ZkinandBonez

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.

I’m pretty sure they gave this guy a background story so early on since so many fans questioned him having a lightsaber resistant weapon, not to mention being an uncharacteristicly skilled stormtrooper. They’re essentially just following the tradition of using the EU to make excuses for weird parts in the movies.

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

Since I’ve already posted all of the Shadows of the Empire cover art I figured I’d post the rest of Hugh Fleming's awesome SW art (that I could find in more-or-less high-res);

Even though I, like practically everyone else here, don’t like the PT, I still felt like these two TPM paintings were worth sharing;
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20535561/Star Wars art by Hugh Fleming 13.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20535561/Star Wars art by Hugh Fleming 14.jpg

Lord Haseo said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Lord Haseo said:

Well, people have speculated that Snoke might be really small. Hence the oversized hologram.
So I guess this kinda makes sense.

I hope they don’t go this route because it would be weird to see another short force sensitive being flipping around. Also we don’t need anymore heavy handed OT callbacks. Any callbacks to the OT needs to be VERY subtle or the whole conversation of rehashing will be brought up again.

Agreed. Also that’s why I said “kinda makes sense.” I mostly just thought it was funny, and it reminded me of that comic strip I linked to.

Lord Haseo said:

Well, people have speculated that Snoke might be really small. Hence the oversized hologram.
So I guess this kinda makes sense.

EDIT: This picture technically belongs in the random pics thread, but it kind of fits with this picture, so I’ll just post the link here; http://www.bluemilkspecial.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2012-01-09-TESB-082.jpg

luckydube56 said:

Jay said:

luckydube56 said:

I knew the first Star Wars had charm when C3P0 and R2D2 scamper across a narrow corridor of the Tantive IV while Stormtroopers and Rebel fighters were shooting at each other. The scene is utterly ridiculous and simultaneously wonderful and engaging because of that fact. In the midst of this deadly situation, those two goof ball droids walked right across and managed to not get shot! Even my child mind could perceive the irony.

I always thought this scene foreshadowed their coming adventure, and the trilogy as a whole really. These two were blessed by fate and bound to come through unscathed — after being repaired a few times, of course 😃

It’s important to remember that the Force is a guiding agent that pushes characters in the Star Wars universe together and into “coincidental” circumstances, and their actions are an entertaining blend of destiny and self-motivation, but it can be difficult to discern the difference between the Force and just plain lazy writing.

That may also be true from a certain point of view. I prefer to see it as a not so wise smuggler once said “I call it luck”.

I think the biggest take away from the video is criticism of a science fantasy fairy tale by way of logical inconsistency is ironic.

I’m pretty sure that was the whole point of the videos.

EDIT: I guess that’s what you actually meant(?)

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I think details such as the TIE pilots having spacesuits on comes down to two things;

1. Suspension of disbelief. Even in something has scientifically illogical as SW there’s a requirement for certain familiar imagery since the setting is already recognizable as sci-fi. However since it’s not really important, they manage to stretch that logic in the scenes where it’s more obviously fantasy/myth inspired, e.g. the space-slug, anything Force related, etc.

2. Aesthetics. Like I’ve said before SW seems to often just goes for what looks cool and interesting. Also it’s important, especially for the kids, that the stormtroopers remain faceless, both to make their deaths seem less violent and for its symbolic value. And since there’s not much reason for someone to wear their armour inside a fighter, the Rebels simply wear helmets after all (even though a space suits would make more scientific sense, but they’re mirroring WWII fighter planes not real space travel), they simply added a space-suit-armour allowing them to make even the TIE pilots as faceless as all the other Imperial grunts.

I do see your point there. It’s well thought out. I especially agree with you on the notion of making the bad guys being faceless – it makes it easier for the audience when they are killed and it makes them look more menacing.

Still, however, I think space fantasy has its limits. Humans floating about the vacuum of space goes over the line, in my mind.

Sure, it can definitely push its own limits to far. But I guess it also comes down to the viewer, I for one don’t really care about the sudden gravity in the space-slug, but I can see how that’s going a tad too far for some people. I would just argue that it can’t be classified as a “mistake” in a franchise that doesn’t really have any regard for scientific accuracy in the first place. I do however agree that they’re pushing their luck as far as suspension of disbelief goes, but I guess it depends on the viewer whether it pushes it too far or not.

One thing is for sure though, I’d rather have them stretching my suspension of disbelief than adding pseudo-scientific explanations/excuses like Midichlorians. The irony is that in trying to explain the fantasy elements in the PT they failed to create a suspension of disbelief in many people. I guess SW is all about finding a balance.

