Star Wars Discussion Thread v. Rogue One

[yorost]

Wookies can be English. You know, it is just a costume.

[Orbert]

It is?

[yorost]

For the last time, you are not a Wookie, Orbert.

[Orbert]

Meanie.   

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jg1mUEDPOo&feature=youtu.be&t=1m33s

 

[BlackInk]

Nice, then at least there's no doubt that the score will be awesome.

[sueño]

Lucas is otherwise occupied...   

[Jaq]

For the last time, you are not a Wookie, Orbert.

 

[zepp-head]

Congrats to Mr. Lucas on the wedding. 

Since it happened a week ago, I'm assuming people saw the released casting call for Episode VII?

[Kotowboy]

Congrats to Mr. Lucas on the wedding. 

Since it happened a week ago, I'm assuming people saw the released casting call for Episode VII?

I wonder if George will have 3 kids and then wait 16 years and have another 3 kids,

[BlobVanDam]

Congrats to Mr. Lucas on the wedding. 

Since it happened a week ago, I'm assuming people saw the released casting call for Episode VII?

You mean the one that reads as completely fake and taken from the EU novels and was basically debunked?

Or was there another newer one?

[zepp-head]

Never heard of that one.  There is one that was confirmed by multiple sources, including Lucasfilm, last week or so.

About seven brief character descriptions with a probability of a female lead.

[BlobVanDam]

Probably different to the one I saw then. I may have even skipped it, thinking it was the same one because of the proximity.

The one I'm talking about mentioned brother/sister Jedis, and one turns bad.

[zepp-head]

Probably different to the one I saw then. I may have even skipped it, thinking it was the same one because of the proximity.

The one I'm talking about mentioned brother/sister Jedis, and one turns bad.

Oh right, I do recall that from AICN (which I hate).  This is different. 

In order:

Late-teen female, independent, good sense of humour, fit.

Young 20-something male, witty and smart, fit but not traditionally good looking.

A late 20-something male, fit, handsome and confident.

A 70-something male, with strong opinions and tough demeanour. Also doesn’t need to be particularly fit.

A second young female, also late teens, tough, smart and fit.

A 40-something male, fit, military type.

A 30-something male, intellectual. Apparently doesn’t need to be fit.

[BlobVanDam]

Ok, definitely not the one I saw, but I do remember someone mentioning the "30 something male, intellectual, doesn't need to be fit" one, because they said it was finally a part they could play.

[jammindude]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agcc7w8YmHo#at=301

I posted this in the funny thread...but I really thought it should go here as well.

Best SW mashup I've ever seen.

The emperor as voiced by Mark Hamill's The Joker.   (and Bane as Darth Vader)  BRILLIANT!

[MetalJunkie]

Congrats to Mr. Lucas on the wedding. 

Since it happened a week ago, I'm assuming people saw the released casting call for Episode VII?

I wonder if George will have 3 kids and then wait 16 years and have another 3 kids,

Yeah, and then the first three kids will grow up to be famous, beatiful, and well-loved. Then he'll force them all to get plastic surgery.

[Podaar]

This is a completely and utterly brilliant article! 

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2013/03/why-anakins-conversion-to-the-dark-side-made-sense/

Poorly executed prequel? Sure. Possibly a great character arch if it would have been presented better? You bet.

[Onno]

https://moviepilot.com/articles/1117583-star-wars-retrospective-obi-wan-lies-deconstructing-a-pivotal-scene-from-a-new-hope

[Orbert]

This is a completely and utterly brilliant article! 

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2013/03/why-anakins-conversion-to-the-dark-side-made-sense/

Poorly executed prequel? Sure. Possibly a great character arch if it would have been presented better? You bet.

Wow, as one of the commenters said, I was ready to call bullshit from the title alone, but the guy makes a great case, makes it believeable.  We always knew that there was a great story hiding somewhere in those prequels, buried under all the crappy execution, and the article actually makes far more sense than what we saw on screen.

[Perpetual Change]

Yeah, I don't think Anakin's conversion was ever doubtful. Problem is the execution. Just going by what you see on screen, it doesn't really make sense. It's not hard to give it some perspective.

Part of the problem is, Lucas doesn't know how to make us feel about Anakin. In Ep. 1, Lucas fixates way too much on how cute and special Anakin is, and never sets up any indiciation that Anakin's too special and self centered. Having him win the podrace in an underhanded way and then allowed to slide by the Jedi would have helped.

In Ep. II, we do finally see some real raised questions about Anakin's maturity, but Lucas handles it all tactlessly. When Anakin's showing his "dark side" tendencies, it's obvious to the viewers, because he's acting like a spoiled brat and we instantly side with Kenobi. What would have been better is for Lucas to have found a way to show us how ridiculous and unfair the rules of Kenobi and the Jedi seemed to Anakin, before zooming out to show us how Anakin's choices were leading him a certain way. At that juncture, self-righteous  mini-rebellions of the Jedi and Kenobi would have sufficed, and been much more effective than the spur of the moment sandpeople rampage.

For episode III, Lucas could have delved way more deeply into how Palpatine leads Anakin to the darkside by appealing to his frustrations with the Jedi and leading him to abandon the Jedi religion. There was AMPLE opportunity for Lucas to raise the alternative "Sith" perspective, but he just never does.  After watching Ep. III, the whole Sith religion and it's philosophical reasons for violently rejecting Jedi are still vague, at best. The only clear reason for why Anakin rebels is wanting to save Portman.  Anakin going dark isn't really made obvious to us by an outward rejection of the Jedi religion, but just through a series of heinous and overly violent acts he commits because he wants to do whatever the Emperor says.

