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Has anyone ever thought of doing a wiki that explains the EU from a critical viewpoint? Almost everything I know about it has come from this and TBB threads, and it made me laugh and want to keep reading. Formthe regular person, going from the OT to wookiepedia is like going to a haunted house on shrooms. I hate wikis that gotta be so serious.
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Feb 6, 2011 16:06
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WebDog posted:There's actually a whole genre of fan edits out there for all sorts of things, mainly it's to cater for people's ideas of a "pure" version of the film. The resulting "new movie" is called The Prophetic Labyrinth and I started posting it on Youtube a few days ago. Part 1 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb_7U9FkOIM
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Feb 6, 2011 16:48
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stawk Archer posted:Has anyone ever thought of doing a wiki that explains the EU from a critical viewpoint? Almost everything I know about it has come from this and TBB threads, and it made me laugh and want to keep reading. Formthe regular person, going from the OT to wookiepedia is like going to a haunted house on shrooms. I hate wikis that gotta be so serious. The Transformers wiki is the best wiki ever. It frequently pokes fun at everything Transformers. http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Tracks http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheelie_%28G1%29 http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheeljack_%28G1%29 If only more wikis were like this. There should be an alternative Star Wars wiki that makes fun of all the stupid poo poo in Star Wars.
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Feb 6, 2011 17:12
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Chairman Capone posted:One thing that struck me is that, for people who read Heir to the Empire in 1991 and wanted to read Dark Empire to fill the time while waiting for book 2 to come out...The very first sentence of the first issue of Dark Empire spoils the fact that Thrawn is defeated and killed. This a proud tradition in comics. Just recently Marvel did the same thing with the return of Captain America.
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Feb 6, 2011 17:34
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WebDog posted:There's actually a whole genre of fan edits out there for all sorts of things, mainly it's to cater for people's ideas of a "pure" version of the film. Anyone interested should check out the Original Trilogy fan edits section. You can't download any of the films from there, but you can read about them and the projects that various fans are doing. My favorite one outside of the Adywan Star Wars edits is probably Chronologically Lost, which reedits the entirety of Lost chronologically. Highly recommended for Lost fans, if you start on the day of the plane crash. Obviously before that it's al of the scenes that were formerly flashbacks. e: Warning: most of them are super spergy and not that great. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Feb 6, 2011 |
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Feb 6, 2011 17:35
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Lex Talionis posted:I actually did something like this myself. I took a foreign language dub (Italian) and changed basically all the dialogue in the subtitles. It wasn't about making a "pure" version of the film or an ideal prequel...you'd need to shoot a whole new movie for that (one with Anakin being ten years older for Episode 1 if you ask me) but it's still interesting to see how differently the same scenes can play with new dialogue even without cutting a single frame. This is pretty interesting but I dont really know what you were going for. I liked it but its even less Star Wars than the prequels were.
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Feb 6, 2011 17:40
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I'm currently watching that fan documentary that was posted a couple days ago, and all I can say is that we need a new cut of Star Wars without James Earl Jones dubbed over Darth Vader's voice. That would seriously be the best thing ever.
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Feb 6, 2011 18:04
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NeonTurtle posted:I'm currently watching that fan documentary that was posted a couple days ago, and all I can say is that we need a new cut of Star Wars without James Earl Jones dubbed over Darth Vader's voice. That would seriously be the best thing ever. Oh yes,Darth Vader as a yokel would be excellent.
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Feb 6, 2011 18:20
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NeonTurtle posted:I'm currently watching that fan documentary that was posted a couple days ago, and all I can say is that we need a new cut of Star Wars without James Earl Jones dubbed over Darth Vader's voice. That would seriously be the best thing ever.
