Shopping Maul

Really cool thread and I’ve enjoyed reading all the posts - thank you all!

For me it’s a case of mostly agreeing with the general vibe - I liked TFA but the feeling kind of wore off, I didn’t like TLJ but it was very pretty to look at. Where I definitely part company with most folks is that I (to my genuine surprise) loved TROS and it remains my favourite SW movie since TESB. I just wish it had been called Revenge of the Jedi.

Bluto said:

Speaking of misheard lines, this one springs to mind from TESB:
“You truly belong here with us among the clouds,” said by Lando to Leia in Cloud City.

It wasn’t until relatively recently that I read the “among the clouds” on subtitles somewhere. For over 30 years, I thought he said, “You truly belong here with us modern class.”

Well when I was 9 I thought the Death Star was “orbiting the planet of maximum philosophy”…

Yes, it’s an alternate universe purely by virtue of being disendorsed by its creator. The way I see it, the original three films and any connected EU (Marvel Comics, Splinter, Zahn novels etc) are a completely separate canon that ends in 1997 at which point everything is rebooted.

JakeRyan17 said:

Yeah, that doesn’t work still. Her parents being nobody was about her not feeling like a part of this big and important conflict. Her grandfather being the biggest and most important part of this almost-century of conflict does contradict that. It contradicts her emotional arc of having to create self-worth, rather than her importance being externally from who her parents and grandparents were.

Her feelings of worthlessness don’t come across at all in Rise of Skywalker. It’s a feeling that she must be evil because Palpatine is evil. And overcoming that is literally what Luke already went through with Vader. It’s reductive to Rey as a character on a storytelling level, repositioning her again as a proxy for Luke rather than an autonomous character, and it’s also reductive to her arc that she already went through in Last Jedi to learn that she is her own person regardless of who her family was.

It’s just bad writing. Like it all you want, maybe it helps you with the accusations that she was a “Mary Sue” or whatever. It doesn’t make up for the fact that it was bad writing that hurt the character and story. Maybe that can and will be fixed, but it hasn’t been yet.

While I’ve enjoyed this thread immensely I have to agree with this. That said, as a huge fan of TROS, I like the ‘Rey as proxy Luke’ thing because it kind of goes where I wish the story had in ROTJ. Rey’s revulsion at her heritage, as well as the shocking manifestation of her inherited power during the Chewie incident, is much more convincing/interesting to me than Luke’s out-of-the-blue “there’s still good in him, I can’t kill my own father” routine. But this is purely because I view TROS in isolation as a defacto ROTJ reboot. In terms of being a coherent continuation of the previous film I think it’s a pretty blatant reversal. But the ‘Rey as nobody’ thing, compelling as it was in theory, didn’t cohere with TFA either. The whole ST is a hot mess really. It’s a shame…

I have no criticisms but I just wanted to say I’m looking very much forward to reading (and possibly discussing) this. Thank you!

I didn’t like it. I had an exchange about this with some folks here on one of the RO threads a while back. I think the actual premise is okay, but the film lines up poorly with ANH, the ‘reactor as deliberate sabotage’ thing doesn’t make sense to me, and the fan service is lame. I do understand why people dig it, but it’s not for me.

I enjoyed Dark Empire to a degree but it never felt ‘real’ to me. I only got halfway through Zahn’s first SW novel for the same reason. Ultimately it came down to the fact that RoTJ was such a conclusive ending in my view, so anything else just felt like more SW for the sake of it. More importantly, the EU emphasised just how dissatisfied I was with RoTJ overall. The ‘Leia as twin sister’ thing just doesn’t work for me at any level, so any continuation with ‘Leia as Jedi raising Jedi kids’ just seems like so much BS to me. I’m one of the few people I know of that genuinely enjoyed TROS as a legitimate piece of post-TESB Star Wars (every other movie since and including RoTJ has annoyed me at some level!) and it’s a shame that the Leia Skywalker thing is unavoidable in this case.

