Shopping Maul

Collipso said:

NeverarGreat said:

Collipso said:

If Luke went to the island to die why was there a map?

Maybe they suspected that Luke was looking for the First Jedi Temple, and the Church of the Force was the first group that actually figured out where that temple might be.

Luke need not be involved in the map’s creation.

I thought that the island was a super hidden place in an unknown region, since not even Han Solo, the guy that’s been flying around the entire galaxy for 60 years, knows any of the nearby system/plans.
But your explanation is good enough for me.

I recall that awful feeling way back in 1983 when, after much speculation about clones and other hopes and what-not, I suddenly realised that Lucas had no ‘plan’ and had been making it all up as he went along.

I’m getting that same vibe now…

Her intention wasn’t to blow herself up. She stayed behind to pilot the ship. yes, she knew there was zero chance of making it, but sacrificing themselves to save everyone else is a tactical decision. She was and Admiral and , Now leia is back, she relinquished her leadership and went back to doing what she does best. But do you really think 3P0 would have tuned the ship around and self sacrificed himself when push came to shove like she did? He was a coward. plus he wan’t a tactical droid so it’s doubtful he would have even come up with a solution like that in the first place. Nothing to do with “droids are people too”

You’re probably right. It just seems odd to me that, in a universe where anthropomorphic droids can basically emulate the work (and thought processes) of humans, there’s no way someone would self-sacrifice when a droid could do the job. As for Threepio’s cowardice, I’m assuming Threepio’s overall sense of loyalty would cancel out that aspect of his personality programming. Don’t forget he managed to warn Luke about Jabba’s trap-door, even while sporting a restraining bolt. The reason I pointed out Threepio’s actions in those first two films was to show that, when push came to shove, he was capable of being tactical as well as loyal.

Then again Obi Wan did say (in AOTC) that “if droids could think there’d be none of us here” so maybe I’m on the wrong track.

SilverWook said:

Shopping Maul said:

Matt.F said:

Holdo staying behind to be the ‘captain going down with the ship’ wasn’t well earned, as it was only really her ship for a couple of hours.

Someone on this site might correct me, but isn’t the Cruiser the same one that Ackbar commands in Return Of The Jedi? Having Ackbar stay behind to do the hyperspace ram would have been an epic end to a fan fave, far better than the derisory off screen death he recieved.

As for Ackbar not telling Poe the plan, that would be an easy fix - “loose lips sink battleships” and for a character who famously found himself in a trap before he’d be keeping tight lipped for sure!

I think the sacrificial lamb should have been Threepio. Firstly, it’s absurd that they didn’t use a droid for the final run. Secondly, I think Threepio has been woefully neglected as a character over the years. It would’ve been amazing to have Threepio go out in a blaze of glory. Imagine him saying something like “bravery is not part of my programming, but I will do what I must!” (or something)…

If there’s one thing Lucas never changed his mind on, it’s that the droids are supposed to be in all the episodes. I’d rather they keep it that way to the end of this trilogy at least.

Sure, but this series has already gone way beyond any vision Lucas may have held to.

The thing is Star Wars films always have those moments where the viewer is taken out of the ‘logic’ of the movie for whatever subjective reasons. For some it might be Starkiller Base, or Leia’s space-walk, or even ‘sound in space’. For me it was seeing Threepio boarding an escape shuttle while a respected leader was supposed to blow herself up for the greater good. It pushed the ‘droids are people too’ notion of the series over the line (IMO).

Which got me thinking about Threepio’s character overall. He was a pretty sassy dude in the first couple of movies - despite his overall demeanour. He sweet-talked Owen into purchasing him and R2, pulled that great stunt with the Stormtroopers in the control room (“they’re madmen! They’re heading for the prison level…”), and had a wonderful sense of camaraderie when it counted (“Stormtroopers? Here? I must tell the others!” or “Chewie, they’re behind you!”). Over the years he’s been relegated to just being a cameo figure like Nien Numb. Plus, Tony Daniels seems to be voicing a caricature rather than Threepio himself. When I first saw TFA, my wife turned to me and said “is someone else doing his voice now?”. He just doesn’t sound like he used to.

Anyway, I’m making too big a deal of this, but I really thought this could’ve been a great moment for ol’ Goldenrod. Maybe next time!