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Feb 6, 2011 18:43
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Sombrerotron posted:It would be a little confusing to hear Vader tell Luke that Obi-wan killed his father, though. It wouldn't be too hard to track down the actor and have him say the correct line. Edit: Oh great, now I'm imagining him say "No Luke, I am your Father" And it's glorious. Edit2: And now that I've read his wiki article, I feel sorry for him. He played one of the most iconic villains in movie history, and he got screwed out of that legacy by a hack director that built his fame off of other people's hard work. NeonTurtle fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Feb 6, 2011 |
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Feb 6, 2011 19:13
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David Prowse is kind of like a figure of integrity to me, like Gary Kurtz. What with being screwed out of being Vader's face in Jedi and being exiled from Lucasfilm. I saved up 100 bucks as a kid to get his signature and my grandmother wouldn't let me spend it. How that sucked
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Feb 6, 2011 19:28
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I was thinking about this today after a Star Wars-based conversation with a guy at work (it was on TV last night and he's just bought the Lego Star Wars games), but I didn't dare unleash that much nerdiness... But this is clearly the place to share. So lightsaber blades are pure energy, yes? And so they don't weigh a lot, if anything. So why dosen't every jedi do a Grevious and throw them around all over the place faster than you can see? Instead half the time they do big, sweeping strikes that their opponent just seems to go along with. The answer to this is, of course, because it looks good. But still.
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Feb 6, 2011 19:55
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There are several styles of lightsaber fighting. Some specialize in dueling, like Dooku, hence the curved handle, others on fighting multiple opponents and deflecting blasters.
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Feb 6, 2011 20:24
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RedTeam posted:I was thinking about this today after a Star Wars-based conversation with a guy at work (it was on TV last night and he's just bought the Lego Star Wars games), but I didn't dare unleash that much nerdiness... There are 7 different styles of Lightsaber combat and if I'm not mistaken, only a few people have mastered them all (Mace Windu for one. If I'm not mistaken, he invented the seventh form because he was so good at all the others.) Check out this incredibly  article for more information: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combatYou have to watch out when using that seventh form, by the way, because it'll probably turn you over to the Dark Side. Seriously.
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Feb 6, 2011 20:37
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RedTeam posted:So lightsaber blades are pure energy, yes? And so they don't weigh a lot, if anything. So why dosen't every jedi do a Grevious and throw them around all over the place faster than you can see? Instead half the time they do big, sweeping strikes that their opponent just seems to go along with. Originally lightsabers were supposed to have a certain amount of "weight" to them. Not physical weight, but more like inertia or something. Lucas specifically told Prowse and Hamill to act like the lightsabers were heavy.
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Feb 6, 2011 20:47
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NovemberMike posted:Originally lightsabers were supposed to have a certain amount of "weight" to them. Not physical weight, but more like inertia or something. Lucas specifically told Prowse and Hamill to act like the lightsabers were heavy. I really hope there's some spergy EU explanation for this, like Skywalkers/Obi-Wan using a particularly heavy crystal in the design of their lightsabers. The more detailed the explanation, the better.
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Feb 6, 2011 20:52
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So they don't because... they don't know how? I figure that if you've not got anything weighing you down, you could flick your wrist and chop someone in half before they even know where you're coming from. Someone goes to do a big, graceful swing that acts as if it's got a lot of weight behind it and *thwip* they get sliced in half. Although that could well be a style in itself, so I'm going to go read that article now. I appreciate the in-universe answers as well, thanks. I think I read somewhere that this whole buisness with styles originated because of the choreography in the films or something? The real world answer is allways just less fun. EDIT: Ah right, yeah that makes sense. The way obi-wan hold his saber in ANH makes it look like he's terrified of chopping his own arm off or something, which I was thinking would make sense if it was supposed to be really light, but I think makes equal sense if he just wasn't suppposed to be swinging it around. RedTeam fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Feb 6, 2011 |
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Feb 6, 2011 20:52
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Locutus Of Bored posted:I really hope there's some spergy EU explanation for this, like Skywalkers/Obi-Wan using a particularly heavy crystal in the design of their lightsabers. The more detailed the explanation, the better. It's one of those things that just changed between the OT and everything that came later. The OT lightsabers were clearly supposed to have weight based on directing cues and how people held them, but someone later on went "lightsabers must be light!  " and that stuck.
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Feb 6, 2011 20:57
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I eagerly await the eighth lightsaber style, Chuck-fu.
