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yotsuya

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2-Dec-2008
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6-Dec-2023
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2,000

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Post
#950796
Topic
Darth Vader's suit
Time

Darth Vader1 said:

I think Darth Vader was cooler not being a central character to the story. He just happens to take center stage in ESB & Jedi. I don’t think that the prequels should have been abut him. His story should have played in the backdrop of a bigger story about Obi Wan Kenobi, The Emperor & the rise of the Empire. I agreed with RedLetterMedia that the prophecy idea & Anakin being Space Jesus was absurd.

Yeah, I could have done without the virgin birth thing. Although there are other explanations. I think the prophesy on the surface is dumb. I think Lucas failed to make a couple of things abundantly clear in the PT. You have to catch that Palpatine and Sidious are one and the same and you have to guess at his goals. He should have made it more obvious to the viewer without making it more obvious to the characters. And typically the prophesy is correctly interpreted by the good guys in the Campbell style mythological story telling. I like how Lucas turned it on its ear, but he didn’t do it very well. The Jedi assume that the Choses One is there to destroy the Sith. Yet there is evidence that the Jedi have become corrupt as well. Not evil, just wrapped up in protocol and tradition to the exclusion of their mission. Bringing balance to the force could very well have meant from the start, the destruction of both Jedi and Sith. That is how I take it and it does add to my enjoyment of the PT. I also find that taken in that light, it makes the character arc through all 6 films very powerful. Vader ceases to be Tarkin and Palpatine’s lackey and becomes a pivotal figure. I’m kind of hoping that the ST will create a similar arc for Luke. Father destroys the old, son builds the new.

But even with the PT, I find Vader’s bad ass ness to be undiminished. I really love how he is being used in Rebels. Totally the awesome warrior I always pictured. I love how they have gone with the ANH costume as their inspiration.

Post
#950792
Topic
Darth Vader's suit
Time

Also, that first treatment from 1973 is just Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress retold as a space opera. It wasn’t until the first draft of the script that Lucas started making his own story and Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader appear. It isn’t until the second draft the droids appear and characters start to take on familiar names and the story starts to resemble the final version. Luke and Leia were cousins in that draft and Luke had brothers. So lots of family connections in the early drafts and then nothing in ANH with revelations in TESB and ROTJ. As Lucas always intended the ST be made this decade (per a quote from Mark Hammil about episode 7 coming out in 2011), that means a long gap between trilogies so holding the revelation of “the other” until the ST makes no sense. He got the fans buzzing after Empire so it makes sense his plan was always to reveal the other in Jedi. Why make them wait for 30 years. No, when you put the fact together - the early drafts, the secrecy about the family revelations during production, the meaning of names, the stories of fake scripts to catch anyone leaking the plot - it all adds up to the story as we got it was planned from the get go. They weren’t last minute additions - they were secret plot points that weren’t included to keep them secret.

That’s not to say that the story didn’t evolve. Han in Carbon Freeze, Lando, Boba Fett, the second Death Star, the location of the final duel, Ewoks, and a host of other things came about during the evolution of the scripts. But the basic story, the one that evolved from the early drafts and that he had to break up to make it filmable, that remained intact. I am positive that in that final draft of A New Hope, Lucas intended that Vader was Luke’s father and that Leia was Luke’s sister. Ben’s story about what happened to Luke’s father being labeled a lie in the novelization coupled with Alec Guinness’s acting in that scene in the movie make that story of Vader betraying and murdering Anakin a lie, just as Ben admitted in ROTJ.

Post
#950755
Topic
Darth Vader's suit
Time

Anchorhead said:

yotsuya said:
When you investigate where the name came from, it is almost impossible to ignore Dark Father and the implication that he was someone’s father from the very beginning.

No.
If you want to go from the very beginning, in the original outline Vader isn’t even part of the story. In the next writing (first script), he’s just a military officer.

  • “He slaps DARTH VADER, a tall, grim-looking general, on the back…”

He’s not the Central tragic figure, Chosen One, destroyer of worlds Lucas morphed him into decades later. He isn’t related to any of the characters. He isn’t Annikin. In fact, the separate character of Annikin is considerably younger than Luke.

  • “ANNIKIN STARKILLER, a tall, heavy-set boy of eighteen.”

Vader wasn’t Luke’s father in Brackett’s script for The Empire Strikes Back either. That change came along later when Lucas rewrote her work.