Exactly, so like I pointed out earlier, certain logical details are left out to make it more cinematic; e.g. we get to see the faces of our heroes while the villains remain faceless drones, and there’s just enough tech stuff thrown into the frame to make it look convincing enough so as to allow for a suspension of disbelief.

PS, I’m assuming this is the prototype you were referring to;
http://www.starwarshelmets.com/protoxwing.jpg
(It certainly looks more realistic, but it would have made the final trench-run scene a lot less interesting and emotionally engaging.)

Smoking Lizard said:

SilverWook said:

Trying to explain the space slug scene is like trying to find scientific accuracy in the Monstro the whale sequence in Pinocchio.

True. But we’re not trying to find scientific accuracy in the space slug. At least I’m not.

Well, we haven’t technically seen anyone leave their ships while still in space prior to ESB, so I don’t really see how the space slug is breaking any rules. Also, planets, space stations, meteorites, they’re essentially just Lucas’ swapping out islands in a fantasy/myth with planets to make it more interesting so Han has essentially just been sucked up by a "whale/“sea-monster” kind of scenario.

Smoking Lizard said:
I’m not so sure about that. I see your point, but I think the whole slug thing was unnecessary. Just sort of a 1950s “Flash Gordon” thing that Lucas was fond of.

Well, sure, I can sort of agree with that. But since SW is essentially a fairy-tale/myth in space I don’t have any problems with them throwing in a few monsters every now and then. Also it does serve as their hiding space from the Empire, only to eventually force them to leave their hiding space, thereby forcing them to go to Bespin, etc, etc.

Smoking Lizard said:
My objection to the space slug isn’t so much that it has its own gravity, as maybe the asteroid it lives on is large enough to have its own gravity, but that the slug is living in a vacuum. And worse, the characters step out of the MF into what they believe is a vacuum. That, I think, is a case of TESB breaking its own rules. If TIE pilots need life support space suits to survive space, so does Han Solo, when he leaves the safe confines of his ship.

To quote myself from earlier;

ZkinandBonez said:
The big confusion here I think comes from the fact that SW borrows from so much sci-fi that it does give the impression that it actually does make some scientific sense at times…

I think details such as the TIE pilots having spacesuits on comes down to two things;

1. Suspension of disbelief. Even in something has scientifically illogical as SW there’s a requirement for certain familiar imagery since the setting is already recognizable as sci-fi. However since it’s not really important, they manage to stretch that logic in the scenes where it’s more obviously fantasy/myth inspired, e.g. the space-slug, anything Force related, etc.
2. Aesthetics. Like I’ve said before SW seems to often just goes for what looks cool and interesting. Also it’s important, especially for the kids, that the stormtroopers remain faceless, both to make their deaths seem less violent and for its symbolic value. And since there’s not much reason for someone to wear their armour inside a fighter, the Rebels simply wear helmets after all (even though a space suits would make more scientific sense, but they’re mirroring WWII fighter planes not real space travel), they simply added a space-suit-armour allowing them to make even the TIE pilots as faceless as all the other Imperial grunts.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Also I disagree that ANH, or any SW film for that matter, follow it’s own rules. I’d barely say that is has any form of rules. It doesn’t need any “rules”, because unlike something like Star Trek it doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics. It’s a fantasy, and you don’t have to explain it any more than you need to explain magic in a fantasy film.

Yeah, this is a hard concept for me to put into words. When I say a fantasy has to obey its own rules, I’m not saying it has to obey the laws of physics. I’m saying it has to, well, obey its own rules.

For example, if you and I made a movie about vampires, and we establish that the only way to kill these vampires is to drive a wooden stake through the vampire’s heart, if, at the end of the movie, the hero kills the main vampire by shooting it with a pistol, you’d conclude that was stupid, correct?

Indeed, vampires are fantasy. There’s no such thing. And they certainly don’t have to obey the laws of physics, but if you establish in your vampire universe that the only way to kill them is with the wooden stake, killing one with a pistol would be absurd. It would be a contradiction, a logic trap. But the problem is, often times when critics point out these logic traps, these absurdities, the defenders of the film are quick to say things like, “It’s a fantasy! It doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics!” and, “It’s just a movie!” and, “It’s a vampire movie! You’re trying to inject logic into a vampire movie?! News flash! VAMPIRES AREN’T REAL!”

