Shopping Maul

dgraham414 said:

Anyone have thoughts on the apparent Death Star wielding star destroyers that the Sith troopers are apparently a part of. With red ties and everything. Seems dumb and I hope it’s not true

The idea of having ANOTHER Death Star just makes me sad. Even if it is like 5 small ones it’s still lazy. No more planet killing super weapons. Please…

Before scrolling down to other comments I thought you meant the Sith Troopers were wearing actual ties! I was like “eh, they’re in business suits now? That’s lame…”

And there was this gem…

https://makingstarwars.tumblr.com/post/42857438667/1980s-fantastic-films-collectors-edition-20

SilverWook said:

Fantastic Films did a series of articles attempting to predict what would happen in ROTJ. This is the only issue I could find.
https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Films_028_April_1982_vol4_no4_c2c-Tranzor-HQS

I know I harp on about this, but it’s interesting how the author has issues with Leia being a possible ‘other one’ because Yoda had dismissed her while she was captive on Bespin. This has always bugged me…

I was also a believer in a big connection between Palpatine and Obi Wan (mainly because I thought Guinness had played the original Emperor in TESB). I also like the idea of a major confrontation in an Imperial city rather than a rehashed Death Star.

That was a great read, thanks!

yotsuya said:

What I see as the crux of this saga is how the Skywalker family has ended up as the linchpin in the Sith/Jedi conflict. So in some way the Skywalker family will end the age old Sith/Jedi conflict once and for all. The other thing I see is a fundamental change in understanding of the force. We have always taken Ben’s word from ANH that there is a dark side and light side to the force and the dark side is inherantly evil. What if that is not the case and the evil comes from how it is used. So if the Skywalker family can end the conflict and if Rey can start a new tradition of balanced used of both sides of the force, there will be no further conflict in the Galaxy, at least not for a very very long time (more like 3000 years instead of 30).

And what I see in the ST is a bunch of ideas floated in the EU (I haven’t adjusted to calling it Legends) and distilling them into an epic story to finish up the Saga. The Thrawn trilogy esentially did exactly what the First Order is doing, but lacked the dark side force master running things. Palpatine came back in a way in the EU. There were other dangers as well. So this trilogy has a lot of familiar things that I see no need to question. I was not a big follower of the EU, but I kept up on what the major books were about and read quite a few of them. I’ve also watched all of Clone Wars and Rebels. I try not to bring any of that up, but it does provide a lot of insight into where Lucasfilm may be taking the Saga, at least in terms of the force. There has been a big emphasis on balance, which cropped up in TLJ. And also having read the old Marvel comics, the original Star Wars scripts, and a bunch of other things, I’ve seen a lot of Lucas’s discarded ideas come back and seen just how much of the Star Wars universe has come from outside the films (and ended up in later films). So while Lucas as stated that the force is not like yin yang, the way things are moving very much make it a yin yang with the users being good or evil or even neutral. TPM introduced balance into the film canon and now it is time to see what that really means.

When it comes to Snoke, we already know that he is the leader of the First Order which rose from the ashes of the Empire. It has not been covered, but likely from a industrial complex on the outer rim where they at first kept the Empire alive and then decided to reconquer the galaxy. At what point Snoke came into the picture we don’t know. At what point Kylo Ren was turned we don’t know. At what point they came up with Starkiller Base we don’t know (though I can see this being one of Palpatine’s projects). Who Snoke is is only as important as the end of the saga needs it to be. That Palpatine was not completely defeated in ROTJ brings this back to the origin of the saga in TPM with Anakin (or his offspring) bringing balance to the force and the final defeat of Palpatine and the Sith. Just which of the Snoke/Palpatine relationship theories is accurate is immaterial to the ending. They will do something to tie things together that they think makes sense and that some will like and some won’t. But I think the ending of the Saga is going to be as personal as ROTJ was. It is going to finish the expanded story that grew from the battle between Luke, Vader, and Palpatine in ROTJ to the Jedi vs. Sith over thousands of years and bringing balance to the force. Lucas’s retelling of the end of ROTJ was pretty much shoehorned on to the existing movie and there is room for whatever Lucas had in his mind before he canned the ST for a decade.

Great post! From my point of view I think RoTJ trivialised the Dark Side somewhat. While TESB stated that the the Dark Side was “quicker, easier, more seductive”, it still implied (to me) that it was something of a process and a choice - whereas RoTJ made it seem more like a deadly virus that you catch if you get too angry. I prefer the notion that it’s more complicated than that, and that maybe the Jedi (and Sith) were being naive in even believing there was a ‘dark side’ as such. To that end I really like Luke’s speech about the light and the dark and the balance in-between that he makes in TLJ.

RogueLeader said:

Now that is a fun idea, Maul! Maybe Mothma became compromised some point after ROTJ. If Palpatine has really been influencing things beyond the grave, possessing or corrupting the leader of the New Republic seems like a logical path for a Sith Lord to take.

That also makes think of how I remember reading in the Art of TFA book that the Snoke-character at one point was considered to be female. Although I don’t know if the artist was referencing the Talon character, who apparently appeared in George’s original treatment, or just a female version of Snoke. A crone-like villain would’ve been a fun idea, since we have yet to have a female villain in the films outside of Zam Wessell, who has only a few minutes of screen time.

Regardless, I hope we get a female villain in one of the new film series. Would love to see a female Sith, maybe a Kreia/Darth Traya inspired character.

