Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Black Wolf on May 23, 2018, 11:06:32 am
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Just arrived at the midnight screening. This is my third SW midnight show in a row (and my wife's fourth) and it is... Really quiet. Significantly less than half the number of people for the last couple.
I'll be interested to see of this is a local thing, or if it's something broader - an indication of Star Wars fatigue setting in? It has only been about six months since the last one. Or possibly a reaction from hard core fans to Disney ****ting the bed with TLJ?
Either way, fingers crossed for a good movie. Spoilery review in a few hours! :)
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I'll be interested to see of this is a local thing, or if it's something broader - an indication of Star Wars fatigue setting in? It has only been about six months since the last one. Or possibly a reaction from hard core fans to Disney ****ting the bed with TLJ?
I think The Last Jedi is a great Star Wars film, and I hugely enjoyed Rogue One.
I still have no interest in seeing this in theatre or indeed at all. Rogue One was appealing in no small part becuase it was about characters we have never seen before and it focused away from the usual suspects. Solo focuses on a character whose story already has been told. It's trailers seem inspirationless, giving the impression that this is a star wars film because there just had to be another star wars film because the Star Wars Cinematic Universe must keep rolling.
Off course, this approach works just fine for Marvell, so we'll see.
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I hope for you, that they show Spaceballs as a Preliminary movie... because it can easy happen, that this one has more in common with Star Wars than the main movie you are about to watch :D
But well, have fun and a enjoyable night.
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This is a spoiler thread, so I'm not using spoiler tags. But, short non spoilery first impressions: It's good! Not amazing. There's nothing as impactful as the hallway scene from Rogue One, and the movie suffers from an opening third or so that feels disconnected from the rest of the film, but overall, it's a unique, fun film that is very rooted in the Star Wars universe. The visuals and the music were spot on, and I'm increasingly confident that Disney have really got those parts nailed.
It takes a while to get used to the new Han, but by the end I was fully engaged. Donald Glover, by contrast, sold Lando from his first moments on screen. Fantastic performance. Woody Harrelson was... Well, Woody Harrelson, but he did well. Nobody else stood out, but I do wish Paul Bettany had done an accent or something - having just seen him in Avengers, every time he opened his mouth I just heard Vision.
Overall, it's good. I walked out happy, and I want to see it again to pick up more Easter eggs and immerse myself in the world of tue film a bit more, but also because I just liked it. I walked out of the theatre happy - not as happy as Rogue One, but way, way happier than TLJ. It's a solid, middle of the road Star Wars movie that maybe suffers a little because it doesn't have the traditional Star Wars things (Starfighters and Jedi and light sabres and big capital ships), but they're trying something new.
Overall, probably a 7 out of 10.
Now, spoiler bits. You've been warned!
I think I would have been very likely disappointed if the big reveal hadn't been there in the last 15 minutes. You see Qi'Ra stealing the ship about a mile away, but it didn't even enter consideration that they might bring Darth Maul over from TCW. That is Lucasfilm really committing to "everything is canon". I thought VCX-100 was going to be the extent of their willingness to nod at the cartoons, but no way.
I thought a few of the Easter eggs were a little forced (Teras Kasi?) but mostly I liked them - things like calling out CEC by name were cool.
The kid coming out from under the helmet was a little... Eh. And then tying them to the start of the rebellion... I could have done without it, but it didn't make that much of a difference. One thing that was cool was their use if existing aliens - it's kind of annoyed me that just about every alien we've seen since Ep VII has been something new. Ok, fine, but we have these established species too, that are supposed to be all over the galaxy - where are they? In this movie, apparently. I spotted a Twi'lek, a Rodian and a Talz (and was that Edrio Two Tubes in amongst the rebels at the end?)
Loved all the little things. Han's "fair and square" line from ESB has some context now, as do Threepio's complaints about the Falcon's computer.
There's lots more to say, but I'm tired. :)
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Review: It's actually pretty good! Not amazing, but kept me engaged all the way through (part of it was definitely guessing how various characters would die since they're obviously not in the orig-trig).
If I had to rate it in terms of goodness, I'd say a little in between Rogue One and The Last Jedi. If you were on the fence about whether you should see it or not, you won't be disappointed if you do! If you were already on the side of not wanting to see it, I'm not going to tell you you were wrong.
