Shopping Maul

Voss Caltrez said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Voss Caltrez said:

Luke using the dark side to choke out the guards at Jabba’s palace.

Actually, this is one of the tidbits of ROTJ I do still like. It’s morally gray stuff like that the film needed much more of.

But who is Darth Henrietta? The Emperor?

Yeah. With the makeup, cackling, and aerodynamics, ROTS Palpatine brings to mind Henrietta from Evil Dead II.

Supposedly, it was done to make audiences unsure of whether or not Luke would become like his father, or stay on the good side. If that’s the reason, that’s cool.
But still, I thought that once you start down the path of the dark side, forever it will consumes you.
If he’s using the dark side of the Force, he must have been practicing it to some degree. And it’s like, why would he do that? How can you pick and choose when you’re going to use the dark side, and still not become evil?
And I thought the Force was only for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

I never saw Evil Dead II. I wonder if The Emperor would have been better if the actor had gone with the initial advice of doing the same type of voice from ESB?

Here’s what I don’t get - killing Palpatine because he is in the throes of annihilating entire shipfuls of sentient beings with a super-laser is ‘the Dark Side’. Killing Palpatine because he’s zapping your son with Force-lightning is ‘the Good Side’.

Sounds like BS to me…

Star Wars has been dying a little bit each day since it came into my life…

screams in the void said:

“No, Leia was definitely not Luke’s sister circa TESB. There are deleted scenes that illustrate this in spades - as well as the Marvel adaptation of the film. It was a love triangle, pure and simple.”- this is a correct statement and there are plenty of articles in publications such as Star Wars Insider , Starlog , Cinefex , Fantastic films etc to back it up as well as the making of books by J.W.Rinzler . I have many of these publications in storage boxes and will have to spend some time digging them up .

Did you ever see/read the ‘Clone Wars revealed’ article (not sure which mag - Fantastic Films? - or the exact title) that explained how Vader would turn out to be a clone of Luke’s father and Boba Fett was actually the original Skywalker in disguise? Obi Wan was a clone too (Obi-1). Pretty wild stuff. I remember a friend of mine, upon having just seen RoTJ, saying “meh, they should’ve gone with the ideas in that article…”!

nl0428 said:

screams in the void said:

"I don’t believe modern Star Wars films are descending into these types of gossip. I believe that the ones who are responsible for creating terms such as “Reylo” are fans and shippers (not to sound critical towards these fans). “…SOME of these fans are the ones I was talking about and not the films themselves . Also , Rey may have been told one thing during the production of TLJ but it would not be the first time a plot point was hidden from the cast , they told everyone except Mark Hamill that the famous line was " Obi-Wan killed your father !” . I do not believe they will turn out to be siblings , nor do I believe they are going to be romantically involved , but I could be wrong . To state that anything is Empiracal fact is just speculation . You yourself said that things you thought were one way , turned out to be another .That happened a lot in the Original trilogy as well …back in 1977 , I was SURE Luke and Leia would end up together and the comics even ran with that idea , sometimes even after Empire was out .Anything can happen going forward .lastly , and just a pet peeve that my slightly ocd self gloamed in on is the term " shippers " another one I wish would die . I have been on the planet 47 years and have only heard it used in the past few years . That , and “hot take” which is something that I reserve for after a high fiber meal .Good points you bring up though, and as the Dude says , it’s just like , our collective opinions man ".

You are right, all film is subjective. I feel that the reason why Luke and Leia ended up as siblings and did not become a couple was due to George Lucas’ decisions back then. There is a great book called, “How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,” which describes the behind the scenes involvement that was occurring throughout the franchise’s history. At the time, George was still not to sure whether he wanted them to be a couple, or as siblings. These thoughts must have occurred in George’s head when making The Empire Strikes Back. They had hinted at Leia being Luke’s sister by having Yoda referring to another, and her sensing Luke on Cloud City, despite Leia giving Luke a couple-like kiss in front of Han on Hoth.

No, Leia was definitely not Luke’s sister circa TESB. There are deleted scenes that illustrate this in spades - as well as the Marvel adaptation of the film. It was a love triangle, pure and simple.

Nor was ‘the other’ referring to Leia at the time. Leia was a prisoner on Cloud City when Yoda made the claim. He had even just encouraged Luke to ‘sacrifice Han and Leia’ for the greater good (after Obi Wan admitted that “even Yoda cannot see their fate”).

