it your own is one of the oldest defenses against such language. And corporate appropriation of grassroots slogans is one of the slicker techniques in marketing. Lucasfilm has impressed me with their wonderful ideological 180 and their relatively rapid adoption of the Han Shot First meme.

Note that the t-shirt has the roman numeral IV on the sleeve. Not very promising for a true, 1977 theatrical release, is it? We also see confirmation that the theatrical edition is just a bonus, for those who care about such things.

What do you think the next two in the series will be? Monkey Lady and Sy Snootles? An invisible wampa and an Ewok singing Yub Yub? A slimy, bad tasting Artoo and Sebastian Shaw throttling Hayden Christiansen? Eager minds want to know.
Post
#206247
Topic
The Official 2006 Discs Will Be No Better Than What We Have!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/206247/action/topic#206247
Time
You're not going to get the original film quality to DVD, since film and digital video are different formats. They are, literally, qualitatively different. They're quantitatively different, too, in the amount of information they contain. You can consider a 35mm film frame to have 3 to 12 million pixels (link), while a DVD frame has exactly 345,600 pixels. Not all of those pixels will be visible or carry image data -- the 1.5:1 frame is squeezed or stretched to the correct display aspect ratio, and the letterboxing on the top and bottom doesn't convey any useful information. Even if you prefer to use that site's number for average lines visible in a theater, that's still almost 60% higher than DVD.

On the other hand, a DVD should be made from a clean print, and you can control the viewing conditions, so the quality of your viewing experience may be better than what it was in the theater. Hard to tell.
Post
#206123
Topic
Idea: A New Direction - Special Edition Preservation?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/206123/action/topic#206123
Time

Assuming all turns out well this September, we’ll have the theatrical and 2004 editions of the trilogy available on DVD. All that leaves is the 1997 edition. The SE trilogy may well be the ugly pupa of Lucas’s metamorphosis, the unlovable middle child, or whatever, but it’s still a distinct version of the trilogy, and it hasn’t received much love and attention from the fan preservation community. There’s some DVDs out there, but they’re harder to find than the OOT, and they don’t seem to have been put together with the same eye to detail as the OOT discs. I tried to make a DVD backup of my VHS copy, but Macrovision defeated me. In the event that the 2006 OOT discs are all we’ve ever wanted, is there any possibility that attention would be paid to the 1997 SE?

Post
#179178
Topic
Unorthodox Star Wars Beliefs
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/179178/action/topic#179178
Time
Originally posted by: Scotty Balls
This has got to be the most idiotic thing I've EVER read. Nothing personal Scruffy, but I think you're insane.

Oh, don't worry. When people throw around words like "idiotic" or "insane," I don't take it personally.

As I've said before in a few threads on the forum, I really do not like the prequals or ROTJ.

It's spelled "prequel," you insane idiot.

See Threepio was not mindwiped at any time after his reconstruction by Anakin. -- YES HE WAS. It's obvious that he was.

I'm going to take the word of Curtis Saxton, published Star Wars author, over the word of the word of Scotty Balls, insane idiot. Things like this are only "obvious" if you look at them in the most superficial manner. Trained thinkers (e.g. astrophysicists) will look beyond the "obvious" and discern what is necessarily true, what may be true, and what is necessarily not true, then make only those claims which are justifiable, qualifying them according to their support. But why am I going to trust a published author with a PhD when I have Scotty Balls proving his "nerdity" to me by citing the "prequals?" I wonder.

In ANH, he has NO IDEA who Obi-Wan is, although R2 is FULLY aware of who he is, where he is, and exactly how to Find him. Granted, R2 was told by Leia to find him, but how is it possible for 3P0 (if he never had a memory wipe) to get lost on Tatooine, when he was CREATED there by Anakin.

Listen, you insane idiot. Tatooine is a PLANET.

You got that?

A PLANET.

If you think a machine programmed for etiquette and protocol is somehow going to contain the maps and glopal positioning devices to perform land navigation in the middle of a desert, two decades after it left said planet, you're insane.

"But he was built there, abuh, abuh." Drop yourself off in the middle of the Kalahari and find the nearest settlement. You were built on Earth, weren't you? It should be a piece of cake. (Better yet, don't go to the Kalahari. Have a friend drop you off in a random desert, then try to find a settlement. That more closely resembles Threepio's circumstances.)

NOWHERE is it stated that he was re-activated or re-constructed by Anakin. All we can assume is that Anakin found various pieces of different droids and then built 3P0 (read the Novelization of TPM for more info there).

So it is your contention that, instead of reactivating Threepio, Anakin fabricated the consciosness-bearing computer himself? Perhaps in Watto's chip fab plant? Damn, that's one smart kid. Or you're an insane idiot.

Threepio kept quiet because he had NO MEMORY of what happened in the prequals (that is proven in Luceno's recent book Dark Lord: The Rise Of Darth Vader).

I've already noted that Lucerno holds the minority interpretation, on this as he does on the RotS battlestation.

Oh no. You couldn't have missed THIS point more if you & the point were moving in opposite directions. "Balance" has NOTHING to do with numbers of surviving Jedi & Sith. How ANYONE can think that is beyond me. Let me try to explain this in a "modern day" situation. (you need to be a bit open minded to get this, and I'll ASSUME that you are). In modern society, The Government is in control, and the police enforce the law.

In my society, the people are in control, and the Government only exists at our pleasure. But I should've known an insane idiot like you would also be a statist.

As for how I got this idea, it was foreshadowed quite clearly in Episode I, and many people saw it. Your interpretation assigns a non-obvious meaning to balance, i.e. balance is what is good for the Jedi and imbalance is what is bad for the Jedi. Or, as you said, balance is the status quo. (Demonstrably false; if the status quo were balance, then the Jedi would have no interest in a prophecy to bring balance to the force.) We've seen no evidence that the Force has enough sentience to make moral distinctions between two violent, fanatical cults.

No. The Jedi were full of themselves, and misguided, but they certainly were not evil.

If you think the Jedi way is so good, I expect you to donate your infant children to a violent, fanatical cult that will train them to bear arms and hold fast to an ascetic religion. There are any number of nationalist or Salafist organizations in the Middle-east that will be happy to receive your child, as well as less prestigious organizations throughout the world with any number of ideologies. That way, your child will be raised to be an insane idiot, and can die on a damn fool idealistic crusade.

The job of the police is to go where the government tells them, and enforce the laws.

The job of the police is also to recruit potential members of majority age, of their own free will. The Jedi don't do that. (I note that the Jedi also do not obey the same laws you claim they are there to protect.) I really fail to see how anyone, other than an insane idiot, could draw parallels between heavily armed monks that wield practically Praetorian power, and a legally constituted and managed police organization.

the Jedi and Amidala collaborated to fake her death - Bullshit.

Actually, I used the word "fanfiction," but "bullshit" works just as well, I guess, as a description of something that is "not true." It's not as precise, but not everyone got scopes when they were handing out the language rifles.

As much as I HATE it (because it contradicts ROTJ), Padme is dead. There was no faking of her death. End of story. (Read THE DARK NEST TRILOGY to see how Luke finally finds out about his mother)


So the Dark Nest Trilogy is higher canon than Return of the Jedi, now? I guess I don't see why not; RotJ has been through so many revisions by now it's not dependable as canon. We should probably throw out ANH, too. I mean, it might contradict something in the New Essential Compendium of Cross-indexed Facts and Figures or something.

I try to reconcile everything, placing favor in what the films explicitly portray (not what they imply, hint, or circumlocute about) first, secondly in the majority text. You are free to stick with the latest and greatest "new light," if you want -- but if you take that radical position, get ready to snatch at and defend every little blip in the canon that comes along. (I invite you to lecture me on how the Republican clone army was only 3.2 million strong, "proven" by SW Insider. You are encouraged to compare the size of the Clone Army to published estimates of the Droid Army size, and the size of the PRC Army.)

You must have the attention span of a fly.


I've put up with you so far.

Zahn's books were brilliant.


Why?

Further more, Zahn worked VERY closely with West End Games (THE Authority at that time) to make sure there were NO lapses in continuity when he used established species, and technology. This brings me to our next point....


If WEG was "THE Authority," why did they so often go out of their way to thank employees of Lucasfilm, Lucasarts, etc, for their "knowledge, assistance," etc? If anyone but Lucas was "THE Authority" at the time, it was probably L.A. Wilson.

Anderson's books were enjoyable


*cough* No comment.

The Expanded Universe tells us that the Death Star Plans were in TWO PARTS.


Yes, thank you, I said that.

The X-Wing game was half, and Katarn retrieved the other half. (Listen to the NPR Adaptation of ANH for a little more detail as to how the plans get transmitted to the Tantive IV)


I did, many years ago. I don't recall Katarn being a major player.

Who the hell is Maarek Stele? Is he a video game character? He must be, because I've read EVERY EU Novel (except Outbound Flight) and ALL of the Rouge Squadron comics, and I've never heard of him.


