Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Luis Dias on October 20, 2015, 06:25:11 am
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And it's full of AWESOMENESS.
The characters feel RIGHT. The villain feels RIGHT. The story arc resembles a bit of New Hope, and that feels RIGHT.
And holy ****, is Luke Skywalker the new villain? Is he going to end what his father tried to accomplish??!?
HYYYYYYYPE ;7
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And holy ****, is Luke Skywalker the new villain? Is he going to end what his father tried to accomplish??!?
I certainly hope not. The whole point of the final conflict in ROTJ is that Luke had the chance to make that choice and chose not to join the Emperor.
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doesn't mean he couldn't stray from the path years later.
though honestly it's much more likely he's the new Yoda.
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I'm 100% sure he's not the villain and 90% sure he's the new Obi-Wan / Yoda as Bobboau suggests. Still, I love everything in the new trailer! :D
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I wonder if the Rebels were unable/did not create the New Republic after Endor in this continuity? That the events from the original trilogy seem shrouded in mystery and the general militia feel of the "non Order" forces doesn't give off the feel of the Republic having been reestablished. Is it possible that the galaxy didn't recreate a centralized government after the Empire fell or perhaps pulled a collective Alderaan and expunged military capability/warfare from the priorities/history?
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my guess is the destruction of the deathstar was not the end of the war but the beginning of it. The empire fell apart into a bunch of warring factions and the new republic never even started to happen.
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Well, it was a Galactic empire after all. Lots of Star Destroyers and a myriad of worlds, gazillions of soldiers and AT-ATs still exist.
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I think my favorite part is how it looks like Kylo Ren is going full on broadsword combat and ditching that vapid acrobatic nonsense from Episodes II and III.
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The poster looks like a low Vom Tag guard, so yeah I will be stoked if they go for a Kunst des Fechtens route.
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I hate to say it but the trailers are all making me unreasonably excited to see this movie.
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I think my favorite part is how it looks like Kylo Ren is going full on broadsword combat and ditching that vapid acrobatic nonsense from Episodes II and III.
Of course using a style dictated largely by the weight of the blade makes even less sense...
Also, one note to the new Stormies:
Infantry weapons never work well on starfighters. The reverse is not true.
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Less sense only if we assume that lightsabers are massless, which has never actually been stated in a (currently) canon source. If we're going to complain about things being less realistic, perhaps we should take issue first with subluminal lasers and spacecraft that measure combat range in hundreds of meters?
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Less sense only if we assume that lightsabers are massless, which has never actually been stated in a (currently) canon source.
Even if we assume they're magic extendoblades of solid material (which really doesn't fit with their visualization at any time) then they've still got to fit within in the handles and simple observation of the way the handles work when they're clipped to people's belts in the prequels says there's not much weight in there.
If we're going to complain about things being less realistic, perhaps we should take issue first with subluminal lasers and spacecraft that measure combat range in hundreds of meters?
Hey, I know you're not trying to be an asshole, but you're being an asshole. Nobody cares or should about those because they don't violate the internal logic of the universe.
This does.
Consistency is more important than absolute truth. Fiction 101.
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they have inertial compensators that allow them to behave as though they have mass.
(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/014/886/9fa.jpg)
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Less sense only if we assume that lightsabers are massless, which has never actually been stated in a (currently) canon source.
Even if we assume they're magic extendoblades of solid material (which really doesn't fit with their visualization at any time) then they've still got to fit within in the handles and simple observation of the way the handles work when they're clipped to people's belts in the prequels says there's not much weight in there.
If we're going to complain about things being less realistic, perhaps we should take issue first with subluminal lasers and spacecraft that measure combat range in hundreds of meters?
Hey, I know you're not trying to be an asshole, but you're being an asshole. Nobody cares or should about those because they don't violate the internal logic of the universe.
This does.
Consistency is more important than absolute truth. Fiction 101.
And this rendition of a lightsaber is entirely consistent with the renditions of lightsabers in the original movies, which the prequels completely and utterly failed to be consistent with. Maintaining consistency with two different sets of contradictory representations of the same object is impossible, and given the choice I'm glad they went with the one that feels like a proper sword.