Right, well I’ve somewhat misunderstood what you were saying because I completely agree with what you just said.
All fiction definitely needs to be consistent with it’s own “fake-logic”, what I was trying to say earlier however was that sci-fi rules never applied to SW in the first place so it was never really a part of it’s “rules.”

The big confusion here I think comes from the fact that SW borrows from so much sci-fi that it does give the impression that it actually does make some scientific sense at times, but then all of a sudden there’s a space-slug with it’s own ‘gravitational pull’.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:
Take the space-slug scene from ESB as an example…

Agreed. The space slug was stupid. Lucas just loves to have big monsters attempt to eat things in his movies. It’s ironic when I saw TESB at the age of 11, I attempted to explain why the space slug was stupid and I got the very same, “It’s a movie!” and “It’s science fiction, not science science!” defenses.

It’s just one of those things you’ve got to give a pass.

However, I wouldn’t say that the space-slug scene is “stupid” because it works well within the narrative, as well as within it’s fantasy logic. In a lot of interviews with Irvin Kershner you hear him talk about how he completely ignored any attempt at sci-fi logic because Lucas had told him that it was all fantasy anyway. And in that sense you can always look at the space-slug as some kind of mythological beast.

Here a quote from Kershner on why he agreed to make ESB;
"I accepted to do the film because I loved the idea of doing a fairy tale, of doing something imaginative, doing something that children would love, and that gives me great pleasure. Some people call it Science Fiction- I don’t even consider it science fiction, I consider it a fairy tale. In Science Fiction you’re very concerned about leaving a spaceship on a planet because there may not be oxygen or the gravitational force is not the same as on earth or what your body’s adjusted to and so you must take all that into consideration or it’s considered very poor Science Fiction. It’s fairy tale, that’s the environment. That’s the context. That you can literally do anything. And if I believe it, while I’m doing it, the audience tends to believe it too. So that’s a fairy tale."

And one from Lucas;
"We look at it as a different dimension. The laws of physics are different here. Star Wars is not Science Fiction at all. It’s much more attuned to mythology, to psychology, to history than it is to science. It’s more of a parable about the way we are, rather than the way we’re going to be. That’s why it starts out as a fairytale - a long time ago in a galaxy far away - once upon a time. It deals with princesses. It’s purposely designed not to be about where we’re going. It’s about where we’ve been and what we can learn from the past in the present."

So I’d argue that the space-slug is anything but stupid, I’d say it’s pretty brilliant.

ray_afraid said:

SilverWook said:

This puts a whole new context on ROTJ! 😉

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/star-wars-animator-high-during-return-of-the-jedi-2015-12?r=US&IR=T

That was actually a really good video. Much more than the silly title suggests. Phill Tippet is amazing.
Thanks for posting!

Wow, Tippet’s LSD trip with his cat Brian should be a short-film.

I’d honestly watch a surrealist film about a man and his cat making a million year long journey to the centre of the earth to a world made entirely of molecules. That sounds awesome.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Smoking Lizard said:

Are they “lasers” though?

According to Han Solo they are: “That wasn’t a laser blast…something hit us!”

Lasers don’t come in bolt form and they don’t travel slower than the speed of light.

So either the “lasers” in SW aren’t literally lasers (just like most blueprints aren’t literally blue) or light operates under different physical laws in the SW Universe.

I’m repeating myself here, but the whole point here is that there aren’t any answers to these questions (outside of the EU anyway) and that it doesn’t matter. It’s a movie, all that matters is the story and the characters, not what the lasers are made of.

(PS, my statement “Are they “lasers” though?” was more of a sarcastic and rhetoric question.)

LexX said:

ZkinandBonez said:

If the Death Star had a gravitational pull like a real moon would have had, then logically it should have looked like this;

LOL @ picture. I can just imagine seeing that in the movie.

Anyways, about gravity, I’ve always been aware that they have some kind of gravity control in the floors, not sure where I read it, was it from the cross sections book or where. That’s why there is gravity on ships, like Falcon, star destroyers etc. I don’t think the gravity is at DS’s core, it would make no sense when we see what we see. Also if they were in the floors, you could flip the floors the way you want, so you can have the DS gunners shooting X-Wings etc.

I’m sure the EU has some clever explanation/excuse for it all, my point is simply that it’s not important to the overall film(s).

