ZkinandBonez

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:
If you go from a OT purist perspective then yes, her sudden appearance in ROTJ s kinda weird, but in the whole franchise that’s developed since, there’s plenty to choose from.

I may well be the most annoying OT purist you’ll ever meet and I have absolutely no problem with Mon Mothma suddenly appearing in ROTJ.

Well, I’m a sort of compromised OT purist myself. I tend to completely ignore any EU stuff written post 1999, but I enjoyed TFA well enough to make a sort-of compromise with the new movies. But as far as I’m concerned they’re just elaborate Disney fan films.

SilverWook said:

And isn’t it nice that some of you have something new to kvetch about for the next eight months? 😉

My thoughts exactly.
I mean the trailer’s only been out for a day, and we’re already having complex arguments about the SW canon. I don’t really know anyone personally that knows SW-lore well enough to have these kinds of discussions, so I’m having tons of fun.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Didn’t Leia say that she had an adoptive mother in the ROTJ novel? Or do I remember that wrong?

It’s mentioned in the original film. Luke: “Leia… do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”

Right, that’s what I though. Owen is still Obi-Wan’s brother though according to the novel, so it’s still kind of funny that Lucasfilm would claim it was canon, even if they later changed that to mostly-canon.
The novel also has some funny, subtle inconsistencies such as Palpatine having a hard time remembering Yoda’s name and implying that he never personally met him, and so forth.

Are’t these novels still being published? I can imagine that reading them must be somewhat confusing for anyone who grew up with the PT. (I mean I did, but I read them because I wanted to experience the pre-PT canon of the OT. They actually contain quite a lot of interesting PT ideas from before Lucas actually made the PT films.)

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Keep in mind that there are many factions of the Rebel Alliance, so I don’t see why she has to be everywhere Luke, Leia, Han, etc. is.

I have to point out that this is not true in the original movies. I suppose this might be suggested in the EU stuff, but in the original 1977 film, the Empire is attempting to find one hidden Rebel base and Darth Vader is confident that destroying that one base will result in the end of the Rebellion.

That’s true, but even the OT wasn’t always too consistent themselves. But yes, they definitely seem to have a Main Base that they move around. But it seems stupid of the to “put all their eggs in one basket” so to speak. Also I’m not denying that these are retcons, they obviously are, but that’s not exactly something that’s new to SW, and I’m simply saying that it’s not too hard to give reasonable excuses as to where Mon Mothma was during ANH and ESB when you take the PT, EU (both of them), and the new Disney canon into account. If you go from a OT purist perspective then yes, her sudden appearance in ROTJ s kinda weird, but in the whole franchise that’s developed since, there’s plenty to choose from.

adywan said:

I’ll never understand why they ever said that the novels are canon )unless its a misunderstanding and they meant the new-EU novels and NOT the movie adaptations). If they are then Owen is Obi-Wan’s brother and Padme married Bail Organa.

Didn’t Leia say that she had an adoptive mother in the ROTJ novel? Or do I remember that wrong?

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Smoking Lizard said:

Never mind the fact that according to the original ROTJ script, Mon Mothma was never mentioned as being a member of the Imperial Senate.

Mon Mothma’s character hadn’t even been created during the production of ANH, so I hardly see how that has any impact on a prequel movie made in 2016.

It’s irrelevant what year the script is written. I’m simply saying that in order for the 2016 script to be consistent with the 1983 script, you have to be able to explain why Mon Mothma appears to be in a leadership role in events prior to the 1977 script.

(And as a somewhat relevant side-note, she was part of the Republic Senate in the PT and Clone Wars series which is part of the DisneyEU, so it’s not improbable that her role as an Imperial Senate member will be re-canonized)

That’s a good point. I must concede that I very often forget that the PT is canon and, frankly, I had forgotten her character appears in one of those prequel films.

So you say she was a senator in the PT? If that’s the case, then her timeline must be something like this:

1. Is in the Republic Senate.

2. Gets involved with the Rebellion. Presumably she becomes a leader of the Rebellion of some sort.

3. Commissions spies to intercept the Death Star plans.

4. Disappears roughly at that point from the events of ANH and TESB.

5. Returns somehow in ROTJ as the leader of the Rebellion.

Keep in mind that there are many factions of the Rebel Alliance, so I don’t see why she has to be everywhere Luke, Leia, Han, etc. is. Also she’s more of a political leader than a military tactician, so I fail to see why she had to be present on f.ex. Hoth. (In the old EU she was making herself useful elsewhere during these events.) Kep in midn that we only see the Rebels gathered four times in the OT. Why she wasn’t present during the DS attack can have many reasonable explanations, and now we see that she was present on Yavin in RO, her not being on Hoth is fairly easy to explain, she could have been present when the Rebel fleet gathered att he end of ESB even though we never saw her, and finally she was present when the Rebellion gathered to make a calculated attack on the DS II in ROTJ. (We also have no idea where she was during the 4-5 years between ANH and ESB in the new EU. I’m sure they’ll make some comics and novels to fill that gap soon.) Considering how the character was introduced in ROTJ, I think all of this makes a pretty decent Disney canon timeline.

