theprequelsrule

Servii said:

Realistically, Kenobi could be set exclusively on Tatooine, and I’d have no issues if that was what they did. The problem is that they chose to set so much of Mando and BoBF on Tatooine, also. That was the mistake. People are getting Tatooine fatigue now, right when we’re getting a show where it actually makes sense to have Tatooine.

And Tatooine is supposed to be a backwater, anyway. It’s meant to be the boondocks of the galaxy. It’s important on a meta level, but not in-universe.

Ugh…it made no sense for Han to be on Tatooine in SW77 if it was the home base of Jabba and he had a price on his head. He was obviously supposed to be laying low on a backwater planet. Tatooine is the wild west with Mos Eisley acting the part of a small frontier town.

Everything is relative of course. If Coruscant and the other planets of the Core Worlds are the equivalent of a developed and urbanized first world country on Earth, then a “small frontier town” in the SW Universe might be huge by our real world standards. But the point of it being a backwater gets lost if you show that like the Special Edition, the prequels, and I guess these new series are showing.

BedeHistory731 said:

What is there to be said that hasn’t already been said? They’re good movie (TPM) and two crimes against cinema (AOTC and ROTS). This trilogy needed TCW to save it and explain things it couldn’t. A side effect of TCW is that it made ROTS infinitely less enjoyable as a finale to the PT and a finale to TCW.

TROS is very rushed and sloppy, but I’d contend that ROTS is similarly flawed (albeit to a lesser extent in this regard). It’s burdened with telling the PT’s entire arc in most of the movie, suffering from the dilly-dallying in the previous two movies. Also, deciding Anakin’s fall through reshoots is somewhat noticeable in the final product. It’s not super-sloppy, but the whole fall feels like it was scribbled on a napkin.

The accusations of “nostalgia bait” should also apply to the PT after Phantom Menace. That movie had such an excellent aesthetic, largely divorced from anything we’d seen in the OT. The later two movies, however, give in to the baiting/universe shrinkage with characters (the Fett family, Chewbacca, and the Vader suit being the main marketing push of ROTS) and reshaping the aesthetic to be more OT-like (but not slavish OT replicas like the ST). I get wanting to push towards the OT as it got closer timeline-wise, but part of me thinks it was responding to TPM backlash.

The meta reasons for disliking the PT are also there. The creation of the Special Editions, compressing the saga’s timeline, the proliferation of unfunny memes, and how Lucasfilm tried to reframe the entire saga as “The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, the chosen one.” When looking at the OT, it makes very little internal sense to interpret it as the continuation of “Vader’s tragedy.” If there is one good thing the ST did (I’d argue it did many), is that it removed the chosen one reframing.

I know there’s been pushback on the idea that George needed other people to reshape his stories to make them better and that he needed to have fewer “yes” men around him (e.g., Rick McCallum). Well, it’s still true. A movie made with a few more passes on the scripts and with a different director (still making George’s story, mind you) would’ve been better than what we got.

When comparing them to the ST, I like the ST more. I simply do. Those movies are incredibly flawed and made by a wretched entertainment conglomerate, but there’s something about them that feels more in tune with the OT (and not in a nostalgia-bait way). TLJ is an excellent piece as a distant epilogue to the OT, much like how TPM is a fantastic distant prologue to the OT (just change it to be 50 years before the OT instead of 30). The Abrams movies are forgettable (but improved with fanedits), but I’ll take forgettable over whatever the later two PT movies were.

I agree with most of what you have written here. The transformation of the saga to The Tragedy of Darth Vader in particular really bothered me. It is really a stretch. But this leads back to my original post that the wrong story is being told. The OT is Luke’s story, and the PT should have been Obi-wan’s. Vader is the thread that ties them together, but it is not his story.

I also agree that Lucase made creative decisions based on what he thought (or people were telling him) the fans wanted more of after TPM. I honestly feel like the Fetts were shoehorned into AOTC. But that movie is a total mess in terms of pacing, motivations etc.

I think Hayden gives a good performance in parts of ROTS.