On a side note let me just thank ZkinandBonez, Rocknroll41, and Pakka for these great essays…it’s such fun nerding out with everyone here!

ZkinandBonez said:

screams in the void said:

also , Robert E. Howard deserves a mention in this discussion , he is regarded as the father of sword and sorcery and did a lot of world building for Conan’s world , as evidenced in his Hyborian age essay https://conanthecimmerian.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age Many fantasy authors imitated him afterwards , but never quite captured his spirit . Then there were the many many fantasy film cash grabs that came in the wake of the 1982 Conan The Barbarian film …

Yes, Howard’s another one of those guys that no one has ever quite managed to imitate or adapt to film. Now I do really enjoy the John Milius Conan film, but it really has very little to do with Howard. Unlike Lovecraft though, and despite often borrowing a lot of his ideas, Howard did have a tendency to add a backstory to everything so I’d definitely say he has more in common with Tolkien in that regard then with OT SW. Then again characters/creatures like Yag-Kosha are quite abstract in concept.

Does anyone know if Lucas ever made any direct mention of Howard work as an influence? I would assume he at the very least knew of the character as SW was written right at the start of the Howard boom in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

As a side note: I find it fascinating that Tolkien’s first published book was only one year after Howard’s death. People often forget that Howard did the whole world-building thing before Tolkien, that is, as far as what was publicly available.

Actually, I think the real parallel here is between Lucas and Milius. The thought processes behind Star Wars and Conan are remarkably similar - Milius wanted to create a believable ‘lived-in’ universe in the same way George did, and both were going for a real mythic quality. The ‘father’s sword’ motifs, the aged wizard - Conan even has its villain (played by James Earl Jones) deliver a ‘I am your father’ speech! And both productions had run-ins with Gil Taylor…
Conan and SW have pretty much the same poster art as well…

Really enjoyed reading this - thank you. I personally felt SW was being over-explained even as far back as ROTJ when incidental aliens were being given names (I preferred non-names like Hammerhead, Snaggletooth etc which left everything to my own imagination).

BTW the ‘Dreadnaugts firing on each other’ thing was done in ROTJ too. I dimly recall Lucas explaining it in a documentary (don’t remember which, sorry)…

Over-explanation of SW is one of the reasons I’m possibly the only person on earth who doesn’t like The Mandalorian.

Great read!

I’m assuming Hayden will play an unmasked Vader in some scenes - sitting in his meditation pod all scarred and bitter…

rocknroll41 said:

I just wrote a four-part blog series about how I think ESB is overrated. You can read part 1 here if you want (each part ends with a link to the next one): https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-real-reason-you-probably-dont-like.html?m=1

Really enjoyed your blog - thanks! I pretty much agree with everything you said - I guess where we part company is that I’m in that Harry Potter camp you described. I was 8 years-old when SW came out and 14 for ROTJ, so you can see why I’d be of a ‘grow with the audience’ mindset. In fact when my wife introduced me to Harry Potter, and we got to the final instalments, I was like “that right there is what Lucas should’ve done!”. So yes, I maintain that TESB is the best SW film (from my certain point of view) even as I agree with 98% of what you said. Thanks for a great read!

This will sound crazy but I just had the most bizarre flashback whilst watching TESB last night. I remembered (after 40 years!) that when I first saw TESB in the theatre and ‘Star Wars’ flashed up on the screen, I thought there had been a mistake and the cinema had accidentally loaded the first film into the projector. Of course the ‘Episode V’ thing followed and all was well.

It’s ironic given that we’ve been discussing the confusion of not having episode titles post-TESB but for me, however briefly, it was the episode title thing that threw me. Did anyone else have this experience?

StarkillerAG said:

Shopping Maul said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

Expecting or worse demanding the film not to get a subtitle to match the others is completely backwards. I just can’t wrap my head around the concept of people wanting to call it just “Star Wars”. That’s needlessly confusing and makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

As for the title itself I think it’s simple and elegant, and I like it.