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lol at the concern about consistency of mass of light sabers. I mean, roflmao.
aaha wait you were serious. Let me laugh even harder
AHAHAAHHAHAHAHAAH
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Much light saber mass to be had. Even with the trailer... I reserve the right to be skeptical til da movie hits theaters.
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Hey guys, the trailer for the first new star wars movie in a long time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD7bpG-zDJQ) has got me really hyped! It's going to be soooooo good...
:)
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again...
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I wonder if the Rebels were unable/did not create the New Republic after Endor in this continuity? That the events from the original trilogy seem shrouded in mystery and the general militia feel of the "non Order" forces doesn't give off the feel of the Republic having been reestablished. Is it possible that the galaxy didn't recreate a centralized government after the Empire fell or perhaps pulled a collective Alderaan and expunged military capability/warfare from the priorities/history?
Io9 has a really good article about what's going on in the galaxy post-OT compiled from all the sequel media released so far: http://io9.com/everything-we-know-about-star-wars-post-return-of-the-j-1729549100 (Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled)
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Kylo Ren (bad Sith like dude in mask) is not Skywalker, his head and actor has been known for a long time now.
Don't be surprised if Han doesn't bite the big one here though.
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Hey guys, the trailer for the first new star wars movie in a long time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD7bpG-zDJQ) has got me really hyped! It's going to be soooooo good...
:)
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again...
Yeah, but Lucas isn't involved this time. Then again J.J "I took a big **** on the Star Trek universe" Abrams is. So I refuse to get hyped. I saw a lot of things that could be good if done the right way. So I'm not going to say it's bad or good. I'm reserving my judgement. On the other hand, if it is bad, this is where we should draw a line in the sand and insist that the next two films become the biggest loss making films of all time.
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Yeah, but Lucas isn't involved this time. Then again J.J "I took a big **** on the Star Trek universe" Abrams is. So I refuse to get hyped. I saw a lot of things that could be good if done the right way. So I'm not going to say it's bad or good. I'm reserving my judgement. On the other hand, if it is bad, this is where we should draw a line in the sand and insist that the next two films become the biggest loss making films of all time.
I think the reason why the Star Trek movies came out the way they did was because Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote them. I've enjoyed the shows they write (Lost, Fringe, Alias), but their insistence on writing to intentionally subvert expectations works better for serialized mass produced network television rather than a Star Trek movie.
That's not the case with the Star Wars sequels. Lawrence Kasdan was one of the writers for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I'd argue he's the one that charted the Star Wars mythology to go beyond the limitations of George Lucas' narrative range. The fact that Disney hired Lawrence Kasdan to chart the narrative direction of the Star Wars sequels (He's writing both Force Awakens and Episode IX) is something any Star Wars fan should be excited about. I'd go as far to say that his lack of involvement in the prequels (combined with George Lucas' creative monopoly) are the reasons why they became the crapfest they were.
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We'll find out soon enough. Like Kara, I'm simply keeping my expectations firmly in check.
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That's not the case with the Star Wars sequels. Lawrence Kasdan was one of the writers for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I'd argue he's the one that charted the Star Wars mythology to go beyond the limitations of George Lucas' narrative range. The fact that Disney hired Lawrence Kasdan to chart the narrative direction of the Star Wars sequels (He's writing both Force Awakens and Episode IX) is something any Star Wars fan should be excited about. I'd go as far to say that his lack of involvement in the prequels (combined with George Lucas' creative monopoly) are the reasons why they became the crapfest they were.
I would tend to agree with you that Kasdan's involvement is a good thing but it is worth noting that he's barely written anything in the last 10 years (apart from one film which was a complete flop). Everyone was really happy that Lucas was the director of the first prequel for similar reasons. After all Lucas created the first film and was responsible for a lot of the good writing in the second and third one.
So I'm going to simply say I'm going to watch the film but I'm not going to get excited until a few minutes into the film at the earliest.
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I've never seen or played anything Star Wars related. Would it be ill-advised to start by watching this one?