TavorX said:

I liked the overall message of this guy was aiming for. I’ve thought to myself countless times, “Is it… is it feasible to make a movie/story in general without ‘plotholes’?” but honestly, that video put some things into perspective. Star Wars couldn’t be the same if we’re bogged down in technical stuff of how “x” works. Through “artistic licence”, you can have a fanatical setting without explaining much so long as you create an emotional draw into the story via characters and the rhythm of things.
It absolutely doesn’t mean you haphazardly throw up a setting and hope the characters do the rest, but you can certainly get away with a lot as he mentioned.

P.S. I also found his video about how artistically screen wipes were used in Star Wars. It does bug me at times though that he uses the SE versions for the base of his Star Wars analysis and his somewhat lacking knowledge on certain things, but there’s still some merit to the commentary.

His overall work is pretty interesting, so I highly recommend you look into his other videos (especially if you’re into film analysis). He also has a video on R2 and C-3PO, as well as the visual symbolism of ESB (EDIT: this one is no longer on YouTube).
Just keep in mind that he’s a pretty casual SW fan so he won’t get every detail right. He mostly talks about the films of Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, etc. so sci-fi/fantasy franchises aren’t exactly his specialty. But he does like to come to the defense of more pop-culture type movies every so often.
(Also his humour takes some getting used to, but his videos are pretty insightful regardless.)

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Hang on a minute, I’m a bit confused. You’re using a picture of a building to disprove the “Death Star is just a big house in space” statement?

The Death Star is NOT a big house in space; the Death Star is a small planet (or, well, moon) in space. Imagine it this way. When the Empire built the Death Star, they build a surface. A plain, flat surface, like the surface of a planet. And then they build city structures along that surface.

The thing that the MF flew into was a really large building that was constructed on the SURFACE of the Death Star.

Also my point with the image I posted earlier is that they enter by the equator trench…

No, they did not. See the above comment. Yes, it’s difficult to imagine at first, but once you get it, it will be intuitive. You won’t be able to “unsee” it.

However, we can clearly see people standing on the same horizontal plane as the falcon does entering the hangar. They are essentially standing with the south-pole downwards, and the north-pole upwards, and with the Death Star core to their side.

No. They are standing with the core at their feet, their heads facing space, and the north and south poles are immaterial, just like on earth or the moon.

So when Darth Vader came in and said, “Send a scan team in,” he was standing in a building built on the surface of the Death Star, not in the guts of the Death Star. The Death Star is a small planet. You build stuff on the surface.

Ok, show me where these buildings are then. Because I sure as hell can’t see it.

There is absolutely nothing that for me, or for any casual viewer (and I’m not exactly a casual viewer), that suggest that they enter anything else than the trench. The way it’s shot clearly indicates that that’s where they’re going. The angular opening that the enter from on the left-hand side of the screen also suggest that they’ve entered the trench.

If the Death Star had a gravitational pull like a real moon would have had, then logically it should have looked like this;

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Are they “lasers” though?

According to Han Solo they are: “That wasn’t a laser blast…something hit us!”

Well, they sure as hell doesn’t act like laser really do.
And that’s my over-all point, or rather the point from the guy in the video, it doesn’t have to make sense. The film never tries to make sense. It’s like Han talking about the Falcon having done the Kessel run in 12 Parsecs. A Parsec isn’t a measurement of time, but of distance. But who cares, it sounds cool, and it makes the Falcon sound like an impressive ship.
Also I disagree that ANH, or any SW film for that matter, follow it’s own rules. I’d barely say that is has any form of rules. It doesn’t need any “rules”, because unlike something like Star Trek it doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics. It’s a fantasy, and you don’t have to explain it any more than you need to explain magic in a fantasy film.
Take the space-slug scene from ESB as an example. Why was there gravity inside the asteroid/slug? Why don’t they question it? Those tiny masks surely can’t be airtight enough to serve as spacesuits? There’s no pressure chamber on the Falcon, or at least not one that they used, they simply walk down the ramp. There’s nothing about that scene that makes any scientific sense. But it doesn’t have to, that’s the beauty of Star Wars.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Well, the film “flipflops” the logic of the Death Star so to speak. When the Falcon is pulled into the hangar the gravity is clearly downwards;

No, it doesn’t. It’s just a perception illusion. Imagine the hangar the MF is flying into is at the top of the Empire State building. See it? Now imagine the Empire State building has an opening for ships to fly through to land. Is that opening in the roof of the Empire State Building? No. It’s on the side. Like this:

It’s like he says in the video, the film makes up whatever logic it needs to tell an interesting story, as well as be visually interesting.

Hang on a minute, I’m a bit confused. You’re using a picture of a building to disprove the “Death Star is just a big house in space” statement?