Qui-gon Jinn was a mistake. His character serves only to delay our exploration of Obi-wan and Anakin’s friendship. This was a rare case of what the films needed and what the fans wanted being in accord.

Really, the PT did not need a female lead. The romance thing again takes away from developing the Obi/Ani friendship. Mother Skywalker should have been relegated to a supporting role, with a few short cameos. But of course Lucas decided that she was going to be the reason for Anakin’s fall so…

But the acting quality also plays a role, even though I said I didn’t want to touch on it. There is great chemistry developed between our leads in the 45 minutes we are on the Death Star in SW77 - more than is developed between the leads through the course of 6 hours in the PT. I feel also that the way the films are shot plays a role. Am I crazy in feeling that the OT tried to shoot Fisher so that we wouldn’t notice how short she is, whereas in the PT there is no attempt to frame Portman in the same way. She always comes off as a teenager in appearance. Even the pitch of her voice seems like it. Maybe she should have kept the Amidala accent?

Probably my favourite single shot of the PT is the closeup of Padme on when she arrives on Mustafar, with her head on her hand wondering how it could have come to this, where did it all go wrong. A meta moment if ever there was one!

To start off I will ignore bad dialogue and/or acting. No; for me, after 17 years (!!) Since the last prequel came out, the biggest problem was that it told the wrong story.

It should have been about a young Jedi Master called Obiwan Kenobi and how his renegade, unsanctioned, training of Anakin Skywalker ( a gifted pilot and incredibly strong in The Force, but mentally unstable) lead to the downfall of The Republic.

Despite my issues with TPM, there is the beginning of this idea at the end of the film - but it is never continued into the following films.

So what are we supposed to think about the SW Universe at the end of the last film? I mean, are there going to be no more Jedi? Is Rey just going to be a farmer? Will Finn and Poe get married? I can’t remember too much (the dialogue in particular) since I only saw ROS once and was only barely paying attention by the end.

I will say that the new leads really gave their all throughout the ST. They deserved better films in the end.

In regards to the OT leads - I thought Hamill was good, Ford okay, but Carrie Fisher was terrible; she was painful to watch.

Well I am probably just an out of touch old fart! 😃

But…wouldn’t a better idea for the ST been about following Luke’s attempts to rebuild the order? So, like a lot of others have said, the conception was flawed from the start.

Or was it? I remember reading that the original writer for TFA (Arndt) said he struggled to produce a script because Luke always dominated the scenes whenever he was in it. So there was a last minute script done by Abrams and Kasdan that essentially was a soft reboot.

I’m not totally sure about what happened in pre-production, but from what I have read (which is of course limited) it seems that TFA was not originally envisioned as a soft reboot.

Anyway; one concept I liked was of Kylo Ren being powerful, but ineffective. Strong in The Force, but militarily and politically inept. I would have liked Ren to have been killed off by Snoke in TLJ and have Rey join him. Luke comes out of retirement to join Finn and Poe, realizing that galaxy needs the Jedi.

Nice poster. This series is the best Star Wars material since KOTOR2.

I think what it comes down to is that movies come from a certain time and place and when a person is in a certain time and place. Star Wars would not be Star Wars if it didn’t involve George Lucas and the people around him during the 1970s. If he had started work on it 5 years earlier or 5 years later we would have gotten a different film.

I have a theory (just a theory), that is probably going to generate some controversy…Star Wars is a conservative film. It is very much a modern Western. George Lucas was not some pot smoking hippie. Coming at the source material from a liberal progressive angle has created the bizarre content we see under Disney. Even when it is made well…it just seems off.

You cannot make a Star Wars film in 2022 unless you are John Milius. It might have the name…but it is an empty shell inside. That is a quote from a Steven Seagal movie.

Servii said:

theprequelsrule said:

Every time I want out…this place pulls me back in.

Retroblasting’s take on the ST is all you need: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbB5jQFK2es

Welcome back! Good to see you again.

Great video. Retroblasting is spot-on. You can tell how fed up he is here.