Leia being Luke’s sister would be another such item that Lucas would not tell anyone the real story until it was time.

No.

  • “LUKE SKYWALKER, Commander of the Aquilaean Starforce. He is a large man, apparently in his early sixties…”
    PRINCESS LEIA, about fourteen years old…"

Their being related was a late change while writing Return Of The Jedi as a way to tie up the “There is another” line from The Empire Strikes Back. When Lucas decided to scrap films 7, 8, 9 (or was that 10, 11, 12?), he had to scramble to come up with “another”.

Also, the saber duel on the lava planet was planned from the beginning. I knew about it very early on.

No.
For the film Star Wars, the original outline and the first four scripts have no mention what so ever of a lava duel. That wouldn’t come along until an early draft of Return Of The Jedi and even then it was Luke fighting Vader. The lava had nothing to do with Vader needing a suit.

I occasionally peruse a Saga forum to get a feel for the climate when a new trailer or bit of news is released. I understand there are lots of fans who want the saga to be a clean, contained, planned-from-day-one story. I understand they are under the impression that Lucas * genuflect * was some sort of profound creator of their world.

Unfortunately (for them) there are decades of evidence proving that just isn’t the case.
If you dig The Tragedy Of Darth Vader saga, cool, but don’t kid yourself that it was all planned from the very beginning as some sort of Original Vision ™. It wasn’t.

The problem with evidence is that it is only as good as the truth at the time. Lucas wanted the identity of Luke’s real father kept a secret. I am not surprised Leigh Brackett didn’t include it becuase it was probably something Lucas intended to drop in a later draft (which is what happened) and no draft of the script had the right lines until the script was published. That line was omitted from all circulated scripts during the entirety of production. I think only Lucas, Kasdan, Hammil, James Earl Jones and Ben Burt knew what the line was before the movie premiered so I don’t think that not seeing the line in early drafts of the script is any indication of when that particular piece of the story was added to what Lucas intended.

And since he played it so close to his chest during Empire’s production, there is nothing to say that Luke and Leia being siblings was not similarly hidden and she was the other all along. His comments since indicate that he was planning the family drama from the beginning and the earliest drafts of the script bear this out. He had fathers, sons, twins, from the beginning, but they vanish once he started seriously developing the installment we know as just Star Wars. Luke just has a dead father and an aunt and uncle. Lucas has repeatedly said what his intentions were and I think his secrecy (of which there is plenty of evidence) kept it out of the drafts of the script and kept there from being any evidence of his intentions. Such secrets were very closely guarded during production and were deliberately left out of the scripts.

And not everything is clean. Yoda originally didn’t exist. Leia’s memories and the story of her birth don’t really mesh up (unless she was really strong with the force at birth - possible but…). So there is plenty that is not clean, but I think Lucas has been very clear since Jedi came out that the story we got (at least as far as the Skywalker family goes) is the story he intended. I just pulled out the novel of A New Hope and just the opening section and the section in Ben’s hut - much about the Repubic, the Jedi, Palpatine (the public face, not the Sith Lord), and Ben’s untruth to Luke (Ben tells Luke a comfortable lie) are right there on the page. The volcano duel came from Lucas himself in multiple interviews back to late summer 1977. He even once hinted that one version of the story might have Vader be Luke’s father. A rare slip for him, but a nice tidbit the indicates that was his thinking all along.

Post
#950268
Topic
Star Wars Trilogy SE bluray color regrade (a WIP)
Time

NeverarGreat said:

This is one of those shots where the true color of the shot simply doesn’t exist in the Blu-ray. Note the magenta of the cup on the left, which is supposed to be white, still retains a magenta hue in the correction. Similarly, Luke’s dusty offwhite shirt has too much green in the highlights and too much magenta in the shadows, and the correction still doesn’t completely remove these inaccuracies.

This picture skews red but still shows how Luke’s shirt is definitely not white like Leia’s gown:
Luke Shirt

That is a good photo. If you correct for the red, it would have nice skin tones and maybe more blue to the walls in the background. It does show the basic relationship between the “whites” of these three costumes. Leia’s is white but has dirty spots. Luke’s is a bit gray, like something that has been washed 1000 times but no longer is perfectly clean. Han’s shirt is slightly yellow (not overly, but a little too much to call cream).