That’s possible, but having Mothma revealed as compromised from the get-go would have the same effect as say Obi Wan’s discomfort when speaking of how Luke’s father died, or seeing Leia respond to Luke’s telepathic message. These things were originally what they were at face value, but through the prism of George’s retcons gained a whole new dimension. The scene on the Mon Calamari ship in RoTJ would now have a whole new twist when viewing the trilogies together - “gosh, she was planning this all along!”.

But more importantly it would give the illusionary effect of the SE being a natural and necessary progression of the story. As it stands the saga goes “and they all lived happily ever after” followed by “except they didn’t”. It’s really just born of a need for more Star Wars (not that that’s a bad thing). In this instance it would be “yes, they lived happily ever after to a point, but there was a fly in the ointment”. Fans in the future would be praising Mothma’s subtle performance in RoTJ the same way newer fans attribute extra layers to Alec’s speech in ANH.

Essentially this is what I hope TROS will do - make it all feel like a natural progression from RoTJ in the same way the prequels were (theoretically) designed to dovetail into ANH.

I’m not familiar with Darth Talon, but I just looked her up and am already wishing she’d been in Snoke’s place! Having a villain so aesthetically different to Palpatine would’ve been awesome…

Morgan the Boost said:

So many things on this thread and other things I never noticed because the cropped VHS image is permanently burned into my mind, and sometimes MEMORY fills in the scene in my brain even as I’m watching it.

Same here! There are a bunch of things I never knew/noticed because of VHS cropping - the static Stormtrooper at the start of the “look sir, droids” scene, the second Tusken Raider running on the ridge alongside the Bantha, the blue of the Wampa arm, the hologram of the Imperial Officer being struck by an asteroid while Vader’s talking,…and I’m sure there are more!

But dammit I still adore those videos…

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

NeverarGreat said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

SilverWook said:

MikeWW said:

SilverWook said:

A puppet being operated by the real villain?

But why have a dime store Palpatine if the plan all along was to use the real thing?

Because that’s how Palpatine operates. Masks, deceptions and lies. Snoke was just a more sophisticated version of wearing a hood and keeping his face in a strategically placed shadow.

That’s a nice in-universe explanation, but in reality it’s almost certain, that JJ intended for Snoke to be the big bad, and when RJ dispatched him, they had to bring back Palpatine in some form to up the ante. Had it been their intention to bring back Palpatine, they would logically have introduced him as the puppet master in a cameo at the end of TLJ. Additionally RJ clearly made TLJ with the intention to break free from what came before, whilst TROS seems to do the opposite promising a whole host of connections to the past.

I have to disagree with your interpretation of TLJ. That is the message that hermit Luke and Kylo Ren share. Both are proved wrong by the rest of the movie’s plot. The end of the movie is about embracing exactly what Luke said they didn’t need before Rey and Yoda brought him back to himself. And Kylo is trying desperately to be bad and be consumed by the dark side and yet he can’t seem to manage it. He’s trying to convince himself that he needs to destroy the past so he can be bad enough. But that is not RJ’s message in TLJ. Luke executes the very single handed battle with his lasersword against incredible odds and creates a legend, reminding Kylo and us that he will not be the last Jedi - meaning he is embracing the past and letting it carry forward. Quite the opposite of breaking free from what came before. And there is no hint that JJ is going to undo anything.

I disagree. TLJ spends most of its time deconstructing the mythology of Star Wars. It then reconstructs it in some form, but not by embracing the past. Luke’s last stand is not a reaffirmation of the reality of his legend in-universe, it is a ruse, which tells the audience, that legends and myths aren’t real, but they can serve a purpose when others choose to believe in them. This is in stark contrast to the OT, where the legend of Luke Skywalker is real in-universe. The Luke of the OT is the guy who really faces down the bad guys with his laser sword, whereas the Luke at the end of TLJ is an illusionist of sorts, intent on perpetuating a legend in-universe, while the viewer has been made aware it is all just smoke and mirrors.

This brings up the question of what Luke’s legend actually was, in universe, after the events of ROTJ.

Is Luke a Jedi and hero who can singlehandedly dispatch an AT-AT with a lightsaber and who blew up the Death Star, who defeated not only Vader but the Emperor in a single stroke? If so, I can see Luke wanting to distance himself from this story since it is rather deceptive.

Or is Luke in the minds of the people more of an aspirational figure whom they know is all-too human, and who only managed to topple an empire due to his compassion and loyalty helped by his powerful friends and family? This is a legend he would probably embrace but it isn’t as alluring to the everyday person so I would bet that most of the galaxy thinks of him as the Jedi superman.

So I think it’s very apt that Luke would act as an illusionist in embracing this admittedly false legend in TLJ. Luke doesn’t ultimately use the lightsaber to defeat his enemies, he throws it away in favor of a more compassionate, human approach. This is now lost to the galaxy in favor of his newly-affirmed legend of Jedi superman, and could be a sinister turn for his legacy and history.

Luke’s ‘in-universe’ legend post-ROTJ would have to be simply that he (supposedly) killed the bad guys. If he had let slip at the Ewok party that he had stood by and shown mercy while the Emperor and his bestie were slaughtering thousands of innocent beings, he would have been lynched. Imagine how thrilled the many victims of Palpatine/Vader’s tyranny would have been to hear that Vader was a nice guy after all and that it had been worth letting a few more Rebels die in order to facilitate Vader’s bedside conversion.

I keep harping on about it but it never ceases to bug me - Luke did not save the galaxy. At best he inadvertently (accidentally if you will) prevented Palpatine’s possible escape from the exploding Death Star. All he cared about was saving Vader’s soul and keeping his cool so he could become a guru.

