What we have, though, is the Jedi having a lower rate of unhealthy development than everyone else, by all accounts. Anakin, Dooku, and even Ben had to be specifically targeted by someone outside the Order for them to fall ...
Obsidian has already pointed out what I would have in response to your comment on Dooku, Anakin, and Ben. I'll add, though, that even if I bought the premise of your first sentence, the caveat to it being "Except when it isn't helpful for people struggling with stuff" doesn't inspire confidence. Especially when those people tend to go negatively impact vast orders of magnitude more folks.
It's more 'do not be baited into obvious trap'. They know he's no match for Vader, correctly, and think he could do an Anakin. As it happens, they're correct-Luke does nothing to save his friends, and they have to end up helping him.
Things turning out alright doesn't make it any less a dick move.
Beasts of burden ain't wind up toys, they're owned by people, and said people don't just hand them out to strangers. Steal one? Do you know how to make it go where you want it to go? Do you know what supplies you need to keep it alive?Steal those too? Can the beast of burden carry the supplies as well as you? Can you get out of town without someone noticing 'hey, that pack animal doesn't belong to her'?
Or one could procure their services through trade, as most people in need of a taxi do?
The starships are owned by people who stay in them , and travelers offworld will have to pay passage. Oh, you can't pay passage because you're only paid in food? That't too bad.
Because he is no longer using personal vehicles due to his role.
Yes, but there's an important difference between. 'we're going to conquer you, and put this person in charge' and 'this leader person called us in, we'll help him, but not conquer you'. That's very important if you want your change to last.
So you are advocating for excising the PT after all.
Jar Jar received such a torrent of abuse after TPM that Ahmed seriously considered throwing himself off a bridge. I don't expect JJ to know that specifically, but he must have known about how poisonous prequel hatred was, because it was a massive cultural phenomenon that couldn't exactly be missed.
What Ahmed experienced was terrible, unfortunate, and unnecessary -- yet Jar Jar still sucks, and remains as I referred to him previously: the most annoying creation in the history of the franchise, wholly worthy of ridicule and contempt, plenty understandable as a recipient of either, and forever a deserving target of ribbing.
That doesn't warrant a description of "mean-spirited" in my eyes.
The podracing flag is significant because JJ is on record that he took it out because it was a prequel reference.
He also had it there to begin with, though, and it was in the marketing, which -- as I've gone over -- is arguably the most critical interaction with the audience. While I don't fully understand the explanation about its removal either, as a smoking blaster establishing outright malice towards those movies, this point falls far short.
There's also just the plain common sense notion of making something more in tone and aesthetic with what the vast, vast majority of folks who may be interested in the IP would positively associate with it. As far as it goes, other than the above mentioned "Duel of the Fates," what even would one bring over from the PT specifically were they bound and determined to do so?
Bringing in the PT's over-saturated colors and excessive lighting wouldn't have benefitted anyone; let's pass on plasticy, flat environments this time, please, and thank you. Nor would the filming of actors in oddly distant, robotic wide shots have helped; we're not watching a recording of a stage production, so let's get some immersion, please -- and thank you. Nor would being utterly humorless and void of almost any sense of congeniality; let's try to establish an attachment to and fondness for the characters that extends beyond just them occupying frames in a movie from a franchise we already care about, please. And thank you.
Add to all of this common sense the drastic differences in the majority of locales, it's not hard at all to see why ST locations look almost nothing like those of the PT. Add also to all of this the much closer timeframe of the ST setting to the OT setting, and it's not hard to see why the art direction tends to favor it, especially in the depiction of designs that originated with the OT.
The ST has no business looking like the PT (the PT had no business looking like the PT either), and it blessedly does not. And as far as the plot goes, pretty much anything that may get carried over will have either originated with the OT in the first place or been filtered by its setting (e.g. Clonetroopers to Stormtroopers).
Not exactly... Falling to the Dark Side, sure. That happens because Palpatine is specifically looking for Jedi who aren't fully on board with how the Jedi Order works. But leaving the Jedi Order though? No... As far as I can tell, that happens without any outside influence. At least in the case of Anakin and Dooko.
Anakin shows signs of wanting to leave the Order all the way back in Attack of the Clones, and Padme interacts more with Papatine then Anakin does in that movie! Heck, Padme is probably a better person to blame for Anakin leaving the Jedi Order then Palpatine is for that matter. Dooku has a similar thing where he finds out he's got a family and title he could have had if he hadn't been given up to the Jedi Order as a kid. And so he gives up the Jedi Order to go find them.
Uh...and? Not everyone is suited for the way of life, that's fine. Anakin probably should have left. No one was stopping him except Anakin himself.
Ben Solo is a lot more up in the air for me then Anakin and Dooku are since I'm not as caught up on the non-movie materials of the ST. However... from what I remember from The Last Jedi movie, an outside influence had very little to do with it. Luke getting nervous over Ben's power and attitude and over-reacting seemed to have a lot more to do with why Ben left. Kinda hard to want to stay somewhere when your uncle pulls a lightsaber out of nowhere on you.
It's established that Snoke was grooming him for a long time, alluded to in the films and in supplementary material. We still don't know a lot about Ben Solo's fall, but he had a loving family and no 'no attachments' rule to deal with. It didn't help.
I am not surprised by this at all. In fact... I honestly think they should be minimizing the PT in marketing. The PT gets way more flack then the OT does in most fandom circles. Highlighting how the ST is like the PT would be a marketing distater because most people don't want to watch a Star Wars movie that reminds them of the style and tone of the PT. And so far... the ST has been more like the OT then the PT anyway. And even better, it feels distinct enough from the OT and PT that it has its own feel. Thank goodness.
In the context of the enormous cruelty with which those involved in the PT were treated, a campaign like that comes off as extremely cruel, though. They're trying to sell Episode 9 as the culmination of the saga, but that immediately rings hollow when you're ignoring half of it.
Obsidian has already pointed out what I would have in response to your comment on Dooku, Anakin, and Ben. I'll add, though, that even if I bought the premise of your first sentence, the caveat to it being "Except when it isn't helpful for people struggling with stuff" doesn't inspire confidence. Especially when those people tend to go negatively impact vast orders of magnitude more folks.
No system is perfect, but it took extraordinary stresses for any of them to break. I mean, your mom dying after extended torture in your arms would break a lot of people, no matter who they are or what their upbringing was. There's nothing indicating that the Jedi way makes them any more vulnerable or open to suggestion.
Things turning out alright doesn't make it any less a dick move.
They lay out the potential consequences of his actions. They don't stop him. And this is anyway irrelevant to the idea that it's in character for the JC to ignore threats for no reason.
Or one could procure their services through trade, as most people in need of a taxi do?
You ever paid a taxi driver in food? Anyone with a starship is not going to be interested in Unkar's portions. There are enough people trading scrap for portions to form a queue, Plutt is totally a slaver.
Hard to get calls from leader people who may not exist, and probably don't have phones if they do.
You're talking about a potential core theme tying all the movies together... which is evidenced in two recently published books. If your movie has required reading, you've written it wrong.
What Ahmed experienced was terrible, unfortunate, and unnecessary -- yet Jar Jar still sucks, and remains as I referred to him previously: the most annoying creation in the history of the franchise, wholly worthy of ridicule and contempt, plenty understandable as a recipient of either, and forever a deserving target of ribbing.
That doesn't warrant a description of "mean-spirited" in my eyes.
I've never really got the hate for Jar Jar, he has like ten minutes of screentime. Seems like a lot of people somehow get really angry whenever a movie for twelve year olds about space wizards has something actually aimed at kids in it, much like the random rage at the Resistance trailer.
But the artistic merit or lack thereof isn't the point.
Suppose you know someone has been bullied relentlessly for years about a particular issue. You know they were badly affected by it. You choose to make a public joke about that same issue. It doesn't matter if the issue is true or not, you're still being enormously dickish.
Your link didn't work for me, but if it's the one I've seen, he does take the time to complain about the Duel of the Fates being cut short in the next breath. I don't think I've seen JJ ever say anything unequivocally positive about the PT without a sting in it.
There's a constant thread of disdain through the production, from Simon Pegg ( who consulted on the script) marketing TFA with the idea that it would wash away the memories of the prequels, to that, 'real sets, practical effects' slogan, as though the ST is not using just as much or probably more CG. In ordinary circumstances that might be a bit dickish, but in light of how poisonous prequel hate was, it crosses the line into cruel.
There's also just the plain common sense notion of making something more in tone and aesthetic with what the vast, vast majority of folks who may be interested in the IP would positively associate with it. As far as it goes, other than the above mentioned "Duel of the Fates," what even would one bring over from the PT specifically were they bound and determined to do so?
Brief aside before we get started, when I picked "Spark of the Resistance" up a few weeks ago, I said I would mention any relevant info for the future that it provided us after I read it. Probably of greatest relevance to everyone, we learn there that Admiral Ackbar's son, Aftab, gifted Leia with some Mon Cala starships with which to begin rebuilding The Resistance fleet.
They've also apparently picked up a few other Corellian vessels -- still a small fleet, but enough so far to allow them to successfully engage and defeat a single Star Destroyer in a surprise attack.
Of greatest relevance to me personally and my ongoing expectations of the thematic payoffs of the saga, we get comments in the book's last chapter like "The Resistance exists to help people, to make sure that everyone has a choice" and "My travels through the galaxy have been extensive, and there are many planets like Minfar that the Inner Rim has forgotten."
A third-person limited narration voice also makes these observations in the last chapter: "They could do this. The Resistance could defeat the First Order. It might not happen in a single battle; it might take a long time. But as long as they remembered what mattered, taking care of people from all kinds of places, they could win this war."