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Feb 6, 2011 21:26
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NovemberMike posted:Originally lightsabers were supposed to have a certain amount of "weight" to them. Not physical weight, but more like inertia or something. Lucas specifically told Prowse and Hamill to act like the lightsabers were heavy. It added dramatic effect. It was like they were swinging around claymores. It made them feel like powerful, deadly weapons. I blame the flippy spinny lightsaber combat on the over the top martial arts stuff that was popular at the time because of the matrix, and still is. Even in actual martial arts, the showy, flippy poo poo just isn't practical. Guys with a more utilitarian fighting style beat the poo poo out of them. I'm no expert, but I'm a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and I can tell you, 80% of the stuff they teach you isn't practical as is never, ever used in sparring. Course, this isn't an argument about what's practical, as a lightsaber isn't practical at all. The idea behind the really jumpy, spinny martial arts is that they're supposed to confuse the opponent. It confuses the audience, too. I can't stand the Matrix. I don't even really like the first one. Because after that, pretty much all action movies went to poo poo, with all this slow motion bullcrap, rotating around people mid-air, showing bullets emerge from the gun in slow motion as they head towards their target... The slow motion effects were a cool gimmick when the Matrix came out, but they were a gimmick. I very quickly got sick of them. Now we have the Michael Bay style shaky cam with super fast cuts. I remember there was a car chase or something in the last Bond movie that was so horribly done, I couldn't tell what the gently caress was going on. I sorely miss the days of Indiana Jones, Die Hard and Terminator 2. Those movies will get you pumped up. The 80's really were the glory days of big budget Hollywood blockbusters. In the mid to late 90's, everything went to poo poo. Out of all the movies made in the last decade, the only ones that are going to be remembered fondly, or even remembered, at going to be the Lord of the Rings and Avatar, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not even counting the Dark Knight, as it's a sequel in a long running movie series that way predated the 2000's. Jeez, somebody mentions lightsabers and it brings me to mentioning how bad Hollywood sucks again. EDIT: And this isn't some old fart being nostalgic, I was born in '87.
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Feb 6, 2011 21:31
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I'm from 1987, and I really do urge you watch The Dark Knight. It is quite good.
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Feb 6, 2011 21:41
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stawk Archer posted:David Prowse is kind of like a figure of integrity to me, like Gary Kurtz. What with being screwed out of being Vader's face in Jedi and being exiled from Lucasfilm. I saved up 100 bucks as a kid to get his signature and my grandmother wouldn't let me spend it. How that sucked Yeah he's the guy who signed a contract to wear a suit and then when was given opportunity to capitalize on the fandom by participating in events to interact with them- he spent his time bitching about the original contract to the point where they had to ban him. Its pretty unanimous that when they first made Star Wars everyone was simply happy to have a few days worth of work in a sci fi movie they werent sure was even going to get seen. Sour grapes is worthy of sympathy indeed.
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Feb 6, 2011 21:45
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SeanBeansShako posted:I'm from 1987, and I really do urge you watch The Dark Knight. It is quite good. I know. I have it. I love it. I've seen it a million times. I'm a huge Batman fan. In fact, it's probably the very best big budget Hollywood movie of the entire decade. I'm just saying it's not really "new". Batman movies have been around. It is by far the best adaptation of Batman (well, that or the 90's animated series), but the general public has been very familiar with Batman. Out of the last decade, the only original and popular blockbusters to come out of it were Avatar and Pirates of the Caribbean. And even then, Avatar was very unoriginal so that leaves Pirates, which I admit was based on a ride, but come on, it's based on a ride. Theme park rides barely have any story to work with so you might as well consider it new. LOTR, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and Iron Man are probably going to be remembered fondly, and while they're all based off something from a different medium, they're the first time they hit the big screen. Adapting books and plays has almost always been a movie tradition.
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Feb 6, 2011 21:59
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Gammatron 64 posted:I know. I have it. I love it. I've seen it a million times. I'm a huge Batman fan. In fact, it's probably the very best big budget Hollywood movie of the entire decade. I'm just saying it's not really "new". Batman movies have been around. It is by far the best adaptation of Batman (well, that or the 90's animated series), but the general public has been very familiar with Batman. But yeah, 90s action movies: EVERYONE'S a loving ninja. Except Batman, who was probably the only one who should be flipping around people.
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Feb 6, 2011 22:04
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I've been tempted to read some of the SW books; especially the ones not directly in the movies. For a person who's used to reading fantasy, how poorly written are they? I've heard they're kinda bad but if the content's good, it might be worth it.
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Feb 6, 2011 22:09
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madhatter2341 posted:I've been tempted to read some of the SW books; especially the ones not directly in the movies. For a person who's used to reading fantasy, how poorly written are they? I've heard they're kinda bad but if the content's good, it might be worth it. I'm pretty sure we have a list at the start of the thread of the best EU books wise has to offer, I suggest you start with the Heir To The Empire trilogy.
