TheBoost

My brother and I still get into fist fights at family gatherings on whether it's Han or Hahn, and Lee-a or Lay-a.

Bingowings said:

My final word on Jedi and revenge, if the Jedi are beyond such things explain Obi-wan's wrath fueled attack on Darth Maul or Anakin's clearly vengeful charge at Count Dooku?

1. As the evidence shows, Anakin was not good at avoiding the Dark Side in general.

2. I'm not sure Obi seemed 'wrath fueled.' He was upset, he was a bit hyper, probably unfocused, but in the end he defeated Maul by being calm and out manueverng him, not beating him down with superior rage.

AxiaEuxine said:

 

 NO FUCKING WAY!!!! Fuck Pine, Fuck Abrahms and Fuck that pile of shit movie!

Seriously. Star Trek needed more excellent material like Voyager, Enterprise, and Nemesis.

Deckard2 said:

I always wondered what Lando and vader's original agreement was that would have justified him betraying his friends?

1st change

Give Han to Jabba the Hutt

Leia and the wookie are not to leave the city.

2nd change

Lando is to bring the Princess and the wookie to vader's ship 

Apparently it was simply "Let me chill here, keep your friends unharmed for a bit, and I'll capture some shmoe you've never met, and then I'll leave you be. We cool, we cool."

Did Vader torture Han so that Luke would feel Han's pain through the force and then Luke would come to Bespin?

 That was always my impression.

Bingowings said:

TheBoost said:

Regardless of who the Jedi in the title refers to, Revenge is  a conscious act, requiring intent. No one has that intent. One cant accidentally take revenge on someone.

 I dunno. Luke had his ass beat down in ESB and he returned. Vader at one point stopped being a jedi, and apparently returned to being a jedi. It can be implyed that perhaps Luke restarts the Jedi order, or by the very act of confronting Vader he becomes a Jedi, hence the extinct Jedi return.

The word can refer to both the active seeking of retribution and the achievement of retribution.

Retribution was achieved regardless of it being sought or not so it can still be described as revenge.

It wasn't achieved by accident (in the sense of "Whoops! What a mishap! My actions have caused someone who has defeated me before to suffer a fatal fall"), it was not necessarily an outcome that was directly sought. Ben and Yoda wanted Vader and Palpatine to be removed from power and this was achieved in the form of a retributive outcome.

Going by the criteria you use all episodes of the saga after TPM could be called "Return Of The Astrodroid" ;-)  

Revenge cannot happen without revenge being the express intent. Somebody hit my car in the parking lot, and their insurance paid for the damage. That was a retribuitive outcome, and yet it was not vengeance.

With a hero who is not seeking vengeance but instead redemption motivated by compassion (Luke), and a guy who kills his boss in a sudden act of desperate emotion motivated by familial love, "REVENGE of the Jedi" seems a title trying to hard to be bad-ass.

And what exactly is Vader supposedly seeking vengeance for? You need to read into some pretty murky subtext to say he acted for vengeance.

By your criteria Return of the King is VENGEANCE OF THE HOBBIT because the hero causes the downfall of a villain.

But now that you mention it, I do remember a line in ESB that supports your point.

 YODA: Be calm. At peace. Act only for defence, never attack. And get some motherf***g revenge on those punks! Kill! KILL! Terrible bloody vengeance you must sow!! Paybacks a b***h Sithies!!!

DarthBo said:

TheBoost said:

Regardless of who the Jedi in the title refers to, Revenge is  a conscious act, requiring intent. No one has that intent. One cant accidentally take revenge on someone.

OK, then how exactly do the Jedi return?

 I dunno. Luke had his ass beat down in ESB and he returned. Vader at one point stopped being a jedi, and apparently returned to being a jedi. It can be implyed that perhaps Luke restarts the Jedi order, or by the very act of confronting Vader he becomes a Jedi, hence the extinct Jedi return.

Regardless of who the Jedi in the title refers to, Revenge is  a conscious act, requiring intent. No one has that intent. One cant accidentally take revenge on someone.

But Luke doesn't try to get Revenge. He goes in with the plan of redeeming his father. That Palpy dies is an after effect of that goal.

Minor tweaks I would like.

Make the Ewoks a little less cute. They're like small furry Zulu.

Consequently, the land battle on Endor would be between as many rebels as they could land (they should be able to shove 50 guys in the cargo hold) more violent Ewoks, and a more capable and varied Imperial force.

The Jaba rescure reworked slightly to make a bit more sense tactically.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Oh yeah, Secret History of Star Wars is cool. It's a great archaeological work. Zombie's done us all a service by writing that book.

 I didn't want to respond to this thread until I read Zombie's book. now I did. It was great.

But my point still stands Even if Lucas's early draft was a total 100% rip-off (which it apparently was), his EARLIEST draft was totally different (Journal of the Whills with CJ Thorpe), and the finished product bears only the slimmist vague similarity to the Kurosawa film.