Spoilies ahead:
And if you're wondering if Han makes the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs in this movie, of course he does. And they pass by the Maw while they're at it.
If you're wondering if he wins the Falcon in a game of sabacc vs Lando in this movie, yep.
If you're wondering if he shoots first, uh huh.
If you're wondering if he gets a bad feeling about this, surprisingly he does not!
Also: no mynocks. They mention them in passing, but don't see any.
And if you're wondering if Darth Maul shows up in a hologram just to be all "Hi y'all, it's me! Darth Maul!" then you obviously didn't read Black Wolf's post above, because he totally does that.
And there's a bunch of other references for the hard-core Star Wars nerds up in there, but they don't really take you out of the film.
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I've heard it sucks, I've concluded therefore that it sucks and now you are all trying to dismiss this conclusion I've already formed in my head because you what? Saw the movie yourselves? Nah, my feelings don't care about your facts.
This stuff aside, I won't watch it til it reaches teevee. I'm that excited to see it.
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If I had to rate it in terms of goodness, I'd say a little in between Rogue One and The Last Jedi. If you were on the fence about whether you should see it or not, you won't be disappointed if you do! If you were already on the side of not wanting to see it, I'm not going to tell you you were wrong.
Hehe, alright, alright, I'll probably go watch it at some point (at home though, as I did with Rogue). Disney is probably going to set these up in a way that ensures that they'll never be horrendously bad, but will also not be all that innovative either.
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This is one of those movies that I was thoroughly entertained while watching, but isn't honestly all that great. It's fun basically the entire time, though, which is enough for me to recommend it. Don't go in expecting art, go in expecting a wild ride.
Special mention goes to the music for exactly one scene, where the Asteroid Field score from ESB plays, the best musical score in Star Wars where the bar for that at least is set incredibly high. Highlight of the movie for me.
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Special mention goes to the music for exactly one scene, where the Asteroid Field score from ESB plays, the best musical score in Star Wars where the bar for that at least is set incredibly high. Highlight of the movie for me.
Also that the Imperial March plays at the Imperial recruiting station :lol:
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So, since this is a spoiler thread, I won't bother to hide my observations and theories.
We know that at the end of Clone Wars, Maul was running his Shadow Syndicate off Mandalore, though having just lost his brother Savage Opress to Sidious. We don't know exactly why Sidious left Maul alive, what his plans for Maul were, but some back-story we've been provided with indicates that Ashoka Tano was recruited by the Jedi to lead an assault on Mandalore, where Maul was defeated and driven off Mandalore, opening the door for the Empire to seize control of the planet. Anyway, the next time we saw Maul was at the end of Star Wars Rebels season 2, alone on Malachore. So somehow, he retained control of his Shadow Syndicate, or at least part of it, and renamed it "Crimson Dawn", and then would later have it destroyed or pulled out from underneath him, and get marooned on Malachore. I know this is a bit of a stretch, but perhaps this is supposed to tie in with the upcoming Kenobi movie?
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So, since this is a spoiler thread, I won't bother to hide my observations and theories.
We know that at the end of Clone Wars, Maul was running his Shadow Syndicate off Mandalore, though having just lost his brother Savage Opress to Sidious. We don't know exactly why Sidious left Maul alive, what his plans for Maul were, but some back-story we've been provided with indicates that Ashoka Tano was recruited by the Jedi to lead an assault on Mandalore, where Maul was defeated and driven off Mandalore, opening the door for the Empire to seize control of the planet. Anyway, the next time we saw Maul was at the end of Star Wars Rebels season 2, alone on Malachore. So somehow, he retained control of his Shadow Syndicate, or at least part of it, and renamed it "Crimson Dawn", and then would later have it destroyed or pulled out from underneath him, and get marooned on Malachore. I know this is a bit of a stretch, but perhaps this is supposed to tie in with the upcoming Kenobi movie?
:wtf: Not versed enough in the lore to fully understand whether this is trolling or not.
Nevermind, just looked it up, and it's real. :blah:
Uh, yeah, it could be a tie in. I guess we'll see.
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I liked it overall, although not as much as Rogue One. The battles and action scenes are entertaining and they captured Han's cocky personality nicely. I liked Qian as well and she has more complex motivations than the typical Star Wars characters, she reminds me a bit of Kreia in KOTOR 2. Like Scotty said, it may not be particularly deep but it's fun.
