Spartacus01

JadedSkywalker said:

I’m not having an existential crisis, but I was drawn into the middle of this, and I didn’t want to be, how can I make that clear? Should I take it to private messages I guess I should and not derail thread further.

Not my fault. He provoked me, and I responded. But yes, I too agree that we should return to discuss about the Expanded Universe.

Here’s an unpopular opinion: the Clone Wars comics from Dark Horse and the Clone Wars books that were published by Del Rey between 2002 and 2005 are far better than the 2008 Clone Wars show ever was. They feel much more in line with the Prequel films and the war is told in a more realistic way. And yes, I know that being in line with the Prequel films is not considered a compliment around here, but I like the Prequels and I like consistency, so to me it is a compliment.

BedeHistory731 said:

Stardust1138 was a bit of a windbag and didn’t believe in economy of words, as well as having questionable taste in Star Wars video essays (nothing Fandom Menace-y, just very much against the grain here).

However, they were very much pressured out by both the sock hive mind and others. That’s not the right way to handle things on a forum, as Stardust wasn’t breaking any rules or being exceptionally awful to people.

Hell, I remember when oojason (when he was a mod) banned Chainsawash for criticizing this site and its management on the 4Kxx boards. That’s a dick move if ever there was one.

Do you know what’s the funniest thing? Oojason is the creator of these accounts.

Channel72 said:

I have no idea what’s going on.

Out of curiosity, how do you all know there are multiple sock puppet accounts posting here? I mean, the person accused of using sock puppet accounts is someone that has created some genuinely interesting, well researched, high-quality threads. I agree their recent post attacking Spartacus01 is just… bizarre - not quite sure what to make of that.

Anyway, I’m just curious what the evidence is, and the history behind all this, since this seems to be a well known thing around here.

Yes, his articles about George Lucas and his historical revisionism are well done and well researched, but it doesn’t mean that he didn’t create sock accounts. The fact that these are sock accounts that were created and are managed by the same person is demonstrated by the fact that all these accounts have a way of writing, discussing and linking articles that is absolutely identical to each other, not to mention that they all have the same opinions about everything.

Also, I would like to point out that I am not the first person he has targeted for not agreeing with his opinions and his obsession of bashing George Lucas at any cost. Other members of the forum received the same treatment: they didn’t agree with his opinions, so he created several sock accounts to surround them in various threads, make them feel isolated and push them away from the forum. An example of this is the user Stardust1138. I talked with him in private several times and he was a very nice guy, but he committed the crime of being a George Lucas fan who didn’t agree with the guy’s opinions about George Lucas, the Prequels, and Lucas’ historical revisionism. So he was surrounded in various threads by his sock accounts, accused of being a troll, and then pushed out of the forum.

He tried to do the same thing with me too, in fact he accused me of being a troll in the discussions we had in private (the same private discussions in which he openly accused me of racism), and I have screenshots of these discussions that can demonstrate it. He always uses the same tactics. The difference between me and Stardust1138 is that I’m not fearful and I’m a hotheaded person. So, if he thinks he’s going to push me away from the forum with these tricks he’s completely wrong, because he’s not going to win this time.

JadedSkywalker said:

I did like the New Jedi Knights series but to be honest it’s a junior novel series and I haven’t read them since the last volume was published by the Science Fiction Book Club, I have the hardback for.

That was why it was so disastrous to change Jacen’s character so much. Unlike others I never liked Caedus, I hated him.

I agreed with everything Han said about his burning the Wookiee homeworld and how he wasn’t his son.

I hate what they did with Jacen too. He shouldn’t have fallen to the Dark Side, that’s completely unrealistic for him. Troy Denning just didn’t understand his character. In fact, in my personal head-canon the Star Wars universe ends with The Unifying Force, which means that Jacen never falls. The NJO feels like the natural ending point of the post-ROTJ era to me. And if not, then there’s still the Young Jedi Knights series, which can be a good epilogue too, indeed.

theprequelsrule said:

BedeHistory731 said:

Spartacus01 said:

Sideburns of BoShek said:

Shit, you think people are going to take your posts or advice on here seriously after you telling a black member on here that:

First, that’s not a black person, that’s just you with another of your sock accounts, and stop pretending otherwise, because the whole forum has realized that it’s just you talking with yourself at this point.

