posted
I think I lost all interest in Boba Fett when Lucas revealed that Baby Fett is a clone of some other bounty hunter who I guess is supposed to be pretty awesome but (a) doesn't actually do much awesome stuff and (b) gets killed off pretty quickly and unceremoniously at the end of the movie.
And then I realized that Boba really is just like Jango—we're supposed to think he's pretty awesome, but what does he actually do that's so awesome? He's got a flamethrower and a jetpack, I guess, but we never see why he's got such a great reputation, and then someone bumps his jetpack and he flies into the sarlacc pit and dies. Apparently the most fearsome bounty hunters in the galaxy are pretty easy to take out.
Putting Jango in the prequels was obviously fan service for all the Fett lovers, but it just serves to highlight what underwhelming characters they both are.
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posted
If one were to just watch the extended universe stuff that's supposed to be paired with the movies, you would note, oddly, that many of the characters who are super awesome in the extended universe are just dumb and stupid in the movies.
Watch Clone Wars and it's like Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, et. al are walking gods. Watch Attack of the Clones and the jedi are dopes who file into the middle of a gladiatorial pit to be surrounded and picked off helplessly.
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posted
Or when they go to arrest the chancellor and two Jedi masters—some of the most Force-adept beings in the galaxy—stand there stupefied while a dark lord of the Sith flies through the air, pauses for, like, a full second, and then casually runs two of them through.
So back to the question of rebooting the originals—you said no. Was that a "no, that would be a terrible idea" or a "no, Lucas wrote some clause into the sale that it would never happen"? Because, given the popularity of reboots right now, I kind of think Disney would be stupid not to do it at some point. And just think—you could write a prequel trilogy that didn't suck.
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posted
Yeah. It's just that the movies are so poorly written and the plot is such a cobbled hodgepodge that whether or not Lucas intended it, he wrote the Jedi as blithering idiots. Only Lucas could make lightsabers seem lame and pointless, and by gum, he did it.
The prequels were also supposed to be a character study focused on Anakin, but absolutely awful dialogue just makes him seem like a damn clown.
At least padme was softer than sand huh annie
HOWEVER I have written up an excellent what-could-have-been for how Palpatine's confrontation could have been awesome for the reasons it was lame.
quote:Because, given the popularity of reboots right now, I kind of think Disney would be stupid not to do it at some point. And just think—you could write a prequel trilogy that didn't suck.
Rebooting the original trilogy would be a hideous mistake. Disney would totally be stupid to do it anytime close to now.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: HOWEVER I have written up an excellent what-could-have-been for how Palpatine's confrontation could have been awesome for the reasons it was lame.
I would like to read this.
quote:Rebooting the original trilogy would be a hideous mistake. Disney would totally be stupid to do it anytime close to now.
I agree that doing it anytime soon would be terrible. But wait until several years after the last of the sequels and spinoffs have been made, and I wouldn't be surprised if they start thinking seriously about it.
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there are a few things you have to understand about the force.
the first is its general overarching definition: the force is a metaphysical element of the universe, observable in a wide variety of mystical forms at various locations, that can be (to some limited extent) harnessed and controlled by individuals with a sensitivity to it. To some very sensitive sapients, this had the effect of providing them enhanced mental and physical capacities, a wide variety of precognition and divination that slowly became ingrained into their means of sensing the world around them, as well as the ability to physically influence their surroundings and the minds of others. force users quickly become superior to non force users and eventually can become unsurpassed healers, sages, tacticians, leaders, and — most notably — combatants.
the second thing to understand about the force is that its most subtle but most important power is that of precognition; a sufficiently talented force user is viewing the future, instinctively, at all times, along a fractal pattern of potential outcomes that they discern on an intuitive level. they essentially have the spidey sense to end all spidey senses (or, and this is the prevailing theory, peter parker was force sensitive) wherein, to the chagrin of those trying to put them in terminal danger, they are always naturally and casually steering their actions around an avoidance of terminal danger. usually they are not conspicuously aware of the fact that they are doing so; they are just habitually avoiding 'bad end' choices they can subtly infer from their capacity to view various possible futures.
this is why it's so. hard. to assassinate a trained force user. you could line up a shot perfectly down an alleyway you pretty much know they're going to go down, and there could be dozens of moments where the force user intuits away from the ambush. a very powerful master could know about it when they wake up in the morning, intuiting the assassination attempt, the person behind it, how to best confront them. move down the ranks, and your average force user might not get an intuition in advance, could even walk down the alleyway into your crosshairs, but will begin to have immediate and obviously alerting precognition about all the immediate futures they have to avoid. They will know they have to dodge ... something, even if they're not sure exactly what...