So while I agree with the writer, I don't agree that Lucas does a good job of making the conversion make sense.

[Orbert]

I think the writer said that he'd read the novelizations five or six times.  I haven't read them, but I'm assuming that those stories are fleshed out a lot, providing much greater perspective into Anakin's thought processes.  Also, it seems like the type of guy who'd read the novelizations over and over has had a lot of time to think about it, and has come to his conclusions almost independently of what's actually in the movie.

Sure, he constantly refers to Padme as Natalie Portman and Mace Windu as Jules from Pulp Fiction, but I still think he's ultimately seeing the movies at this point through the eyes of someone much more familiar with the backstories and far more entrenched in the canon than the average moviegoer.  All that beautiful logic and reasoning in the article -- and it is well done -- goes way beyond what we actually see on screen.

[Super Dude]

Honestly, I thought references to Portman and Jules were only there for laughs.

[Orbert]

Well yeah, but in some way, they also reinforced that this is about the movies, not the novelizations.  My point is that he was performing his analysis after the benefit of reading and re-reading the novelizations, a benefit most moviegoers do not have.  Based strictly on what we see on screen, the story is not nearly as good, and the vast majority of viewers did not come to the same conclusions as he did.

[zepp-head]

I had no problems with the turn/execution/believability etc.  I loved the film and that isn't going to change.  I love the Greek mythology/self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of it.

It's interesting, my girlfriend watched all the Star Wars films with me recently, and she only had faint memories of A New Hope from earlier.  She didn't really fall in love with any of them, but Revenge of the Sith is the only one that really caught on with her, and it definitely had more of an emotional impact than any of the other films.  Incredible movie.

[zepp-head]

I think the writer said that he'd read the novelizations five or six times.  I haven't read them, but I'm assuming that those stories are fleshed out a lot, providing much greater perspective into Anakin's thought processes.  Also, it seems like the type of guy who'd read the novelizations over and over has had a lot of time to think about it, and has come to his conclusions almost independently of what's actually in the movie.

I just read the article and what you said is actually mistaken.  He only mentioned reading the novel once, then detailed "the first 5 or 6 times he watched the film".  Overall the article is pretty straightforward, and stuff that was pretty obvious from the film, but still overlooked by a lot of folks.

Anyhow, I'm sure we all saw the news of Arndt being off the project now.  Writing duties have passed onto Abrams and Kasdan, and the release date is now "expected 2015". 

[Orbert]

My mistake then.

Still, he's given this a lot of thought, and after five or six viewings, he's seen it more times than most people and had a great deal of time to formulate his thoughts.  And he's come to the conclusion that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side isn't as ridiculous, sudden, and/or unreasonable as a lot have said.  That may be true, but most people who didn't buy it, didn't buy it after the first viewing or maybe the first couple.

My point is that if that's the initial impression of most viewers (which it seems to be), then the movie is flawed, for the reasons most people say it is.  Star Wars is popcorn fare.  You shouldn't have to watch it five or six times to finally make sense of it, finally understand why the main character has made such a huge decision.

[Jaq]

The novelization of episode III was written by Matthew Stover, who is probably the best writer of Star Wars fiction there is, and he NAILS Anakin turning to the Dark Side. If half of what he wrote had made it to the screen, you'd have understood perfectly why Anakin turned. And a lot of the motivations WERE in the original cut of the movie...and Lucas dumped them. Hell, Stover manages to make some of the silly elements of the overall plot work. The EU writers period did yeoman's work making Lucas' crap make sense, but Stover made you not only believe Anakin's turn but care about it.

[Orbert]

I believe it.  As I said, there's a much better story behind Anakin Skywalker than George Lucas managed to put on screen.  It wouldn't surprise me if Stover took it as a challenge, to see how much he could actually improve upon the story simply by adding detail and not actually changing anything.

[zepp-head]

My mistake then.

Still, he's given this a lot of thought, and after five or six viewings, he's seen it more times than most people and had a great deal of time to formulate his thoughts.  And he's come to the conclusion that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side isn't as ridiculous, sudden, and/or unreasonable as a lot have said.  That may be true, but most people who didn't buy it, didn't buy it after the first viewing or maybe the first couple.

My point is that if that's the initial impression of most viewers (which it seems to be), then the movie is flawed, for the reasons most people say it is.  Star Wars is popcorn fare.  You shouldn't have to watch it five or six times to finally make sense of it, finally understand why the main character has made such a huge decision.

I'm going to assume that by "most", you mean most of those that saw a problem with the turn, and not most that saw the film, and if that is the case then I agree with you.  It always made sense to me, since the biggest factor was built on something that began with Attack of the Clones, though I do give it more thought than most. 

[jingle.boy]

I never had a problem with the reasons for his turn, just the way Lucas told it was weak.  It could've been and should've been done so much better.

[Sayan]

Not sure if that goes in this thread or in the Zelda one, but here:

SUPER SMASH WARS: A Link To The Hope - A Star Wars / Nintendo-verse Mashup

[Super Dude]

December 18th, 2015

https://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/11/07/star-wars-episode-vii-release-set-for-december-18-2015-breaking/

[BlobVanDam]

I read that earlier, and that's good news. I've seen some people whining that it needs to be May, but I'd rather them have a bit more time to put out a great movie.
It's in Disney's best interests to release a strong SW movie that puts people at ease about the continuation of the franchise, even if they firmly wanted to keep to a 2015 schedule. And it's going to do great business for them regardless of what time of year it's released.

[Super Dude]

Yeah, although I'll for sure miss having Star Wars as a birthday celebration.