henzINNIT

RogueLeader said:

I think you’re right about ROTJ, and that kind of touches on what Dr. Dre also said.

I think in general Obi-Wan kind of comes off as sort of a jerk to Luke when they have their conversation. First, Obi-Wan pulls the whole “certain point of view” card, instead of just apologizing for lying to Luke.

It’s such a weird scene ha, probably my least favourite in the OT. It’s an obvious and understandable lie on Ben’s part, just cop to it old man. Watching later entries in the series try to justifiy and further explain it is always so awkward to me too.

Regarding the jedi masters’ intentions in ROTJ, I had never given it much thought to be honest. I don’t think I even realised there was a debate until recently. To me it was clear that both Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted Luke to kill Vader, for several reasons:

Obi-Wan says that they have already lost when Luke says he can’t kill his own father. He then shuts down the idea of redemption when Luke suggests there is still good in Vader. This would be some really bizarre reverse psychology if Obi-Wan actually intended for Luke to somehow stop Vader peacefully. Also, this is not totally solid as it was cut, but in the ROTJ script there is more dialogue in this scene and Obi-Wan says quite explicitly that Luke is to ‘destroy’ Vader.

Yoda’s intentions are less clear in dialogue but I still get the impression that he wanted Vader to be killed. He says it was ‘unfortunate’ for Luke to find out Vader was his father, and considers the knowledge a burden. This could really only be the case if the intention was for Luke to kill Vader. If the plan was for Luke to somehow turn his father instead, knowing about him in advance would have been more of an asset than a hindrance.

Lastly, the dramatic tension of the film hinges on Luke believing in Vader’s redemption when literally no-one else would. He manages to force a resolution without resorting to killing, defying all expectations in the process. It’s bizarre to me to think his mentors secretly wanted the same thing, and they just refused to say that or worse heavily imply the opposite.

Regarding the outcome of the duel in OWK, it looks dumb to me. The whole exchange is quite nice but walking away seems contradictory. If Obi-Wan finds some peace in knowing that Anakin is gone, and that Vader killed him, shouldn’t he find it easier to finish the job and kill the enemy? There is no conceivable way that leaving Vader alive would benefit anybody. I never really liked the resolution of their fight in ROTS, and how Obi-Wan just let his old friend burn instead of putting him out of his misery; but at least then he had reason to assume he would die from those injuries. Obviously the real reason in both cases is that Vader had to survive for later films, however they could have been staged differently to make Obi-Wan’s decisions look less questionable.

Ava G. said:

I prefer Rey Nobody. It means the Force ‘chose’ a nobody as its new avatar, outside the Skywalker or Palpatine bloodlines. Force power is hereditary, but sometimes it manifests very powerfully in unexpected families. Similar to magic in Harry Potter. There’s something beautiful about that idea.

I think if I could change only one thing in the trilogy, it’d be this. Not only do I prefer it too, but walking Rey’s parentage back was just so jarring and damaging to the integrity of the story.

MalaStrana#2 said:

henzINNIT said:

MalaStrana#2 said:

FrederikOlsen said:
It’s never been a particularly well-written franchise, IMO.

ANH is considered one of the best scripts ever written. It’s still being studied in film school for ts achievements, thanks to Lucas rewitting it to perfect it numberous times. TESB is simply the continuation of this high quality standard rooted in the foundation of a perfect script. Only what came after wasn’t as good and was sometimes even quite terrible, such as this tv show.

The original Star Wars was saved in editing by cutting great chunks out of that script.

I see the consequences of an interesting YouTube video… you confuse the script quality and the final movie. Also reaching the « simplicity » of ANH is incredibly difficult : just see how complex OWK is. Complex and badly written. ANH has 2 action scenes in its first 30 minutes, introduces all its protagonists, establishes a complete universe with its rules and its story with what is clearly at stake (again compare with OWK: when does this show even try to create stakes others that the fact the audience knows Leia and Luke are kinda important in LATER movies?). You even get long sequences without dialogues and you get to follow two characters where none of which is even human. Simplicity here is the consequence of hard work, of multiple rewrites, of research, etc. OWK looks like a first draft that went in production as-is…

SW wasn’t saved through editing : editing made it better. So was the music, the clever casting choices, the special effects, etc. It’s a miracle. Which could only exist because it has the solid roots of an amazing script that EVERY screenwriter does study.

I can’t believe on this forum that we need to explain why ANH is a tremendous script 😅

I don’t get what you’re arguing here. I’ve never said ANH is comparable to OBK in terms of script. The latter clearly has many issues that I am not defending.

The ANH script had everything it needed to be the film it became. I’m not slating it or the film. It also had a bunch of crap in it. Hard work across the board made the FILM work. The rough cut that more closely resembled the shooting script was described as an unmitigated disaster. I didn’t hear this in a ‘youtube video’, it was in the DVD documentary. The deleted scenes exist. It was edited to perfection.