That became true at a certain point, yes, when he was no longer a child. Unfortunately, it was after he was already indoctrinated into their lifestyle, with its self-management techniques that couldn't help him any better than they helped Dooku.
Of course, the best self-management techniques in the galaxy probably wouldn't have helped Dooku in the face of Yoda and the council refusing to help save his sister and the rest of his homeworld from an occupying invasion force. His asshole brother, the Count of Serenno at the time, not paying Serenno's taxes and generally being a douche was sufficient for the Jedi Council to choose to allow the rest of the planet to hang.
No system is perfect, but it took extraordinary stresses for any of them to break. I mean, your mom dying after extended torture in your arms would break a lot of people, no matter who they are or what their upbringing was. There's nothing indicating that the Jedi way makes them any more vulnerable or open to suggestion.
That isn't really the point, though, is it? When confronted with extraordinary stresses that don't fit into their culture, their way of life seems to leave little recourse in how to deal with it. Unwelcome stresses are expected to be handled by removal rather than any constructive means. They literally don't seem to have any other way of dealing with such things.
Even if we could separate the finer points of Anakin's fall from the environment he grew up in (and to be clear, I don't believe that we can), we're still dealing with what is, to my eyes anyway, a patently inferior culture that was someday going to be devoured by those things it suppressed due to its unwillingness or inability to square itself with them.
If it hadn't been Anakin then, it would have been another Jedi later.
You've said that the Jedi don't inherently spawn off "going dark," but that isn't true. A Jedi culture that would increasingly shun its own nature resulted in a splinter faction who became the Sith -- and from a cosmic perspective, that is arguably an altogether natural result.
For goodness' sake, the formation of the Sith (even in the old EU) was literally a consequence of the upper Jedi hierarchy of millenia past reacting in fear to what their own people discovered they could do with The Force.
Absorb the weight of that: they fearfully rejected aspects of The Force itself.
In other words, they feared and rejected the nature of The Force, that current which permeates and binds all things. This unavoidably entails a fear and rejection of their own nature as well.
And what does fear of the things one does not confront lead to?
Well, what does the season six episode of TCW, "Destiny," show us? While seeking the knowledge of how to persist as a Force ghost after death, Yoda is told that he must conquer his evil ("otherwise known as fear," the Force Priestesses call it) before being confronted by a manifestation of his own dark side -- and as he continues to deny that it is part of him, it only gets stronger.
On a related note, Yoda's problematic pride, which you've long been loath to acknowledge, gets explicitly called out here too:
---
Yoda:
"A Jedi Master, I am. Know all that dwells within, I do. Mastered my weaknesses and conquered my fears, I have."
::after Yoda has a humbling confrontation with a manifestation of his darkness::
Yoda:
"Powerful, the creature was."
Force Priestesses:
"What you faced was a reflection of your hubris and the shadow of your soul."
Yoda:
"And yet, clear, I thought I was."
Force Priestesses:
"The beast is you, and you are the beast. To deny it simply gives it power."
Yoda:
"Now, I see. Simple, the answer was."
Force Priestesses:
"Deep in your core, you felt that we had nothing to teach you, but you must trust in our teachings if you are to succeed."
---
All of which goes a long way towards informing the sort of unfortunate -- and avoidable -- circumstances like those recounted in "Dooku: Jedi Lost."
For instance, the council feared the power of foresight, regardless of where it came from or whether its use was deliberate. Jedi who demonstrated that ability were being imprisoned during Dooku's time as a Jedi Master. That's absurd, shameful, and shamefully absurd.
Just listen to the kind of crap Yoda prattles off as wisdom in "Jedi Lost":
(regarding a possible Dark Side threat Dooku sensed)
"Repressed the memory, his mind has. The way he should. The way he has been trained."
(regarding investigation of the old prophecies to determine whether the Sith may once again become a threat)
"Unknowable the future is. Only to the Dark Side prophecy leads. To doubt. And fear. An old argument this is."
"Away from the past, a Jedi must turn. Only in the present, you should dwell."
While on the subject of "Jedi Lost," that story has now provided us definitive proof that the Jedi Council believed the Sith to be gone forever until TPM. Yoda even called it unnecessary to study them in educated preparation for a possible return, despite the ongoing warnings of Sifo-Dyas's master, Lene Kostana, who made common sense observations like "You don't have to embrace the Dark Side, Dooku. But you need to know it's there."
Along a bit of a tangent, but related to our past discussions, I would also argue that, via "Jedi Lost," we now have definitive proof that the Jedi were once Grey Force-wielders. Lene teaches Dooku and Sifo-Dyas the following calming invocation:
"'We call upon the three: Light, Dark, and Balance true. One is no greater than the others. Together, they unite, restore, center, and renew. We walk into the Light, acknowledge the Dark, and find Balance within ourselves. For the Force is strong.' ... The ancient Jedi did this every day. We have forgotten so much."
At any rate, it is at least verifiable that ancient Jedi leaders' fears are what caused the Hundred-Years Darkness and the schism that birthed the Sith. That initial galactic imbalance in The Force was a result of the Jedi's way of doing things getting off kilter. Their way became neither holistic nor heuristic.
So ... in summation: You can chide the ST for what you feel is ignoring half of the saga, but you've long given the failed Jedi Order a pass on ignoring half of what makes humans human -- and half of what makes the universe itself tick.
They lay out the potential consequences of his actions. They don't stop him.
They outright tell him not to go. If I tried talking first responders out of showing up to the site of a multi-automobile collision because "it might be dangerous," I'd be a dick. If their friends were involved in the accident and I tried talking them out of it, I'd be at the very least a dick.
One can point out that Luke ended up rescuing no one and needing rescue himself all they want, but we all know that having a robotic hand is what gave Luke sufficient pause at the critical moment in RotJ to defeat the Emperor ideologically, thus resulting in Vader defeating him physically.
It was Luke finding that balance between acting on his passion and reigning it in which won the day. Without Luke's passion for and attachment to his friends, he doesn't get maimed by his father, and without his attachment to family, he doesn't try to turn Vader. And without all that, he doesn't stop to be tempered by the thought "My father and I are the same," then decide what that's going to mean for them.
And this is anyway irrelevant to the idea that it's in character for the JC to ignore threats for no reason.
Well, it was dumb of them, no disagreement there. But we've already seen how they ignored other things for piss-poor reasons.
Since they feared foresight and believed it to be tied inextricably with fear and, thus, evil, perhaps they believed the best way to avoid the horrific outcomes foretold by a Force vision was to avoid obsession with it?
People who have the aforementioned animals are already trading with him for food -- and so are people with starships. Rey says as much in her Survival Guide: "The spacers who come here sleep aboard their ships. For food, there's whatever they brought or what they can buy."
Rey also goes into a lot of detail about all the things that are valuable enough to trade for:
"What you want to salvage are pumps, filters, impellers, valves, pistons, fuel injectors, inverters, capacitors, and bearings. All that stuff can be reused in almost anything.
Also look for data conduits, cooling shunts, and fuel piping. A lot of that material is flexible and can be coiled up for transport. But watch out for pooled coolant or fuel—it can be volatile, poisonous, or both.
Batteries and power cells are both valuable and still pretty common in the Graveyard. They powered blasters, droids, comlinks, turbolasers, communications gear, sensor arrays, and everything else. Your tester will tell you if a cell can be recharged.
Other common things to look for are sensor arrays, landing lights, subspace radios, and power converters. And don't forget items that have nothing to do with space combat, such as first-aid kits, water filters, and portable heaters. Field rations are fine as long as they're sealed.
Most military hardware isn't as valuable as you might think, but Unkar will trade for sensor arrays, shield projectors, tractor-beam emitters, and transponders. Blasters always sell. There are folks in Niima who'll happily take an E-Web blaster or other heavy weaponry.
It's pretty rare to find a droid worth salvaging in the Graveyard—most of them were taken years ago. If it happens, it's your lucky day, because nearly all droids are valuable. There are tinkerers in the bazaar who can get them running again, or else they can be broken down for the parts box. Power droids, load lifters, and astromechs are the most in demand on Jakku.
...
A valuable thing scavengers overlook is information. The scrounger Miggs McKane retired to Ogem after he sliced his way into the data core of a Star Destroyer and found a complete Imperial order of battle, which he eventually sold to some off-worlder.
...
The turbolaser turrets of an Imperial Star Destroyer are hooked to large arrays of auxiliary power cells—just follow the power trunking. I don't mess with the power core—or anything related to the reactor—but conduits lead from it throughout the ship and can be salvaged. The bridge and the officers' quarters below it are good places to look for datapads, droids, comlinks, and the like. Up near the bow you'll find liquid stores and holds for raw materials.
Most systems aboard a Mon Calamari Cruiser will be hard to adapt for use, but check on the deflector-shield generators amidships. They're surrounded by conduits and auxiliary power cells that can be extracted. The sensor arrays and communications suites in the bow are valuable and relatively easy to remove.
With a Nebulon-B frigate, the dorsal shield generator is a big array of linked generators, with power cells that are reasonably well protected. And check the chief engineer's quarters—when I was a kid I found schematics for four different models of the New Republic starfighter in a datapad.
When I find a TIE fighter, the first thing I do is look at the solar arrays—each wing has six, with energy accumulator lines running back and forth beneath the solar panels. If you find an array that's undamaged or mostly intact, it can be salvaged. If not, the power lines and energy coils are worth taking.
The most valuable parts of a Y-wing are the sensor arrays beneath the domes on each of the engine outriggers. The turbines are valuable, too—but if you crack the reactors forward of them you'll be swallowing rad pills for weeks. In the main body of the fighter are two power cells, power generators, and a coolant pump.
