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Jerkface
May 21, 2001

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE DEAD, MOTHERFUCKER?

Fallen Rib

Tots posted:

Is there a goon hive mind agreed upon watch order for the movies?

is there a agreed upon worst watch order for the movies?

6-2-7-3-5-1-4

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Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

Are we really saying the guy that made THX 1138 isn't subversive?

Obviously not every element of all his movies is going to be, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice

Jerkface posted:

is there a agreed upon worst watch order for the movies?

6-2-7-3-5-1-4

Ewok Adventure
Christmas Special
Ewok Adventure II
Ewoks
cartoon show
Droids cartoon show

Raxivace posted:

Are we really saying the guy that made THX 1138 isn't subversive?

Obviously not every element of all his movies is going to be, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

But against what? Himself? His fans? His own story? His craft? Who is the joke on, if the prequels' failures are deliberate?

Phylodox fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jan 9, 2016

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Jerkface posted:

is there a agreed upon worst watch order for the movies?

6-2-7-3-5-1-4

I can't imagine how traumatic it must be when kids' first exposure to Star Wars is the Clone Wars cartoons, and then they see Episode 3 when they start seeing the movies, but I'm sure that was the case for a lot of kids of a certain age.

Red
Apr 15, 2003

Yeah, great at getting us into Wawa.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/01/07/a-conversation-with-the-man-behind-the-ambitious-200000-star-wars-rpg-kickstarter.aspx

quote:

Earlier this week, social media exploded over a Kickstarter for an "open-world RPG 'like' Star Wars" game. The budget? $200,000. The project manager? Not EA or Disney. It's Devin Tripp.

When game industry personalities caught wind of the overly ambitious Kickstarter effort, it drew lighthearted joking and astonishment. No one seemed to expect the project to raise a single dollar. It now sits at more than $18,000.

NeoGAF lit up, with commenters voicing amusement, incredulity, and shock. The Gamedev Subreddit also gathered around it, suggesting that it serves the purpose of highlighting widespread misconceptions about development.

At the heart of it is an affable young man. I had the chance to speak with 20-year-old Dallas convenience store employee and project manager Devin Tripp by phone. He tells me that the pitch text (since deleted, though the project is still open) was quickly typed out on his phone from which he submitted it for approval.

He had no cell service, but typed out his Kickstarter campaign a little bit at a time. "I wrote one paragraph and then two more later on, all on my phone, so of course there were grammatical mistakes," he tells me. "I couldn't check it and wrote it real fast in five minutes."

The results were, unfortunately, fraught with grammar and spelling errors. Those quickly became the highlight of conversation on Twitter and Facebook. Misspelled names like "obi one kinobi," claims of having the "graphics of Battlefront or better," and a risks and challenges section that included "pleasing all star wars fans," were targets for ribbing. (For the full text of the campaign, scroll to the bottom of this story.)

As you might expect, Tripp is a gaming industry outsider. He's never worked on a big-budget endeavor like what a Star Wars RPG entail. Though, he did tell me that he's published an Android app called Circle Dodge after taking computer science in high school. He considers himself largely "self-taught."

"I have no idea about games," he says. "I know nothing about the budget. So when I first made [the Kickstarter page], I figured $200,000 sounds like a good number. I didn't think things would blow up like they did. I figured some people would say that this needs to happen. Maybe Disney would contact me to do this."

Tripp is still optimistic that his efforts aren't in vain. And he hopes that he has Disney's attention.

"If I got permission from Disney, with the credibility of a Kickstarter that made $200,000, investors would be swarming in," he says. "If someone with no experience got $200,000, then obviously these people want it. People are going to buy this game."

This is clearly Tripp's first flirtation with high stakes game development. Even if he reaches his goal, the game he envisions to be similar to The Witcher 3 with graphics exceeding DICE's work on Star Wars Battlefront simply can't exist without significantly more capital.

His timeframe, with planned delivery in December 2017, is nigh impossible. There's no team signed on to actually make the game.

And as for the license, EA has that locked up. Intellectual property rights, asset approval, and all the things that go into making a licensed game (especially one in the Star Wars universe) come to life haven't been considerations for Tripp.