Well, whoop-dee-sith, good for you. Now, go do your homework and look him up on Wookieepedia or Domus Publica. An Eighth Level Fan, Order of Unsurpassed Nerdity (Three Oak Clusters) like yourself should have already done that.

Scruffy, I hope I didn't offend you too much.


Don't worry about it. I deal with idiots all the time; I'm used to their ... extravagances.

But re-interpreting things to make yourself happy makes you (and anyone else that does it) just as bad a Goerge Lucas himself for fucking things up to begin with.


Er, no. George Lucas is denying people a quality transfer of the O-OT. I am not. I am constructing an imaginary experience based mostly on the published Star Wars universe. So are you; you're just so enthralled by the series of mediocre writers that Lucasfilm hires that you deny you have any part in the creative process. But I bet you do. I bet text evokes images and sound in your imagination, you have some biases that affect your perception of the text, and you even consciously select some texts to favor, some to ignore, and make up bridges to connect disparate "facts" in the text. That's what I do; I'm just more conscious, rigorous, and systematic about it. The result is a universe that stands up to more scrutiny, is personally tailored, and, frankly, is cooler than yours.
Post
#179009
Topic
Vader and Dark Empire Emperor Clones?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/179009/action/topic#179009
Time
Originally posted by: xhonzi
A little EU question for everyone here:

1) Did/could Vader have known about the Emperor's Clones as described in Dark Empire?

Possibly. At least, he was probably aware of the Deep Core enclave and his master's continuing research into the Dark Side. He knew Palpatine had an interest in achieving immortality. He may not have known the exact reason for Palpatine cloning himself. (Maybe for some kind of bizarre sex thing?)

On the other hand, the Deep Core is small enough that Palpatine could've populated it while Vader was busy on the rim, or subordinate to the Grand Moffs. I always got the impression that the Deep Core forces were loyal directly to the Emperor, outside the system of Moffs and Vader's shadow. In the event that Vader overthrew Palpatine and took control of the main body of Imperial forces, the Deep Core forces would launch a counterattack; if that was the plan, it would be good to keep it secret from Vader.

2) How does that change Vader's actions at the end of RotJ if he knew that he was (most likely) only destroying a clone and not the evil that is the Emperor?


It doesn't. Under the old continuity, all of Palpatine's transfers up to that point had been done in comfort, in the clone lab on Byss. Palpatine wasn't powerful enough to transfer his spirit from Endor to Byss; he ended up floating through the madness of the Dark Side for nearly a year before the Dark Lords on Korriban threw him a bone and helped him to a clone body. For all he knew, Vader was taking the Emperor out of commission permanently, and knocking out the subconscious influence he had over the Endor taskforce. That's what led to the sudden panic, confusion, and incompetence of the Imperial forces.

Under the new continuity, that was Palpatine's first body anyway. There was no precedent for him taking a new body. And the Endor fleet was coordinated by a Grand Admiral performing battle meditation in the Death Star, so the Emperor's death didn't affect the outcome of the battle.

(There's no clear delineation between old and new continuity here; old is just the original stuff, and new is retcons made over the last few years.)

3) What if Vader was hanging out with the Emperor this whole time on the promise that one day he would be ready to force transfer himself to a healthy clone the way the Emperor had been doing?


Then it was pretty stupid of him to toss the Emperor down an air shaft. When your boss has achieved apotheosis and offers the chance at immortality, you don't throw him down air shafts.
Post
#178998
Topic
Inserting deleted scene of Yoda's exile into ANH??
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/178998/action/topic#178998
Time
I place internal consistency over the author's intent. Lucas isn't even the sole author of the Star Wars films -- he collaborated with countless artists, designers, actors, etc. In the case of the RotS "Death Star," ILM for whatever reason modeled and rendered something that is not consistent with the Death Star of episode IV. Lucas can say that it is the Death Star, but that's not what's on the film. (And by film, I mean an some kind of MPEG file or whatever cinematic digital video is rendered as.) If he meant for it to be the Death Star, he should've gone to ILM and told them to get the proportions right. Saying that something on film is something it is not is the worst kind of Special Editionizing -- expecting us to accept a change that he hasn't even bothered to film.

