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Hondo82 posted:(Yes the special features are really good. But, still. Noooooooooooooooooo I believe you mean WHOOooooOOOOOOOOOO!!
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Jan 7, 2012 05:53
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Darth Freddy posted:"Blind we are, if creation of this clone army, we could not see." Call me crazy and maybe I'm giving George too much credit (I am), but as much as I hate the plot, the lack of attention to detail in the PT and the movies themselves, this was the one thing that struck me as something good, and the only thing that (at least to my brain) was clear on the plot. To me their "clouding" was consistent with what we'd seen. It meant they were too involved in politics, in social constructs, that they had become too arrogant (I think either Windu or Palpatine points that out). The force was something spiritual, that you achieved by distancing yourself from the physical worries - Obi-Wan was a crazy hermit who allowed himself to be killed, Yoda lived alone in a horrible swamp planet. We see Luke meditating and trying to detach in order to attune with the force. We see Yoda criticizing wars. In the prequels we see Jedis running around and jumping on crazy adventures that should have been taken care by some police or militaristic force. We see them being effectively the soldiers AND the politicians AND the generals (in some cases, the same people). While none of that make any sense on their own, it does make a lot of sense with them not really being attuned to the Force in any meaningful way. They didn't seem to be regulated or inspected in any way whatsoever and seemed to be the highest powers and end-all-be-all of the universe, even within politics. Their proactive decisions ("hey we just felt like escorting you because we say so") are almost dictatorial. None of that makes sense in regards of the world-detached monks that dedicate their lives to be attuned with some spiritual power. Then Palpatine came and exploited everything... until he made the same mistake. It rhymes.
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Jan 7, 2012 14:40
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404GoonNotFound posted:I believe you mean WHOOooooOOOOOOOOOO!!  That's real? Holy poo poo. Guess i'm sticking to my DVDs if I want to watch the movies.Best quote. quote:Nice to see Ric Flair still getting work.
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Jan 7, 2012 17:45
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I'm scared to watch Jedi with my family because I am going to  so hard at the dance sequence.
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Jan 7, 2012 17:51
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Hondo82 posted:NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Jan 7, 2012 18:01
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The thing is the new shout starts off fine. Its more a vocalization a human could actually make, in the original version I didn't know what the hell was supposed to be going on. But half way through new shout it goes all PEW PEW laser noises for ...reasons?
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Jan 7, 2012 18:08
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I bought the blu-rays a while back but I've only watched 4 and 5 so far. The changes are dumb, but hey, at least the movies look loving gorgeous in 1080p.
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Jan 7, 2012 18:10
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404GoonNotFound posted:I believe you mean WHOOooooOOOOOOOOOO!!
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Jan 7, 2012 20:24
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Elentor posted:Call me crazy and maybe I'm giving George too much credit (I am), but as much as I hate the plot, the lack of attention to detail in the PT and the movies themselves, this was the one thing that struck me as something good, and the only thing that (at least to my brain) was clear on the plot. I can see the Jedi being Generals and what not in time of war. With them in that position they could do the most good and keep the most people alive. Even being soldiers makes a bit of sense, what are we suppose to do when the Empire/bad guys have Sith on their side? That is more aimed at the old republic though and not the episode 1-3 time line. You are entirely right though. The Jedi were never really suppose to be in the center of politics in the first place, instead they were suppose to be more of counselor for the senate and government. The fact that they were directly involved in the senate AND could be bossed around by them turned them more into a mystical police force. So the fact that they did possibly lose connection to the force could entirely be from going from a group of helpful monks to the Senates laser sword boot to the face squad makes sense. Still thats giving the prequels way to much credit. Xenomrph posted:I prefer this version. I raise you this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCZrdNBBxMA
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Jan 7, 2012 23:18
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I hope Qui Gon's ghost is bitching at the rest for eternity for them doing gently caress ALL or killing billions when they died. Obi and Yoda ran like bitches and hid until they died, and Anakin was still killing people until he was stopped. And yet all three still earned the right to be happy ghost mentors.
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Jan 8, 2012 02:27
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I finished the Thrawn trilogy today. I really don't get the love, they aren't that great to me. The biggest problem with these books is Thrawn himself. I have no problem with a villain being highly intelligent, but Thrawn is so poorly written as a genius that reading his scenes was just frustrating. It was so annoying how he magically knew everything that was going on, no matter how clever the protagonists were. The protagonists would get a good plan going, and it never meant jack poo poo because Thrawn would just know what they were up to. I guess the art made by the species he was fighting told him what to do. Somehow. Or maybe he read the script. The best things these books do basically have nothing to do with Thrawn, and rather how well the author writes the old Star Wars characters. Luke is my favorite Star Wars character and I was glad that he was written really well in this trilogy. Han and Leia were done well too. Mara is cool and I liked her overall story, she is the best new character in these books imo. The plot was decent, but it never had that great large space opera "feel" that Star Wars has, to me. I don't think these books would make a good new trilogy of movies like I've heard some people say. Overall, they're good, but not great. Certainly not as amazing as I've heard they were.