If you actually find an intact A-wing, you want the shield generators, the swivel mounts for the laser cannons, and the forward sensor arrays. A-wings were built for speed, so the power generators, trunking, and waste-heat radiators are all specially reinforced.
With X-wings, I move aft from the bow, grabbing the sensor array out of the nose and then looking for an intact sensor computer, communications antenna, and flight computer. Don't miss the repulsorlifts—I scavenged a bunch of those for my speeder. Behind the pilot's seat, you'll find power converters and trunking to the generator. The wings have power couplings, heat sinks, and other stuff you can grab. Don't forget the cargo bay—the New Republic trained its pilots in survival, so there's often useful gear in there.
Intact B-wings are even rarer than A-wings, but full of interesting gear. The main sensor array and long-range scanners are located where the wings meet. You'll find high-efficiency power cells in the two lateral wings, along with repulsorlift projectors. Working up toward the cockpit (almost certainly gone), you'll find the shield generators and the four engine nozzles. Just don't jostle the reactors or the torpedo magazine. Finally, the magnetic couplings that once held the cockpit in place are easy salvage in Niima.
Here's an ironclad rule of surviving as a scavenger: All salvage is worthless until you've been paid for it.
Here's another rule: Don't talk about salvage. It can take a couple of days to remove all the salvageable gear from an X-wing, so keep your lips zipped until it's a chassis full of sand. Even then, don't talk—because if you found something good, there might be something else good out that way.
Once you get to Niima, you're in the domain of Unkar Plutt, the Blobfish.
I have my own tools and speeder, but no full cleaning rig—and no way of getting one. So, the first thing I do in Niima is head to Unkar's washing tables. The cost of renting a table comes out of the final trading price, so make sure your salvage is in the best possible shape before you arrive—it's bad business paying Unkar for time getting sand out of a fuel pump.
Unkar pays more for working salvage than he does for gear that he has to repair, so whatever you bring him has to be functional. If you can, fix it yourself. But sometimes that isn't possible.
If that's the case, tinkerers in the bazaar will recharge gear or let you poke through their replacement parts. Not for free, of course—nothing on Jakku is free except heat—but they'll make a better deal with you than Unkar will.
My favorite tinkerer is Lerux Talley, a scrawny little human who says he's from the Core Worlds, which probably isn't true. If I need welding, I see a manumitted power droid named AMPS. AMPS doesn't eat rations, of course, but he'll weld in exchange for a recharge, spare gas canisters, metals he finds interesting, or a good joke. I spend a lot of time driving across the Goazon trying to think of jokes AMPS will decide are worth a trade."
And again, there are avenues of travel to other settlements at least frequented enough on this desert planet to still be called roads.
And again x2, most people who come to be on Jakku and trading with Unkar do so by choice.
Hell, even after stealing the Millenium Falcon, Rey intended to take it back to Jakku and get back on Unkar Plutt's good side by offering to fix it up.
Her situation is the shittiest we know of where Jakku is concerned, and it still isn't very comparable to Anakin's being born into slavery, then implanted with a fucking bomb. =P
And even if it were, your original point in bringing it up doesn't stand up to scrutiny: We heard no intention of doing anything about the slavery on Tatooine from the Jedi Order at a time they believed their operations would last for another thousand years. We did hear intention of doing something about slavery on Tatooine from Leia at a time she believed she was in a position of influence in what she also believed was a political atmosphere friendly to rebellions (all of which got shot to hell shortly thereafter).
It's not like he would be any less an outsider at that point. Anything he does is going to require infiltration and subtlety, the same as if any other Jedi does it.
There is no self-appointed leader of a non-existent resistance on the ground, and there isn't likely to be. Outside help will either rescue them at some point or there won't be any help.
If your movie has required reading, you've written it wrong.
I've never really got the hate for Jar Jar, he has like ten minutes of screentime. Seems like a lot of people somehow get really angry whenever a movie for twelve year olds about space wizards has something actually aimed at kids in it, much like the random rage at the Resistance trailer.
If your movie's obnoxious alien sidekick character requires subtitles yet doesn't come with them, your movie is doing it wrong.
I mean, I was 13 and I still instantly hated Jar Jar. Since when does "something actually aimed at kids" entail "fucking stupid and annoying"?
But the artistic merit or lack thereof isn't the point.
Suppose you know someone has been bullied relentlessly for years about a particular issue. You know they were badly affected by it. You choose to make a public joke about that same issue. It doesn't matter if the issue is true or not, you're still being enormously dickish.
Taking a little shot at Jar Jar in 2015 isn't tantamount to harassing the guy who did the voice ten to sixteen years earlier. People are most certainly allowed to do this without crossing the plane of some moral event horizon.
And not for nothing, Ahmed himself returned to voice Jar Jar in all three "Robot Chicken" specials that lampoon "Star Wars," as well as "LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out" -- all of which poke fun at Jar Jar's expense. I think dude is probably fine.
Your link didn't work for me, but if it's the one I've seen, he does take the time to complain about the Duel of the Fates being cut short in the next breath. I don't think I've seen JJ ever say anything unequivocally positive about the PT without a sting in it.
It sounds like a normal sort of conversation I've heard plenty of times: "My favorite scene from the PT? This one. What about yours? Oh, yeah, that was amazing, but I was caught off guard that Maul was gone so suddenly. I thought he'd be sticking around longer."
Regardless, the first two trilogies were so tonally and aesthetically different from one another that -- with all the good will in the world -- it's difficult to imagine anyone having the same appreciation for both. I imagine it must be the same for diehard PT fans or fans who came into the series with the PT first.
I personally don't loathe the PT so much as feel cold towards it. I don't feel like it damages the original material, but I also feel it didn't enhance it at all at the time of release. I can mostly only give it credit for providing the setting for TCW and then heavily informing that of "Rebels."
In that way, the PT provided a backdrop for stories and explorations of the mythos I really do appreciate. Eventually, I'd feel it added to that as well via the Rule of Two and Darth Plagueis.
There's a constant thread of disdain through the production, from Simon Pegg ( who consulted on the script) marketing TFA with the idea that it would wash away the memories of the prequels, to that, 'real sets, practical effects' slogan, as though the ST is not using just as much or probably more CG. In ordinary circumstances that might be a bit dickish, but in light of how poisonous prequel hate was, it crosses the line into cruel.
Let's call the spade a spade: the PT earned well the derision it received on the subject of its visual effects. Not only were they implemented in some unnecessary, embarrassing ways, but Lucas himself emphasized them at every turn such that even people who didn't know the full ins and outs of what was done are going to be aware enough of the emphasis to automatically conclude it had to be the problem that made the films feel off to them.
It may be true that the prequel films don't feature a greater number of individual instances or even a greater percentage of post-production effects than the ST -- but one can sound off that TFA had 2,100 visual effects until blue in the face and that will never, ever make a lick of difference to the actually relevant matter of how the aesthetics of the PT felt to audiences by comparison.
Not everyone is a filmmaker. Not everyone even has an interest in the technical side of filmmaking beyond just watching the damn thing when it's done. Pretty much everyone is an expert, though, on what feels authentic to them -- even if they don't understand the whats and the whys.
Given how Lucas himself waved that VFX flag during production like it was the checkered flag on the last lap at a NASCAR race, it's absolutely no wonder that people latched onto it as the problem, or at least the symbol of it.
Frankly, the filmmakers behind TFA would have been idiots not to market the thing the way they did. They were facing the hurdle of needing to prove to fans that they had the chops to pull off something that felt like what the majority of audiences were expecting from a "Star Wars" movie. They also had to provide audiences the confidence that they weren't going to go crazy with digital effects just because they could afford to, what with the Mouse House bankrolling them.
As for Simon Pegg, it's not really a secret that the guy is an asshole and utterly despises the PT. It's hardly surprising that he would choose to go that route to talk up the ST.
Beyond that, if you feel people should say "unequivocally positive" things about the PT disingenuously just because the extent of the animosity directed towards it was so unnecessary and toxic, I got nothing for that.
Ship designs, planets, worldbuilding that makes sense. References to past events that were a huge part of the history of the galaxy.
- "Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army."
- "At the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create The Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader."
- "You think what? I'm gonna walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?"
Full-circle tangent: "laser sword" in that last bit is of particular interest to me.
A lightsaber has only ever been referred to with this description one other time in all the films so far. That was in TPM when Luke's father was remarking on how he knew Qui-Gon was a Jedi, and that he believed him to be there to free the slaves like himself.
Of course, those hopes are dashed a moment later, but Anakin also mentions the dream he had about being a Jedi and coming back to Tatooine to free the slaves.
So with TLJ, there is a deliberately constructed callback here to a discussion of similar challenge -- or similar apparent impossibility, if you prefer. Except in TLJ, the guy with the laser sword actually went for it. In this same installment of the story in which -- albeit in a deleted scene, at least for the movie depiction -- Luke tested Rey with a lie about doing nothing to stop a (fake) pillaging by (fake) raiders being the Jedi way on grounds highly comparable to those you've been arguing in regard to the Jedi doing nothing for slaves on the Outer Rim worlds:
"If you meet that raiding party with force, they'll be back next month in greater numbers and with greater violence. Will you be here next month?"
She ends up ignoring this and trying to help anyway, upon which Luke comments, "And that's what The Resistance needs, not some old failed husk of a religion."
I'm finding that the theme I insist is a theme just gets wider the deeper I go mining.
You're talking about a potential core theme tying all the movies together... which is evidenced in two recently published books. If your movie has required reading, you've written it wrong.