I appreciate the kind words. I’m not sure how “good” it is to be back though, lol!

Also…is James Earl Jones still the voice of Vader?

WitchDR said:

theprequelsrule said:

Let us get back on track before the mods make us shall we?

This show looks like trash, sadly. As an earlier post noted…without the music it would be a really boring trailer. The inquisitor looks like something designed by a Gothic teen that thinks they are edgy.

But honestly, ever since they made Owen and Beru people known to Vader and Tatooine THE PLANET HE WAS BORN AND RASIED ON the whole Obiwan watching over Luke idea from SW77 is incredibly stupid.

I mean, originally Vader was not Luke’s father, Beru and Owen were actually Obi wan’s family etc.

The more Star Wars they make, the dumber it becomes.

They are exploiting us fans. Disney is an unbelievably vile corporation - one of the megacorps that would be featured in dystopian sci-fi movies. Yet people keep feeding this beast. I won’t.

As the kids say; end rant.

I agree it wasn’t really the most exciting trailer. I think the Inquisitors just shouldn’t have been included. We could have just followed both Obi-Wan and Vader separately without them ever intertwining in the plot. But we have to tension for tensions-sake.

That would have been an interesting idea…but only more ruination of Vader would have occurred.

Let us get back on track before the mods make us shall we?

This show looks like trash, sadly. As an earlier post noted…without the music it would be a really boring trailer. The inquisitor looks like something designed by a Gothic teen that thinks they are edgy.

But honestly, ever since they made Owen and Beru people known to Vader and Tatooine THE PLANET HE WAS BORN AND RASIED ON the whole Obiwan watching over Luke idea from SW77 is incredibly stupid.

I mean, originally Vader was not Luke’s father, Beru and Owen were actually Obi wan’s family etc.

The more Star Wars they make, the dumber it becomes.

They are exploiting us fans. Disney is an unbelievably vile corporation - one of the megacorps that would be featured in dystopian sci-fi movies. Yet people keep feeding this beast. I won’t.

As the kids say; end rant.

Every time I want out…this place pulls me back in.

Retroblasting’s take on the ST is all you need: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbB5jQFK2es

Like the song says, I just came back to say goodbye.

I am done with Star Wars. It really no longer holds my interest (with the exception of my annual KOTOR 2 playthrough). I can’t be bothered to follow news about upcoming releases, could not care less if the OOT ever gets a proper restoration or release etc. etc. I can’t remember the last time I even had the urge to watch the OT.

I won’t ask to have my account closed…just in case I hear that they decanonize the ST and let Mark Hamill direct the REAL Sequel Trilogy.

It has been fun. Take care folks.

Rodney-2187 said:

I wouldn’t call myself “pro-George” nor am I anti-George. That video (How Star Wars was saved in the edit) has been around a few years and I’ve posted it several places.

I see a lot of people on two sides where George is either a saint or the devil incarnate. That video is a conversation starter for both. I see comments claiming it’s misleading because George was actually hands on during the editing process and oversaw their work, while others use it as an example of how the people around George actually created Star Wars more so than he did.

Everyone references this or that article or interview, book and video. My interpretation is the truth falls somewhere between, as often is the case.

George’s star got really bright, and the creative contribution of some others got overlooked. Is this George’s fault? I’d say somewhat. They say every time you remember something, your brain changes it a little. It’s been over 40 years. George probably thinks a lot of things happened ways they actually didn’t.

Did George create everything or just chose what he wanted from the creative work of others? Did he invent technology or just push others to create it? Again, probably some of both.

I wish George would share the creative spotlight a little more and stop revising history. I wish he would be more of a brand ambassador like Stan Lee was for Marvel. But it is what it is. Star Wars wouldn’t be what it is without a lot of important people. Not sure you can remove any of them and be where we are today.

Agreed. George was the driving force behind it all…with Kurtz as wingman. There are a lot of quotes from George in the 1976-1984 period that show he understood how to make a great movie and was aware of his own deficiencies in certain areas.

