Rumor - Darth Vader to be resurrected for Episode VII
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2012-11-12 19:02 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Cut out the midichlorian thing all together because it weakens the whole force concept in one truly significant way. That if anyone has the insight, instinct, and is so in tune with the Universe, than they have the possibility to be able to use the Force like any Jedi. The reason only Jedi and Sith are able to use it, is that they are the ones who understand how the Universe truly works.|
Originally Posted by Nericus
Only reasons why I'd want the 6 movies rebooted and redone would be:
8. I understand the purpose of midichlorians as a plot device to show Anakin's power potential but either explain them far better or just remove them. |
Once he introduced MidiChlorians, that whole thing became mute, you just needed a high midichlorian level to be able to use the force. IMO it weakened the concept significantly.
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No argument there. When they first did the midichlorian test to show Anakin's power level I suddenly flashbacked to DBZ when Vegita said "OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!"
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Originally Posted by Dr_Illuminatis
Cut out the midichlorian thing all together because it weakens the whole force concept in one truly significant way. That if anyone has the insight, instinct, and is so in tune with the Universe, than they have the possibility to be able to use the Force like any Jedi. The reason only Jedi and Sith are able to use it, is that they are the ones who understand how the Universe truly works.
Once he introduced MidiChlorians, that whole thing became mute, you just needed a high midichlorian level to be able to use the force. IMO it weakened the concept significantly. |
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Originally Posted by Dr_Illuminatis
Cut out the midichlorian thing all together because it weakens the whole force concept in one truly significant way. That if anyone has the insight, instinct, and is so in tune with the Universe, than they have the possibility to be able to use the Force like any Jedi. The reason only Jedi and Sith are able to use it, is that they are the ones who understand how the Universe truly works.
Once he introduced MidiChlorians, that whole thing became mute, you just needed a high midichlorian level to be able to use the force. IMO it weakened the concept significantly. |
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Originally Posted by Nericus
No argument there. When they first did the midichlorian test to show Anakin's power level I suddenly flashbacked to DBZ when Vegita said "OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!"
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I think what originally made the whole Force concept so appealing was that as long as it was something "without definition" then the individual viewer was free (forced?) to come up with their own rationale for what it was. Was it a form of life-based magic? Was it an expression of some kind of divine influence? Or even was it just a side-effect of little microscopic critters living inside you? The exact "answer" to that question was never really important because the Force can, and should, be whatever -you- want it to be.
Lucas' hamfisted attempt to explain the Force ruined all those perfectly valid fan-generated ideas and attempted to pigeon-hole it into one narrowly-defined (and arguably silly) point of view. Lucas basically lost sight of the fact that the Force was cool BECAUSE it was vague and mysterious. As they say sometimes less is more...
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The other thing that Lucas did in the prequel trilogy, the thing that made the galaxy seem a lot smaller, was the "Only two Sith" thing.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
The whole idea of trying to "explain" the Force as a quantifiable, detectable thing was completely misguided and lame for many, many reasons.
I think what originally made the whole Force concept so appealing was that as long as it was something "without definition" then the individual viewer was free (forced?) to come up with their own rationale for what it was. Was it a form of life-based magic? Was it an expression of some kind of divine influence? Or even was it just a side-effect of little microscopic critters living inside you? The exact "answer" to that question was never really important because the Force can, and should, be whatever -you- want it to be. Lucas' hamfisted attempt to explain the Force ruined all those perfectly valid fan-generated ideas and attempted to pigeon-hole it into one narrowly-defined (and arguably silly) point of view. Lucas basically lost sight of the fact that the Force was cool BECAUSE it was vague and mysterious. As they say sometimes less is more... |
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1 - The Force was always described as in part hereditary - Luke was strong it it, like his father. Leia would to paraphrase Luke 'do what I can do' in time because she was his sister. Yoda and Vader took it as a given that she could be trained/turned for the same reason.
This is actually what I'm most annoyed with when it comes to making the Jedi order monks who don't have families in canon. If the Force runs in family lines and you are recruiting less and less Jedi per year - it's because you're (lack of) breeding the sensitivity out of the population, *********.
2 - The midichlorian thing could haved used a better explanation. It's implied that they're responsible for power in the Force, but not clearly stated. Perhaps they simply flourish in people who are Force sensitive... and that the more sensitive you are the more they flourish (not so much causing Force potential as being nourished by it). An effect, not a cause.
