vote_for_palpatine

Awesome discussions. Waaaaay off topic, but screw the topic, this is fun!

The six films are obviously canon, but here is my caveat justifying the existence of the PT: The stories about the GFFA exist, and the films/radio dramas/books/comics/games are strictly the vehicles that deliver those stories. When a film or whatever else brings that story to you or I, the story is delivered brilliantly sometimes and poorly other times. The PT brought us the story of Anakin Skywalker and the rise of the Empire, but it delivered it poorly. I have no problem accepting the various plot points shown in the PT, but the execution of that plot was poorly done. My personal canon is a more or less unconscious exercise which simply bridges the gap between the poor execution of the plot to the details of that era as first recounted in the OT. For example, we didn't see Obi-Wan and Anakin as good friends most of the time - doesn't mean it didn't happen. We only saw what the PT showed us, and it completely failed to show that the two Jedi were good friends, as Obi-Wan claimed. The events in the PT spanned, what, 20 years or something? There was obviously a lot of stuff the films didn't show us.

Why don't we set aside a night for a viewing of Star Wars? I don't mean we literally get together of course - instead, we pick a date and time, start it at the same time, and just sort of liveblog it on a thread as we watch? I would be very interested in reading your commentaries and insights on my favorite movie.

I'd prefer we watch the GOUT, of course. Anyone else like this idea?

Confused Matthew's written review of Star Trek seemed to hinge upon the "faulty logic" of the time travel story. Below are his comments and my responses I sent in an e-mail.
 
The basic plot is this: In the future the Romulan sun is about to go nova and ambassador Spock rushes to try and save Romulus. He comes equipped with "Red Matter" which can create a black hole that Spock plans to use to absorb the sun’s…deadliness I guess.

The explosion will claim the planet, therefore the black hole will contain the explosion. What's the problem here?
 
Lo and behold it turns out that the same black hole that was suppose to have enveloped all the energy of a sun is also a portal in space time which accidentally sucks both Spock and the Romulan commander back in time (don’t ask me).
 
I think it's a lot easier for us in the audience, if we are unwilling to suspend belief, to identify what time travel isn't rather than what it is. The reality is that neither you nor I nor any other moviegoer (with the possible exception of any physicists who watched the movie) knows what sort of temporal effect a black hole could have. Maybe you do get sucked into another timeline/universe. Who really knows?
 

First, if this Red Matter can cause time travel on accident, shouldn’t it be able to cause time travel on purpose?

I once read an account of a baby who lived (pretty much unscathed) through a tornado, despite the fact that the tornado carried him through the air over a long distance. That doesn't mean we should try to harness the power of the tornado as a means of travel.

If so, you’d think the Romulan commander would spend his time researching the time travel properties of the Red Matter to send him back and forth whenever he wants.

He's a miner. I don't mean to impugn the intelligence of miners, but I feel safe in saying that most miners are not given to rigorous scientific research of time travel and black holes.

Also, he's a villain. Most villains fall into a pattern of rash behavior and faulty reasoning.

All he has to do is inform the Romulans of what’s going to happen in the future and prevent it from happening.

Again, Nero is a villain. And what's more, he has over a century to inform Romulus of its impending doom. He can kill everyone he wants first, then go on to warn the Romulans.

OK, this is a thread about your thoughts pre-TPM, pre-PT, so no post-TPM/PT movie remarks. 

1.  What were your expectations going in Episode I?

Pretty damned high. I assumed this great backstory Lucas had talked about was going to be pretty well fleshed out in every way when it hit the screen.

2.  What did you think of the trailers released in 1998/99?

I try to keep myself as unspoiled as possible, but I very much enjoyed watching those trailers and the movie looked tremendous based on those trailers.

3.  Did you read any SW Insiders magazines, spoilers on the internet? Anything from them that stuck out to you?

Well, the only spoilage I exposed myself to was the trailers, and the clip of Ewan MacGregor saying "Once those droids take control of the surface, they will take control of you." was so very reminiscent of Guiness, it really got me excited for the movie.

4.  What did you think of the hype in the Spring of '99, as it seemed like every entertainment show was talking about the first SW film in 16 years?

Since I keep myself in isolation before an anticipated film, the hype didn't really reach me. I don't watch entertainment TV in any case.