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Yes. Watch the original trilogy, then the prequel trilogy. Then you're good to go to watch this new one.
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Although there are strong arguments for not bothering with Episode 1. Or Episode 2.
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There's also a strong argument to be made for the "Machete Order" of 4, 5, 2, 3, 6. It maintains the, uh, really famous spoiler at the end of 5 that way.
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You can also not bother with episode 3. In fact, just pretend 1, 2 and 3 don't exist.
Regarding the "Oh I'm not gonna be hyped now", yeah **** that ****, I'm HYPED and the trick is just not take it seriously!
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There's also a strong argument to be made for the "Hatchet Order" of 4, 5, 2, 3, 6. It maintains the, uh, really famous spoiler at the end of 5 that way.
This is also a really strong recommendation.
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machete order, people. not hatchet
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I will never understand the sadomasochistic advices of telling people to watch the prequels. Sometimes I feel that people are just being devious beyond belief ;).
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They're not THAT bad.
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They are not EVEN bad, you mean.
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Of course I prefer the originals, but the prequels are good as eye candy. <raises flame shield> I mean, even in Episode I, the podracing and Darth Maul scenes are pretty darn cool.
EDIT: And droidekas are the coolest robots ever. Even cooler than The Matrix's sentinels.
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"The prequels are bad" is pretty much the same as "Nickleback sucks" at this point. Yes, you're SO above such drivel. Who in their right mind would like this? Certainly not me, because I want to be cool like everyone else.
To which I say, grow the **** up. I have watched the prequels many times and enjoyed them. "Not as good as" is WAY different than "bad."
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No they actually are really bad. Watch the Plinkett reviews.
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To which I say, grow the **** up. I have watched the prequels many times and enjoyed them. "Not as good as" is WAY different than "bad."
I watched them in the Cinema, and was entertained. But then I watched them on DVD, and boy did they not hold up at all. They're not as good as the original trilogy. They're not as good as a whole lot of films. At their best, the Prequels aspire to mediocrity; They lack the simple focus of the OT, the actors lack chemistry, the script is atrocious, the art direction is lackluster (and more concerned with being atoy advert rather than a worldbuilding tool) and the effects look dated as ****.
Now, that's not to say that your enjoyment is somehow wrong or anything. We all have pieces of media we enjoy that fail on quite a lot of levels. The problem with the prequels is that I have done exactly what you told me to do: I grew up. I can't overlook the various incoherent elements of the prequels. I can't in all honesty recommend them to anyone.
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Nickelback is ****ing amazing in comparison to the prequels. It's like Beethoven.
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Plus Nickleback unironically sucks too.
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Stop repeating what I say! :D
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machete order, people. not hatchet
Whoops, sorry. I was tired and on my phone.
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"The prequels are bad" is pretty much the same as "Nickleback sucks" at this point. Yes, you're SO above such drivel. Who in their right mind would like this? Certainly not me, because I want to be cool like everyone else.
To which I say, grow the **** up. I have watched the prequels many times and enjoyed them. "Not as good as" is WAY different than "bad."
I am genuinely sorry that you have incredibly poor taste, but there are so many obviously poor choices made in the prequels that your position is indefensible. On nearly every level from the script to the aesthetic choices their decisions are poor in both the context of the prequels as an internally contained series and in the context of the prequels as, y'know, prequels. The only thing holding them together is their use of their vast budgets to deliver relatively impressive visuals and decent acting in spite of themselves.
(Even then, I'd argue the big fleet action shots of the prequels were trumped by DS9's Sacrifice of Angels in '97, with a fraction of the budget and effects team.)
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Like, the Star Wars formula wasn't exactly magic. It was a big showy sci-fi throwback built explicitly on Campbell's structure of the monomyth, and it pulled that off well enough to be a runaway classic. Then the prequels come along and inexplicably they're all about this big ensemble cast with a ton of boring galactic politics and murky characters and arcs. It's not that they're 'not as good as' the original trilogy, it's that they only counted as Star Wars films because of the licensing rights.