He knows that Visceral is working on a Star Wars game. He also knows about Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it didn't appeal to him when he watched YouTube videos. He told me that what he wants though, is an RPG on current-gen consoles.

We must wonder how a project clearly infringing on established intellectual property (and one that clearly states that rights haven't been obtained) made it through Kickstarter's review process. In nearly every way, this project fails to meet basic standards for viability.

Right now, Tripp has deleted everything from his Kickstarter page. The campaign is still open, and he plans on updating everyone soon. For now, he's reflecting on the lessons of the experience.

"Really proofread your crap before you send it out," he says. "That and just to take a step back and plan a bit more before you do something."

And exactly where did Tripp get the idea to take his chances on Kickstarter and set his dream into motion? He was inspired. "We were driving along and I was looking at [my friend's life] and looking at my life. And I was like, 'I'm getting nowhere. I'm gonna do something.' The first thing that came to mind was Star Wars, because I had just watched it in the theater the day before."

If there's one thing we can take away from Tripp's eagerness, it's that Star Wars remains front of mind for fans. They are keen to extend the excitement they felt while watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Board games, toys, and of course, video games like Disney Infinity and Star Wars: The Old Republic continue to draw attention from across the enthusiast community. Star Wars fever is real, and Devin Tripp has a solid case of it.

Tripp is just one individual, and his Kickstarter will likely result in nothing more than a cease and desist letter from Disney. "I just wanted to show that anyone can make a difference," he told me. And it's hard not to find his enthusiasm infectious.

And that's who welfare supports, kids.

Lord Hydronium
Sep 25, 2007

Non, je ne regrette rien


Jerkface posted:

is there a agreed upon worst watch order for the movies?
The Memento order: 7654321.

Actually, wait, that might be pretty cool.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Phylodox posted:

But against what? Himself? His fans? His own story? His craft? Who is the joke on, if the prequels' failures are deliberate?

I don't think it's a huge stretch to imagine that a guy who was pretty deeply involved in the creative peaks of New Hollywood era has conflicted feelings about creating the franchise that signaled the end of that era. I personally think the prequels reflect at least a bit what Lucas thinks about his legacy, and the legacy of Star Wars.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

George Lucas doesn't come across as a total piece of garbage who's only function on this earth is to royally gently caress with those who made him a fortune. He may be kinda of bitter and hurt about it...but I don't think he's this vengeful old man or something.

He made films that were sincere, that a decent amount of people didn't like. It happens.

Motto
Aug 3, 2013

CelticPredator posted:

George Lucas doesn't come across as a total piece of garbage who's only function on this earth is to royally gently caress with those who made him a fortune. He may be kinda of bitter and hurt about it...but I don't think he's this vengeful old man or something.

He made films that were sincere, that a decent amount of people didn't like. It happens.

Why are any of those qualities required for the PT to be subversive?

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice
Yeah, there's a level of cynicism that just doesn't appear to coincide with anything we know about Lucas. He's always had an anti-establishment streak against the studios, but never against, like, storytelling or filmmaking. He's always just seemed like a kind of awkward man who desperately wants to share his visions and ideas with people, but is more inclined to do so through worldbuilding and cinematography than dialogue and characters.

Red
Apr 15, 2003

Yeah, great at getting us into Wawa.

Tots posted:

Is there a goon hive mind agreed upon watch order for the movies?

:getin:


- Episode II, but only the parts on Kamino and Geonosis; you could also just watch what's shown in 'The Phantom Edit'
- Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars
- CGI Clone Wars film
- CGI Clone Wars series
- Revenge of the Sith, but only what's shown in 'The Phantom Edit'
- The Droids cartoon series
- Star Wars Rebels series
- Theatrical version of Episode IV
- Boba Fett cartoon from The Star Wars Holiday Special
- Special Edition of Episode V is fine
- Ewoks: Caravan of Courage
- Theatrical version of Episode VI
- Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, but it's weird because Wicket speaks some English so
- Episode VII

Go for it, go hog wild

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

CelticPredator posted:

George Lucas doesn't come across as a total piece of garbage who's only function on this earth is to royally gently caress with those who made him a fortune. He may be kinda of bitter and hurt about it...but I don't think he's this vengeful old man or something.

