The Star Wars Thread

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Stevethulhu said:
Good job its a small universe.
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Yeah, it's no longer expanded.

tenor.gif
 
Voros said:
Rewatched Star Wars last night. Will post my thoughts later.

Rewatching Phantom Menace right now and wow, it is even worse than I remember.
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"Are you an angel?"
"I'll try spinning! That's a good trick!"
"[any jar jar scene]"


I could go on. It's great to meme on but in terms of filmography, there are good reasons it's disliked.
 
Darth Maul : "Give up Obi-Wan, you can't defeat me. I have the High Ground!"
 
Eh... it had its bad parts, but I liked it overall. The fight with Maul was unlike anything I'd seen. For all of the terrible characterizations, I liked what he was going for with the Trade Federation. I liked the relationship between Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan. And the podrace was cool, if it stretched believability at times. And that final space battle was cool if you take Anakin out of it.
 
So rewatched Star Wars which I haven't seen in a long time since I was more likely to revisit Empire.

Coming to it after reading Will Booker's BFI Film Classics book I notice a lot more of the visual design and framing choices.

Similar to THX1138 and American Graffiti a lot of the film is shot in masters and medium shots rather than close-ups.

This was part of Lucas' preferred style where he would place the camera further away than usual from the actors and encourage them to improvise (partially because he realized he was a poor writer of dialogue).

This led to the particular strengths of American Graffiti and the intense interogation scene in THX1138.

From what I've read Lucas was initially using much of the same approach in SW but as the production fell far behind schedule he tried to enforce more 'discipline' and speed on the set, fired the film editor and went back and re-edited the early scenes more conventionally (originally they were looser and framed in long shot).

You can see the impact of his earlier improvisational approach though in the warmth and interaction of the core actors and most famously the scene where Solo fumbles through the intercom dialogue and blasts it when he can't think of more to say.

Another thing Booker mentions is the contrast between the carefully framed and formal, often geometric, black and white colour schemes associated with the Empire and Princess Leia and the jagged, dirty, worn and jerry-rigged, browns and beige colours and less careful framing of the Rebel and Tatooine scenes.

Mos_Eisley_Cantina.jpgtarkin-from-star-wars.png

In particular he calls attention to the shot of when the Stormtroopers pull over Obi and Luke and get mind-tricked which is shot with others walking in front of the cameras (an effect partially diluted by the CGI extras inserted into the scene now).



The way the Rebels disrupt the Empire is visually represented during the chaotic and surprisingly antic fight scenes (Solo chasing the Stormtroopers down the hall) and they literally escape via the garbage hidden behind the perfect exterior ('rebel scum').



The choreography of the Vader/Obi duel is pretty anemic, probably due to Guiness' age.

But one thing that always struck me was how Obi clearly decides to allow Vader to strike him down within sight of Luke.



A rather unusual choice and suggesting a very Buddhist version of the Force. Also another detail that if repeated in the sequels would have probably set a certain section of the fandom ranting about how supposedly 'anti-heroic' it was. And the way his body disappears is echoed when Yoda and Luke die in the later films.

Even as a kid I kinda tuned out during the extended trench run to destroy the Death Star, Lucas has been attracted to machines from early on in his life and his student films, two of which prominently feature cars, as well as THX1138 and American Graffiti reflect that (and the terrible podracer scene in Phantom Menace).


(Scene from Dambusters, big influence on the trench run sequence)

So some may be more taken with this sequence than I was, I felt it was baggy yet also undercooked. Although made in imitation of WWII films it didn't spend the time needed with the other pilots for us to care about them rendering their anonymous deaths underwhelming.

The ending has prompted some controversy for how closely the visual design echoes Triumph of the Will.



Lucas claims he hadn't seen it, which may seem hard to believe but I doubt the faculty of UCLA (the head of the film department worked under Eisenstein) was very interested in screening it. For a long time I believe it was only the MoMA in NYC who screened it at all in a condensed, and therefore less tedious, 45 minute version.