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I had a lot of fun in the 90's getting to watch Star Wars (albeit altered, edited, and changed) in the theaters. It was an experience and it was FUN. I also had a lot of fun later waiting with baited breath for Episode I--which was entertaining, and I'll just leave it at that. I do remember feeling kinda jaded by the time Episode 3 rolled around. This time, I'm kind of excited again, and it FEELS right. It looks right.
But to tell you the truth, I'm actually way more excited to see my kids' reaction to this, and it's going to be really fun to get to take them with me and enjoy something together. (Even if they're a little young to really get the plot details.)
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But to tell you the truth, I'm actually way more excited to see my kids' reaction to this, and it's going to be really fun to get to take them with me and enjoy something together. (Even if they're a little young to really get the plot details.)
I get exactly where you're coming from. I'd be right with you if my kids were just a *few* years older.
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The reason why I can't recommend the prequels is quite simple. It's not just the bad direction, uninspiring overuse of CGI or any of the myriad reasons quoted. It's the simple fact that the entire point of all 3 prequels is to chart the fall of Anakin Skywalker and his conversion into Darth Vader. This is something the films completely fails at. In Return of the Jedi it is the Emperor's hubris that eventually leads to his downfall. He believes that he can turn any Jedi to the Dark Side, even a hero like Luke Skywalker, with fairly basic methods. His attempt to tempt Skywalker to the Dark Side eventually puts Luke in a position to redeem his father and kill the Emperor. So we never actually see what it would take to turn someone to the Dark Side and before the prequels came out, most of us would have thought it would be interesting to see how it would work on a good Jedi. And it would be especially interesting to see how it happened to Vader.
But what did we get in the prequels? Possibly the least interesting and least internally consistent seduction to the Dark Side we could have ever gotten. The idea that Anakin would turn to the Dark Side in order to save his unborn child was a good one. Pity it was handled in such a hamfisted way that it doesn't ring true then. And if the central premise of the film is as poor as the one in this film, I'd rather recommend people watch a good film than slog through such bad movies.
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The thing about Anakin is that he was never a good Jedi. If there was one thing Episode II did with any sort of effectiveness (if not subtlety) it was to establish that Anakin A) put a huge emphasis on close personal relationships and B) wasn't the most stable individual. His mother is killed, and he slaughters an entire village of sand people in a murderous rage. In Episode III we see him visibly frustrated by perceived disrespect from the Jedi Council - whether it's deserved or not is wholly irrelevant. When confronted with a situation in which he must choose between the close personal relationship that he knows to be 'evil' but who has shown him the attention and respect he believes he deserves, and the distant, disdainful, 'good' Jedi, his choice is obvious, reflexive even.
This is Anakin's point of no return, and he knows this implicitly. He is fully committed. He knows, very well, that he is taking the 'evil' path, and his self-loathing is evident even through Christensen's woodblock acting. When he confronts Padme after the Jedi Temple, when she reveals that Obi-wan has been there, his self-loathing and doubt manifests as a suspicion that she and Obi-wan are having an affair (there's a deleted scene for this, I think). The violations of trust never stop. Suddenly his loyalties, those that remain, are torn between three close personal bonds; his loyalty to Palpatine, his marriage to Padme, and his relationship to Obi-wan.
When Padme arrives on Mustafar, and Obi-wan has stowed away on board, Obi-wan unwittingly signs Padme's death warrant. The suspicion of an affair is confirmed, as far as Anakin is concerned. The bonds are shattered irrevocably. In the ashes of his former life, he still has one thing: Palpatine. He submits to the Dark Side in full, without reservation.
Episode II and III suck for a multitude of reasons, but Anakin's journey to the Dark Side is probably one of the better parts of it. The politics of the Clone Wars are interesting on their own, but distract too much from Anakin's transformation, focusing too much on the minutiae of the battles and far too little on what actually made the Clone Wars interesting. Overuse of CGI; closely tied to actors' inability to relate to the environments they're supposed to be inhabiting; ridiculous lightsaber antics; pointless diversions from the good parts of the story (General Grievous exists... why, exactly? He's a "cool villain", and Utapau is a set-piece for his bossfight with Obi-wan.); and cringe-worthy dialogue forcing an unrelatable love story among them.