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Jan 8, 2012 12:41
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In a weird twist he is developed quite well in books written later set in tbe past while the OT characters get more and more twisted by terrible writers and the greed of Lucas. Funny that.
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Jan 8, 2012 15:05
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happyhippy posted:I hope Qui Gon's ghost is bitching at the rest for eternity for them doing gently caress ALL or killing billions when they died. Obi and Yoda ran like bitches and hid until they died, and Anakin was still killing people until he was stopped. Although to be fair that's only because Yoda finally said "gently caress it I'm dumb" and started listening to the ghost of Qui-Gon <scene deleted to save room for completing GWB parallel>.
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Jan 8, 2012 19:03
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SeanBeansShako posted:In a weird twist he is developed quite well in books written later set in tbe past while the OT characters get more and more twisted by terrible writers and the greed of Lucas. Didn't they turn Luke into a new Emperor at one point?
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Jan 8, 2012 23:10
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TOOT BOOT posted:Didn't they turn Luke into a new Emperor at one point? I wish I were joking.
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Jan 9, 2012 01:02
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Flagrant Abuse posted:No, just the new right hand man for the Emperor's clone. Oh you love Emperor Bowietine really.
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Jan 9, 2012 01:48
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Finished watching Episode 4 on Blu-Ray. It honestly wasn't that bad. With all the bitching people do about the special editions and the changes in it I always thought the movies were butchered to hell and back to the point that they were unrecognizable. But its still Episode 4 and everything I love about Star Wars. I do agree though that Han should shoot first and that everything with the Jabba the Hutt scene is stupid. What was especially  worth was I'm pretty sure half of Han's lines were reused from the scene with Greedo. I do like the scene of Luke and Biggs getting caught up before the battle of Yavin. With it, Biggs' death makes a little more sense.Flagrant Abuse posted:No, just the new right hand man for the Emperor's clone. BigRed0427 fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jan 9, 2012 |
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Jan 9, 2012 02:06
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BigRed0427 posted:What was especially It's another example of George Lucas disagreeing with George Lucas. In a "making of" show, he mentioned that the scene was cut for two reasons: 1) He wanted to put a creature in the shot but the tech wasn't ready and 2) THE SCENE WAS loving REDUNDANT. But shiny bauble George won out over Film 101-passing George and we got that godawful result.
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Jan 9, 2012 03:05
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I honestly do not get the love for Thrawn. He is honestly a pretty dumb villain whose primary plot power is "gets to be right for poorly defined reasons and because the heroes are stupid." I appreciate the idea of a tactical genius instead of LORD SITHMAN as the villain, but not when his tactics boil down to "heh, I know exactly how this entire race is going to react because I studied their art." When he specifically picked up Admiral Ackbar's art or whatever and studied it to figure out how Ackbar would react? That's a neat idea. It's implausible, but doesn't feel like the plot is wanking him off. It also was boring how Pellion existed entirely to be 'wrong' so Thrawn could correct him, even when you'd think he learned his god damned lesson by the hundredth time it happened.
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Jan 9, 2012 04:30
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The love for Thrawn is that he's a smart villain who gets to compete with smart heroes. He gets to be right, but it's really not because the heroes are stupid. Unlike in other Star Wars stories, where the villains only get to be good because the heroes are dumb. See: 1) Darth Sidious, because the heroes are dumb. 2) Darth Caedus, because for EVERY moment where he gets to be good at something, EVERY other character had to take a 100 pt hit to their IQ for it to happen. 3) Darth Bane. Seriously. (notice how I'm listing all the lovely big-name Sith the stories are getting crammed full of?) 4) Darth Krayt. Really? The New Jedi Order and the Empire fell for this again? etc. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jan 9, 2012 |
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Jan 9, 2012 06:11
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If there is one thing unrealistic and kind of dumb about star wars, its how black and white it is. Even in the original series, you always know the empire is completely bad. Thrawn is awesome because he definitely is am empire guy who is far from a bad guy overall. He doesn't kill people mindlessly. He is def a gray character, which I think is a big appeal. Its rare in star wars.
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Jan 9, 2012 06:44
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ImpAtom posted:It also was boring how Pellion existed entirely to be 'wrong' so Thrawn could correct him, even when you'd think he learned his god damned lesson by the hundredth time it happened. Oh yeah, right after I finished reading the trilogy I remember mentioned to my wife that there was a character that served no function other than to vocalize what the reader was thinking.
