vote_for_palpatine

(From another thread)

Since I don't know how to create an actual poll, this will be a post-in type of poll. Just post the letter indicating which of the two pieces of music is better. Posting a supporting opinion isn't necessary, but certainly welcome.

A) 1983

B) 1997

My answer is B.

Now, I hate the SEs, especially the 2004 SEs. In a perfect world I never would have heard the 1997 music, and there would be no choice today, since the newer piece wouldn't exist. I would gladly take Yub Nub, forever and only, if it meant GL never went down the SE road, but that's not reality. I hate that the SE's exist, but this piece of music is the only crystal-clear improvement from the OUT to the SE I can identify.

I hate Yub Nub. I hated it when I was eight and I hate it now. Of course, Yub Nub is Mozartian compared to Jedi Rocks, but that's a whole different poll altogether. God, I hate Jedi Rocks.

Confused Matthew's reviews are fantastic, and I also enjoyed Rod Hilton's (www.the-editing-room.com). I know this site is probably old hat to most of you, but hopefully some of you will be reading Hilton for the first time.

Excerpts from his AOTC abridged script:

TEMUERA MORRISON

Here. I got these assassin bugs for you to use.

LEANNA WALSMAN

Thanks for the bugs. It’s a good thing you, a bounty hunter, hired me, a bounty hunter, to do absolutely nothing other than put this tube into a flying droid which you could just as easily possess. It gives me some real purpose.

***

EWAN MCGREGOR

Hayden, pay attention. Be mindful of the force and do what I tell you. I had almost completed my own Padawan training when I took you as my apprentice, so I have ever so slightly more training than you.

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN

Nuh uh.

EWAN MCGREGOR

Yuh huh! And I do a great impression of Alec Guinness, too!

AUDIENCE

Wow.. So.. Uh.. apprently Jedi bicker incessantly.

***

EWAN MCGREGOR

Hi there.

TEMUERA MORRISON

I’m just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe.

EWAN MCGREGOR

Er, um, that’s great. So who are you?

TEMUERA MORRISON

My clone son is Boba Fett. He was a small role in the original trilogy and ravenous Star Wars fanboys elevated his importance based merely on his cool appearance. George Lucas, utterly sacrificing whatever vision he claims to have for the series, has made his role much more important by coincidently making his father responsible for the clone wars. But you can take a flying leap up my ass, Jedi scum.

They FIGHT.

TEMUERA MORRISON

Isn’t it cool how badass I look?

EWAN MCGREGOR

Actually, you seem somewhat inept in this fight. I’m outsmarting you and kicking your ass repeatedly.

TEMUERA MORRISON

Hey, I said I look cool, I didn’t say I was good at fighting. I’m modeled after the original Boba Fett; he gets killed by a blind guy accidentally.

As regards Jake Lloyd Anakin and Hayden Christensen Anakin, no that's not the same situation as the two Fetts.

If one is a young clone of the other, then wouldn't these two situations be identical?

And to me, Boba could have been the young version of Jango. I didn't think they couldn't be, not a bad bit of casting there IMO. Now please don't get all butt-hurt, I'm only throwing in my $0.02.

I would have assiduously stuck to one rule: you never show Boba Fett. Never, ever, ever. Big fucking mistake by GL.

Maybe the "Moon Basher"*, "Asteroid Assassin"*, or "Comet Smacker"*?

I like naming these apocalyptic interstellar superweapons.

*Note: All of these are better names than "Had Abbadon".

To answer my own question:

- Qui-Gon Jinn. He stood out in TPM.

- Count Dooku (albeit with a different name). He was a stylish villain. But I would eliminate any needless somersaulting.

- Maybe Watto, but since I wouldn't have child Anakin in my PT, I probably wouldn't have any use for him. I think his childish name works well for him.

- Naboo. Beautiful planet. (Again, I need a better name)

- I would keep the EU concept that Dark Side use causes physical deterioration, hence the Emperor's strange look in ROTJ. From movie to movie, Palpatine would look gradually like his ROTJ self, but only about halfway there at the end of the third film.

- Coruscant looked like I think it should have looked, but I would have toned down some of those Kooky Kolors. And if there's a bar scene (as in AOTC), I would turn the lights down. It's too bright in there.

