Superweapon VII

Gandalf the Cyan said:

The Ewoks in ROTJ were descended from the survivors of a ship that crashed on Endor millenia ago, hence why they speak a “primitive dialect” of an existing language. They’ve been there so long that the story of how they got to Endor has become mythology, rather than history, to them; for example, the ship had a protocol droid onboard which survived but later “died”, who has been glorified as a kind of god.

Shut up and take my credits.

Didn’t Kershner go on record disparaging the philosophy of TESB, though? Saying words to the effect of “it seems deeper than it really is”?

Part of me wants to object, but I never even finished TLJ, so who am I to claim otherwise?

I certainly agree ROTJ’s weak. I don’t even enjoy watching it anymore. Everything between the sail barge showdown and the lightsaber duel cures me of insomnia.

Apparently the theatrical poster for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 used in Ghana:

“Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?”

I like the silliness/cheesiness of the old Marvel comics. Like you said, it’s a big galaxy; lots of room for different styles and sensibilities.

I used to be lukewarm towards Star Trek IV, though my appreciation’s definitely grown in recent years. Thank you, Kurtzman, for unwittingly providing some perspective.

Definitely the first three films, though I pretend Temple is set in 1937 instead of '35, as it doesn’t work at all as a prequel to Raiders (Indy’s a skeptic in the first film, which makes no sense if just the year before he experienced first-hand the magic of Mola Ram and the Sankara Stones). I also include most of the comics. That’s about it.

timdiggerm said:

you have to trust Villeneuve to know what he’s doing.

Or do I?

*dramatic sound effect*

Nicole Kidman

Why she chose to flatten and fry her hair with bleach, I’ll never understand.

I figured the Jedi Council would get eliminated and the Jedi Temple razed in Episode III, but that the Purge would otherwise occur offscreen between the trilogies with the details to be filled in by EU writers. I was immensely dissatisfied with how it actually went down.

Gandalf the Cyan said:

I must be experiencing Star Wars fatigue (at least for brand-new content) right now. I have no interest whatsoever in this show, despite all signs pointing to it being technically good.

Really, I think the issue is just that all the new content is just too run-of-the-mill. I’d like them to make something imaginative for once.

My issue is that I have zero interest in any stories pertaining to Jedi anymore. Between Filoni and Abrams, the Jedi have been thoroughly ruined in all eras.

Channel72 said:

I do remember assuming the Prequels would be much closer aesthetically/stylistically to the OT.

Same, only everything was cleaner/newer. I also imagined Alderaan with a more soft-focus fantasy aesthetic, with gleaming white Romanesque architecture.

TIE Advanced x1 is my first choice. The Scimitar would be my second.

Channel72 said:

As for Lucas, he’s actually covered with a mountain of cash, not poop.

And just like that, this scene from The Gate II comes to mind unbidden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6GJyJVklvw

fmalover said:

If there’s one Special Edition Trilogy change I could keep in the OT, it would be the extra shots of the Wampa in TESB. I never liked the fact that we never get a clear look at the Wampa, only brief glimpses. Another thing I like is that it’s a guy in a costume, a practical effect, so it blends well with the rest of the movie.

One of the least offensive alterations to be sure. Lucas should’ve used the opportunity to give the wampa a consistent appearance, though.

I probably don’t prefer one over the other. Some aspects of the former are better than the latter and vice-versa. I know I prefer Ventress’ backstory in the Multimedia Project over the convoluted Nightsister nonsense.

I’ve never cared for the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy. And no, it’s never been due to Tolkien purism; until this past October, I’ve never tackled the original novel. Though reading through the novel (I own a single-volume paperback edition, and I’ve over halfway through) has made me like the Jackson films even less. What saves the movies are the casting, production values, and score; it certainly isn’t the direction or script, which has little of the subtlety, poetry, and wit of Tolkien’s writing.

For shits & giggles, I used an AI generator to make an image of Mark Hamill as Dorothy Gale.

Still can’t make good hands.

Posts on TFN’s Jedi Council Forums tipped me off to Bataal Bandu, a Sith belonging to a faction in opposition to Vader. Luckily, the Internet Archive has a copy of the magazine he’s mentioned in:

https://archive.org/details/IQ.Gamer.Partial.Collection/inquest.043.(1998-11)/mode/2up?view=theater

Yeah, anticapitalism’s become just another commodity.

If Disney or any of these other film studios were truly leftist, they’d be co-ops with workplace democracy, their IPs would be in the public domain, and they wouldn’t be churning out all these cynical, artless cash-grab sequels, reboots, remakes, etc. in the first place.

timdiggerm said:

JadedSkywalker said:

What did give me a double take was Kirk’s father was first officer on the Kelvin? What that was in the JJverse not Prime, in canon he was supposed to be first officer under April on the first Starship Enterprise and i don’t mean the NX-01.

You have to remember, of course, that the JJVerse timeline was identical to the Prime timeline up to the point of the Romulans arriving. So in both timelines he was on the Kelvin, it’s just that in the Prime they made it back to Earth before Jim was born and George went on to serve elsewhere.

Simon Pegg went on-record discarding that premise:

With the Kelvin timeline, we are not entirely beholden to existing canon, this is an alternate reality and, as such is full of new and alternate possibilities. “BUT WAIT!” I hear you brilliant and beautiful super Trekkies cry, “Canon tells us, Hikaru Sulu was born before the Kelvin incident, so how could his fundamental humanity be altered? Well, the explanation comes down to something very Star Treky; theoretical, quantum physics and the less than simple fact that time is not linear. Sure, we experience time as a contiguous series of cascading events but perception and reality aren’t always the same thing. Spock’s incursion from the Prime Universe created a multidimensional reality shift. The rift in space/time created an entirely new reality in all directions, top to bottom, from the Big Bang to the end of everything. As such this reality was, is and always will be subtly different from the Prime Universe. I don’t believe for one second that Gene Roddenberry wouldn’t have loved the idea of an alternate reality (Mirror, Mirror anyone?). This means, and this is absolutely key, the Kelvin universe can evolve and change in ways that don’t necessarily have to follow the Prime Universe at any point in history, before or after the events of Star Trek ‘09

https://simonpegg.net/2016/07/11/a-word-about-canon/

Imagine thinking a corporation has a leftist agenda. lawl. Just goes to show how obscenely skewed to the right the Overton window in America is.