Tobar said:

Mon Mothma is easy to explain.

The one that is/would be hard to explain is Biggs.

If that is Biggs then we do actually have a continuity problem on our hands. When Luke runs into him at Tosche Station he states his intentions of jumping ship and trying to join the Rebellion. He doesn’t supposedly join the Rebellion until sometime after that before Luke makes it to the Hidden Base.

Now, some will say that it’s a deleted scene and therefore doesn’t count. HOWEVER, it’s been officially stated that the novelizations of the films are canon and that scene is included in the novelization of Star Wars.

Theories?

Well, in the old EU, Biggs was lying to Luke and had already joined the Rebellion months earlier. He essentially described to Luke what he had already done, but pretended that it was something he was planning to do so that he could both “recruit” Luke without potentially compromising himself or the Rebels to the Empire.
It’s possible that this idea will be re-canonized (unless of course the novelization blatantly contradicts this, which I wouldn’t know as I haven’t read it.)

EDIT: Are the novelizations really part of the Disney canon? There’s a fair amount of PT contradictions in those books, especially in ROTJ.

Smoking Lizard said:

Lord Haseo said:

You’re still ignoring the fact that it wasn’t explained in ROTJ as to why she wasn’t in STAR WARS or ESB. So why should another film have to pick up the slack because the OT had so so writing in that department?

It’s a very simple explanation – Mon Mothma has assumed the leadership role of the Rebel Alliance sometime between TESB and ROTJ.

We see her found the early seeds for the Rebellion with Bail Organa and Padme in ROTS, which needless to say is part of Disney’s canon even if many of us here don’t like to acknowledge it.

They even used the same actress in Rogue One.

Smoking Lizard said:

Where is she during the attack on the Death Star? It’s the Rebellion’s most crucial hour and she’s leading some futile protest of the dissolution of the Senate?

Never mind the fact that according to the original ROTJ script, Mon Mothma was never mentioned as being a member of the Imperial Senate.

Where was she during the medal ceremony? Luke, Han, Chewie, and, I suppose Wedge, just saved the entire galaxy and the entire Rebellion and she’s not present?

Well, the attack on the Death Star was kind of improvised, and hardly a planned attack. They had plans to attack it at some point after the’d received the tech plans yes, but they hadn’t expected the DS to show up at their doorstep. And although the length of space travel tend to vary from film-to-film, we don’t know how log it would take Mon Mothma to get to Coruscant, or wherever she went, and back again in time for a ceremony. I mean there is a whole galaxy for Mothma to have gone during these unexpected events that took place over no more than a couple of days.

Smoking Lizard said:

Never mind the fact that according to the original ROTJ script, Mon Mothma was never mentioned as being a member of the Imperial Senate.

Mon Mothma’s character hadn’t even been created during the production of ANH, so I hardly see how that has any impact on a prequel movie made in 2016.

(And as a somewhat relevant side-note, she was part of the Republic Senate in the PT and Clone Wars series which is part of the DisneyEU, so it’s not improbable that her role as an Imperial Senate member will be re-canonized)

One of the things that really stands out to me in the trailer is how amazing this shot of the Star Destroyer looks.

It looks so much like the miniature ships from the OT, however I can’t find any reason to rationalize this effect as being anything other than CGI.
It could of course just have to do with the resolution of the trailer, and maybe when I see it on the big screen it’ll look more like the CG ships in TFA, but maybe they’ve done something somewhat different. This is really just a wild speculation (based off one shot at that), but maybe they’ve done something similar to what was done in Star Trek: Insurrection, where they photographed the miniature of the Enterprise from the previous film and then made a 3D CG model out of those photos to make it look more convincing. Maybe they’ve done something similar with one of the old Star Destroyer miniatures?
Or maybe it’s just an exceptionally good CG shot, I just thought it look strangely better than the AT-AT’s in the trailer, as well as all of the spaceships in TFA (both the film and trailers).

Smoking Lizard said:

Mithrandir said:

Maybe she leaves to Coruscant after the battle. Maybe she’s requested for an emergency session of the Imperial Senate where some good old Emperor decides that due to the Empire being attacked it is about time to dissolve the Congress. Maybe.