5.  Did you collect any of the toys, or the merchandise from Taco Bell I think?  or was it Burger King?

No. I bought the novelization after the movie came out, and that was it. I didn't read ten pages of it.

6.  When did you finally see it, opening night?  opening weekend?  wait for the crowds to die down and saw it later in the summer?

My friends and I went to the first show the day of, just after noon, at the Barton Creek Cinema in Austin. I regret, and am simultaneously glad, we didn't go to a midnight show.

Since I have yet to see part IV, I guess not.

I wouldn't recast Portman, Neeson, MacGregor, or McDiarmid. They had the appropriate look and persona for each character (and of course, IMD had already established the Palpatine character, so that was a shoo-in).

I didn't have a big problem with Samuel L Jackson, but what always lurks with him (as well as Robert DeNiro) is the fact that the single character he often plays seems to come through every role he ever plays. I think the concept of a high-ranking council member sort of skirting the edges of the dark side, as explored in EU stories, is incredibly interesting; unfortunately, the PT story wasn't Mace Windu's story. It would have been much better had Windu's character been replaced by a more orthodox Jedi. But if you're going to keep Mace Windu, probably better to go with a different actor with a less pervasive, less familiar screen presence.

Anakin? James Franco, perhaps? He was a very minor blip on the radar when Clones was filmed - and I think the unfamiliar touch was necessary for Anakin. I think he's a pretty good actor, and I think he can definitely play dark better than HC did.

The voice actor for Watto was pitch-perfect. One of the very best characters from the PT, IMO.

Bail Organa? I think Jimmy Smits did a pretty good job - I just have this anti-Jimmy Smits thing. I just can't see him as some intergalactic person of importance. As Rod Hilton so precisely put it, it's Jimmy fucking Smits.

Pernilla August did a good job. Temeura Morrison wasn't terrible, I guess. He had a tougher job than most of the PT actors IMO.

AxiaEuxine said:

OMG will you people chill out. You turn every single post no matter what its about into an opportunity to complain about the PT and EU. It's exhausting.

Some people like the EU and if they do why not write a story about that obscure little character in the background. It makes the movie more alive. At least for me it does.

 You don't understand - I'm not militant about the PT/SE; I'm poking fun at it. I had fun writing that post, and at least one person here enjoyed that effort.

And honestly, I have read many of those backstories - several of them are well done. I can't wait to find out the the asteroid creature from ESB is a former Jedi, and that his attempt to devour the Falcon was a well intended attempt to save Han, Leia, and company from capture at Vader's hands. The light side can work in mysterious ways.

Indeed, C3PX - every side character, no matter how obscure or unimportant, now deserves an entire backstory in the post-SE world of SW. Sure I made all that up, but does that sound implausible to anyone here?

Thanks for your compliments. I'd compliment your posts, but most of them are top shelf and you'd get tired of the barrage of flattery. I love this forum - so many thoughful people here.

So it is a seperate continuity from classic trek and invalidates the past of trek as well as treks future i.e. the next generation.

The burden falls upon you to explain how.

What I saw happen was that the elder Spock was, as a result of the confrontation during the TOS timeline, transported into a new timeline, an alternate universe. It can't be the exact same timeline because Vulcan is destroyed - but we all saw in the OS movies that Vulcan is very much intact. How can Spock undergo Fal-Tor-Pan in The Search For Spock in the JJ Trek future if Vulcan is destroyed? All those scenes with Spock and his mother from STIV? Will not happen in this timeline - but they've already happened in the timeline the elder Spock once occupied. What else happened in that timeline? TNG.

Spock goes it alone because his jellyfish ship is the only ship that can intercept nero, hogwash. Sounds like lazy storytelling to me.

Hmmm...I guess the Merrimac or the Monitor can take out any WWII era submarine by your logic. That giant Romulan ship chewed up Federation ships of that era - it seems logical that it would take a contemporary ship to fight it.

That's Associate Chief Fnelthr Plux of the Kalkmaar tribe. He and a faction loyal to him broke away from Chief Onf over the mistreatment of a captured Tusken from another tribe. The whole story was told in a SW short story collection, Tales of the Dune Sea, for everyone who wondered what Tuskens, Jawas, Krayt Dragons, and womp rats really did. Another pearl of modern EU, naturally.