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Feb 6, 2011 22:12
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Personally I think that Star Wars books that have the least connection with the movies tend to have more room to be at least interesting and creative. Partially because they're freer to do whatever they want, and partially because I think very, very few authors can get the tone of the movie characters right. I think Death Troopers, for example, would be considerably better if Han and Chewie hadn't been shoehorned in, especially given the fact that was a horror novel. Conversely if say Shatterpoint had been all Anakin and Obi-Wan all the time I don't think even Stover's writing would have come across as well or the plot would have been that gripping. Unless maybe it was something like Obi-Wan replacing Depa Billaba as the Jedi who "goes native" and Anakin as the Mace character who had to redeem his master from the dark side...That actually might have been pretty interesting. Gammatron 64 posted:Out of the last decade, the only original and popular blockbusters to come out of it were Avatar and Pirates of the Caribbean. And even then, Avatar was very unoriginal so that leaves Pirates, which I admit was based on a ride, but come on, it's based on a ride. Theme park rides barely have any story to work with so you might as well consider it new. Years ago I was pretty big into Monkey Island and its fan community, and at one point there was a Monkey Island movie in the works. However, it went under, and a lot of the people who worked on the movie ended up working on the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. Most notably, the guy who wrote the screenplays for Pirates of the Caribbean (Ted Elliott) was the guy who wrote the script for the canceled Monkey Island movie. So I think there can be an argument made that the Pirates movies owe a lot to Monkey Island, although that was obvious to me as soon as I saw the first movie even before I heard about the Elliott connection. Not that I'm complaining - I love MI and POTC, and the one doesn't diminish the other.
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Feb 6, 2011 22:33
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SeanBeansShako posted:Basically, turning the force into a super powerful plot device instead of limited tool that still needed some luck timing and skill ruined Star Wars combined with crappy writing and milking of the cash cow. I remember one of the (awful, in retrospect) Star Wars books that I read back in the mid-90s, where Luke was stuck on board some ancient Imperial ship whose AI had reactivated and snatched him up for some reason. He was injured and all strung out, and couldn't count on his powers to save him, although of course he made it through in the end. As bad as that book was, it sounds like making force-use into the all-powerful plot device turned out even worse. Also: The more that hit you, the more that will. That was a good line, otherwise I wouldn't remember it ~15 years later.
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Feb 6, 2011 22:49
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Worse: Over use of the force or Ysalamiri?
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Feb 6, 2011 22:51
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Kylaer posted:I remember one of the (awful, in retrospect) Star Wars books that I read back in the mid-90s, where Luke was stuck on board some ancient Imperial ship whose AI had reactivated and snatched him up for some reason. He was injured and all strung out, and couldn't count on his powers to save him, although of course he made it through in the end. I believe that was Children of the Jedi, but I may be confusing it with something else. I just remember it being dreadful.
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Feb 6, 2011 22:53
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KaosFactor posted:Worse: Over use of the force or Ysalamiri?
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Feb 6, 2011 23:10
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Gammatron 64 posted:
Took an action film studies class last fall, and this is explainable. The action hero is a metaphor for how we see ourselves in relation to the world, and America has a very unique view of itself. The 80s are the golden age of action movies because several things converged at once. First- there was 10 years of experience from the 70s. The genre arguably has its origins in the early 70s with the French Connection, Shaft etc. The cowboy hero was set in an urban jungle. Second- The aftereffects of Vietnam came to live in our collective consciousness. We the greatest military power the world had ever seen, got beaten by little people with sticks in the mud on the other side of the world. Thus you had action films that focused so much on weaponry and hardbodies. Included in this is the rebirth. Where all the fancy guns and knives and grenades are stripped away and the hero is tortured, but then is reborn and kicks rear end with his bare hands. Third- amongst many, the government, specifically Reagan adopted the pop-culture action film as part of his and the governments image. So this national ideal was pervasive at a national level. Fourth- The Berlin Wall fell. In pitting ourselves against the world- the last of the cold war adversaries fell to economic reality. The bad guys- lost. The empire of the Soviet Union- fell. In the 90s, the technology bubble began. Hollywood had the abilities to do things it could never do before. So the need to make movies that used all of these expensive computers and r&d necessitated stories. So from