As for ‘Reylo’, I actually really like the way their bond is depicted in TLJ, even if the overall writing is suspect. I love how Kylo almost begs her to join him. It’s a great character moment for him that is disappointingly dashed when he reverts to his old temper-tantrum throwing self whilst engaging Luke and the rebels on Soth (salt-Hoth).

SilverWook said:

The only fuss I recall over Conan was the alleged use of trip wires on the horses, which director John Milius denies ever happened. Lots of horse owners in California, and I saw protesters with signs at one theater local to me back in '82.

Beastmaster came out three months after Conan, so I don’t see how it’s considered a knockoff anymore than The Sword and The Sorcerer which opened a month before Conan. And you had Thundarr The Barbarian on Saturday mornings two years before Conan even came out.

Remember when all those underwater movies came out around the same time as The Abyss? It just happens for some reason. Beefy guys with swords were suddenly in vogue in the early '80’s.

Sorry guys - perhaps ‘knockoff’ was the wrong word. The point I was making is that there was a glut of similarly-styled films around the time of Conan '82 that my peers (fellow students and adults alike) seemed to much prefer. I didn’t have the same experience with TESB (which everyone seemed to love).

yotsuya said:

I don’t for a moment think all the trolling, or even half, was Russians but I can see that in a political down time they might jump in and amplify the negative comments about the film. They might just be disgruntled Star Wars fans as well. I don’t really think it matters. You can tell from this thread that the negative opinions are very genuine. We could argue the percentage, but does that really matter. TLJ is devisive. I don’t think a Star Wars film has been this devisive since TESB. When it came out few found it as good as the original. Now we love it. Who knows what 10 years will do to everyone’s feelings about TLJ.

Is this really an apt comparison though? I’ll admit I only have my own perspective here, but back in 1980 I only recall lavish praise for TESB and a very excited fandom. Admittedly I ignored critics (they never liked the movies I did anyway) and I’m sure there were dissenting voices as with any film, but I honestly never sensed anything that rivals the polarising effect TLJ has had (internet notwithstanding). If anything I’d say RoTJ was the one that started any such rumblings of doubt.

On the flipside Conan the Barbarian '82 was often written off as garbage in the media, and my schoolmates all thought it was boring and much preferred knock-offs like ‘The Beastmaster’. However over time CTB has been hailed as a giant in the genre, so I do see how this can happen.

I’m assuming you’re referring to current versions of TESB? In the original 1980 film, Vader had already learned the name (and identity) of the pilot who had destroyed the Death Star and was hell-bent on tracking him down (for obvious reasons). The notion of the Emperor telling Vader who Luke was during the hologram chat was one of Lucas’ post-1997 tweaks and, typically, doesn’t make a shred of sense.

As Screams said above, Marvel had Vader learning Luke’s name during a raid on a Rebel stronghold. TESB as it stood merely left it to the audience to wonder how and when Vader had learned Luke’s name.

As for the opening crawl, I think it was just a way of defining Luke as a rebel leader rather than the naive farm-boy of the previous movie.

fmalover said:

R.I.P. Mr. Kurtz.

I would’ve liked to know what he thought of the ST, but sadly he has taken his opinions with him.

This is a cool interview with Gary (celebrating 40 years of SW) - he mentions Rogue One and TFA at about 1:07 (sorry, I don’t know how to do the instant bookmark thing).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHg17h3Jv9s

NeverarGreat said:

screams in the void said:

well , this is an interesting perspective I never thought of , don’t really buy it , but interesting none the less …https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-theory-shows-why-c-3po-is-the-secret-hero-of-star-1829149241

I think there’s evidence for this theory in the original movie, but after that he was written to be much more bumbling and less crafty.

I assume that’s because he was initially written as an oily used-car salesman type character, but Lucas finally conceded to Tony Daniels’ take on things. I like Threepio. He had some nice moments in TESB too, but I think he’s gotten a raw deal ever since. Daniels seems to be doing an impression of Threepio these days, rather than just being Threepio. He was (comparatively) edgier in the first two films I think.