- As I've said many times, the Obi/Anakin duel would take place near an active volcano, not on a volcanic planet. The latter concept is over the top.

Unless I'm forgetting something, this is all I would keep from the PT when making my reboot.

In this thread, I'd like for everyone to contribute any dialogue from the OUT alluding to events which took place in the PT era. I want to see what, if anything, mentioned by the characters in the OUT matches what took place on screen in the PT - and if what the character said could have been incorrect by interpretation, rather than by fact.

Obi-Wan, of course, is a treasure trove of information in SW:

"I haven't gone by the name 'Obi-Wan' since, oh, before you were born."

Not literally true, but basically true. When he goes into hiding, there are only a few people throughout the galaxy who know his real name, so I don't think this is contradictory.

"[The Force] is an energy field, created by all living things. It penetrates us, surrounds us, binds the galaxy together."

True. The omission of midichlorians in this description doesn't alter the nature of the Force.

"Your father wanted you to have this [lightsaber] when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it."

!? Now, Obi-Wan describes Anakin as a good man, though we saw precious little evidence of this in the PT. But let's take OWK at his word - maybe Anakin's goodness didn't take place during screen time. I think that the good man Anakin Skywalker used to be would definitely have wanted his kid to have his old lightsaber. The only thing that cheapens this (again, referring back to the clumsy PT) is that apparently, the Jedi didn't put a whole lot of time and care into lightsabers; you need one, you just go get a new one. Had the crafting of a new lightsaber been portrayed as a big deal in the PT, then Luke receiving his father's lightsaber would have indeed been an honor; for all we know, this was a replacement unit from the back wall of the Jedi warehouse.

"[Uncle Owen] didn't hold your father's ideals - he thought he should have stayed behind and not gotten involved."

For that matter, Padme didn't hold Anakin's ideals - Anakin belived in the idea of a benevolent dictatorship. I know that isn't what OWK meant - he was, I think, literally describing Anakin as an idealist, which as portrayed he most certainly was not.

It sounds like a serious family conflict if Obi-Wan remembers it so well - almost as if it should have been shown in the PT...

Princess Leia refers to some recent galactic history:

(to Obi-Wan) "Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars."

Really? And was Bail Organa was a Jedi General? For all I saw, there wasn't a plurality of Clone Wars - just one. It's like WWI and II - yes, Germany was on one side and the US on the other (extremely simplified version here) in both cases, but no one would call those two distinct events The World War. Similarly, just because the Clone War took place for many years across several planets, one cannot call it "The Clone Wars". I'd like to call this factually incorrect information, but Princess Leia is a diplomat, a whip-smart one; I doubt she would be badly informed here. I therefore have to believe that the original conception of the Clone Wars was not a single war, but several.

From ESB,  Obi-Wan directs Luke to the Dagobah system:

"There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me."

Had he finished that sentence with "...when I was a youngling.", I have no problem with this.

Yoda and Obi-Wan discuss Luke's potential:

-"You are reckless!" (didn't he mean, "Reckless, are you!"?)

-"So was I, if you'll remember."

I don't remember even a hint of reckless Obi-Wan. He hated flying, he did everything he was told, he was unwaveringly loyal to the Jedi Order. Maybe Obi-Wan was remembering Qui-Gon's attitude as his own, but one would assume that a Force-ghost would have a rather good memory.

More to come, but this is a rather enormous wall of text already so I'll stop.

This is waaay hypothetical, so any of you who hate the scenario I present in the way I present it, please feel free to abstain from participation. I don't hijack your threads.

It's 2020. You are the executive producer at Lucasfilm. Over the years, SW has developed a rabidly loyal following over the years, following the 2012 cleaned-up, color and sound corrected Blu-Ray release of the OUT. The SE and PT fell out of favor with mainstream SW fans, and demand for a PT reboot and a Sequel Trilogy has surged to unprecedented levels.

You convene a meeting with the directors and writers you have hired for these six new pictures. And the chief question you have to consider is this:

For the PT reboot, what characters, scenes, moments, and concepts would you hold on to? And for the Sequel Trilogy, what from the OUT would you hold on to?