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It fell short of expectations at the box office:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-44283427
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I'm just all Star Wars'd out. It could be great but I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking "I'll just check it on Netflix or something" I'm doing that a lot with superhero movies as well. Last one I saw in theaters was Wonder Woman. Waiting on the rest for DVD.
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I'm still invested in the Marvel characters. I eagerly anticipate whatever the next chapter is for them irregardless of how cool it's become to hate on superhero movies.
Star Wars, though? I'm not invested at all. I was open to being invested after VII. VIII killed that. Rogue One literally killed off all it's characters, even the good ones. #notmysolo I may give Solo a watch when it's on Netflix or something. Anything Donald Glover does is probably worth checking out at least once.
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Watched it on Netflix, and it was pretty decent!
I was skeptical about there being anything of value to be taken from Han's character since I figured his story arc was completed, but Solo does a very good job of establishing what led to Han being Han in the original series. There was always this disconnect that Han would be just join up with the rebellion in the original trilogy, and TLJ's DJ was a fantastic subversion of that. Solo does a good job of negotiating between those two extremes. Just because we know where Han ended up doesn't mean there isn't anything interesting to be had about how he got there. At the very least, Solo explores that gray area outside of the light/dark side, something that adds a lot of depth to the universe.
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I actually did watch it on Netflix, too. It was wildly middling. And of course if the nostalgia of Solo and Chewie isn't enough.. let's throw in some Darth Maul to bring you back for the next one. No one's ever really gone!
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I actually did watch it on Netflix, too. It was wildly middling. And of course if the nostalgia of Solo and Chewie isn't enough.. let's throw in some Darth Maul to bring you back for the next one. No one's ever really gone!
Darth Maul at that point had already been shown to have survived in the Clone Wars series. He is (very definitively) killed in Rebels.
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meh... doesn't matter. They could have used the opportunity to introduce some new villain. Instead they went right back to something that we've already seen. Doubly so since he was in Clone Wars and Rebels.
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meh... doesn't matter. They could have used the opportunity to introduce some new villain. Instead they went right back to something that we've already seen. Doubly so since he was in Clone Wars and Rebels.
You've already self-selected as "not the target audience", no wonder you didn't like what happened.
Mostly I'm just already irritated at having to hear "No one's ever really gone" as the new favorite mocking refrain.
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Eh... A 30s white male who grew up watching Star Wars is absolutely part of the target audience for these new movies. They just aren't very good. I'd like to see something new. It's an entire fictional galaxy... surely there's more villains out there.
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I'd like to see something new.
This is the part where you're not the target audience.
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I mean.. I guess... doesn't seem like the workings of good storywriting or a brand with longevity, to me. But to each their own I guess.
EDIT: I might also add that you seem to think that liking a film or being it's target audience is a requirement for discussing it. It's not. You may disagree with my viewpoint, but trying to shut me down by suggesting I have no right to have a viewpoint does not engage in meaningful discussion. If you don't like the "no one's ever really gone" phrase as a criticism, tell me why. Explain what you think is neat or interesting about it.
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This is the part where you're not the target audience.
Yo, no need to sound so provocative at mjn. Maybe choose to disagree politely? :blah:
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This is the part where you're not the target audience.
Yo, no need to sound so provocative at mjn. Maybe choose to disagree politely? :blah:
Not being part of the target audience of film makers that try to make you buy recycled stuff as new is not a bad thing IMO, it's more like a compliment.
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I'm a 37 year old white male. I thought solo was awful too. Cliché predictable events with unmemorable characters along with mediocre dialogue.
Also space kraken.
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I mean.. I guess... doesn't seem like the workings of good storywriting or a brand with longevity, to me. But to each their own I guess.
EDIT: I might also add that you seem to think that liking a film or being it's target audience is a requirement for discussing it. It's not. You may disagree with my viewpoint, but trying to shut me down by suggesting I have no right to have a viewpoint does not engage in meaningful discussion. If you don't like the "no one's ever really gone" phrase as a criticism, tell me why. Explain what you think is neat or interesting about it.
You've grossly misinterpreted my position; I don't actually like Solo that much. So far it's the only Star Wars movie I haven't rewatched at least twice.