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I understand all you're saying, I just don't think it was done very well. I'll agree that Anakin's journey is the best part of the film, but is still doesn't make it actually good. It's still pretty mediocre. There are so many better ways Anakin's fall could have been handled. What were given simply doesn't fit with Obi-Wan's speech in A New Hope. What I expected to see in the prequels was Obi-Wan make subtle mistakes that resulted in Anakin's incomplete training. That training should have then left him vulnerable to the Dark Side.
But we don't see that in the films. Anakin was always a bad egg. He was always a spoiled brat. It wasn't Obi-Wan who made a mistake in believing he could train Anakin as well as Yoda. The mistake was training him at all. Now if episode II had established that Anakin's personal relationships and instability were due to Obi-Wan, I might have let that pass, but they fail at that. Anakin was always kind of a dick, right from the start.
I agree that making it about personal relationships was the key. But they shouldn't have bothered with that weird "Love is forbidden, hidden marriage" nonsense. It's not like the extended universe doesn't have Jedi falling in love. Instead I would have had Anakin placed in a situation where he had to do something evil in order to save his friends. You know, letting an innocent die in order to save his friends. After it worked, Anakin would continue to take the easier way out until eventually he goes full on evil. That would have fit in with the emperor trying a similar trick with Luke. Putting him in a situation where the easy way out would save his friends.
My problem is also with the fact that Obi-Wan describes Anakin as being a good friend, someone who he looks back on with fond memories. We don't see that much in the prequels. We're told they are friends but it doesn't really come over on camera very well at all. At best he regards Anakin as an annoying student he has to teach. Looking at the prequels, would you honestly look back at Anakin as a good friend?
Basically, my problem is that nothing in the prequels really rings true as being realistic. Yeah, with a better script and actors you could have sold the storyline Lucas wrote, I can see that. But even then it wasn't the best way to go. So when the central premise, the entire reason for even having 3 prequel films, is handled in such a bad fashion, why would I recommend seeing them?
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I always felt it would have been better to stage the films starting in the early stages of the Clone Wars. Obi Wan/Padme/Liam Neason have their Republic star destroyer intercepted and shot down over Tatooine while on some diplomatic mission(imagine that juxtaposition of the fly over from ANH). There they meet a twenty something Anakin who has major force potential. Over the course of the film Anakin and Obi Wan cement their friendship, sparks fly with Padme(now that they are the same age) and Anakin's parents/community are killed leaving him with a "power to save everyone" complex. By the end Darth Maul is established as the Dragon for subsequent films, Obi Wan demands to recruit and teach Anakin despite his age and there is a relationship foundation with Padme.
With the following films we have Anakin, a Jedi trained in a time of warfare starting as a young man instead of a malleable child. He's a likable, fundamentally good man but plays it fast and loose and more pragmatically than a Jedi should, his quilt over his parents continues to drive him to be as powerful as possible and it is only compounded as losses mount during the war. This causes friction with some portions of the Council and its Obi Wan who both tempers Anakin's excesses and acts as the mediator with the higher ups. Because of their friendship he turns a blind eye to some of the warning signs with Anakin rather than confronting and rectifying those flaws. Anakin's relationship with Padme continues to blossom and his rivalry with Maul continues.
By the third film the war has ravaged much of the galaxy leading the citizens desperate for a strong stable government when Palpatine makes his play. Palpatine splits Anakin and Obi Wan up so that when Anakin has his final showdown with Maul he doesn't have his friend to keep him grounded. Anakin needs to dip into the dark side to actually beat Maul and the Jedi who are with him see it and attempt to apprehend him. Instead of being able to take a step back from the precipice the other Jedi cause the situation to spiral out of control. Without Obi Wan Anakin is driven into Palpatine's hands who offers an easy route to power and the promise of a secure galaxy to Anakin. Purge happens, war ends and New Order Established. Anakin has his climatic confrontation with Obi Wan and ends up in the suit. Anakin never knows Padme is pregnant and she goes into hiding were she later has the twins and passes from something not as stupid as sadness.