Note carefully that I asked, "What would you keep?" and not "What did you hate and look to discard?" Just trying to keep it positive. :D

The second death Star was a very bad idea and i agree with Kasden on that one.  If the budget was not an issue the duel would have been on the imperial home world in the emporers court on Had Abbadon, coruscant was a 90's EU creation

I'm glad this idea did not prevail, largely because the name "Had Abbadon" is really, really stupid. It's almost as bad as Elan Sleazebaggano.

I didn't really have a problem with the second Death Star. The thing destroys planets - why wouldn't the Empire want one?

Just you all wait until GL replaces Prowse's Darth Vader with Hayden Christiansen's the second Prowse kicks the bucket.

yea we knew endor was won, but how did the other planets react.

I don't recall seeing any embedded reporters in the rebel camp waiting to broadcast breaking news from Endor. There's no way those celebrations would spread across the galaxy so instantaneously.

I don't like yub nub. I didn't like it when I saw Jedi in the theater in 1983, I didn't like it in all of my countless viewings since, the 1997 music is incomparably better. Considering what brought that new music along, I wish it didn't exist. I wish yub nub and yub nub only was the only music that existed. I'd be fine with only being irritated with yub nub if I could be spared Jabba in SW and...ah, you all know the rest.

No, I should mention "Jedi Rocks". Arrrrrrrrgh. I fucking hate Jedi Rocks so goddamn much. From the stupid name to the stupid tune to the stupid music video. Goddamn, this thread got me thinking about "Jedi Rocks".

Why, George, why?

1977, 1981, 1983. I like some EU but on the whole could take it or leave it - most of the EU I like is from 1993-2000. I enjoyed the "Droids" cartoons, and of course several video games - Rogue Squadron I and II and KOTOR, most notably.

I think Vaderisnothayden is pretty spot on. I know Lucas didn't intend for his story to come off that way, but as presented it most certainly did.

What was wrong with the presentation of the PT story?

1) Child Anakin served no purpose and, in fact, inhibited Anakin's character development. If Anakin had been 17-20 years old in episode I, we would most certainly have felt a greater familiarity with him in the alternate episode II. At the start of the actual AOTC, we in the audience needed some time to get used to the adult character Anakin Skywalker - time that could have been used more effectively.

2) Anakin is whiny and cocky in AOTC. "The good man that was your father was destroyed". What good man? Anakin was an utter idiot in AOTC and impossible to root for! I know you don't have to like every character in a given story, but the main character of the movie - hell, the main character of the six-part saga, according to GL - needs. To. Be. Sympathetic. Unless you're a whiny, cocky, insurrect jerk, there's no way you can relate to Anakin Skywalker in AOTC.

3) Realism has its limits. OK, you might tell me, yes Anakin was a jerk who slaughtered an entire Tusken village, but in real life good girls fall for bad boys. And if the SW saga was a 1970's Martin Scorsese film or something like that, then fine. But it's not. This is space opera; in the OT, Lucas understood how space opera works. His good characters were heroic and virtuous, his bad characters were evil through and through. Luke and Leia and Obi-Wan and Yoda and Tarkin and Jabba and the Emperor were either perfectly good or perfectly evil. The only characters with any gray areas were Han in SW, Lando in ESB, and Vader at the end of ESB and throughout Jedi. In AOTC and ROTS (before the turn) Anakin is one of those blasted anti-heroes, distractingly so.

And if realism is so desirable, would not a scene involving Mace Windu preparing a tax return be defensible on the grounds that it's realistic? After all, taxes are a part of real life!

4) Anakin's fall from grace really and truly begins halfway through the third movie? Is this really enough time to be plausible? Anakin's pure goodness should peak sometime in the middle of the second movie - and it would have gone that way had Anakin been an adult in episode I.

5) Anakin is going to turn to the dark side because of nightmares? How about in episode II Padme obtains some kind of terminal condition that Palpatine says can only be fixed through Sith techniques? See, in that way Palpatine dangles a real carrot in front of Anakin to fix a real problem.