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Jan 9, 2012 07:08
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BigRed0427 posted:So I decided on a whim to get the complete saga on blu-ray. I will probably watch it tomorrow or Sunday. I was just curious what you guys thought of the set. I heard that the special features were worth the price of the set alone. Specials are good, and ESB is the best of the set. Thrawn owns because he bucks the trend of stupid black/white morality that is endemic to Star Wars. Pellaeon is pretty much there though to kinda serve as the reader's viewpoint though, yeah.
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Jan 9, 2012 08:00
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ImpAtom posted:I honestly do not get the love for Thrawn. He is honestly a pretty dumb villain whose primary plot power is "gets to be right for poorly defined reasons and because the heroes are stupid." I appreciate the idea of a tactical genius instead of LORD SITHMAN as the villain, but not when his tactics boil down to "heh, I know exactly how this entire race is going to react because I studied their art." If this annoys you, don't ever read any of the stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Thrawn IS Holmes (but with blue skin and a dash of evil), and the Holmes-Watson relationship is almost exactly the same as Thrawn-Pellaeon.
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Jan 9, 2012 08:14
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Powered Descent posted:If this annoys you, don't ever read any of the stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Thrawn IS Holmes (but with blue skin and a dash of evil), and the Holmes-Watson relationship is almost exactly the same as Thrawn-Pellaeon. He doesn't though. He's clearly trying to mimic it but not in a way that works. Watson plays off Holmes, who is a more significantly flawed character, and is often treated with respect. Pellaeon is seriously there just to be wrong and to fawn over Thrawn. Later books give him something of an actual personality, but his initial role is just to be the guy who Thrawn can be right to. I also don't see Thrawn as particularly bucking the "black/white" morality in the original trilogy. Like, at all. Sometimes he doesn't kill his minions, but that is about it. They don't even really give him a motivation in the original trilogy beyond "I'm bringing the empire back, baby!" Later stuff is a bit better, but it's a lot of after-the-fact after the guy is already dead. When he was alive, he was just kind of an rear end in a top hat. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Jan 9, 2012 |
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Jan 9, 2012 08:34
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He bucks it by not being nearly as mustache-twirling about it. Context.
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Jan 9, 2012 14:19
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I think that if you read Thrawn and compare him/the books to, well, any sort of actual literature then its mostly just ok. Sometimes good and sometimes mediocre, but pretty unremarkable. But when you are reading those books in the context of all the other Star Wars stuff, he is pretty much in the top tier. I mean this is pretty common for this sort of in-universe stuff. Dan Abnett is a decent writer, but among the 40k authors he is amazing because so many of them are so terrible. Or that some of those Dragonlance books were 'good' because they were read in comparison to RA Salvatores drizzt crap. Until we can convince Ursula Le Guin to write something with lightsabers in it, you can only expect so much from movie novelization sequels.
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Jan 9, 2012 16:09
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ImpAtom posted:He doesn't though. He's clearly trying to mimic it but not in a way that works. Watson plays off Holmes, who is a more significantly flawed character, and is often treated with respect. Pellaeon is seriously there just to be wrong and to fawn over Thrawn. Later books give him something of an actual personality, but his initial role is just to be the guy who Thrawn can be right to. Like someone said, compared to the rest of Star Wars literature, he is loving top-tier. Even compared to science-fiction in general, I would not put him at the bottom. The Empire is usually portrayed as comically evil (nothing beats the overly evil like KJA's Dune prequels though, gently caress we get it, Harkonnens are assholes), killing off random populaces, cackling maniacally over captured Rebels, etc. Thrawn's got a clear-cut plan: acquire advanced technology that will turn the tide (Cloning Cylinders + Cloaking Shields), acquire materiel for his men (Dark Fleet), acquire resources (Ukio, etc) and crush the Rebellion. I'm not arguing he's "good"; he keeps the Noghri as slaves because they serve his purposes for instance, but at least his action have more purpose than being a space dick to space Rebels. He wants to re-establish the Empire, but I do concede to your point about the Hand of Thrawn books being needed to better establish what Thrawn's motivations were. Now Zsinj on the other hand, well, he got a terrible introduction in the abortion of a book that was The Courtship of Princess Leia, but he was great in the X-Wing books. Allston played him as comically evil and ran with it, and it fit his books very well. I rather liked him as a villain too, because that entire series (well sub-series I guess, the Wraith books) did not take themselves too seriously. Most other villains suck rear end though. Whether it be bad guys defeated by the deus ex machina intervention of MANDALORIANS MANDALORIANS MANDALORIANS or big bad Jedi :jerkfoff: rolling to the rescue. e: Yeah, Thrawn's studying art to learn about enemies is kinda a stretch, but I ate that poo poo up as a kid, and it made him even more badass 
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Jan 9, 2012 16:33
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The guys who did Tag And Bink should just some comics about the really bad Star Wars EU villains being unemployed and rooming together. I'd get it.
