Servii

SparkySywer said:

Servii said:

jedi_bendu said:

I do think the sequel trilogy feels like a strange add-on to the saga because Anakin’s story ended in ROTJ and you’re just repeating a conflict which already happened. What I would have done it market it as a new saga. You have the Skywalker saga, TPM-ROTJ, and then the sequel saga, whatever it would be nicknamed. Even though I’ve never been fond of George’s idea of the correct watching order and like to view the original and prequel trilogies as separate entities.

But at the same time, it’s not really fair to the OT to try to retroactively frame it as just “the second half of Anakin’s story,” when it’s a lot more than that.

Not sure if you’re arguing against me, but that’s kind of my point. The OT isn’t the second half of Anakin’s story, it doesn’t work as that in the first place and treating its other aspects as side plots kind of undermines the OT.

No, I’m agreeing with you. It’s reductive to try to reframe the OT as just “This is the story of how Anakin got redeemed.” That’s just one part of it.

I’d love to see that alternate timeline where George made further sequels in 1986, 1989, and 1992. That would be really interesting. I wonder how well that would have worked.

No, I don’t hate Ewoks. And the movie doesn’t work if they’re edited out unless someone were to shoot whole new scenes.

purseon said:

I just realized that Return of the Jedi probably doesn’t mean Luke. It means Anakin going back to being a Jedi when he saves Luke and kills the emperor at the end.

That’s why the title is brilliant. It can mean either of those things. Or it can mean the Jedi, in general.

I’d say so. I do have an attachment to them. At the time, I didn’t realize how significant they were or how valuable they’d become. I hadn’t heard George’s words, so I didn’t realize what a big deal it was for him to relent on this, however half-heartedly and passive aggressively he did it.

Once I became fed up with the further changes on the Blu-rays (and I noticed the glaring problems with the 04 versions), the GOUT became my default way to watch the films for many years. I just couldn’t go back to the late 90s CGI pasted onto a 70s film, so I just stuck with my GOUT copies, though the low quality probably caused me to watch the films less often. In hindsight, if I had known what George had said in that MTV interview, I would have watched those copies more enthusiastically. I know that George is a good, charitable, kind-hearted man, but he really comes off as smug and out of touch in that transcript.

sade1212 said:

Slow down the pace of TROS by including cutaways to a grandfather telling the story of the movie to his interrupting grandson, a la The Princess Bride.

But the grandfather is just R2D2 in a hat and fake mustache.

I remember Mark Hamill saying that line again in the radio drama version of Empire, but in that, he pronounces it “tat-ooine” like I’m used to.

Thank you for making this thread. All the fan misconceptions about the OUT have been a source of frustration for many of us here. It’s good to have those misconceptions be cleared up in a comprehensive way.

jedi_bendu said:

I do think the sequel trilogy feels like a strange add-on to the saga because Anakin’s story ended in ROTJ and you’re just repeating a conflict which already happened. What I would have done it market it as a new saga. You have the Skywalker saga, TPM-ROTJ, and then the sequel saga, whatever it would be nicknamed. Even though I’ve never been fond of George’s idea of the correct watching order and like to view the original and prequel trilogies as separate entities.

That would’ve been the best option. Play up this idea of TFA as “a new beginning” and have that be the start of a new saga.

As it is, the Sequels have changed the saga in an unintended way. When Star Wars was just the OT, it was Luke’s story. When it was the PT and OT, it was retroactively made to be Anakin’s story. Now, with the nine movies we have, the real central character of the saga is Palpatine. It’s the Palpatine Saga.

I agree about the OT and Prequels as separate entities. Watching in release order, it shows how George’s perception of his own story changed over time, which to me is really interesting. But at the same time, it’s not really fair to the OT to try to retroactively frame it as just “the second half of Anakin’s story,” when it’s a lot more than that.

TPM: Age up Anakin, ensuring that he can be played by the same actor in all three films.

AotC: Give Count Dooku more screentime and character development.

RotS: Reinstate, in some form, Padme’s subplot with the dissident senators.

ANH: Remove C3PO’s line about how he “can’t abide those Jawas. Disgusting creatures.” It’s just a bit morbid, since moments before, 3PO was piling Jawa corpses on a pyre.

ESB: Tone down Han and Leia’s bickering. (That includes her kissing Luke.)

RotJ: Edit the final battle so that Vader goading Luke about how “It is the only way to save your friends” comes at the same time that Han and Leia’s lives are most in danger.

TFA: Give Finn a more serious, soldier-like demeanor.

TLJ: Luke lives.

TRoS: Luke trains both Rey and Finn on Ajan Kloss.

Rogue One: Have the Death Star Plans be actually transmitted to the Tantive IV, which is not at the battle.

Solo: Make it a comedy.

The prequel fandom is less a fandom around these three movies and more a fandom of the internet headcanon these movies spawned.

Well, that’s the sequel fandom, too.

The whole “Release order vs. Chronological order” debate could really be a thread in itself. I’d read that. In fact, I might start one.

Darth Malgus said:

Actually the Star Wars Galaxy is our galaxy, and we never see the Earth in Star Wars stories simply because our planet is in the Unknown Regions, and therefore it was never discovered by the Republic or by all the other galactic governments. The classic intro “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away” is NOT written from our point of view, but from the point of view of an extragalactic (extra-Milky Way) civilization that lives in a very distant future.

