Official Star Wars Thread

She'll look fine when the movie comes around. That's what professional trainers, makeup artists, costumers, and cg is for.

Nobody looks the same on screen as they do in real life.
 
I nearly peed myself laughing at the "Noooooooo" in Revenge of the Sith. For some reason I just found it a comedy moment.
 
Here's a provocative thought: I just watched Empire Strikes Back, and one question is now looming in my mind. What did more harm to the story developed here: The prequels, or Return of the Jedi?

I'm thinking of a few particular things here, but I'd rather wait for some responses first.
 
Well, whatever harm you have in mind, I would say Return of the Jedi, because the prequels are so tenuously connected to the original trilogy that in my mind, they can hardly be considered part of the same story at all. Not that I think that Return of the Jedi, for all its flaws, did any great damage to the story.
 
Harm in the sense that the story and implications developed in Empire (and, to a lesser extent, in the first film) are messed up or even completely ruined. In the sense of unsatisfactory conclusions, weird re-interpretations of past events and such. I'm not sure if I can get more explicit than that.
 
Changing Luke and Leia's relationship didn't quite work, to me, that came across as an afterthought. I suppose the prequels were all carefully planned at round about the same time, rather than the plot meandering like it did between the original SW and ROTJ, so they're more consistent.
 
That's more or less where I'm getting at. Luke and Leia being brother and sister was a very helpless decision that really only meant to tie up a loose end (from Obi-Wan's and Yoda's conversation in Empire) and give Luke the final nudge to unleash his wrath at Vader. Moreover, it just makes their relationship in the two previous movies unnecessarily creepy. And it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in general.
I think the plot inconsistencies between Jedi and the previous two films are worse than anything that the prequel trilogy have thrown at us. But if I had to pinpoint it, there is one thing that really, really bothers me about Jedi, and the way it constructs the Star Wars plot. See if you can guess it. And no, it's not the Ewoks.
 
Personally I think Empire is the better of the two films, but I know a lot of people find it to be Jedi (although Ewoks tend to be a large factor of people who think its worse).

I think the Leia/Luke relationship change wouldn't be so much of a problem if Leia didn't say the words "In a way I've always known". If she's always known in her mind then it makes her moves previously very creepy as you said, if she had no clue however it's not such a weird thing.

The fact that Empire actually fit so well is good, because New Hope was originally written as a single film supposedly... although lucas has claimed that it was written as either 1, 3, 6 or 9 films so many different times >.> Although as someone once pointed out, it HAD to have a sequel because they introduced the awesome weapon of a lightsaber and all that other stuff about Jedi.. and he (Luke) never used the freaking thing.
 
Perun said:
But if I had to pinpoint it, there is one thing that really, really bothers me about Jedi, and the way it constructs the Star Wars plot. See if you can guess it. And no, it's not the Ewoks.
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The question of whether Darth Vader's one final act of goodness can really redeem a long life of evil?
 
Shadow said:
The question of whether Darth Vader's one final act of goodness can really redeem a long life of evil?
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No, that's completely irrelevant. He didn't redeem himself because of "one final act of goodness", really. He redeemed himself by vanquishing himself of Darth Vader, once again becoming Anakin Skywalker and fulfilling the prophecy by killing Sidious. Its important to make that distinction.
 
Yax said:
No, that's completely irrelevant. He didn't redeem himself because of "one final act of goodness", really. He redeemed himself by vanquishing himself of Darth Vader, once again becoming Anakin Skywalker and fulfilling the prophecy by killing Sidious. Its important to make that distinction.
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That only becomes apparent with the prequel trilogy, which was made long after Jedi. I don't think any of that was a background during the writing of Empire or Jedi.
 
Perun said:
That only becomes apparent with the prequel trilogy, which was made long after Jedi. I don't think any of that was a background during the writing of Empire or Jedi.
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True.

Edit: Although, it is, subtly suggested throughout the movie (whether or not the subtleness comes from experience with the prequels is another thing. I'm still hesitant about that). One example is, that it's the spirit of Anakin that shows himself to Luke - Not the spirit of Vader.

Edit 2: And I think that you can, come to that conclusion, that he redeemed himself by ridding himself of Vader, without the prequels and the EU.
 
I'm ignoring the prequels here. Especially the idea of a prophecy, a story element I generally dislike.

I think it's important to stress that the original trilogy is Luke's story rather than Vader's. Vader's redemption represents Luke's ultimate victory against the dark side, which was achieved not by superior skill but by showing his fallen father the way back to the light. The question is, is this one act of redemption enough for Vader himself to find peace? I'm not so sure about showing Anakin smiling next to Obi-Wan and Yoda in the spirit world. It might have been more poignant not to show him there, and leave Luke (and the audience) in the dark about Vader's ultimate fate.
 