Chewbacca saved the galaxy. TFA should have opened with “Chewbacca has vanished…”

The story we have on our end is not what Luke would be known for in universe. I can’t say if Vader’s part would have come out, but if it had it would have been that he came back to himself and sacrificed his life to kill the Emperor. The story we see is very compelling because we were not the Empire’s victims. The story told in universe would have to be adjusted and changed in order for it to be compelling and picked up as a legend. And they would only have Luke’s word as to what happened. The larger picture is that Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando, and Wedge, worked together to bring down the shields and destroy the Death Star, Darth Vader, and the Emperor. Learning that Luke is the new Jedi would have caused the public story to emphasize him because of the stories from the past of all the Jedi exploits. People would imagine that Luke had led the troops as Obi-wan, Anakin, Mace, and Yoda once had. They would want him to do it again. While Luke did it with illusion, he really played out exactly what people in universe would imagine a Jedi doing, so he very much was embracing the past and the legends of the Old Republic Jedi and giving his sister and Rey exactly what they needed, which he earlier said was not what they needed. He did a 180 on his views thanks to Rey and then Yoda.

I agree with this in spirit, and I like the idea (if not the execution) of a disillusioned Luke reclaiming his legend, even if the legend isn’t 100% accurate. My beef is with ROTJ itself. To have the in-universe narrative be ‘Luke defeated the Emperor’ would be a lie. Luke accidentally defeated the Emperor - it was a lucky byproduct of Luke’s focus on his (and Anakin’s) personal religious goals. And the idea of the galaxy embracing the notion of Vader’s turn is outrageous. It might work for us as SW fans, but not for his victims. Would you forgive Osama Bin Laden because you’d heard he had a puppy?

All it would take (for me) is a bit of dialogue on Endor. Have Luke say to Leia something like “…he can feel when I’m near, which means the Emperor is on to us. You and Han take care of the shield generator. I’m going to make sure that the Emperor never leaves the Death Star”. Leia would weep at the power of Luke’s self-sacrifice and this would be the stuff of legends. This would be a hero whose goal is to defeat the bad guys (as per the trajectory of the saga). With Luke’s intentions stated thus, the details of Anakin’s turn and the real events surrounding Palpatine’s defeat would be irrelevant to the consequent legend, and Anakin’s noble sacrifice would be a by-product of Luke’s desire to protect the galaxy.

Yeah, when you think about the ramifications, the true events on the Death Star in ROTJ don’t play well as a public legend. Luke would have to lie about it - or just adopt a different point of view. I can see the public story being something like Luke went to stop Palpatine and in the process he was nearly beaten but managed tap into the dormant feelings in Vader and Vader scraficed himself to kill the Emperor. It doesn’t ask for the public to forgive Vader and keeps Luke the hero for without him risking his life, Vader would not have acted. That is close enough to the truth without revealing some of the things that would make the public mad at Luke. Frankly, looking at it now, I can’t see how Luke could have ever defeated Palpatine. Only keeping him occupied until the death star blew up. But by sparing Vader and crying out to him for help, Luke broke through and Palpatine was defeated by the only person strong enough. No one would understand Luke throwing down his saber and sparing Vader.

When TROS picks up a year later, I imagine we are going to find out that Rey has been training with Luke’s force ghost and has turned her raw talent into great skill. I’m not sure if she will be recruiting and training even more just yet, but that will be her goal.

And even with Palpatine in the PT, we still don’t have much to his backstory. We had to wait until ROTS to hear of Darth Plagueis the Wise and we didn’t learn his first name in the films. There is so much about him that was left to the tie-in media to explain. We did get a full account of how he became Emeperor, but even that many viewers missed because it wasn’t handed to them on a plate but layered in obliquely. Many of the questions about Snoke that are outstanding are still outstanding with Palpatine even after the PT. Other than he started TPM as a Senator from Naboo, we know nothing about him. Even the name drop in ROTS doesn’t reveal if that was his master or his master’s master. Those things were all left to reveal in books. What we know of him from the books is almost everything. I see Snoke the same way. We get what we need in the films (he is the head of the First Order, a group that has risen from a fragment of the Empire) and he is a master of the Dark Side of the force and has lured Ben Solo to the dark side turning him into Kylo Ren, leader of the Knights of Ren. What more do we really need to know? Star Wars doesn’t have a history of giving us the full backstory, only what we need to know who these people are. There is so much that came from books and comics that is considered fact, but it isn’t in the films. We didn’t know anything about how Han won the Falcon until Solo came out. Han was a mystery except he made a run for Jabba the Hutt that ended in him dropping the shipment. We know the most about the Skywalkers, but not much about anyone else. How did Lando become head of Cloud City? We didn’t know how Owen and Beru were related to Luke until ATOC. Some answers came in films years later, some came in books right away, some have never been answered. But most have not been answered in the trilogy we meet these people in.

All we ever needed to know about Palpatine was built into the story - there was an evil Empire, he was its Emperor, and Vader had helped him destroy the Jedi (and Luke’s father) and thus bring on ‘the dark times’ that everyone happened to be rebelling against. Even without the prequels, it works.

All we really need to know about Snoke is in the film in the same way. And I think the point of this is not going to be the ultimate defeat of evil, but building a new order of Jedi who aren’t as easy to prey on. Luke was trying to be an Old Republic Jedi. Rey is not. If they continue in that manner then solving why Ben became Kylo can break the cycle and we don’t need to know anything about Snoke we don’t already know. I think the key is the duality of the figure on the cave floor in TLJ. The original Jedi were not split between dark and light, but were the balance of dark and light. Luke was perpetuating the old ways as he trained Ben and it failed so going back to the beginning and relearning that original balance is going to be key.