I’ve recently debated with someone who swears that Obi-Wan didn’t intend for Luke to kill Vader in RotJ because it’s not the jedi way. I was floored honestly.

Servii said:

“Star Wars was always poorly written” is an argument I really take issue with. If the original film were poorly written, none of us would even be here with our attachment to this franchise.

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Star Wars even at its best is simple, a little corny, has some funky dialogue etc. But there is a massive difference between that and something plain stupid and nonsensical, which occurs in Star Wars at its worst. It’s a lazy defense in many cases, and everyone’s tolerances will vary.

BedeHistory731 said:
Speaking of esoteric scripts, I wish somebody adapted Dan Aykroyd’s original Ghostbusters script into a graphic novel. The bits we do know about it sound batshit crazy (in a good way) and I’d love to see the whole thing presented to the public with appropriate visuals.

I’m one of like, fifteen people who like Nothing But Trouble so I’d love any crazy Dan Aykroyd project.

I’d love to see Ghostbusters: Full Aykroyd.

MalaStrana#2 said:

FrederikOlsen said:
It’s never been a particularly well-written franchise, IMO.

ANH is considered one of the best scripts ever written. It’s still being studied in film school for ts achievements, thanks to Lucas rewitting it to perfect it numberous times. TESB is simply the continuation of this high quality standard rooted in the foundation of a perfect script. Only what came after wasn’t as good and was sometimes even quite terrible, such as this tv show.

The original Star Wars was saved in editing by cutting great chunks out of that script.

I wish something could be done about episode 9. It’s awful. I’d have to say no though. Much like Lucas changing the OT, I wouldn’t abide the inevitable changes made to 7 & 8 in order to make them work better with what came later. These retro-active alterations always seem to be inflicted on the wrong films, making better stuff worse to fall in line with lesser material.

If you’re planning to keep some amount of ‘the Jedi have lost their way’ as it appears in the PT, then Yoda could already be distanced from the Order because of this. I’d have him already isolated somewhere, personally. Mentioned but unseen until Empire.

I’ve long felt that episodes 1-3 should do all they can to preserve the secrets and twists of the original trilogy. It’s the only way to make watching them in numerical order satisfying. Some bits would be harder than others, but I think it would be worth it. Belated Media did a PT rewrite series that had some nice ideas in this vein.

It’s so weird that I liked ‘Duel of the Fates’ as much as I did because Trevorrow has absolutely sucked at making Jurassic Park films. For better or worse, I would have preferred to see his take over another Abrams film. Ultimately though, there was a lot in that original script that worked and should have been carried forward. The worst part of TROS is the script, and it’s unusual to not only think there were better choices to make, but to KNOW earlier versions had some good ideas that were dropped in favour of less interesting ones.

adywan said:

But the biggest problem is the ever increasing bond between Obi & Leia. The more they progress with this, the more she is a heartless bitch in ANH. That guy risked everything for her and she had this close bond. But she doesn’t even react when he is trapped and about to die in ANH? Yet the boy who has known him for 5 minutes reacts the opposite way? Wow. that calls her character into question. This should never have been Leia in this story. There is no peril because we know who survives.

Honestly it doesn’t ruin Leia for me as much as it undermines the original film and makes it look more like Leia’s perspective wasn’t taken into account. It makes me think back to this meme:

https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/leia-comforts-luke.jpeg

Which is already kind of silly when you think about it. But now it’s even crazier cause she was apparently closer to Ben than Luke was also.

haraldo23 said:

henzINNIT said:

Obi-Wan knowing Anakin took the name Vader doesn’t mean he knew that Vader survived past their fight in episode 3 though, right? The fair assumption would be that the guy you left chopped up and on fire did in fact die from those injuries. Isn’t that the surprising information, and not that Anakin changed his name? I haven’t seen it, but that’s the impression I got.

If you had been set to write an Obi show and had gone back and refreshed yourself on the canon - scenes and dialogue made in both PT and OT - would you have written Obi as unaware?

You’ll think I’m just being contrarian, but yes, I would have written have written Ben as unaware. He needs to believe he was successful in ROTS, otherwise it calls into question why he hasn’t done anything about Vader in the intervening years. More importantly, if you’re writing something in this gap, you would want to show him finding out the truth as it is good drama. I’m sure there is a bunch of stuff I’d do differently, but this particular thing seems pretty logical.

Obi-Wan knowing Anakin took the name Vader doesn’t mean he knew that Vader survived past their fight in episode 3 though, right? The fair assumption would be that the guy you left chopped up and on fire did in fact die from those injuries. Isn’t that the surprising information, and not that Anakin changed his name? I haven’t seen it, but that’s the impression I got.

