Star Wars Debate And Discussion About Contradictions In The Series.

Cafe Society
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This great debate is a decidedly more light-hearted than some of the other debates currently underway, but it is a great debate of our time, nonetheless.

Default Standards for the rest of this discussion:

  1. Jar Jar is terrible.
  2. CGI is terrible.
  3. Spelling doesn’t count.

There is so much to discuss that I am going to just wing this discussion in a stream of conciousness fashion.

Since it is the first thing in my mind, I would like to talk about the seeming illogicals that are being pointed out about the prequels versus the sequels.

The first one that comes to mind is when fans bring up the scene in EP II when Anikan suddenly has a vision of his mother and runs off to find her, mere moments before her death. That scene was ridiculed as being very “convenient” for George Lucas. Why would Anikan AOTS get this vision, and run off? People laugh at my explanation, but it was because of The Force. Think about EP V, when Luke went to Degobah to find Yoda. He loses control and crash lands on the planer. Out of the entire huge planet of Degobah to crash land on, he lands a mere few hundred yards from the exact being he needs to contact. In my view, the way I define the force, is that it tends to cause interesting and convenient coincidences (in favor of the good guys only?). Many other seemingly illogical parts of the series can be explained away, IMHO, by The Force, as trite as that might be.

Other fans have wondered where the money came from to raise the clone army. I retort to that by saying, where did the money come from to design and build the Death Star?

I believe that the people growing up as Star Wars fans have judged each movie with their age appropriate logic level at the time. That’s why some of the illogical stuff that happened in EP V didn’t phase you, but now we are jumping all over the fact the R2D2 has jet rockets in EP II. (?!)

People who have to die in EP III:

  1. Princess Amidala.
  2. Pretty much every Jedi except for Yoda and Obi Wan (Mace Windu, Big Head Guy, Long Neck Guy, Dreadlock Guy).
  3. Lord Dooku, if he even appears.
  4. Jimmy Smits’ character.
  5. Jar Jar, hopefully.

Possible spoilers for EP III (begotten from www.aintitcool.com):

  1. R2D2 will be completely CGI.
  2. It will be a certain 700 year old Wookie who swoops in at the last second to save the Twins.
  3. Most of the movie will take place on Degobah, including the glorious fight scene between Anikan and Obi Wan.
  4. Most characters will have a pretty 70’s hair style, to bridge the gap into EP IV.

A few illogical bits that I cannot bring myself to accept:

  1. If Darth Vader/Anikan was from Tattoine, and that is where Luke grew up as a boy, why is it that DV/A never thought of looking in that one place for his son? Correct me if I’m factually wrong about this.

  2. I had a couple more, but they escape me at this point.

In all, EP III doesn’t have much distance to cover. The Death Star has been designed. The armada of Star Destroyers are built and mobile. The clone army now exists. The solid line between rebel/independent and senate/empire has been established. Really, this is what the plot should consist of:

  1. Amidala gives birth to twins.

  2. Anikan and Obi Wan duke it out, transition into Darth Vader.

  3. A lot of Jedis die.

But now I want to try and plot out the time distance bewteen each of the Episodes:

Between I and II: 10 years. Anikan went from 8 years old to 18 years old, IIRC.
Between II and III: ? I’m guessing about 2 years, maybe 3.
Between III and IV: 18 years. The age of Luke and Leia in EP IV.
Between IV and V: 2 to 3 years. WAG.
Between V and VI: Less than 1 year. WAG.

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Not too long in the future in a Cafe Society not too far away…

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Moderator’s Note: Off to Cafe Society.

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Ah, quite right. I apologize.

BTW, what is the latest scoop on the release date of EP III?

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May 25, 2005.

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  1. If Darth Vader/Anikan was from Tattoine, and that is where Luke grew up as a boy, why is it that DV/A never thought of looking in that one place for his son? Correct me if I’m factually wrong about this.

This is definitely one of the biggest complaints about the plotline of the prequels. However, I think it makes a lot of sense. Think of DV’s line in ROTJ when Luke confronts him about being Anakin Skywalker: “That name no longer has any meaning for me.”

DV is clearly in denial. He has embraced the dark side and has completely rejected his former life, and everything that was a part of it. He has no desire to go traipsing through Tatooine, knocking on doors and looking for his son. Anakin is DEAD to him.

Along with this, I don’t think Vader was ever actively looking for his son before Luke achieved interstellar fame between Ep’s 4 and 5. Vader never mentions his son in Ep 4.

(of course, Lucas probably never planned for the paternal relationship during the making of Ep4, but this is the in-universe explanation)

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Why does Jimmy Smits have to die in the third movie? Isn’t he Bail Organa, the adoptive father of Leia? I didn’t know that he had to die at any time before the destruction of Alderaan…did I miss something?

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Re: Jimmy Smits. I think his character raises Leia, and actually dies when her “home” planet (Alderaan?) is blown up by the Death Star.

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Jimmy Smits, aka Bail Organa is NOT going to die in Episode III. He technically “died” in Episode IV, because Leia was told to go to Tatooine BY HER FATHER, who was on Alderaan at the time.

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Also, ole Georgie Boy is supposed to shoot some footage of the doomed inhabitants of Alderaan to insert into Ep IV for yet even another “Special Edition”.