The Emperor dissolved the Senate before the attack on the Death Star.

Well, this film does take place before the attack on the Death Star. So there are plenty of potentially good explanations for why Mon Mothma would be on Yavin IV for a scene in RO, but not during the events of ANH.

joefavs said:

I like how they’ve just redressed a subway station, or something similar, for this scene. It has a nice gritty and realistic feel to it, while still looking like something from the SW universe.

Tobar said:

Okay, so, ever since we first got that cast photo last year. I kept thinking mustache man could possibly be Biggs. BUT, now that I’ve seen him in motion, something’s just tugging at me that he could be KYLE KATARN. If they did THAT my heart might explode.

My reasoning being, Kyle has always been tied pretty closely with the retrieval of the Death Star plans. I think his story was the first to depict it. Subsequently, a few years ago when they created a new game starring a female lead who then steals the plans, they also threw Kyle Katarn in the game so that he was still involved in some capacity. If they make Kyle Katarn canon, in a FILM no less, I would be the luckiest boy in the world!

Although I’m personally not too ken on Kyle appearing in the DisneyEU, I’m not trying to make a serious counter argument or anything, I just find this picture funny.

However, you could be right, I mean this film already has a Grad Admiral in it (he’s even dressed like Thrawn) and the new lead character’s name sound oddly similar to Jan Ors. And if he’s not Katarn, it’s very likely that he’s inspired by him.

pittrek said:

Well but that’s the whole problem - the ONLY reason they’re doing it as a E4 prequel is that they want to use pre-existing things well known to the general public. It’s a business decision, not an artistic decision. That’s the whole reason why these spin-off movies do exist.

I think people will be guaranteed to be disappointed by these movies if they don’t acknowledge that they exist to make money. If Hollywood ran purely on artistry, we probably wouldn’t have had anything beyond the OT, but that’s clearly not the case.
Rogue One exists for three purposes;

1. As a “while-you-wait-for-Ep.VIII” movie.
2. To help pay back the 4 billion dollars Disney spent on the franchise.
3. and to exploit nostalgia and fandom.

I think we’re all well aware of this, and these films would exist in one way or the other regardless of how we feel about commercialism, so since they’ll be made anyway let’s just hope that they choose someone competent to write/direct them. I’d rather have Rogue One be a good cash-in movie than a bad cash-in movie, and I’m personally starting to think that this might be a pretty good one. I mean it’s a SW anthology film, I hardly expected it to be a masterpiece, I’m just hoping it will e an enjoyable and competently made franchise-film.

I’m glad to see that Mon Mothma wasn’t a CG recreation of Caroline Blakiston and was instead played by a new actor. Hopefully we’ll get something similar with Tarkin.
(I was also surprised by the inclusion of a Grand Admiral. Wasn’t that whole white uniform thing invented by Timothy Zahn in the Thrawn trilogy?)

All in all though, I’m actually intrigued by this film for the first time.
(Some of the dialogue seemed a tad corny, but this is teaser trailer, so I won’t really put to much though into that for now.)

DuracellEnergizer said:

• Ren to suffer a full psychotic break and go full-on schizo, causing him to hear and see things which aren’t there, talk to people others cannot see, etc. Really make him a dangerous, unpredictable villain who is potentially as much a threat to his allies as he is to his enemies.
• Some very surreal Lynchian imagery.

Since TFA gave us a Force vision I really do hope that ep. VIII will give us a Dark side equivalent to Luke’s vision on Dagobah. The weirder and darker the better. I really want to see Kylo struggling with his inner demons, maybe even Han as some people have suggested. Seeing his warped mental images of Han, Luke, and even Rey could also be really interesting.

yotsuya said:

John Doom said:

-no more teal & orange/magenta and high contrasts, just simpler well-crafted gradings chosen to match the scene;

Just one of the reasons why I am going to make my own color regrade version.

Did TFA use teal & orange color correction? I thought it looked quite normal. I was even sitting in the theatre feeling relived that they hadn’t done it. There’s a few oddly colored corrected scenes (that look a bit too digital), such as Rey’s vision and the final duel. But over all I felt that TFA looked quite natural by modern standards.

I realize that this thread has been pretty much dead for roughly a month or so now, but it felt weird to make a new topic just for this one little detail about TFA.

“Kylo Ren’s table of Ashes in TFA explained”
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/04/kylo-rens-table-of-ashes-in-starwars-theforceawakens-explained.html

I recently found this video from behind the scenes of ROTS and I must admit that I was once again thoroughly impressed by all the amazing animatronics and make-up effects that Lucas decided to not show in the finished film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krNvSGdN2Wg
Skip ahead to ca. 2:20 to see the animatroics.