Noting the influence on the early draft is interesting, but to act as if the early and later disregarded influences of "Hidden Fortress" in anyway diminishes the final film is uncritical fanhate bordering in the silly.

If this gets released, I can finally do what we've all been waiting for.

THE WB NETWORK STAR WARS, completly rescored with late 90's pop ballads!

brash_stryker said:

TheBoost said:

 That's the whole point. The Dark Side twists and corrupts. There is no 'but I did it for such and such a good reason.' The Dark Side is an insidious cancer.

Exactly. Which is why Anakin giving rational reasons for turning to the dark side does not work.

 But his perfectly rational reason is almost instantly twisted, so that he kills her. It makes perfect sense. Anakin thinks he can do it, but he's wrong.

Luke couldn't give into his hatred, even if it meant that was the way he could stop Vader and Empy. If he did, his noble intentions would have been twisted and corrupted. Luke cant say "I'm just gonna tap me some Dark Side to take out Palpy, then I'll be good again." It sounds rational but it would fail, that's what Anakin tried.

(are we talking about Anakin's motivation's being incorrect in-universe? If we are we apparently agree. If we're talking about Anakin's motivations being a plot-hole as suggested by the cartoon you posted, those motivations and their consequences seem perfectly consistent to me.)

Bingowings said:

At least in this scenerio he is acting consistantly with his character (he is locating people or information for a price not just acting as a bodyguard for Jabba) as seen in ESB and actually moves the plot along so there is a slim possibility if the case is well made even he might run with the idea.

 How is selling information as a secret agent double-dealing courier more in line with his character (which from ESB is a bounty hunter who barely speaks) than being the hired gun for a criminal he apparently already worked for?

Which seems more "in character": Delivering his target to the drug lord he works for, then hanging out at the drug lords palace until needed again, or delivering his target to the drug dealer he works for, then turning around, becoming a secret agent for the Empire, and pulling off an extremly elaborate piece of espionage?

That can't be!

Lucas is very clear that the movies are really all about Anakin/Vader. I refuse to let word analysis deny the Bearded One!

Akwat Kbrana said:

CG can be done right, but it must be approached with the aim in mind that it look real. The PT went instead for whacky cartoonisms, so its brand of CGI utterly fails to effectively "sell" itself to the viewer.

 Nail on the head there.

brash_stryker said:

Also, going back to my point on Padme being his reason for turning to the dark side:

 

 That's the whole point. The Dark Side twists and corrupts. There is no 'but I did it for such and such a good reason.' The Dark Side is an insidious cancer.

I dig your work on evil Padme, and your site in general, but I have to ask... do you actually buy a figure, open it, replace the backing card, and reseal it? Or is this more of an exersise in photoshop?

Vaderisnothayden said:

Gaffer Tape said:

I'll agree with you that in terms of faith, tenets, and objectives, Judaism and Christianity are very different religions.  But in terms of history, they are very much the same, as Christianity is simply an offshoot of Judaism, hence the term Judeo-Christian being so popular.  The Ark is certainly more religious than the Grail, which is straight-up not Biblical, but they're certainly cut from the same cloth. 

 

I don't see how the ark is cut from the same cloth as the grail. One is a biblical Jewish-origin Middle-Eastern-origin artifact, while the other has its origins in European culture and was possibly inspired by pagan European folklore. They're quite different.

 Very true. However, in the context of the film they take the characters to similar places, notably deserts and cities of the Middle East. Crusade goes from Venice, and takes a quick jaunt into Germany, but then it's right back to deserts.

I think it's the feel of these scenes (mostly in the third act) that account for many of the comparisons.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Gaffer Tape said:

I'll agree with you that in terms of faith, tenets, and objectives, Judaism and Christianity are very different religions.  But in terms of history, they are very much the same, as Christianity is simply an offshoot of Judaism, hence the term Judeo-Christian being so popular.  The Ark is certainly more religious than the Grail, which is straight-up not Biblical, but they're certainly cut from the same cloth. 

 

I don't see how the ark is cut from the same cloth as the grail. One is a biblical Jewish-origin Middle-Eastern-origin artifact, while the other has its origins in European culture and was possibly inspired by pagan European folklore. They're quite different.

 Very true. However, in the context of the film they take the characters to similar places, notably deserts and cities of the Middle East. Crusade goes from Venice, and takes a quick jaunt into Germany, but then it's right back to deserts.

I think it's the feel of these scenes (mostly in the third act) that account for many of the comparisons.

Gaffer Tape said:

I also think that Crusade is the best.  I know I've been through this before and recently, so I'll try not to repeat what I've said.  I don't think Raiders is boring.  I enjoy Raiders.  I think it's a great film.  I can certainly see why Crusade is seen as a knockoff of Raiders because, in a way, it is.  Nazis want Judeo-Christian artifact, Indy and Sallah, go and get it!  Yes, it's a knockoff.  I'll be the first to admit that, and it certainly loses originality points because of it.  ...

