imperialscum

Omoshiroi ne.

Benign Viewer said:

imperialscum said:

I think ROTJ is on par with SW and ESB.

Any kind of comparison between the three in terms of story is stupid since the individual storylines are complementary. I think the ROTJ storyline concludes the trilogy in a great way.

Well Han and Leia took the back seat in ROTJ (compared to SW and ESB) but that most certainly doesn’t mean the characters are badly written in general (as some people get the impression). It is just that other characters (and their development) are more prominent (Luke, Emperor, Jabba, Vader). ESB practically sucked Han and Leia character potential dry. To keep them going, Lucas could have postponed the love proclamation into ROTJ. But then he would degrade ESB.

Anyway I think it is great as it is. OT are my top 3 favourite films.

It would have been more than possible to write Han and Leia’s character arcs into ROTJ.

Han is just coming out of being frozen in carbonite, for months. How does having been in this state of living death affect him? Maybe make his blindness a little more permanent than a good night’s rest; have him blustering - over compensating with confidence - for any potential weakness, you can resolve this with Luke or even Leia ‘healing’ him with the force.

As for Leia, play up the conflict she feels at discovering Vader is her father, juxtaposed with Luke perhaps trying to open her to the force while she resists it/it overwhelms her. She and Luke also then have to decide whether or not to make the patrilineage known to their friends and the wider Rebellion. This can be a source of tension between Han and Leia who love each other passionately but after the trauma of their separation and reunion neither quite know where they stand, especially with the (obvious) secret shared between Luke and Leia from Han’s perspective, looking in.

Or it could go the opposite route, and have the secret of Luke and Leia’s parentage get out and be a blow to the morale of the Alliance, and be treated with distrust. Perhaps even announced by Vader/The Emperor himself. Our heroes overcome this then in Luke redeeming their father and Leia stepping up in command of the Rebellion in a crisis during the (final) battle, while Han comes to the conclusion that nothing is going to get in the way of him living the life he wants (with Leia) and does another Swag move kiss wrap things up for them, as well as being a bad ass in general (not as a general =P).

And those are just ideas I came up with on the spot, not even necessarily a good one. Point is that it could have been done, and ROTJ would have been better for it.

First of all, your ideas would make the film a boring soap opera instead of a fun adventure sci-fi/fantasy. So your ideas are most certainly are not good ones (as you yourself suggested it might be the case).

Secondly, you should start being realistic. The film has a limited screen time. Sure you can develop some characters more but at expense of developing other characters less. If they would have developed Han’s and Leia’s characters more then the screen time and story focus should have been allocated from Luke/Emperor/Vader to them. Since ESB practically had the main focus on Han and Leia, I just wouldn’t want to see ROTJ doing the same.

Darth Lucas said:
Honestly I’m not expecting it to be the best thing ever, and I’m not expecting it to suck. I’m expecting something on par with ROTJ without the ewoks.

If you are expecting that, you expecting a great film.

ZkinandBonez said:

Translation; nobody knows why the heck the guy who drew the map drew it the way he did.

Well I guess some random insignificant EU author first draw it like that. The sad part is that instead of just discarding his/her stupid design, subsequent authors adopted it and tried to come up with all sorts of stupid explanation for it. Now in the end, it seems it even made its way to new official canon.

TV’s Frink said:

Darkrider said:

wondered if people can actually remember watching the 1977 film at such a young age.

Nope.

I can.

CatBus said:

• And if they get curious about Star Wars beyond the Original Trilogy, I’ve got the Holiday Special too.

What if they find out about PT from friends in school? Will not let them watch it? 😃

ZkinandBonez said:

so again, why bother to go into the great unknown, when the other half of the galaxy is a large web of trade-routes and filled with allies.

Why did we bother to start eating meat when vegetables were sufficient? Why did we ever bother venturing out of the caves and build cities? Why did already wealthy European empires with well established trade routes between themselves bother going to America? Why does a millionaire want another million?

Handegg is the correct term for this sport.

ZkinandBonez said:

Reposted from the TFA thread.

ZkinandBonez said:

imperialscum said:

Sorry but your analogy is not very convincing. It is completely out of scale. Vikings might have ventured briefly to America but that doesn’t mean they explored/settled any significant portion of it, let alone half of the world (which is required to meet our Star Wars example). They effectively explored and used a very small portion of the world. On the other hand, our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored (and used) while the other half was unknown. If you have the capability to discover/colonise half of the world then the other half will naturally follow very soon, as in the case of 16th-17th century European discoveries and colonisation.

“our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored”
When was that established? I’m pretty sure there are still unexplored planets, and solar systems even within the “explored” half of the galaxy. There’s even some pretty large empty spots on the map even within the “eastern” half.