The way I see it, Star Wars simply did what rock bands have been doing for years. Someone mentioned that heavy metal didn’t exist when Black Sabbath emerged. That’s true of so many bands. What the hell was KISS? Glam? Metal? Neither - they were just KISS. What were the Chili Peppers? Funk? Nope. Punk? Nope. Rap? Uh-uh. Just a weird mix of lots of stuff. I’m pretty sure Kurt Cobain didn’t say one morning “let’s invent a thing called ‘grunge’ - I’ll call up Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder and we’ll start a movement”. Nirvana didn’t do anything new, but they certainly were unique.

Star Wars is Star Wars.

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

Yotsuya (great thread by the way), do you happen to know the extent to which Lucas employed Joseph Campbell throughout the OT? Gary Kurtz claims it wasn’t such a huge factor until further into the series. I ask this because I couldn’t help but reflect on our back and forth re ROTJ. I’m not familiar with Campbell so this is pure speculation, but it seems to me that Lucas leaned more heavily on the mythical aspects of the story in ROTJ where he’d been relying on more ‘logical’ cues in the previous films. For example Yoda says Luke has to face Darth Vader in order to become a Jedi, but I feel that someone like Kershner would have had Yoda (or Obi Wan) preface it with the need for a Jedi to ‘face his deepest fear’ or something similar in order to contextualise/ground the idea (the prequels seem to attempt it with ‘Jedi trials’). Even Luke’s final battle (as I’ve been moaning about for some time!) seems to be more broadly metaphorical/symbolic than practical in terms of actually being of help to the rebel cause. I’ve also seen Lucas describe the Ewoks as the mythical ‘creature on the side of the road’, which was of course achieved with Yoda in TESB but realised with significantly more blatant cuteness in ROTJ. There’s even the moment where Luke says “I can’t go on alone”, clearly marking that point in the journey, whereas Obi Wan’s death and Luke’s being left alone in ANH were more or less written on the run.

It seems to me that Campbell/mythology was a factor in SW/TESB - along with westerns and Flash Gordon and all the other stuff mentioned in this thread - but may have taken a more blatant hold in ROTJ. Or am I, as Leia would say, “imagining things”?

Cambell’s work was based on myths and legends, but only relied on those in so far as they are the oldest, most persistent, and most iconic types of stories. He apparently studied stories from around the globe. But what his work entails are basically instructions for telling a story that feels old and taps into our deep cultural memory. I read most of it and as a writer it was informative, but full of things I didn’t need. So the myth part is not really part of his aim - he was aimed at getting to the heart of the story telling. ANH and TESB are filled with Cambell’s influence as Luke begins the hero’s journey. The entire OT is filled and Luke traveling along the hero’s journey. Ben even gives the ultimate goal in ANH when he tells Luke he must learn the force. Then after he dies he sends Luke to Yoda to be trained. So Cambell is there and has huge impact on the story from the beginning. And the Ewoks were just mini-wookies. That battle was originally supposed to be the Wookies against the Empire. I don’t see any more influence on ROTJ than the previous two films. I think he used it to a lesser degree in the PT and I heard that at least Rian Johnson used it for TLJ. I suspect that Lucas saw his use of Cambell as something more akin to fantasy without realizing that it was already a staple of science fiction.

The hero’s journey was a key element in the old romance adventures that speculative fiction was born from. It is key in the Planetary Romances of the early 20th century and the Space Operas of the mid 20th century. They obviously weren’t reading Campbell, but the were tapping into the myths and legends that were his sources. You can really see that in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings where Tolkien was drawing on Finnish, Norse, and English traditions, myths, legends, and folk tales and using them to create his fictional Middle Earth before Campbell ever published his work (1949). The first John Carter book follows the same pattern as well. Campbell just compiled everything you would need to know in one place and gave it meaning and reason. But Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Foundation, and Dune (Lucas’s known inspirations) are full of the western tradition of the hero’s journey and samurai movies are full of the eastern traditions. So he got it on all side and from all source and made it really strong and solid. Luke’s story is much closer to classic mythology like Hercules as a result. At least in terms of the beats of the story.

Thanks for that. I absolutely love Dune by the way. I reread it every couple of years - never gets old!

SilverWook said:

Astroboi2 said:

If science fiction is about how scientific advancements impact humanity, then Star Wars can’t be sci-fi. There aren’t any real humans. It’s just a bunch of aliens… with many that happen to look like humans and happen to speak english. It’s a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, so it’s got nothing to do with us.