First of all, it was a joke. Your name is Hunter, I countered with Hater. They sound alike. I disagree with your stance on the movie, but the hater comment was a throwaway pun. Think nothing of it.

Anyway, this movie is not part of the continuity of TOS. At least, I can't see how a single character from that timeline could possibly force the current Trek into the same timeline when Vulcan is destroyed and Spock's mother dead - two profound departures from the TOS universe.

One difference: TPM wasn't a reboot. I'll admit, my closeness to SW definitely affects how I look at the prequels, but the prequels were obligated to stick to established concepts - a reboot isn't so obligated.

How convenient, posting all those other site comments. What an immense, unreal burden it would be to track those down myself.

Thanks, Hater6.

I'm surprised at the lack of enthusiasm here for this movie. I enjoyed the shit out of it, to be honest.

Blasphemy! Reservoir Dogs is the single authentically great film Tarantino made. Kill Bill is very good and a lot of fun; Pulp Fiction is great, but it tries too hard. You can't build quirk into every single character and every single scene. It gets old.

TPM is like the other PT movies, in that I never have any desire to throw it in every now and then to watch it. The only PT I've watched in the past few years is fan edits.

I repeat myself, so I'll be brief: I wanted TPM to be good, and I left the theater trying to convince myself I had seen a good movie. The wet blanket of our group was immediate and accurate with his many criticisms of the film. He annoyed me that day, but he was right. That's what bothered me the most that day.

That was my point, vaderisnothayden (VINH for short?) - Yoda doesn't do it constantly in the OT the way he does in the PT. It sounded so goddamn forced in the PT.

Supposedly, in AOTC they had a X-Wing pursuing a TIE, or vice versa. I never could see the damn things.

The ET's in the senate...no comment necessary.

I consider Darth Vader in the OT suit twenty years before Star Wars and towel-faced Palpatine to be fan service, both of them shitty. Ditto Yoda's fighting and constantly talking backwards.

I can't imagine what Yoda's introduction would have sounded like in PT-speak:

"Still...I feel like-"

"What, feel like?"

"Like we're being watched!"

"Away put your weapon! No harm, I mean you! Wondering, I am - here, why are you?"

***

Or, as Obi-Wan and Yoda discuss Luke's future:

"Teach him, I cannot. No patience, the boy has."

"Reckless, ARE YOU!!!"

Off-topic, there's an ad for a Rifftrax SW Holiday Special. I hate when they take on such easy targets.

Janskeet said:

I learned something new while playing around with ROTJ:

 

 That's no stunt double...that's Luke's Clone!!!

One of the stupidest, stupidiest, stupidiestestest things about Zahn's Thrawn trilogy was that the cloned Jedi had an extra letter in their name: Luuke Skywalker and Joruus C'Baoth. What if they had a sixth-generation Luke clone? Would it then be named Luuuuuuuke? Stupid as hell.

As for the Force thing, an old friend once wondered why Palpatine couldn't just levitate his way out of the DS shaft. Do with that what you will.

Wasn't Darth Vader crystal clear when he said, "No disintegrations!"? Apparently, the stormtroopers stopped just short of the order.

George - (1)

Remember - kids are first priority. (6) CGI is something all moviegoers enjoy. (12) Rick McCallum is the man needed for this project. (21) And add Jar-Jar Binks. (25)

Sincerely,

Lucas Apologists SW Saga Fans

One thing I thought was hilarious, back when I used to post on TF.N, was Lucasites trying to convince OUT fans that GOUT quality was a faithful duplication of the quality of the OUT. Thankfully, Zombie (and a few others) nutted all over those fools with his superior knowledge of filmmaking.

Also, there was a screamingly funny mock-critique of SW in reply to a thread entitled "Is A New Hope - Meh?" I forget who wrote the critique, but it was sooooo good. At one point, he criticized the Obi-Wan - Vader duel with: "...and yet, neither man twirled while in combat, where is the twirling??"

Pointless, but someone mentioned TF.N - I got nostalgic for a second.

Since GL likes to recycle so many of his old ideas, maybe there could have been a scene of Force-ghost Qui-Gon getting attacked by a Force-ghost Wampa, thus explaining the injury.

I can't imagine a more tired and inappropriate meme than "New Age music" when people complain about the 1997 music. I'm convinced that the vast majority who parrot that complaint have never listened to New Age music before.