... After all, Raiders has the originality that Crusade lacks.  And it also has a more sophisticated feel in places.  But I can't help but love the interactions between Indy and Henry.  The chemistry is great, and none of the other movies have that. 

I agree with you about Crusade. The deph of character, and the father/son relationship gives that flick something Raiders didn't have. That's not necessarily a weakness in Raiders, which choses to fill its story its own way. I wouldn't say I prefer one to the other, as IMHO they both excel in their own fashion.

Vaderisnothayden said:

As I have explained, I couldn't care less about the old serials or about trying to imitate them. From reading The Secret History of Star Wars I gather that some of the crappiness of the prequels was caused by trying to imitate the old serials. I'd much rather the franchises were not limited by old serials. And I really don't see how Raiders was this "perfect action/adventure film". Was it because of its bland lack of intensity? Or its bland annoying villains? Or its dumb everybody-goes-gooey ending?

 

 As a huge fan and collector of the old serials, let me say that the prequels are NOTHING LIKE OLD SERIALS. Star Wars (and to a lesser extent ROTJ) is the only film that really have a kind of movie serial feel. A balls-to-the-wall pace, linear narrative, episodic series of challenges, and a classic mustache twirling villain (the original Vader) are all reminiscent of the serials. ESB and the PT totally lack these.

Lucas for some odd reason uses the 'movie serial' talk to justify that he doesn't care for character development (which he admittedly does not). Considering that AOTC is a love story and ROTS is mostly a character study of Anakin, the 'movie serial' thing doesn't seem to apply.  

In regards to the OP.

I've always thought the flaws in the PT are flaws in execution, not idea. I think the PTs have fine plots, just poorly pulled off. Even Jar Jar wouldn't be so bad if he'd been pulled off with a little more heart (the Phantom Editor goes a long way towards making Jar Jar into an almost likeable character in The Phantom Edit).

So I guess I'd keep most of it, just have the whole thing re-envisioned to annoy the excesses of style and rework the dramatic moments to actually work.

Vaderisnothayden said:

 

Canon is the OOT. Like a rock, it is the hard truth of Star Wars.

If my views on what's canon were based on my personal preference, I would include various other things in the canon. But my priority is to follow a canon that's real, based on what's the real thing.

Even you have to recognize that as circular reasoning. The canon as you define it is real because it's real.  

 They are not consistent with the original intentions behind ANH, but they fix up things well enough so that ANH works with them.

Well enough is whose opinion? I'm assuming yours, because there are members of this board who totally reject ROTJ and at least one who doesn't dig on ESB (and for those of us who love ESB, I've heard Lucas doesn't care for it, as it departs strongly from his original intentions).

Most canons have some inconsistencies. The thing is not to have huge gaps like the total change in the nature of Anakin.

So, you have an image of what PT Anakin should have been based on... six, maybe seven sentences in the entire OT. And while PT Anakin literally fits these factors ('good friend' 'great starpilot' 'seduced by the Dark Side') he doesn't fit them in the spirit of the "canon" as defined by you.

And while we're at it, which audio mix of "Star Wars" counts as canon? Which Beru voice? And does the '81 rerelease that added "A New Hope" could as EU?

Vaderisnothayden said:

This is not about "personal canon", this is about the issue of what's the real Star Wars. I do not pick and choose to suit myself and then call that canon. I studied Star Wars works and the overall sitaution and then made my judgement on what I believe to be the real thing.

So, Vaderisnothayden, I'm very curious; after your extensive study, what is canon?

Since forums like this is the closest the Star Wars community is going to get to the Council of Nicea, I'd love to hear your conclusions, which are in no way based on your personal preference. 

If the OOT is the only thing that can be considered canon, then it leads to the next question 'canon in regards to what?' What's the purpose of defining 'canon' in a fictional universe if it excludes everything but the original work?

And since ROTJ and ESB both invalidate parts of SW, contradicting much of Lucas's original backstory, are they canon?

C3PX said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Raiders is hardly perfect. It's a rather limited film that leaves me disappointed every time I watch it.

I really have to ask, you say it leaves you disappointed "every time" you watch it, why do you watch it them? You know it is going to disappoint, so why not just give it a pass everytime the opportunity to see it arises? Maybe it is just me, but I really prefer not to rewatch movies I've already seen once and been disappointed by. Just feels like a waste of time to me.

 I have relationships with some movies that are similar to unhealthy relationships I had with some women.

"Xmen 3" is the perfect example. I watch that movie whenever I catch it on TV, and the (very) few moments that make me feel it's a good film keep me holding on, even during the moments that make me want to cry and hurt myself.