Then again being Lucas probably not. Still, I like my explanation better so it's canon to me (and my SW RPG group, who loved the idea - leaving the Force mysterious yet giving a biological marker for Jedi science to recognize potentials).
3 - There has only ever always been two Sith in Star Wars. It's never even hinted at that there are more kicking around in the background in the original trilogy. Why not? Palpatine's ruled uncontested for almost 20 years by this point - enough time to track down other force sensitives and turn them to the dark side and make a Sith secret police to cement his power.
Oh. Right. Because twisted by the dark side 'dominating their destiny' they'd probably try to overthrow him. Just like Vader was planning.
The 'two' thing I completely agree with. Plus, as The Old Republic games show, the more Sith you add the less menacing and interesting they become. Less 'oh my god, a Sith!' and more 'faceless minion 433443, with a lightsaber'.
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God I hope Not, I thought the New Star Wars would be about Luke or Lea Offsprings, They really need to be more Creative. I mean Darth Vader has redeem himself at the end of Starwars by saving his son life, only thing I can think of to bring him back is this Vader is a Copy Cat Vader, pretending to be the Real Vader to strike Fear in the universe once again.
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I'm getting tired of this quibble. It was repeatedly hinted at through the films that because Leia was Luke's sister and Anakin's daughter, she was a Force sensitive. Now, let's go to the dialogue why this was not an inconsistency.|
Originally Posted by Nericus
Only reasons why I'd want the 6 movies rebooted and redone would be:
1. Revise scripts to ensure all 6 fit together better, example: ROTJ Leia states she has dim memories of her true mother, Ep 3: padme dies minutes after giving birth...... does not compute, unless one goes with the idea that Leia is actually remembering her foster mother who may have died long before Alderaan was destroyed. |
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Princess Leia: Luke, what's wrong? Luke: Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother? Princess Leia: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young. Luke: What do you remember? Princess Leia: Just... images really. Feelings. |
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YODA Concentrate... feel the Force flow. Yes. Good. Calm, yes. Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future... the past. Old friends long gone. |
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The Jedi Academy trilogy of Novels where Luke gathers his first students did have him locate and use a device that could scan people and determine their Force power level. As this predates the prequels by a few years it is possible that Lucas took this idea and ran with it as the novels and their content did need his approval.
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Originally Posted by TheBruteSquad
1 - The Force was always described as in part hereditary - Luke was strong it it, like his father. Leia would to paraphrase Luke 'do what I can do' in time because she was his sister. Yoda and Vader took it as a given that she could be trained/turned for the same reason.
This is actually what I'm most annoyed with when it comes to making the Jedi order monks who don't have families in canon. If the Force runs in family lines and you are recruiting less and less Jedi per year - it's because you're (lack of) breeding the sensitivity out of the population, *********. 2 - The midichlorian thing could haved used a better explanation. It's implied that they're responsible for power in the Force, but not clearly stated. Perhaps they simply flourish in people who are Force sensitive... and that the more sensitive you are the more they flourish (not so much causing Force potential as being nourished by it). An effect, not a cause. Then again being Lucas probably not. Still, I like my explanation better so it's canon to me (and my SW RPG group, who loved the idea - leaving the Force mysterious yet giving a biological marker for Jedi science to recognize potentials). 3 - There has only ever always been two Sith in Star Wars. It's never even hinted at that there are more kicking around in the background in the original trilogy. Why not? Palpatine's ruled uncontested for almost 20 years by this point - enough time to track down other force sensitives and turn them to the dark side and make a Sith secret police to cement his power. Oh. Right. Because twisted by the dark side 'dominating their destiny' they'd probably try to overthrow him. Just like Vader was planning. The 'two' thing I completely agree with. Plus, as The Old Republic games show, the more Sith you add the less menacing and interesting they become. Less 'oh my god, a Sith!' and more 'faceless minion 433443, with a lightsaber'. |
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I posted this idea earlier, glad to see great minds think alike. The only other possibility is that Vader/Anakin set things up where a healthy, young clone of himself would be created and programmed with his memories if he was reported as deceased. Per the novels, the original gives some DNA to the cloners and they also take a "flash imprint" of their mind/memories to program into the clone so that the clone has the original's memories and personality. Vader could have set this up in advance in case he was destroyed as he knew a young and undamaged clone of himself wouldn't suffer any impediments to his Force power levels and or abilities.....unlike Vader himself.
