ZkinandBonez

imperialscum said:

http://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/894340

Well, Luke being thrown out seemed more like bad luck (or good luck depending on how you see it) considering he was sucked into one tube first, then fell through a hatch that shrew him outside.
We don’t know where that first tube would have taken him.
Not to mention that SW architecture is well know for not making any logical sense, and being there more for the sake of plot, aesthetic, etc. Luke simply got sucked into that shaft because if he hadn’t there’d be no ROTJ. Plot-wise it makes sense, Luke decided to sacrifice himself rather than join Vader, but as luck or faith (the Force?) would have it he survived to fight another day/movie. And him ending up on the antenna was both a way to add even more suspense, as well as a clever way to get him out of the city and in a position that was more accessible to the Falcon.

imperialscum said:

Frank your Majesty said:

Now, Vader’s lightsaber being retrieved from the exploded DSII would definitely need a good explanation. Doesn’t it fall down the ractor shaft when Luke cuts off Vader’s hand?

It is about the same as Luke’s lightsabre falling into gas giant.

I always assumed it just hit the bottom of that big air vent, or whatever it was. Just because Luke almost got sucked outside doesn’t mean the saber did the same thing. The old EU even had a story where it was retrieved by an Ughnaught.

As for Vader’s saber, some of the early TFA drafts had the wreckage of the Death Star II being explored. There’s artwork of someone exploring Palpatine’s throne room under water (suggesting that s lot of wreckage hit Endor or the planet it was orbiting.). Johnson may have borrowed from these unused ideas.

joefavs said:

I believe there actually is a Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina-style short story collection based around the denizens of Maz’s bar on the way. I don’t feel strongly one way or the other about it.

That actually makes perfect sense to me. I don’t mind the idea, but I’m skeptical about the writing.
Some of the already existing backstories to those characters seem kinda weird and silly.
(The Crimson Corsair is a pretty cool name though, has a bit of an early Marvel SW comics feel to it.)

Also, are the “Tales…” stories still canon?

EDIT:
I assume that you were talking about this?; http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tales_From_a_Galaxy_Far,_Far_Away_Volume_I:_Aliens

Tobar said:

The worst example I can think of for that would definitely be IG-88. I never once considered that as canon despite its standing.

Didn’t he (it?) download his mind into the Death Star II computer or something bizarre like that in the EU? Or was that another Skippy-type of story.

Also, even though Palatine is anything but a background character, I always hated his EU backstory. I always imagined him as some kind of ancient evil (which the movies kind of implied), but the EU just made him into some random sith from Naboo.

Tobar said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I was just disappointed that they didn’t actually call him “TR-8R.”

Also in this case I wouldn’t say that it killed any “mystique.” He’s not some weird cantina alien he’s some guy who clearly knows Finn, and who has some pretty unusual training. It doesn’t really matter, not for the sake of the film anyway, but for those who do like to have backstories, now they have one. One that actually makes some sense, unlike certain other EU backstories

I also love how the fans have named Daniel Craig’s stormtrooper “JB-007.”

I’m relieved they didn’t call him that. Talk about lame fan service. He was obviously part of the same crew that Finn was, so the FN indication in the name is logical.

As for Skippy the Jedi Droid, he was never and has never been considered canon. He was the subject of a comic short story in Star Wars Tales. A title that from its inception was a collection of non-canon stories.

Fair enough. But there’s still a lotad of dumb EU backstories, I just picked the dumbest one I could think if as an example. The EU also had a habit of giving random background characters their own elaborate sagas. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing I just find it kind of funny.

Also I wasn’t exactly being super serious.

Lord Haseo said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Well, the “Traitor!” trooper, whom the fans have nicknamed “TR-8R”, has apparently been given a backstory.
It’s hardly important news, but I did find it somewhat amusing.
(Btw, his canon name is a lot more boring than TR-8R.)

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/star-wars-the-force-awakens-traitor-trooper-officially-named-given-backstory.html

Yay, more needless backstory to kill any and all mystique to the SW Universe.

It’s just a stormtrooper…

I was just disappointed that they didn’t actually call him “TR-8R.”

Also in this case I wouldn’t say that it killed any “mystique.” He’s not some weird cantina alien he’s some guy who clearly knows Finn, and who has some pretty unusual training. It doesn’t really matter, not for the sake of the film anyway, but for those who do like to have backstories, now they have one. One that actually makes some sense, unlike certain other EU backstories

I also love how the fans have named Daniel Craig’s stormtrooper “JB-007.”

Anchorhead said:

ZkinandBonez said:

(This picture also makes me wonder what the heck “Veg-meat” is supposed to mean. Is it fake meat like Tofu?)

I would imagine so. Something like Seitan; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)
Just had some for lunch myself about 20 minutes ago (Field Roast hot dog).

In a military operation or remote-world outpost where there isn’t an available source for agriculture, it would make perfect sense to have long-term dried rations.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense actually.
It was mostly just the name that weirded me out, basically just “vegetable-meat,” which sounds very confusing.
But the idea of Rey scavenging to earn de-hydrated bread and “fake” meat on Jakku is a pretty nice little touch. It’s a bit like the moisture-vaporators, the film(s) never really draws any attention to it (pointing out the tech is more of a ST thing), but it still to adds to the environment.