I think this would keep some of the framework of the Prequels while establishing a better transition for Anakin, a good man placed in an untenable position by subtle manipulations by Palpatine and some stupid decisions by the Jedi Order.
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I think that's going to become my new headcanon now. Thanks! :)
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I'd like to take a moment to mention that I despise the term "headcanon" and all the baggage that goes with it.
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That really is an excellent framework.
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I always felt it would have been better to stage the films starting in the early stages of the Clone Wars. Obi Wan/Padme/Liam Neason have their Republic star destroyer intercepted and shot down over Tatooine while on some diplomatic mission(imagine that juxtaposition of the fly over from ANH). There they meet a twenty something Anakin who has major force potential. Over the course of the film Anakin and Obi Wan cement their friendship, sparks fly with Padme(now that they are the same age) and Anakin's parents/community are killed leaving him with a "power to save everyone" complex. By the end Darth Maul is established as the Dragon for subsequent films, Obi Wan demands to recruit and teach Anakin despite his age and there is a relationship foundation with Padme.
With the following films we have Anakin, a Jedi trained in a time of warfare starting as a young man instead of a malleable child. He's a likable, fundamentally good man but plays it fast and loose and more pragmatically than a Jedi should, his quilt over his parents continues to drive him to be as powerful as possible and it is only compounded as losses mount during the war. This causes friction with some portions of the Council and its Obi Wan who both tempers Anakin's excesses and acts as the mediator with the higher ups. Because of their friendship he turns a blind eye to some of the warning signs with Anakin rather than confronting and rectifying those flaws. Anakin's relationship with Padme continues to blossom and his rivalry with Maul continues.
By the third film the war has ravaged much of the galaxy leading the citizens desperate for a strong stable government when Palpatine makes his play. Palpatine splits Anakin and Obi Wan up so that when Anakin has his final showdown with Maul he doesn't have his friend to keep him grounded. Anakin needs to dip into the dark side to actually beat Maul and the Jedi who are with him see it and attempt to apprehend him. Instead of being able to take a step back from the precipice the other Jedi cause the situation to spiral out of control. Without Obi Wan Anakin is driven into Palpatine's hands who offers an easy route to power and the promise of a secure galaxy to Anakin. Purge happens, war ends and New Order Established. Anakin has his climatic confrontation with Obi Wan and ends up in the suit. Anakin never knows Padme is pregnant and she goes into hiding were she later has the twins and passes from something not as stupid as sadness.
I think this would keep some of the framework of the Prequels while establishing a better transition for Anakin, a good man placed in an untenable position by subtle manipulations by Palpatine and some stupid decisions by the Jedi Order.
Get this man a flying DeLorean and several hundred million dollars.
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Yeah, that would work. The trick would be to have the final showdown between Maul / Palpatine - Anakin as a kind of a mirror image to how Luke resolved the situation.
We, as audiences, needed to be sympathetic to Anakin. The galaxy would need to be at stake. The path to the Dark Side should be obvious, but not juvenile or "emo-****". It should be the result of necessity. One thing I'd add to your story would be that he would still believe he would be in control despite sliding towards the Dark Side. But Maul is powerful. He can't kill him without using a "weapon of mass destruction". Obi Wan realises what he's about to do but it's too late: he kills millions and hundreds of Jedis with it. He killed Maul, and why is Obi Wan so pissed off at him, he just destroyed the Sith. "You blithering idiots with all your honorable ideas, you would get him away again!"
But of course, he's not the only one, Palpatine is still to be destroyed. Obi Wan and friends realise they have to shackle Anakin, he's on the verge of becoming a Sith himself! They try to fight him and arrest him. Obi Wan, Yoda, etc. attempt to attack Palpatine. Anakin does not believe in their tactics. They are weak. They are powerless. They are slow and will stop at anything. A plan of attack is set in motion, but Anakin flees. He flees with help. He knows how to bloody end the Emperor and he will kill Jedis who try to stop him in his tracks.