So I think I believe him, here the formalism of the shots bring about a visual synthesis of the Rebels and the Empire. How much of that was intended considering how Lucas would later come to blur the line between the Republic and the Empire?
 
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If A New Hope had come out today, it would be ripped to shreds.

Incidentally, quite a few reviews of the original trilogy were harsh at the time, including Empire, which is routinely cited as the greatest, or second greatest, sequel of all-time.
 
Endless Flight said:
If A New Hope had come out today, it would be ripped to shreds.

Incidentally, quite a few reviews of the original trilogy were harsh at the time, including Empire, which is routinely cited as the greatest, or second greatest, sequel of all-time.
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I can confirm this. I have a few Starlog magazines from back then. Times haven’t changed much, despite technology.
 
3rik said:
I just wish they could edit out the Gungans.
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Really, if you just edit out Boss Nas and Jar Jar, the Gungans aren't bad. You'd need a little dialog to explain that they're the original, native inhabitants of Naboo and have no idea how modern wars are fought, even though they've adapted a lot of advanced technology to their traditional drills. Really, when you're talking about things that really screw with the setting, man portable force shields like the Gungans have should be on the list. Sure, one might argue there's a lot more Storm Troopers than Gungan military re-enactors and the Gungans have never once used the shields in actual combat and thus can amortize the cost of a shield over a hundred years or so. Kinda like Mandeloreans and one Storm Trooper officer have rare "besckar steel" armor that actuall works, not just against punches from teenaged street kids but even against blasters...

You know what? Maybe they could just edit out the Gungans.
 
I watched The Last Jedi yesterday and I noticed the staff that Phasma uses looks very similar to the one that Din just obtained in The Mandalorian. Knowing how small the Star Wars universe is, I wondered if it was the same one. Also, her armor is blaster resistant. Wondered if that is Beskar. My daughter doesn’t think so, but I have my suspicions. Knowing the movie is set about 29 years later also helps.
 
Endless Flight said:
I watched The Last Jedi yesterday and I noticed the staff that Phasma uses looks very similar to the one that Din just obtained in The Mandalorian. Knowing how small the Star Wars universe is, I wondered if it was the same one. Also, her armor is blaster resistant. Wondered if that is Beskar. My daughter doesn’t think so, but I have my suspicions. Knowing the movie is set about 29 years later also helps.
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I came across speculation on this last week. I've completely forgotten the specifics, but there is a whole backstory to Phasma's weapon in one of the visual encyclopedias, and it isn't the same weapon.
 
Star Wars - the original - is one of those things that I can't analyze. I saw it too young, it's too inexorably intertwined with my mental and emotional development, some small intractable part of what makes me me as much as the 60's Spider-man cartoon, Masters of the Universe action figures, and Bunnicula (and a thousand other small worlds).

For a long time after the Special editions I was no longer able to enjoy it, I felt like I'd had a piece of my childhood ripped away from me, much in the same way I reacted viscerally to the Spider-man Clone saga. So years later, when people complaining about the Phantom Menace echoed the obviously hyperpolic statement "George Lucas raped my childhood", while I thought it was in poor taste, well...I could very much understand what they meant at least. I just gradually, as I entered my 20s, came to grips with the fact that I was no longer the target audience for a lot of things that were a very important part of my life up until that point. I learned to simply walk away from them (No mistake, this was a very sloooow and difficult proccess, with a lot of anger and frustration along the way, and some lingering deep-rooted resentment I imagine will never disappear).

When Phantom Menace came out, I saw it three times in theatres. I was trying to puzzle out my feelings towards it. This was before the public sentiment turned against it. Many people quickly forgot that the film opened to rave reviews. It got a standing ovation in 2 of the 3 showings I attended.