Part of the reason I read and comment here is because I haven't seen any of the expanded Star Wars universe stuff. Just the eight main movies. Anything else I know is stuff I've picked up through general pop culture osmosis. And yet I see the same issues with the PT just from watching only them that people who have watched/read other Star Wars expanded universe stuff see with them.
As much as the other stuff in the Star Wars universe is going "What the hell, Jedi Order?", I don't think you actually need to read/watch anthing outsdie the PT to get that impression of them. Thinking through what the Jedi Order is doing with a dose of common sense and a very basic understanding of what healthy emotional reactions look like (especially in the context of relationships) starts raising red flags even in TPM. And then Clones and Revenge just prove that all those red flags were totally valid and the way the Jedi Order was going about things was maybe even worse then it initially seemed. Everything I've seen from the expanded Star Wars universe just further reinforces what was already in the PT as far as I can tell; it just gives more case studies in how the Jedi Order was so out of touch with how most people function.
I'd almost say the reason why the extended Start Wars universe takes the stance of "What the hell, Jedi Order?" is because that sentiment was a reaction so many people in the Star Wars fandom had towards the Jedi Order of the PT. If the extended Star Wars universe had any other stance towards the PT Jedi Order, there would be a sizable backlash at how blind the creators of Star Wars were to how the Jedi Order came off to the audience.
Tres, that Salvager's Guide is a thing of Worldbuilding beauty. Furiously takes notes.
We should probably wrap this up soon, and not pollute the runup to TROS.
No one has to like a movie they dislike. But when someone has been the victim of a massive campaign of abuse, sensitivity doesn't hurt.
That became true at a certain point, yes, when he was no longer a child. Unfortunately, it was after he was already indoctrinated into their lifestyle, with its self-management techniques that couldn't help him any better than they helped Dooku.
What? Obi Wan tries to get him to talk about his dreams and gets brushed off. It's not Jedi self management that is the problem, it's Anakin's own issues. Obi Wan is a very emotional person that goes through many of the same trials, but deals with them fine.
Our best example of the Jedi teachings is Obi Wan. Funnily enough, he's very emotional. He has friends and attachments outside the order (Satine, Dex). Satine is murdered in front of him in a deliberate attempt to make him fall. He hasn't kept any of them secret, he doesn't hide any of these things that people believe the Jedi strictly forbid, but somehow it never becomes an issue. If the Jedi rules were really so strict, none of that could happen. Maybe it's just Anakin doing it wrong that's the problem, not the Jedi way
That isn't really the point, though, is it? When confronted with extraordinary stresses that don't fit into their culture, their way of life seems to leave little recourse in how to deal with it. Unwelcome stresses are expected to be handled by removal rather than any constructive means. They literally don't seem to have any other way of dealing with such things.
Even if we could separate the finer points of Anakin's fall from the environment he grew up in (and to be clear, I don't believe that we can), we're still dealing with what is, to my eyes anyway, a patently inferior culture that was someday going to be devoured by those things it suppressed due to its unwillingness or inability to square itself with them.
If it hadn't been Anakin then, it would have been another Jedi later.
It's true that Tattooine is not the best place for the mental health of a growing boy.
See above, re Obi Wan. And the record of two fallen in a thousand years, both deliberately poached by powerful external forces is not such a terrible decline.
The Jedi teaching we see is 'be mindful of your feelings'. That's important. Mindfulness is very different from repression, it means acknowledging your emotions and knowing how they affect you. It doesn't mean not having or suppressing emotions, just not letting them control you.
Anakin is never chided for having or feeling emotions, he's called on his lack of self control 'be mindful of your feelings, they betray you.', which is really really important when you're constantly in high stress situations like a Jedi.
These kinds of pressures are the kind that break nearly anyone, there's no reason to believe any other approach would work. We see Obi Wan and Yoda subject to similar (arguably greater) pressures in the wake of Order 66... and they handle them. They are the last survivors of their entire order, the man Obi Wan calls a brother has betrayed them and is killing everyone they know and love... and they handle it. It's not because they're unfeeling robots, we see them have strong emotional responses to the resounding destruction of all they hold dear... but they don't snap or give way to rage or despair. Are you sure it's the Jedi path that's the problem here?
For goodness' sake, the formation of the Sith (even in the old EU) was literally a consequence of the upper Jedi hierarchy of millenia past reacting in fear to what their own people discovered they could do with The Force.
We know very little about that, but it sounds like the forbidden practices were Professor Hojo type experiments, creating new creatures as weapons of war.
For instance, the council feared the power of foresight, regardless of where it came from or whether its use was deliberate. Jedi who demonstrated that ability were being imprisoned during Dooku's time as a Jedi Master. That's absurd, shameful, and shamefully absurd.
OBI-WAN : I have a bad feeling about this.
QUI-GON : I don't sense anything.
OBI-WAN : It's not about the mission, Master, it's
somethging...elsewhere...elusive.
QUI-GON : Don't center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration
here and now where it belongs.
OBI-WAN : Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future...
(regarding a possible Dark Side threat Dooku sensed)
"Repressed the memory, his mind has. The way he should. The way he has been trained."
(regarding investigation of the old prophecies to determine whether the Sith may once again become a threat)
"Unknowable the future is. Only to the Dark Side prophecy leads. To doubt. And fear. An old argument this is."
"Away from the past, a Jedi must turn. Only in the present, you should dwell."
That's Qui Gon's viewpoint in TPM, which Yoda is shown to have differing views on. They had to fly in the face of what was previously established about Yoda to make it work.
In all the various future visions, Yoda's viewpoint is ' be really really careful with Force visions.' Which we pretty much see is correct. Anakin takes his force vision as truth and it leads to catastrophe, Luke sees his vision and misreads it as 'Han and Leia will die if I don't', even Rey takes her vision as 'Kylo will turn' and is wrong.
They outright tell him not to go. If I tried talking first responders out of showing up to the site of a multi-automobile collision because "it might be dangerous," I'd be a dick. If their friends were involved in the accident and I tried talking them out of it, I'd be at the very least a dick.
One can point out that Luke ended up rescuing no one and needing rescue himself all they want, but we all know that having a robotic hand is what gave Luke sufficient pause at the critical moment in RotJ to defeat the Emperor ideologically, thus resulting in Vader defeating him physically.
Better example: You're a medic in a combat zone, there's somebody you know lying out in the open wounded. You want to go to them, but the squad sergeant correctly tells you that a sniper shot him to wound deliberately to lure you out to be shot. (For the sake of argument, this sniper
has a history of shooting medics). You believe that the wound of your friend is fatal, but the sergeant correctly points out that you don't know that at all, it's too far to see. He's just telling the truth, it's not being a dick.
I don't think the robot hand is nearly so important as Palpy chiming in at the wrong moment. And Luke's plan was not initially to turn Vader at all, it was to die in the Death Star.
Luke: Soon I'll be dead, and you with me.
He turns himself over to Vader to avoid being sensed and jeopardising the shield generator mission. Trying to turn Vader is more of a 'fuck it, I'm dead anyway, what have I to lose?' plan.
Well, it was dumb of them, no disagreement there. But we've already seen how they ignored other things for piss-poor reasons.
But TPM has them take extremely seriously Qui Gon's crazy story about a Sith appearance and a child of prophecy. In order to make the Jedi Council the bad guys here, the writing in these things have to directly contradict their established characterisations. You're scrambling all over the place to find quotes, but the one thing they have in common is that.
1. They're not from the PT themselves, but supplementary material added much later.
2. They're directly contradicted by what's in the PT.
I've never lived in a shithole space opera setting where beggars can't be choosers either. =P
Why in hell do these people with all this valuable stuff trade with the dude that only pays people in food? Notable in your extract, the droid doesn't eat food, so she has to trade in spare parts and jokes, because she has nothing else.
Tatooine from the Jedi Order at a time they believed their operations would last for another thousand years. We did hear intention of doing something about slavery on Tatooine from Leia at a time she believed she was in a position of influence in what she also believed was a political atmosphere friendly to rebellions (all of which got shot to hell shortly thereafter).
But she didn't. We do know the Jedi brought down that Egyptian cat empire in the Clone Wars, and we know that the Resistance is aware of the slaves in Canto Bight (it's no secret, Rose, resistance grunt,casually brings it up). If the lack of fleet support is sufficient excuse for Leia to not liberate slaves, surely it applies to the Jedi as well, who also do not have a fleet.
There's no required reading in the PT. There's supplementary reading, but the basic plot stands on its own fine. A few years ago, I knew no Star Wars lore, I only looked into it because Starkiller Base's attack makes no sense unless you read a lot of stuff about unknown regions and disarmament which isn't mentioned anywhere in the films. Although this may be a matter of opinion of course.
If your movie's obnoxious alien sidekick character requires subtitles yet doesn't come with them, your movie is doing it wrong.
Taking a little shot at Jar Jar in 2015 isn't tantamount to harassing the guy who did the voice ten to sixteen years earlier. People are most certainly allowed to do this without crossing the plane of some moral event horizon.
All this stuff adds up. A jab like that has very different subtext in the context of a previous campaign of abuse.
It sounds like a normal sort of conversation I've heard plenty of times: "My favorite scene from the PT? This one. What about yours? Oh, yeah, that was amazing, but I was caught off guard that Maul was gone so suddenly. I thought he'd be sticking around longer."
Or was Abrams giving Rian Johnson the same sting when he made similar comments about TLJ and Phasma recently?
Let's call the spade a spade: the PT earned well the derision it received on the subject of its visual effects. Not only were they implemented in some unnecessary, embarrassing ways, but Lucas himself emphasized them at every turn such that even people who didn't know the full ins and outs of what was done are going to be aware enough of the emphasis to automatically conclude it had to be the problem that made the films feel off to them.