See, I didn't propose any radical changes here. These suggestions didn't require any new characters or locales. There are other problems that need to be addressed - for instance, I should care that the Jedi are slaughtered in ROTS, but I didn't - but this little list is just a way to repair the problems in the Prequel Trilogy's "A" story.

Original...trilogy...dot...com...

What the fuck is all this?

This thread is an olive branch to Darth Axia. She's not nearly as strident or irritating as other Lucasites, so I'd like for us to post 100 different enjoyable post-1983 Star Wars items in tribute. Whether it's entire movies (not bloody likely!), songs, characters, whatever. I'd like to show the lady Darth that we don't hate post-Jedi whole-cloth.

I'll start with five:

1) Double-bladed lightsaber. Awesome!

2) "Droids" the animated series

3) "Duel of the Fates"

4) The Knights of the Old Republic games

5) The 1997 ending music in ROTJ. A definite improvement over the original. (The fact that the movie shouldn't have been altered in the first place doesn't change my opinion about the music)

Come on, guys! We're not always negative, are we?

Usually, the Lucasites get bored and leave after awhile; Axia seems determined to stick in for the long haul.

Hilarious. Skyjedi inspired me to look at GL's imdb page - since 1983, it's basically all SW with a helping of Indiana Jones. And this "Red Tails"? Read this imdb synopsis of it:

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.

Hmmm. What does this remind me of...there was some movie...oh, that's right -

THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN!!!

What's next from Lucas? The Milan Indians? Andy Dufresne's Escape? Balboa vs. Creed?

When someone produced a fansaber battle synced to the song "Up Jumped The Boogie", I threw up in my mouth a little.

I enjoy watching The Phantom Editor's edits of Ep. I and II, especially listening to his commentaries. In Ep. I, TPE talks about how one of the biggest failures of that movie was that a lot of scenes violated the "Enter late, leave early" principle of film editing.

When he cut to the invasion right after ol what's-his-face said "This can only mean one thing - invasion", I thought of ESB when Reikaan says "We'd better start the evacuation" and BAM! it cuts to the Imperial March and the approaching SSD. Fantastic. It strikes a perfect note, and that is exactly what TPE brough back with his "invasion" cut.

I wonder how Lucas' prequel-era editors would have handled certain OT moments like "evacuation".

Well, just read my sig. God, how I love that moment. Not to argue with the previous poster, but I did not interpret Luke casting his lightsaber aside as defiant. It was serene. Confident. In that moment, Luke knows that he has been tested, and this time (unlike his failure at the cave from ESB) he is a Jedi. I think he finally felt the force being with him in the way Obi-Wan spoke of in SW.

That's why Luke calling out for his father, while not ruining the scene, kind of detracted from it. That scene would have worked just as well without Luke calling for his father - but I guess GL had to overexplain yet another detail.

C3PX, no one can touch you when it comes to finding new ways to explain Lucas' behavior. It's absolutely amazing, and I submit that the people who read you and still don't get the argument either

1) don't want to get the argument, or

2) couldn't spell R2-D2 if you spotted him the R and the 2.

We OT fans need a service to provide the "Eternal Sunshine" treatment.

Negative one,

You are a massive tool.

Everyone else,

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.

Well folks, where is SW right about now?

We've had the Clone Wars animated movie, which I won't be seeing. There's an impossible to keep track of number of books available, most of which seem to be dreadfully uninteresting. There's the TV show - I don't know if it's on the air, and if it is, I don't know which channel has it. There has been some talk of a 3D presentation and I don't know what the latest news is on that front. I've heard nothing about a Blu-Ray set and I'm not enthused about the idea unless, of course, it's a state of the art Blu-Ray release of the OUT. What's more, I haven't watched the GOUT - or any SW - in so long I can't even remember.

I guess by definition I'm more or less done with SW. That's a little sad to me. But it's hard for me to generate enthusiasm for the brand these days. If not for discussions here about OT plot points and the shortcomings of post-1998 SW releases (which are, understandably, fewer and further between), I don't think I'd be talking about SW at all, anywhere.

What is your state of SW?

Dont worry Im not going anywhere you cann all continue to stare at your screens wondering about my opinions of Star Wars

Now that's a relief. I was sweating that one out.

the problem that will never be solved, is that

nobody can agree what the story should have been like..