This new series is the sequel to the OT and needs to supply some context. Who the heck is Snoke and how did he undo the rebel victory? Where and what was he this 30 years gone? What happened with Kylo? Why did Kylo join him? If this is just stuff that happens, then the entire OT is pointless - there will always be Sith Emperors and Anakin Skywalkers and the OT is basically trivial.

Even more galling is the fact that TFA was designed to make us wonder as fans. Mystery boxes mystery boxes. JJ knew he was making us wonder, and it’s ludicrous that he didn’t even have the answers himself. Yes, Lucas did the same thing (“the other is…uh…your sister! Yes, Leia’s your sister!”) but he had the excuse of writing on the fly due to not knowing how well the films would go down.

I can ignore his mystery boxes. Sure the answers would be nice to know, but the films don’t have to be where that is answered. JJ likes to just throw out such mysteries while Lucas carefully crafted one or two at a time. This is one reason I rate TFA so low. I’m hoping that with TROS being the end he doesn’t incorporate any new mysteries he isn’t prepared to reveal.

I did a post a while back where I floated the idea of Mon Mothma being in Snoke’s place as a kind of lady Emperor/crone-type figure (identity unknown until the end of course). I posited the notion that she’d actually been in league with Palpatine during RoTJ (in exchange for her planet being spared and a seat of power) and had killed the Bothan spies herself and delivered the false information re Death Star II.

I’m not claiming this is genius by any stretch, but this would have been a good way to introduce a hidden menace that brings the story forward, justifies all of the arcs (she would be nursing a grudge, would have access to government and the means to reboot the Empire, would be trusted by Leia, and would have intimate access to Kylo), and would not negate the victory in ep 6. It would have the added bonus of making the “many Bothans died” scene rather sinister in hindsight.

Something like this would, I believe, make further episodes worthy. You’d have a direct thread to the OT that doesn’t diminish it or simply reboot all the old ideas in a lazy way. Let’s face it, Snoke (at this point) is just Emperor Mk II. Dre was right - do we simply expect new Emperors every few decades as a matter of course?

Like everyone else here, I really hope they pull this off and make the SE a worthy finale. I just feel they traded good storytelling for basic visual nostalgia. But, to quote Leia, “it’s not over yet”…

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

NeverarGreat said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

SilverWook said:

MikeWW said:

SilverWook said:

A puppet being operated by the real villain?

But why have a dime store Palpatine if the plan all along was to use the real thing?

Because that’s how Palpatine operates. Masks, deceptions and lies. Snoke was just a more sophisticated version of wearing a hood and keeping his face in a strategically placed shadow.

That’s a nice in-universe explanation, but in reality it’s almost certain, that JJ intended for Snoke to be the big bad, and when RJ dispatched him, they had to bring back Palpatine in some form to up the ante. Had it been their intention to bring back Palpatine, they would logically have introduced him as the puppet master in a cameo at the end of TLJ. Additionally RJ clearly made TLJ with the intention to break free from what came before, whilst TROS seems to do the opposite promising a whole host of connections to the past.

I have to disagree with your interpretation of TLJ. That is the message that hermit Luke and Kylo Ren share. Both are proved wrong by the rest of the movie’s plot. The end of the movie is about embracing exactly what Luke said they didn’t need before Rey and Yoda brought him back to himself. And Kylo is trying desperately to be bad and be consumed by the dark side and yet he can’t seem to manage it. He’s trying to convince himself that he needs to destroy the past so he can be bad enough. But that is not RJ’s message in TLJ. Luke executes the very single handed battle with his lasersword against incredible odds and creates a legend, reminding Kylo and us that he will not be the last Jedi - meaning he is embracing the past and letting it carry forward. Quite the opposite of breaking free from what came before. And there is no hint that JJ is going to undo anything.

I disagree. TLJ spends most of its time deconstructing the mythology of Star Wars. It then reconstructs it in some form, but not by embracing the past. Luke’s last stand is not a reaffirmation of the reality of his legend in-universe, it is a ruse, which tells the audience, that legends and myths aren’t real, but they can serve a purpose when others choose to believe in them. This is in stark contrast to the OT, where the legend of Luke Skywalker is real in-universe. The Luke of the OT is the guy who really faces down the bad guys with his laser sword, whereas the Luke at the end of TLJ is an illusionist of sorts, intent on perpetuating a legend in-universe, while the viewer has been made aware it is all just smoke and mirrors.

This brings up the question of what Luke’s legend actually was, in universe, after the events of ROTJ.

Is Luke a Jedi and hero who can singlehandedly dispatch an AT-AT with a lightsaber and who blew up the Death Star, who defeated not only Vader but the Emperor in a single stroke? If so, I can see Luke wanting to distance himself from this story since it is rather deceptive.

Or is Luke in the minds of the people more of an aspirational figure whom they know is all-too human, and who only managed to topple an empire due to his compassion and loyalty helped by his powerful friends and family? This is a legend he would probably embrace but it isn’t as alluring to the everyday person so I would bet that most of the galaxy thinks of him as the Jedi superman.

So I think it’s very apt that Luke would act as an illusionist in embracing this admittedly false legend in TLJ. Luke doesn’t ultimately use the lightsaber to defeat his enemies, he throws it away in favor of a more compassionate, human approach. This is now lost to the galaxy in favor of his newly-affirmed legend of Jedi superman, and could be a sinister turn for his legacy and history.