Also my Viking-analogy wasn’t meant to perfectly fit with the SW universe-lore, I was just pointing out that even on our small planet something as gigantic as the American continent wen’t undiscovered for a very, very long time. And since space exploration, even with lightspeed, would still be an extremely time-consuming and arduous task, taking thousands of years just to discover a fraction of it. And in SW lore the Republic is about 25 000 years old, meaning that all that is on the map (the old one) has been mapped out in roughly that same period of time. And I doubt that they simply flew around in empty space and happened to come across all the planets that are on the map. Keep in mind that lightspeed only works if you know exactly where you are going. This means that in order to find a planet you need to travel in sub-light speed, and of course that can take an infinite amount of time unless you’re really lucky. Also like I suggested in my previous post, they probably discovered most planets through other civilizations over the course of those 25 000 years. Each civilization having explored their own sector at sub-light speed, sharing their star-maps with others that they come across, and quickly you’ll have a decent amount of planets to travel to. However, even then you’ll need thousands of years to map an area as large as the one on the map above.
The main reason it never takes any of the SW characters any time to travel across the galaxy is because they already know the coordinates. Warping into the unknown region would be dangerous and pointless as there’s a tiny fraction of a chance that they would hit anything at all. And for that sake they could actually literally “hit” something. Without anyone to guide their way over the course of thousands of years it’s essentially just pointless, mostly-empty space until someone makes contact or some crazy, lucky explorer comes across something (and on the maps there’s at least 5 or so planets that they seem to have found that way).

Sorry but your entire argument is now based on a rather dumb assumption that the galaxy is like a planet where you cannot see what is beyond the horizon. We are relatively primitive civilisation, yet we know quite precisely the layout of our galaxy (past and future), let alone other galaxies. That is because you can simply look into the sky and apply basic physics. So coordinates of the planets are not the issue at all.

ZkinandBonez said:

I’m not saying it’s brilliant, I’m just saying that the galaxy is pretty friggin’ big and exploring a big chunk of mostly empty space might not be a big priority once you’ve already mapped most of the other half of the galaxy. I’m guessing that the mapping of the “eastern” part of the galaxy was achieved through the races that the people from the core-world met along the way. F.ex. you find one planet that’s inhabited, and you learn about 10 more planets from them. Exploring those 10 you discover 5 more, and from one of their civilizations you discover 10 more, etc, etc. And before you know it you established trade routes, political ties, and explored a large part of the galaxy. The “western” half on the other hand may never have had that first meeting which eventually lead to what is an almost exponential growth in knowledge/expansion. Without that first meeting you are essentially just faced with what is 99,99% empty space and no real starting point for exploration. So even with lightspeed technology it’s far from impossible to spend the next 4000 years not knowing what lies in the “western”-half of the galaxy even if it is right next to you.

(And as for the whole Viking-analogy goes. During a roughly 3-4000 year period of seafaring capabilities there was only one known expedition over the Atlantic ocean. They eventually figured it wasn’t worth their time since everything they needed as far as trade went was east of them anyway, so they simply decided to leave America alone, and for another 1000-ish years it was assumed to have just been some small-ish, uninteresting island somewhere west of Greenland.
Also space is a hell-of-a-lot larger than any areas we’ve ever had to explore on our own planet. At least we can make a full journey around the planet if we get lost. If you explore space however, you could be travelling through nothingness for an eternity.)

Sorry but your analogy is not very convincing. It is completely out of scale. Vikings might have ventured briefly to America but that doesn’t mean they explored/settled any significant portion of it, let alone half of the world (which is required to meet our Star Wars example). They effectively explored and used a very small portion of the world. On the other hand, our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored (and used) while the other half was unknown. If you have the capability to discover/colonise half of the world then the other half will naturally follow very soon, as in the case of 16th-17th century European discoveries and colonisation.

ZkinandBonez said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

ZkinandBonez said:

joefavs said:

And here’s something really interesting. Empire Magazine gives us our first canonical map of the galaxy:

Tobar said:

UGH, they kept the Unknown Regions as a giant blot that reaches right next to the Galactic Core. So DUMB.

I’ve always maintained that the Unknown Regions should have been one of the spiral arms of the galaxy. At least that would have made some sense.

Hasn’t it always been like that in SW canon though?

It’s still stupid.

It takes Yoda – what? – a couple hours to take a trip from Coruscant to Moraband, but no one from Coruscant’s ever sent explorers into the Unknown Regions, which is significantly closer to Coruscant than Moraband is?

Personally, I feel that when the powers-that-be decided to reintroduce the Unknown Regions, either the Unknown and Known Regions of the galaxy should have swapped places (making the Republic/Empire/etc. a smaller corner of a larger, unexplored galaxy) or the Unknown Regions should have been made to completely surround the Known Regions, like a ring.