I don't think I'm ready to go back and watch it again, but I will say that my impression of it has softened since seeing the Disney seques - at least Lucas gave us something new. It may not have been what I wanted, it may have run roughshod over the original trilogy, but there was pure, unbridled creativity there at least. This was at the end of a decade when sci-fi in Hollywood was pretty dire too. With a scant few notable exceptions, 90s was probably the worst decade in film for science fiction. Phatom Menace came on the heels of Ghosts on Mars, Wing Commander, Star Trek: Insurrection, Independence Day, Godzilla, Battlefield Earth, Lost in Space, Waterworld, Timecop, and Species, along with a host of excrable sequels (Alien:Resurection, Lawnmower Man II, Robocop III, etc). I would, at the very least, put Phantom Menace higher thann any of those listed. The problem was that wasn't the bar set, the bar set was the most influential and successful science fiction series in film history. In the end, I'm not sure anything could have lived up to our collective expectations, even if the film was perfect.

So, no, the film isn't perfect. But I don't hate it. Not the way I hate the sequels. But by that point I'd already started my journey to putting the Star Wars of my youth behind me. I was no longer "a fan". And so I wasn't hit as hard as fandom overall. I watched a documentary years back caled "The People vs George Lucas". It came out maybe a year before Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney. It was a collective expression of the pain and disappointment of a generation. Star Wars wasnt a film series anymore - just as it's an intractable element of my childhood, the same was true across my geeration, and Star Wars had become a cultural touchstone.

And if there's one indisputable piece of uninhibited praise I'll give the Prequels, and Lucas, is that what they were not - in any way - was an attempt to exploit nostalgia for profit. Compare to this very apt webcomic that came out days after the trailer for the Force Awakens dropped online...

UoghyJV.jpg

Yes, that's exactly the reaction Disney wanted. And exactly what that film tried to offer.

But I've ranted about the Cult of Nostalgia before, and don't need to rehash that here and now for the upteenth time, other than to just mention that I regard it these days as something essentially predatory

Anyways, over Christmas I introduced my fiance's parents to The Mandalorian. They loved it, and after 4 days (4 episodes a day), rewatching it confirmed that I loved it too, and that it was the first Star Wars anything that I'd loved since my childhood. And for the first time since the 90s, I've started thinking about watching those original films again...

...but I doubt still I will ever be able to analyze them.
 
Voros said:
The choreography of the Vader/Obi duel is pretty anemic, probably due to Guiness' age.
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That was due to the original concept of the lightsaber being something with so much power going through it that the user could barely control it. Which has a remnant in the concept of them being extremely dangerous to handle for a regular Joe.

Personally, I find the choreography of Star Wars to be one of its strong points. Because it feels like there's higher stakes than the audience might be aware of. Which is 100% down to Sir Alec Guinness. And because it isn't all flash and dash. It's two experts not wanting to give an opening to an opponent who will kill them at the first gap in their guard.
 
I think The Mandalorian panders sometimes. I’ve said before it’s not some work of art. It was said by someone I watch on YouTube, but almost every plot of every episode follows the exact same formula. He also said he loves it. It’s an enjoyable ride. I think a lot of what you enjoy has to do with your mindset going into it. It’s why someone like me who likes The Last Jedi a lot disagrees with so many of the people in the “Fandom Menace”, as they are called. I am nostalgic but I don’t wallow in it. I like it when properties make bold choices, often to the surprise of its fanbase, as long as it makes logical sense. This even includes killing off my favorite characters.
 
Endless Flight said:
I think The Mandalorian panders sometimes. I’ve said before it’s not some work of art.
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Yeah, honestly, I think the first three episodes and the last two of the first season, and the first two and last 3 of the second season, are really good, and the "filler episodes" are....kinda boring to rewatch and reminded me of mediocre Farscape filler episodes at best. But the series overall, taken as a whole from begining to end, was thoroughly enjoyable. I don't look for a "work of art" from Star Wrs, I look for Saturday Morning pulp fun, a mix of Western and Samurai flick... innnnn space!
 