combat between two force users is something of a fractal game of forcing the other combatant rapidly through a number of do-or-die moments and attempting to overwhelm their ability to respond quickly enough to avoid the bad ends. some combination of combat skill used in up-close-and-personal fighting, mixed with overall talent in the force (and the powers of precognition it provides you,) means that you're playing a game of speed chess between two psychics and hoping to overwhelm your opponent's ability to know where the next fatal blow would have come from, by simply forcing them to have to think too quick and track too many paths into the future, above the limits of their capacity and understanding of the Force.
Unsurprisingly, among force users of generally similar skill especially, combat ends obnoxiously frequently in draws or ambiguous partial-victory outcomes.
third: the force is a giant curse. force sensitivity is perilous to possess. force users basically have to stay on a fairly straight and narrow course of introspection and meditation and self-control, because a force user who engages in otherwise innocuous vices or experience of passions and otherwise normal emotions seems to edge towards blowing out in a very interestingly reliable way and become a complete psychopath. is it because of some way that the force lets you view things? is it that simple deterministic outcomes of self-interest explode fractally and if you start seeing the universe even gradually in terms of self interest it breaks you down into being a wholly amoral, narcissistic asshole? Unknown, but you basically have to be very meditative and altruistic (or something) to avoid this fate. As a result, most force users begin to slide along one side of the continuum between light and dark, and at a certain threshold they've effectively been forced to one result or the other. Shifts can be dramatic and sudden and unpredictable, with people on both sides inherently predisposed and inclined to try to sway people from their opposing side. It's diametric opposition, with so few people not eventually finding a side, or being forced to one.
this has had the result of an almost unending history of war. war between light and dark. constant war. wars across stars. some kind of .. star wars.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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HOW THE PALPATINE FIGHT COULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME IF THE MOVIES HAD BEEN COMPETENTLY DESIGNED OR WRITTEN TO EVEN THE VAGUEST EXTENT
so, we've established that force users, especially those with real training in force arts, are pretty much impossible to gank after a certain point of force competence. They'll always sense when they're about to come under attack, at least. Line up a shot behind them as they're walking to get their force groceries or whatever and they'll immediately get a sour precognition and pull a Zatoichi on you (other prevailing theory: zatoichi was force sensitive ohhh) in the blink of an eye.
Blahblah everything has to turn into a lightsaber fight and lots of jumping around. Always pretty hard to get to the end of a fight. You know how it is. Jedi are just really not ever oneshot, never punked. You don't punk a psychic.
So, if the movies had consciously and conspicuously SHOWN this, perhaps even had some expository moments laying this out for the audience, and had NOT made the jedi seem dumb and useless and moronic, we would have had the established metric of their capacity well before we come to the scene of palpatine's confrontation.
Palpatine would have, prior to this moment, always been depicted as doddering and forgetful and just a warm, kind old man. Perhaps he would fumble with drink cups from time to time, walk with a limp and get winded easily and just look and feel frail (essentially, pulling a Yoda). Just little moments to kind of assert this sense of him as, if corrupt, not powerful. a doddering schemer at worst.
The Jedi march into his office on Coruscant. Do the whole drill. "You are under arrest, Chancellor." concludes Mace Windu.
Palpatine shakes his head, incredulously, almost as if in shock, fumbles a bit more, perhaps even drops his pen (or other prop, whatever). "I .. I ... what is the meaning of this, Master Jedi?" He looks genuinely worried. He stands up from his desk but almost seems to be shrinking into himself from worry and confusion. "Surely you can't think .."
Mace Windu begins to authoritatively provide the justification for his arrest and the charges involved. He doesn't intend to waste too much time with this, but he feels the need to be thorough in such a dramatic political action. The camera angle is entirely on Windu's head, as he dispassionately begins to explain. But he's cut off mid sentence. Simultaneous to the sound of an igniting lightsaber, the camera cuts away to Palpatine having darted forward in an unnatural flash and drives his lightsaber clean through Master Kolar.
Kolar had just only barely even moved. He had reflexively reached for his own saber, but was interrupted and skewered midway through. The lightsaber simply falls out of his hand mid-draw and lands on the floor with a heavy thud.
Kolar's face is shown. He doesn't have an expression of pain, or fear, or even shock. Just ... genuine confusion. He had perceived nothing. He had not even had the slightest prick of precognition. No sense of danger whatsoever. This is a Jedi Master. A man who could stand up to an army with his force powers. A man who can see three attempts on his life before breakfast, and he just got one-shot. He looks up from the hilt of the blade in his gut, in that moment before the life would have drained from him, and locks eyes with Chancellor Palpatine, whose face has transformed from kindly doddering old man to a fierce half-grin half-grimace, a sort of wholly evil and animalistic thing that looks like he's about to break his own teeth from grinning so hard. In the last moment, he sees.
"How .." he starts to say, before the saber is brutally burnt straight out of the side of his chest and through the midriff of Master Tiin, who has been frozen in doubt and confusion as well. Tiin is also a Master. Tiin is frozen with this confusion. He who has seen life through the Force since he could walk, paralyzed momentarily with a lack of understanding over the fact that he saw no future in which Kolar has been slain in front of him. No future in which there was to be a fight today. Both of them come to the realization of what's just transpired .. a true understanding of Palpatine's power, too late.
The idea that Palpatine has such powers of deception, such power to cloud the minds of Jedi, is astounding. He just one-shot them both. Mace and Fisto raise their guard just barely in time, as Palpatine engages in an unearthly acrobatic leap at them, assaulting them without pause, engaging them in a merciless close-quarters blitzkreig. Palpatine actually jumps off the floor and then uses one foot to propel himself savagely off of the still-falling body of Kolar in order to hurl himself at the remaining Jedi.
This is where the movie immediately takes a seriously dark and dramatic turn and never relents.
posted
I liked it except for the parts where he is a ninja.
I don't get why the old frail wise masters all have to be ninjas.
The best fight scene in any of the six movies is when Yoda walks into Palpatine's chamber, and the two fancy red-cloak dudes start to menace him. He just sorta gives them this look, and the slightest gesture, and they're smashed against the wall.
That's how high level Jedi should fight. That's basically how Vader and Palpatine both fight Luke at times, just with much weaker and slower special effects.
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I would not have had Yoda be a ninja. I would have actually just deleted the yoda fight scenes from existence.
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Yeah, it would be nice to see someone like Yoda (Mr. "wars not make one great") transcend the need for a lightsaber duel. You only get little hints of that, like when Palpatine attacks him with lightning and he absorbs it and shoots it back. But then it goes right back to ridiculous ninja acrobatics.
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But that begs the question. What *does* somebody like Yoda do against a lightsaber wielding foe who is trying to end him?
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I'm not talking about going on the offense. What do our Sith and Jedi opponents do to each other in a battle involving the force if we cut out lightsabers for being tacky, and lightning for being useless?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I'm not talking about going on the offense. What do our Sith and Jedi opponents do to each other in a battle involving the force if we cut out lightsabers for being tacky, and lightning for being useless?
you mean how would i write it? or how, canonically, would this be handled?
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posted
Yoda would start talking in double negatives and shoot his opponent with a blaster while he was trying to parse it.
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Who said lightning was useless? Maybe it was only useless against Yoda (for the most part) because he was just that good. It seems pretty effective for the most part.
Also, I wonder how much of the philosophy that Yoda espouses in the originals are things that he learned during his exile, because he really doesn't seem to follow his own advice in the prequels.
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posted
What is Wedge Antilles's childhood nickname? Who gave it to him? What are his wife, daughters, and nephew's names? Who is his best friend (this one might be a trick question)? Who was his first girlfriend?
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You would have to give specifics of the encounter and why a sith is attacking without either. In general, though, there's a multitude of ways you could handle a conflict between a Master and a Lord of sufficient power* that involves neither lightsaber nor lightning. The most important question is, why is the Sith there? Where are they being received? Does the Sith intend to fight?
In the case of how I'd rewrite the Prequels: Yoda is uninterested in the physical ninja jumpflip saber fighting. We know that by ROTJ, Palpatine is similarly uninterested. Holds the same silent, patient aura of power. But he's not there yet. This is the Clone Wars era, and we want to convey that, even if it's not always necessarily clear or displayed outwardly to the audience, Yoda is the one entity that Palpatine really truly fears. The one person really keeping Palpatine's plan in waiting. Palpatine knows he has to get Yoda out of the way, even if he hasn't quite figured out how yet. If he can just handle a way to keep Yoda out of the picture, if even just for a week, the rest of his plan will fall into place.
*of course, in the prequels, lucas mainly just devolved to them throwing slow moving CGI rocks or pillars at each other, with those rocks or pillars possessing power equivalent to plot requirements
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Also, I wonder how much of the philosophy that Yoda espouses in the originals are things that he learned during his exile, because he really doesn't seem to follow his own advice in the prequels.
Obi-Wan doesn't even follow his own advice in the prequels that he gave during the prequels. Neither does Yoda. Characters are written flat and inconsistent throughout. Occasionally, Lucas tries to compensate for that with a blatant bout of Tell-Don't-Show, implying character development offscreen. And the movies aren't even consistent with the implied offscreen development.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: What do you think of David Brin's criticism of Yoda?
Brin is a weirdo. There are a trillion legitimate criticisms of the Jedi and the Republic just lying around everywhere that he could have practically just tripped over by accident and yet he comes up with a dumb and mostly invalid set of them instead, that just miss the mark with epic aplomb. Come on. Criticizing the Clone Wars story (and the role of the Jedi and Republic therein) would be like shooting fish in a barrel, and he misses, with extra hubris. He waxes on and on about how Lucas was setting up the Jedi as demigod rulers, despite the fact that a. the Jedi contrast themselves against the Sith by conspicuously refusing to rule and this is so blatantly and obviously set up that I don't know how he missed it, and b. they weren't even demigods in the movies, just a bunch of stuffed-up somewhat impressive wizards with extremely bad tactics who die by the truckload to general-issue droids, and get had so hard and so obviously that they jump around fighting wars for the person who planned the wars specifically to kill them all and aggregate command of the entire republic into his hands.
No seriously there were a score of reasons why his article was really dumb. I could go on for hours. He seems to be confused about who actually blew up Alderaan, too. Or what Yoda was actually saying re: how things work for force sensitives. If you are going to criticize something that's really easy to criticize don't get it wrong you doofus.
He needs to sit his ass down, watch the Plinkett reviews of the prequels so he can get a clue about where to actually start with criticism of Star Wars' mythos, then play KOTOR 2 to figure out that this criticism already exists and it is an important part of the past of the Jedi, then say a dozen hail maries to beseech forgiveness and then get the hell out of my confessional.
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posted
I started reading Brin's Salon article and gave up after the first bullet list of complaints, most of which don't bear any resemblance to the movies. Then I tried reading a post on his blog but couldn't get past the fact that he signs his posts "By David Brin, Ph.D."
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quote:Originally posted by millernumber1: What is Wedge Antilles's childhood nickname? Who gave it to him? What are his wife, daughters, and nephew's names? Who is his best friend (this one might be a trick question)? Who was his first girlfriend?
ughhhhhhhhhh
- veggies - Mirax Terrik Horn did - Iella, Syal and Myri, Jagged Fel - Tycho Celchu - Mala Tinero
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I started reading Brin's Salon article and gave up after the first bullet list of complaints, most of which don't bear any resemblance to the movies. Then I tried reading a post on his blog but couldn't get past the fact that he signs his posts "By David Brin, Ph.D."
People who sign their own posts are unironically the worst (i suppose i can give hobbes a pass)
even worse are people who sign their posts with their forum account's signature THEN ALSO sign each individual post at the end.
By Sam Primary, Ph.D.
________________________________________ By Sam Primary, Ph. D.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
If this forum had a like button I would have totally clicked it
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Why midichlorians?
Because Lucas had become a dumb hacky writer and threw the midichlorians in as a easy-mode, crutchy way to exposit Anakin's significant inborn power/potential as a number on a device that Qui Gon could explain to a child (the audience is also the child). Whoa! Anakin has more of the midiwhatsits. Over nine thousand midiwhatsits! That's a lot of midiwhatsits. The boy is special. Did you catch that, audience? Pandering!
It was, in his fashion, something which significantly undermined greater mythos and metaphysics for the star wars universe just to punt his way through a plot point about Anakin.
Since I know for a fact that midichlorians will be consequently handwaved away forever now because they were so bad and created a ton of plot holes, the new explanation is that Qui-Gon was becoming a bit of a weird old man and had started to fall in with some unorthodox fringe beliefs, like your crazy Scientology-dabbling uncle and his various emails to you about the dangers of fluoride and health benefits of omega tryptophans or eating placentas or whatever.
So he got really invested in this alt-bio Midichlorian Hypothesis and was totally sold on it and was talking it up excitedly to Anakin but most everyone else was either rolling their eyes at ol' quigon or just humoring the dude. Meanwhile, back at the jedi temple yoda was like 'quigon, talk about this midichlorian shite we must' and qui-gon was all like 'look, it's really true. I loaned you a copy of Jedinetics, right? Chapter four detailes how an orgone meter can reveal subtle pulses of quantum emotional power that' and yoda was all like 'up shall the hell be shut' and it just goes on from there.
quote:Originally posted by millernumber1: What is Wedge Antilles's childhood nickname? Who gave it to him? What are his wife, daughters, and nephew's names? Who is his best friend (this one might be a trick question)? Who was his first girlfriend?
ughhhhhhhhhh
- veggies - Mirax Terrik Horn did - Iella, Syal and Myri, Jagged Fel - Tycho Celchu - Mala Tinero
Not sure why the ughhhhhhhhh, but you have quite impressed me. Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
wedge antilles is a perfect example of the complete and total inbred continuity porn that the Extended Universe drowned itself in.
Antilles was an even vaguely noteworthy presence in the movies, which GUARANTEED that like any other even-remote-split-second-character-presence in the movies, no matter how otherwise non-noteworthy, they would be written into a skillion books and comics and be central to a million billion pulp adventures forever always.
It's been a guaranteed constant of the EU.
The droid that Luke initially purchased from the Jawas that then subsequently bust a motivater, leading Luke to then take R2-D2 instead? He was on screen for a few seconds! SO now compliments of the EU, he is Skippy, the Force Sensitive Droid, who has his own adventure because Boba Fett bumped into him while he was serving drinks at Jabba's palace, but he saved the drink with the force and realized he could be the first droid Jedi! And he force persuaded the gammorean guards to let him go, and he got captured by Jawas, then saw that Luke had the force, got selected by Luke, but then saw through the force that if Luke didn't take R2, the Rebellion would fail and Leia would die, so he committed droid suicide after force persuading Luke to take R2, and none were the wiser as to how this droid had actually just saved the rebellion with the force i am not making any of this up.
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quote:Originally posted by millernumber1: What is Wedge Antilles's childhood nickname? Who gave it to him? What are his wife, daughters, and nephew's names? Who is his best friend (this one might be a trick question)? Who was his first girlfriend?
ughhhhhhhhhh
- veggies - Mirax Terrik Horn did - Iella, Syal and Myri, Jagged Fel - Tycho Celchu - Mala Tinero
Not sure why the ughhhhhhhhh, but you have quite impressed me.
I had to search, and I was rediculously surprised to find that this is real and not just made up.
By the gods. The expanded universe DID get ridiculously pedantic, didn't it.
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posted
Rank the following, in their primes, in relative force power:
Luke Skywalker Anakin Skywalker Yoda Emperor Palpatine Count Dooku Darth Maul Darth Revan Exar Kun Darth Malak Darth Malgus Mace Windu Obi-Wan Kenobi Mara Jade Jacen Solo Jaina Solo Bastilla Shan Satele Shan
Also feel free to add notable others not included, and any explanations or justifications.
Bonus: Which would you pick as your entry in a 1v1 lightsaber tournament?
I'm sure this is a cliche question in Star Wars fandom, but I've never bothered to seek out and read any debates on the subject, so I only have my own impressions to go on currently.
quote:I mean, if you're going to put Exar Kun up there.
Yeah I put the ones that came to mind from my experiences with the EU, which is mostly the KOTOR games and a handful of the novels. Exar Kun is mentioned a few times in the games I've played. But as I have no idea who those people you listed are, I don't really have a huge interest in knowing how powerful they are .
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quote:I mean, if you're going to put Exar Kun up there.
Yeah I put the ones that came to mind from my experiences with the EU, which is mostly the KOTOR games and a handful of the novels. Exar Kun is mentioned a few times in the games I've played. But as I have no idea who those people you listed are, I don't really have a huge interest in knowing how powerful they are .
They're from some comics that were supposed to take place thousands of years before ANH, and were in my Guide To Characters from the 90s.
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Why do the bad guys always demand (or accept for that matter) the surrender of the good guys the second they have the advantage instead of just leaving them smoking corpses (otherwise known as Bond villain syndrome).
If storm trooper armor can't stop a blaster bolt or even chipped flint spears wielded by angry teddy bears, why bother wearing it at all?
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posted
Also...why did blowing up the death star win the battle for the rebels when there was still a fleet of star destroyers orbiting Endor?
And when Whatto told Qyi Gon he wouldn't take republic credits why didn't he walk ten steps to the next guy and use his Jedi mind trick for a simple currency exchange, then walk ten steps back to the flying Jew pig/elephant and buy the part?
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