Exactly. This is ridiculous that the moderators have allowed this sock organization to keep circulating.

Increasingly I have begun to think that everything except the preservation and fan-edit sections of the site should be deleted. This place is mostly a graveyard…especially if all the sock accounts get removed.

I disagree. In my opinion, a lot of people try not to write on the other sections of the forum precisely because they don’t want to be bullied by the guy and surrounded by all the sock accounts. For example, I’m in contact with one of the members of the forum (whose name I’ll not reveal), who openly confessed to me that he doesn’t write here anymore because he doesn’t want to be involved with the guy. Once you remove the guy from the equation, a lot of people might want to return to write on the other sections of the forum too.

Sideburns of BoShek said:

Shit, you think people are going to take your posts or advice on here seriously after you telling a black member on here that:

First, that’s not a black person, that’s just you with another of your sock accounts, and stop pretending otherwise, because the whole forum has realized that it’s just you talking with yourself at this point. Second, I’m a Communist, so good luck with finding racism in my ideas, and if you are illiterate and are incapable of understanding what I wrote in the posts you have quoted, that’s your problem, not mine. Third, I’m partially Latin American (my name is literally Luis), so good luck with trying to accuse me of racism again. Fourth, you have no right to publish private conversations in public spaces. Fifth, you are the only one who is having a racist behavior here, because you are pretending to be black when you are not. Stop creating sock accounts and tormenting the entire forum by creating entire threads where you just talk with yourself, we are sick of you.

JadedSkywalker said:

Is it unpopular to pretty much hate everything that happened after Vision of the Future. I like Luke and Mara settling down together maybe they have one or more children based on Vision of the Future, I even like Ben. But all the grimdark stuff from the Vong, to killing Anakin Solo, making Jacen Hayden Skywalker and killing him, and killing Mara I despise.

I think that, even though you dislike the New Jedi Order series and the Vong War, you might still like the Young Jedi Knights series. It’s the series that immediately proceeds the NJO, and tells the adventures of young Jacen and Jaina when they were still young teenagers, before the Yuuzhan Vong invaded the Galaxy. There is no foreshadowing of the future Vong War, since the series was written before the NJO, the Force powers are not over the top, and Luke is portrayed as a wise Jedi master. I think that it might be a nice epilogue if you don’t want to accept the NJO.

I swear to God, if you manage to give a happy ending to revenge of the Sith, I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life. I always wanted these characters to have a happy ending.

Sideburns of BoShek said:

You may have misunderstood the thread, or the history of the pre-PT era? Someone who could play a compelling 20-40 year old across 3 films. Not someone who struggled in the role of a 20-23 year old, and did not convince many fans his character would grow into the Darth Vader we knew in the OT. (That is not all on Hayden: the PT scripts, green screens, and the direction also failed him and other actors, and Hayden’s done good work in other roles since.)

I understand what you are trying to say, but DarthStarkiller1234 didn’t say that we have to be bound to the speculations about the Prequel era that existed before the Prequels, he only asked us to choose an actor to play the role of Anakin.

JadedSkywalker said:

I hate Star Wars becoming the Saga of Darth Vader rather than the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, I hate Luke being supplanted and replaced by Vader becoming the lead character. We are supposed to root for a wife killer and child murderer is that it?

Lucas totally lost his sense on the prequel, virgin birth, chosen one prophecy, rules on attachment, midichlorians, Whills, how can people take any of that at face value.

He destroyed Star Wars there was nothing left for Disney to destroy.

