Ah, I see. I can see how that might strike you that way, but it still seems to me that, on balance, it has always been pretty obvious that the Empire was a relatively recent development. Of course, my perception of this is probably coloured by my next-door-neighbor’s dad, who explained that “Stormtroopers” were so-called in reference to Nazi sturmtruppen. He showed us his coffee-table history on the Third Reich, and pointed out all the similarities in an ad hoc history lesson. So apart from a week or two in 1977, the association of the Empire with the rise of the Nazis has always been crystal clear to me.
Huh? I could see that if the Empire flagships were looking dilapidated or something, but the Empire is practically the only thing in the Star Wars universe that’s shiny and new-looking.
Again, that would be better if the whole thing wasn’t supposed to be comic booky in the first place. Distance simply isn’t a barrier in the context of Star Wars. People hop into single-occupant vehicles and travel to other star systems without so much as a pee-bucket and a basket of sandwiches. They have instantaneous real-time full-duplex communication between systems, too. In the Star Wars Republic, systems may as well stand in for States. If a sitting U.S. president declared himself Emperor, had all Federal Law Enforcement officers executed, and dismantled the branches of the armed forces that weren’t under his total control, it wouldn’t be long before folks in Washington State (or even Hawaii and Alaska) had some serious concerns. Instant communication between any points in the nation and physical that takes only a few hours.
Saying that it would better if it accounted for the tremendous spaces between the stars is like saying it would be better if Lucas grounded Star Wars in reality instead of 1930s and '40s adventure serials like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Fighting Devil Dogs, King of the Rocket Men, etc. It might “better” according to your sensibilities, but you’re bringing in values that aren’t relevant at all to what Star Wars is about.
Well, sure it did. And there’s every indication that Imperial domination of the galaxy would have lasted a long, long time – if the Rebellion didn’t have the aid of a hero with magic powers.
Even people who liked the film have complained about the wooden acting, so it’s not just me saying that.
IMHO, they were worse in this one, than in the others.
How about instead of a set piece battle with the ships just parked in orbit, pounding away at one another, you’ve got a high speed chase through the solar system, with Anakin thinking that not only has Palpatine been kidnapped, but various Senators, including his beloved Amadala. Anakin’s so messed up at the thought of losing his honey pot, that he’s flying erratically, wiping out a couple of his wingmen in his desperate bid to catch up with the baddies. He and Obi Wan and a few others manage to do enough damage to Grevious’s ship that it’s forced to crash land on a volcanic planet in the system. Anakin lands nearby, whips out his lightsabre and begins slashing his way through the ship trying to find his squeeze. Kenobi’s a few minutes behind him. When Anakin finds Palpatine and asks him where Amadala is, Palpatine gives a few non-answers calculated to piss Anakin off. Obi Wan shows up, explains to Anakin that Amadala isn’t on the ship, that she’d been sent away by orders of the Jedi Council (who knew all about the marriage). Anakin demands to know where she is, Obi Wan refuses to tell him, they get in a lightsabre battle, Obi Wan manages to pitch Anakin over the edge of a cliff towards a lava flow (Anakin losing his grip on his lightsabre at this point, which falls near Obi Wan), and we don’t have to see Hayden for the rest of the movie. Palpatine, who’s been watching the fight closely, does a force gesture with his hand, to prevent Anakin from being completely turned into a Krispy Kritter. Obi Wan’s ear’s perk up, because he knows something’s happened, but he’s not sure what. Palaptine begins talking to Obi Wan and guiding him away from the cliff edge, while punching commands in on a wrist keypad, and a couple of “dead” droids behind them come to life, scurry over the edge of the cliff, and then scuttle off with the smouldering, but still living, mass of Anakin, who will reappear, later on in the film, wearing a suit that’s halfway between Gen. Grevious’s body and the Vader suit from the original trilogy.
Hey, I didn’t object to having Wookies in the film, I objected to the way the Wookies were used in the film. George could have put 'em in for 20 minutes, and I wouldn’t have objected. It was just the hype surrounding them being in the film, only to have them in there for about 5 seconds that irritated me.
So you’re saying that Amadala never looked Anakin and said, “Let me see that big meatsabre of yours, Ani.”? Having a hot chick say something like that to me, would do more for my ego, than having some creepy old man pat me on the head and tell me he’s got popsicles in his basement.
Yeah, well, let me know when it comes up for bid, 'm kay?
Again, I didn’t say it was horrific that Lucas did it, and I was willing to give him that one, even though any decent Earthly forces would have boom mikes to monitor the conversations between the head of a planet and a Jedi who was supposedly “Just passing by.”
Too bad he couldn’t have used some of those gadgets in the first trilogy, but I guess Luke was just a worthless kid who cut corners when it came to 'droid maintence. Fine way to repay a friend who’d saved your ass a few times.
Funny, I seem to remember Anakin later getting a bit crispy from that stuff.
Well, I’m sure if George gets around to torturing us with another series of movies that’ll be in there.
