Whenever I watch that scene, I keep thinking the emperor must have forgotten how to levitate or something. Even a padawan could have levitated to the side and caught themselves. Is self-levitation something they skip in the dark side training course?
I just realized that myself after all these years. Hell, Luke learned to levitate stuff while upside down (Yoda, his lightsaber, etc).
Guess we’ll have to have ANOTHER version explaining that.
Maybe the bolts of lightning stunned him. Or maybe the use of bolts negates the force (yo never Saw Darth Vader using it).
Well I think they nearly are flawless…considering the time they were made. I think the changes are primarily minor, but some of the major changes are ridiculous.
I have to disagree, at least with the addition of “No!” to the final scene in Jedi. It really subtracts a lot of the scene’s impact. Part of the power of the scene is that nothing is said; in film, often no disalogue is the best dialogue of all. The camera moving in on Vader’s mask and away from the Emperor and Luke, and then having Vader shift his gaze back and forth, is all you need to see; it conveys Vader making his decision without a word needing to be spoken.
By having Vader yell “No!” you make an emotionally powerful climax - one of the only good parts of an otherwise disappointing movie - really cheesy.
The only theory I have is that something about dark side powers that cancels out self levitation. Even the dark side apprentices that were former Jedi don’t seem to do it.
BTW did it ever strike you that construction on the droid army was really shoddy? They must have been made by the same company that made the storm trooper armor.
Is Lucas really so oblivious that he doesn’t know how trite and overused the “NOOOOO!!!” thing is, as a cinematic cliché? It’s been lampooned for years on shows like Futurama. Surely he’s at least aware of all the mockery he received for using it at the end of Episode III. Is he just doing it for spite now?
I’ll disagree with this and reference what I said in my first post up there. The first “no” isn’t to anyone but himself. His obvious back and forth gazes are his internal argument of “This is my master…This is my son” and finally he asks “Am I going to sit here and watch my son die?” and his audible answer is “no”. It’s actually a very powerful line. My problem would lie a bit more with the second “no”, that seems to be a bit more superfluous.
It’s a power that seems inconsistantly applied. Maybe it’s only powered by the needs of the plot.
Yoda and the Emporer were fighting in the Senate chambers, and both seemed to take some nasty spills, with self levitation not in evidence. (Maybe Yoda used a weak form to keep from having his bones broken on the fall, but we don’t really have any visual evidence of that.)
I think so. I get the vague impression he likes drinking nerd tears.
I think it may have been da Vinci who said, “Great art is never finished; it is abandoned.”
I saw a documentary once of Picasso painting on glass. The glass panel was set up over the camera, so the work surface filled the screen and you could see every brushstroke from beneath as Picasso worked. I think there were ten paintings, and on most of them I remembered thinking, “Oh, that’s great… no, stop! That was fine the way it is! Please, stop! STOP!” Most of them turned out well, but there were several that were IMHO ruined, or not nearly as good in the final version, because he just wouldn’t stop messing with 'em.
Artists of all kinds have their own internal vision, and what the audience wants just might be incidental to the author’s realization of that vision - especially once that artist is filthy rich and has really nothing else new to say.
No!! as a cinematic cliche is usually when a character dies and another character screams with grief. Luke after Obi-Wan’s death is a fairly dire example. This No! is different: Vader is literally saying No to what the emperor is doing and then stopping it. YMMV but I really don’t mind it and I half think it adds to the scene.
Incidentally an example when a traditional No!! comes of as genuinely powerful is when Gandalf dies in FOTR. Compare that scene with the aftermath of Obi-Wan’s death in Star Wars and it really shows how mediocre the latter movie is sometimes. IMO ANH is greater than the sum of its parts and has an irresistible charm but line by line and scene by scene it’s often dire which is why I am often bemused by the vehemence of fans about mostly minor changes. Like I said it’s not as if the original is flawless.
Don’t you see? It has symmetry. They rhyme.
Have Boba Fett routinely take off his helmet and stand around revealing his face. Maybe even occasionally saying, “I’m not really that mysterious, you know.” Maybe his address and social security number could be stamped on the back of his armor. And he would have to frequently discuss his childhood.
Huh? I thought everyone knew that. The beard is the dead giveaway.
(Mods: Word in quote bowdlerised to get around stoopid profanity filter at this end).
I believe you’ve put more thought into that post than Mr. Lucas has put into all the revisions he’s done since Jedi left the theaters.
No doubt, but that doesn’t mean that one choice can’t be better than another. And, as you suggest, there’s value simply to not dicking around with the movie once it’s finished (aside from touching up the special effects, which, I think most of us would agree, is unnecessary but pretty innocuous at worst).
The light side of the Force is a heavy burden that Luke more or less bears for the remainder of SW. Luke himself has a double burden: he both has to live up to the greatness of his predecessors and has to overcome an especially large helping of his own personal dark side. Even after Luke leaves Dagobah, he still carries Yoda around on his back, in a manner of speaking.
There is no reason whatsoever for Vader to speak before his betrayal. The music alone communicates the power of the scene. Right as Vader changes his mind, the Jedi leitmotif flares up and dominates the score. Vader’s mask and silence are perfectly juxtaposed with the monumental Jedi theme. It’s the moment when Vader’s carefully maintained dark side rage disippates and the light reasserts itself completely. Vader knows exactly what he has to do and in a moment of enlightenment and cool clarity, he does it. The score tells us that the light side has returned. This scene is crystal clear as it is and can only be hurt by the addition of some banality.
But there would be fewer of them. The impact of the original would have been reduced. On those points, the original choice was better. (I don’t believe Lucas when he says he wanted the bouncing-around Yoda all along.)
I don’t see the need for all the changes. There are two I hate, for different reasons. Han shot first. Damnit. It establishes his potential treachery as a character who might betray his customers for gain. It fundamentally changes his character arc.
Second, the guy who played Vader in Jedi was IIRC Sebastian Shaw. He did a good job and it is really unfair to his body of work to take this scene away. I don’t care for the scene much, but it is a crappy way to treat the actor.
They also changed the actor playing the Emperor in Empire from an uncredited woman with weird superimposed eyes to Ian McDiarmand.
Haha, another thread winner here.
Yeah, what’s with the beard anyway? Is that a new concept for an alien he’s working on?
P.S; you cant type, nor read fuck on your computer?