Y'know, I actually feel they used much more restraint with CG than most modern movies. CG is used for stuff that is impossible to do without it, like battle scenes and the Coruscant Senate. Yoda stayed a puppet in TPM, but he had an action scene in AOTC, so that required CG. Nute Gunray is practical. Utapau spokesman is practical. There is lots of model work with the dogfights, which are nearly all CG now. Things are practical except when they can't be.
A lot of Star Wars criticisms are based on memes, which get widely repeated, but that doesn't make them correct. People like to blame George for stuff. Bad things about SW get blamed on him, good things get credited to other people.
As for Simon Pegg, it's not really a secret that the guy is an asshole and utterly despises the PT. It's hardly surprising that he would choose to go that route to talk up the ST.
And yet they let him consult on the script. Given how controlled what actors say during marketing tends to be, that may not have been accidental.
Beyond that, if you feel people should say "unequivocally positive" things about the PT disingenuously just because the extent of the animosity directed towards it was so unnecessary and toxic, I got nothing for that.
By no means, but when JJ gives no PT related answers in interviews that don't take jabs at them, it's suggestive.
Re those quotes : 'laser sword' is a very thin link, the Clone Wars predate the PT, and Luke's line is inaccurate.
If that scene about raiders was so pivotal to the themes, why was it deleted?
Part of the reason I read and comment here is because I haven't seen any of the expanded Star Wars universe stuff. Just the eight main movies. Anything else I know is stuff I've picked up through general pop culture osmosis. And yet I see the same issues with the PT just from watching only them that people who have watched/read other Star Wars expanded universe stuff see with them.
As much as the other stuff in the Star Wars universe is going "What the hell, Jedi Order?"
The pop cultural osmosis part is important, because said osmosis tends to be inaccurate. "Luke, I am your father" isn't really the line, stormtroopers aren't especially inaccurate, the exhaust port is well defended, The resistance bombers are not as fragile as that one battle makes them appear. Batman doesn't spare superman because their moms have the same name, Dracula wore victorian suits to blend into victorian london, not at home in his castle, Tidus and Yuna laughing is as written, not bad voice acting.
I watched the PT prior to... TLJ, I think, and came away thinking 'wow, everything people say about these movies is wrong. When do they get bad?'
What? Obi Wan tries to get him to talk about his dreams and gets brushed off. It's not Jedi self management that is the problem, it's Anakin's own issues.
I'm not sure what conversation you're referring to regarding Anakin's dreams and being brushed off (I only remember a conversation in which Obi-Wan tells him that "Dreams pass in time" and they leave it there before talking about how Annie wants to bone Padmé), so I'll skip that.
As to the rest of the matter, Anakin was a colossal shithead, no doubt -- but he actually tries discussing his dreams about Padmé with the Jedi Grand Master and Yoda gives him this thoroughly lack-of-comforting, inhuman, and ultimately unhelpful -- I dare say ultimately problem-contributing -- advice:
"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is."
Anakin asks "What must I do, Master Yoda?" and is told "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."
I know I'm not the only one who listened to the appalling bedside manner of this twit here on a first viewing and thought "Well, there goes the Republic." It is this approach to people that doomed the Jedi from day one, and it is also the reason why many of us who respond to the "tragedy" of the Jedi Order passing into history do so with, well, putting quotation marks around the word.
Obi Wan is a very emotional person that goes through many of the same trials, but deals with them fine.
Our best example of the Jedi teachings is Obi Wan. Funnily enough, he's very emotional. He has friends and attachments outside the order (Satine, Dex). Satine is murdered in front of him in a deliberate attempt to make him fall. He hasn't kept any of them secret, he doesn't hide any of these things that people believe the Jedi strictly forbid, but somehow it never becomes an issue. If the Jedi rules were really so strict, none of that could happen. Maybe it's just Anakin doing it wrong that's the problem, not the Jedi way
Does everyone who experiences extremes of stress need counseling to prevent a breakdown? Of course not, but that doesn't mean the "man up and walk it off" method isn't inherently flawed.
We know very little about that, but it sounds like the forbidden practices were Professor Hojo type experiments, creating new creatures as weapons of war.
Of the little we do know, there's no indication that they were intended to be weapons.
Yes, absurd. Especially in light of this
OBI-WAN : I have a bad feeling about this.
QUI-GON : I don't sense anything.
OBI-WAN : It's not about the mission, Master, it's
somethging...elsewhere...elusive.
QUI-GON : Don't center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration
here and now where it belongs.
OBI-WAN : Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future...
That's Qui Gon's viewpoint in TPM, which Yoda is shown to have differing views on. They had to fly in the face of what was previously established about Yoda to make it work.
Can it not simply be that they have different notions of consequence and relevance as pertains to varying contexts of the future and the present? Or does Qui-Gon's characterization when we learn about the Prophecy of the Chosen One later in TPM fly in the face of his characterization in the first scene of the movie?
Does this PT Yoda that Obi-Wan speaks of fly in the face of OT Yoda, who said "This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away. To the future. To the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing"?
Does this PT Yoda in TPM contradict the PT Yoda in AotC who said "And only those who have turned to the Dark Side can sense the possibilities of the future. Only going through the Dark Side can we see"?
And for the record, Qui-Gon's response after Obi-Wan says "Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future" is "But not at the expense of the present." =P
Better example: You're a medic in a combat zone, there's somebody you know lying out in the open wounded. You want to go to them, but the squad sergeant correctly tells you that a sniper shot him to wound deliberately to lure you out to be shot. (For the sake of argument, this sniper has a history of shooting medics). You believe that the wound of your friend is fatal, but the sergeant correctly points out that you don't know that at all, it's too far to see. He's just telling the truth, it's not being a dick.
Luke says "l am a Jedi, like my father before me" there for a reason. In that moment, he literally is choosing who he and Anakin will be, and the thought process is prompted by their matching hands.
Lucas's own script for RotJ bears these comments there:
"Luke looks at his father's mechanical hand, then to his own mechanical, black-gloved hand, and realizes how much he is becoming like his father. He makes the decision for which he has spent a lifetime in preparation. Luke steps back and hurls his lightsaber away."
And Luke's plan was not initially to turn Vader at all, it was to die in the Death Star.
Luke: Soon I'll be dead, and you with me.
He turns himself over to Vader to avoid being sensed and jeopardising the shield generator mission. Trying to turn Vader is more of a 'fuck it, I'm dead anyway, what have I to lose?' plan.
These objectives aren't mutually exclusive in the first place, but even if they were, what does whether it was his plan matter? It was critical to the Force and for the galaxy that it happen as it did, and it only happened that way because of a specific set of circumstances and the accompanying series of events.
For what it's worth, though, even as Luke was turning himself in, he was trying to bring Vader back ("I won't turn, and you'll be forced to kill me"; "Search your feelings, father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate"; etc.).
But TPM has them take extremely seriously Qui Gon's crazy story about a Sith appearance and a child of prophecy. In order to make the Jedi Council the bad guys here, the writing in these things have to directly contradict their established characterisations.
Where does TCW fall in your narrow definition of acceptable sources? It was developed long before the sale to Disney even though its final season aired after. Its final episode had even aired before the (in)famous announcement about the old EU being decanonized.
Once I have my answer, you may resume your "scrambling" between quotes such as "That's not his/their characterization" and "Well, it isn't in the stuff that I'm saying counts. Or those specific parts that I'm saying count in the stuff that I'm saying counts." =P
(I realize this last comment was pretty douchey of me, but come on, you kind of earned it with that "scrambling to find quotes" thing ...)
Starship pilots can get food from other places than random slaves.
And people with cars can get food from places that isn't the McDonald's drive-thru, but sometimes you do what's convenient. On Jakku, trading with the not-slaves is convenient once you're already there.
Why in hell do these people with all this valuable stuff trade with the dude that only pays people in food?
It's like trading good money that can be used anywhere for chips or tokens that can only be used in a casino. Or buying comic books with the intention of selling them for a profit.
Many people who come to Jakku to live this way are basically gamblers or speculators hoping to hit it big and retire to Ogem like that lucky Miggs McKane schmuck.
If the lack of fleet support is sufficient excuse for Leia to not liberate slaves, surely it applies to the Jedi as well, who also do not have a fleet.
Not one they personally own, no, since they operate simultaneously as wards and agents of the state -- but if they wanted to get them, well, I imagine ten thousand Jedi minds could win a lot of hands of sabacc. XD
There's no required reading in the PT. There's supplementary reading, but the basic plot stands on its own fine.
Certainly. I'm referring to making it feel worthwhile, though.
A few years ago, I knew no Star Wars lore, I only looked into it because Starkiller Base's attack makes no sense unless you read a lot of stuff about unknown regions and disarmament which isn't mentioned anywhere in the films. Although this may be a matter of opinion of course.
So we're just ignoring that Ahmed Best provided Jar Jar's voice on no less than four occasions for projects that poked fun at the character? Pointed this out in my most recent post.
It sounds like a normal sort of conversation I've heard plenty of times: "My favorite scene from the PT? This one. What about yours? Oh, yeah, that was amazing, but I was caught off guard that Maul was gone so suddenly. I thought he'd be sticking around longer."
Or was Abrams giving Rian Johnson the same sting when he made similar comments about TLJ and Phasma recently?
We're about to agree on something in this damn thread. Let the Special Edition frolicking begin!
CG is used for stuff that is impossible to do without it, like battle scenes and the Coruscant Senate. Yoda stayed a puppet in TPM, but he had an action scene in AOTC, so that required CG. Nute Gunray is practical. Utapau spokesman is practical. There is lots of model work with the dogfights, which are nearly all CG now. Things are practical except when they can't be.