Obi Wan et co are busy doing their plans when they witness Anakin going rogue. While the Emperor was about to be destroyed, he played his last card: Anakin himself. After all, he was the one who had helped him escape. Anakin fights Obi Wan and loses, but the distraction enables the Emperor to win the war. The journey to the Dark Side is pretty much complete. I am missing some key elements here, but I agree, Palpatine does convince Anakin that this is the best way: Peace will be achieved without these hesitant do-gooders who will stop at anything instead of solving the real problems that afflict the Galaxy. Peace will be achieved by people like Palpatine. And Vader.
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See the nice thing about that plot line is that it fits consistently with Vader's claim to Luke. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side."
Something like that shows that the Dark Side allows you to get **** done that you couldn't do with only the Light Side. Instead in the prequels it is treated like "pick a bonus feat for your RPG character" and everyone goes "Hmmmmm. Force Lightning seems to be the best of the possible skills, I'll choose that one"
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HYYYYYPEEEEE.
Damn, have no remaining nails to bite. Damn.
Damn.
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See the nice thing about that plot line is that it fits consistently with Vader's claim to Luke. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side."
Something like that shows that the Dark Side allows you to get **** done that you couldn't do with only the Light Side. Instead in the prequels it is treated like "pick a bonus feat for your RPG character" and everyone goes "Hmmmmm. Force Lightning seems to be the best of the possible skills, I'll choose that one"
This was obvious in the original trilogy. It was immediately caught by everyone from age 5 to 80 that the problem was morality itself, not one of "Do me has lightning power or do me has phantom-after-dying power?"
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Funny story my first time playing through KoTOR I kept my character in Calo Nord's body armor and focused all my XP on melee and the select few Force Powers that could be utilized in armor, which I think pretty much amounted to Push and Leap? So there I was merrily double bladed lightsabering my way through the game with my melee monster character until the showdown with Malak on the Star Forge. You need to use your fancy Force Powers to stop him from regenerating from the tube people...
Um, Sithspawn?
I ended up having to do it the hard way and Lightsaber duel him for like half an hour till he ran out of coma Jedi to Force Suck HP from.
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This was obvious in the original trilogy.
Yep, which made it so sickening that the prequels ****ed it up.
One of the minor things the Red Letter Media reviews points out nicely is that in RotJ when the emperor tortures Luke with force lightning it's not cause he's stuck all his ability points in Force (evil lightning) but that he could have done all kinds of things with the force like just stopping Luke's heart or whatever. He just picked something a bit showy cause it looked cool.
But in the prequels suddenly force lighning is just something you get once you've got enough levels in Sith. Never mind that it technically makes Dooku more powerful than Vader.
To be honest, Dooku turning out to be a Sith was actually the most disappointing thing in the second prequel. The rest of the film was **** but after Phantom Menace, that wasn't a huge surprise. But for one short moment it did look like Lucas was about to do something interesting with the plot. I would have loved to have had his whole separatist movement actually not be bad guys, just guys who didn't want to stay part of the republic cause they saw trouble coming. It would have given Anakin the backdrop of a war which wasn't good vs evil and therefore a lot more interesting possibilities of how he would become Vader. Instead they simply made Dooku a rather boring bad guy.
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Exactly. Basic framework of how prequels should have behaved: There's a massive war / Showdown between two parties. Then, there are two possible answers to solve this problem. Either through the Light side or through the Dark side.
IOW, the "Separatist" movement should be a real movement (instead of a puppet) that functioned as the mcGuffin to the real moral dillemmas of the stories, that could unfold and multiply as we would go along (Your point regarding Dooku is spot on).
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Funny I always felt Palpatine simultaneously puppeteering the CIS into creating all the crises he needed to expand his powers as well as expending all the military power of those alien races that would have had the clout to object to the human-centric ideology of the New Order to be one of the few things that actually I felt worked in the prequels.
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It doesn't, though. He's just everywhere, it's all about him.
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It doesn't, though. He's just everywhere, it's all about him.
