I largely disagree.
The lightsaber as depicted in the OT was not only a weapon, but a tool of the force in defense. The Jedi seemed to choose this weapon over blasters and the sort because of its diversity, and it being basically a self-inflicting death toy in untrained hands. Anyone can fire a blaster, and yet… no one ever seemed to hit their target!
:rolleyes:
The very first time Obi Wan is mentioned in the saga, he is called “General Kenobi”. The Jedi are expressly called the Guardians of peace by Obi Wan. He is said to have served Leia’s father in the Clone Wars. In the prequels, Jedi are shown to use a variety of weapons, from fighters, to large cruisers as well as heavy artillery. Lightsabers are personal weapons, for self defence. So, the Jedi always were an order of warriors.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
I considered counting that as a throw-away use, but decided not to because it’s part of a scene where Luke uses the force to telekinetically pull the light saber back to him. It’s an important inclusion in the story because it demonstrates Luke has been working, on his own, on his command of the Force in the years that passed between the destruction of the Death Star and the Battle of Hoth. A little touch, but it imparts vital information to the audience - remember, Luke does not demonstrate any such ability in “Star Wars,” so we need to know he’s picked that up. It informs of of his skill and his ongoing determination to be a Jedi, even with his master long dead and gone.
I did a count and, depending on how you define “scene.” I believe the original trilogy has only thirteen scenes in which a light saber is drawn;
Star Wars: Obi-Wan shows Luke his father’s light saber
Star Wars: Obi-Wan uses the light saber to slice up the jerks in the bar
Star Wars: Luke trains with the target droid about the Millennium Falcon
Star Wars: The duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader
ESB: Luke uses the light saber to escape the wampa
ESB: Han uses the light saber to cut open the taun-taun
ESB: Luke uses the light saber to take down the AT-AT
ESB: Luke draws his light saber to battle “Darth Vader” in the cave of darkness
ESB: The final battle; I admit this may be more than once scene, though
ROTJ: Luke fights off a horde of minions on Jabba’s yacht
ROTJ: Luke uses his light saber to take down the Imperial speeder pilot
ROTJ: Darth Vader energizes Luke’s light saber to admire it
13: ROTJ: The final duel, again arguably more than one scene
In every case but, I’d argue, #7, the use of a light saber advances our understanding of the characters in some way. Even Han’s use of it has meaning - he is clumsy and obviously frightened of the weapon, which (esp. given Han’s immense bravery in basically any other circumstance) says a lot about the weapon’s power and, perhaps, near-mythical status in the eyes of a non-Jedi. Furthermore, by limiting the use of the light saber, it just seems a lot cooler when they do get drawn.
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:dubious:
So, Luke starts using the Light Sabre more when he learns to use it better. In ROTJ, Luke uses the Lightsaber primarily as his weapon. I don’t think it “has meaning” more than that “he is becoming proficient in the Jedi Arts”.
You are contradicting yourself there. You say that its ridiculous that they show kids training with it, but it is stupid that we never saw Anakin learning to use one? (FWIW we barely saw Luke learn either).
AS for use of the Lightsabers, its understandable that they would be more, its an era with the Jedi at their height, and we have POV characters who are are ether trained Jedi or who work with Jedi (Padme). Nor is it overused. I thought they did an excellent job of portraying Yoda use of a lightsaber. He does not use it , except when confronted by an opponent as strong in the force as he is, like Dooku or Palpatine, and usually after he has tried to use other means. In EPIII he dispatches Palpy’s guards with a flick of the wrist for instance. The only exception is when beheading the clones about the carryout Oder 66.
Generals and other high-level officers aren’t generally what I’d call “warriors”. I think it makes sense to have them be an order of antiquated warrior monks. An order that largely became akin to nobility and now has high-level strategic command in the military. They’re “guardians of peace” in that they’re very wise, and direct military actions to protect the republic, but don’t do much real boots on the ground fighting. When they do, their mastery of the force makes them formidable. Perhaps eschewing lightsabers isn’t the way to go here, but I still think making them rarer preserves their status as a proxy for inter-character struggles. Essentially violence-as-metaphor.
Anakin’s downfall can then be predicated on a very real disgust with the noble ideals the order claims to uphold, and its current status as a largely philosophical office that sends others to do its fighting, despite the fact that the force would make them formidable if they actually got out and fought themselves. The Jedi, of course, are good, and know more than Anakin, and really do protect peace. Anakin gets corrupted by trying to follow the way of the warrior, mistaking power for wisdom. While he has a point about the order, his ideals and methods are both ultimately toxic and impure.