A lot of Star Wars criticisms are based on memes, which get widely repeated, but that doesn't make them correct. People like to blame George for stuff. Bad things about SW get blamed on him, good things get credited to other people.
We're not discussing this with a meme lord education, though. We're not discussing vague notions of "too much CGI." We're discussing matters of "What?" and "To what effect?"
It's from that we arrive at assessments like that which I previously leveled: "they were implemented in some unnecessary, embarrassing ways."
And I again reiterate:
"... Lucas himself emphasized them at every turn such that even people who didn't know the full ins and outs of what was done are going to be aware enough of the emphasis to automatically conclude it had to be the problem that made the films feel off to them.
It may be true that the prequel films don't feature a greater number of individual instances or even a greater percentage of post-production effects than the ST -- but one can sound off that TFA had 2,100 visual effects until blue in the face and that will never, ever make a lick of difference to the actually relevant matter of how the aesthetics of the PT felt to audiences by comparison.
Not everyone is a filmmaker. Not everyone even has an interest in the technical side of filmmaking beyond just watching the damn thing when it's done. Pretty much everyone is an expert, though, on what feels authentic to them -- even if they don't understand the whats and the whys.
Given how Lucas himself waved that VFX flag during production like it was the checkered flag on the last lap at a NASCAR race, it's absolutely no wonder that people latched onto it as the problem, or at least the symbol of it."
I'm talking about casual moviegoers here. I've known more people who aren't so much "Star Wars" fans as viewers of "whatever is out right now" to comment that those movies just plain felt weird to them than I've heard impassioned wails of "too much CGI."
On a slight tangent, probably the most memorable assessment I've ever heard is that the PT is like someone tried to make highbrow "The Fifth Element" and tried way too hard.
And yet they let him consult on the script. Given how controlled what actors say during marketing tends to be, that may not have been accidental.
It stands much more to plausibility that he was allowed to consult on it because he is a personal friend to a director/producer/screenwriter rather than because he's a diehard fan of the property who hates the PT. How do you see that pitch going?
It's not hard to imagine the response that would have gotten. "Yeah, we have like a thousand more of those guys in IT. I'm not letting them near the script either."
Re those quotes : 'laser sword' is a very thin link ...
If it doesn't matter, why was it written, shot, and given post-production work? Why is it in the novelization?
And anyway, the theme comes across in the movie without that additional scene emphasizing it. People were citing it in their analyses of the film before we even knew about the raiders scene.
I watched the PT prior to... TLJ, I think, and came away thinking 'wow, everything people say about these movies is wrong. When do they get bad?'
I'm not sure what conversation you're referring to regarding Anakin's dreams and being brushed off (I only remember a conversation in which Obi-Wan tells him that "Dreams pass in time" and they leave it there before talking about how Annie wants to bone Padmé), so I'll skip that.
As to the rest of the matter, Anakin was a colossal shithead, no doubt -- but he actually tries discussing his dreams about Padmé with the Jedi Grand Master and Yoda gives him this thoroughly lack-of-comforting, inhuman, and ultimately unhelpful -- I dare say ultimately problem-contributing -- advice:
"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is."
Anakin asks "What must I do, Master Yoda?" and is told "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."
I'm referring to those faulty self management techniques you're talking about. Obi Wan tries to get him to talk and does say 'dreams pass in time' but then Anakin deliberately changes the subject.
If you lie/don't talk to your therapist, they can't help you. He keeps his problems to himself by choice,
Anakin should've Yoda the truth. All of it. If he had, and Yoda's advice didn't work, then we could talk about how Jedi management techniques failed him.
Does everyone who experiences extremes of stress need counseling to prevent a breakdown? Of course not, but that doesn't mean the "man up and walk it off" method isn't inherently flawed.
Per Wikipedia, that is what they eventually became. We have no idea if those warning signs were justified or not, so anything we say about the failure is speculation.
It really depends on what those experiments were like, which we have no information on.
an it not simply be that they have different notions of consequence and relevance as pertains to varying contexts of the future and the present? Or does Qui-Gon's characterization when we learn about the Prophecy of the Chosen One later in TPM fly in the face of his characterization in the first scene of the movie?
Does this PT Yoda that Obi-Wan speaks of fly in the face of OT Yoda, who said "This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away. To the future. To the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing"?
Does this PT Yoda in TPM contradict the PT Yoda in AotC who said "And only those who have turned to the Dark Side can sense the possibilities of the future. Only going through the Dark Side can we see"?
And for the record, Qui-Gon's response after Obi-Wan says "Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future" is "But not at the expense of the present." =P
I'm talking about Yoda's characterisation re future visions. Everywhere else, he's 'be careful about future visions', but there he dismisses them entirely for no apparent reason. He doesn't do that anywhere else. When Luke and Anakin have visions, he doesn't claim they're false, just not set in stone.
What if the medic does get shot, and as a result other people die from lack of care?
Luke says "l am a Jedi, like my father before me" there for a reason. In that moment, he literally is choosing who he and Anakin will be, and the thought process is prompted by their matching hands.
Lucas's own script for RotJ bears these comments there:
"Luke looks at his father's mechanical hand, then to his own mechanical, black-gloved hand, and realizes how much he is becoming like his father. He makes the decision for which he has spent a lifetime in preparation. Luke steps back and hurls his lightsaber away."
Sure, but he stops before that, because of Palpy's laugh.
These objectives aren't mutually exclusive in the first place, but even if they were, what does whether it was his plan matter? It was critical to the Force and for the galaxy that it happen as it did, and it only happened that way because of a specific set of circumstances and the accompanying series of events.
For what it's worth, though, even as Luke was turning himself in, he was trying to bring Vader back ("I won't turn, and you'll be forced to kill me"; "Search your feelings, father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate"; etc.).
It matters because it's a freak chain of events that can't be predicted. Otherwise you are arguing that Yoda should have let him go because his hand being chopped off was vital to his final decision, which no one at all could have possibly predicted.
Okay? The canon goes beyond just the PT.
Where does TCW fall in your narrow definition of acceptable sources? It was developed long before the sale to Disney even though its final season aired after. Its final episode had even aired before the (in)famous announcement about the old EU being decanonized.
Once I have my answer, you may resume your "scrambling" between quotes such as "That's not his/their characterization" and "Well, it isn't in the stuff that I'm saying counts. Or those specific parts that I'm saying count in the stuff that I'm saying counts." =P
(I realize this last comment was pretty douchey of me, but come on, you kind of earned it with that "scrambling to find quotes" thing ...)
TCW can be useful, but in terms of the PT characterisations I'd take the movies over them where they conflict, because TV episodes have a lot to do in twenty minutes and have to take shortcuts.
It's like trading good money that can be used anywhere for chips or tokens that can only be used in a casino. Or buying comic books with the intention of selling them for a profit.
That seems unlikely to me when you can just go somewhere else.
Not one they personally own, no, since they operate simultaneously as wards and agents of the state -- but if they wanted to get them, well, I imagine ten thousand Jedi minds could win a lot of hands of sabacc. XD
In this context, it's not about relative virtue, but in their response to threats. Very thin evidence of a Sith attack in TPM is taken extremely seriously.
in TPM, it doesn't really gel with them completely shrugging off earlier potential threats just because.
Certainly. I'm referring to making it feel worthwhile, though.
I dunno, I can't think of one. People usually say the Clonetroopers, but when you think about it, it's not really feasible. These are large scale engagements against invisible robots, it'd be impossible to do practically.
No one is wrong to feel things, but the fanbase was enormously cruel in light of those feelings, with all those death threats, abuse and such, that led to real and lasting harm to some of those involved. And some of those memes have lasted. "George needs to be told no" "Marcia Lucas saved the original edit" "The Clone Wars redeemed the PT" and so on. When those memes are not based on the truth to begin with, that's important.
'laser sword' seems to be what people who don't know the proper word say. Luke's using it to show his deliberate disdain.
You're correct re the clone army quote.
Accuracy is a certain point of view, I just really don't like that line for being an apologetic for genocide. You don't get a choice in whether to be genocided or not, your crime is existing. There's no change in doctrine or actions that make a difference. That's the main reason I had such a strong reaction to it. If the X Men were exterminated by the Sentinels, it's because they were victims, not because they allowed it.
So, recapping to wrap up:
You believe the Jedi are at fault for not ending slavery on Tattooine. I don't think that's feasible with killing most of the population, and that's a good enough reason to not do that. We're not going to make further progress on that.
You believe the Jedi rules are at fault for Anakin's fall, and are faulty in general. I disagree.
You believe the PT's themes will pay off in TROS. I think that's very unlikely.
I think that's the main topics, what did I forget? (Jakku just spun out of slavery) I don't think we're going to get any further.
Yeah, this is probably as much progress as we can make until the end of next week. After that, we'll either both be disappointed (one more so than the other) or one of us gets to feel vindicated while the other is pleasantly surprised about being wrong.
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“The Last Jedi,” released in 2017, was also a success. But each time it addressed one of several cliffhangers left dangling from “The Force Awakens” — what would happen when Rey returned Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber to him? who were her parents? who was the nefarious Supreme Leader Snoke? — Johnson’s movie seemed to say: the answers to these questions aren’t as important as you think.
Abrams praised “The Last Jedi” for being “full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices.”
“On the other hand,” he added, “it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”
Even so, Abrams said “The Last Jedi” laid the groundwork for “The Rise of Skywalker” and “a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other.”
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Some folks are taking this in the worst possible way, as Abrams dumping on Johnson and/or his movie. This, despite the clearly positive assessment of how it worked out for the better, and despite the same article including these remarks about Abrams himself:
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J.J. Abrams knows what audiences think of him. “I’ve never been great at endings,” the filmmaker said just hours after delivering a finished version of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” With some hesitation, Abrams added, “I don’t actually think I’m good at anything, but I know how to begin a story. Ending a story is tough.”