The Mandalorian manages to balance the guest of the week aspect of the show with new things. The scene in the prison where they're scrapping tie fighters and there's the crane walkers was lovely. The biggest weakness of the extended universe stuff was that the writers really weren't free to add new things and so it always felt stagnant. Star Trek was better set up in this regard though, Voyager was pretty smart with the decision to go where there weren't any Klingons or Romulans.
 
I thought the second season was a bit better at keeping things interesting with the planet designs and aesthetics during the fillers, whether it was the pirate port world or the petrified forest with the Fuedal Japanese-esque town.
 
Voros said:
The choreography of the Vader/Obi duel is pretty anemic, probably due to Guiness' age.
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No, it was due to Lucas originally wanting the lightsabers to be heavy and hard to wield. He changed his mind after the first film to make them weightless, and that freed up the choreographers to do more with the fight scenes.
 
TristramEvans said:
Star Wars - the original - is one of those things that I can't analyze. I saw it too young, it's too inexorably intertwined with my mental and emotional development, some small intractable part of what makes me me as much as the 60's Spider-man cartoon, Masters of the Universe action figures, and Bunnicula (and a thousand other small worlds).
[ . . . ]
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My experience with Star Wars was quite similar. I saw it at 7 years old and it was one of the key formative works of my childhood. However, I had Lego and diverged off into my own worlds not long after, so I drifted out of Star Wars fanboy-dom fairly quickly. Not, however, before TVNZ unironically exposed me to the Holiday Special, which was deeply disappointing to 8yo me.

I did enjoy Empire and Return, but they didn't have anywhere near the impact of Star Wars. The prequels were quite disappointing - too much naff, I think. Gungans were too obviously space rastas and too cartoony. The pod race was a bit too contrived. A lot of stuff just felt off - maybe due to Lucas not having any one who dared keep him real - maybe something else. The sequels really felt like they were done on a trope-by-numbers basis by Hollywood hacks who didn't understand the material or the fan base. I never bothered watching the third prequel, or the third sequel, for that matter. In the meantime there has been much bandwidth spent on discussing this online and these days I don't really have much to contribute to the discourse that hasn't been said already.

I'm not really a B movie fanboy, so I don't have unlimited appetite for cheese. Star Wars is about look-and-feel for me. It has to look and feel like Star Wars without insulting my intelligence, and the sequels and prequels really failed to do that. Not that long ago, I had occasion to read Heir to The Empire, and (for all its faults) it really felt like it captured the Star Wars look and feel much better than the sequels or prequels did.
 
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3rik said:
I just wish they could edit out the Gungans.
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I've come to the conclusion that just like the original Star Wars was saved in the edit, Phantom Menace was killed in the edit.

The bad thing about Jar Jar isn't that he's a funny slapstick character thrown in to appeal to kids - it's that he's goddamn there all the time, doing his schtick, even when that would be tonally completely inappropriate to the scene in question.

Compare to C3PO and R2-D2 in the first movie: they are basically a bickering sitcom double act. They're great and we love them for it, but that's what they are. Imagine if they were doing that particular schtick constantly - quipping in the middle of Leia doing her "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" speech, quipping in the middle of Obi-Wan getting killed, just a constant unending stream of schtick. They'd be just as unbearable and we'd remember Star Wars as that promising pulpy space adventure ruined by the lack of restraint applied to the comic relief characters.

Had they dialled back on Jar Jar's schtick in the edit, Phantom Menace would be a lot more palatable, and there's a bunch of other issues with the movie which another editing pass could have improved on - the pod-racing sequence, for instance.

It wouldn't solve everything. A lot of the movie is bent out of shape by the fact that Anakin is significantly younger than he was originally planned to be - Lucas had originally planned to have him be 12 or 13 in the film, which would make his interactions with Amidala make way more sense (and would also help the "he's too old to train" plot point), and that can't be helped. I'm also kind of the view that the prequel trilogy didn't really need a "this is how Anakin was first recruited" episode; I think it'd work much letter if it started with Attack of the Clones, had a second movie in which Anakin's corruption and recruitment by Palpatine plays out, and then a third movie where it all crashes down. But a better edit would really tighten it up.
 