Heh, it couldn’t have hurt.
Yeah, well the scenes have similar set ups, so it’s kind of natural for me to make those comparisons in that kind of situation.
So did you spooge yourself when you wrote that?
And whiney brats, don’t forget them.
Well, I guess the Force told Lucas that pimping was good.
Oh, I’d heard all of that over the years (including that the Jedi were the equivalent of Jews), but just because parts of it based on the Nazis, doesn’t mean that the whole thing has to be limited to that. After all, the Nazis didn’t have spaceships and guys running around in plastic armor that couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.
Right, like the Empire’s been sucking the wealth out of the galaxy for ages, and hording it for the Emperor, who gets to blow all his money on shiney new starships and Death Stars, while the rest of the guys have to make do with the crap they’ve been able to assemble after raiding the Emperors garbage dump.
And they’d probably want to strike back quickly before he’d had a chance to fully consolidate his powers, might even want to see if any of their relatives in the military were upset by this and willing to head to Corcusant now, before the guy’s got an even larger clone army at his disposal.
By your reasoning, then folks shouldn’t be complaing about how awful The Star Wars Holiday Special is. Even Lucas admits that thing sucked.
Yeah, but he’s up against a villian with magical powers, so you’ve got a bit of a stalemate there.
And it’s not just Master Sparky saying that the acting was a lot better in this installment. I thought Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, and Ian McDiarmid rocked (although Natalie Portman blew big time).
Wouldn’t it make you feel better to just write and direct your own movie?
Ewan McGregor turned in the best performance in the film, IMHO. He consistently performed well, while Ian McDiarmid did fine until his battle with Mace, then it was Grade A Shatner ham to the max.
And it’s not – but entirely apart from that analogy, the script of the first movie is unambiguous about the overthrow of the Republic having taken place within Obi-Wan and Darth Vader’s lifetime, when they were both old enough to have been combatants. So criticism of the prequels based on the complaint that they’re consistent with that aren’t really valid.
There’s no indication that people waited twenty years to start rebelling – and insurrections that begin by marching directly on the capitol don’t have a great record of success. Besides, the establishment of the Empire was put across in such a way that it seemed like a good idea at the time, and had the general support of the populace. (Like the trick that Hitler pulled.) It’s not that implausible that it would take a while for a grassroots resistance to assemble and acquire the arms necessary to make a serious attempt to topple the Empire.
Can you provide a single example of a complaint against The Star Wars Holiday Special that might also be leveled against Star Wars or the '30s Space Operas on which it is modelled?
The Holiday Special sucked precisely because the writers and producers didn’t respect (and seemingly didn’t even know) that Star Wars is supposed to be '30s-style sci-fi serial on steroids. These were people who wrote and produced 1970s variety television, and they wrote a 1970s variety television show that featured characters from Star Wars.
If 1930s sci-fi serials included extended (and singularly unfunny) parodies of TV cooking shows, horrible musical numbers by 1970s singers, bands, and actors, their plots frequently hinged on characters going home for the holidays, and they typically served as vehicles for pitifully alcholic washed-up comedy performers to appear just for the hell of appearing, then there might be something to your analogy.
However, I don’t recall ever hearing anyone say “The Holiday Special was so stupid. Han and Chewbacca fly to Kashyyyk in a single day! Space is big!”
The Star Wars Holiday Special sucked because it was made by people who wanted to make Star Wars fit their ideas about what’s entertaining, without regard for what made Star Wars work in the first place.
Hey jackass, pay attention.
Leia was obviously referring to Organa’s wife. She doesn’t know she’s adopted. As far as she knows, her “real” mother was Organa’s wife.
If Luke can’t remember her mother, how would Leia?
IIRC, and my memory maybe flawed on this point, since I haven’t watched the films in a couple of years because I’ve only been able to find copies of the “Shortbus Editions,” all we know from what Ben has told Luke is that Anakin’s father fought in the Clone Wars, he was betrayed by Vader and killed. I don’t recall Ben saying specifically that the Emperor overthrew the Republic, only that the Emperor was involved in Anakin’s death. England has a Queen, but no one would dare say that they weren’t a democratic country.
Seemed to have worked quite well in a few of the former Soviet “Republics” (which weren’t republics until after they had a revolution, even though they were called republics long before that.)
I dunno, Bail Organa seemed pretty pissed about the way things turned out.
Which version of Star Wars and are you talking about the saga as a whole, or the movie which debuted in 1977? In general, I’d give the original Star Wars movie high marks, with the admission that the film did have some minor flaws. I’d give ESB even higher marks in terms of directing and story, while RotJ suffers from poor direction and a badly written story. Now, if you’re talking about the “enhanced edition” of the original Star Wars movie, I’d say that it suffers from piss poor direction. ESB 2.0 fares better, IMHO, other than Luke’s sissyfied scream as he’s falling. RotJ has pretty much the same status before and after, simply because of what Lucas had to work with. But Lucas doesn’t have the excuse that the writers of the 1930s serials had of being forced to rush the films out quickly on a limited budget, with primitive technology. Lucas has oodles of cash and had 20 freakin years between the first batch and this batch to come up with a decent script, and he failed.