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We've also seen these other positive critiques of "The Last Jedi" and Johnson from him in recent days --
“Even some of the things that happened in Episode VIII that at the time I thought, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting choice I would not have made,’ weirdly ended up being beneficial for this film. I feel like we’re doing the best we can to sort of excavate what is inevitable. Some of the things I like the most wouldn’t have happened if I had to make all those decisions back when we were doing VII. Certain things that happened in Rian’s film, and certainly all the films that preceded VII, were all inspiration for the cocktail that became Rise Of Skywalker.”
“In Episode 7, I was adhering to a kind of approach that felt right for Star Wars in my head. It was about finding a visual language, like shooting on locations and doing practical things as much as possible. And we continue that in Episode 9, but I also found myself doing things that I’m not sure I would have been as daring to do on Episode 7. Rian helped remind me that that’s why we’re on these movies—not to just do something that you’ve seen before. I won’t say that I felt constrained or limited on 7, but I found myself wanting to do something that felt more consistent with the original trilogy than not. And on 9, I found myself feeling like I’m just gonna go for it a bit more.”
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At a press conference in Tokyo, the cast and crew of the forthcoming Star Wars movie were asked whether George Lucas’ unexplored ideas regarding midichlorians will ever be explored in canon. The question was mangled in translation into English, but led to an interesting discussion nonetheless.
Like many fans, this writer included, it seems that Abrams favours a more spiritual interpretation of the Force – in fact, this was pretty much the only interpretation that existed for two decades, until Lucas introduce the concept of midichlorians in 1999’s The Phantom Menace. In that film, it was proposed that microbes inside a Jedi’s bloodstream determined their sensitivity to the Force, and their aptitude to manipulate it.
“The midichlorian idea is in the movies, so it’s part of the story, and everyone accepts it because it’s what George wrote and it’s part of the lore,” responded Abrams. “And yet, what I remember when I was a kid and I saw the first film and Obi-Wan Kenobi talks about the Force and how it surrounds all of us and it binds every living thing together, and that feeling of that kind of power, to me is the thing that I’ve always felt was a bit more powerful of an idea.”
The concept of midichlorians has proven extremely controversial among fans, many of whom complain that it takes a spiritual concept and makes it mundane. Abrams seems to agree, though he diplomatically stopped short of trashing the concept outright.
“It’s not like anyone here is rejecting midichlorians,” said Abrams, jokingly adding “except Daisy!” He went on to explain, “But the feeling of the Force being something you can feel, you can draw upon, you can believe in – I believe that is a more powerful notion, and that’s what I felt the Force was to me. But the beauty of what George created is that we can all interpret it ourselves.”
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As issues with his comments go, it would actually be the midi-chlorians one I would find problematic if any were. Not for any reason involving the sanctity of the PT, mind you, but simply because I eventually found the midi-chlorians concept intriguing thanks to Darth Plagueis's experimentation with them, as well as TCW revealing that Wellspring of Life planet -- "the foundation of life, the birthplace of what your science calls midi-chlorians, the foundation of what connects the Living Force and the Cosmic Force."
I would personally argue that these angles very effectively maintained a spiritual side even to the subject of the midi-chlorians. I can understand feeling that they're less rooted in as much a sense of mysticism as what Obi-Wan's description of The Force suggested, but there's definitely still a spiritual aspect -- just one with a little definition to it. Certainly one's personal tastes may not accommodate midi-chlorians, though, if that esoteric mystical flavor is all their hard preference.
Or maybe I'm wrong and someone will consider it disrespectful to George that he considers the originals the best versions, or that he should avoid questioning Disney's decisions on such matters, just be thankful they asked him to make these movies, and shut his trap.
Heh, there are three constants in the universe, death, taxes, and Star Wars.
The midichlorians rage was dumb from the start, there was always a biological component to Force sensitivity unless you thought that it was coincidence that Darth Vader's kids were force sensitive. Leia is not particularly spiritual, but she hears the call of Luke when need be, even though she doesn't believe she has those powers. There was more to it than, that, though.
Anakin has the super duper bloodline, but doesn't have the spirituality the way Yoda and Palpatine do, his force abilities are just his superpowers. "My powers have doubled" and so on. And so he doesn't reach their level.
The irony here is that even in their avoidance of midis, the ST has doubled down on the idea that only certain people have the force with the Rey/Kylo being two superpowered sides of the same coin, not because they're more spiritual than anyone else, but just because they have those innate superpowers whether they like it or not.
The dislike for Midis amounted to 'My headcanon was wrong! Nooooo! That's not true! That's impossible!'
It's a strange one. I read the script version, I imagine this is hard to follow listening to it. Hard to visualise a lightsabre duel on pure sound.
Three favourite things:
-The dedication to Christopher Lee
-Dooku lightsabre duelling without spilling his wineglass
-Palpatine's entry in dramatis personae "Does he really need an introduction?"
Dooku: We must find my sister. She was last seen near the spaceport.
Ventress: Okay.
Dooku: Here is my entire life story in bitesize chunks.
Ventress: Uh... okay. I'm not sure how that will help, but thanks. At least I won't get bored during the stakeouts.
Falls into the classic Star Wars EU difficulty of over foreshadowing, Dooku has a very long and full life where he could have been all manner of things, in this he's attacking Jedi Masters as an Initiate and breaking out Force Lightning by accident before he even becomes a Knight. It's all very 'you are locked into this role by fate' which in universe shouldn't be true? 'Always in motion is the future.' I feel like Dooku is too big of a character to have just one work like this encompass who he is. His best friend being Syfo Dyas just adds to that 'this is all predestined and inevitable' feel.
An expelled Padawan named Teradine dating from the High Republic era..nah, we'll never see them again.
There is a certain sense of the inevitable, of course, but it also has to take us to that endpoint we're already familiar with. I never really felt like it was predestined, though, or that Dooku couldn't have gone any other way. Kind of the opposite, really. Seemed like he almost always had time to consider his actions.
Does it have to take us to that endpoint, though? This story spans like fifty years, it's more than possible that Dooku could have done a lot of things that don't inevitably set up his fall. When he's doing things like attacking Jedi and frying people with Lightning as a teen, it starts to feel like it's laid out for him rather than one path of many possibilities.
I guess this is the place to drop general SW stuff?
Recently I have been wanting to take off something from my chest; with the lately prequel vs sequel (or prequel vindication) discussion online I've been thinking, on the side that gives merit to the prequels as more cohesive and better executed story than the later, how much of that view is actually from what's in the text of the prequel movies vs the expanded material it produced (mainly The Clone Wars show)?
As a fan that likes the prequels I feel many of them are being disingeous in this particular discussion and are (subconsiously) equating the extra material (TCW) as being representative of the prequels movies. The expanded content is good but they are not the PT movies.
Admitely I don't have anything to point as evidence other than my gut feeling reaction whenever said topic comes up in the fandom right now.
As a big fan of TCW and the Sequel Trilogy but generally not the Prequel Trilogy itself, I still think the PT was set up way more cohesively than the ST.
We got lucky with the first two ST movies. Our luck ran out with the third.
Not a big starwars fan, I've only seen the movies and recently watched the mandalorian, but I agree that the prequels are better set up than the ST is. For all their faults, there is a least a cohesive narrative progression through all the PT films. Palpatine amasses more and more power for himself through his manufactured war, and turns Anakin against the Jedi by manipulating him and playing the Jedi for fools. It's not a very well told story, but I think the concept is very strong at least.
The ST had no vision, it was a directionless mess propped up on nostalgia and fun action set pieces. None of the characters besides Kylo really feel like they change or grow, it's stagnate. TLJ almost managed something, with its themes of letting go of the past and making something new. That retroactively justifies the force awakens being a retread of new hope, it show the same people falling into the same tired cycle of conflict. Luke felt like he had changed nothing and so he isolated himself in shame, but Rey represented the possibility of something new. Then RoS backtracked everything and went back to the tired, safe formula.
That's how this non starwars fan feels about all this, anyway.
Speaking for myself, absolutely not. I've seen commentators say things like 'TCW redeems the PT' or 'fixes Anakin's arc' and stuff and I feel that's a horrible backhanded compliment, because they don't need to be redeemed in the first place.
I picked up the 3 PT on DVD some time post/pre TLJ and was weirdly surprised to find most of the faults people talk about just aren't there. They're fundamentally good films. That's not sarcasm or mockery. It's the truth, (from my point of view.)
I didn't grow up with TCW, I only got into it in the last couple of years, and some of it was great, some of it was so dull that I skipped episodes. It didn't do a grand redemption of the PT for me.
TCW is similar to Before Crisis for me. It's at it's best when it does its own thing, when it tries to tie into or improve the PT, that's usually when it stumbles or even damages the existing story, introducing inconsistencies in Red XIII or Anakin's story by giving them knowledge they shouldn't have too far in advance or doing redundant arcs like having Yoda learn the war is a trap when he already knew that at the end of Clones, or Yuffie needing Wutai blown up a second time to acquire her grudge against the Shinra, when they already did that during the war.
I don't think I'm crediting TCW for improving/redeeming the prequels because I don't think it did.
Re the Sequels, They're not fundamentally bad films, taken in isolation. But they're fighting each other (and the prequels) rather than working together. Which is always bad for any story.
So, after Dooku: Jedi Lost, I finally took a look at Master and Apprentice. Predictably enough, my thoughts are long and complicated. This is going to take a while.