I understand where you are coming from, but you also need to be realistic. Sure, you can criticize the way Anakin was portrayed in the Prequels all you want, you can say that you don’t manage to empathize with him, you can even say that you would have liked him to be more similar to how he was portrayed in The Clone Wars (for example). All of that is totally legit. But regardless of the way Anakin would have been portrayed, he would have still fallen to the Dark Side and would have still turned into Darth Vader, which means that he would have still ended up doing stuff that we all consider to be morally reprehensible. If a character is intentionally set up to become a monster due to the choices he himself made, you can’t expect to empathize 100% with him. And besides, making Anakin the protagonist of the Saga does not automatically put Luke in the background, because it’s clear to everyone that Luke is a better person than Anakin and didn’t make his mistakes and bad choices. A character does not have to be the absolute focus of the Saga to be your favorite character, nor to be a better person than the actual protagonist of the Saga. Lucas said that Anakin is supposed to be viewed as the protagonist of the Saga, but he didn’t say that we have to approve his choices. On the contrary, he always said the exact opposite.

If you focus on the ethnicity of the characters of a movie instead of enjoying the movie itself, I honestly think you are the problem here. Who cares if the characters are white, black, green or transparent? That’s not the point. So yes, it’s a stupid criticism.

Creating the Chosen One Prophecy, saying that Anakin was destined to destroy the Sith, and thus creating the conditions for the Sith not to return after Return of the Jedi, is the best retcon that was ever introduced to Star Wars. Putting a limit on the Sith’s ability to return after Return of the Jedi forces the writers to come up with original, more interesting villains instead of reusing the Sith over and over again. And that is good, especially when you consider that the Sith have often similar reasons for turning to the Dark Side (they are all selfish and want power), which often results in the Sith being very similar to each other, which is boring. Too bad no one cared about this limit neither in Legends or Canon.

I would have still chosen Hayden Christensen.

fmalover said:

Spartacus01 said:

In retrospect, I think that the best thing that Lucas could have done was keeping Lucasfilm away from Disney and maintaining it as an independent company, but still retiring to private life and putting someone else in charge of Lucasfilm, possibly not Dave Filoni.

In that scenario I fear Lucasfilm would have turned into Filoni’s fanfiction playground. I’m glad we aren’t living in that world.

I said “possibly NOT Dave Filoni”.

On the one hand, I’m glad that Lucas didn’t have the opportunity to make the Sequel Trilogy the way he wanted to, because I strongly dislike his ideas for the Sequels, and I’m genuinely happy that Disney decided not to use them when they decided to make the Sequels. On the other hand, though, I think that almost everything that has been released by Disney so far has been extremely disappointing to say the least, except for Rogue One and Andor. So, I have mixed feelings about this subject. In retrospect, I think that the best thing that Lucas could have done was keeping Lucasfilm away from Disney and maintaining it as an independent company, but still retiring to private life and putting someone else in charge of Lucasfilm, possibly not Dave Filoni.

Dormé (the handmaiden that was played by Rose Byrne in Attack of the Clones) is actually Anakin’s half-sister. Dormé’s father lived on Tatooine for some years, and had a romance with Shmi before she was captured and sold into slavery. The Hutts captured her shortly after she gave birth to Dormé, but the newborn Dormé and her father managed to escape without being captured by the Hutts, and fled to Naboo. Shmi never saw Dormé and her father again, and the Force impregnated her two years after she was sold as a slave to Watto. She never tried to look for Dormé and her father even after she was freed from slavery, because she knew that both of them had a completely new life at that point, and she didn’t want to mess up their lives. And Dormé never knew that she was adopted, because both her father and her adoptive mother never told her. So… yeah, one of Padmé’s handmaidens was actually related to Anakin, and neither of them ever knew that.

Vladius said:

I strongly disagree with points 3 and 4 but I guess that’s the idea. I think those opinions are already more popular than the inverse though.

Well, they are unpopular opinions on here, so I think it still counts hahaha. Besides, my opinion on the Revan novel and The Old Republic is actually quite unpopular. In fact, I see people bashing on both the novel and the game almost on every EU forum and subreddit.

I know! I don’t understand why the forum created two threads… Lol!

Since there’s already a general Unpopular Opinion Thread, I thought it would have been nice to start a thread dedicated to unpopular opinions specifically related to the Expanded Universe.