He made films that were sincere, that a decent amount of people didn't like. It happens.

Yeah, I don't think he made bad films out of spite, but I also don't think it's a mistake that the prequels have a much more cynical undertone than the OT. They seemed to be really personal films for Lucas, which regardless of quality is kind of neat in that it's an extreme rarity for blockbusters of that magnitude. For the record, I wouldn't excuse every poor performance in the movies as misunderstood, and I personally find the movies kind of ugly to look at even if the aesthetics served a purpose. I'm closer to the "interesting failure" camp myself, but I won't begrudge anyone their enjoyment of the movies.

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

The screenwriting in the prequel trilogy does not provide the expected hints that the situation depicted contains irony. I consider this a weakness of otherwise good films, and the main reason why they are misunderstood. (That they are misunderstood is not sufficient, however, to explain the level of hate they get.)

Hulk Krogan
Mar 25, 2005



computer parts posted:

I mean we know they've fought before ("Now I am the Master" et all), and Obi-Wan already said how Vader killed Anakin, so it's reasonable to assume that the two of them fought after that.

With Kylo, we know that he was probably good in some ways (at least enough not to be suspicious), then turned bad, murdered a whole bunch of people, and then joined with Snoke. We don't know why he went bad, or if he was just like his grandfather (as his hair suggests). We don't know who the Knights of Ren are, and we don't know who Snoke really is.

Frackie Robinson posted:

My questions about Kylo Ren boil down to this: if doesn't genuinely hate his parents, which he doesn't seem to, then I don't understand why he's doing what he's doing. Not just killing Han, I mean any of it. Trying to erase their legacy. This isn't to say that there can't be a satisfactory answer to that question, I'm just saying that it's conspicuously left unanswered in TFA. Unlike Anakin, whose alliance with Palpatine is ultimately one of convenience, Ren seems to be a zealot. He's a true believer in something, but in what is anybody's guess from what we're shown.

This is just it. First of all, if we're limiting our comparison to A New Hope, which I believe we should since there are two more movies coming, we don't know why Vader went bad either, just that he did. But more importantly, Kylo Ren's whole character (so far), is that he's the reverse of Anakin and Luke. They were good guys struggling against the temptation of easy power offered by the dark side. Kylo Ren is a violent, angry, senselessly evil dude struggling against the promise of warmth, love and a way to fill the emptiness inside him that the light side offers. That's what defines him and it's why the specific thing that led him to Snoke in the first place doesn't need to be in this film, just like Vader's character worked just fine even though we didn't find out why he turned against Obi Wan for another 30 years and 5 films.

I mean, obviously if him killing his father didn't resonate with someone, it didn't resonate, and no amount of pointing out his similarities to Vader in A New Hope is going to change that. This is just how I read the character and why the scene in question worked for me.

Hulk Krogan fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jan 9, 2016

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
The main "subversive" element of the PT is that they weren't what audiences were expecting going into them. The actual plot beats have been done before and since ( Jupiter Ascending would be an example of the latter, the former would probably be of a non- Scifi bent).

KaptainKrunk
Feb 6, 2006


Bongo Bill posted:

The screenwriting in the prequel trilogy does not provide the expected hints that the situation depicted contains irony. I consider this a weakness of otherwise good films, and the main reason why they are misunderstood. (That they are misunderstood is not sufficient, however, to explain the level of hate they get.)

"I can't breathe..." *later becomes a man who literally cannot breathe on his own*


What kind of irony are you talking about?

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Hulk Krogan posted:

This is just it. First of all, if we're limiting our comparison to A New Hope, which I believe we should since there are two more movies coming, we don't know why Vader went bad either, just that he did. But more importantly, Kylo Ren's whole character (so far), is that he's the reverse of Anakin and Luke. They were good guys struggling against the temptation of easy power offered by the dark side. Kylo Ren is a violent, angry, senselessly evil dude struggling against the promise of warmth, love and a way to fill the emptiness inside him that the light side offers. That's what defines him and it's why the specific thing that led him to Snoke in the first place doesn't need to be in this film, just like Vader's character worked just fine even though we didn't find out why he turned against Obi Wan for another 30 years and 5 films.

I mean, obviously if him killing his father didn't resonate with someone, it didn't resonate, and no amount of pointing out his similarities to Vader in A New Hope is going to change that. This is just how I read the character and why the scene in question worked for me.

So if we don't learn anything else about Kylo Ren's past, or what he's trying to accomplish on a larger level, are you okay with that? I'm not trying to be snarky, because if the answer is yes and the character totally works for you as is then that's totally fine. My main contention is that it's off-putting if they're saving this stuff for later just for the sake of maintaining a mystery when it would have served us a lot better if we received it before the third act of this movie than at any future point.

Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

I always thought the prequels were basically Lucas trying to do something that was a bit beyond his skill as a director, mixed with the fact he got so big that there wasn't someone to reign him in. He's a great director visually but when directing and writing dialogue it comes off as really really stilted, which makes having your main story across the trilogy being the fall of Anakin from a good-hearted boy to Darth Vader hard to do.

Also for whatever reason he seemed really undecided about the demographic of the movie. One one hand you have all the space politics and stuff which could have been interesting if done better and if it took up less time which doesn't really appeal to kids at all along with the fall of Anakin and the Republic, on the other you have all this kid-friendly toy selling stuff like Jar-Jar and General Grevious and it's just kinda a mess.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Gorelab posted:

I always thought the prequels were basically Lucas trying to do something that was a bit beyond his skill as a director, mixed with the fact he got so big that there wasn't someone to reign him in. He's a great director visually but when directing and writing dialogue it comes off as really really stilted, which makes having your main story across the trilogy being the fall of Anakin from a good-hearted boy to Darth Vader hard to do.

Also for whatever reason he seemed really undecided about the demographic of the movie. One one hand you have all the space politics and stuff which could have been interesting if done better and if it took up less time which doesn't really appeal to kids at all along with the fall of Anakin and the Republic, on the other you have all this kid-friendly toy selling stuff like Jar-Jar and General Grevious and it's just kinda a mess.

For better and worse, it's got the body of an action movie and the brain of a soap opera.

turtlecrunch
May 14, 2013

Hesitation is defeat.

Frackie Robinson posted:

I can't imagine how traumatic it must be when kids' first exposure to Star Wars is the Clone Wars cartoons, and then they see Episode 3 when they start seeing the movies, but I'm sure that was the case for a lot of kids of a certain age.

That's not true, that's impossible etc.

Prolonged Panorama
Dec 21, 2007
Holy hookrat Sally smoking crack in the alley!



I appreciated that they gave 3PO a red arm to (barely) continue the tradition of him getting dis and and or re assembled in every film.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice

Frackie Robinson posted:

For better and worse, it's got the body of an action movie and the brain of a soap opera.

E-e-e-e-e-eh...I don't know about soap opera. It has legit operatic ambitions, I just think it falls short. I feel like it wants to be the grand, sweeping story of a great civilization brought low by a love that was forbidden, but I think a lot of that gets lost in clunky dialogue and whizbang special effects. It has the heart of a grand romantic tragedy beating within the body of something trapped between Dune and Buck Rogers.

Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

Phylodox posted:

E-e-e-e-e-eh...I don't know about soap opera. It has legit operatic ambitions, I just think it falls short. I feel like it wants to be the grand, sweeping story of a great civilization brought low by a love that was forbidden, but I think a lot of that gets lost in clunky dialogue and whizbang special effects. It has the heart of a grand romantic tragedy beating within the body of something trapped between Dune and Buck Rogers.

It's even stranger to have one half that, and then decide your action needs to be super kid friendly with characters like Jar Jar. It makes it even more disconcerting.

Beeez
May 28, 2012

Phylodox posted:

Yeah, there's a level of cynicism that just doesn't appear to coincide with anything we know about Lucas. He's always had an anti-establishment streak against the studios, but never against, like, storytelling or filmmaking. He's always just seemed like a kind of awkward man who desperately wants to share his visions and ideas with people, but is more inclined to do so through worldbuilding and cinematography than dialogue and characters.