Well, the dehydrating bread that Rey made was apparently a 100% practical effect.
http://www.mtv.com/news/2728173/star-wars-rey-bread/
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/mtv-news-on-the-creatures-of-rogue-one-the-force-awakens-and-re-hydrating-bread-rations.html

(This picture also makes me wonder what the heck “Veg-meat” is supposed to mean. Is it fake meat like Tofu?)

ben_danger said:

Tobar said:

All you need is the Classic Star Wars collection.

Maybe its mw just being grown up - but the classic MARVEL and the Daily strips are really enjoyable to read. It might be the throw-away absurdity of some of it, or just how it resonates with the era of the OT.

I was born roughly a decade after Marvel stopped making SW comics, and I never read them until I was in my late teens, yet they’re some of my favorite SW material. I do find some of it a tad too goofy even for my taste (the whole Aduba-3 thing is a good example), but the Archie Goodwin issues from the late 70’s are some of the best EU material I’ve ever read. Apart from simply capturing the sense of adventure in ANH and adding some surprisingly interesting new characters, I really appreciate them for simply being untouched by the canon-obsession that came later. I mean, they refer to “warp-speed”, the designs are completely insane, and Jabba is a yellow walrus-man, but I actually think that’s part of it’s charm. They’re just good and entertaining stories that was never concerned about following a canon of any kind.
(The old Marvel illustrations are pretty awesome as well, especially the Infantino ones.)

darklordoftech said:

Veitch initially wanted to write about the Great Jedi Purge. It would have involved Obi-Wan among a group of Jedi, with the rest of the group getting wiped out throughout series and ending with Obi-Wan moving into his hut. Seeing that concept would be interesting.

So Dark Empire II (I haven’t read Empire’s End yet) was based on this idea? It sounds very similar.
Although I did enjoy Dark Empire I & II (though I’ll admit it was mostly for the art), I did find the story to take a surprisingly dark turn which felt slightly out of place in the New Republic timeline. It makes sense if it was based on a Jedi-purge story-line.
I’d love to see a “Legends/Infinities” comic written by Veitch, and illustrated by Cam Kennedy.

PS. Why does so many people have a problem with the Emperor returning. I though t was a nice way to continue that particular subplot from ROTJ which was never really allowed to flourish due to Lucas’ suddenly deciding to make it more child-friendly. Also the OT was more centered around Luke and Vader so Palpatine was ever that particularly important to the overall emotional story, he was mostly just there for the sake of the lore. So post-Vader, it makes sense to make to expand him into a more important character. And a younger one works much better to offset Luke and the new Jedi’s in my opinion.
I also like the idea of Palpatine being more of an ancient evil character (more in a Sauron kind of way) as opposed to just some random Sith from Naboo as he was later retconned into. The idea of him as this evil energy entity that possess (cloned) bodies is a lot more interesting, too me at lest.

Wow, those are some really solid glow-sticks.

I’m looking forward to seeing more BTS footage from just the duel scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGonkY3NR78

A lot of random speculations in this video, but he does raise some interesting questions.

He points out that Kylo leaves his helmet/mask on Starkiller base (and I doubt he wasted time going back to get it as the planet fell apart), and he said that his lightsaber got destroyed by Rey (I can’t remember this, but I’ve only seen TFA a few times). So what will Kylo’s mask and lightsaber look like in ep. VIII?

A lot of the concept art show Kylo with a much more obvious Vader-looking helmet, and some of the Knights of Ren that we’ve seen so far also have very Vader-looking helmets. So maybe he’ll look more like Vader in ep. VIII. He’s also wounded this time around, so he might have ample reason to keep it on for the majority of the film.
Also, if his lightsaber was destroyed, it makes sense that he’ll make a new one. Perhaps in ep. VIII it’ll be a lot more stable and normal looking (hopefully not weirder).

I also doubt that ep. VIII will take place long after TFA considering how it ended so abruptly, so it might be that Kylo still occupied with his training with Snoke, so maybe he won’t be seen quite as much as in TFA. We don’t know who Benecio del Toro is playing yet, but he has more or less confirmed that he’s a villain. It could be a small part of course, but considering how every villain from TFA survived it’d be weird if they threw in another one to clutter the film. I get the impression that Rian Johnson is a bit less “compulsively-nerdy” (so-to-speak) than Abrams is.
Any thoughts?

Most of us here ignore the prequels, it shouldn’t be any harder ignoring the sequels and anthology films.

I’ll personally reserve my judgment until I’ve actually seen the film, or at least until I know more about it.