Luke’s ‘in-universe’ legend post-ROTJ would have to be simply that he (supposedly) killed the bad guys. If he had let slip at the Ewok party that he had stood by and shown mercy while the Emperor and his bestie were slaughtering thousands of innocent beings, he would have been lynched. Imagine how thrilled the many victims of Palpatine/Vader’s tyranny would have been to hear that Vader was a nice guy after all and that it had been worth letting a few more Rebels die in order to facilitate Vader’s bedside conversion.

I keep harping on about it but it never ceases to bug me - Luke did not save the galaxy. At best he inadvertently (accidentally if you will) prevented Palpatine’s possible escape from the exploding Death Star. All he cared about was saving Vader’s soul and keeping his cool so he could become a guru.

Chewbacca saved the galaxy. TFA should have opened with “Chewbacca has vanished…”

The story we have on our end is not what Luke would be known for in universe. I can’t say if Vader’s part would have come out, but if it had it would have been that he came back to himself and sacrificed his life to kill the Emperor. The story we see is very compelling because we were not the Empire’s victims. The story told in universe would have to be adjusted and changed in order for it to be compelling and picked up as a legend. And they would only have Luke’s word as to what happened. The larger picture is that Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando, and Wedge, worked together to bring down the shields and destroy the Death Star, Darth Vader, and the Emperor. Learning that Luke is the new Jedi would have caused the public story to emphasize him because of the stories from the past of all the Jedi exploits. People would imagine that Luke had led the troops as Obi-wan, Anakin, Mace, and Yoda once had. They would want him to do it again. While Luke did it with illusion, he really played out exactly what people in universe would imagine a Jedi doing, so he very much was embracing the past and the legends of the Old Republic Jedi and giving his sister and Rey exactly what they needed, which he earlier said was not what they needed. He did a 180 on his views thanks to Rey and then Yoda.

I agree with this in spirit, and I like the idea (if not the execution) of a disillusioned Luke reclaiming his legend, even if the legend isn’t 100% accurate. My beef is with ROTJ itself. To have the in-universe narrative be ‘Luke defeated the Emperor’ would be a lie. Luke accidentally defeated the Emperor - it was a lucky byproduct of Luke’s focus on his (and Anakin’s) personal religious goals. And the idea of the galaxy embracing the notion of Vader’s turn is outrageous. It might work for us as SW fans, but not for his victims. Would you forgive Osama Bin Laden because you’d heard he had a puppy?

All it would take (for me) is a bit of dialogue on Endor. Have Luke say to Leia something like “…he can feel when I’m near, which means the Emperor is on to us. You and Han take care of the shield generator. I’m going to make sure that the Emperor never leaves the Death Star”. Leia would weep at the power of Luke’s self-sacrifice and this would be the stuff of legends. This would be a hero whose goal is to defeat the bad guys (as per the trajectory of the saga). With Luke’s intentions stated thus, the details of Anakin’s turn and the real events surrounding Palpatine’s defeat would be irrelevant to the consequent legend, and Anakin’s noble sacrifice would be a by-product of Luke’s desire to protect the galaxy.

When TROS picks up a year later, I imagine we are going to find out that Rey has been training with Luke’s force ghost and has turned her raw talent into great skill. I’m not sure if she will be recruiting and training even more just yet, but that will be her goal.

And even with Palpatine in the PT, we still don’t have much to his backstory. We had to wait until ROTS to hear of Darth Plagueis the Wise and we didn’t learn his first name in the films. There is so much about him that was left to the tie-in media to explain. We did get a full account of how he became Emeperor, but even that many viewers missed because it wasn’t handed to them on a plate but layered in obliquely. Many of the questions about Snoke that are outstanding are still outstanding with Palpatine even after the PT. Other than he started TPM as a Senator from Naboo, we know nothing about him. Even the name drop in ROTS doesn’t reveal if that was his master or his master’s master. Those things were all left to reveal in books. What we know of him from the books is almost everything. I see Snoke the same way. We get what we need in the films (he is the head of the First Order, a group that has risen from a fragment of the Empire) and he is a master of the Dark Side of the force and has lured Ben Solo to the dark side turning him into Kylo Ren, leader of the Knights of Ren. What more do we really need to know? Star Wars doesn’t have a history of giving us the full backstory, only what we need to know who these people are. There is so much that came from books and comics that is considered fact, but it isn’t in the films. We didn’t know anything about how Han won the Falcon until Solo came out. Han was a mystery except he made a run for Jabba the Hutt that ended in him dropping the shipment. We know the most about the Skywalkers, but not much about anyone else. How did Lando become head of Cloud City? We didn’t know how Owen and Beru were related to Luke until ATOC. Some answers came in films years later, some came in books right away, some have never been answered. But most have not been answered in the trilogy we meet these people in.

All we ever needed to know about Palpatine was built into the story - there was an evil Empire, he was its Emperor, and Vader had helped him destroy the Jedi (and Luke’s father) and thus bring on ‘the dark times’ that everyone happened to be rebelling against. Even without the prequels, it works.

This new series is the sequel to the OT and needs to supply some context. Who the heck is Snoke and how did he undo the rebel victory? Where and what was he this 30 years gone? What happened with Kylo? Why did Kylo join him? If this is just stuff that happens, then the entire OT is pointless - there will always be Sith Emperors and Anakin Skywalkers and the OT is basically trivial.