Post
#950267
Topic
Darth Vader's suit
Time

SilverWook said:

Prowse did know, (or guessed) and was quoted in a small local newspaper article during a publicity event in 1978. That a larger publication didn’t pick up on it is a mystery.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5684916/in-1978-darth-vaders-actor-spoiled-the-empire-strikes-backs-ending-to-a-local-newspaper/

The version of Vader’s injuries that made the rounds when I was a kid was that Vader fell into a volcanic vent during a duel with Obi Wan. I think that comes from a tidbit Lucas dropped in an early print interview.

Pretty impressive that it went viral in the analog pre-internet era. Usually, it was just lurid urban myths like the one about the kid from the Life Cereal commercial exploding from mixing Pop Rocks and soda pop. 😉

Oh, many things went viral in those days. I just took months to propagate instead of hours.

I think Prowse either guessed correctly or had a hint from his character’s name.

Post
#950266
Topic
What is wrong with... <strong>Attack of the Clones</strong>? - a general discussion thread
Time

Frank your Majesty said:

There’s nothing wrong with splitting up the characters, but copying that formula three more times is Lazy. So, in ESB it’s fine because it’s done the first time.

Except that is probably the single most common thing to do in a story. It isn’t just Star Wars, it just just about everything out there. Any time you have a group of characters, you get through more story, have more interesting dialog, and just about everything else is more interesting when you split the company up. Some characters get into more trouble that way. It is probably the single most common story structure I am aware of.

Post
#950201
Topic
Darth Vader's suit
Time

I never really noticed much difference in the costumes between the movies. The armor pieces in ANH look a little more metallic where in the later films they are just black.

When you investigate where the name came from, it is almost impossible to ignore Dark Father and the implication that he was someone’s father from the very beginning. Whose may have changed from draft to draft, but I think by the time it got to the production phase that he was Luke’s father from the outset. Two clues give this away to me. First, the lightsabers. The Anakin and Vader sabers are nearly identical. This may be a coincidence because of the source of the parts, but Kenobi’s saber is vastly different. Second, Alec Guinness delivers a masterful bit of acting just before he launches into the explanation of Luke’s father. Either that is the most awesome coincidence or George told him Ben was lying to Luke. It is just a quick change of expression, but it reads to me like Ben knew what he was about to tell Luke was a deliberately slanted point of view.

Lucas and the Star Wars production were famous about not revealing secrets so Lucas could have had the existing story (of 4, 5, 6) planned out from the outset with Luke and Leia being siblings and Vader/Anakin as their father. He just didn’t tell anyone who didn’t need to know and even then, not before they needed to know it. Like Prowse’s line on set “No, Luke, Obi-wan killed your father.” Prowse didn’t know. Only Mark Hammil, Lucas, and Kershner knew on the day of shooting and they only told Mark shortly before shooting. Leia being Luke’s sister would be another such item that Lucas would not tell anyone the real story until it was time.

Also, the saber duel on the lava planet was planned from the beginning. I knew about it very early on. Not sure when it was mentioned or how. Though it was originally just a volcano.

Post
#950190
Topic
What was the point of hiring Richard Marquand in the first place?
Time

I think you nailed it. I think Marquand was there to direct the actors. I don’t think he was useless or completely overridden. I bet they worked out an arrangement of responsibility with Marquand taking over what Lucas has admitted that he isn’t the best at. But having a producer on set is not unusual. The producers of the Bond films were on the set constantly. Sean Connery disliked one of them so much he promised to stop working if he came on the set and one day he came on the set and Connery stopped mid scene. Producers are ultimately in charge of the film. Usually the director has to cave to their directives and above them is the studio. In the case of Eps 5, 6, 1, 2, and 3, Lucas was not only the producer, but the studio as well.

That is not to say he wasn’t as annoying as hell, just that many directors have to deal with that kind of person all the time. I’ve been thinking that other than Disney not using Lucas’s ST story treatments (which I am dying to get my hands on) it is probably a good thing that he is no longer in charge of Star Wars. It gives hope for an official restoration of the OUT someday.

(ah… an actual interview. seems I was close but off on a few points. Interesting that he calls himself an actor’s director. Also interesting that he says he asked Lucas for help in the areas he lacked experience in. So was Lucas a meddling producer or was he advising a newcomer to effects movie production? It would be interesting to know.)