Way to oversimplify things. First of all, the writers of The Holiday Special couldn’t get the original cast of the movie for the whole program because their schedules wouldn’t allow it. Not to mention Mark Hamill was recovering from a nasty car wreck and had to be buried in make up to hide his scars. So, since they were hired (by Lucas, I might add), they had to come up with something and fairly quickly, too, since it came out a year after the movie was released. That doesn’t give you a lot of time, when you’ve got to write a script, find a cast, build sets, make costumes, and get the thing shot and edited. Hell, even films without special effects take longer to produce. The fact that Lucas picked a team of writers who weren’t science fiction writers is pretty telling. If he’d have picked someone who’d at least had a background in science fiction, we’d have gotten a better product, even if they didn’t know Star Wars.
Oh, and you might just find this summary of the opening of one of the early drafts for the originalStar Wars script.
Why the hell would Luke bother qualifying his statement with the word “real” if they didn’t know that Leia was adopted? Or do people under your rock routinely refer to their caregivers as “real parents”?
“Hey Real Mom! I’m home from school! Thanks for violently ejecting me out of your womb ten years ago!”
:rolleyes:
Face it, it’s a plot hole. Luke and Leia’s dialogue may not specifically mention adoption, but it is quite clear in implying that Leia (a) knows she was adopted, and (b) has memories of her biological mother. Padme’s death in childbirth is a direct contradiction of canon.
I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, Tuckerfan. You say that no science-fiction writers worked on the Holiday Special, which fits right into the “Holiday Special Wasn’t Going For What Made Star Wars Awesome” hypothesis, and the opening crawl you quoted sounds like it came straight from Buck Rogers. Where were you going with that?
If you didn’t appreciate the parallel, and why it was made parallel, then there was no hope for you and this film in the first place. You should have just gotten up and left.
I have no problem with you not liking the movie. It had many flaws. Note that almost no one is arguing with statements like “the acting was wooden”.
One of the few early spoilers I hear was that it involved Anakin and Obi Wan “surfing” on lava platforms, and I was afraid it was going to be some x-treme sports thing, and was prepared to hate it. But I thought that worked fine
This criticism is just plain groundless. Jedi can definitely be killed by enough people with blasters. In ATOC, Jango Fett singlehandedly kills a Jedi just by shooting her repeatedly. Some Jedi presumably are better than others.
It was slightly pandering to the fans, I agree. I don’t see how that makes the movie worse than if that wookie had been named “Fred”.
She wasn’t all that pregnant yet. I do agree, however, that the time scale over which the movie takes place was a bit undefined.
The only way I can rationalize that, and the fact that the Jedi in general, who are specifically looking for a Sith master, can’t figure out who it is, is to assume that Palpy has some mind-clouding power. I agree that that could have been handled better.
Yes, all the very large number of dopers who liked it are just simpleminded idiots.
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it, but I thought it was quite good, although flawed.
First of all, the exterior battles between the Republic Star Destroyers and the Separatist Fleet is NOTHING like the battle in ROTJ, where very little occured between the Mon Cal fleet and the Imperial armada, and the entire thing was seemingly fought out by fighters.
Secondly, you know jack shit about filmmaking. Lucas finally goes back to his film brat roots, finally uses (in most cases) proper cinematic techniques to turn the world of Episode I into the world of Episode IV, and you’re acting like it’s wrong because you don’t get it.
The fact that the duels between Anakin and Darth Tyrannus and Luke and Darth Vader are so similar isn’t some sort of in-joke or lack of imagination. It is a visual way of relaying a great deal of information about the Sith, and particularly about Darth Sidious.
You must hate Star Trek, and how they use the same special effects over and over again, huh?
Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Jesus Christ, that was funny. Moving on.
Just because we never see Leia tell Luke that she was adopted, that means that she never told Luke that she was adopted? Characters are allowed to have conversations with each other off screen.
The same reason you want a giant army: The ability to spread your reach more broadly.
Irrelevent. The resources available to the Empire are larger, comparatively, to those the USA than the Death Star is to a B2 bomber.
The second Death Star is just a giant trap. There’s no real indication that it was ever intended to be anything more than that.
For someone who sat around dreaming up his own version of the Star Wars backstory, and now moans that Lucas’s version isn’t identical, you seem to have no knowledge of the wider Star Wars canon.
Why? Instantaneous, cross-galactic communications have been common in the Star Wars universe for 25,000 years. Information that is released publicly is instantaneously accessible anywhere in the Galaxy. As for the Rebellion, it was begun in 19 BBY, the same year that the Empire was formed. That was a subplot dropped from ROTS.
Anakin’s relationship to Padme was interlinked with his relationship with Palpatine. They were both the people he considered his true family. However, he’d only been married to Padme for three years. Palpatine had been Anakin’s father figure for over a decade.