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Originally Posted by GreenFIame
God I hope Not, I thought the New Star Wars would be about Luke or Lea Offsprings, They really need to be more Creative. I mean Darth Vader has redeem himself at the end of Starwars by saving his son life, only thing I can think of to bring him back is this Vader is a Copy Cat Vader, pretending to be the Real Vader to strike Fear in the universe once again.
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I think that they should have Grand Admiral Thrawn (don't remember the spelling) be the big bad guy. But I guess the actors are too old for that story; but they could mismash that story with some with the New Jedi Order stuff to have some new main protagonists.
@Joshua.
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I would love for Thrawn to be on the big screen, but as stated Hamil and co. are a bit too old for that story UNLESS they use CGI de-aging. Tim Zahn himself has stated that due to all the time that has now passed that the Thrawn trilogy would be best put in between ROTJ and Ep 7
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Originally Posted by Forefinger_
I think that they should have Grand Admiral Thrawn (don't remember the spelling) be the big bad guy. But I guess the actors are too old for that story; but they could mismash that story with some with the New Jedi Order stuff to have some new main protagonists.
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It's true they always implied that heredity had "something" to do with being skillful in the use of the Force. I don't really have any problem with the idea that family lines could play a -part- in predicting future Jedi/Sith. But I still contend that the Midichlorian concept took too much "mystery" out of the whole thing and reduced it down to something as pedestrian as finding out a person's blood type. |
Originally Posted by TheBruteSquad
1 - The Force was always described as in part hereditary - Luke was strong it it, like his father. Leia would to paraphrase Luke 'do what I can do' in time because she was his sister. Yoda and Vader took it as a given that she could be trained/turned for the same reason.
This is actually what I'm most annoyed with when it comes to making the Jedi order monks who don't have families in canon. If the Force runs in family lines and you are recruiting less and less Jedi per year - it's because you're (lack of) breeding the sensitivity out of the population, *********. 2 - The midichlorian thing could haved used a better explanation. It's implied that they're responsible for power in the Force, but not clearly stated. Perhaps they simply flourish in people who are Force sensitive... and that the more sensitive you are the more they flourish (not so much causing Force potential as being nourished by it). An effect, not a cause. Then again being Lucas probably not. Still, I like my explanation better so it's canon to me (and my SW RPG group, who loved the idea - leaving the Force mysterious yet giving a biological marker for Jedi science to recognize potentials). |
The Force worked better when it was a vaguely mystical/magical/wizardly thing that was left in soft-focus for its own good. As soon as it became "scientifically detectable" it suddenly introduced all sorts of uncomfortable questions like "why hadn't the Jedi/Sith actively introduced Gattaca-style eugenics into the galaxy to breed super-Force users?" or "Why wasn't the Galaxy organized into great noble houses with ancient Force-using families ruling the galaxy?" and so on.
Basically the Midichlorian concept represented a huge unnecessary MacGuffin to explain why Anakin was supposed to be the Chosen One. Couldn't he have been the Jedi Messiah due to luck and/or fate without needing a DNA tricorder test that was never mentioned in the original trilogy? My simple answer is yes, and the fact that Lucas barely mentioned them again in Ep II or III demonstrates that he realized it was ultimately a dumb idea (even if it did have its basis in the novels as Nericus pointed out).
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Originally Posted by TheBruteSquad
3 - There has only ever always been two Sith in Star Wars. It's never even hinted at that there are more kicking around in the background in the original trilogy. Why not? Palpatine's ruled uncontested for almost 20 years by this point - enough time to track down other force sensitives and turn them to the dark side and make a Sith secret police to cement his power.
Oh. Right. Because twisted by the dark side 'dominating their destiny' they'd probably try to overthrow him. Just like Vader was planning. The 'two' thing I completely agree with. Plus, as The Old Republic games show, the more Sith you add the less menacing and interesting they become. Less 'oh my god, a Sith!' and more 'faceless minion 433443, with a lightsaber'. |
On the other hand it did make the entire Jedi organization look a bit ineffectual when you consider that apparently dozens/hundreds of Jedi couldn't ultimately handle/contain just two evil individuals. I can see how limiting yourself to two members would help you keep a low-profile during years of plotting and planning. But when ready to strike it doesn't seem unreasonable to instantly promote at least a small cadre of Sith Lords to help you fight against an entire galaxy.