As an aside Rodney, I also thought George was an uncredited editor of the final edit too. Can anyone clarify?

SparkySywer said:

I’ve never played KOTOR 2. Only KOTOR 1.

You should! Don’t forget to install the restored content mod! https://deadlystream.com/files/file/578-tsl-restored-content-mod/

SparkySywer said:

My unabashed love for TLJ incoming: I think, though, that TLJ is the closest thing to the very knowledgeable deconstruction of Star Wars we’ll ever get. Despite what the youtube comments section will tell you, Rian Johnson knew his shit when he was making the Last Jedi. Although I’m not going to turn this into a long ramble about TLJ.

KOTOR2 deconstructed Star Wars 13 years before TLJ, and did a much better job of it IMHO.

The Last Jedi actually addressed and added to the ideas and themes of the Star Wars Trilogy, and it’s almost certainly the most divisive movie of the decade. Possibly the most divisive movie of the century so far, but don’t quote me on that.

See above. Yet, KOTOR2 never received the venom many spit at TLJ. Perhaps if released today it would. 🤷‍♂️

There are a lot of people who want Star Wars to be shallow popcorn action-adventure movies. There’s nothing wrong with that, there’s a need for that in cinema, and it’s all a subjective matter of opinion anyway so who am I to say that’s wrong. But if you want Star Wars to recapture its magic, and for it to no longer be an imitation of itself, they are your main adversary.

Or, maybe I’m just being a moron. I might also be falling into the “Episodes 4 5 6 and 8 were totally indie arthouse kino flicks and Episodes 1 2 3 and 9 were soulless corporate garbage” sentiment, which is also wrong.

In the end, if Star Wars can have any claim to being art, in addition to being such a source of joy and inspiration to others, is because it came from an authentic place within George Lucas. Whether or not it’s a “popcorn” film is irrelevant.

SparkySywer said:

When it comes to the fall of Rome, historians will typically say something about how Rome never really fell, it slowly faded away over centuries, but if you really need a specific date, here are some good candidates (235 AD, 476 AD, 1453, etc). One of these is usually used as THE date Rome fell (476), but almost always with the clarification that that’s not actually how it worked out.

Another Roman history buff? Excellent! My personal view is that Roman civilization disappeared starting with the The Last Persian War of 610-628 and then the Great Islamic Invasions 6 years later. The state that emerged at the end of this period a century later was not recognizable as Roman civilization any longer.

Maybe it could be something like that with the Galactic Republic/Empire. Here’s the date where the Jedi were officially declared enemies of the state. Here’s the date where the position of Emperor was created. Here’s when the Republic began imperializing the Outer Rim. Here’s the first major policy shift away from democracy toward autocracy. Et cetera.

My own attempt to create a backstory for the OT that I am working on in the script writing/re-writing section takes this approach. It starts with government corruption and economic difficulties (a widening gap between rich and poor), then comes The Clone Wars, then comes The Emperor. Even in the official canon we get a glimpse of this idea; in TPM Shmi effectively tells Padme that Republic authority has ceased to exist on Tatooine.

Maybe the date where the Jedi were declared enemies of the state is the 476 AD of the Republic/Empire. Generally accepted to be the turning point, where yesterday you had the Republic, today you have the Empire, but it’s just a convention created millennia later. Not all that much actually changed, and other historians in other contexts would use different dates for different reasons.

It would seem likely that the Jedi would not accept the end of democratic rule sitting down. So the destruction of the order would have to take place before, or almost concurrent with, Palpatine’s assumption of the title of Emperor. However; in the novelization to Star Wars Obi-wan talks about “the later corrupt Emperors”. This opens the possibility to the idea that there was an initial Emperor who was perhaps a benevolent despot - seizing power in order to save the Republic. Perhaps the Jedi served, albeit grudgingly, under the initial Emperor.

Problem is, all of the above would seem to contradict the novels opening crawl where it states that the Jedi had been exterminated at the behest of the corrupt government (the Moffs and Grand Moffs I would guess), that Palpatine declared himself Emperor (implying there were no prior Emperors). Here is the relevant text:

Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.

Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.

Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.

This also implies that Palpatine might not be completely evil. The line that “the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears” seems to imply that he was being kept in the dark (no pun intended) on what was going on in the Republic. The Moffs and Grand Moffs were the true rulers of The Galaxy Far Far Away.

Supreme Commander, Grand Admirals and Warlords

Grand Admirals are an innovation of Palpatine. They are not necessarily in command of any particular Sector or Fleet but, similar to Grand Moffs, are put in charge of specific areas or specific missions as needed. They exist outside the traditional Imperial/Old Republic Naval hierarchy and answer only to The Emperor; their authority is his authority and disobeying their commands carried the crime of High Treason - which in the Imperial era was codified in law as an attempt to overthrow The Emperor. Summary execution (without trial) was the penalty.

Unlike Grand Moffs, Grand Admiral rank was permanent and would not cease to exist once their mission was deemed complete. A Grand Admiral outranked a Grand Moff in the Imperial Hierarchy.

Supreme Commander of the Republic forces was typically promoted from the High Admiral or Field Marshal ranks of Republic service. He had overall command of all Republican forces. Under The Empire the rank became mostly bureaucratic in nature as Palpatine would not risk a rival who had such forces under his command.

Warlord was a ceremonial title given to victorious commanders under The Empire. Only the greatest victories that brought great wealth and/or eliminated a major threat to The Empire could result in the title being granted. The recipient was allowed to wear gold piping on their uniforms. It also carried a substantial yearly allowance from the Imperial coffers.

jedi_bendu said:

I don’t think anybody’s posted an image from this scene yet - in ‘Double Agent Droid’ from Star Wars Rebels, Wedge is about to the use the ‘refresher’ when AP-5 walks in on him. We don’t see that much of the room, though.

I always liked that term “refresher”. I think I am going to start using it in real life! 😃

bigalroz said:

Personally I think that Mark Hamill is superb in all the original films and doesn’t get enough credit for his acting, from naive farm boy in Star Wars, to a Jedi student in Empire finding out Vader is his father on Cloud City, then to mature Jedi Knight in ROTJ. The dual between Vader and Luke on the 2nd Death Star is easily the best light sabre dual in all of the Star Wars movies, not because of the choreography but because of the rage in Luke.

I agree. If anything, ROTJ suffers when he is not on screen. Ford and Fisher were so no wooden in it. Prowse/Jones are also great as Vader in ROTJ.

imperialscum said:

pat man said:

I prefer the 97’ cut. Victory but with Sabastian Shaw.

This is the best post in this thread so far. 😃

That’s subjective.

Moffs and Grand Moffs

A rank that originated during The Clone Wars which combined civilian and military authority in one role. It was an emergency measure during a time of chaos that was need to coordinate both areas of authority. Moffs were thus either former High Admirals (who command Sector fleets) or Field Marshals who now gained civilian/judiciary powers in their Sector.

A Moff was in charge of a Sector, the largest unit of governance within the Old Republic. Grand Moffs were placed in charge of multiple sectors. These groupings were called Oversectors and the amount of territory (the number of Sectors) each one comprised could change as needed. Only where there had been an almost complete breakdown of government control in multiple Sectors would Oversectors be created and Grand Moffs be appointed.

Crucially, Grand Moffs are created via executive order of The President of the Senate and answer directly to his authority.

imperialscum said:

rocknroll41 said:

Welp, now we’re just going in circles here.

Agreed. I think we are not going to achieve anything by keep trying to make him/her see some sense in this matter. 😃

Well, I think there is an interesting philosophical discussion to be had in regards to establishing the quality of a piece of art. Or whether or not there can be good taste and bad taste in art etc. But that is beyond the scope of this thread.

I think the question we have to ask is if Truth can only be measured scientifically (that is - measured in a quantifiable manner), or if there is another manner of coming to it. There might be truth and falsity in art, but we can’t approach uncovering it like we would in engineering, medicine etc. We need, perhaps, a different vocabulary all together.