(Btw, I first found this video with a fake TFA title and thumbnail. It was one of those attempts at refuting OT fans by showing them that there actually were practical effects in the PT. It even threw in a “Jar Jar Binks Sith Lord” for good measure.)

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/04/english-market-in-cork-new-filming-location-for-episode-viii.html

Agreed.
I’d love to see someone desperately try to find a way rationalize this problem. You can argue as much as you want about the plot, the effects, performances, retconning, make up ring theory excuses, etc. but this lack of basic (and necessary) exposition is a pretty glaring oversight.

The entirety of TPM was a “misconception” when I first watched it at the age of seven in 1999. It was the first SW film I saw and I had no clue what was going on. People rarely discuss this, but TPM never explains how the Force works despite trying to be “Episode 1”. They just kind of expect that you’ve already seen ANH or that someone’s already explained it to you.
The mind trick scene in the Otoh Gunga early in the film really confused me. I just assumed that Boss Nass was really gullible and that Qui-Gon was just very convincing. Seeing Obi-Wan Force-push battle droids out of the blue also really confused me. My seven year old self simply assumed that they slipped on something, which really wasn’t that big of a stretch with TPM’s silly humour.
The irony here is that all of these misunderstandings were cleared when I watched “Episode 4” and Ben explained everything. (That this was a huge flaw of the film did however not really occur to me until several years later.)

ATMachine said:

I want to know why Luke has a golden lightsaber on the Shadows of the Empire novel cover.

Probably the same reason everything else is yellow. I mean even Vader looks kind of yellow. The yellow colour scheme in general seems to have to do with the sun behind the SW logo, it kinda looks like a moon, but this novel does revolve around the Black Sun organization so it might have something to do with that.

Also Struzan has switched up the colours before for the sake of symbolism, such as the reversed saber colours of Luke and Vader on the Revenge of the Jedi poster, which he even claims was done subconsciously.
So it’s probably just an artistic choice.

Well, what’s wrong with the design of Naboo? Sure, TPM is a pretty bad film, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the designs were bad. Just because they were unlike anything we saw in the OT doesn’t mean that they aren’t proper SW designs. The OT only showed us a few planets, many of which were pretty primitive, so why shouldn’t there be some fancier places out there? Cloud City was pretty fancy, and very unlike anything seen in ANH.
Also hasn’t someone pointed out that the Dubrovnik sets were based off some old unused McQuarrie concept art?

Either way, as long as they avoid any Camino-esque hyper-futuristic designs I’m personally not going to complain.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/03/poes-clothes-description-episode-viii.html

"It seems that Laura Dern is a leader of The Resistance.
Leia’s ship is ambushed, she is blasted through space.
Leia ends up in a coma. Laura Dern’s character then takes over Resistance command, but makes things far worse.
With this in mind, Poe takes control of the situation and becomes the interim leader of The Resistance."

I’m not sure how reliable this info is, but it’s an intriguing idea.

PS, I can’t remember anyone having posted this photo from Dubrovnik earlier;

It looks like Finn, and maybe Rey, riding some animatronic cat-horse thing. I’m assuming that that metal pole sticking into it’s “guts” is connected to the inner mechanics and that it’ll be removed digitally in post.
So it’ll be interesting to see this thing in action in the film. Hopefully, it’s a bit more active and on screen than the Jakku pig-thing from TFA.

EDIT: I think I can see a wheel as well attached to the front of the whatever-it-is.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/03/rumors-about-laura-derns-character-in-star-wars-episode-viii.html

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/03/official-confirmation-on-the-episodeviii-filming-along-the-wild-atlantic-way-in-ireland.html

joefavs said:

I have to doubt that the KOR shot is a glimpse of the future simply because Kylo loses both his mask and his lightsaber by the end of TFA. I’m betting he’ll have a distinctly different mask (if he has one at all) and a more traditional saber the next time we see him.

Yeah, that’ll probably be the case, but as Haseo did point out, Rey does have a vision of her fight with Kylo from the end of the film where he wears his mask. He also “sees” her during her vision of the KoR, so obviously her visions aren’t completely objective. So many of these moment might be from the future, despite her seeing the people involved as they currently are. Or Kylo might have partaken in the massacre with his old mask and saber had she not defeated him on Starkiller Base. So it’s not impossible that we’ll see and alternate version of her vision.
(PS, yes I know I’m stretching here, I’m just saying it’s possible.)