You pointed out something that irked you about the movie, and capped it with (what I interpreted to be, based on the particular phrase used) the most recent refrain dragged out into the streets to serve as a dead horse to beat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNTLC_uiGFA). If you didn't intend it as the verbal equivalent of :rolleyes: then I'm sorry I misinterpreted.
Solo wasn't interested in doing anything new with Star Wars, especially not the version that actually ended up making it to theaters. If you were looking for something new, it wasn't the movie for you. I'm not surprised that you were disappointed.
"But they could have done better than X!"
Yeah. They didn't. :blah:
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I think the best thing about the Darth Maul reveal was when he turned on his light sabre for no in-universe reason simply because there was a good chance a fair portion of the audience wouldn't remember who the **** he was otherwise.
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I think the best thing about the Darth Maul reveal was when he turned on his light sabre for no in-universe reason simply because there was a good chance a fair portion of the audience wouldn't remember who the **** he was otherwise.
Was Darth Maul ever significant enough outside of the actual films for people to really care? I took the reveal as an acknowledgement that there is appeal to the dark side, about having real power that being good might not grant you. None of the other films really did anything to make the dark side seem appealing. The original trilogy sets the dark side as sort of a mystery box, with some implications that you become subservient to another. The prequel trilogy with Anakin makes it seem that the dark side doesn't really appeal to people, so much as it manipulates them emotionally and then essentially imprisons them. There are plenty of enough memes that mock Anakin. The new trilogy does almost nothing to expand on the lore of the dark side. Was I really supposed to even care that Rey was being offered to join the dark side? Even if she did, it would have come off as being rather irrational, as we aren't shown anything that makes joining the dark side appealing, turning that moment into something rather anti-climatic.
I can see why there's appeal for someone to work with the dark side in Solo. In the dog eat dog world, it's certainly better to be the one that eats. Is it original in terms of story telling? Not really, but it's a tried and true formula. We aren't given reasons why Qi'ra choose to work with the dark side, and we the audience are given that empty space to imagine why. It's not unreasonable to think that someone living on a crap planet with slavery might want something better in life, even if it ultimately means continuing the cycle of dog eat dog. This is the traditional path of organized crime afterall. She isn't a sociopath. She isn't another Dark Side henchman looking menacing and doing terrible things without any apparent motivation. So yeah, it's not particularly new in terms of storytelling, but it is new for Star Wars, which is a universe that really does need some fleshing out.
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Solo is a nice space adventure, it's the "less good" of the new movies but still a fun romp through the criminal underworld of the Star Wars Universe.
I think the best thing about the Darth Maul reveal was when he turned on his light sabre for no in-universe reason simply because there was a good chance a fair portion of the audience wouldn't remember who the **** he was otherwise.
He did it because he deduced that SHE had killed the other bad guy and wanted to make sure she knew that she would be biting more than she could chew if she attempted it with him. Remember that he didn't just turn his lighsaber, he summoned it with the Force.
I think the best thing about the Darth Maul reveal was when he turned on his light sabre for no in-universe reason simply because there was a good chance a fair portion of the audience wouldn't remember who the **** he was otherwise.
Was Darth Maul ever significant enough outside of the actual films for people to really care? I took the reveal as an acknowledgement that there is appeal to the dark side, about having real power that being good might not grant you. None of the other films really did anything to make the dark side seem appealing. The original trilogy sets the dark side as sort of a mystery box, with some implications that you become subservient to another. The prequel trilogy with Anakin makes it seem that the dark side doesn't really appeal to people, so much as it manipulates them emotionally and then essentially imprisons them. There are plenty of enough memes that mock Anakin. The new trilogy does almost nothing to expand on the lore of the dark side. Was I really supposed to even care that Rey was being offered to join the dark side? Even if she did, it would have come off as being rather irrational, as we aren't shown anything that makes joining the dark side appealing, turning that moment into something rather anti-climatic.
I can see why there's appeal for someone to work with the dark side in Solo. In the dog eat dog world, it's certainly better to be the one that eats. Is it original in terms of story telling? Not really, but it's a tried and true formula. We aren't given reasons why Qi'ra choose to work with the dark side, and we the audience are given that empty space to imagine why. It's not unreasonable to think that someone living on a crap planet with slavery might want something better in life, even if it ultimately means continuing the cycle of dog eat dog. This is the traditional path of organized crime afterall. She isn't a sociopath. She isn't another Dark Side henchman looking menacing and doing terrible things without any apparent motivation. So yeah, it's not particularly new in terms of storytelling, but it is new for Star Wars, which is a universe that really does need some fleshing out.