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I liked the revised EPs IV, V, and VI. I think that the CGI that was included gave more to the movies than took away. The main footage of the movies already existed, so Georgie was forced to keep it mostly in the background (except for Jabba). There the CGI more or less seasoned the existing footage, and added detail. It is when the focus of the scene becomes CGI (ala Jar Jar) that I start to scowl.

I would prefer to see a zipper on a costume than CGI any day.

Case in point. Remember the quick scene in Empire when DV assembled the group of bounty hunters on the bridge of the Executioner? You had Boba Fett, some lizard guy, a Hammerhead (IIRC), and a human dressed up in rags. Simple costumes. The actors probably couldn’t move or breath in them, thus the short scene, but it just plain worked.

Is it a good sign or a bad sign that I was rooting for Jenga Fett and Darth Maul over Qui Gon and Obi Wan?

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Sorry. Forgot to finish my thought…

The bounty hunters. Now picture the same scene with a chorus line of CGI Jar Jars. There is no comparison.

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With regards to Vader never looking for Luke, I think it was the Emperor’s plan for things to go basically like they did. Palpatin knew that Vader would totally reject Anakin Skywalker, so he wouldn’t care about his children. The Emperor also knew that Anakin’s kids would be Force adept like their father, so he would wait for them to present themselves, turn them and live evilliy ever after. Of course it turned around on him in the end and we got a meeting of the blue glowy club jammin’ with teddy bears.

I have no particular hopes or expectations of Episode III. The more I think about Episode II the more I wish that Anakin just hadn’t been in it. Though come to think of it, in Ep III Mace Windu has to utter a one liner and serve up an ass whuppin’ before getting wasted. Oh, and Yoda has to say “Hrrrmmmm, swamp like this, good home will make.”

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Eh, I think you’re only dissing CGI because you didn’t like Jar-Jar. What about the chorus lines of clone troopers? I think they looked darn good. A heck of a lot better than most of the original-trilogy puppets, anyway.

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I still hate the revised scene of Greedo shooting at Han first. Okay, it makes the killing of Greedo an act of self defense, but isn’t that plain enough when he threatens Han? (“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time Solo.”) It ruins the joke (“Yes, I bet you have.” ZAP!) and just looks as contrived as hell. Greedo misses from 2 feet away when he already has a drawn blaster trained on his opponent? I managed to swallow the freaking army of teddy bears in Ep VI, but that was a little much.

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The thing that bothers me most about all the star wars movies is that the Evil Empire lasted a total of only 30 or 40 years! how are they suposed to opress thousands of planets in that time? Hell Fidel has lasted longer. It really takes something away from me knowing that this supodsedly huge empire lasted so little time, truly evil empires should last a few centuries at least.

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Wow. A lot of good points in the last couple postings.

Spudo, you just reminded me of something I forgot long ago. If Luke and Leia were twins, and supposedly shared in their father’s adeptness of the force, why didn’t Leia exercise her gift?

I had also forgotten about the change Georgie made to the Han/Guido scene. I have to agree that that little change changed the entire dynamic of that scene and Han’s background. It was a copout. Come on now, the enemy was named “Guido” for a reason. Anyone named Guido deserves to be shot. No offense to anyone named Guido here.

The main reason I tried to put together that rough timeline was to try and logically reason the time it would take to build the Death Star, twice. The 18 years Luke had to grow up would be enough time I feel, but the few years between IV and VI, I do not feel would be enough to complete the Death Star as far as it was. But again, I’m trying to apply logic to something that might not need logic.

You would think that the Empire would have learned the first time not to put all of their eggs in one basket.

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The real Star Wars movies made it pretty clear that female Jedis was something that Just Wasn’t Done, in the Old Republic at least. It’s only as a desparate last resort that Yoda even considers the possibility, and Obi-Wan is incredulous about it. As for non-Jedi Force manifestation, I think it’s safe to say that just as the Force gave Luke great flying and shooting skills, it gave Leia her abilities at statesmanship and diplomacy.

CGI can be excellent when used well, but unfortunately, Lucas didn’t use it well in the Special Editions and prequels. There was too much of “Oh, gee whiz, lookit what I can do”, and not enough of “Should I do it?”. So you get things like the ruining of the best explosion in movie history, exterior windows in interior walls in Cloud City, and the universally-hated Creature with Long Ears. The clonetroopers looked good enough, but the CGI shots of them were all from a great distance, where they didn’t stand out as much. Unfortunately, though, good special effects tend to go unnoticed (as they should!), and it only takes a few bad ones to put a bad taste in your mouth.

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I never got the impression that Leia’s being female had anything to do with it. Where did you get that impression?

You seem to be under the impression that there were non-CGI shots of the clone troopers.[

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The alien’s name was “Greedo”.

Anyway, about the budget concerns for the clone army in AOTC… remember that there is a massive, massive population in the Old Republic. Coruscant alone, based on the facts that, A: it is entirely covered by city, and B: most of its buildings are kilometers tall, and compare this to population density for real cities like Hong Kong, and it works out that there are at least 500 trillion people on the planet (most likely 1000 trillion).

Then consider that there are millions of star systems with inhabited planets, and then another ten million or so with smaller colonies… granted, almost none of them will have populations similar to Coruscants, but jeez… the money to grow and train a few million clones could be had from searching through the cushions in everyone’s couch.