Twister, to scorched earth Matrix, to 2 competing Volcanos in your backyard: spectacle was the name of the game. Without someone like the Soviet Union to frame ourselves against we turned back to the disaster flick. Man vs Nature. Man vs the unknown. And the size of our hero- shrank. Harrison Ford became the everyman hero. The poster for Air Force One said specifically- Harrison Ford is The President of the United States. This is a stark contrast to Arnold and Stallone who dominated the boxoffice imagery of the 80s. In fact, the roles that Arnold took were softened everymen, as a reflection of the changing psyche of the genre. And then 9/11 happened. And the world changed again, as did the action hero. Star Wars contains alot of the ideas George had for Apocalypse Now. He wasn't able to make that film so he channeled alot of what he wanted to say into Star Wars. One of the many reasons (that everyone and their brothers criticizes) the prequels don't work as well as they might have is because alot of the commentary of the movie reflect pre-9/11 mid 1990s feelings. What we did during the 90s, the way we treat other countries is all reflected in the Phantom Menace... but it all got wiped away in 2001. I hated TPM opening night. I was so freaking angry I think I spit at the screen. Now 10 years later- I kind of like it outside of pod racing and Jar Jar. But then again my grandparents felt the same way about 3PO back in 1977, they just didn't have the internet to churn and bitch about him like we do. That being said- Jar jar is a huge mistake anyway, and 3PO is still frickin awesome. One of the things that is always changing is the viewpoint of the audience- you. History affects your perception. How you felt about Star Wars if you had seen in the 1970s, would change when you saw it again in the 80s on VHS, and is still vastly different than how you feel about it after 9/11 and now 10 years after 9/11. We were really about to get into some interesting (meaning cool like you're expressing the desire for) stuff around 2001, and Osama Bin Ladin hosed us all up. So that's one more thing you can pop him in the nose for 'when they catch him'. It will be interesting to see what happens next, because even though we're sperging on Star Wars here- there's a shitstorm happening in the Middle East and that will produce some really good fodder for the next couple of decades of action movies.
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Feb 6, 2011 23:19
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Re: Lightsaber weights, at least for dueling, you want to take a swing so you have some inertia built up, because the thing you're going to connect with is probably another lightsaber. If you just flick your wrist but the guy you're fighting gives his swing some umph, it's going to knock the blade right out of your hand.
Fid fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Feb 6, 2011 |
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Feb 6, 2011 23:30
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Well, the 80's had two types of action hero, really. You had Stallone and Arnold who were hypermasculine almost to the point of being caricatures of what a "manly man" was considered to be. I love Arnold and Stallone, but I love them because they're a little silly. I love types like Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis the best (Sigourney Weaver in Alien was also an excellent example of this and Ellen Ripley was one of the best heroes ever along with John McClane, Indiana Jones and the Man with No Name). They're the everyman, to a degree. They're not superhuman roided up muscle men. They don't have any special abilities. They just have heroic amounts of willpower and luck, and when the going gets tough, they get going. Clint Eastwood is a scrawny little guy, but I would argue that he's the biggest badass there ever was. The fact that he's a little scrawny even adds to it. Their odds are really bad, but they triumph in spite of them. This is why Batman is way more popular than Superman. Then mid to late 90's to today, you got the current trend. I'd say Anakin Skywalker and Neo from the Matrix are the mold for this character. They're super powerful. Almost God-like. They can take down whole armies without breaking a sweat. Anakin, Neo and Harry Potter are all even considered to be a Christ-like Messiah of sorts, except instead of being a really nice guy they go around killing everybody. In addition, they're often very angsty. I can't relate to characters like this. Nobody can, unless you're an angsty teenager who fantasizes about having God-like superpowers and writes Mary Sue fanfiction. To a 13 year old, they are awesome. But as an adult, I cannot stand characters like Anakin, Neo, Cloud Strife, etc. In other words, they're Mary Sues. Ironically, a lot of superheroes don't run into these problems. I think this is because in the 60's, Marvel realized if you're going to give somebody superpowers, you have to make them easily relateable to the audience, and put limits as to what they can do. Spider-Man has some amazing powers, but he's not God-like. He gets his rear end kicked a lot of the time. He's a total nerd who has trouble paying the rent like everybody else. Iron Man has tons of money and some crazy rear end armor, but he's a flawed man with an alcohol problem, an ego problem, interpersonal problems, and is probably a sex addict. I think these guys are successful because they were created in the '30s, '40s and 60's. Frodo Baggins and LOTR came out of the 1950's if I recall correctly, and while he's the savior of Middle Earth, he is the total opposite of all powerful. He's a weak little midget.