I will start with some of my unpopular opinions.

1. I honestly don’t find the post-ROTJ stories from the EU to be that interesting. I’m much more interested in the Old Republic, the Prequel era, and the Imperial era up until the Battle of Endor. I don’t mind the post-ROTJ stories (if we exclude anything post-NJO), I just find the pre-ROTJ stories to be more interesting.
2. I don’t mind the Old Republic MMO, I actually like it quite a lot. However, I think that the expansions are much worse than the original, base game. They introduce a lot of plots that are convoluted and unnecessary, like Vitiate coming back a million times, the Eternal Empire, Malgus surviving, etc. Therefore, even though I actually like the game, I try to stick with the original story and ignore the expansions.
3. The Revan novel — and The Old Republic in general — don’t ruin Revan’s character. Yes, they ruin the Jedi Exile from Knights of the Old Republic II, but they don’t ruin Revan in my opinion.
4. I vastly prefer the way in which the Clone Wars were portrayed in the Prequels (and the 2000s EU) over the vague image of the war that results from reading the Thrawn Trilogy and the rest of the pre-Prequels EU.
5. The old EU didn’t have as much contradictions as anti-EU people claim. It was consistent with itself at least 70% of the time. Which doesn’t mean that there were not contradictions, of course, but they were not nearly as much as some people claim. Especially when you consider how many authors wrote in the EU and how many books and comics were supposed to exist in the same universe, the existence of some contradictions can be totally forgiven. Also, I think that the 2008 Clone Wars TV show was responsible for a good portion of the contradictions of the old EU.

Excited to read your own unpopular opinions as well.

The timeline of the Clone Wars Multimedia Project is far more consistent and works way better if you remove Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars show from it.

I had a nice idea. It’s not very radical, but I think it is worth trying, even though it requires some effort, as well as some knowledge about how to create new special effects.

So… I think that you all remember the scene where Anakin kills the younglings in Revenge of the Sith. Before Anakin kills the younglings, the camera focuses on his face for a second. Well, I was thinking that it would be nice to try to create the special effect of a tear falling from his eye and running down his cheek, just before the camera cuts to his lightsaber turning on.

Artificially inserting a tear on Anakin’s face at that precise moment would allow us to make it seem that he’s thinking something like: “I feel like crap. I don’t want to do this. But I have to…”

I think it’s worth trying.

My updated ranking with all the films:

1. Revenge of the Sith
2. A New Hope
3. Rogue One
4. Attack of the Clones
5. Return of the Jedi
6. The Empire Strikes Back
7. The Phantom Menace
8. The Force Awakens
9. The Clone Wars
10. Solo
11. The Last Jedi
12. The Rise of Skywalker

Shrek 3 is a good movie.

Gandalf the Cyan said:

I can give Lucas a bit of slack for the lucklusterness of the PT and ROTJ, since he was ultimately just trying to make pulpy Flash Gordon-esque adventures, not high-art movies. ANH and ESB, however, were so good that they’re generally considered to have entered into the realm of high art. He then fell into a trap where his subsequent films were expected to be masterpieces as well, and I agree that he could have definitely done better on them. But since he really knocked it out of the park on his first 2 SW films, fans’ expectations were higher than his.

I agree 100%. It’s fair to have high expectations, but expecting every Star Wars movie to be a perfect, flawless work of art is unrealistic, and it’s exactly what a lot of fans don’t seem to understand. Star Wars is always beautiful, even when it has some flaws. If it didnt have flaws, there would be nothing to talk about, and places like this forum wouldn’t even exist.

Personally, I think that it’s way more fun to fill in the blanks with your own imagination than having TV shows, books and comics before, between, and after the movies. Using your own imagination to imagine what happened between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith is way more fun than watching The Clone Wars, or reading the Clone Wars Multimedia Project. Using your own imagination to imagine what happened in the Old Republic era is much more fun than playing Knights of the Old Republic, or playing the Old Republic MMO. Using your own imagination to imagine Luke’s future adventures after Return of the Jedi is way more fun than reading the EU, or watching the Sequels.