Before Snoke was turned into a pickled puppet, I figured that his monsterous scarring was from losing a duel with Luke. Either before Kylo’s turn or possibly even after, like perhaps after the temple was destroyed, Luke found Snoke and ‘killed’ him, and Luke’s exile was in part because he felt dangerously close to turning dark himself.

The ‘other’ hope not being a new character is a bummer. There is a general feeling of running out of steam in ROTJ, evident in a few areas. One not mentioned yet is that the locations aren’t as imaginative or distinctive as they could be. A lot of revisited places, and the main new planet is just the woods. Still a lot to like in Jedi but it was a step down in many respects.

I find the whole ‘Qui-Gon would have saved Anakin’s soul’ theory so bizarre. Not even doubting that it was the intention, but it is just stupid regardless. Anakin was raised by a group of emotion-repressing monks, an organization that instantly declared him dangerous but took him on anyway, after separating the boy from his only family and apparently doing nothing to help her despite knowing she was a slave. Anakin’s problems wouldn’t have been magically solved by a slightly nicer monk. Likewise, it’s ridiculous to say he needed a father-figure. Perhaps he needed his mother.

Anakin wasn’t a nobody. Not by the time the PT was made. He was a virgin birth, a space jesus. That also retro-actively altered the perception of Luke too. That was dumb.

I lurked that forum a little bit. A strange echo chamber that place. It’s funny how different the common accepted opinion is in different corners of the internet.

I like 5 Star Wars films, the 5 with V in the titles/numbering. It’s like poetry, yada yada. I am certain I wouldn’t have liked Lucas’ ST any more than Disney’s attempts. He just wasn’t that good a film-maker to me, and was (understandably) too close to the series to let other people execute and build on his ideas. Sucks that Disney had no vision at all, but I also can’t blame them for binning whatever scraps Lucas left behind. Didn’t sound too good to me, and as nice as it might have been to develop Leia further, that ship had long sailed by the time Disney got the rights.

For the criticisms I have with Disney’s Star Wars, their movies have mostly looked great. Much better than the MCU films, which are somehow constantly drab despite the colourful things happening on screen.

The thing that will eternally irk me about the ST is that earlier scripts for Episode 9 had a little something to say. The trilogy would not have been perfect, but there was finality in its conclusion, and it made some steps forward. Rey challenged old Jedi ways and refused the notion that they had to wall themselves off from love, and repress their ‘darkness’. She found new strength and a new approach to balance. This addressed issues that arguably caused Anakin to fall, and the Jedi order to fail. It was a Colin Treverrow script, which blows my mind. ‘Duel of the Fates’ was not without its issues, but there was some actual thought there.

Nearly everything that changed for TROS was for the worse. There was a role for Rose. Finn actually played a part and fulfilled his arc in leading defecting troopers. An uprising on Coruscant, people turning evil’s weapons against them. A First Order HQ to target, complete with Chancellor Hux and a glimpse of the various crime lords that funded them. A final duel on Mortis, Luke getting a cool heroic moment. There’s a bunch of stuff I’d tweak, but even as it was in the 2016 draft I read, it was much, much better than what replaced it.

I would also like to see more evidence of RJ ‘screaming’ and his ‘tantrums’ because the above looks remarkably calm and playful in the face of the absolute bile we all know he received then and probably still receives.

The pic doesn’t provide proper context, nor even the start of that particular exchange. Almost as if it was selected specifically to make him look as bad as possible. And you’d only be shocked and disgusted by the ‘deek’ references if you were to assume he made them unprompted, which is obviously not the case. You don’t have to search through the tweets to know he’ll be playing with terms he was submerged in at the time.

An idea that’s been buzzing around my head:

I’m currently watching ROTJ (and loving it) and I genuinely think eliminating the lazy second Death Star is possible. Not by awkwardly cutting it out of frame, but by re-purposing it. Done in a few easy(ish) steps.

1.) Cut references to the station by name. Fairly straight foward, should be possible with a gental touch.

2.) Introduce the station in the opening crawl as the Empire’s armory. It’s where ships/weapons are built, troops are held etc. Say the rebellion are pushed to the brink but discover the location of this vital stronghold.

3.) Visual enhancements. Not essential, but would be a great touch. If you extended/accentuate the incomplete sections of the structure, you could do a lot to make it a unique location. It’s only partially visible in many shots so they wouldn’t need tweaking, and the wide shots are normally pretty static so they’d be easier to modify.

4.) Finally, tweak dialogue so that any references to the Death Star’s completion are in fact about an upcoming military upgrade. You could potentialy preserve the Rebel’s shock over the station’s firepower as simply something they didn’t expect to encounter.

I’ve gone mad with the potential of this idea, but maybe it’s actually rubbish. I dunno. I thought it’d be worth sharing though.