Even more galling is the fact that TFA was designed to make us wonder as fans. Mystery boxes mystery boxes. JJ knew he was making us wonder, and it’s ludicrous that he didn’t even have the answers himself. Yes, Lucas did the same thing (“the other is…uh…your sister! Yes, Leia’s your sister!”) but he had the excuse of writing on the fly due to not knowing how well the films would go down.

SilverWook said:

Some of the vintage speculation I read in various magazines about how Episode 6 was going to go was pretty out there and would sound a bit crazy now. Boba Fett being the other for example.

I still think that one’s viable!

NeverarGreat said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

SilverWook said:

MikeWW said:

SilverWook said:

A puppet being operated by the real villain?

But why have a dime store Palpatine if the plan all along was to use the real thing?

Because that’s how Palpatine operates. Masks, deceptions and lies. Snoke was just a more sophisticated version of wearing a hood and keeping his face in a strategically placed shadow.

That’s a nice in-universe explanation, but in reality it’s almost certain, that JJ intended for Snoke to be the big bad, and when RJ dispatched him, they had to bring back Palpatine in some form to up the ante. Had it been their intention to bring back Palpatine, they would logically have introduced him as the puppet master in a cameo at the end of TLJ. Additionally RJ clearly made TLJ with the intention to break free from what came before, whilst TROS seems to do the opposite promising a whole host of connections to the past.

I have to disagree with your interpretation of TLJ. That is the message that hermit Luke and Kylo Ren share. Both are proved wrong by the rest of the movie’s plot. The end of the movie is about embracing exactly what Luke said they didn’t need before Rey and Yoda brought him back to himself. And Kylo is trying desperately to be bad and be consumed by the dark side and yet he can’t seem to manage it. He’s trying to convince himself that he needs to destroy the past so he can be bad enough. But that is not RJ’s message in TLJ. Luke executes the very single handed battle with his lasersword against incredible odds and creates a legend, reminding Kylo and us that he will not be the last Jedi - meaning he is embracing the past and letting it carry forward. Quite the opposite of breaking free from what came before. And there is no hint that JJ is going to undo anything.

I disagree. TLJ spends most of its time deconstructing the mythology of Star Wars. It then reconstructs it in some form, but not by embracing the past. Luke’s last stand is not a reaffirmation of the reality of his legend in-universe, it is a ruse, which tells the audience, that legends and myths aren’t real, but they can serve a purpose when others choose to believe in them. This is in stark contrast to the OT, where the legend of Luke Skywalker is real in-universe. The Luke of the OT is the guy who really faces down the bad guys with his laser sword, whereas the Luke at the end of TLJ is an illusionist of sorts, intent on perpetuating a legend in-universe, while the viewer has been made aware it is all just smoke and mirrors.

This brings up the question of what Luke’s legend actually was, in universe, after the events of ROTJ.

Is Luke a Jedi and hero who can singlehandedly dispatch an AT-AT with a lightsaber and who blew up the Death Star, who defeated not only Vader but the Emperor in a single stroke? If so, I can see Luke wanting to distance himself from this story since it is rather deceptive.

Or is Luke in the minds of the people more of an aspirational figure whom they know is all-too human, and who only managed to topple an empire due to his compassion and loyalty helped by his powerful friends and family? This is a legend he would probably embrace but it isn’t as alluring to the everyday person so I would bet that most of the galaxy thinks of him as the Jedi superman.

So I think it’s very apt that Luke would act as an illusionist in embracing this admittedly false legend in TLJ. Luke doesn’t ultimately use the lightsaber to defeat his enemies, he throws it away in favor of a more compassionate, human approach. This is now lost to the galaxy in favor of his newly-affirmed legend of Jedi superman, and could be a sinister turn for his legacy and history.

Luke’s ‘in-universe’ legend post-ROTJ would have to be simply that he (supposedly) killed the bad guys. If he had let slip at the Ewok party that he had stood by and shown mercy while the Emperor and his bestie were slaughtering thousands of innocent beings, he would have been lynched. Imagine how thrilled the many victims of Palpatine/Vader’s tyranny would have been to hear that Vader was a nice guy after all and that it had been worth letting a few more Rebels die in order to facilitate Vader’s bedside conversion.

I keep harping on about it but it never ceases to bug me - Luke did not save the galaxy. At best he inadvertently (accidentally if you will) prevented Palpatine’s possible escape from the exploding Death Star. All he cared about was saving Vader’s soul and keeping his cool so he could become a guru.

Chewbacca saved the galaxy. TFA should have opened with “Chewbacca has vanished…”

ZkinandBonez said:

Shopping Maul said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I just came across this…“pin-up” I guess?..of the battle of Hoth as visualized by Michael Golden.

Does anyone have any idea where this this from?

Regardless of where its from, it’s pretty neat to see Michael Golden draw AT-ST’s before anyone saw them in more detail in ROTJ. It doesn’t look like he Kenner toy so I’m guessing he had that one shot from ESB as his only reference.

It was in one of the single issues of the Marvel TESB adaptation (which ran over six issues in the regular SW title). They had little pin-up galleries in the last few pages of each issue (as well as Archie Goodwin’s wonderful article on the making of the TESB adaptation). Off the top of my head there was a Frank Miller pic, Marie Severin, Bob Layton, Fred Hembeck, Walt Simonson etc etc.

And yes, it was very cool given that all we’d seen at that point were the couple of fleeting shots in TESB.

Right, that makes sense. I’ve only read the ESB adaptation in modern reprints so I’ve never seen any of threse pin-ups before.