Let's put it this way: Somehow Lord Recluse never had much trouble keeping multiple supervillain minions in City of Heroes in-line. If he could have several dozen jokers running around the Rogue Isles then surely there could have been several dozen Sith Lords running around at least when the fighting started... just saying.
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I don't think there's any real debate that the spine of Star Wars is fundamentally broken. In the writing game, we talk of story arcs, character arcs and throughlines, and Star Wars only has those for a few subplots and some individual characters.
For me, Lucas broke his universe with Empire Strikes Back and the fateful words, "I am your father." That ruined everything. The seeds of awfulness that were the Special Editions and the prequels can be found in the jumbled mess that is ESB, with its terrible dialogue, lame ideas and weak story. Star Wars was youthful and fun and you can excuse the shallowness of it because it has such verve. Trying to introduce adult themes and gray areas into that world simply turned it into a morose juvenile with a bad attitude and worse skin.
I can't imagine they would bring Vader back, but even if they did, so what? We've seen the nadir, so I can't imagine it could get worse. They could be objectively worse, but for I personally have nothing invested in these characters or that world, because it seems to me the good parts of it were simply a fluke.
I'm gratified to see Lawrence Kasdan back on board writing one of the sequels, because his dialogue crackles with cleverness and his stories are actually *fun*. Just as I don't understand the praise heaped upon ESB, I don't get the hate aimed at Return of the Jedi. RotJ manages to recapture the spirit of the original despite being saddled with the missteps of ESB and the Lucas-dictated Ewoks. (Which, come on, are hilarious. They are literally killer teddy bears.)
I wish Jeffrey Boam were still alive to take a shot at writing one of the sequels. He also knew how to take an existing universe and stable of characters and breathe new life into them. And he had great turns of phrase which seemed to evolve organically out of the characters. I mean, it's hard to find a flat moment in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and it's mind-boggling to me that he wrote that thing without an outline.
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Well that's certainly an interesting take on things, assuming of course that this post is not just living up to your name. |
Originally Posted by Ironik
For me, Lucas broke his universe with Empire Strikes Back and the fateful words, "I am your father." That ruined everything. The seeds of awfulness that were the Special Editions and the prequels can be found in the jumbled mess that is ESB, with its terrible dialogue, lame ideas and weak story. Star Wars was youthful and fun and you can excuse the shallowness of it because it has such verve. Trying to introduce adult themes and gray areas into that world simply turned it into a morose juvenile with a bad attitude and worse skin.
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To be honest if Lucas had not gone with the "adult" father/son plotline I'm not really sure what the basis of every movie after Ep.IV would have been. Sure Lucas has made plenty missteps over the years, but I think it's pretty safe to say that if you had taken away that core Anakin/Luke dynamic then the entire Star Wars universe would have turned out very differently. Not saying it would have totally sucked that way - just saying its hard to imagine there would have been any point to making (or seeing) any movies past the first one without something like that to link all the movies together.
You mentioned Indiana Jones: while those movies were generally good the fact that there's no core plot thread that connects them all left us with the disjoint weaker installments (Temple of Doom and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) to deal with. Those two movies could have not even existed and it would have left us with the two *fun* ones to remember. Disconnected episodic installments like Indiana Jones only go so far - Star Wars only became a true phenomena as soon as a dose of classic epic tragedy was introduced via Anakin Skywalker. Shallow youthful "verve" as you put it would simply not have carried the Star Wars franchise through 6+ movies and 35+ years of popularity.
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Ironically, I'm not. |
Originally Posted by Lothic
Well that's certainly an interesting take on things, assuming of course that this post is not just living up to your name.
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I was 12 when Star Wars came out and 15 when ESB was released. Those 3 years were critical developmental years for me in terms of understanding story craft and appreciating the art of film beyond "Boy, that was cool!" Before that, I basically just consumed science fiction, fantasy and adventure stories without thinking about them critically. But by 1980 I had been formally introduced to (and forced to read) things that were outside my comfort zone. Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Paton, Faulkner, Beckett... knowledge changes your worldview, especially at that age.