This could be started by, perhaps, him and Obi-Wan being sent to oversee operations in the Clone Wars. With Anakin becoming increasingly unstable as he witnesses battles lost and clone after clone pointlessly dying, (and as a Jedi experiencing this as great wounds and disturbances in the Force) while the order refuses to step in.
In this way, Luke would stand as a purification of Anakin’s ideals, but with the nobility of the true Jedi. Someone who restored the Jedi to the way of the warrior, but tempered with the peace, nobility, and wisdom the Light side upholds. Nothing in the original trilogy has to be changed to make this work, and I think it would the prequels much stronger thematic ties to the Hero’s journey and Vader’s redemption we see in 4-6. Vader’s redemption in killing the emperor can be seen as a consequence of Luke achieving what Vader wanted to, but allowed himself to be corrupted in attaining.
That was my reaction to Jragon’s post at first, but then I realized that it could be Anakin himself who gives Obi Wan his love of using the lightsaber as an actual weapon/tool. I can imagine a scenario in which Obi Wan is a general in the Clone War. (Hint: starting ANH in media res, like it was the middle part of a serial, was brilliant; don’t ruin it by starting the prequels years before anything interesting happens.) He’s much younger than the other generals or even the junior officers serving under them. Even the other generals treat him with deference, however, because his Jedi status reflects a knowledge of strategy and an ability to predict the movements of the enemy and the outcomes of battles that border on the supernatural. Despite his uncanny wisdom, he’s clearly inexperienced in battle and unfamiliar with actual fighting beyond the routines and katas of traditional practice.
Unexpectedly, he finds himself on an adventure (trapped behind enemy lines, a secret mission, something like that) with one of the only officers younger than he is, Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is likable, charismatic and charming, and one of the best pilots and fighters in the Republic.
Events show that Obi Wan has more practical ability than he let on, and can leap superhuman heights, dodge blaster fire, and fight hand-to-hand with deadly precision. When Anakin sees him use a lightsaber for the first time, to cut a piece of rope, he begs to be shown how to use it. Obi Wan laughs and says there is no use; it’s just a relic. When Anakin starts reciting a list of feats of Jedi knights wielding lightsabers, Obi Wan tells him those are myths that happened 10,000 years ago, if they happened at all. Jedi may be warriors, but they are no longer soldiers. “Our practice is spiritual. A Jedi avoids combat whenever possible. Even when we must be involved, such as now, when the military needs our gifts in order to protect the Republic, we don’t engage in combat directly. To fight, to kill directly, perhaps even in anger, these things tempt the Dark Side. And besides, those may have been practical once, but these days if does come to actual fighting,” Obi Wan says gesturing at Anakin’s holster, “I’d rather have a good blaster at my side.”
Anakin’s been holding Obi Wan’s lightsaber during their conversation, and suddenly he flashes it on and spins around to deflect a blaster bolt and strike down a clone who had infiltrated their location and attacked suddenly, all with a single stroke. He turns around grinning and hands back the sword. “I don’t know, it seems pretty practical to me!”
“How did you do that?” Obi Wan asks in amazement.
“I don’t know I just—”
I never should have let you hold it," Obi Wan mutters darkly. But later at night, he shows Anakin how to locate a training ball while blindfolded. While Anakin turns repeatedly to face the hovering ball as it moves and avoids its blasts, Obi Wan asks probing questions. “When you’re in a dog fight up there, what’s it like? You and your enemy must be traveling at phenomenal speeds. There’s no way you have time to react. How do you do it?”
“Well, there’s a targeting computer. With the astromech droid feeding it tactical data, you don’t even have to aim the weapons. It knows where to fire. Ninety percent accurate. But . . . uh, I don’t use it. I just . . . .” Anakin dodges a blast from the training ball. “I just use my instinct.”
“Instinct? And what’s your accuracy rate?”
Anakin grabs the ball out of the air and deactivates it. “Ninety-eight percent.”
“These training balls are not meant to be used by anyone but a Jedi. I could be punished for allowing you to use it like that.”
“Then why did you?”
“I think you might have certain . . . gifts. Gifts that could help us on this mission. That could help us survive. If you can tap into your . . . instincts, as you call them, I think you might be able to whangdoodle the macguffin and get us out of here.”
“What, just cause I defeated that training thingie—”
“In 8 minutes and 12 seconds.”