Now, if they went the Battlestar Galactica route and said that these were our forefathers who would one day colonize earth, then I would argree that it’s sci-fi.

Not that I really care. Star Wars just belongs in the genre of Awesome.

You mean had colonized Earth. The final episode of the original series pretty much sets things taking place after 1969. Whether a few years or thousand years after is anyone’s guess. And Galactica 1980 doesn’t count. 😉

It reminded me of Hitchhikers Guide, where the Earth was accidentally colonised by hairdressers and PR people and other rejects from an advanced society…

Yotsuya (great thread by the way), do you happen to know the extent to which Lucas employed Joseph Campbell throughout the OT? Gary Kurtz claims it wasn’t such a huge factor until further into the series. I ask this because I couldn’t help but reflect on our back and forth re ROTJ. I’m not familiar with Campbell so this is pure speculation, but it seems to me that Lucas leaned more heavily on the mythical aspects of the story in ROTJ where he’d been relying on more ‘logical’ cues in the previous films. For example Yoda says Luke has to face Darth Vader in order to become a Jedi, but I feel that someone like Kershner would have had Yoda (or Obi Wan) preface it with the need for a Jedi to ‘face his deepest fear’ or something similar in order to contextualise/ground the idea (the prequels seem to attempt it with ‘Jedi trials’). Even Luke’s final battle (as I’ve been moaning about for some time!) seems to be more broadly metaphorical/symbolic than practical in terms of actually being of help to the rebel cause. I’ve also seen Lucas describe the Ewoks as the mythical ‘creature on the side of the road’, which was of course achieved with Yoda in TESB but realised with significantly more blatant cuteness in ROTJ. There’s even the moment where Luke says “I can’t go on alone”, clearly marking that point in the journey, whereas Obi Wan’s death and Luke’s being left alone in ANH were more or less written on the run.

It seems to me that Campbell/mythology was a factor in SW/TESB - along with westerns and Flash Gordon and all the other stuff mentioned in this thread - but may have taken a more blatant hold in ROTJ. Or am I, as Leia would say, “imagining things”?

SilverWook said:

Shopping Maul said:

I love the ‘tech’ speak of Star Wars. It’s so good and natural that it’s easy to take for granted - vaporators, restraining bolts, nav computers, protocol droids, sublight engines and so on. I remember Battlestar Galactica attempting the same thing in '78 with ‘daggits’ and a ‘languatron’, but it just didn’t flow like the SW stuff. Star Wars even managed to goof with parsecs and own it!

Galactica was renaming things we Earthlings were very familiar with though. Animals, measurements of time, etc. And they got away with curse words you could never say in a Star Wars film, and that’s no fracking felgercarb. 😉

Ha ha so true! And don’t get me wrong - I love BG. I just think it hasn’t aged nearly as well as SW, and this is down to Lucas’/Kurtz’ etc wonderful way of grounding the SW universe and making it feel so natural (sound was a huge part of this too).

And yeah, just got the theatrical version of BG '78 on Blu Ray and couldn’t be happier…

I love the ‘tech’ speak of Star Wars. It’s so good and natural that it’s easy to take for granted - vaporators, restraining bolts, nav computers, protocol droids, sublight engines and so on. I remember Battlestar Galactica attempting the same thing in '78 with ‘daggits’ and a ‘languatron’, but it just didn’t flow like the SW stuff. Star Wars even managed to goof with parsecs and own it!

RogueLeader said:
But yeah, when Poe is like, “this was the Death Star… THIS is Starkiller Base!", were they expecting the audience to be like, “Woah! It’s so big!” It’s like they thought Starkiller Base could work if we can make it even bigger and badder than the last two Death Stars!
I almost wish Poe had said, “This was the Death Star… and this was the SECOND Death Star… but THIS is Starkiller Base!”

I almost feel like pointing out the size just makes it worse, like they’re trying to make it seem like a bigger threat by literally making bigger, which feels like lazy writing. I wonder if the size had not been as drastic, or if there was just one massive hole in the base rather than a giant semicircular trench, it would be a little bit more acceptable. I think editors would be better off just cutting some of those lines and just go from “It’s another Death Star!” to “How is possible to power a weapon of that size?” More skilled editors could insert a gas giant or planet near Starkiller Base to establish the base as a moon to help deemphasize its scale, but it’s probably not that big of a deal.