Also my point with the image I posted earlier is that they enter by the equator trench, which means that people should be looking up at the Falcon as it enters the hangar bay. However, we can clearly see people standing on the same horizontal plane as the falcon does entering the hangar. They are essentially standing with the south-pole downwards, and the north-pole upwards, and with the Death Star core to their side.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:
Also how is he shooting out a window on a space-station?

Lasers in the visible spectrum (red) pass through glass. They’re light. Just like your laser pointer.

Are they “lasers” though? The blasters in SW doesn’t really operate on any conventional logic that resembles actual lasers. Again, they’re essentially just regular guns in a sci-fi costume, so make it more interesting. Considering how all the “lasers” in SW explodes everything they come in contact with I hardly see how they can just pass through glass.

imperialscum said:

Lord Haseo said:

imperialscum said:

Lord Haseo said:

1. They weren’t necessary

You could apply this dumb argument to just about anything. You could even say that TFA wasn’t necessary.

It doesn’t move the overall plot forward thus it’s unessessary in my opinion. The only purpose it serves is to establish that Han really did revert back to his old ways

Well besides the reason you gave yourself, it is also a crucial plot point that allows Han to escape from the two gangs of criminals.

Exactly why I like the scene, despite the Rathars being too obviously CGI, it gives them an excuse to escape the gangs. And all in all the whole scene, Han as a smuggler again, the Rathars running loose, Han having to deal with two criminal gangs at the same time, is a pretty awesome way to re-introduce Han. So the Rathars are played for laught, unlike the Rancor, Space-slug, etc. so what? This is supposed to be a fun scene where we’re show Han again for the first time in 30 years. And doing that with both the gangs and the Rathars was, to me at least, a pretty clever way of doing it since it kind of summarizes Han’s smuggler life into one compact scene that manages to serve a purpose in the actual plot, rather than drag it out from the main story-line. Some things could have been done better, sure, but I wouldn’t call it “the bad scene” from TFA. Also, like I’ve pointed out before, it’s one of the few original scenes that’s not lifted straight from ANH, or ESB.

Lord Haseo said:
The Rancor scene not only is pretty thrilling but it’s how Luke is captured which moves the plot forward.

True, but Luke could just as easily have been captured without there having to be a sequence with a large monster trying to eat him.
Also, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the Rancor scene, I’m just saying that I don’t see how it’s that much different from the Rathars scene.

TavorX said:

I’ve mentioned it before, but in my opinion, most* of the time, when there’s an animalistic berserk animal in Star Wars, you don’t see the entirety of it. You just get just enough of the creature to sell the illusion it’s a real threatening monster. That’s why the SE monsters feel so out of place and cheap, like the Sarlacc beak addition. You see way too much of it! In TFA, you see those CGI monsters in all its glory in a hyperactive manner. Then it goes even further to let this CGI creation physically drag one of our main characters around in similar manner you’d see in Men in Black as a gag.

This guy wasn’t exactly subtle.

Lord Haseo said:

1. They weren’t necessary

Rancor wasn’t really that necessary either.

Now I’m not saying the Rathars scene was brilliant, I just don’t see how it’s so un-Star-Warsy. It serves pretty much the same purpose the Rancor, and even to some degree the space-slug, did. It adds some action to the movie. The Rathat’s scene however was simply meant to be a bit more funny, unlike the previous monsters. Just because we haven’t seen a “funny” monster in SW doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.
(PS. the Wampas was originally meant to have a few funny moments in the deleted scenes from ESB where they attack Echo base, are locked in a room, and eventually released on the stormtroopers by C-3PO.)

Smoking Lizard said:

Smoking Lizard said:
…the Death Star pulls everything downwards (wrong!)

ZkinandBonez said:

I understand that that editing sequence is misleading. The Death Star is built with buildings jutting up from its surface, just as building are built on earth. The gravity is at the core of the space station. So the hangar bay the MF flew into was a tall building structure. See here:

Well, the film “flipflops” the logic of the Death Star so to speak. When the Falcon is pulled into the hangar the gravity is clearly downwards;

Yet, later when they attack it the cannons are pointed outwards like you showed in your picture. There’s also these guys;

It’s like he says in the video, the film makes up whatever logic it needs to tell an interesting story, as well as be visually interesting.