The dark side is supposed to be easier and addictive (after all it's easier to lash out than control yourself), I doubt Qi'ra knew she was working for a former Sith (which by the time the prequels happened were considered little more than a scary bedtime story since the Jedi tried to erase as much information on them as they could from history), hell the way I understood it it's just that she got entangled in organized crime exactly as many poor people happen to be and managed to go up the ranks and leaving organized crime in real life isn't easy.
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I think the best thing about the Darth Maul reveal was when he turned on his light sabre for no in-universe reason simply because there was a good chance a fair portion of the audience wouldn't remember who the **** he was otherwise.
He did it because he deduced that SHE had killed the other bad guy and wanted to make sure she knew that she would be biting more than she could chew if she attempted it with him. Remember that he didn't just turn his lighsaber, he summoned it with the Force.
Which basically the reason why there was no actual need to turn it on. If using the force isn't enough to scare her, the fact that he's got a big glowy sword isn't going to do much to change her mind. Especially if you know he's actually bad enough with it that he's gotten chopped in half at some point.
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I think the best thing about the Darth Maul reveal was when he turned on his light sabre for no in-universe reason simply because there was a good chance a fair portion of the audience wouldn't remember who the **** he was otherwise.
He did it because he deduced that SHE had killed the other bad guy and wanted to make sure she knew that she would be biting more than she could chew if she attempted it with him. Remember that he didn't just turn his lighsaber, he summoned it with the Force.
Which basically the reason why there was no actual need to turn it on. If using the force isn't enough to scare her, the fact that he's got a big glowy sword isn't going to do much to change her mind. Especially if you know he's actually bad enough with it that he's gotten chopped in half at some point.
It's a glowy RED sword which is the mark of the Sith and dark side users in general, other force users (Jedi or not) tend to have actual ethics. Hell the same fact he has a lightsaber is a mark since some unaffiliated force users are around anyway.
Also the possibility she knows why he has mechanical legs is VERY remote, the Jedi kept a lid on basically anything force-related that happened behind the scenes when it comes to the Naboo crisis, the Clone Wars and the like.
PS: also Darth Maul isn't bad at it, he just had a case of Dark Side induced arrogance, like old Palpy and Snoke.
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Cause the force using head of a criminal cartel who wasn't a Sith would be worried about having a red sword?
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Cause the force using head of a criminal cartel who wasn't a Sith would be worried about having a red sword?
Red swords are kind of a necessity for a dark side users because kyber crystals in their natural state reject them, the red blade is a sign that the crystal has been literally tortured into submission, light force users can purify the crystals thus corrupted if necessary so if a force user has a red lightsaber there is a 99% probability they are bad news.
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The extended universe was a mistake.
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The extended universe was a mistake.
'twas bound to happen, at least this time is somewhat coherent.
And yes, the overrelliance of Solo on bits and bobs of the EU is technically a mistake, but personally I don't care because I am that much of a Star Wars nerd so I was never really disoriented as many seemed to be.
PS: I really like the new explanation for the red lightsabers and why only force users use them, the old canon didn't really have any barrier that barred any random engineer to build one, you'd think that in thirty years of Legends canon they would have at least thought of something but nope, particularly bewildering considering the old EU had multiple contraddictory explanations for a lot of marginal stuff.
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If you're going to drag in the EU to prove your points, I'm out. I couldn't give a toss for any of that wank.
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He's dismissing EU as far as I can tell?
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The extended universe was a mistake.
'twas bound to happen, at least this time is somewhat coherent.
"Torturing" a crystal is not what I'd call coherent.
I stand by my statement, in the much broader form in which I made it: The extended universe was a mistake. I'm less concerned with Solo importing elements from the EU to try to make something of them than I am with the EU just being a bottomless well of ridiculous nonsense. Disney dismissing the EU as non-canon was the best option they had for it.
I really like the new explanation for the red lightsabers and why only force users use them, the old canon didn't really have any barrier that barred any random engineer to build one...
Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best. For example, without the force-enhanced reflexes necessary to put your lightsaber in the path of incoming shots, maybe it doesn't make sense to bring a sword to a gun fight.
No, it totally makes more sense that you need to torture a rock.
And just to add some context here, I'm basically onboard with Star Wars as space-fantasy and the force as magic. I don't look for tons of external consistency between Star Wars and reality, nor do I feel that elements of the franchise always benefit from having a detailed explanation of their mechanics *cough* medichlorians *cough*. I just think that there's a really simple, obvious reason for randos not to favor lightsabers over blasters the way force-users do.
Torturing a crystal.... :rolleyes: :nono:
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He's dismissing EU as far as I can tell?
That stuff about torturing crystals sure as hell doesn't come from one of the films. So unless it's from one of the ridiculous number of Star Wars shows, where is it from?
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Motherflarken
I like the EU as in Dash and Kyle. Maybe a bit of Unleashed too ;)
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Well, you can go torture your crystals on your own time. Just leave me out of it. :P
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Well, in-universe the process is called "bleeding" and IIRC it seems to be the reason the crystal in Kylo Ren's saber is cracked forcing him to use the old-fashioned vents, he just poured a bit too much of his own negative emotions into it during the process.
If you're going to drag in the EU to prove your points, I'm out. I couldn't give a toss for any of that wank.
Never said that the movie relying so much on EU stuff wasn't a mistake but it's not one that destroys the movie for me.
Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best. For example, without the force-enhanced reflexes necessary to put your lightsaber in the path of incoming shots, maybe it doesn't make sense to bring a sword to a gun fight.
No, it totally makes more sense that you need to torture a rock.
And just to add some context here, I'm basically onboard with Star Wars as space-fantasy and the force as magic. I don't look for tons of external consistency between Star Wars and reality, nor do I feel that elements of the franchise always benefit from having a detailed explanation of their mechanics *cough* medichlorians *cough*. I just think that there's a really simple, obvious reason for randos not to favor lightsabers over blasters the way force-users do.
Torturing a crystal.... :rolleyes: :nono:
Lightsabers can also cut into blast doors and AT-AT armor (as shown in the movies, think of the reaction the Neimodians had in episode I, normal portable weapons aren't supposed to cut into a blast door), don't you think that even if not used for fighting most non force users would like to have one? I mean, you don't need to use the force to cut a blast door like it was a tauntaun's belly.
In the old EU kyber crystals could be synthetized, yet only Jedi and Sith used them for *reasons*.
Also one moment the green crystal Luke used was synthetic, the other moment only Sith used synthetic crystals because all synthetized crystals were red apparently.
The new EU clarifies that Kyber crystals are rare (most of them no bigger than a fingernail) and living (albeit not sentient) emanations of the force itself, every attempt to make artificial ones failed (Jyn Erso's dad tried and failed countless times before working on the Death Star) and that you need a force user to make sure it behaves or a wildly complicated system that's too big to lug around easily and works well enough only with rarer bigger specimens (hint: the Death Star used that system, invented by Jyn Erso's dad, the empire tore up entire planets to get enough big kyber crystals to make the thing, the second Death Star reuses mostly crystals recovered from the first one's remains).
What the kyber crystals do is basically amplify the energy put into them by magic (well, "through the Force" if you prefer), but a "wild" kyber without said complicated system or a force user may randomly output nothing or blow up the amplified energy in your face (what happened to one of the first Death Star superlaser prototypes in the novel Catalyst leveling down a nearby small city).
Kyber crystals are also used to make the famous Jedi and Sith Holocrons.
He's dismissing EU as far as I can tell?
That stuff about torturing crystals sure as hell doesn't come from one of the films. So unless it's from one of the ridiculous number of Star Wars shows, where is it from?
There are only three canonical animated series, The Clone Wars, Rebels and Resistance.
The concept of bleeding was anticipated by Pablo Hidalgo but is first explicitly mentioned in the second Darth Vader Marvel comics series. The purification part comes from the novel Ahsoka, while the concept of kybers being natural and connected to the force comes indeed from the cartoon The Clone Wars and was made at Lucas' request apparently at the time the old EU canon was entirely different and he notoriously used that cartoon to retcon all the EU stuff he didn't like.