Matt.F said:

Holdo staying behind to be the ‘captain going down with the ship’ wasn’t well earned, as it was only really her ship for a couple of hours.

Someone on this site might correct me, but isn’t the Cruiser the same one that Ackbar commands in Return Of The Jedi? Having Ackbar stay behind to do the hyperspace ram would have been an epic end to a fan fave, far better than the derisory off screen death he recieved.

As for Ackbar not telling Poe the plan, that would be an easy fix - “loose lips sink battleships” and for a character who famously found himself in a trap before he’d be keeping tight lipped for sure!

I think the sacrificial lamb should have been Threepio. Firstly, it’s absurd that they didn’t use a droid for the final run. Secondly, I think Threepio has been woefully neglected as a character over the years. It would’ve been amazing to have Threepio go out in a blaze of glory. Imagine him saying something like “bravery is not part of my programming, but I will do what I must!” (or something)…

DrDre said:

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

That’s such an accurate description in my view. RJ mostly disregarded every setup of TFA. Take the simple example of Han telling Rey and Finn, that Luke went to look for the first Jedi Temple. Given that setup, and Luke’s emotional response at the end of TFA, you would expect he had gone there in hopes of finding some ancient wisdom to deal with the threat of Snoke and Kylo. The TFA script states:

“Older now, white hair, bearded. He looks at Rey. A kindness in his eyes, but there’s something tortured, too. He doesn’t need to ask her who she is, or what she is doing here. His look says it all.”

So, why did Luke go there? To die. If he wanted to die, and see the Jedi end, why go a place associated with the Jedi in the first place. Seems to me the FO would have found him eventually. Why not go to some random unknown Island? Why not kill yourself, if you’re so convinced it should all end? Why did he wear these elaborate white Jedi robes at the end of TFA? He sure seemed an almost mythical Jedi Master with the wisdom of the ages, waiting for the right person to arrive. That moment and the character of Luke have been completely deflated. It’s twists and shocks for the sake of it, all the while sacrificing the integrity of a classic character to prop up some new ones. Next we’ll learn Han and Leia beat Kylo as a kid. Shocking isn’t it. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

To be fair Han’s mention of the Jedi Temple was mere speculation from ‘those who knew him best’. I think the point being made in TLJ is that no-one really knew him after all - least of all us!

I actually like RJ’s take on Luke’s exile. I’ve always had issues with the way ROTJ ended in terms of the ethics presented, so I never saw Luke as a master of anything beyond making sure his Nazi father got a quick bedside conversion before the Death Star went boom. TLJ seems to have shaken that almost childish ROTJ notion of ‘good and bad’ and restored the more nuanced version of the Force implied in TESB.

I’m a little confused about the whole ‘map to Skywalker’ thing in TFA though. Why the hell was there a map then? If Luke really didn’t want to be found, why not just erase that chunk of the map entirely (if not the whole map) rather than have it end up on Max Von Sydow’s flash drive?

Also, Luke seemed to be doing something cryptic with R2 in TFA (presumably making R2 power down for a specific timeframe?) but now it seems he was just leaning on the little guy for support.

I’m still very much on the fence with this new series by the way, but it’s all very interesting if nothing else.

Mielr said:

Everyone has their own tastes, of course, but trying to explain to someone why they should like this film is too reminiscent of what went on during the Prequel era.

I either like a movie or I don’t. I don’t have to analyze it to figure out “oh yeah, you’re right! This WAS a good movie!”

I like the original-original trilogy. That’s it. I’m done with anything else star wars. They’ve finally lost me. I never thought I’d say that about a star wars movie with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, but…there you go. Even they couldn’t save it this time.

Hopefully the fox/disney merger will speed along an OOT blu-ray release, but other than that you can keep IX because I’m not interested anymore. 😕

I feel the same way to a somewhat milder degree. The way I see it is this - the first time I went ‘eh?’ at a Star Wars film was in '83 with ROTJ. But I was willing to tackle the mental gymnastics required (is that cognitive dissonance?) to make it ‘fit’. With the prequels it was even harder, but I made a good go of it before plotholes and midichlorians caused me to de-canonise them in my own nerdish heart. So I was left with the unaltered OT.

TFA was cool, hit all the right notes, but again I had to mentally flex around such stupidity as the Starkiller base and a slew of outrageous coincidences. I was okay with it. Now I was ready for a great SW film.