I was surprised though to hear that Frank Miller did one as well. I knew he did the cover for issue #47, but according to wookieepedia that was the only SW related thing that he did. It always weirds me out when I discover something SW related that wookieepedia doesn’t know about as they’re usually so thorough.

I didn’t know Frank did the cover for #47! Much to learn have I!

The 6-issue adaptation is cool for the pin-ups, as well as Archie Goodwin’s piece on making the comic itself. He talks about the photographic reference and script and all that stuff, plus the fiasco with the paperback version featuring the original purple Yoda. There are also the letters pages where fans range from loving the adaptation to absolutely despising it, as well as interesting speculations about TESBs burning questions.

ZkinandBonez said:

I just came across this…“pin-up” I guess?..of the battle of Hoth as visualized by Michael Golden.

Does anyone have any idea where this this from?

Regardless of where its from, it’s pretty neat to see Michael Golden draw AT-ST’s before anyone saw them in more detail in ROTJ. It doesn’t look like he Kenner toy so I’m guessing he had that one shot from ESB as his only reference.

It was in one of the single issues of the Marvel TESB adaptation (which ran over six issues in the regular SW title). They had little pin-up galleries in the last few pages of each issue (as well as Archie Goodwin’s wonderful article on the making of the TESB adaptation). Off the top of my head there was a Frank Miller pic, Marie Severin, Bob Layton, Fred Hembeck, Walt Simonson etc etc.

And yes, it was very cool given that all we’d seen at that point were the couple of fleeting shots in TESB.

The whole thing has become ridiculously complicated because Lucas basically changed his mind about Anakin’s age. Back in '83 Anakin was supposed to be an old man. Lucas even said “in his 60s” or something similar at the time. Assuming that Obi Wan and Owen were also supposed to be older than the prequels implied, this all made perfect sense and the appearance of Shaw at Ewok-fest was absolutely fine.

It was only when George suddenly decided ROTJ Anakin had to be in his mid-40s - and corrected it with the dumbest SE change since the Han debacle - did this become a canon issue.

SilverWook said:

I was under the impression we saw a different entrance to the Yavin hangar in R1. There are four sides after all.

Yeah, that’s possible. I did read somewhere (can’t find it now of course!) that RO had gone out of its way to recreate these environments as closely to the ‘original’ as possible (Yavin, Death Star, Star Destroyers etc etc) so I’d argue that they were definitely recreating the entranceway from ANH as presented in the SE. To me it’s a very different style so, while it could conceivably be a different doorway, it’s kind of odd. Did the space-Aztecs only buff and polish the one side then? I interpreted it as a ‘canon declaration’ as soon as I saw it - however pedantic that may seem! I’m guessing it was pure oversight - I’m sure no-one thought that a cantankerous old SW fan was going to get sensitive about an old matte painting! But here I am ha ha!

ChainsawAsh said:

What? No he didn’t. Ewan isn’t featured in the SE in any way, shape, or form. He was in the PT, and the ST also references Darth Sidious, which is another PT invention. I’ve made my peace with the PT through fan edits, so these things are fine with me.

And Alec Guinness is in TFA too, in the same line as Ewan. (Guinness says “Rey” and Ewan says “these are your first steps.”) So I really don’t understand your point with Ewan’s TFA line.

And I don’t give two shits what is officially canon or not. The OOT works with zero problems with the ST. Until something appears in an ST film that only works because of an SE change, either version of the OT is on equal footing canon wise, and I choose the original version.

A trivial detail perhaps, but doesn’t Rogue One show a ‘SE-style’ entrance for the Yavin base? That puts Disney SW in a separate canon to the unaltered OT.

MikeWW said:

DominicCobb said:

MikeWW said:

Reminder that Rey has CTE. Her parents dumped her on Jakku at 5/6/7 years old yet she doesn’t know who they are.

Except she does know who they are.

Clearly not, since those people in the flashback flew away, they didn’t die in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert.

I agree with you. Rian Johnson seems to have mistaken the audience’s curiosity about Rey’s parentage for a lack of such knowledge on Rey’s part. It kind of works but it’s a little weird.

Booman said:

I remember noticing one instance in the prequels where they reversed a shot of Anakin for about a second or two so they could extend the scene. It’s during the part in AOTC where he’s describing his Tusken Raider killing spree to Padme. There’s probably countless examples of editing artifacts like these being left in scenes due to the editing together of separate takes into the same shot.

Honestly I think Lucas went a bit overboard with his merging of takes. It kinda takes something away from the actors’ performances in my opinion. I guess he was just really eager to take full advantage of the new tech, that’s just my thoughts though.

Not to mention the fact that, for the entirety of AOTC and ROTS, Lucas replaced Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen…

While the execution was lacking in many ways, at least Anakin was actually seduced by something ie Palpatine’s claim that a) he could save Padme and b) that the Jedi were uppity jerks who had sold Anakin short all these years. Luke’s so-called seduction to the Dark Side was merely being goaded into anger. Apparently, after losing his temper because Palpatine was killing all his friends, Luke would supposedly join the bad guys - even as the Rebels were being blown to smithereens.

With Anakin we at least see that he goes too far (in killing Windu) and feels he has to choose sides. I’m not saying the youngling fiasco makes sense, but at there is a sense of him actually having been manipulated. In Luke’s case, apparently one tantrum (however justified) will turn you into the devil.

