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philraid

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17-Jun-2019
Last activity
2-Nov-2024
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86

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Post
#1594632
Topic
The <strong>Unpopular Expanded Universe Opinions</strong> Thread
Time

I’ll be honest, most of the prequel era EU books are kind of boring to me. They’re too dry and political. And a lot of them just seem like damage control to fix plot holes. They don’t really work great as standalone stories. I won’t say I hate them, I just can’t get into them. So yeah, I unfortunately don’t have as fond of an opinion on James Luceno as some do.

I also didn’t really like Darth Bane: Path of Destruction. I don’t really know why. Writing style, plot and characters didn’t do it for me, I guess.

A lot of people really like the Brian Daley Han Solo books, I just think they’re okay. I thought the A.C. Crispin Han Solo trilogy was much better.

One that I like that a lot of people don’t seem to enjoy is Truce at Bakura. For some reason I kind of liked that one. Thought it was a decent one-off. Granted maybe my expectations were low after reading shit like The Crystal Star or The Callista Trilogy.

I didn’t mind the first two books of the Jedi Academy trilogy. They were silly, but kind of fun to read. They were short at least.

I couldn’t really get into the X-wing books for whatever reason. I guess I’d just rather watch space battles than read them.

Kenobi by John Jackson Miller I didn’t really get into. Felt like the title character wasn’t in it enough. My same problem with Dark Lord.

Granted, some of these I haven’t read in awhile, and there’s some I didn’t finish, so make of that what you will.

Post
#1594619
Topic
What do you HATE about the EU?
Time

The Callista Trilogy was really bad. Especially Children of the Jedi, that might be the worst EU book that I’ve read. I can’t believe they almost made Luke’s wife a ghost of a dead Jedi that took over the body of another dead Jedi. Thank fuck they wised up and had him marry Mara Jade instead.

I didn’t like the Legacy of the Force series. It reminds me a lot of the sequel trilogy where there were too many conflicting visions going on and it messes up the previous series. Sacrifice I especially disliked because of what happened with Mara Jade. My headcanon basically stops after the New Jedi Order books.

Champions of the Force was pretty bad. Jedi Search and Dark Apprentice were cheesy, but kind of enjoyable due to some of the ridiculousness, but Champions of the Force was just boring. They put Luke in a coma for most of it. So bad.

The Glove of Darth Vader and The Crystal Star I probably don’t have to get into. Batshit insane books those ones are.

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye I never liked. It’s only interesting as a curiosity, the actual story is crap. Never liked the depiction of Vader in it. They made him too bumbling. The Luke and Leia stuff is really hard to read in hindsight.

The Courtship of Princess Leia I thought had a really bad plot, and it introduced things into canon that I wasn’t really into like the Nightsisters and Dathomir. Thankfully it was just a weird one-off.

Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader was really disappointing for me. Most of it was surprisingly not about Darth Vader, despite what the title said.

The problem with a lot of EU books also is that the three main characters felt off to me in a lot of them. It’s like they wrote some other sci-fi books and then copy pasted a few Star Wars terms into them and called it good.

Post
#1594559
Topic
If the Star Wars prequels were never made, which actor you would have imagined as the Pre-Prequels Anakin Skywalker?
Time

Just get Mark Hamill and have him do his Joker voice.

Okay, jokes aside, I think Jake Gyllenhaal would have been an interesting choice. This was around when Donnie Darko came out, so he can definitely pull off the dark side of Anakin.
At first I wasn’t sure about DiCaprio, but after thinking about it this was around when he did Gangs of New York and The Aviator, so I can sort of see it, since this was when he was playing more intense and dramatic roles.
Someone else said Heath Ledger, who I think would have been good. Probably wouldn’t have happened at that time, but it’s an interesting proposal.
Or hell, just do a few rewrites and I think Hayden would have been fantastic. He looks the part and he has some good moments when the dialogue isn’t getting in the way.

As the younger Anakin, Haley Joel Osment would have been a better choice than Jake Lloyd. Or Devon Michael (the other kid they had in the Phantom Menace making of.) His audition showed a lot of promise. Especially when he said the line “I won’t always be.” That part made me genuinely sad when I first saw it.

Post
#1594435
Topic
Least screen time for a credited original trilogy character
Time

Grogu13 said:

Which actors who played Imperial officers, other than Mark Jones, were ever on Dr. Who? I don’t believe Tom Mannion was. Michael Culver wasn’t. Was Leslie Schofield, Julian Glover, Pip Miller, Alan Flyng, or Michael Sheard on Dr. Who?

He wasn’t on the show, but Peter Cushing played The Doctor in two movies (Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks’ Invasion of Earth 2150 AD) if that counts. Although they apparently took the title too literally and his name is actually “Dr. Who” in those movies.