On the film front, there was no such thing as cable TV or videotapes yet, so I spent nearly every single weekend at the theatre. It only cost 35 cents to see a matinee, so I would just watch everything. If you look at this list of the top 100 movies from 1980, I saw nearly every one of those in the theatre of my own volition. 1978 and 1979 were the same way. I was there so much that the manager would let me watch a movie twice in a row without making me pay again.
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To be honest if Lucas had not gone with the "adult" father/son plotline I'm not really sure what the basis of every movie after Ep.IV would have been. Sure Lucas has made plenty missteps over the years, but I think it's pretty safe to say that if you had taken away that core Anakin/Luke dynamic then the entire Star Wars universe would have turned out very differently. Not saying it would have totally sucked that way - just saying its hard to imagine there would have been any point to making (or seeing) any movies past the first one without something like that to link all the movies together. You mentioned Indiana Jones: while those movies were generally good the fact that there's no core plot thread that connects them all left us with the disjoint weaker installments (Temple of Doom and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) to deal with. Those two movies could have not even existed and it would have left us with the two *fun* ones to remember. Disconnected episodic installments like Indiana Jones only go so far - Star Wars only became a true phenomena as soon as a dose of classic epic tragedy was introduced via Anakin Skywalker. Shallow youthful "verve" as you put it would simply not have carried the Star Wars franchise through 6+ movies and 35+ years of popularity. |
My basic issue with ESB is that the father twist flips everything on its head and revealed that Lucas never had a planned-out "trilogy of trilogies". (Which we later found was true, when long-time producer Katz -- who had been in on the earliest drafts of Star Wars -- told us that Lucas was just making stuff up as he went along.) If you ignore the stuff you've seen and only look at the world from Luke's point of view, the only truthful person he's met is Vader. Kenobi is a liar and he, along with everyone else in the Rebellion, uses Luke for his own ends, which is basically a revenge plot. But they never followed through on that, keeping the story shallow. Until Luke discovers that Vader is his dad, he's keen on killing him. But the *instant* he becomes Dad, suddenly he's worth saving. Bah.
It's just a badly-written movie, too. I don't know why Leigh Brackett is held in such high regard. Hatari is a terrible movie, primarily because the script is awful. Every other movie she has a credit on was heavily rewritten by a more talented screenwriter. Her books are really dull. Even Kasdan coming in at the last minute after she died couldn't do much to save it because the locomotive was already on its way down the track and Lucas was fixated on his big new twist. Kasdan once said that even he made C3PO redundant because he couldn't figure out a way to make him relevant to the core story and he only had a couple weeks to work on the story in the middle of pre-production. Compare the story beats and dialogue of ESB ("nerf-herder") to RotJ ("I dunno, fly casual") as well as the story arcs. What are the two most memorable moments from ESB? "I am your father" and "I know." And the second one was an improvisation by Ford. Jedi, on the other hand, had those moments constantly. "How we doin'?" "Same as usual." "That bad, huh?"
There's more than one way to go epic. Suppose Obi Wan's name was actually OB-1, aka Old Ben One. He fought in the Clone Wars and Owen calls him Old Ben. He's the first clone, and he's flawed. He tried to do what a Jedi master would, but his greatest mistake was training Vader, who betrayed Kenobi and killed Skywalker, the hero of the Republic. And therein were planted the seeds of the Empire. Make Luke a clone, too, so Kenobi sees him as a way to redeem himself with a second chance to train the student he lost. There are plenty of other ways to go, too, but that's one that immediately presents itself.
Plus, the special effects. Ugh. They were a real step backward. I don't think anyone really remembers the bizarre boxes around the spaceships because they haven't seen the originals in so long, but for some reason the mattes didn't match so there was this constantly-shifting square around each ship as it moved, which was absolutely horrendous-looking on the big screen.
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I'm willing to go with the idea that the whole "Vader is Luke's father" deal might not have been the most earth-shatteringly clever plot-twist to hang the entire sci-fi franchise on. If I thought about it I could probably come up with at least several other alternatives that would have been at least as cool. But there's really no way to argue that in its own way the Anakin-Luke storyline was at least functional/interesting enough to keep the entire thing linked together. And yes I'm even willing to concede the likely idea that Lucas was "just making it up as he went along" for the first movie and only dreamt up the father-son twist some time -after- ANH became a hit. In the long run the glorious mess Lucas came up with did work for him regardless of when he conjured it up, all things considered.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
Ironically, I'm not.