When the seeds for a lot of what we see in the PT were in the very early drafts of the original movie or interviews from when he was doing those movies, and Lucas has been saying since the eighties that they'd be a certain way and would throw people off, and we have stories from the set of actors specifically raising certain concerns with Lucas and him saying that it's intentional, I don't know how you could possibly argue everything is just him being a bumbling fool who didn't know what he was doing. I agree that not everything SMG claims about the movies is accurate or intentional, but things like Anakin being a whiny teenager, many of the characters being reserved and unemotional, the movies depicting a Jedi Order and Republic that has lost it's way, it being presented in a more soap opera-y way, the political intrigue and trade guilds as villains, etc. are all things that Lucas himself clearly commented on or we can see the seeds of way back in the 70s and 80s. He was not just trying to make more Star Wars movies like the original and just fundamentally misunderstood what Star Wars was about, he chose to do them in a different way, as he always said he would. For instance, fans complained that R2-D2 and C3P0 are in all six movies simply because Lucas gave it zero thought, but we have interviews from the 70s and 80s in which Lucas says he plans on those two characters being the only ones that are in all "nine"(at the time) films. He'd be planning that for around twenty years but people refused to believe that he had considered it at all. You can obviously dislike what he did, but to pretend like he's an idiot who totally stumbled through this series and didn't give any thought to the themes, characters, and plots is contradictory to the evidence we have.

Hulk Krogan
Mar 25, 2005



Frackie Robinson posted:

So if we don't learn anything else about Kylo Ren's past, or what he's trying to accomplish on a larger level, are you okay with that? I'm not trying to be snarky, because if the answer is yes and the character totally works for you as is then that's totally fine. My main contention is that it's off-putting if they're saving this stuff for later just for the sake of maintaining a mystery when it would have served us a lot better if we received it before the third act of this movie than at any future point.

He's trying to become Darth Vader - that's his larger goal. He prays to Vader's remains, asking him to give him the strength to cut all remaining ties to his old life. He pretty clearly feels that that's his birthright and his destiny. It's why he tells Finn "that lightsaber is mine" and why it shakes him so badly when it flies to Rey instead of to him. His failure to penetrate Rey's mind is punctuated by her telling him that he's afraid he'll never be as powerful as Vader, at which point he scurries off to Snoke.

I feel like if the intent was to save something for a big reveal in Episode VIII, they could easily have done that by not revealing his true identity. I got the sense that the intent was more to establish his nature and character so that they could flesh it out by filling in some background later. Again, like Vader. Introducing characters and events without establishing any concrete background is a hallmark of the series, so the handling of Kylo Ren didn't feel at all artificial or incongruous to me, personally.

Hulk Krogan fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Jan 9, 2016

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
I can respect that, I just wish I knew either more or less about him.

edit: I don't understand the motives of the New Order in general. It all seems to be young people, and for the most seem to be true zealots, like they've really bought into the cause and they're going to do whatever it takes even if it's painful. Hux's eyes seem to well up a little bit when they fire the space laser after he gives his Hitler speech, as if to say "this hurts me more than it hurts you, galaxy." It's like they're appropriating revolutionary rhetoric for right wing authoritarianism, but who gets that excited about facism when there's no external threat to be afraid of? What is their recruiting pitch? Most of the Imperials in the OT seemed to just be bureaucrats putting in hours, including Vader until things got personal. These idiots are like space North Korea.

General Dog fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jan 9, 2016

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

Phylodox posted:

Ewok Adventure
Christmas Special
Ewok Adventure II
Ewoks
cartoon show
Droids cartoon show

You have to show Ewok Adventures 1 and 2 back to back. You miss out on so much spite, otherwise.

MrMojok
Jan 28, 2011

SuperMechagodzilla posted:


The rest of the scene, however, plays out as a contrast to the waitress' initial suspicions. It would be very easy for Dex's actor, Ron Falk, to play the character as shady - pretending to be friendly in order to get out of trouble. Instead, Dex comes across as absolutely genuine in his friendship with Obiwan - which generates an implied backstory where Obiwan helped Dex out with some legal troubles, so Dex is now grateful...

How can you say that this dialogue generates an implied backstory for Dex, but also say that ANH never shows us that Luke wants to get away from the dreary moisture-farming existence on Tattooine? Isn't the case for Luke's motivation/backstory for wanting to escape made just as well as the one you're reading into the Dex scene?

greatn
Nov 15, 2006

by Lowtax
The reason Kylo went evil may be extremely simple and laid out right in the movie. Leia: It's not your fault! It was Snoke!