With TLJ I find myself going ‘eh?’ once again. The space casino plot makes no sense to me. Why the hell didn’t Laura Dern just tell Poe what the damn plan was? Why did Yoda look so ridiculous (we can recreate Peter Cushing but can’t duplicate a friggin’ puppet)? Did someone actually say ‘Godspeed’ in a SW film? Did we really need the cheesy ending with the stable-boy or is Rhian setting up his next trilogy Marvel-style?

I loved the Luke stuff. I loved the resolution of Rey’s parentage, the conflict she shared with Kylo etc etc. I loved the backstory behind Luke’s shame and his viewpoint re Jedi hubris. His final showdown and death scene were wonderful. But the rest? I just don’t know. My head-canon is edging towards sticking with the unaltered OT and calling it a day.

I’m possibly in the wrong thread (I’m still mulling over how I feel about this movie) but I don’t understand the space casino plot at all. It seems to me that all Poe and Finn did was go against orders and get a lot of people killed for no reason. Why didn’t Laura Dern just tell Poe what the plan was? And why didn’t they just get a droid to stay behind on the rebel cruiser? It could’ve been an awesome Threepio-sacrifice moment…

SilverWook said:

That’s an interesting idea! Would Gary want to record one for posterity and to preserve his side of the story? With itty bitty digital recorders you wouldn’t even need a studio for such an endeavor.

The thing is it wouldn’t have to be a bitchy anti-Lucas thing (nor would we want it to be). I just think Gary would do a great commentary given how involved he was with every aspect of the film’s creation. He clearly understood the mythology and was deeply immersed in the nuts and bolts of the entire production. The bonus would be the fact that, unlike George, Gary actually likes the films as they were!

Having watched a zillion SW clips, I didn’t think I’d go for this - but it was absolutely mesmerising! Thank you! This reminded me of a time when Star Wars was Star Wars. I get the same feeling watching the unaltered version of the film and (excuse the digression here) this only fuels my contempt for the unavailability of that film.

Loved the reference to ‘300 Wookiees’. I also loved how Gary described Leia’s royal influence over several planets. It kind of gave credence to his later claim of her ruling ‘what was left of her people’ in a discarded iteration of Revenge of the Jedi.

‘Novel written by George Lucas…’ - nice one!

It’s a shame the clip cuts off before Kurtz gets to explain how they’re struggling to get extra funding for some additional rocks in the Tatooine R2D2 scene. Maybe that’ll surface someday…

On a side note I’d love for Gary Kurtz to do a commentary track for Despecialised or the SSE/4K. Does anyone here have his email address?

Vey cool. I too am a fan of that series, and I recognised the covers you were paying tribute to immediately! Nice work!
The initial post-'77 series with Goodwin and Infantino was great fun in the sense that it looked and felt like a typical Marvel mag. Luke looked like Thor in the corner symbol, and the books had that great superhero vibe.
The post-Empire stuff was incredible, particularly from #49 onwards. The writing was so good that this is one of the reasons I found ROTJ to be disappointing.
Cool artwork - thanks for the trip down memory lane!

ray_afraid said:

But this is a problem with the PT, not the OT.
The PT dropped the ball on what was already established.
And it still makes more sense for him to appear as a perfect form of the good man he died as rather than the horrible, rotten kid he used to be.

I think this is what bugs me the most - the fact that Lucas chose to retrofit the OT to fit the PT rather than just simply honour what the OT had established.
In the case of Anakin he was originally supposed to be an older man when he died - hence the choice of the distinguished Mr Shaw. It’s the later decision to have ROTJ Anakin be in his mid-40s that makes the whole thing jarring from whichever perspective. Shaw is/was clearly older than 45, and Anakin reverting to his 23 year old self is even sillier. Lucas should’ve just stuck with the timeline and had Anakin be in his 30s for ROTS. That way he would be at least 55+ in ROTJ and the idea of Shaw being the older (and redeemed) version of the same guy would make perfect sense.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Shopping Maul said:

Vader did it to save his son, not to “kill the bad guy”. There’s a big difference there.