Perhaps in the next one we’ll get “this was the Death Star, this was the second Death Star, this was the Starkiller base, and this is the Mega-gamma-explodie-base!!!..which I hasten to add is protected by a shield generated on the nearby forest moon of Epdor (which is populated by space-Wombles)…”

Ironically I was kind of okay with SK base in theory. There was a great Marvel SW story between TESB and RoTJ where the Empire built a new ‘Death Star’ by simply recreating the Ionic cannon and putting some stuff around it (as opposed to building a whole moon). SK seemed like that to me - a great cost-effective way of building a superweapon without splashing out on housing. The minute Poe said “this was the Death Star…this is SK base…” the whole thing collapsed for me, because even the ‘built’ bits were much bigger than the Death Star.

Then when the whole sucking suns dry and hyperspace viewing etc etc stuff kicked in I was like “please make it stop”. It’s a shame because I do like TFA, but there’s some incredibly stupid writing in it.

yotsuya said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

yotsuya said:

MalàStrana said:

For myself I would say I don’t hate any of them and I would, some day, rewatch every single one of them, but I can’t pretend that I like TPM, AOTC, R1, Solo, TFA… (I like some of them when propertly fan edited though) I can enjoy them, find qualities, rewatch a few sequences and be glad to see the “SW soul” supplement in them compared to the average blockbuster, but I honestly don’t like all of them. As a whole, it’s different, and maybe the “I-IX” experience may give the Saga something more as a complete movement than what just separate entries do.

ATOC and TFA are the only ones I did not fully enjoy on my first viewing. Both have segments that just took me right out of the film and derailed the story for me and I have never been able to recover from that. Both need a good fan edit (I would do it very lightly with as few changes as possible) to bring them up to the nearest stories. I cannot say I hate any of them, but those two I have the most profound issues with. Though in contemplating it, one of my issues with TFA has led to a personal retcon that solves a lot of issues for the entire Star Wars universe. Still, it would be a better movie if that was not needed. And the sections of ATOC are just bad and need to be axed.

Indeed AotC’s bad bits, while pretty bad, are relatively harmless. It doesn’t uproot the story or universe. It’s just bad scenes and/or dialogue that can easily be cut. It’s not the same as the problems some people have with TLJ or that I have with RotJ that come from taking the saga in an infuriatingly terrible direction. Granted, some of the problems are also the sort of harmless, easily removed, stuff with no implications down the line, like AotC, which just makes them even worse.

Out of curiosity, what is the headcanon you mentioned concerning TFA?

Both TFA and TESB have some issues with the use of the word system. Take it as it is typically meant, that of a star system, and both those movies are derailed by science. But if you take that to be a planetary system (a planet and its moons) you can have the Millennium Falcon fly from Hoth to Bespin in a reasonable amount of time and you can have the people on Takodana watch the destruction of the Hosnian system without it being completely impossible. But even in the same system, watching the destruction of the Hosnian system stretches believably too far for me.

I assumed Han and co. being right next to the Republic planets with a good view of their destruction was simply another outrageous TFA coincidence (along with Han finding the Falcon and then saying “Jakku?” as if he didn’t realise he was in Jakku’s system at the time)!

BiggsFan44 said:
I agree with you in practice, it’s more of a logical problem for me. It’s like, Episode 7 kind of implies an embrace of the previous 6 movies.
It’s like if Harry Potter 7 was clearly a response to the percieved failings of the first 3 Potter movies.

I guess the difference is that Harry Potter was never a nostalgia trip. It was done in a clear uniform episodic stream, whereas Star Wars ended in 1983, was reborn in the late 90s and ended again in 2005, and now reborn in 2015 and beyond. So with each ‘rebirth’ has been a pressure to juggle nostalgia with forward motion and try to accomodate everything in between. And each rebirth has resulted in some fans falling by the wayside and/or not agreeing with the direction taken.

I get your point though. It’s annoying to have been a fan of a series, and have the new mantra be “well that sucked, let me fix it for you”. Don’t forget that Lucas did a similar thing when he retooled the OT to suit his prequels, and then set about erasing the unaltered OT from history! Luckily, like I said earlier, Star Wars canon is easy to take a la carte.