That latter photo of the guy on the cannon is also a good example of his point that SW is essentially just a fairy-tale/fantasy told in a sci-fi setting. Why use a manned cannon on a giant space station anway? Also how is he shooting out a window on a space-station?
Sure, you could start arguing about force-shield technology, or how the laser bolts can travel one way and not the other, but over-all the point is that it’s not really meant to be explained. It looks cool, and the more down-to-earth feel adds a level familiarity that the audience can connect to while at the same time making it more interesting and entertaining by putting it into space.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Curious - why do people dislike the rathtars?

Me too, they’re not that much weirder than what we’ve seen before in the SW universe. Also it’s one if the few scenes in TFA that’s not borrowed from ANH.

Smoking Lizard said:

Alderaan said:

None of that stuff is plot holes.

This. Those “documentaries” weren’t even worth watching, as they were clearly written by someone who barely understood the movie. Half of it was just plain dumb: Lasers shot into the trash compactor water would electrocute everyone; why was Leia “wasting time” going to visit Obi Wan when it was urgent to get the plans to the Rebels; the gas giant Yavin would be too far from its sun for the Rebel base to be habitable (wrong!); the Death Star pulls everything downwards (wrong!); etc., etc.

He gets the one about Leia guessing that the Imperials are tracking them right, and the one about Obi Wan shutting the tractor beam off, but that’s about it.

All in all? Not worth watching.

Well, first off, he does point out how he’s a casual viewer of SW. Not everyone is as well versed in SW lore as the fans are, and not everyone has seen ANH enough times to know every detail by heart. He analyzing the film’s strengths not as a part of the franchise, but as a standalone film.
Secondly he does point out that he’s not knowledgeable enough about SW to really understand why Leia was heading for Obi-Wan on Taooine. His point was simply that it was a plot-convenience that needed a lot of in-universe explanation to be properly understood. Yet, since it serves the plot, most people don’t really think about it.

Smoking Lizard said:
…the Death Star pulls everything downwards (wrong!)

Smoking Lizard said:
EDIT

Oh! And the medal ceremony at the end. That stupid ceremony bothered me more than anything else.

I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you still disagreeing with him, or are you agreeing with him here?

I also found this video on YouTube talking about a lot of unused and cut ideas from TFA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYLZhDTITr0
(Probably a lot of other videos on this subject, but this is the one I came across first.)

A few ideas that they were considering for TFA that I haven’t seen anyone talking about here before;

• At some point Kylo Ren was essentially Vader’s replacement, and he would essentialy have both the same name and a similar mask. This was apparently meant to suggest that “Darth Vader” was his title as opposed to the whole Sith thing that the PT came up with.
  (It’s possible that this idea was rejected for contradicting the PT.)

• Another idea that they seem to have toyed with was including a Vader/Anakin hybrid-Force-ghost. Essentially half Hayden Christensen, and half Vader’s mask. I guess this was the basis for the rumour about Christensen appearing in TFA came from.

Well “plot holes” are his words not mine, and he is mostly talking about artistic license. Also a lot of discussions about plot holes these days revolve around the “logic” of a film.

EDIT;
from wikipedia - "In fiction, a plot hole or plothole is a logical inconsistency within a story. Such inconsistencies include such things as illogical or impossible events, and statements or events that contradict earlier events in the storyline."

Actually I’d say he’s using the term correctly when also including the term “artistic license.”

So this guy on YouTube called Rob Ager who mostly does film analysis made some videos a while back where he talks about plot holes, or more specifically artistic license, in ANH.
With the recent release of TFA the subject of plot holes and artistic license have been thrown about quite a lot regarding all seven SW films. A lot people have even started tearing the old films apart in defense of the logical inconsistencies of the new, and I was suddenly reminded of these two videos.

Now I’d like to point out that I’m not trying to make any big claims about the PT or TFA here, I actually want to start a new type of discussion here (TFA discussions can remain in the TFA threads), but I’d really like to hear what you guys think about this guy’s observations.

His argument here is pretty much, as I’ve stated in the title of this thread, that ANH makes little to no sense logically, but that this is actually what makes it such a good film. The film isn’t logically driven, but emotionally driven, and therefore it’s successful in cinematic terms.

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9KKnCYrihs

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnSXJLbuaco

(PS, this guy isn’t as into SW as most people are here so he does make a few assumptions and mistakes that many of us may take for granted. It doesn’t hurt his overall arguments though, just though I’d mention it.)

If you’re not too interested in his “rant” about what doesn’t work ‘logically,’ just skip ahead to ca. 9:50 on the second video to hear his conclusion on why ANH is actually a good film ‘cinematically’.