And now, the other side: Things that bug you about Star Wars.

Cafe Society
121

One everyone missed (I think). While in Ep IV it was clear that the Empire was not that old (the Jedi served the Republic, and Obi wan and Luke’s father were Jedi) how come no one believed in the Force? Vader had to demonstrate on that officer on the Death Star, who was old enough to remember when the Republic depended on Jedi. And Han had never heard of them?

From the beginning, the droids were supposed to be the thread that ran through all 9 episodes - I just wish they had something to do in the first two.

Finally, Amidala telling Anni they shouldn’t get involved while wearing clothes from Fredericks of Coruscant. Pitiful.

122

You m,ean it peaked with “Star Wars,” which of course is the title of the movie released in 1977; this “A New Hope” business is very recent. Recent modifications to that movie are, let’s be honest, mostly pretty bad.

What I find funny is that everyone complains about Greedo firing first, but novbdy complains about that HORRIBLE scene with the CGI-inserted Jabba.

123

  1. Ewoks. Come on! They should have been Wookiees and everyone knows it.

  2. The sister/brother connection was obviously tacked on.

  3. Artoo’s little leg rockets.

  4. Midichlorians.

  5. The “special” editions.

  6. The writers of the books seem to feel obligated to insert all the cutesy catchphrases from the movie into the books, usually in a very stiff and/or arbitrary way.

  7. Sterling Hayden or whatever his name is.

  8. Aw, hell, the last two movies, period. (Except for Jango and Baby Boba. They should have got him to play little Whine-akin in Ep. 1.)

124

This is actually quite ingenious and is explained further in the books. All gravity on ships is artificially generated, of course. In order to give the gunners a more natural feel for the cannons, the gravity is oriented perpendicular to the rest of the ship. Otherwise, it would be more difficult to operate the cannon firing straight “up” or straight “down”. The books mention that it is very disorienting when climbing the ladder and gravity suddenly shifts on you.

Also, to all those who say the timing of the beginning of the Empire and the clone wars bothers them, this is consistent with the original movie. In ANH, in the conference room scene, Tarkin mentions that the Emperor has disbanded the Senate and the final elements of the Old Repulic have been swept away, so basically the Empire is pretty new. (or recently evolved, since Palpatine was the last chancellor of the Republic) Also, Ben tells Luke that he fought alongside his father in the clone wars, so it couldn’t have been more than 30-40 years ago. Turns out its going to be closer to 20 years ago, but that works too.

125

The thing I find most annoying about the Star Wars films is the huge number of people who desperately want to take them seriously.

Remember the line in Empire Strikes Back after the Millennium Falcon buzzes the Star Destroyer and then apparently disappears into hyperspace? The guys on the bridge can’t find it, so they decide it must have jumped to lightspeed at the last minute (except it’s really latched on the side of the tower)? Remember what that one officer says? “They could be halfway across the galaxy by now.”

Let me repeat that for you.

“They could be halfway across the galaxy by now.” This, within a few seconds of having jumped to lightspeed.

A few seconds at light speed doesn’t even come close to getting you halfway from the Earth to the Sun.

When you’ve got stuff like this in the movies, you’re a fool if you try to take them seriously as science fiction. They’re not. They’re fantasy, with a few sci-fi trappings. It’s a modern-day Buck Rogers. Remember in the old serials how Buck would open the window on his spaceship? Same thing.

The movies are hugely entertaining escapist swashbuckling fare — well, the first three are, anyway — but great science fiction they ain’t.

To give you a silly example about rationalizing the films’ flaws:

I can explain this! Notice, first, how every stormtrooper is instantly killed by a blaster shot. Notice also in ROTJ that Leia gets hit by a blaster, but falls down wounded, not dead.

My theory: The armor is designed to kill its wearer. When hit by a blaster shot, the metal armor melts and explodes inward, turning a potential wounding blow into a torso-shredding maelstrom of superheated fragments. That’s how you get the squads to operate so efficiently; they don’t bother going back for wounded comrades, because there’s no chance they’ll live.

Oh, and for extra motivation, the armor is designed to attract blaster fire, like iron filings to a magnet. The idea is to convince the stormtroopers to charge en masse. The faster they get to the target and overwhelm it, the higher the chances the majority of the platoon will survive. Or something.

And look at Ben Kenobi roll his eyes after Solo says “less than twelve parsecs.” Lucas meant it that way. Yeah. Really. Don’t look at me like that.

126

I know you’re trying to be sarcastic, but the blaster that hit Leia was set on stun and only knocked her out, not wounded her. I think we can safely assume that Han’s blaster is never on stun.

127

Cervaise, the “halfway across the galaxy” thing works fine if you just assume that jumping to lightspeed just means going FTL. That and he was hardly giving an exact distance.

My list:
-The fact that all of the EU books (even Zahn’s to some extent) seem to take place in a really little galaxy, with maybe a few dozen planets in.

-The fact that half of the EU books take the X-Wing\Tie Fighter games as their primary source. The feel like more like Wing Commander than Star Wars.

-The Executor getting killed by a single fighter.

-Two ISDs not noticing they were gonna collide till they were in shouting distance of each other.

-The Stormies at Endor (elsewhere they’re okay against everyone except main characters).

-The way fighters move, and that they mostly have fixed guns (the Y-wing being a rare exception, it had a little turret).