But that just makes Vader’s motives more selfish. Palpatine was slaughtering people by the shipload (not to mention subjugating an entire galaxy). You’d think Luke would be justified in taking this guy down. But no, all Luke could do was make sure he stayed Zen. Great if you’re scoring brownie points at a Buddhist retreat maybe, but not much help with the war effort.
Vader’s position was purely selfish. “Hey, no-one messes with my kid!”. He was merely protecting his own. How does this earn him instant Jedi nirvana?

Therein lies my problem with Vader’s “redemption”. Even if you can make the case that a mass murderer can absolve himself with one good act, Vader’s one good act was hardly selfless.

Exactly! At least in the case of the OT you could argue that Vader’s redemption was a personal one - that he died for his son and got to be a smiley ghost guy for that reason alone (ghost-Obi and ghost-Yoda’s fireside forbearance notwithstanding). But changing Shaw into Hayden opens the can of worms that is the prophecy of the Chosen One, the ridiculous ‘balance to the Force’ business, and a last-minute pardon for unspeakable war crimes that should make any Jedi-supporter uneasy to say the least.

But the bigger problem for me (slightly off-topic but…) is that Luke didn’t save the galaxy. After all that build-up, all that stuff about the quick and easy path, all that guff about ‘a new hope’ and ‘our only hope’ and ‘the other hope’ and everything else, all Luke did was keep his cool long enough for his mass-murdering old man to get a bedside conversion. I bet Luke brought the house down when he related his story at the Ewok luau.

The real saviour of the galaxy was Chewbacca. It was Chewie who hijacked a Scout Walker and turned the tide of the battle. All Luke did was make sure old Anakin went out with a smile.

Vader did it to save his son, not to “kill the bad guy”. There’s a big difference there.

But that just makes Vader’s motives more selfish. Palpatine was slaughtering people by the shipload (not to mention subjugating an entire galaxy). You’d think Luke would be justified in taking this guy down. But no, all Luke could do was make sure he stayed Zen. Great if you’re scoring brownie points at a Buddhist retreat maybe, but not much help with the war effort.
Vader’s position was purely selfish. “Hey, no-one messes with my kid!”. He was merely protecting his own. How does this earn him instant Jedi nirvana?

crissrudd4554 said:

I just say…actually nope. I gave my reason here.

crissrudd4554 said:

Having Hayden appear IMO makes Anakins redemption less meaningful and deceptive. It almost pushes the idea that had he survived we are to think he will just return to the whiny young Jedi he was years ago which I think most of us will agree wouldnt be the case. IMO the redemption is more about a man turning his back on evil for good than simply reverting to who he had been many years before. The spirit Luke sees is the redeemed man who saved his life, not the whiny arrogant Jedi who would ultimately turn his back on good.

I agree. Plus, the whole point of Vader’s redemption is/was the fact that Luke saw potential there. Obi Wan had written Anakin off entirely, going so far as to declare Anakin dead by Vader’s hand (so to speak) and inferring that Luke’s only choice was to kill Vader. Luke refused to buy into this alleged separation between Vader and Anakin. Luke turned out to be right. There was ‘good in him’. Hence Shaw being the logical ghost.

The bigger problem for me is the fact that Luke became a Jedi by throwing his weapon away and refusing to kill the bad guys - even as his friends were being slaughtered outside. Yet Darth somehow gets to Jedi heaven by killing the bad guy? Jedi ethics give me a headache…

For what it’s worth, when I first saw ROTJ in '83 I assumed the ghostly Shaw was appearing in Tatooine garb by way of symbolising a return to some sort of pre-war innocence. In the original canon (ie the novelisation of SW) Anakin had been a farmer like Owen, and was obviously recruited by Obi Wan for some kind of ‘crusade’. So I thought he was merely appearing in his old farmer duds for Luke’s benefit - kind of a “here’s how I would’ve looked if I hadn’t become a war criminal at the right hand of Hitler” type thing. It never occurred to me that Lucas intended that outfit to represent official Jedi threads (which is absurd IMO).

The bigger issue with the ‘Leia as other hope’ thing is the fact that she simply couldn’t have been an option at the time of Yoda’s original declaration in ESB. When Yoda said “there is another”, Luke was flying off to Bespin to rescue Leia - the same Leia whose fate Yoda could not see and who Yoda had just encouraged Luke to sacrifice for the greater good. She simply wasn’t an option at that point, sister or no.