He is the man who's going to become Emperor through deception and intrigue. That's a forgone conclusion.
It's all about him because it's all about him. That's the nature of the story. Luck alone isn't going to get you where he arrived.
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I'm not against the idea of Palpatine being behind everything. It's just that once again the film handled it in such a ham-fisted manner that they had to pull a "Our ability to use the force has been diminished" out of their arse in order to make their ****ty intrigue story work. And even so, it ends up with the Jedi council actually being surprised that the guy who kept voting himself more and more emergency powers was actually a bad guy when they should have seen it coming a ****ing mile away. Palpatine should have been someone the Jedi saw as a strong ally right up until the betrayal. The film did try to give that impression but it did it in such a bad way that it never rang true. Either that, or they should have given him a proper Grand Vizier role and had him secretly whispering in the ear of his puppet from a place the Jedi wouldn't see him.
On top of that, I wouldn't have minded the whole "Palapatine is in control of everything" plot line so much if we got to hear a little bit more about what the Trade Federation (in the first film) and the Separatists (in the second film) hoped to achieve. The big problem is that the films are such a mess that they are the bad guys cause they are the bad guys and that's all you need to know. You would think that when Dooku is revealed to be a Sith lord some of them might have thought to themselves "Hmmmmm, when did I agree to follow the Nazi party? Maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn't do that." But no, they all merrily trot behind him and then act surprised when they get betrayed.
That's why Dooku turning out to be a Sith (worse still, a Sith controlled by Palpatine) was so disappointing to me. If instead he'd been an actual upstanding Jedi who Palatine had manipulated without revealing himself, it would have been a much more interesting plot line.
Finally, I have an issue with the whole Vader as the second coming plot line. He wasn't even in charge in A New Hope. It's only after the death of Tarkin that Vader becomes the second most powerful person in the universe. In A New Hope Vader is just the Emperor's go-to guy. That all got retconned somewhat in ESB but the prequels could easily have tried to explain it. It would have been nice if the films had shown Vader as someone obsessed with hunting down the Jedi to the exclusion of all else. That would make it very easy to slot him into ANH as someone who preferred to be in control of a single star destroyer chasing down Jedi and then later the Rebellion rather than someone who was in charge of everything.
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Hey guys, the trailer for the first new star wars movie in a long time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD7bpG-zDJQ) has got me really hyped! It's going to be soooooo good...
:)
Wow, that trailer really doesn't hold up. Is that the actual, official trailer, or some sort of fan-thing? Because it's really bad. This one holds up better, but still not great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV1T2DJBwIs
Also, speaking of alternate plots for the prequels, youtuber Belated Media did two videos on Episodes I and II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgICnbC2-_Y and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbug3AhYmw
Anyway, I'm properly excited, but keeping my expectations in check for now.
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So I just read this and - while the author's claims are thinly supported and make many a leap - I actually hope it is accurate: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/3qvj6w/theory_jar_jar_binks_was_a_trained_force_user/
Because man, would that be a hell of a plot twist.
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start at 1:25. The guys at robot chicken knew it the whole time.
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"Meanwhile, with our mortal enemies..." "What, the Sith?" "No! The Federation!" (http://www.startrek.com/article/new-star-trek-series-premieres-january-2017)
Between these, the Martian/Gravity/Interstellar, a new era of Space Sims, the return of BattleTech, the airing of an actually decent Gundam series with another on the way, I declare the Second Golden Age of Sci-Fi.
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"Meanwhile, with our mortal enemies..." "What, the Sith?" "No! The Federation!" (http://www.startrek.com/article/new-star-trek-series-premieres-january-2017)
Between these, the Martian/Gravity/Interstellar, a new era of Space Sims, the return of BattleTech, the airing of an actually decent Gundam series with another on the way, I declare the Second Golden Age of Sci-Fi.
:eek2:
Emoticons do not do justice to what I am feeling right now! If it does well then we might end up seeing that HD remaster of DS9 after all... (The TNG one kicks aft!)
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They had me at the mop bucket.
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"BB-8" destroyed me :lol: