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SW - Star Wars

Moe_Syzlak

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I agree with you that Canto Bight as an idea isn’t bad. But the whole side quest didn’t flow with the movie and, as you said, it’s poorly executed. Canto Bight as a scene is similar to he entire PT for me; it’s not bad in concept but utterly fails in execution. But that’s just my reaction. If others like it, I’m fine with that. And I certainly don’t agree with those that argue it’s issues are agenda driven.
 

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80619993_10158716925105752_5169238117080629248_n.jpg
 

Siliconmaster

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The best part is, some of those are legitimate flaws with RotJ and are the reason it isn't as good as ANH or Empire. However, good point that some of the minutia debating is what makes the community so ornery.
 

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Finn, Kylo, Poe, Rey, & Rose in a bisexual polyamorous romance.

That's how I'd subvert expectations, mothercrushers.
 

Duragizer

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Siliconmaster said:
The best part is, some of those are legitimate flaws with RotJ and are the reason it isn't as good as ANH or Empire.

Nah, not some. Most.
 

matrixgrindhouse

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Okay, so I've been thinking.  Why would Han and Leia name their son after Ben Kenobi if they knew his real name was Obi-Wan?  Why honor his sacrifice by using his alias, rather than his true name?  Because Ben Solo isn't named after Ben Kenobi.  He's named after  Ben Quadinaros .  Pod Racing is in Leia's blood, after all...
 

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matrixgrindhouse said:
Okay, so I've been thinking.  Why would Han and Leia name their son after Ben Kenobi if they knew his real name was Obi-Wan?  Why honor his sacrifice by using his alias, rather than his true name?  Because Ben Solo isn't named after Ben Kenobi.  He's named after  Ben Quadinaros .  Pod Racing is in Leia's blood, after all...

This is the greatest post on this site.
 

TM2YC

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matrixgrindhouse said:
Okay, so I've been thinking.  Why would Han and Leia name their son after Ben Kenobi if they knew his real name was Obi-Wan?  Why honor his sacrifice by using his alias, rather than his true name?

I've made this point before but 'Ben' is his real name, "Obi-Wan" is an alias, rank, nickname, or honorific of some sort that was never explained, like Phil "The Power" Taylor :D . Or maybe the Jedi equivalent of "sensei"? Screen-grabs of all three OT credits:

22214846218_21371c05da.jpg


At least it was until sometime between 1983 and 1999 when Lucas forgot.

8d3a4290973ef294b8dc1ff1d3321a71.jpg




447b786d405b285148ca692d4cab25c6.jpg


fa322a1c61763ba31fbb4a1d4903fa99.jpg
 

Jrzag42

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So he goes into hiding, and...uses his real name?
Changing his first name and not his last name was bad enough. Not only did he not change his last name, but he started going by his real first name that is most likely on more records than his more common name?
That's such a George Lucas concept :)
 

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I'm glad I went back and read your full post, because from just people quoting part of it i thought you were being serious and was rolling my eyes so hard it hurt :)


Without clicking the link, I'm assuming that is linking to the auralnauts clip? If so, excellent taste
 

matrixgrindhouse

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Possessed said:
I'm glad I went back and read your full post, because from just people quoting part of it i thought you were being serious and was rolling my eyes so hard it hurt :)


Without clicking the link, I'm assuming that is linking to the auralnauts clip? If so, excellent taste


I'm not sure if I know what being serious is anymore.  But yeah, the Auralnauts are just wonderful.  Besides just being generally funny and well-executed all around, I love the way they establish better continuity than the real movies.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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I just came across this, which perfectly sums up my feelings about why I don’t feel Luke has been mischaracterized in the ST. The ST certainly has its faults, but for me the characterizations of the OT protagonists isn’t one of them. This was written by someone named Dane Corle to give proper credit, but the site is not allowing direct linking:

I think people tend to misremember or mischaracterize Luke in the OT, which is partially the result of Star Wars being a childhood fixture for so many fans.

It’s kind of the same with Han Solo; People complain that Rey’s a better mechanic than him when it comes to fixing the Falcon, but they also forget that Han was never portrayed as being a competent mechanic in the OT.

Anyway, the accusation is that Luke is out of character in TLJ because his moment of instinct where he draws a lightsaber on his nephew makes no sense for someone optimistic enough to see goodness in Darth Vader, but that’s not really what happens in Return of the Jedi.

Anakin Skywalker (or more precisely, the idea of Anakin Skywalker) was always Luke’s source of inspiration. It was the thing that Luke always measured himself against, the reason he wanted to be a great pilot and a great Jedi. It’s the thing that Luke’s whole sense of identity is centered around. That is, ultimately, precisely why he reacts to the revelation that Vader is his father with such abject horror.

Luke in Return of the Jedi isn’t a paragon of optimism who always sees the light in the darkest of places; That was never his character in the first two movies and there’s really no reason the trauma he experiences in Empire Strikes Back should suddenly make him into that character. He’s not acting on some unshakable faith that Vader is redeemable. He needs Vader to be redeemable.

Because if he isn’t, if the father that inspired Luke to become the man that he is can truly be the most evil, irredeemable man in the galaxy… then what does that say about Luke?

What is Darth Vader if not a specter of what Luke is destined to become?

It’s a persistent character through-line, established in Episode V and carried all the way to it’s natural conclusion at the end of Episode VI. Luke is ultimately just a scared 23-year-old kid desperately searching for vindication and validation, hoping that his whole worldview and his entire perception of himself won’t come crashing down. THAT (in my personal and completely worthless opinion) is the real crux at the foundation of the duel between Luke and Vader in Episode VI. On the surface it’s all about Luke’s need to redeem his father, but underneath it all it’s driven by a need for Luke to maintain his own sense of identity and set his world right again. It’s just as much for his own sake as it is Vader’s, perhaps even more so.

His relationship with Ben Solo is different. Luke isn’t a kid anymore in TLJ. He’s an old man weathered by decades of hard living who’s become the new master of the Jedi Order, and thus has inherited the burden of all masters; The burden of responsibility for the actions of his apprentice.

George Lucas has stated before that he considers Anakin and Vader to effectively be two different people, and I think that’s an interpretation that the characters of the franchise adhere to as well, namely Obi-Wan and Luke. From Luke’s perspective Anakin was the “father” he wanted to emulate and Vader was the “monster” that he feared he would become. As an old man he’s no longer afraid of becoming that monster. He’s afraid of creating it.




Back to my own thoughts. It seems to me that the EU is probably responsible for a lot of fans’ feelings about the OT characters. I’ve only read the original Thrawn trilogy and I really didn’t like it. It seems to me that the EU is largely comprised of Luke et al just going on further adventures without any sort of real arcs or character development. That’s never what I wanted from the story hence my disappointment. But perhaps that is what most fans wanted, which is of course fine. I’m also sure that many will vehemently disagree with the above post about Luke’s character, which is also fine. I think we get into trouble when we start insisting that our way of viewing the story is the right way.
 

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Moe_Syzlak said:
Back to my own thoughts. It seems to me that the EU is probably responsible for a lot of fans’ feelings about the OT characters. I’ve only read the original Thrawn trilogy and I really didn’t like it. It seems to me that the EU is largely comprised of Luke et al just going on further adventures without any sort of real arcs or character development. That’s never what I wanted from the story hence my disappointment. But perhaps that is what most fans wanted, which is of course fine. I’m also sure that many will vehemently disagree with the above post about Luke’s character, which is also fine. I think we get into trouble when we start insisting that our way of viewing the story is the right way.

Big EU reader here.

First of all, love your post, and agree with it wholeheartedly.

Secondly, I would argue that the EU approached things differently, and in a way that worked for books and not necessarily movies.

Classic EU treated Luke, Leia, and Han as static characters against the moving background of the Star Wars galaxy. I can't say I understand you not liking the Thrawn Trilogy (one of the best!) but I certainly agree you don't get as many character arcs with the Big Three Characters. If you did, other books would struggle to figure out where to fit into that arc, especially since a lot of the books were written out of order. The fun is watching them interact with new characters who do have very good arcs. Mara Jade from the Thrawn Trilogy is one of the best examples: a new, changing character, interacting with the static foil of Luke Skywalker. I might even be so bold as to make a comparison with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The focus is not in how the primary characters change (they don't), but how they interact with and change their environment. The main difference here is that instead of philosophy we're getting different adventure stories. By design, any arcs have to be contained within their books, or their book trilogies, because any large change would disrupt the environment and prevent further books in the same vein. But overall, in the long run, we root for Luke's ambitions with the new Jedi Academy (and likewise Leia's political machinations and Han's ongoing Han-ness), and it is his accomplishments that form his arc, rather than a true broad character shift.

Side note: The New Jedi Order series turns a lot of this on its head, because suddenly there are 19 books functioning as an ecosystem where characters, especially the Big Three, have room to grow and develop for the first time in decades. They cram more character arcs into that series than in the entire early EU. Entertainingly enough, the classic EU crashed and burned when suddenly their static characters exited the NJO as different people, and the writers tried to keep going as they always had. But guess what, now it's broken and you can't just go back to things as normal. They should have just ended it at the end of NJO and called it a day. Thanos is dead, everybody go home.

With movies, the character arc has to be both broad enough to be relevant and focused enough to explain in a movie (or three, in theory). So you choose one thing to develop and really expand on, like Rian Johnson did.

I love new Luke. I think it is the perfect way to shift his character in an unexpected way that feels both important to the world and relevant to the themes of TLJ especially. I imagine viewers who wanted to see Luke at his height of power doing adventurous things were quite unhappy with TLJ, but as someone who grew up reading those adventures I adored getting another interpretation of Luke's character. For me, it answered the question of "What if Luke's Academy failed instead of succeeding? What would have happened?" To me, TLJ absolutely made the right choice.
 

TV's Frink

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I stopped caring about people whining about the OT characters in the ST a long time ago.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Siliconmaster said:
Big EU reader here.

First of all, love your post, and agree with it wholeheartedly.

Secondly, I would argue that the EU approached things differently, and in a way that worked for books and not necessarily movies.

Yes, precisely. The books and other EU properties simply had the big three on adventures and fans got used to that idea; the idea that they just continued to be the same characters they were at the end of the OT. But that doesn’t work for a movie; at least not a trilogy I’d be interested in. But again, that’s just my preference and probably a big reason I never gravitated to any EU stuff. If these characters aren’t changing and there isn’t an overarching theme to get behind what’s the point.

Classic EU treated Luke, Leia, and Han as static characters against the moving background of the Star Wars galaxy. I can't say I understand you not liking the Thrawn Trilogy (one of the best!) but I certainly agree you don't get as many character arcs with the Big Three Characters. If you did, other books would struggle to figure out where to fit into that arc, especially since a lot of the books were written out of order. The fun is watching them interact with new characters who do have very good arcs. Mara Jade from the Thrawn Trilogy is one of the best examples: a new, changing character, interacting with the static foil of Luke Skywalker. I might even be so bold as to make a comparison with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The focus is not in how the primary characters change (they don't), but how they interact with and change their environment. The main difference here is that instead of philosophy we're getting different adventure stories. By design, any arcs have to be contained within their books, or their book trilogies, because any large change would disrupt the environment and prevent further books in the same vein. But overall, in the long run, we root for Luke's ambitions with the new Jedi Academy (and likewise Leia's political machinations and Han's ongoing Han-ness), and it is his accomplishments that form his arc, rather than a true broad character shift.

I get that people loved the Thrawn books. I read them when they came out thinking these were Lucas’s story treatments fleshed out as novels rather than movies. And, as I said, above, it left me with a feeling of what’s the point!? The characters didn’t grow and the story didn’t seem to have any real theme as the OT did. Whatever you may think of the PT at least there was character development and a fall from grace theme, however poorly executed.

With movies, the character arc has to be both broad enough to be relevant and focused enough to explain in a movie (or three, in theory). So you choose one thing to develop and really expand on, like Rian Johnson did.

I love new Luke. I think it is the perfect way to shift his character in an unexpected way that feels both important to the world and relevant to the themes of TLJ especially. I imagine viewers who wanted to see Luke at his height of power doing adventurous things were quite unhappy with TLJ, but as someone who grew up reading those adventures I adored getting another interpretation of Luke's character. For me, it answered the question of "What if Luke's Academy failed instead of succeeding? What would have happened?" To me, TLJ absolutely made the right choice.

Yeah that’s my feeling as well. I didn’t think TLJ was a particularly good movie, but I’d rather have had a full trilogy of Johnson’s ideas than Abrams’ ideas. Johnson had the characters—both old and new—growing, not just going on adventures. And he had a theme—that the Force doesn’t belong to any religion and characters and their interactions with the Force are dictated by choice, not bloodline.

I’m sure there are many EU fans like you that enjoyed a different take. But I’m inclined to believe that the EU has set expectations for so many fans that their heroes behave a certain way that they simply couldn’t accept anything different. That’s not wrong. And I’m not right. But we were never going to agree.
 

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Moe_Syzlak said:
I get that people loved the Thrawn books. I read them when they came out thinking these were Lucas’s story treatments fleshed out as novels rather than movies. And, as I said, above, it left me with a feeling of what’s the point!? The characters didn’t grow and the story didn’t seem to have any real theme as the OT did. Whatever you may think of the PT at least there was character development and a fall from grace theme, however poorly executed.

You know it's funny, growing up I always considered the OT in particular as an anchor for the multitude of EU stories. And not once did it ever occur to me that the books were missing something the movies had. That is definitely a fair point though, that there isn't that level of theme tied as directly into things. I will say that the Thrawn Trilogy does have a vague arc of Luke coming into himself as a Jedi past the help of Obi-Wan's force ghost. In fact, the very first scene is Obi-Wan saying goodbye for the last time, which always felt right to me.

All in all, a good debate.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Good storytelling is meant to support multiple interpretations based on what each individual brings to the table. Based on who I am and what my experiences have been I’ll necessarily relate to material in a different way from someone else. The problem with a 42 year old franchise is that it’s had an awful lot of time to allow each individual to interpret things their own way. The chances of a trilogy at this point getting exactly right the story for anyone— even the people making the movies—is slim to none. We’ve already played out the stories of these of these characters in our minds. The only way for Star Wars to be successful moving forward, IMO, is to tell good stories in this universe that don’t rely on the OT. Scratch that, it can and should rely on the OT style of storytelling. Simple characters and broad themes. But those have to progress. I think there’s plenty of Star Wars fans that would be content with EU style adventures, but I don’t think there’s enough to sustain the sort of tent pole movie LFL needs to make. Many fans feel the future of Star Wars should belong to them, but that attitude risks killing it once and for all, at least at the movies, IMO.
 
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