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Feb 6, 2011 23:48
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Gammatron 64 posted:I love types like Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis the best. They're the everyman, to a degree. They're not superhuman roided up muscle men. They don't have any special abilities. Both Indy 4 and Die Hard 4 forgot this a bit and put them in CGI-laden impossible situations. 
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Feb 6, 2011 23:52
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feedmyleg posted:Both Indy 4 and Die Hard 4 forgot this a bit and put them in CGI-laden impossible situations. Yeah, it's a sign of the times. I told you movies got lovely. I never did see Die Hard 4, though. Indy 4 wasn't a great movie, but it was far from being as horrible as goons say. I'd still take Indy 4 over something like the Matrix, Equilibrium, the Transporter series, the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies (other than Goldeneye), the Star Wars Prequels, anything Michael Bay, Avatar, Clash of the Titans, 300... I mean, it's getting to the point where I just don't want go to see sequels or remakes anymore. This means I don't see a lot of mainstream movies anymore. They're making sequels\remakes to or have recently made sequels\remakes to a lot of movies I loved. Alien, Predator, Terminator, Die Hard, Transformers, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc... I just don't care to see them. I am a loving huge die-hard old-school Transformers fan, and I don't give a flying gently caress about Transformers 3. I loving love Spider-Man and I have no interest at all in the remake. I'm a big comic nerd and I skipped the likes of X-Men Origins and X3. Man... I have a Green Lantern avatar and I am currently wearing a Green Lantern shirt, but I can't even say I'm all that excited about the new movie. It's a little sad, really. I've been burnt so much by seeing things I love get lovely I'm just indifferent. I did see Tron: Legacy and Star Trek recently, though. They were okay. Although Tron was just neat because of the music and visuals, and Star Trek was entertaining because it had tons of Star Trek references. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Feb 7, 2011 |
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Feb 7, 2011 00:08
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Clint Eastwood was a legacy star from a previous era. The guy is legendary. Had John Wayne lived long enough, we'd have seen attempts to carry him into the action genre. Ellen Ripley as a character has more to do with Cameron than anything else. Ripley was written as a man, cast as Sigourney and made legend by Jim. And John McClane is often sited as the beginning of the the everyman hero. Everything thereafter was pitched as Die Hard on a Bus, Die Hard on a Battleship, etc. The Comic Superhero mostly started in 2000s with Spiderman etc. This rehash/sequel/reboot mania is much more a reflection of the economic times than anything. Post 9/11 there was an economic fall out where the money people wanted a bigger guarantee return. Again with the 2008 crash- the studios want bankable, guarantees. Pre-built audiences, tie ins already in place. As the economy improves so will film originality. I find its the lack of interesting characters is what plagues modern movies. John McClane was funny. Ellen Ripley was an uptight powerless bitch who ended up being right. Compare Olivia Wilde in Tron Legacy to Leloo Dallas in The Fifth Element. Both serve the same archtype but I can't even remember Olvia's character's name and all I remember is that she looked good in a couple of posed shots. 'Muuuuuulti-pass' is still a good joke amongst friends. The character was just better. Anyway... so how powerful are thermal detonators? Do you think if Jabba had called Leia's bluff and she set it off- would have killed him? Hutts seem pretty tough. Would 3PO have survived the blast? I assume she and Chewie, and Bib Fortuna would be dead.
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Feb 7, 2011 01:28
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TheBigBad posted:
As powerful as the plot demands. The real answer is that it doesn't matter how powerful or not the thermal detonator was. Leia had the audacity to threaten the Hutt with what amounts to a suicide bomb in his own palace. That impressed him (at least more than it scared him). The scene shows us more about Leia's character and her relationship with Han (who she's there to rescue). So in that sense the thermal detonator is just another storytelling element, there to give us insight into the characters, and unimportant in and of itself. In fact, going out of your way to spell out how powerful it is would likely detract from the scene by stealing focus from the characters and giving it to an inanimate device of little real importance. 
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Feb 7, 2011 01:50
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Thanks, its so very very easy to forget that.
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Gammatron 64 posted:Indy 4 wasn't a great movie, but it was far from being as horrible as goons say. Indy 4? What Indy 4? They never made that. Not in my world anyway.
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Feb 7, 2011 02:51
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