I'm about 60% through Charles Soule's book in the new High Republic series, Light of the Jedi, set a few hundred years before Phantom Menace.

The Jedi are plentiful and the Republic is in the beginning of a potential colonisation boom - much like the story of 1800s America's tales of settlers reaching the Pacific for untold riches, along the way there is hardship and suffering. The jedi are stationed as peacekeepers throughout the untamed Outer Rim in an attempt to solidify the golden Republic's hold over it all.

A key point in the story is delving and explaining the mystery behind hyperspace travel, and how people in-lore understand it. Specifically how the antagonists in the story are utilising their advantages over space-time travel.

I'm invested and interested but there are a LOT of characters to follow as it jumps around the galaxy unfolding the situation at hand. There is also the cheesy/cheery 'hope is everything!" nature behind the Jedi/Republic that can be a bit much at times. I think the lack of a specific character focus is making it hard for me to really connect with any one character, so unlike GRR Martin's approach (which did jump around but at least centered on the same characters repeatedly for narrative purposes) I'm struggling to really feel this from a book perspective, it definitely feels more suited to creating a TV/Movie perspective as the viewer is shown important details rather than a second-hand account being described to a viewpoint character.
 
chuckdee said:
Eh... it had its bad parts, but I liked it overall. The fight with Maul was unlike anything I'd seen. For all of the terrible characterizations, I liked what he was going for with the Trade Federation. I liked the relationship between Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan. And the podrace was cool, if it stretched believability at times. And that final space battle was cool if you take Anakin out of it.
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To be honest, I liked all the prequels.

It helped, obviously, that they charted the rise of Palpatine and the turning of Anakin Skywalker.
 
Endless Flight said:
I watched The Last Jedi yesterday and I noticed the staff that Phasma uses looks very similar to the one that Din just obtained in The Mandalorian. Knowing how small the Star Wars universe is, I wondered if it was the same one. Also, her armor is blaster resistant. Wondered if that is Beskar. My daughter doesn’t think so, but I have my suspicions. Knowing the movie is set about 29 years later also helps.
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Was Beskar as a super adamantium-type metal established elsewhere in Star Wars cannon prior to The Mandalorian?
 
From the way Phasma's helmet breaks in the sequels I'd say it isn't Beskar. I'm not sure where Beskar first appeared in the cannon though.
 
TristramEvans said:
Was Beskar as a super adamantium-type metal established elsewhere in Star Wars cannon prior to The Mandalorian?
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It was established as resistant to Lightsabers, and as heavy armor. Not sure if it was amped up for the Mandalorian, but I know that's the reason that Mace Windu vs Jango was supposed to be such a demonstration of his skills, to take him in the one area that a lightsaber could penetrate cleanly.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
You think I'm joking but: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Phasma's_armor
It's kina goofy, but I kinda like it, as it speaks to me that the First Order was kinda obsessed with everything about the old empire, and that having anything from that period was a status symbol among them.
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It's a shame about Phasma. Great look, great actress in the armour. Utter lack of anything resembling a character to go with it.
 
www.polygon.com

New Star Wars game coming from Ubisoft’s The Division studio

Massive Entertainment announces new open-world Star Wars adventure
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com

So the EA exclusivity deal will come to an end in 2023, and it looks like the new Lucas Gaming control group has begun to release info of ongoing projects outside of that exclusivity - Ubisoft seem to be the next big publisher with a shot at the IP. Specifically this studio is who made The Division, so I would expect some kind of Live Service game, looter/shooter hybrid with a large world to explore.

I hope this doesn't go the way of the Warhammer license - there are definitely some gems but there is also a lot of duds for that setting. The older days of Star Wars games had some good games but equally had mediocre titles. I am personally hoping for some strategy titles with the Star Wars skin. I'd personally LOVE an X-Com equivalent where you are in control of a Rebel Cell trying to resist Imperial occupation.
 
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