If you'll forgive a reductio ad absurdum, where do you draw the line? What if Lucas says that Luke was actually a female cat-like being with four eyes and a prehensile tail? I mean, if Lucas says Luke is a female cat-like being with four eyes and a prehensile tail he is, simply, a female cat-like being with four eyes and a prehensile tail.
Post
#178985
Topic
Unorthodox Star Wars Beliefs
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/178985/action/topic#178985
Time
Recently, I posted my belief that, regardless of hints given in the movie, See Threepio was not mindwiped at any time after his reconstruction by Anakin. I have many more unorthodox Star Wars beliefs, and I will share my heresy with you.

The Prophecy of the Chosen One meant that the Lightsiders (Jedi) and Darksiders (Sith) would be brought into approximate numerical parity, or that a long period of Lightsider dominion would be supplanted by Darksider dominion, which averages out to balance over time. The Jedi Council did not understand this; they thought that "balance" meant the destruction of their enemies. Of the Councilors, only Yoda began to understand the truth in Revenge of the Sith ("A prophecy that misread might have been"). But there was one other Jedi who understood the truth.

Qui-Gon Jinn knew what "balance" entailed. He campaigned for Anakin's training, knowing full well that Anakin would, in all likelihood, kill all his friends and coworkers. Why would he do this? Perhaps he knew more about the Prophecy and the eschatology surrounding it than we do. Perhaps he was moved by the Force. Or maybe, Jinn was not so loyal to the Jedi as we have been led to believe.

The Jedi were evil and deserved to die. They had long ago given up their role as impartial guardians of peace and justice, moving their headquarters to the very capital of the Republic and acting as super-commandos for the government. They recruited young children (infants, by some accounts), initiating them into a warrior religion of asceticism, dogmatism, violence, coercion, and elitism. Personally, I found the concept of Jedi "younglings" sickening and offensive. When I saw children wielding lightsabers, I thought immediately of Palestinian children dressed as suicide bombers for their parents' zeal, and Yoda became a tiny green Hasan-i-Sabah training a junior hasshiya league. Rule by the Sith was preferable; at least Palpatine waited to recruit Anakin until the latter was old enough to shave.

After Anakin's rampage across Mustafar, the Jedi and Amidala collaborated to fake her death. Having been a principal of Naboo security for so many years, Amidala was well-versed in deception and disguise. Using some pharmacological compound, or perhaps relying on the Force prowess of her Jedi allies, Amidala entered a death-like state so convincing that it fooled even the medical droids on Polis Massa. (It is worth noting that those droids were probably not calibrated for human physiology.) It was those droids that certified Amidala's death to Republic authorities, so that she was legally "dead" when she was revived en route to her new home on Alderaan. A constructed replica, or perhaps a clone, was buried on Naboo to preserve the illusion. (This is heresy is the least supported by the published material. It's less an interpretation than outright fanfiction, but it makes the story work better for me.)

Threepio kept quiet after the destruction of the Jedi Order because he was programmed to be a valet to the rich and powerful and loyal to his Maker. Exposing any facet of Anakin's life while his Maker was still alive would be a breach of protocol, and against his programming. (Even if he was now owned by a young man with the same surname.) It was not a conscious choice that Threepio chose to make; he was a mechanism, and could not choose to act differently.

Moving on to the Expanded Universe . . .

Timothy Zahn's books are boring. Total snoozers. Not the worst I've read, but far from the best.

Kevin J. Anderson was right. The Empire would've built more superweapons. And so would the Hutts. The Soviets didn't stop after they built Tsar Bomba, and rogue states, friendly states, and terrorists seek weapons of mass destruction even today. To think that the threat of superweapons disappeared after Endor is naive.

Tales of the Jedi: Redemption was good. Probably the best in the series since Dark Lords of the Sith, and certainly the best of Anderson's solo books.

X-wing tells the true story of how the Death Star plans were intercepted and brought to the Tantive IV. Maybe Kyle Katarn had some peripheral involvement, but it was mainly the work of listening station Ax-325 in the Cron Drift and Keyan Farlander.

Maarek Stele is better than Soontir Fel. And certainly better than Wedge. The best Imperial pilot should be much better than the best Rebel pilot.

We all construct the Star Wars that we want to believe in. What are your personal heresies?
Post
#178937
Topic
Inserting deleted scene of Yoda's exile into ANH??
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/178937/action/topic#178937
Time
Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
I've read a lot of that, and it seems to have been written before Revenge of the Sith, since it misses a lot of plot points that occurred there, like Obi-Wan and R2 having a lot of direct contact with each other. And I really don't think that even George would write in that all-important mind wipe line if it wasn't actually going to happen. I mean, the whole point was to cover his ass.