I was 12 when Star Wars came out and 15 when ESB was released. Those 3 years were critical developmental years for me in terms of understanding story craft and appreciating the art of film beyond "Boy, that was cool!" Before that, I basically just consumed science fiction, fantasy and adventure stories without thinking about them critically. But by 1980 I had been formally introduced to (and forced to read) things that were outside my comfort zone. Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Paton, Faulkner, Beckett... knowledge changes your worldview, especially at that age. On the film front, there was no such thing as cable TV or videotapes yet, so I spent nearly every single weekend at the theatre. It only cost 35 cents to see a matinee, so I would just watch everything. If you look at this list of the top 100 movies from 1980, I saw nearly every one of those in the theatre of my own volition. 1978 and 1979 were the same way. I was there so much that the manager would let me watch a movie twice in a row without making me pay again. I take your point about Indy, but he is the scion of adventure serials, after all. I'm all for epic, but I just think it was the wrong way to go in the case of Star Wars. My basic issue with ESB is that the father twist flips everything on its head and revealed that Lucas never had a planned-out "trilogy of trilogies". (Which we later found was true, when long-time producer Katz -- who had been in on the earliest drafts of Star Wars -- told us that Lucas was just making stuff up as he went along.) If you ignore the stuff you've seen and only look at the world from Luke's point of view, the only truthful person he's met is Vader. Kenobi is a liar and he, along with everyone else in the Rebellion, uses Luke for his own ends, which is basically a revenge plot. But they never followed through on that, keeping the story shallow. Until Luke discovers that Vader is his dad, he's keen on killing him. But the *instant* he becomes Dad, suddenly he's worth saving. Bah. It's just a badly-written movie, too. I don't know why Leigh Brackett is held in such high regard. Hatari is a terrible movie, primarily because the script is awful. Every other movie she has a credit on was heavily rewritten by a more talented screenwriter. Her books are really dull. Even Kasdan coming in at the last minute after she died couldn't do much to save it because the locomotive was already on its way down the track and Lucas was fixated on his big new twist. Kasdan once said that even he made C3PO redundant because he couldn't figure out a way to make him relevant to the core story and he only had a couple weeks to work on the story in the middle of pre-production. Compare the story beats and dialogue of ESB ("nerf-herder") to RotJ ("I dunno, fly casual") as well as the story arcs. What are the two most memorable moments from ESB? "I am your father" and "I know." And the second one was an improvisation by Ford. Jedi, on the other hand, had those moments constantly. "How we doin'?" "Same as usual." "That bad, huh?" |
As far as whether or not ESB was "badly written" I think we have to accept the idea that it is relatively unique among the SW films. While you see it as "bad" compared to the others there are people out there who like it better precisely because it is less similar to the "fluffiness" of the others. While I won't go so far as to say ESB was a perfect film as films go, I generally stand by the accepted idea that was one of the better Star Wars films. It introduced the very cool idea that the Jedi and Sith weren't necessarily morally black-and-white. As you say it seemed like Vader, although clearly naughty, was in some ways the only one being honest with Luke. The moral ambiguity introduced here helped drive home not only the real challenge Luke faced towards becoming a Jedi but the consequences of what happened to Anakin in his fall from grace.
As cute one-liners go I'm all for that in most any movie. But just because ESB had fewer of them than other Star Wars movies doesn't really make it a bad Star Wars movie. When you get right down to it the dialogue/acting in ALL the Star Wars movies was fairly awful and wooden because for some reason Lucas liked that I guess.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
There's more than one way to go epic. Suppose Obi Wan's name was actually OB-1, aka Old Ben One. He fought in the Clone Wars and Owen calls him Old Ben. He's the first clone, and he's flawed. He tried to do what a Jedi master would, but his greatest mistake was training Vader, who betrayed Kenobi and killed Skywalker, the hero of the Republic. And therein were planted the seeds of the Empire. Make Luke a clone, too, so Kenobi sees him as a way to redeem himself with a second chance to train the student he lost. There are plenty of other ways to go, too, but that's one that immediately presents itself.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Plus, the special effects. Ugh. They were a real step backward. I don't think anyone really remembers the bizarre boxes around the spaceships because they haven't seen the originals in so long, but for some reason the mattes didn't match so there was this constantly-shifting square around each ship as it moved, which was absolutely horrendous-looking on the big screen.