It was called ‘Star Wars’ for 20 years and no-one got confused. Just saying’…

It was just called Star Wars for 4 years, actually. As soon as Empire started the whole subtitle thing, they changed the previous movie to make it match. And the “Star Wars” title may have worked in a time when it was the first Star Wars movie chronologically, but with the prequels I don’t think it makes sense. It just causes unnecessary confusion.

Yes, it was technically retitled in '81 but no-one bought into it. Even the video releases up until 1992 or thereabouts simply called it ‘Star Wars’. We bought ‘Star Wars’ action figures and ‘Star Wars’ lunchboxes and no-one said “hey, can’t wait to get ‘A New Hope’ on video” until the prequel era.

I’m not necessarily disputing the current logic of the subtitle but to say it’s backwards is actually backwards. Like all of Lucas’ retcons he should’ve crafted his future movies to be in line with what was established rather than roll with his usual ‘original intent’ crap. Star Wars was one of the most groundbreaking movies in cinema history and a) we can’t buy it on blu ray and b) we don’t know what to call the damn thing.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Expecting or worse demanding the film not to get a subtitle to match the others is completely backwards. I just can’t wrap my head around the concept of people wanting to call it just “Star Wars”. That’s needlessly confusing and makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

As for the title itself I think it’s simple and elegant, and I like it.

It was called ‘Star Wars’ for 20 years and no-one got confused. Just saying’…

StarkillerAG said:

Shopping Maul said:

Quite the contrary, I think ROTJ is a terrible film that only gets a free pass because it’s in the OT (just my opinion - I’m in no way seeking to insult anyone here!).

Well, you think TROS is what ROTJ should have been like, so I don’t think you really have the right to criticize other people’s opinions. (I’m not being entirely serious here)

As always no offence taken - I always enjoy our chats!

But you’re absolutely correct. I think all of the ST films are just copies of their predecessors (TFA is ANH, TLJ is TESB with a dash of ROTJ, TROS is ROTJ on steroids etc), but TROS is the only one that feels like an improvement on the original to me. I could probably go into why, but that may be a rabbit hole no-one wants to venture down…

Quite the contrary, I think ROTJ is a terrible film that only gets a free pass because it’s in the OT (just my opinion - I’m in no way seeking to insult anyone here!).

StarkillerAG said:

I understand that you don’t want to undermine the ROTJ ending (and that’s something I’ve struggled with as well), but I’m not sure that Mothma is the right character to make that happen. Ignoring her lack of screen time for a second, one of her defining traits is that she was part of the Rebellion from the beginning. She basically founded the beta version of the Rebellion in ROTS, and her biggest role was as the leader of the entire organization in Rogue One. I doubt that she would be an Imperial agent all along, given how long she’s been there.

The problem, then, is who should be the leader of the Rebellion? Maybe it could be some disgruntled Imperial leader, pissed that the Rebellion won so easily, and trying to rebuild the Empire to be stronger than before. Picture Moff Gideon from Mando, just with much more power and resources.

Well the formation of the rebellion in ROTS didn’t make the cut, so I’d place that in the canon alongside other such deleted scenes that don’t necessarily qualify canon-wise (ie Luke and Leia’s extremely romantic moments in the TESB medical centre or the conversations between Jedi in the prequels that were reshot in another locations). And I’m discounting Rogue One because obviously in my scenario RO would have been considered in the overall plan re Mothma. So my canon version is the 6 original movies as they appeared in the cinemas. In that canon she’s simply the nice lady in ROTJ who announces the Death Star stuff. But you might be right in stating there’s just too much overall lore surrounding Mothma (outside of the 6 films) to make it convincing.

StarkillerAG said:

Sorry about that, I edited the post. I was having a bit of a rough time last evening, so I guess I just wanted to vent my frustration. I just can’t see MON MOTHMA, of all people, being the real villain all along. I know she also had a bit role in two other movies, but I can’t imagine her being in cahoots with Palpatine the whole time.