BiggsFan44 said:

Shopping Maul said:

BiggsFan44 said:

Shopping Maul said:

BiggsFan44 said:
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.

But Star Wars has been disrespecting its own canon from day one. In the first film Luke, who had an obvious crush on Princess Leia, was the son of a war hero who’d been killed by Darth Vader. In the next film Lucas suddenly decided Vader was actually Luke’s father. Then he decided that Leia was Luke’s sister, the Emperor was a different bloke to the one we’d seen in Empire, and Luke had supposedly been ‘hidden’ at the family homestead and with Dad’s old surname intact no less! I haven’t even started on the prequels yet!

“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”

“Uh, well, ‘remember’ is such a strong word…”

I’m really not being clear, apparently.
That’s not the kind of disrespect I’m talking about. Lucas retconning his work doesn’t mean that he disagrees with those works, it just means he thought up a new story element.
For example, George does not feel about ANH the way JJ feels about the PT, I’m sure.

Lucas absolutely retconned his work because he disagreed with earlier works. If you don’t believe me, go purchase an official Blu Ray release of the unaltered OT and tell me who shot first.

Closer, but still not what I’m talking about since he didn’t change Han’s character in the sequels, just superseded it in the movie it happened in.
The CANON isn’t at war with itself in that instance because only the SE is currently canon.

The point I’m making is that Star Wars has never truly had a cohesive canon. Only ANH and TESB make total canon sense (obviously TESB not having to answer its own questions is an advantage!) but from there on its the proverbial dog’s breakfast. We all have our own canon boundaries as a result. For me things start getting ridiculous as early as RoTJ. For you it’s clearly anything that negates the PT. Some just relax into the overall story (like Yotsuya’s wonderful post) and disregard cgi/puppet disparities and/or niggling details. Abrams himself has publicly claimed that ‘Han shot first’, so he clearly doesn’t care that the SE is ‘official’ canon. Rian on the other hand happily calls Palpatine ‘Sidious’ and drops some clear PT homages in TLJ. To each their own. Star Wars ‘canon’ is like a buffet. Choose the bits you like.

BiggsFan44 said:

Shopping Maul said:

BiggsFan44 said:
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.

But Star Wars has been disrespecting its own canon from day one. In the first film Luke, who had an obvious crush on Princess Leia, was the son of a war hero who’d been killed by Darth Vader. In the next film Lucas suddenly decided Vader was actually Luke’s father. Then he decided that Leia was Luke’s sister, the Emperor was a different bloke to the one we’d seen in Empire, and Luke had supposedly been ‘hidden’ at the family homestead and with Dad’s old surname intact no less! I haven’t even started on the prequels yet!

“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”

“Uh, well, ‘remember’ is such a strong word…”

I’m really not being clear, apparently.
That’s not the kind of disrespect I’m talking about. Lucas retconning his work doesn’t mean that he disagrees with those works, it just means he thought up a new story element.
For example, George does not feel about ANH the way JJ feels about the PT, I’m sure.

Lucas absolutely retconned his work because he disagreed with earlier works. If you don’t believe me, go purchase an official Blu Ray release of the unaltered OT and tell me who shot first.

BiggsFan44 said:
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.

But Star Wars has been disrespecting its own canon from day one. In the first film Luke, who had an obvious crush on Princess Leia, was the son of a war hero who’d been killed by Darth Vader. In the next film Lucas suddenly decided Vader was actually Luke’s father. Then he decided that Leia was Luke’s sister, the Emperor was a different bloke to the one we’d seen in Empire, and Luke had supposedly been ‘hidden’ at the family homestead and with Dad’s old surname intact no less! I haven’t even started on the prequels yet!

“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”

“Uh, well, ‘remember’ is such a strong word…”

RogueLeader said:

And speaking of this scene, as well as Return of the Jedi in general, I think Luke being vulnerable for the briefest moment and allowing Vader to read his mind and learn the truth about Leia actually serves a really great purpose.
To me, this really is the biggest reason why Obi-Wan and Yoda had to lie to Luke about the truth about his father, and why he wasn’t “ready” for it. Yes, I think there is a simple answer, Luke wasn’t emotional mature enough, but also imagine if Luke had told Vader from the beginning and then Luke had an encounter with Vader. That would be all Luke would be thinking about, and a young, novice Luke would practically be holding a sign above his head reading “I’m your son!”