It is a bit odd, but then again we had Vikings in real life travelling as far as to the Midlle East (possibly even China), yet hardly anyone ever thought about travelling across the Atlantic ocean. Once you’ve established trade-routes in one direction, you usually have very few reasons to travel in the other direction. It’s just a waste of time and money.

Also is there any canon-for how long these journeys really take? For all we know a trip from Coruscant to Moraband might take days, if not weeks. And even if it doesn’t take that long, it does help to have light-speed when you know exactly what planet you’re aiming for. Space is mostly just emptiness, and exploring the Unknown Regions regardless of how close the borders are would still just be a very slow sub-light-speed scan of mostly empty space. When the other half of the galaxy is explored, why waste your time and money on the other?

Having said that, however, I would have preferred it to be a little bit further away from the core. But it also does kind of make sense, so I’m not going to waste any effort getting annoyed at it.
I would however be very interested to hear why they specifically decided to design the SW-galaxy like that. I still find it an oddly specific thing to add to the canon.

The thing is that unknown regions as they were/are on the map were probably intended to be a state from the old republic era (KOTOR), i.e. 4000 years before OT. Your example about Vikings would make sense for that period. But to assume they remained unexplored for 4000 years is just stupid.

ImperialFighter said:

imperialscum said:

If you somehow cut out Jar Jar, there are very few annoying things left. On the other hand, AOTC is in fact unfixable. There is a clear main character and he is super annoying (much more than Jar Jar in TPM). I cannot see how anyone could even remotely relate to Anakin in AOTC.

There’s quite a lot of annoying things left in ‘TPM’ I’d say, even if an edit were to remove ‘Jar Jar’ completely. An extremely young ‘Darth Vader’-to-be in the shape of ‘Li’l Ani’ as just one example, and it’s a major one I reckon. But while I’ll always think George ended up casting far too young for that role…I’ve found that by cutting a lot of superfluous dialogue/shots that he’s in, it really helps to minimise the problem for me, and it helps to bring the maturer voices around him to the fore instead.

By making ‘Li’l Ani’ say much less throughout various scenes, his character improves quite a bit for me now. And this applies to ‘Jar Jar’s’ childish-sounding voice/unnecessay dialogue too, as well as to the majority of ‘older’ Anakin’s creepy/shouty dialogue throughout the other two prequels. Far less poorly-delivered, eye-rolling dialogue by Hayden makes a huge difference to how he comes across in ‘AOTC’ and ‘ROTS’, compared with the existing versions. And this has helped to make his performance/character a lot more effective for me now, also…even though he’s not the ideal casting I’d have preferred for the backstory of ‘Darth Vader’.

(by the way, keeping the references to the ‘Jedi rule’ forbidding ‘personal relationships’ kinda makes Padme at fault too, seeing as she lets herself get fully involved with Anakin. But a heap of cutting still makes them a more appealing couple, regardless. On the other hand, if that ‘rule’ isn’t specifically referenced in the upcoming sequels, then it’s also possible to recut things slightly so that no mention of this ‘rule’ pops up in ‘AOTC’, to eliminate their deception in this matter)

Bottom line is, you sum all the annoying things in TPM and you are still way below the annoyance level of Anakin in AOTC. And it is not Hayden’s performance that should take the main blame. He basically just acted perfectly in accordance with the annoying character that was conceived/written.

StarChewyWar said:

As for fan edits, I think the only prequel that’s unsalvageable is The Phantom Menace. Doesn’t matter how much you edit it, there’s still not a relatable main character in sight unless you dub Jar Jar or something.

TPM is quite okay as it is to be honest. Obviously not good but still watchable. I can easily relate to either Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan. If you somehow cut out Jar Jar, there are very few annoying things left. On the other hand, AOTC is in fact unfixable. There is a clear main character and he is super annoying (much more than Jar Jar in TPM). I cannot see how anyone could even remotely relate to Anakin in AOTC.

If they ever decide to restore and release OOT they will announce it way in advance. Surprise release just doesn’t make sense from advertising perspective. So any kind of speculation and hoping is useless.

DominicCobb said:

Kurtz should be thanked more for letting him do what he wanted.

Exactly. In a way Kurtz saved the film at expense of being fired. If he forced Kershner to work according to the normal schedule the filmed scenes and acting would probably be worse. Whether Kershner’s directing was slow/inefficient can be debatable. It might have been, considering that practically all other films he worked on are rather bad.

generalfrevious said:

imperialscum said:

generalfrevious said:

Again, this is why Gary Kurtz was purged from Star Wars so that we can never have a perfect trilogy and have thirty-five years and counting of unrelenting misery.

According to the relevant information available, Kurtz was fired already during ESB because he didn’t manage to do his job as a producer. He let principal photography to go way over schedule and way over budget (something that is unacceptable for a big studio production, let alone self-financed production). Even if he stayed things wouldn’t be much different. Lucas always had it his way. Even in ANH since studio didn’t seem to care.

