This thread addresses things that bug you about the Star Trek franchise. Very well done, btw.
But, there is another very big and powerful franchise: Star Wars
I tried it in gold, but it was kind of hard to see
Both are multi part/format sci-fi/fantasy universes with quite a large fan base. They also both get very complicated to update/continue as time goes on.
Now, most of you know me as a Trekker. I am. But, I am also a huge fan of Star Wars.
This thread is not a Wars vs Trek battle. Let’s stick to Wars, ok?
One of the things that bugs me the most about Star Wars is what they did to The Force™ in ep I.
I mean, come on! They took one of the best things about this franchise and almost ruined it by trying to quantify and explain it. The mystery of it worked very well through the first 3 eps (IV-VI). Why screw with a good thing?
And Chewbaca’s language? Sure, it was intriguing for one scene. And he can say volumes by body language. But the 4 or so different noises he makes can hardly add up to a language for an advanced race. Unless I’m missing some of the tonal inflections.
Over all, though, it’s a great franchise. I’ll be standing in line (again!) when ep III comes out, you can be sure.
It always bugged me that the force was some mysical mumbo jumbo. I am one of possibly three people on earth who really enjoyed learning about midichlorians.
Other than that, Episode I was basically worthless in my opinion. I guess I can be the first in this thread to mention Jar Jar Binks, but I surely won’t be the last.
The “comic relief” in the new movies was horribly done.
-Midi chlorians
-Greedo shooting first (George really screwed the bantha on THAT one!)
In the EU:
-Winter and Tycho NEVER get enough time together
-Killing Anakin Solo (Yeah, Chewie dying SUCKED, but hey, he was 300 years old, and he died protecting Anakin. Then to go and kill off Anakin…)
-Ton Phanan dying.
-Not enough Wraiths
Most everything in the newest two movies. Okay, I’ll be more specific:
“Yippee!” -the future Darth Vader
The way Anakin does nothing but whine and sulk. He’s not evil, he’s a brat.
The comedy is awful.
In Attack of the Clones, Padme falls off the ship and appears to be dead. It’s a tense moment (amazingly). Then she just pops up and says “I’m fine.” Totally blew the moment. Everyone in the audience laughed.
Count Dooku? The entire theatre started laughing when they saw the name.
All of the alien characters are just stupid.
The way Lucas pretends he’s created something mystical and deep, even though it’s become clear he doesn’t know how to tell a story.
The scene in Attack of the Clones that appeared to be a ripoff of The Sound of Music.
In fact, all of the romance in that movie was dreadful.
Senator Binks? Please.
Midichloreans, and the fact that Liam Neeson talked into a ladies’ razor while explaining them.
The stupefying inaccuracy of all those directed-energy weapons. Might as well have been throwing rocks.
Imperial Storm Troopers in the first three films. Were they people in armor, or robots? And if they were people, what did they do when they had to pee?
I personally thought the “Senator Binks” part was pretty ingenious: for once Lucas managed to do something half way clever with a seemingly hopeless character, by making him a mindless pawn in the decline of the Republic.
That said, the name “Dooku” is pretty ridiculous, even though the casting of Lee was a great choice. I second (third. whatever) the midifuckingchlorians, and I hated the maverick flyboy scenes with Anakin in the Naboo fighter in Episode I. And what really bugs me in the same film is the ‘bigger fish’ sequence.
I would like to go on record, however, by saying that I’m one of the rare people who don’t think the Ewoks suck.
I think having lots of Midichlorians not only makes one powerful in the force, but also makes one a whiney bitch. Anakin & Luke both cried a lot about how “it’s not fair”, like life ever is.
Greedo shooting first.
All the added Mos Iseley scenes. “A more wretched pit of scum and villainy” is shown to be one droid teasing another with “na-na-na-na-na” and the other one popping the first one on the head. How lame.
I think Episode III will suck majorly, because Lucas has basically lost the whole Star Wars thing since ESB.
The new end of ROTJ is even worse than the old ending. Not that I’m a fan of Yub-yub, but the average Imperial citizen would not be celebrating the collapse of the Empire. It would be very frightening. The people of Corescant would be lighting molotov cocktails, not fireworks.
The aesthetic of eps I and II is completely different from IV - VI. In the Good Three, everything has a rather stark, geometric/angular appearence that any 6-year-old could recognize as Star Wars. In the other 2, even Tatooine doesn’t look like something from Star Wars (but still… nice job on reconstructing the Lars homestead for Ep II).
In the Good Three, the time of Vader’s youth is always referred to as if it’s a mythical time - something on the scale of the punishment of Prometheus or the wars of the Silmarils. Eps I and II don’t even come close to that.
Would like to see more of the dependence upon the Empire in the good 3. When Luke is applying to the “Academy” in ANH, I’d assume that this academy is run by the Empire (who else?). Who trained the other pilots? Are they all defectors from the Imperial Navy?
And then there’s the pickier points. Laser beams not traveling at the speed of light (okay, if they’re not laser beams but some kind of photon pellet, why are these weapons slower and less deadly than a pistol you can get at Wal-Mart?). Space, apparently, being full of TIE fighter noises.
And most geeky of all: according to [url = “http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/deathstar/index.html”]this site, the Death Star is 120 km in diameter. This means that a round trip would be about 376 km long. For the metrically challenged, that’s about 628 miles. Depending on the length of the trench the rebels had to fly, they’d be going anywhere from 3000 to 7000 mph. While that’s slow for a space craft, there’s no way you’d be able to see anything out the cockpit except a blur. Also wouldn’t be possible for a TIE fighter piloted by any human, with the possible exception of Darth Vader, to even see the ships, much less lock on to one of them.
The At-At getting pulled down by a little fighter, why didn’t it just stop?
I don’t know if anyone else noticed this, but the switching between scenes in Ep1 looked like it was a really poor cut thing your uncle uses at weddings.
I personally don’t like the way the C-3P0 and R2-D2 were inserted into the prequels. I’d always imagined that they’d had a long and busy life doing boring droid stuff (that is, not being shot at, fried, thrown into automated factories, etc.) until Leia put the Death Star data in Artoo.
Nope, turns out Threepio was built by lil’ Sith himself, and Artoo was a mechanic on Amidala’s personal ship. These two are going to have to get their memories wiped sometime in Ep 3 and end up together for the next 20 years. Is Threepio going to suffer one horrible accident after another?