Post
#949108
Topic
Darth Vader's suit
Time

Interesting. It would make sense that they would make new ones for each film considering how many hours they get worn. I had never noticed the differences. What that link doesn’t mention is that the OT mask was asymmetrical. They scanned half of it, mirrored it, and printed an exact mirror copy to create the ROTS mask. And it is supposed to be new and pristine. I had always assumed that no all Vader’s opponents had gone down without a fight and in the finale of Rebels (and I’m assuming anyone who wants to watch it has seen it already) Ahsoka got in a good blow that damaged the right side of the mask. I’m assuming that is to partly explain the asymmetrical nature of the mask.

Post
#949000
Topic
SW EU: Alien Exodus
Time

I’ve always seen it as an alternate universe and see no need to tie it to Earth. When I seriously consider it, I just assume that what is portrayed as Human’s speaking English are some vaguely humanoid alien speaking in their native tongue. That is usually too much to worry about and I prefer the parallel human development idea.

Post
#948995
Topic
Info Wanted: The Force Awakens sans English Alien Subtitles?
Time

I know from seeing a camera print of a Spanish showing of the film that in the theaters the Alien Subtitles were translated into the local language, but for the blu-ray/DVD release, it seems that the French, Spanish, Italian, and Indian all have English Alien Subtitles burned in. Were they released anywhere with translated Alien Subtitles or with soft subtitles? I think that is just bad taste to leave the English subtitles. That is kind of arrogant for releases in non-English speaking countries. That isn’t typical of Disney or previous Star Wars releases.

Post
#948937
Topic
What is your personal canon?
Time

DominicCobb said:

The concept of personal canon is such a weird and intangible thing to me. Do you guys really see all these things fit together when you consume these movies/TV shows/comics/etc.? Or is it just simply you compiling what bits of Star Wars content you like and think are worthy of existing (for lack of a better term)? Or is it picking the things you think make sense together and should be things that happened in this universe?

Going off the last one is a tricky one. So many of these things contradict each other or are so different in tone/characterization or what have you that it’s hard to put them all in the context of one another. For example, some of my absolute favorite Star Wars content is the original Marvel run of comics (and the Goodwin/Williamson strip), but I find a lot of that very hard to reconcile with the world established in the films. Similarly, as much as I loved the PT as a kid, I’ve spent about the last decade coming to terms with the fact that it just does not fit at all with the OT (fan edits are an effort to fix this, but can they ever really?).

Anyway, point is, hard for me to genuinely come up with a “personal canon” in the typical sense of the world (what I view as the ‘history of the Star Wars universe’). I could list the Star Wars stuff that I like but I don’t know, feel like that’s kind of boring?

May do it later anyway.

I will say I totally understand people with multiple canons. It’s definitely a different experience watching the original film as just a standalone feature in comparison to watching it in the larger context of the OT (on that note, I’ve tried numerous times to watch it in the context of the PT but it just doesn’t work).

To me personal canon is what you love about it. The things you enjoy and what you think of when you think of Star Wars. It doesn’t have to perfectly agree, that isn’t the point. Also, for something that has grown so big, a personal canon is also what you focus on. I never liked what the expanded universe did after a certain point. I liked Mara Jade and the Skywalker and Solo children, but I didn’t care for the stories. I didn’t really like the Trawn trilogy that much. So my concept of personal canon are the stories I really like. The ones that build the Star Wars universe as I imagine it.

Post
#948715
Topic
When you were introduced to Star Wars for the first time
Time

TV’s Frink said:

HansiG said:

in 2005

This thread is not going to make me feel very young…

Me either. I seem to be the oldest one so far.

My mother took me to see it in 1977. She’d read the book and then seen the movie once and thought I might light it. I ended up seeing it 10 times over the next 3 years. Then I saw on HBO a couple of times at a friend’s house. Then we moved and a new friend had it on tape (from HBO). The OT was one of the first things I got when we finally got a VCR in 1987. The 1985 version of A New Hope is my go to version because I watched it so often (way more than 20 times).