-TPM just didn’t do it for me. Of the three final battles two were just irritating (idiotic bad guys who still should have won but for the character shields of a child and an idiot, where’s the drama, where’s the skill and courage overcoming the odds?), and even the sabre duel was kinda silly once you got past the prettiness. I still haven’t worked up the energy to see AOTC, the original trilogy were fun even when silly, the nerw one just seems to be trying too hard. And failing.

128

EWOKS. Yecchhh.
:rolleyes:

129

Uh, no. I’m not talking about the shot at the beginning of Star Wars where the troopers catch her after she slipped it into R2-D2. (The message, you pervs!) I’m talking about the end of Return of the Jedi, during the Endor battle, where she catches a blast in the shoulder and it blows a smoking hole in her camo. Remember, she’s slumped against the doorway of the bunker while Han leans over her with a look of concern? Definitely wounded, not stunned.

130

In ESB, ghost Obi-Wan tells Luke to go find Yoda because “He is the one who trained me, now he will train you.”

Bullshit! Qui-Gonn trained you, or have you forgotten him so fast? Did you disown him after he made that midochlorians speech?

131

Oh, duh. I knew that. This whole reading thing throws me off :stuck_out_tongue:

132

But Yoda was the one who “promoted” him from Padawan to Knight and one would assume there was some training before then - or at least somone to oversee the “trials” - so it seems accurate from a certain point of view. :smiley:

133

Seems like George Lucas doesn’t even care to remember his own mythology.

At the end battle of TPM, after Qui-Jin dies, Obi-Wan gets pissed and finally manages to defeat his opponent. So basically, he gets angry about his master’s death and focus all his hate on Darth Maul to kill him. What a load of crap. I thought the Good Side of the Force was better? Lucas manages to negate a major part of Star Wars with this fight scene. He should have thought out a better way of victory for the good guys then the standard ‘loses loved one, gets pissed, gets uber-powerful and wins’.

Speaking of standard, was I the only one disappointed by the characters in all the prequels? I don’t mean just Jar-Jar which it seems only Lucas liked. I mean characters such as Darth Maul who had so much potential for badass-ness but ended up being a disposible villain with a gimmick (his lightsaber).

For the record, I’m not a hardcore Star Wars fan. I’ve seen the original three about 3 times each and seen the prequels once. If these flaws were obvious to a casual fan like me, then how can the hardcore fans stand it?

134

Yes, if by “very recent” you mean “twenty-two years old”. Since the original movie is only twenty-six years old, many might disagree with you. More importantly, using the name allows us to talk about the first movie without confusing it with the entire movie series or indeed the entire franchise.

135

This doesn’t so much bug me so much as pique my curiosity. Why, if Luke’s new hand looks and reacts exactly as a “normal” human hand, does he wear a black glove? Is it symbolic, or does it hold a legitimate purpose?

…I hope this doesn’t have such an obvious answer like the rest of my comments.

136

I am not a SW geek, for what it’s worth (I’m a Tolkien geek). What’s wrong with SW is basically that Lucas didn’t do what Tolkien did: he didn’t spend 30 years getting the back story straight before he published anything. :slight_smile: choosing instead to make it up as he goes along. And it shows.

But, other than that–I don’t like:

“A New Hope”. Lamest title ever, and I will never use it. Episode IV is Star Wars, and always will be.

ROTJ scenes between Luke and the Emperor. “Join me”. “No.” Join me" zap. “No.”…“Join me.”…zap…popcorn run. (Actually, Luke, in general, after he finds out The Truth About His Father, becomes kind of whiny and snivelly and no fun any more.)

Episodes I & II, but specifically midichlorians, child actors, dialog, boring trade disputes, and the Tampon Commercial with Anakin and whatshername.

137

Um I think you need to watch that scene again. Obi goes into a rage but it certainly doesn’t win the fight for him. It almost kills him. He focuses so much on the saber dueling, he forgets to guard against telekinesis and Maul knocks him into the pit with a telekinetic blast. THEN Obi gets all calm and Jedi-like and flings himself over Maul while telekinetically retrieving Qui-gon’s lightsaber.

Unfortunately, the drama of this scene is ruined when Maul stands there gawking at Obi-wan and then gets sliced in half.

**

Luke doesn’t put the black glove on until the fake skin on the back of his cybernetic hand gets blown off by a laser blast while on Jabba’s skiff.

138

There’d be that simple answer I was hoping wouldn’t exist. ::snaps fingers::

Just after, you say? How about the “I wanna go to Tocshe Station!” and “But Unlce Owen, the red one’s BROKEN! I want the blue one!” and “I wanna go to the academy!” exchanges. I think Luke’s been whiny all along. Just MHO, of course.

139

What confusion could there possibly be? “In `Star Wars,’ when Luke says…” Isn’t it sort of obvious what movie you’re referring to? Since normal humans do not call the other films by names like “Star Wars Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back,” there’s isn’t a lot of room for confusion.

And no, the film has not been called “A New Hope” for 22 years. They put that in the opening crawl in 1980, but didn’t start marketing the movie as such until quite recently. Lucasfilm still refers to the movie as “Star Wars,” as do most references. Call the new band-aides version what you will, but the film that won seven Oscars that we all loved as kids is called “Star Wars.”

140

Actually, in “Skywalking,” the first bio of Lucas, issued about the time Empire came out, some of Lucas’ boyhood stories are summarized. They all include a brother rescuing a sister, which makes me think this was meant all the time.