Also, TCW, The Bad Batch, Rebels, Rogue One and The Mandalorian are TV series and movies, exactly like in our real world. I mean, what really happened during the Clone Wars and during the Empire Era is told in the Expanded Universe books and comics, while TCW, The Bad Batch, Rebels, Rogue One and The Mandalorian are simply TV series and movies created within the Galaxy itself, to tell in an entrataining way the events of Galactic history. These series and movies contradict the real history because they are entertainment products, and therefore don’t have to be historically accurate. These series and films were created by the Galactic Alliance between the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War and the Sith-Imperial War of the Legacy comics. They are the equivalent of “Inglourious Basterds”, “Vickings” and “Rome” in the Star Wars universe, that is, they are series and movies that are set in times that have really existed and tell some real stories, but they mostly contradict the real history because they’re entertainment series, and therefore they don’t have to be historically accurate and meticulous.

I like this.

That’s the thing, though. The reason they announce these projects so early is specifically to drum up fan hype (and to make the brand look appealing to shareholders). That’s why they announced Rian Johnson’s trilogy before TLJ came out, and why they announced Benioff and Weiss’s trilogy before Game of Thrones Season 8 came out (then quietly shelved it after the reaction to season 8). They were jumping the gun to make these grand statements about their future movie plans, and in the case of Benioff and Weiss, it looked they were just trying to grab onto the Game of Thrones hype train at the time, not actually considering whether those two were even the right fit for Star Wars. (Which they definitely aren’t.)

As for Rogue One, I still wonder whether the reshoots actually made the movie better or worse. With Solo, I’m almost certain they made it worse. Both films were meant to be more experimental and push out of the genre confines of what a Star Wars movie could be. But it seems Lucasfilm got cold feet and wanted to rein those projects in and make them more conventionally Star Wars. In a way, the “anthology film” concept has been repurposed into those Disney+ series, which I think is a good move. I’ll give them credit for that. That allows for more experimentation and takes away the pressure of box office performance.

Marvel does have plenty of source material, but so does Star Wars. Since Marvel seems like more of a tight ship overall, I’d say the best comparison to Star Wars would be the DC movies. DC is really in a similar predicament of just trying things out, cancelling things often, and not being sure of what direction to take going forward beyond just “People liked that character. Let’s give them more of that character.”

But, of course, the main problem here isn’t the cancellations themselves. It’s the premature announcements that are designed to drum up hype, then never go anywhere.

Sorry, I don’t know why it posted twice.

Rodney-2187 said:

Servii said:

This keeps happening. It’s like clockwork.

This is starting to get embarrassing. And it doesn’t reflect well on the company. They really need to be more sure-footed about the projects they announce.

Like clockwork? Embarrassing? How so?

When you add them up, we’ve had a lot of cancellations coming out of Lucasfilm.

Josh Trank’s Boba Fett movie, the follow-up to Solo that Kathleen Kennedy spoke about in interviews, Colin Trevorrow’s Episode IX, David Benioff and Dan Weiss’s trilogy, Rian Johnson’s trilogy (possibly; it seems to be on indefinite hold), the Rogue Squadron movie, and now this. There might be one or two I’m forgetting, also.

Not to mention the production troubles and last-minute retooling of Rogue One, Solo, and Rise of Skywalker (and The Force Awakens, of course, was written at basically the eleventh hour, when the sets were already being built).

Other big franchises have this happen from time to time, but not nearly as frequently. Star Wars is an anomaly, in that regard. When Star Wars projects keep falling through or having major behind-the-scenes trouble over and over again, it starts to indicate a pattern of dysfunction and indecision. That’s why it reflects poorly on Lucasfilm. It makes it look like they’re just taking shots in the dark. I can see why a lot of directors and writers wouldn’t want to work there, too, since you don’t know if your creative vision will even end up intact by the end.

Also, it makes it hard to keep getting excited about new projects that get announced when you know there’s a decent chance they won’t happen. It would be better if they held off on making those announcements until the projects are definitely happening.

This keeps happening. It’s like clockwork.

This is starting to get embarrassing. And it doesn’t reflect well on the company. They really need to be more sure-footed about the projects they announce.

Dub over Watto’s voice with a Wallace Shawn soundalike.

"Haha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war on Felucia,” but only slightly less well known is this: “Never go in against a Toydarian, when death is on the line!”

Change the music during Anakin’s slaughter of the Separatists to Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.

I don’t really have a strict personal canon. For me, it’s more like “tiers” of canon, like what we used to have with the old EU. So here are my “tiers”:

A-tier: Unaltered Original Trilogy
B-tier: Prequel Trilogy, Special Editions, Movie Novelizations/Radio Dramas
C-tier: Good Expanded Universe stories
D-tier: Bad Expanded Universe stories
E-tier: Fan films/fiction

Disney canon (including TCW) is a separate entity, in my mind. Though I could also put Rogue One and Mando Season 1 into C-tier.

When they park the Landspeeder outside of the Cantina, in the same shot when Obi-Wan says “The Force can have a strong influence on the weak minded,” I just now noticed R2 (or rather Kenny Baker) struggling to pull himself off the speeder and stand upright. 3PO walks over while this is happening, like he’s about to try to help but doesn’t quite get the chance.

This is the edit I’m most interested in seeing, because it sounds like it’s going to be more drastic in scope. I look forward to hearing more about it.

Oh man, you’re right. They must have been trying to copy that gritty, washed out look. That look works for Rogue One and Empire, in my opinion, but not for Solo and the other OT films.

It is very odd to me. I mean, I prefer the lower contrast and more subdued colors compared to the over-saturated mess we had since 04, but it just seems like a rather abrupt reversal of what George apparently wanted the films to look like. The fact that the planned 3D versions went back to the 1997 masters rather than just using the Lowry remasters again suggests that they knew what they had used in 2004 and 2011 was subpar.

Darth_Zounds said:

Excuse me if someone already said this, but cut in ANH, one of those recent videos titled “Obi-Wan has PTSD.” Personally, I think “Obi-Wan Remembers” is a more fitting title.

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN0_LKsuO8c

I actually think something like this would be great if you were making a “post-prequel” edit of the OT for watching chronologically.