Hey, caught your original reply (and no offence taken although I appreciate the support oojason!) - my reasoning is that any sequels really have to contend with the reality that ROTJ was a pretty definitive conclusion. The only possibilities are along the lines of the Empire simply reconstituting itself (like the ST) or there being an entirely new threat (like the SW comics did in the mid-80s) and neither idea is particularly compelling.

The Mothma idea (for me) serves the purpose of honouring the ROTJ conclusion entirely (unlike the Disney ST which is often accused of reverse-engineering both Luke’s and the rebels’ victory) whilst still planting a seed that could legitimately restart the whole fiasco. Mon Mothma (and bearing in mind I have no knowledge of Mothma/Bothan EU - I’m going by the OT alone and not including deleted prequel stuff or Rogue One) is enough of a beloved character to be a compelling figure in the New Republic of a sequel series. If she had been a double-agent in ROTJ (which I still maintain would make that “many Bothans died” scene really disturbing in a cool way) then she’d be in a prime position to logically orchestrate the other necessary elements of a sequel series - she’d have a legitimate beef with the rebels, she’d have the political clout to gather allies from within, she’d be close to Ben Solo and be a worthy corrupting mentor, and because she’s a beloved character it would be something of a shock to have her be the new Emperor (and a double-shock when ROTJ is revisited).

I never made it through the Thrawn trilogy, but it seems to me it was still a case of ‘Empire reconstitutes itself’ (I could be wrong obviously). Marvel in the 80s had space ninjas from outside the galaxy. The ST had Snoke who turned out to be a clone made by Palpatine or…something? I mean all of these stories - good and bad - simply exist because we want more Star Wars. I think the Mothma idea presents a legitimate reason for ROTJ to not be the final word whilst still preserving the integrity of its arcs.

I’d have the First Order being created on the sly by a female Sith Lord. In the end it would be revealed that she’s Mon Mothma, creating the First Order from within similar to Palpatine’s manipulation of things in the PT. The backstory would be that she’d been in cahoots with Palpatine all along, supplying the false information about Death Star II to the Rebellion in ROTJ (and killing the Bothan spies herself) in exchange for power at Sheev’s side. This trilogy would be her revenge for the Endor fiasco. As a trusted politician and friend of Leia, she’d be in a prime position to bend the ear of young Ben Solo, filling his head with tales of his grandfather and the glorious vision that was undermined by his bad uncle Luke. Her dual identity would echo Palpatine’s in the PT but in this instance the audience would be oblivious until the end.

The reason I’m sold on this idea is because it gives the ST legitimate ties to the OT that in no way undermines the ROTJ conclusion/victory but still gives valid reasons for the cycle to continue. It would also give that Mothma moment in ROTJ (“many Bothans died…to bring us this information”) a whole new dimension.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Luke and Leia being related is just as embarrassing as Rey Palpatine. Okay, well technically not as much since it didn’t contradict the last film, but the idea is just as cringey.

The Luke/Leia thing is infinitely worse than Rey Palpatine. Firstly Luke clearly had romantic feelings for Leia in eps 4 and 5. Secondly there was nothing whatsoever to indicate she was a Force-sensitive Skywalker all along. Thirdly it contradicts Yoda’s entire “too old to begin the training” thing since Leia hadn’t had a lick of training when he announced the ‘other’. And finally, the most overlooked one, Leia was a prisoner on Cloud City when Yoda said “there is another” - immediately after stating a) “now matters are worse” (meaning he couldn’t have known Luke or Leia would survive the Bespin fiasco) and b) he had just insisted Luke sacrifice Han and Leia for the greater good!

Rey’s being a Palpatine at least made some sense of the fact that she had godlike powers for no good reason.

Anakin Starkiller said:

You’re gonna to explain that one.

Sorry, was this directed at me? I probably didn’t explain myself very well.

I was responding to Omni and Sparky’s posts about where the saga fits thematically (and I would say tonally, logically etc etc) for some folks. Many people feel the PT doesn’t sit well with the OT, many think Star Wars should’ve stopped with the original movie, lots of people disregard the ST entirely, and some even see TLJ as a natural ‘ending’ and disregard TROS.