Post
#948712
Topic
What is your personal canon?
Time

One of the reasons I like some of the SE versions is that one of my first Star Wars related books was The Art of Star Wars, complete with the 3 Biggs scenes and the Jabba scene. I was ecstatic to have them edited back into the film. In the days before video, that script and The Story of Star Wars lp where how I revisited the story. So outside the 10 times I saw the 77 film in the theaters, Jabba was part of my experience until I finally got a VCR and bought the films - so for a good 10 years. I guess that is why I am somewhat nostalgic for the 97 SE Jabba - as fake as he is.

But to be honest, that same nostalgia really gives me 2 canons. First there is the original trilogy (films and novelizations), then the Han Solo trilogy by Brian Daley, and Splinter of the Mind’s eye - nothing more at all. Then there is the larger canon I posted a few days ago. When I’m feeling nostalgic, it has to be this one.

Post
#948389
Topic
Episode II is just as extraneous to the plot of Star Wars as Episode I.
Time

Tyrphanax said:

Honestly, I’ve been feeling that lately with all the Anthology stuff going around… why not reclassify Episodes I and II as Anthologies (they both tell stories that are interesting to the Star Wars universe, but not exactly vital, much like Rogue One), at least from a personal canon perspective.

Then you could always reshoot Episodes I and II.

I personally never liked the “Machete Order” because you watch two good movies, then have to slog through one awful movie and one meh movie, then by the time you get back to a decent movie, you forget what’s even going on. It’s never a good idea to interrupt a series in the middle with an entirely new series that’s only got rudimentary connections to the first series. It doesn’t serve either series well.

I agree. If you watch them you either need to watch 1-6, or watch 4-6, 1-3. Many prefer to watch 4-6 and leave it at that.

Post
#948296
Topic
What is your personal canon?
Time

Mine varies depending on my mood. I have yet to really settle on which versions of the PT it might include.

The Phantom Menance (The theatrical cut or alternatively a custom edit close to the theatrical cut)
Attack of the Clones (some sort of edit - haven’t really decided yet)
Clone Wars 2003
Clone Wars 2008 (I would love to edit the rest of the PT to match this)
Revenge of the Sith (I’m okay with most of the movie, but I think the ending needs some tweaks)
Rebels
3 Han Solo novels by A.C. Crispin (Kind of depends on the new Han Solo Movie)
3 Han Solo novels by Brian Daley (if the Han Solo Movie contradicts these then this take precendence)
Rogue One
ANH (either the original cut, the Revisted cut, or one that I have yet to create)
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (yeah I know it kind of violates continuity, but I read it when it first came out and I still enjoy it and the comic book version - it’s a better written story than the PT or TFA)
The Empire Strikes Back (I like the SE edit better, but which one dominates depends on my mood - probably the 2011 BR edit with the updated Emperor)
Return of the Jedi (original Theatrical Cut - the edit I’m thinking of would have a few of the SE effects shots and corrections, but would omit virtually all the added scenes and the CG sarlac)
The Force Awakens (It needs an edit but I haven’t figured out how yet)
VIII
IX

Post
#948289
Topic
Is there anything that you actually like about the prequels?
Time

I was so focused on the movies themselves I forgot about the music. I think the original 77 score is one of the best followed by Empire (almost a tie), then Jedi, then Phantom Menace. Clones has some good moment. Sith has too much going on and so does TFA. No good solid musical themes in either of them. The best part about both soundtracks are the two themes that aren’t actually in the movies in their entirety - the expanded Throne Room theme and Rey’s theme. I love the Phantom Menace soundtrack, but since then they have gotten too busy and a lot less based on major themes. Not that the music is bad, it just is more in the background. I’d have to say Sith’s soundtrack is the least memorable so far. TFA is saved by Rey’s theme and the reuse of Han Solo and the Princess from Empire.

Another thing I really enjoyed were the lightsaber duels. I’d have to agree that the three way duel with Darth Maul was the best. The Obi-wan/Anakin duel in Sith was good, but even though the moves were cool, their duel in ANH was better - much better dialog even if the moves were less energetic. I liked the Obi-wan/Anakin/Dooku duel as well. And while I think Yoda’s fighting style was fantastic in many ways, it didn’t really fit with his character (though it does make sense with his size). The best part of the Yoda/Dooku duel was how Yoda handled the force lightning before he drew his saber and how he handled the falling pillar after his put his saber away. Same with his duel with Sidious - the best part was before and after the lightsabers. I wasn’t impressed by much of the other lightsaber work. It became too common in ATOC.