Shadow said:
I think it's important to stress that the original trilogy is Luke's story rather than Vader's.
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Exactly. Star Wars and Empire were about Luke. I'm willing to bet anything that the name "Anakin Skywalker" wasn't even invented until Jedi was pitched. Unless, of course you can direct me to some Expanded Universe kitsch... but the name was never uttered in any film. Until George Lucas tampered with Empire in the Special Edition.

I watched Empire yesterday, and subconsciously erased all knowledge of Jedi and the prequels, trying to evaluate the story's merits on its own. And when it was over, I found that I had come to a very surprising conclusion. The one thing that ruins Jedi, and makes it cheapen the entire Star Wars story overall, is that it says that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.

"Wait," I hear you say, "wasn't it Empire that said that?" Actually, no it wasn't. That seems like a pretty big denial of, well, the most famous plot twist in movie history, but bear with me. Throughout Luke's training, Yoda keeps warning him of the Dark Side of the Force, and speaks of its dangers. It is quicker, easier, and more seductive. You get the feeling, long before Luke actually faces Vader, that the Dark Side will throw whatever it has got on you, that it will do anything and use any trick in the book to turn you over. Furthermore, as we learn from Luke's experience in the cave, the Force and the confrontation with the Dark Side, is a very personal experience, different for every single person. Luke thinks his worst enemy is Vader, when it is in fact himself. With that experience, he can go to face Vader bearing in mind that, fearsome though he may be, he is not invincible. Luke has learned to control himself, and that is all that's needed to defeat Vader.

So when Luke eventually does face Vader, he turns out to be a stronger opponent than Vader expected. At this point, I get the feeling that Vader is just a wicked, twisted thug of the Emperor. Everything in the film points to that. He gets his orders from him, and even in the fight, Vader refers to the Emperor as the one who actually wants Luke. Vader is his loyal dog, and he has got orders to win Luke over, no matter what. Luke's resistance is so fierce that Vader must strike him right where it hurts: His heart. We know from the last film, that Luke always wanted to know what happened to his father, who he was and what he did. He has a deep admiration for him, despite having never even seen him. His father, you could say, is Luke's Achilles heel. Vader knows this, because he can read Luke's feelings. This is what makes him all the more dangerous. When Vader eventually says that he is, in fact, Luke's father, this is a calculated stab at Luke's heart that bears both a comforting statement, and a promise: If Luke turns over to the Dark Side, he will have a father, who will raise him as his son - in fact, his disciple as a Sith Lord or whatever.

Think, for a moment, of another film of the same era, Conan the Barbarian. In the final scene, Conan confronts Thulsa Doom (interestingly, also played by James Earl Jones), who also tells him that he is his father. Everybody, including Conan, knows that this is not true in a biological sense - we've even seen Thulsa kill Conan's father. But by this act, he effectively takes his father's place in Conan's heart. Of course, Conan wants revenge, and wants to kill him, but in order to do so, he must become more powerful than him. This is effectively a father-son relationship. The father is always the son's ideal and point of reference, and all his striving is in order to become a match for him.

I think this is the idea included in Empire as well. Vader, as the man who killed Luke's father, steps in his place, effectively offering custody over the orphaned boy. He vows to be everything a father could be, striking a chord with Luke, who never wanted anything more. This is he greatest temptation possible for Luke, but he demonstrates his mastery of the Force by denying this offer, and not giving in to this ultimate display of seduction. This makes him both a hero, and a martyr (ever noticed how the antenna he is eventually picked up from looks curiously like a cross?).

However, Vader has established an emotional bond with Luke, and with the use of the Force, he can keep tempting Luke by confusing his feelings. Luke doesn't know if he should believe him or not. At this point, accepting Vader as his father would mean that he would have to follow him. We are not offered any alternative interpretation in the film. The viewer is left with this struggle unresolved for the final installment of the saga.

Effectively, this means that the mother of all plot twists was in fact not a plot twist at all, originally. It was only turned into such by the unimaginative writing of Jedi. I used to think that both films were conceived and planned together, but if you look at it closely, this simply can't be the case. Obi Wan's explanation in Jedi is very forced, and only his statement that, "you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" could have saved this, if it would actually have been turned into a plot device that would have helped Luke overcome Vader or the Emperor later on. But as it is, it's just a desperate attempt at tying up loose ends without generating too many plot inconsistencies - which, in my opinion is a failure. Instead of further going the avenue set up by Empire, Jedi was turned into a movie about Vader being redeemed by Luke, and trying to make it seem as if the entire saga had been about Vader in the first place. It wasn't. It never was. And I'm sure the original ideas that Lucas had for the prequels did not go in that direction either.
 
Interesting indeed. As far as I recall, the two first films were a dual effort by Lucas, and whatishisname. The latter quit over "differences", right after Empire, leaving the story development to just Lucas.
 
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