Return of the Jedi ruined things waaaaay before the prequels showed up…

SWOTFAN25 said:

Shopping Maul said:

In this instance there’s no story. Abrams planted his ‘mystery boxes’ for the sheer heck of it and then left Rian to do whatever the hell he wanted (which he clearly did). By his own admission JJ went into episode 9 thinking “well, I’d better come up with a story…”

I’m not saying it won’t work - I’m really hoping it will - but the fact that these people didn’t think to at least write some kind of overall plot absolutely baffles me…

If you’d done your homework you would know that there has been a story/overarching plot that has been planned. However they have given each film the chance to change things for the sake of creative freedom. This is common knowledge idk where you get your facts. Look up interviews with Adam Driver and “Antichrist” Kennedy.

I have seen recent articles that make this claim - particularly in reference to Kylo Ren. This gives me hope - the idea that at least one aspect of this trilogy has had some thought behind it is encouraging. To me it feels more like a ‘Lucas claim’ - George would say he had things ‘planned’ when what he really meant was that certain ideas may have had a vague basis in earlier drafts. TLJ was famously done on a clean slate, and it showed. The fact that Abrams is supposedly returning to some of his earlier notions feels less like a continuation of a solid vision and more like an attempt to do damage control. I honestly hope I’m wrong.

act on instinct said:

DrDre said:

I’m cautiously optimistic about episode IX. I’m not expecting it to be the second coming, but an entertaining film nonetheless, and I guess after 40 years of history, that’s not a bad way to end the Skywalker saga.

Makes me think Return of the Jedi, or Revenge of the Sith, now Rise of Skywalker going through the ringer. I accept that the last bite at the apple in each instance gives equal rise to high criticism as well as a sense of hey let’s all get along and have a good “last” ride. I don’t think either reaction is wrong, even feeling both at the same time. After reading about the differences between what Lucas, Kasdan and Gary Kurtz wanted for RotJ, a fan can still appreciate the fun of their childhood favorite while dreaming of what might have been.

The real difference is that those other examples (ROTJ and ROTS) were actually completing a story. While the OT was obviously written on the fly, it still had questions to be answered (Han’s fate, the truth of Luke’s parentage, who was the ‘other’ etc etc), and ROTS had to document the fall of the Republic and the details of Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader.

In this instance there’s no story. Abrams planted his ‘mystery boxes’ for the sheer heck of it and then left Rian to do whatever the hell he wanted (which he clearly did). By his own admission JJ went into episode 9 thinking “well, I’d better come up with a story…”

I’m not saying it won’t work - I’m really hoping it will - but the fact that these people didn’t think to at least write some kind of overall plot absolutely baffles me…

I thought this was interesting, so thanks Val. If it came up in another thread, I didn’t see it and appreciate your making a new thread for it.

Frankly I think the Sarlacc is a Mary Sue…

I’m really gonna sound like a moron here, but I didn’t fully get the Falcon’s interior (in terms of dimensions, what leads where etc etc) until TFA. The fact that the movie makes a point of walking through the set the way it does made me put it together properly after a mere 40 years or so!

AMine said:

Gave Empire Strikes Back another watch, as requested. This time, I watched it on our living room TV and with the occasional taking the dog out for a few moments even then, I now better understand the story and the reason it was so loved and praised by many. I do still believe Star Wars '77 is my favorite, but this does fall close behind! Thank you for your help! If anything else wants to be discussed here, then let me know!

Well, I’m keen to get your take on Return of the Jedi!

Wow, your post is so interesting because TESB is my favourite movie of all time (alongside Conan '82) so it’s really hard for me to step outside of my own inner echo-chamber here.

The only perspective I can offer is the one of having been there at the time. If you can picture a moment where there was only Star Wars itself - there was the awesome spectacle of this incredible movie with its robots and lightsabers and tie fighters and all that stuff - but there was no ‘Vader as father’, no Yoda, no Han and Leia romance, no Hoth or Asteroid field or Cloud City or Lando or Boba Fett or the Millennium Falcon doing 360 spins between Star Destroyers…

I mean Star Wars II could have just been Star Wars II - a new adventure in the same style as the first - but TESB changed everything. It had an edge and depth to it that we simply weren’t expecting. The rebels were decimated, Han got the girl (not Luke!), the bad guy was possibly the hero’s father, the Force was now this heavy space-Buddhism and Luke was really struggling with it and possibly risking his soul, Obi Wan had potentially lied to him, Han’s fate was uncertain, Luke had a potential replacement in the wings if he blew it…I mean it took these characters that we’d fallen in love with in '77 and put them through hell! It wasn’t joyless - there was humour and great lines and fussy robots - but it was heavy and gave the whole thing weight where it could’ve just been ‘the further adventures of…’.

There were the visuals and set pieces too - Hoth with its armoured Walkers, Dagobah with its weird vision-cave, Vader’s huge ship, Cloud City etc etc. It was just such an exciting and crazy next step for what had started out as basically a fun adventure.

I was 8 when I saw Star Wars and 11 when I saw TESB. I didn’t think about why I loved TESB, I just loved it. Looking at my respective ages there, it’s easy to see why I responded the way I did, just as it’s easy (now) to see why ROTJ didn’t quite work for me at age 14. That’s a big part of it of course, but as time has gone by I’ve really come to appreciate the artistry of TESB. Some movies from childhood don’t date so well, even if you still like them subjectively. Star Wars and TESB never diminished in my eyes. The older I get the more I appreciate the greatness of these films and really see just why they struck the chords in me that they did.

Of course we like what we like, and it’s absolutely fine to not like/love TESB! I’m curious to get your feelings on ROTJ and the prequels…