No, it was updated after the publication of the RotS novelization. Lucas might've written the mindwipe line as a CYA, but...

a) Everyone else writing Star Wars material (except for Lucerno, apparently) is sticking with the the unwiped Threepio,
b) Lucas didn't confirm the mindwipe onscreen; it was just a bit of dramatic handwaving, like dumping Boba Fett into the Sarlac (is he dead? not dead? you decide!). It provides some (rather ham-handed) closure to the filmic continuity, but was done in such a way to allow (or even encourage) the unwiped Threepio in the greater canon, and
c) Saxton is much smarter than Lucas and has a better grasp of the Star Wars universe than he does.

The balance might shift the other way in the future, but right now, the preponderance of published, in-universe evidence suggests that Threepio's memory goes at least as far back as his reconstruction on Tatooine.

Next we can argue about the object Palpatine and Vader inspected at the end of RotS. Lucas and Lucerno insist that it was the Death Star; everything else published to date, reasoning, and simple observation suggest that it was not.
Post
#178177
Topic
What If Ian Had Said No To Appearing In Empire Strikes Back?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/178177/action/topic#178177
Time
I was hoping someone would bring that up. I really don't think there would be a breach of contract, because his contract, at the time, was for Revenge of the Sith, a totally different movie than The Empire Strikes Back, so I don't think he'd be obligated to do so.


I haven't read his contract, but if that's what it says, I guess that's what it says.
Post
#178050
Topic
I actually prefer the DVDs and can't wait for more edits, seriously.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/178050/action/topic#178050
Time
I wasn't able to figure out the difference between the two versions on MySpleen, either. I have the BLAK0019 - KCCI version. It's got a station identification briefly overlaid on the animated segment, but it's just there for a couple of seconds. The quality was quite sufficient otherwise. For the wothless dreck that is the SWHS, of course. (Okay, I kind of like the Bea Arthur and Jefferson Starship numbers.) It's heavily padded with extras, some of which are still commercially available, and some of which shouldn't be available anywhere. Oddly enough, it seems to be missing Bentframe's Flash toons; seeing Jabba sing "O Holy Night" in Huttese would've truly completed the experience.
Post
#177986
Topic
Why is Leia a princess?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/177986/action/topic#177986
Time
Originally posted by: ricarleite
Now, this brings an interesting thing to mind... didn't you guys noticed how well Leia took that her planet was destroyed, all her people was dead, including her adoptive parents? Couple of hours later she was joking around saying that Luke was too short for a stormtrooper...


A planet is small beans in a galactic empire. The usual number of member worlds bandied about is one million, from Lucas's novelization of ANH. Alderaan didn't appear to be a city-planet like Coruscant, but probably wasn't as sparsely populated as Tatooine, so I guess it had a pretty average population. So the destruction of Alderaan killed about one-millionth, or 0.0001% of the Imperial population. In contrast, the September 11th attacks killed about 0.001% of the population of the United States. If we extrapolate the US into the Empire, the destruction of Alderaan was on the order of an Oklahoma City bombing or a Port Chicago explosion, which were certainly big disasters, but not big enough to force reogranization of the government or anything drastic like that. Within the Star Wars universe, Alderaan's loss was tragic, but really minor compared to the destruction of the Clone Wars, the Sith War, or the Great Hyperspace War. As an Imperial senator, Leia was used to looking at the big picture, and probably hadn't spent much time on her homeworld in years.

As for the loss of her family, we really have no way to know how deeply Leia felt that. She remembered her real mother*, evidently since she was a very small child. This could have put a wedge between her and her adoptive family. She is also first seen wearing her hair in a Nabooian style (cf. Padme's hair in RotS); while she may not openly acknowledge her Nabooian heritage, she longs for it. And again, as an Imperial senator, she had probably adopted a sort of cosmpolitan, international identity. Notice that she doesn't speak with Bail Organa's clipped accent, but rather an Outer Rim (or at least non-Core) accent; she probably picked it up as a child, travelling with her father throughout the sector he represented, or from a Rim-born tutor.

Finally, she had undergone hours of interrogation, and possibly torture, by a Sith Lord. That's likely to leave one a little mentally unbalanced, probably kind of numb and hopeless. After the destruction of her world, she realized she would soon be executed. That's when things start getting funny. "Too short to be a stormtrooper" wasn't a joke, anyway; it was a cut, a feeble attempt to emotionally hurt the person who had come to abuse or kill her.

* Padme Naberrie Amidala, who FAKED HER DEATH and buried a decoy, in accordance with the fake-Amidala theme running through the first two movies.