I agree with this sentiment. There are drawbacks to literally any interpretation of SW because we all have differing perspectives on the SW universe. So far, I'm with you.

some claim that the PT isn't as 'epic' as the original trilogy (despite

all the retcons, inconsistencies, and flaws that exist in it th e OT also)..

I also agree that no matter what came out of the PT, there would be some who would say the OT was much superior without even watching one PT film.

And no one, save the most ardent and unreasonable OT fan, would say the OT didn't have flaws. I've never seen a flawless movie and I doubt I ever will. 

lucas faces a no-win situation, you can't please the old fans, because

it wouldn't 'match' what he wanted for the PT, and of course the people

that like the PT sometimes find the OT clunky, slow, and outdated....

Wrong. You can't please some of the old fans. I think most of us had an open mind about the PT going in. Hell, speaking for myself, I was a bit of an apologist for Episodes I and II - read my first post in this thread.

As for placating the sugar junkies with "faster and more intense" all the time, as the PT tried to do - well, in layman's terms, this is known as a pacing problem. The fast-moving actions scenes don't stand out if you've got too many of them. But Lucas, in his older, wiser years, seems to have forgotten about the law of diminishing returns. I still love lightsabres, but they're a lot less cool when they're in every other freaking scene.

you can't have your cake both ways, and eat it to..

This is my favorite mixed metaphor ever. Thanks for contributing a new phrase to my vocabulary!

i hear a lot of complaints (skyjedi2005, and vaderisnothayden) that nothing past

1983 is worthy of being star wars, or 'canon' etc.....

 Some people do have a hard stance on this issue. Speaking only for myself, I have a "personal canon"; that is, the stuff I like is in my SW canon, the rest is stupid and forgettable. I like a lot of post-83 stuff, especially KOTOR. God I love KOTOR.

well that leaves a huge void doesn't it? who is supposed to write the story?

who's supposed to act it out? who's supposed to direct? do the music?

Lucas could have had almost as big a footprint in a better world as he did in this one if he would have just allowed some legitimate critique from producers, design people, screenwriters instead of evoking fear from a bunch of yes men like Prick McCallum. Star Wars (the first film, not the universe/franchise) was great because the younger Lucas was more flexible and open to suggestion - it received invaluable input from ex-wife Marcia, Richard Chew, Gary Kurtz, and others - but no one has ever doubted that Star Wars was a George Lucas film.

i don't think we could even find a majority of people on this site that could agree

on how it should have been handled? some like the EU stuff, others hate it,

same with the 'clone wars' (mixed opinions).......

That's true. For me, and I suspect others, it's not a problem that the PT failed; it's a much bigger problem that the man at the helm steered it wrong while ignoring so many principles of filmmaking he once championed.

The Phantom Editor showed it, plain as day: in 1984, Lucas says that sci-fi films fail because they build an elaborate set and spend film time to show off all their work; in 2003, Lucas admits in the AOTC audio commentary that they filmed a scene expressly to feature the Jango Fett suit.

it's pretty easy to criticize something that exists without supplying any kind of

alternate or substitute...yeah, you could say, just film the 'thrawn trilogy', or

just do episodes 7-9, and include the OT characters.... yeah, well someone

has to write it, and even stories from the EU that included the OT characters

aren't all liked universally....

Well, it's not like LucasFilm gave us keys to the SW kingdom and said "Go make a SW movie/write a SW novel" - no, LucasFilm lets assbags like Karen Traviss write SW novels...

But I do agree that a big problem with SW novels is that the original band of characters is always directly involved with some sort of galaxy-threatening doomsday scenario - I'd go insane if I had to save the galaxy that many times. One of my favorite EU series was the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy - Luke and company basically didn't exist in those books.

do you really want to see han and leia married with kids? luke getting old?

chewbacca dying?

Honestly, not really. An adventure or two on occasion, fine. But it got to be a bit overdone after so many books.

i don't know.... i'd rather see the time periods inbetween

episode 3 and 4. or even the short time periods between 4-5 and 5-6....

Shadows of the Empire was very good indeed.