It's an okay story, not that special. I can't see the phrase 'Ms Wick' without thinking of the Continental. Kind of odd that her story is played for tragedy, but Pax's admittedly less but still traumatic backstory is played as a joke.
Harmless but pointless subplot about 'why Obi Wan dislikes flying'
Lots of mirroring of TPM, young queen forced to sign a treaty giving control to a corporation, hmm.
LOL, Hosnian Prime, stronghold of Czerka's galactic slavery. The NR knows how to pick their capital.
I have to give Claudia Grey credit for limiting her random pointless tie ins, although Maz has a random cameo and they set up Obi's varactyl riding. I'm not altogether fond of his force sensitivity meaning that he's automatically a fantastic cavalryman, though.
Dooku's character in AOTC only works if he's a paragon above suspicion. Now he keeps being caught doing shady stuff, which makes me really question how he could possibly get away things unmonitored, or at least unsuspected.
Rael and Qui Gon apparently never bothered to tell anyone about his tendency to fry suspects with lightning?
Odd. Back in Dooku: Jedi Lost they were talking about prophets getting locked up, but known prophet Sifo Dyas gets a seat on the high council instead, and in general they take them seriously, they just don't immediately believe em, which seems like the correct response given how often misinterpreted visions lead to catastrophe.
I don't really recognise the characters in TPM. It's the eternal curse of the Star Wars fandom where they go 'that person isn't the same person as they were ten years from now, inconsistent!', but the end of the book seems to try to tie in to TPM with the epilogue, and the focus on how they have a new bond with each other, which doesn't quite fit.
TPM seems to have Obi with a deep loyalty to his master that Qui doesn't really return, he basically renounces him in favour of Anakin with no expressions of regret or indications that throwing away his apprentice of ten years was a sad but necessary decision (also, describing super submissive Obi Wan, who apologises for disagreeing with him, as 'headstrong', God, Qui, what does a passive student look like to you?) In the epilogue, Obi seems to describe their deep bond thereafter the events on Pijal, but that's not what we get in TPM. Maybe he's just wrong, but that does kind of conflict with the theme of the book.
Qui Gon keeps complaining through the books about the JC and Republic's inaction on slavery, he has multiple conversations about their mistakes, it is clear how passionate he is on this point. At the end of the book, he has three choices.
1. Join the Jedi Council, try and make them be more active on the issue.
2. Leave the Jedi altogether, and try and do something about it.
3. Stay in the Jedi, do nothing, and keep whining about everyone else's inaction while doing nothing himself.
He picks 3. He feels deeply about it, he doesn't believe in the Council's reasons for not being more active, but he apparently doesn't believe in it strongly enough to do anything on his own. He becomes extremely unsympathetic with this choice, safe in the role of powerless renegade who can complain about everyone else but refuses to put himself in a position where he actually can act.
I don't think the author intended this, but it became a side effect of retconning in a strong stance against slavery in the outer rim into Qui Gon's character that wasn't previously evidenced, leaving her with the thorny problem of 'if he believes this, why doesn't he do anything about it?' And in their efforts to give him a sympathetic stance on slavery while keeping later events intact, they end up just making him look bad.
There's a lot of talk about how inflexible they are and how Yoda's will reigns supreme, but he can be and is outvoted, and they try to invite Qui Gon into their ranks. There's also so much talk about how many allowances they made for Rael, ironically highlighting how extremely flexible they can be. Dissenting opinions are genuinely valued, Dooku and Qui Gon are respected and listened to, and they keep trying to invite rogues into their ranks, Syfo Dias, Dooku, and Qui all are offered a chair.
D: JL and this all end up kind of tangled together and contradictory . Which can be realistic, but it feels like they're trying to make the Jedi Council rigid and obstructive, but need their characters to get away with what they do, and so end up with a Council that is extraordinarily tolerant and open minded, because otherwise they would clamp down on all these shenanigans.
This is one case where all the random cameos are completely justified, the premise of the book is desperately seeking out any old allies that are still alive.
A solid book... I just can't get past the fate of the RDA. The Resistance is so bad at not getting everyone they speak to killed that it becomes difficult to find them sympathetic. No one should ever try to help these people if they want to live. It works out better for the Collective to fleece them than it did for the RDA to ally with them.
Finn is sadly mostly relegated to slapstick.
Maz is a dick for no reason.
The weight of all the fallen is weighing on Poe, at least, but the idea of the Resistance as the 'leave no man behind' people is a bad joke by this point.
...Stormtroopers... are running security... at the secret auction... for the list of FO subversives...
It's not as stupid as it sounds to be fair, as they think it's some rich lady's birthday, but still, 1 in 4 of the guests were FO officials, it really should have raised some red flags when they all suddenly withdrew.
Bracca mission was good and tense. I'm not clear on if they took Puwanini and her crew with them or left them behind to face the FO. One minute, Puwan is there, and then they leave with the ships... which are all one man fighters...did they just leave the scrappers behind to face the wrath of the FO? I'm not sure, maybe I missed something.
It's a decent book, hamstrung the way every 'before you watch the film' story is, but the writer does her best in difficult circumstances.
So, I've now read work by Cavan Scott, Claudia Grey, and Daniel Jose Alder, three of the five writers involved. I've seen some screens from Charles Soule's Kylo Ren comic (but not read the whole thing). Justina Ireland is an unknown to me (I've vaguely heard the name, but not seen/ read
any of her work.)
I... cant say I've loved or hated any of their work. They're serviceable, decent reads.
Looking at interviews and press releases for the new project, though it seems kind of odd. They're putting stress on the Jedi being 'the good guys' ( How revolutionary!)
They reference to how they're not serving out of 'unwavering dogma' in addition to the above. Cavan and Claudia both wrote books about 'rebel' Jedi fighting against the dictates of the Council, and Justina gave an interview where she mentioned how 'jerky' the PT era Jedi Council is.
This leaves me wondering if they're going to try and do another lead characters on the fringes sticking it to the man by ignoring the dictates of the Council to do good, a la Dooku/ Qui Gon without their canon fates to worry about. One of the lost twenty is one of the lead characters in the new stories, so maybe she will leave the order to defend locals from raiders or something.
The canon at the moment has been trading heavily on complaining about the PT era Jedi, from TCW to M&A to the ST. If that keeps up into PL, I suspect they will run into problems, because it's treading the same ground as before, and they have to avoid actually progressing to something new because of the timeline.
The other option is they're going to do a Mass Effect: Andromeda and take things to a new galaxy cut off from the core by the great disaster and so found their own rules, which will be interesting. Eventually they'll have to reconnect and presumably come into contact with the Jedi and resolve their differences. I will be sad if they keep up the 'complain about the Council' trend.
I just hope they can resist having the Sith cameo.
Note: I am just rambling, little of this is confirmed. I still hope I'm wrong.
This is good. It's very good. I knew better than to pay much heed to internet rage, but I was not prepared for just how good the writing on this show would turn out to be. Every character is making decisions that make sense and are in character, they finally figured out how to do low stakes, where a single stormtrooper remains a major threat throughout, without making your leads do silly things for the sake of plot.
Kaz finds out enough but not too much ahead of time, and even Hosnian's destruction is given some punch.
The cameos are mostly justified,the only questionable one is really BB-8.
Still good, but they kind of ran out of plot. Once the FO comes out of cover,there's no need for a spy on the station and the Colossus itself becomes less important,so we're left with a space chase where they have to quietly drop the lightspeed tracking tech to make it work.Lots of supply runs, which makes perfect sense as the Colossus wasn't supplied for a launch,but we move more into standard space battly stuff as opposed to the high stakes cloak and dagger games like before.
I did like scavenging the dreadnought for fuel and there's a kind of 'for want of a nail' aspect to the resistance not having a refuelling station in TLJ.
They don't receive the Crait message because there's no way in hell Kaz would ignore it.
AN ENTIRE CIVILISATION WAS SLAUGHTERED BECAUSE OF THE LEADS, YOU £%&&%!
Sad about Hux and Kylo cameos as they've been doing so well up to now. I feel like they're too important to care about some irrelevant station with a few dozen people on it.
Commander Pyre was a good villain. I understand why every character was doing what they were doing.The final few episodes didn't quite click, I'm not sure why, but this ended up being much, much better than I thought it was going to be.
Overall solid.
Calling the Bad Batch Clone Force '99' was was brilliant touch. Kind of interesting that the by the book Cody has worked with em before, but more chaotic Rex has not.
That native village got pretty screwed over, they end up basically left at the mercy of the Seps.
Middle arc fine,predictably the complaining about the Jedi made me sad,but it's in character for those people to have that opinion.
I wonder if we're supposed to think Ahsoka is correct or not. The previous arc was all about complaining about the Jedi playing politics and starting wars,and Ahsoka seemed to buy into that viewpoint, but now here she is playing politics and starting a war while ironically complaining about the Jedi defending Coruscant where her new friends live.
I'm not sure if this is going to develop into her realising she's doing things wrong or if she's supposed to be right here.
And Bo Katan trying to play Satine's death for sympathy when she's the former second in command of Deathwatch like... a year ago? They tried to assassinate her a couple of times, IIRC.
Ball droids' intended purpose as as mechanics, right? Why do they never do any mechanical work? It's all hacking and violence
I'm in a strange place re The Mandalorian. I dislike nearly everything I've heard about it, and I'm caught between not wanting to look at something I actively dislike and feeling bad about disliking something so much without watching it.
Fun fact of the day: The pre special edition versions of the OT that people are always complaining about not being available are available in the special features of the 2006 DVDs, which is so easy to find that it's on Amazon.
Fun fact of the day: The pre special edition versions of the OT that people are always complaining about not being available are available in the special features of the 2006 DVDs, which is so easy to find that it's on Amazon.