People have really different ways to measure what makes a film good or bad. For example; on the “Rate TFA” thread I posted that I personally felt that TFA was a 6/10, which for me means that it’s a good film with many strong points, but with enough weaknesses to bring it down closer to mediocrity. In the later posts a lot of people gave it similar ratings (5/10, 6/10, etc), but referred to it as a failure, as trash, as a shit film, etc.
Heck in that same thread someone even referred to a Kubrick film as “shit” (I forgot who, and don’t want to use specific names). Which I find kind of weird because I don’t think anything made by filmmakers like that, regardless of whether the film is flawed or not as good as their previous films, can be justifiably called something as damning as “shit.” It has to be pretty lousy, and barely qualify as a movie to be called “shit.” That’s the way I see it anyhow.
Now I get why some people were disappointed by TFA, and some people have brought up some real problems with it, but many arguments here are simply ridiculous.
Maybe this is a slightly accusing thing to say, but I guess it all comes down to how emotionally you judge films.

Warbler said:

I don’t think Poe really survived the crash. I think the Poe we after the crash is some sort of clone or something like that, sent by the First Order to spy on the resistance.

Although I’ve not read the TFA novelisation myself, I read somewhere that the book describes Poe’s escape from the wrecked Tie-fighter.

Well, it does seem like Abrams, as well as Johnson and Trevorrow, do know who Rey’s parents are, as opposed to the speculations that they were just making it up as they went along.
It’s also possible that it will be revealed in ep. VIII as opposed to IX, as it is going to be someone familiar.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/j-j-abrams-and-colin-trevorrow-talk-about-the-mystery-of-reys-parentage.html

Although I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve actually seen Ep. VIII, I’m at least glad to hear that they’re working so close together, as opposed to each film being a retcon of the previous script. Even though Trevorrow won’t start for another year or so he seem to be well informed about the plots of the future films already.

Any thoughts on this?
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/disney-and-lucasfilm-narrow-their-search-for-a-young-han-solo-shortlist-revealed.html
They’ve apparently narrowed it down to about a dozen actors, but this article only showed eight of them.

Can’t say I’m personally too impressed, but then again it’s hard to judge any of them based on just these pictures (also I haven’t a clue who any of these guys are). As far a appearances go the last guy was the only one I though looked somewhat like Harrison Ford.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/john-boyega-finn-will-have-a-more-physical-role-in-a-much-darker-star-wars-episode-viii.html

Boyega describes Johnson’s script as “Much darker,” so although I don’t think there was ever much doubt, they’re definitely going for the ESB vibe.
He also described part in ep. VIII as "much more physical-"

Trevorrow on the petition;
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/collin-trevorrow-on-the-petition-to-bring-back-george-lucas-for-episode-ix-and-his-collaboration-with-rian-johnson.html

oojason said:

buddy-x-wing said:

This seems like as good a place as any to speculate on the upcoming films. I saw The Force Awakens for the 3rd time this morning and I never noticed this on the first 2 viewings, but the scene at the end where Rey meets Luke for the first time, it would appear that Luke is standing in front of a make-shift grave and there is a flat slanted stone that looks like it could be crude headstone. Could this belong to a Mrs Skywalker? or Rey’s mother ? or both?

Aye, my guess it is the grave of Luke’s wife - who was also Ray’s mum. I’m usually wrong on these guesses though…

I don’t think you’re supposed to post camcorder-screenshots on the forum. They don’t exactly look like official pictures released by Disney, Lucasfilm, etc.
Or maybe it doesn’t matter at this point, I don’t know. Just thought I’d mention it.

nights1000 said:

I actually ask this as someone who has put off reading the Thrawn trilogy for all these years (I own the books and know plot points and such, and always planned to read them through regardless). It’s interesting that in the end, there doesn’t seem to be as much “passion” for the EU as I once thought; that is, it seems in general that people are ready to disregard it for the most part.

I’m currently reading the Thrawn trilogy and I’m enjoying it a lot so far, but I also enjoyed TFA. They contradict each other, but I still like both. They’re just fiction so I don’t really care if they don’t logically work together, as long as they’re entertaining and make sense plot-wise.

(PS, if anyone has or know where I can find a high-res version of the last three pictures, please let me know)

LexX said:

Lord Haseo said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Lord Haseo said:

That is awesome, now I’m going to have to find that in high-res.

This is as good as it get’s I think

Really?
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/0/6063/4913435-stwvader2015017.jpg

Thanks LexX.
(Btw, do you know who the artist is? I can’t quite make out the signature.)

Lord Haseo said:

That is awesome, now I’m going to have to find that in high-res.

I think that depends on how anal you are about what qualifies as EU.
I personally prefer the EU (even though I enjoyed TFA), but having said that I completely ignore anything added post 1999 (e.g. TPM). Anything related to Darth Plageuis, midichlorians, universe shrinking, etc, etc, I can’t stand, but I still don’t think that the Disney EU will ever manage to live up to SW in the 90’s.
(PS, I saw SW for the first time in 2000, so I’m not just being nostalgic here.)
What’s canon or not doesn’t really bother me, I just like it if it’s good, even if it contradicts other stories. As far as I’m concerned the only true canon is the OT, the rest is just bonus material.
So in the future I’ll enjoy both TFA and stuff like the Thrawn trilogy, regardless of the fact that they contradict each other, and I’ll keep ignoring the PT of course.

SilverWook said:

I just thought it was someone who knew Finn fairly well, and was really pissed off at him for deserting.

We’ll, that is pretty much the backstory they went for. They just also threw in something about riot-control to justify his unusual weapon.