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P.S. I was only 10 when ESB was released. Perhaps I'm simply willing to cut it more slack than you because I first saw it when I was more of a kid than you were. To be honest I sort of hate on RotJ much more mostly because I was just getting to be old enough by then to see more of the franchise's overall silliness - obviously killer teddy bears didn't help.
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It's not just the one-liners in the dialogue, it's the whole thing. Everything Yoda says is nonsense. He's a shave Fozzie Bear spouting gibberish. When I first saw the movie, I thought he told Luke his training would only be complete once he "faced failure." That was the only worthwhile thing he said. Come to find out he said "face Vader," it brings us back into the revenge melodrama.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
As cute one-liners go I'm all for that in most any movie. But just because ESB had fewer of them than other Star Wars movies doesn't really make it a bad Star Wars movie. When you get right down to it the dialogue/acting in ALL the Star Wars movies was fairly awful and wooden because for some reason Lucas liked that I guess.
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Aside from Carrie Fisher -- who really is *terrible* in Star Wars (listen to how her accent changes depending on who she's with) -- I don't think there's really any bad acting going on. People ding Hamill for his portrayal, but he's playing an aw-shucks farmboy; of course he sounds goody half the time. He does quite a lot with very little. And Ford is just acting the hell out of that role, far more than he would do once he hit superstar status in his 40s and went into cruise control mode.
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| I'd argue that most movies made in 1977, 1980 and/or 1983 look relatively crap special effects wise compared to what's being made today. Again I don't think you can really single out ESB as the "worst" of the original three when overall they're ALL fairly antiquated at this point. Even Lucas' vain attempt to "update" them hasn't really helped. |
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P.S. I was only 10 when ESB was released. Perhaps I'm simply willing to cut it more slack than you because I first saw it when I was more of a kid than you were. To be honest I sort of hate on RotJ much more mostly because I was just getting to be old enough by then to see more of the franchise's overall silliness - obviously killer teddy bears didn't help.
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I would argue, though, that you don't have to be quite so stupidly crappy when making movies for kids. Much of the Pixar catalog, for instance.
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The whole face Vader thing to complete his training to me wasn't revenge for what happened to the Jedi and the galaxy it was simply to stop Vader and then the Emperor. Luke wasn't out for revenge, and Jedi as a rule don't seek revenge hence the title change from Revenge of the Jedi to Return of the Jedi. |
Originally Posted by Ironik
It's not just the one-liners in the dialogue, it's the whole thing. Everything Yoda says is nonsense. He's a shave Fozzie Bear spouting gibberish. When I first saw the movie, I thought he told Luke his training would only be complete once he "faced failure." That was the only worthwhile thing he said. Come to find out he said "face Vader," it brings us back into the revenge melodrama.
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Now thanks to the prequels we also know that a Jedi trainee is called a Padawan and that to become a Knight means facing some special trial or task the Masters set upon you. For Obi Wan they considered his fight and win against Maul as his trial, for Luke it was to face Vader again in battle now that Luke's power and control had increased from ESB. Had Luke not reacted as he did in the cave test in ESB, perhaps Yoda would have declared him a Knight at that point.
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| Aside from Carrie Fisher -- who really is *terrible* in Star Wars (listen to how her accent changes depending on who she's with) -- I don't think there's really any bad acting going on. People ding Hamill for his portrayal, but he's playing an aw-shucks farmboy; of course he sounds goody half the time. He does quite a lot with very little. And Ford is just acting the hell out of that role, far more than he would do once he hit superstar status in his 40s and went into cruise control mode. |
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Exactly. That's one of the things I kept reminding people when they bellyached about Phantom Menace: as bad as it is, if you're over 13 then you aren't the target audience. We grew up but Star Wars didn't. Lucas has always said, from the very earliest interviews, that Star Wars is aimed specifically at the 12-14 year-old. . |
Seriously though, these are good "B" sci-fi movies and way back in 1977, both luck and the Force was with George Lucas. None of the 6 are flawless and there are many fans that need to remove the rose colored glasses when viewing the classics.......same with the Indiana Jones movies. All Indy movies were good, some better then others but I always laugh when people complain about the "fridge nuke". How many times in the other three movies did Indy defy the impossible odds of survival? The fridge nuke is really no different or more far fetched then diving out of a crashing plane on an inflatable raft and sliding down a mountain. The impact of them first hitting the ground should have been fatal or at least severely injured them much less the rest of the slide. Or using his boot heels as brakes to stop the mine cart......he's dancing around on his burning boots yelling for water when by rights his boots and feet should have been gone.