Convenient excuse; Lucas was jealous that Kurtz made a better film than he ever could. Empire is the best because Lucas has almost zero involvement, and conversely Jedi is the weakest. The Ewoks and twincest were all George’s idea.

You can easily find the information about ESB principal photography time and budget increase in several sources. Also you may not be aware, but Kurtz was effectively replaced already during the ESB principal photography (far from the final product) so your “jealousy” theory is rather silly.

Zero involvement? The only part he wasn’t involved was the principal photography, which was Kershner’s domain (the main reason he was hired for obviously).

The bottom line is that AOTC is the worst of the PT because of how Anakin was written and portrayed. Just about anything concerning his character is either bad or extremely annoying.

I think if Anakin was the opposite of what it is now, AOTC with the same basic background story/plot could have been a good/enjoyable film.

generalfrevious said:

Again, this is why Gary Kurtz was purged from Star Wars so that we can never have a perfect trilogy and have thirty-five years and counting of unrelenting misery.

According to the relevant information available, Kurtz was fired already during ESB because he didn’t manage to do his job as a producer. He let principal photography to go way over schedule and way over budget (something that is unacceptable for a big studio production, let alone self-financed production). Even if he stayed things wouldn’t be much different. Lucas always had it his way. Even in ANH since studio didn’t seem to care.

Dragging the story for more than ROTJ would have certainly ruined the saga. I think trilogy was the right way to go.

Bingowings said:

The was no need to make Leia the sister of Luke even in the “lets get it finished fast” mood that Lucas was in at that point in his life.
Yoda could have been referring to Anakin as the ‘other’ hope.
Ben could be all negative about Vader and how he is beyond redemption and needs to be destroyed for the greater good and Yoda could be all wise and remind Luke there is always hope.
On his death bed Yoda reminds Luke of his earlier lesson about the nature of the light and dark sides. All that was needed was to have him reflect on how it might not necessarily be curtains for Anakin, that he might have been wrong and Luke might be onto something about redeeming his Father.

Well as I said many times already, I think Obi-Wan and Yoda never realistically considered Luke being able to defeat the Emperor. I mean if they did then they would not surely not wait to start his training at age of 20. To me, their plan seemed to be to use Luke merely as a tool to trigger Anakin’s return who would then destroy the Emperor.

CatBus said:

Actually, I forgot to mention one of the biggest gripes story-wise with ROTJ, because at this point it’s so ingrained: Leia is Luke’s sister. I mean, Jesus, really? Vader being Luke’s father worked, sure, and it blew everyone’s mind. But Leia is his sister?!? All this does is add soap opera dynamic with no payoff. I remember at the time, people saw it and started joking that Han was Luke’s brother, and Chewie was his dog, etc. It became the subject of parody–the entire Star Wars galaxy was shrinking down to one family. I mean nobody went completely bonkers and claimed Darth and Greedo were childhood friends or that Darth made C-3PO in his basement, but it was still widely ridiculed. And I feel it was a fair criticism.

Well this is pretty much the only ROTJ criticism in this thread so far with some actual weight.

GlastoEls said:

I wonder if it’s only me who really, really likes ROTJ?

Of course not. I would say that in my aspects I prefer it to ANH, especially when seeing it as ESB-ROTJ pair.

Bingowings said:

imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

I see Jedi and the PT as broken art works that the mind can’t resist trying to repair.

You have some serious problem with understanding the concept of art. Art work is not an engineered machinery with a objectively defined intended operation that can be broken and repaired. Art work is a subjective expression of an artist, which simply is what it is.

No I have a different idea of what art is.
Art is work and work can be meaningless or meaningful but in either case it is functional.
The first two films provide a functional experience. They are designed to evoke nostalgia for cinematic and fantastical forms which I only became aware of around or after the release of the first film but they also are immersive fantasy stories which have a distorted but tangible sense of other ‘reality’. Jedi has a Wizard of Oz joke in the first act and an open nod to Tarzan in the last act.
These date the film and wreck the sense of immersion in that world not just for that film but for the whole series. It breaks Star Wars.
So naturally my mind tries to imagine ROTJ without the malfunctions and it’s a rewarding experience that I wouldn’t have if the film wasn’t as much of a let down as it was. For me… Clearly not for you. That’s were the subjectivity you talk about kicks in.

Basically all your just said (meaningfulness, functionality, immersion, especially “malfunctions”, etc.) is more or less your personal impression of an art work.

Bingowings said:

I see Jedi and the PT as broken art works that the mind can’t resist trying to repair.

You have some serious problem with understanding the concept of art. Art work is not an engineered machinery with a objectively defined intended operation that can be broken and repaired. Art work is a subjective expression of an artist, which simply is what it is.

TFU severely crapped on the two main OT characters: Vader and Emperor. The idea alone that some random guy would beat any of them is beyond stupid.