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Jan 9, 2012 16:48
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I suppose I can see what you mean. It is weird to me to hear Thrawn praised as great just taken on its own, but then I remember he's up against like the Oogie Boogie Biomonsters and Darth Kneesabers and realize that, oh yeah, he's actually a step up just by not making me laugh at him.
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Jan 9, 2012 17:03
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I think the worst set of Villians ever were the dumb shits in Dark Nest trilogy. I guess we were supposed to like the stupid Killiks but I Couldn't help but enjoy watching the Chiss blow them to poo poo. Lomi and welk were lame as gently caress, too.
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Jan 9, 2012 17:25
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I think the worst was Durga the Hutt and his stupid lovely Darksaber project. Even as a kid I got to the end and was like 'what the gently caress was the point of this?' Edit: I guess that Durga probably doesn't even rank as a real villain because he was so terrible at it.
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Jan 9, 2012 17:44
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Ashcans posted:I think the worst was Durga the Hutt and his stupid lovely Darksaber project. Even as a kid I got to the end and was like 'what the gently caress was the point of this?'
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Jan 9, 2012 17:48
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I don't know, the Captain Planet level of stupidity of the baddies in the Jedi Prince series is hilariously bad too.
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Jan 9, 2012 18:04
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For additional bit of context, keep in mind that the Empire in the OT has generally retained an aura of cold competence (helped along greatly by Empire Strikes Back) that doesn't give a gently caress. Only in ROTJ did they majorly slip up in that depiction, with the Ewoks fighting Stormtroopers, because any actual description of Ewoks make them out to be intelligent vicious fighters, but they can't help but look fuzzy and cute on-screen. Nearly everything the Empire does in the OT makes movie-sense and makes them out to be coldly efficient and competent, who only get outfought and defeated at individual specific key moments (sometimes assisted by the Force). Thrawn personifies that. No other villain in the EU does.
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Jan 9, 2012 19:04
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Powered Descent posted:If this annoys you, don't ever read any of the stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Thrawn IS Holmes (but with blue skin and a dash of evil), and the Holmes-Watson relationship is almost exactly the same as Thrawn-Pellaeon. Zhan even points this out with his notes in the anniversary edition. Pallaeon to me at least does not seem to be there just to be wrong, a lot of times he is actually right or has some insight into whats going on. Of course he is also a big point for the reader to insert them selves into the story as he really is used as a explanation device. Edit. Thrawn does kill off that one tractor beam specialist for failing, but that was for some kind of contest Zhan held. Two people won it and then one of those won again and got to decide if the other character was killed off or not. Really any one debating picking up the anniversary edition of heir to the empire really needs to. Theres a lot of small random stuff like that mixed in with some really good insight. If you buy the kindle version and have a touchpad you can also easily go to the notes and back. Darth Freddy fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 9, 2012 |
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Jan 9, 2012 19:09
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Slight correction here: Thrawn has the tractor beam specialist killed for trying to push the blame for failing onto others. Another thing that makes him a better villain than the typical mustache-twirling villainy that got overplayed after Vader was done with it.
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Jan 9, 2012 19:18
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arioch posted:Nearly everything the Empire does in the OT makes movie-sense and makes them out to be coldly efficient and competent, who only get outfought and defeated at individual specific key moments (sometimes assisted by the Force). I never understood why the Emperor felt the need to build a second Death Star (and a rush job at that). Did they learn nothing from the first one?
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Jan 9, 2012 19:32
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NGL posted:I never understood why the Emperor felt the need to build a second Death Star (and a rush job at that). Did they learn nothing from the first one? He pretty much says that the whole point of everything was just to lure Luke to him.
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Jan 9, 2012 19:34
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NGL posted:I never understood why the Emperor felt the need to build a second Death Star (and a rush job at that). Did they learn nothing from the first one? My impression was that they always planned on making more than one Death Star, and having the first one blown up didn't change that. And to be fair, they did learn from the first one, didn't they? This one wouldn't have the same exhaust port issue, which is why the Rebels had to attack it now, while it was still under construction. Granted, this is all just assumption on my part. I don't have the Wookiepedia article to prove me right or anything, because I'm too lazy to check. But the fact that the Maw Installation had an unfinished Death Star in it backs up my "many Death Stars" theory. Also, that the script for Jedi was originally supposed to have two Death Stars.
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Jan 9, 2012 19:39
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