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I'm guessing it's because he was going for the cheesy pulp serial feeling rather than any form of legitimate high art.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
As cute one-liners go I'm all for that in most any movie. But just because ESB had fewer of them than other Star Wars movies doesn't really make it a bad Star Wars movie. When you get right down to it the dialogue/acting in ALL the Star Wars movies was fairly awful and wooden because for some reason Lucas liked that I guess.
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And I agree I don't think it would be a very good idea to do to Star Wars what Abrams did to Star Trek - have a bunch of new actors playing the roles of the original trilogy cast. That worked for Abrams because he was "rebooting" Star Trek. Star Wars is a different situation. I think it would be better for the Ep.VII-IX trilogy to be set far enough in the future that pretty much all of the original trilogy characters would be dead, except for Luke which could be explained by him being a very old Jedi master. In this new trilogy Luke could end up serving the same role Yoda did to a new batch of young Jedi.
1. Revise scripts to ensure all 6 fit together better, example: ROTJ Leia states she has dim memories of her true mother, Ep 3: padme dies minutes after giving birth...... does not compute, unless one goes with the idea that Leia is actually remembering her foster mother who may have died long before Alderaan was destroyed. Another: R2D2 using jets to fly in Ep 2, he one would think he would have used them in Ep 5 after the X-wing crashed in the swamp.....so such technical inconsistencies could be purged.
2. Better casting then what we got for certain characters in Ep 2 and 3....and some better directing of said cast, sorry George.
3. The removal of Jar Jar Binks as comedy relief, yes he was a great CGI test but he was annoying.
4. The lightsaber duel of Ep 4: old Obi vs. Vader......still fun to watch but it doesn't quite stack up against the duels of the other 5 movies, not to mention how many years it took them to go back and fix the broken F/X on the sabers...... The saber duels in Ep 5 and 6 are still fine to watch considering that in Ep 5 Vader was testing Luke and didn't reall go full force on him until Luke wounded his arm, upon which Vader proceeds to easily "disarm" Luke. Ep 6, neither were going full force at first as Vader wanted to corrupt Luke and Luke wanted to save his father. It wasn't until Vader taunted Luke about corrupting Leia that Luke cut loose and easily beat down Vader. The prequel fights were just good vs evil no holds barred.
5. If we must have a disposable character like Qui-Gon, then please film ALL the character scenes including any and all GHOST scenes for the sequels and please for once and for all give an on screen explanation of how the whole Force Ghost thing works. The novelization of Ep 3 at the end has Qui-Gon talking to Yoda as he awaits Obi-Wan's arrival from Mustafar and Qui-Gon offering to show Yoda how to join the Force to exist as a ghost.
6. some fans seemed to gripe a bit about how the Jedi failed to detect that Palpatine was Sidious, so I suppose some dialogue and plot alterations to cover that would be useful. I figured it out as that all the darkside energy generated from the wars was clouding the Jedi senses as Yoda stated in Ep 2 and all that dark energy was concealing Sidious who was also taking care to conceal himself. Also that this isn't Highlander where immortals get an automatic proximity alert when another gets within range.
7. For Ep 2, when Anakin's mother dies in his arms and he goes ballistic on the sand people (which I understand and agree with his reactions), SHOW what he does. Granted you will forsake the PG rating, but Ep 3 went for PG13 so amp it up in Ep 2. The novelization described quite clearly what Anakin was doing and that when he was done the village was a scorch mark except for the hut that contained his mother. I think that showing what he does will have a greater impact on the audience and show his descent into darkness much better then him just describing it to Padme
8. I understand the purpose of midichlorians as a plot device to show Anakin's power potential but either explain them far better or just remove them.
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