Oh, and Naboo. I love the design of Naboo. The architecture they created (while based on real Italian buildings) went a step further. I also liked the building design on Coruscant. Very art deco. I also like the Geonosians and their arena. I think the banking clan is the worst character design in Star Wars - worse than any of the inane designs that got pushed to the background or cut from ANH. They fixed them a bit in Clone Wars and that revision is tolerable.

Post
#948172
Topic
Is there anything that you actually like about the prequels?
Time

That was where I started but because you don’t agree you keep arguing about it. Both, to me, are illogical gaps in the story. They make no sense, mainly because something vital is missing. And funny how you label some of those items empirical. That means based on observation and experience rather than theory or pure logic. My observation and experience say those are plot holes by the definitions you provided.

Post
#948166
Topic
Is there anything that you actually like about the prequels?
Time

Lord Haseo said:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotHole

Plot Holes are those gaps in a story where things happen without a logical reason. When a Plot Hole involves something essential to a story’s outcome, it can hurt the believability, for those who are bothered by such things. Hitting a Plot Hole at high speed can damage your Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_hole

In fiction, a plot hole, plothole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story’s plot. Such inconsistencies include such things as illogical or impossible events, and statements or events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.

So that you actually know what a plot hole is.

So these definitions include “without logical reason”, “gaps in a story”, “hurt the believability”, “damage your Willing Suspension of Disbelief”, “illogical or impossible events”, and “for those who are bothered by such things”. Those are all subjective interpretations of the material. In other words, they are based on the opinion of the viewer. Those two scenes make no logical sense to me, disrupt the flow of the story, and disrupt my immersion in the story. While the definition you provide have very specific criteria, how to apply it is up to the viewer, not some committee. Therefore they are plot holes.

Post
#948159
Topic
Is there anything that you actually like about the prequels?
Time

Lord Haseo said:

If you want to put your personal feelings onto definitions and want to be willfully ignorant about what actually counts as a plot hole (you know…one that actually coincides with the definition) then by all means. If definitions are at your whim then there’s no point in discussing anything with you.

You posted 2 definitions. I read them understood them and from my perspective TFA has 2 huge plot holes. I am not being willfully ignorant. You posted definitions that are very much based on the viewers perspective not on some objective criteria. There really is no reason to start insulting each other over a difference of opinion. Mine is quite valid even if you can’t manage to wrap your heard around it.

Post
#948128
Topic
Is there anything that you actually like about the prequels?
Time

Lord Haseo said:

yotsuya said:

Lord Haseo said:

yotsuya said:
Yup, exactly why those two scenes are plot holes in my book. Both took me right out of the movie.

There is no “in my book” when it comes to definitions. You can’t change a definition based on your personal beliefs.

Ah, but you provided the definition and to me both those perfectly meet your definition.

Maybe that’s because I use words I know the definitions to lol

I’m telling you that when I fist saw TFA, both those scenes interrupted the film and for my experience they exactly match the provided definition of a plot hole.

I don’t really care about how you felt. A vast majority of the things you said were plot holes were actually plot conveniences, inconsistencies with how reality works (like the people at Maz’s Castle seeing the Hosnian System being destroyed), things you didn’t understand in the story or things that didn’t match the dictionary definition of a plot hole. Also, how does your first impression of a film have to do with what you know now?

R2 waking up didn’t have the same effect.

Because that’s not a plot hole either. It’s a plot convenience. Plus, we’ve been kind of conditioned to overlook stuff like that in Star Wars.

I went back and reread the definitions you provided and that is EXACTLY how I would describe both those scenes. Both critical to the story and in both places it jerks me out of the movie, disrupts the flow of the story, and both are logical inconsistent. That makes them plot holes. And by those definitions, my personal perspective is inherent to whether I consider it a plot hole or not. Your opinion as to whether it is a plot hole or not is irrelevant to whether or not it fits the definition in my viewing experience. It matters to you and your viewing experience, but not mine.

And I am amazed at how so many people around here insist that I agree with them. Sorry, but my opinion is not subject to discussion, nor is anyone elses. Our tastes differ and that should be fine. My opinion that TFA has worse story problems than the PT is based on my preferences, cinematic tastes, and study of the craft of writing as well as my experience with previous Abrams endeavors. You have different tastes and experiences and different opinions. Fine by me. I’m not trying to convince anyone, just trying to defend my opinion.