For me every SW film since (and including) ROTJ has been a bit of a mess in terms of fitting in naturally with ANH and TESB. TROS was the first truly immersive SW experience I’ve had since TESB in 1980 and, as a result, really feels like it exists in that universe. Since it’s basically a rip-off of ROTJ (but done better in my opinion) it fills that space in my head-canon that ROTJ once occupied in terms of wrapping things up.

Obviously this isn’t a ‘canon’ I could logically share. It’s not like I could play eps 4,5, and 9 to a stranger and have it make sense. It’s just a personal thing.

Omni said:

SW can be seen as completely detached from the other 8. It was the only one made without the ideas of the saga in place, and it shows. It really does stand alone and I can never watch it without getting the feeling that the story could well have been over at the end of it.

Lucas can say what he wants, I don’t see his 6 part saga as about “The Tragedy of Darth Vader”, but I get that, original film aside, it is a way one could see it. I’m not at all that bummed that the ST “trumped” that understanding, though. Thematically, however, I think the ST kind of falls short. It has one movie that left something to be desired (TFA) one movie that tried giving it all meaning through beautiful character studies and journeys (TLJ) and ??? (TROS), so depending on my mood, the Star Wars saga is either one movie long, three movies long, six movies long or seven movies long, with TLJ serving as an epilogue.

But then again, I think the question of the thread was already answered with great mastery by NFBisms and DominicCobb a couple pages back.

Back when I used to marathon the PT and OT, it always felt like Eps 4 and 5 just didn’t fit. ROTJ did, for me at least, seem to be in the same universe as the PT.
So when I saw TROS (with very little in the way of expectations) I was very surprised to note that it felt like a natural successor to TESB. It was as if I’d quit Star Wars in general after 1980, ignored the movies in between, and then caved and gone to see TROS. So my head-canon goes 4,5 and 9 - ridiculous as that may sound! I have to say though, if TESB wasn’t so damn brilliant I’d be a 'Star Wars ‘77 only’ guy for sure.

I love the ‘boy band’ helicopter shot of the Knights Of Ren arriving on Pasana (not being sarcastic, I do love the shot!)…

NFBisms said:

It’s pretty simple I’d think: Star Wars as a series is about storytelling, and the act of passing stories down. It’s rooted in a fun genre pastiche, with the original film(s) as a classic monomyth set in a storied world. The prequels then set out to deconstruct the ideals inherent in those stories from a more sociopolitical angle (The Empire rooted in capitalism, the classical masculine ideals are problematic, etc.) then the sequels tr(ied) to make sense of it all from a postmodernist perpsective: why are these stories important to us? How do you apply their lessons to real and imperfect people?

On every level, from Luke’s quest to fulfill his father’s legacy, to George’s borrowing of references, to even its cultural impact thereafter - Star Wars is about legends and how we interpret them. How the Jedi interpet their code, how Luke chooses to see his father, how Rey or Kylo see history, and their futures.

imo

I second the above - perfect post! Can’t believe I missed it.

SilverWook said:

Shopping Maul said:

SilverWook said:

I sometimes forget how physically and mentally grueling ESB must have been for Mark. Buried in snow, repeatedly slapped by a Wampa hand on a pole, dunked in a giant aquarium, weeks if not months on a mudhole of a set with only Artoo, a rubber Muppet and various live reptiles to act opposite of. Not to mention the Vader duel!

On top of all that, he and his wife were expecting their first child during production. That’s stressful enough without being the lead in a Star Wars film to worry about.

Plus the weight training which apparently he hated! Mark was in killer shape on Empire. I saw an interview somewhere where he said he’d assumed he’d have to up the ante for Jedi - get even bigger and wear an eyepatch! I’d have been all for it (it’s a Conan thing)…

Call me Luke…

‘Escape from Anchorhead’- I like it!