Luke needed to be prepared to “bury his feelings deep down”, and I think they would have eventually told him if things had gone differently. I just don’t think they ever expected Luke to become a hero so quickly as to have Vader try to find out who he was. In a different scenario, I think they would have tried to train Luke in hiding until he was ready to face him, but the Force obviously had other plans.

I really like this explanation. In fact, the Marvel version (and presumably the original script) had Yoda saying “Obi Wan would have told you long ago had I let him” which is a good line. The idea that Vader’s mind-reading act was a truth-deterrent for Yoda and Obi is a nice way of justifying the flexible backstory.

Incidentally a wonderful prequel edit called ‘The Blackened Mantle’ has Anakin begging Obi Wan to kill him (while Anakin’s catching fire on Mustafar) and Obi says something like “my brother is already dead. You killed him”. This gives great credence to Obi Wan’s notion that Vader had ‘murdered’ Luke’s father. Beats the heck out of “from a certain point of view…”

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

RogueLeader said:

Shopping Maul said:

If Vader and Palpatine knew they intended to replace one another, then why all the song and dance about recruiting Luke? Why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill Palpatine in that first instance?

This is something I have also been thinking about lately. I think Vader and Palpatine always knew that they would both want to use Luke to take out the other, but they both didn’t necessarily want to reveal their hand either. For them, it’s like playing a game of chess.

And while I don’t think either of them ever had the intention of ruling the Empire as a triumvirate, even with the existence of the Rule of Two, it hasn’t stopped the Sith from having dark side acolytes before, such as Ventress or the Inquisitors.

But I think after Luke chose death over joining Vader in ESB, Vader no longer believed he could turn Luke on his own. He needed the Emperor, and the Emperor says as much in his first scene with Vader in ROTJ.

And I think Vader’s extreme loyalty to the Emperor in ROTJ is partly because he may not want to reveal his intentions while the Emperor might be close enough to easily sense them. On the other hand, it may just simply be that Luke’s decision to fall to his death over joining his father may have affected Vader’s own confidence in his power. Maybe at this point Vader truly feels what he says about the Emperor, especially after being his servant for so many years, and the events at the end of ESB set him back into that mindset.

But my question, like you brought up, is why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill the Emperor when Luke took that first swing at him? I mean, the Emperor even says that if he killed him, his journey toward the darkside would be complete. My only guess is that Vader knew that it would require more than that to turn Luke, and the Emperor was just toying with him in order for him to initiate aggressive combat. Luke really needed to see that the darkside was power, and he wasn’t there yet.

You’re right - I guess there’s no reason the ‘rule of two’ can’t accomodate the occasional third wheel! I just think it’s a shame Lucas made it so blatant. It detracts from the obvious but still terrifying idea that Palpatine intended for Luke to replace Vader all along. But I like your assessment of the whole situation.

I guess my beef is that there’s no subtlety in any of this. We praise Luke for resisting the Dark Side, but it’s not such a big deal when the bad guy is repeating “yes, yes, turn to the dark Side, good, good”. Similarly with Vader, Palps spends the whole exercise taunting the guy and saying “see? He will never be turned, it’s too late for him” before stating outright that Vader’s job is up for grabs. I mean what was Vader going to do once Luke was dead? “So, uh, all that stuff about replacing me? You didn’t actually mean that…did you?”…

It would have been so cool if all of this had been more like the prequel temptation - with Palpatine offering Luke power and an end to war in exchange for total allegiance. Vader would be trying to get Luke on his side and seize power as well (before his change of heart). The whole ‘just make Luke angry’ thing is so disappointing to me. If the Dark Side really is as simple as ‘don’t get mad’, then Jedi in any form are a liability and shouldn’t be encouraged! Jake Skywalker might not have been so wrong…

Anger is the quickest path to the dark side so making Luke angry was just a short cut. Neither Vader nor Palpatine knew that Luke had been trained by Yoda.