“Fine, in 8 minutes and 12 seconds. How long does it take you?”
“Two hours. And I’ve only done it twice in the past 9 years of practicing. If we’re going to get through this, you’re going to be the one to do it. I can’t make you into a Jedi knight. That would be ridiculous. But I can teach you some of the basic skills. Just a few. If I don’t try to go beyond that, just stick to the simplest techniques—”
“We’ll do it. On one condition. You have to teach me how to use that lightsaber. I don’t think it’s just a relic from some more civilized age. It’s useful. You saw what I did with it when that clone found us earlier.”
“Fine, but remember: it’s a defensive weapon. And it’s only to be used when absolutely necessary. You must promise me you won’t go taking it into some cantina and getting into a bar fight with it.”
“Ha! I won’t. And don’t look so worried. I’ve got a good feeling about this!”
I wonder if Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine) will have a cameo?
If you want to see the *Falcon *without the unnecessary spinning around. Looks fine to me.
For everyone let down by the Prequels’ treatment of Anakin, I invite you to watch the 2003 animated Star Wars: Clone Wars series by Tartakovsky. It’s short, maybe not more than two hour or three hours. Heavily action based. Anakin and Obi-wan go on adventures, Anakin is shown as a badass pilot instead of a whiny douche, and they show the beginning of Anakin’s descent as he channels his anger and frustrations to win battles. As a fun bonus, General Grievous has some hilariously over the top light saber battles instead of being lame like in Episode 3.
Really cool.
What shocked me about this is there was NOTHING like this in the original trilogy, aliens aplenty with not one offensive or recognizable stereotype among them. The cantina scene is fascinating, one or the great scenes in film, you actually want to go there and just watch or explore.
Then the PT? Stupid stereotype aliens, and not only that but they are laughably stupid and childish, a two headed sportscaster?! Watch them back to back, the OT features mysterious and interesting aliens, the PT ones are cartoonish.
Neat…and kind of better than the silly spinning camera.
I’m not so sure any more: the shoulders and upper back look male.
I’ve been thinking about it, and after considering the (possible) spoilers mentioned above, I’d be willing to bet that every single shot in the teaser, with the exception of the lightsaber scene, was taken from the first 20 minutes of the film. Any takers?
I’d kinda hope so.
I think they go to Tatooine first, so it is likely that they are early in the movie. The voice-over might not even be from the actual movie.
Character names have been revealed! All the characters you see in the trailer have now been officially named:
John Boyega, the stormtrooper in the desert, is Finn.
The Ball droid is BB-8.
Daisy Ridley, the girl on the speeder bike thingy, is Rey.
Oscar Isaac, the X-Wing pilot, is Poe Dameron.
The cross-bar lightsabre holder is Kylo Ren.
Lately I’ve been wondering what the prequels and sequels would have been like if, instead of showing the backstory that was hinted at in the original trilogy and the consequences of that story, they had kept the original conceit that ANH wasn’t the middle episode of a movie series but the middle episode of an old-fashioned movie serial that was told from the P.O.V. of the droids. The final scene of Episode III wouldn’t have been Anakin becoming Darth Vader–in fact, Vader in the prequels would have been a mysterious, glimpsed but rarely seen behind-the-scenes baddie like Jabba was in ANH (before it was ruined)–but the apparent escape of Princess Leia’s ship with her mysterious cargo before discovering that an Imperial ship carrying Lord Vader himself had spotted them and demanded to board. The rest of the prequels would have involved a wholly different cast of characters apart from the droids, focussing on the captain of that ship as he is reluctantly drawn into the Rebellion. I seem to recall that the captain is mentioned by See Threepio in the opening scene of ANH as if he was their master at that point and with the distinct (and deliberate, I think) implication that we were stepping into the middle of his story, before Luke is introduced.
The new sequels, instead of whatever they end up showing, would show Artoo and Threepio separated from Luke and co. and thrown into some new adventure with a different crew.
Instead of the shrinking Star Wars universe in which there are only a dozen or fewer significant characters who all met before, we’d have an expanded universe (note: NOT the Expanded Universe) full of new people and unhinted-at events with their own mysterious backstories for fans to fill in. What do you think?
Interesting that they didn’t give Finn or Rey’s last name. I’m guess they are probably connected to characters we already know.
Finn Skywalker! Yeah!
And done as throwback Topps trading cards - a nice touch: http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/12/showbiz/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-character-names/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
And all of the images on the cards are from the teaser. Funny, that.
I’m calling shenanigans.