Post
#1593140
Topic
Worst Dialogue from Revenge of the Sith.
Time

There’s so many lines between Anakin and Padme that I could choose from, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind:

“You are so beautiful.”
“It’s only because I’m so in love.”
“No, it’s because I’m so in love with you.”
“So love has blinded you?”
This is the one scene I consider skipping whenever I rewatch that movie. It’s mercifully short, but that dialogue is painful. And it doesn’t even make sense either, it’s like a line or two got cut.

But the more baffling one is this one:
“Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo; so long ago when there was nothing but our love. No politics, no plotting, no war.”
The first sentence is already bad, but then it has to go the extra mile. No politics, no plotting, no war? Did Padme get knocked on the head and forget everything that happened in the previous two movies?

Post
#1590600
Topic
A New Hope - If you could add a scene of the emperor, where would you add it &amp; what would it be?
Time

One idea I thought of was adding him to that meeting scene with the imperial officers. So instead of Tarkin saying that The Emperor dissolved the senate, The Emperor himself is there to announce it. And have him sitting in a chair, but not showing his face, like they did with Blofeld in the earlier James Bond movies.
Or I’d have an after credits scene where Vader goes to talk to The Emperor about how the Death Star was destroyed. He gives him a Cerveza Cristal.

Post
#1576624
Topic
Star Wars releases you previously disliked, but now like or enjoy?
Time

I’ve gone back and forth on the prequels. As a kid I loved them, then later I started hearing that a lot of people hated them and it rubbed off on me for a few years. Now I’m kind of in the middle on them. I’m now of the opinion that they aren’t as bad as some people say they are, nor are they as good as some people say they are.
I did not like Rogue One the first few times I saw it. It just seemed like a boring and pointless spinoff that distracted from the sequel trilogy. It wasn’t until I saw Andor when I finally came around to enjoying it. I still don’t think it’s as great as some people think it is, but it’s a decent movie.
I loved The Last Jedi when I saw it in theaters, but it didn’t hold up on rewatches. I can only bear to watch fan edits of it now.

Post
#1575894
Topic
Has anyone Read the Book The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski?
Time

Very interesting. A bit long, but well-cited. I learned a lot about George from reading it. There’s too many tidbits I’d like to mention.
Just reading about the alternate directions they might have taken the movies was fascinating. Especially alternate ideas for Return of the Jedi and the prequels. One thing that was baffling to me is that originally Obi Wan was supposed to be the one that found Anakin, and Qui Gon didn’t show up in the movie until they got to Coruscant. That makes so much more sense, why would you change that?
Another idea I found interesting was the prequels were supposed to be structured differently. The first episode was about the history of the Jedi, the second was Obi Wan’s life story, and the third was Anakin’s life story. Maybe there was just too much material to cover in each of those, but that probably would have made the movies more focused.
There were also some telling quotes in there from George Lucas himself. At one point he mentions after making Return of the Jedi that he was thinking of selling Star Wars to someone else, almost 30 years before, you know. He comes across as very stressed and overworked in a lot of this.
There’s also the infamous quote from Harrison Ford criticizing George’s dialogue in the original movie. Apparently Ford regretted this comment after the movie came out. He said “I told George ‘you can’t say that stuff, you can only type it.’ But I was wrong. It worked.”
I’d put the screen shots in there, but I don’t know how.

Post
#1572906
Topic
How did you prefer to watch SW before the fan edits came along?
Time

The first copies I owned of them were the 2004 DVDs and I didn’t know there were any changes made to the movies until I saw a Cinemassacre video on the Star Wars movies. I was very upset about it, but I eventually found out about the 2006 DVDs and decided to look for those. I managed to track them down and that’s how I was able to watch the theatrical versions for the first time. They were expensive and not the best quality, but at the time I was fine with just watching those as that was the only way I was able to find the original cuts at that time. Now I just watch the despecialized versions.

Post
#1565009
Topic
<strong>The 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special</strong> - a general discussion thread
Time

I’ve only ever been able to watch the entire thing once. Reading about the production of it and watching reviews of it is much more fun (the Red Letter Media review of it is hilarious for example). Whenever people ask me about it I always warn them not to watch it.
I am very interested in that documentary. I’m not sure when they’re releasing it, but the production history of that thing is so fascinating to me.
I love that when Harrison Ford was asked whether he’d seen it, he said “I was there, man. I didn’t have to see it.”

Post
#1565003
Topic
Ranking the Star Wars films
Time

My ranking changed slightly:

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. Return of the Jedi
  3. Star Wars
  4. Revenge of the Sith
  5. Rogue One
  6. Solo
  7. Attack of the Clones
  8. The Phantom Menace
  9. The Force Awakens
  10. The Last Jedi
  11. The Rise of Skywalker
  12. The Clone Wars movie

Update: I moved The Force Awakens down a few spots. I don’t think I’ll ever watch the sequel trilogy again.