Yes, but how would that help Palpatine? Luke’s anger was entirely directed at Palpatine (for killing Luke’s allies and friends) and then at Vader (for threatening his sister). If Luke were to ‘turn’ evil and stay angry, doesn’t it logically follow that he would kill Vader outright, kill the Emperor, and then rule the galaxy on his own terms? There’s just no logic to the notion that he would submit to Palpatine as a result of this. Anakin was at least bound by the fact that he’d crossed a line in killing Windu, and this played into his self-delusion about the righteousness of opposing the Jedi (which in turn was fed by the notion of saving Padme). Now that’s a seduction. Why would Luke - now driven by supposedly evil passions - suddenly think teaming up with Palpatine was a good idea? “Sure, I’ll be your apprentice. Why not? Could you stop killing my friends please?”

In TESB Vader at least offered an “end to this destructive conflict”. That’s temptation. Palpatine had nothing to offer Luke beyond “hey kid, be evil with me” even as he was obliterating Luke’s friends. There could’ve at least been some dialogue along the lines of “be my apprentice - I will end this war immediately and we can usher in a new era of peace” or something similar.

Anger alone is unsustainable. That’s why Anakin had to be groomed until he finally did something that he felt he couldn’t go back on. You can see it in his eyes when he turns that he’s not convinced of his own actions, but he’s gone too far to turn back. Even if Luke had killed Vader and regretted it, it doesn’t follow that he would sign up for Vader’s old gig. If anything he would have continued his rampage in despair - killing Palpatine and then allowing himself to go boom with the DS. Again, I can’t see how he would be convinced/inclined to team up with the Emperor, even if he had ‘submitted’ to anger and killed Vader.

RogueLeader said:

Shopping Maul said:

If Vader and Palpatine knew they intended to replace one another, then why all the song and dance about recruiting Luke? Why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill Palpatine in that first instance?

This is something I have also been thinking about lately. I think Vader and Palpatine always knew that they would both want to use Luke to take out the other, but they both didn’t necessarily want to reveal their hand either. For them, it’s like playing a game of chess.

And while I don’t think either of them ever had the intention of ruling the Empire as a triumvirate, even with the existence of the Rule of Two, it hasn’t stopped the Sith from having dark side acolytes before, such as Ventress or the Inquisitors.

But I think after Luke chose death over joining Vader in ESB, Vader no longer believed he could turn Luke on his own. He needed the Emperor, and the Emperor says as much in his first scene with Vader in ROTJ.

And I think Vader’s extreme loyalty to the Emperor in ROTJ is partly because he may not want to reveal his intentions while the Emperor might be close enough to easily sense them. On the other hand, it may just simply be that Luke’s decision to fall to his death over joining his father may have affected Vader’s own confidence in his power. Maybe at this point Vader truly feels what he says about the Emperor, especially after being his servant for so many years, and the events at the end of ESB set him back into that mindset.

But my question, like you brought up, is why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill the Emperor when Luke took that first swing at him? I mean, the Emperor even says that if he killed him, his journey toward the darkside would be complete. My only guess is that Vader knew that it would require more than that to turn Luke, and the Emperor was just toying with him in order for him to initiate aggressive combat. Luke really needed to see that the darkside was power, and he wasn’t there yet.

You’re right - I guess there’s no reason the ‘rule of two’ can’t accomodate the occasional third wheel! I just think it’s a shame Lucas made it so blatant. It detracts from the obvious but still terrifying idea that Palpatine intended for Luke to replace Vader all along. But I like your assessment of the whole situation.

I guess my beef is that there’s no subtlety in any of this. We praise Luke for resisting the Dark Side, but it’s not such a big deal when the bad guy is repeating “yes, yes, turn to the dark Side, good, good”. Similarly with Vader, Palps spends the whole exercise taunting the guy and saying “see? He will never be turned, it’s too late for him” before stating outright that Vader’s job is up for grabs. I mean what was Vader going to do once Luke was dead? “So, uh, all that stuff about replacing me? You didn’t actually mean that…did you?”…

It would have been so cool if all of this had been more like the prequel temptation - with Palpatine offering Luke power and an end to war in exchange for total allegiance. Vader would be trying to get Luke on his side and seize power as well (before his change of heart). The whole ‘just make Luke angry’ thing is so disappointing to me. If the Dark Side really is as simple as ‘don’t get mad’, then Jedi in any form are a liability and shouldn’t be encouraged! Jake Skywalker might not have been so wrong…