Of course I hope it's not that cut and dry, but could be.

Zulily Zoetrope
Jun 1, 2011

Muldoon
While release order makes the most sense, I would entertain the notion of watching them in numerical order if you're going in completely blind.

Frackie Robinson posted:

My questions about Kylo Ren boil down to this: if doesn't genuinely hate his parents, which he doesn't seem to, then I don't understand why he's doing what he's doing. Not just killing Han, I mean any of it. Trying to erase their legacy. This isn't to say that there can't be a satisfactory answer to that question, I'm just saying that it's conspicuously left unanswered in TFA. Unlike Anakin, whose alliance with Palpatine is ultimately one of convenience, Ren seems to be a zealot. He's a true believer in something, but in what is anybody's guess from what we're shown.

That's a fair enough question. I remember some of Leia's dialogue implying that Ben had always been vulnerable to the Dark Side, and that she wasn't surprised that he had been corrupted almost as soon as he was sent away from Luke, but that's based on my understanding of the scene and I don't recall what exactly was said. I don't think there needs to have been a falling out in the family for Kylo to be doing what he does.

From what we know of his character, he showed all the traits of someone drawn to the Dark Side. He's impulsive, arrogant and ill-tempered. He's a Skywalker, and Skywalkers have always been the characters struggling between the Light and Dark side. He's done some heinous poo poo that contradicts his upbringing, but that just kind of seems to be the deal when you convert to the Dark Side. Anakin went straight from preventing a murder to slaughtering all the younglings when he turned. At least Kylo betrayed his peers.

As for Kylo tearing down his family legacy, there's no indication that it's motivated by malice against his family. He's pretty clearly devoted to his family legacy, but he chose his grandfather's instead of his parents', and they're just mutually exclusive.

Frackie Robinson posted:

So if we don't learn anything else about Kylo Ren's past, or what he's trying to accomplish on a larger level, are you okay with that? I'm not trying to be snarky, because if the answer is yes and the character totally works for you as is then that's totally fine. My main contention is that it's off-putting if they're saving this stuff for later just for the sake of maintaining a mystery when it would have served us a lot better if we received it before the third act of this movie than at any future point.

I would like to know more about his past, the nature of his first encounter with Snoke and Luke's Jedi training in particular, but Ren's character totally works for me as is. I actually think it would kind of undermine the character for me to learn that he turned due to a traumatic incident rather than his own nature.

Frackie Robinson posted:

edit: I don't understand the motives of the New Order in general. It all seems to be young people, and for the most seem to be true zealots, like they've really bought into the cause and they're going to do whatever it takes even if it's painful. Hux's eyes seem to well up a little bit when they fire the space laser after he gives his Hitler speech, as if to say "this hurts me more than it hurts you, galaxy." It's like they're appropriating revolutionary rhetoric for right wing authoritarianism, but who gets that excited about facism when there's no external threat to be afraid of? What is their recruiting pitch? Most of the Imperials in the OT seemed to just be bureaucrats putting in hours, including Vader until things got personal. These idiots are like space North Korea.

Oh, I'll grant that the First Order as a whole doesn't seem to add up and I left the movie feeling dissatisfied about the nature of it, but I was satisfied with Kylo himself.

Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jan 9, 2016

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice

Beeez posted:

When the seeds for a lot of what we see in the PT were in the very early drafts of the original movie or interviews from when he was doing those movies, and Lucas has been saying since the eighties that they'd be a certain way and would throw people off, and we have stories from the set of actors specifically raising certain concerns with Lucas and him saying that it's intentional, I don't know how you could possibly argue everything is just him being a bumbling fool who didn't know what he was doing. I agree that not everything SMG claims about the movies is accurate or intentional, but things like Anakin being a whiny teenager, many of the characters being reserved and unemotional, the movies depicting a Jedi Order and Republic that has lost it's way, it being presented in a more soap opera-y way, the political intrigue and trade guilds as villains, etc. are all things that Lucas himself clearly commented on or we can see the seeds of way back in the 70s and 80s. He was not just trying to make more Star Wars movies like the original and just fundamentally misunderstood what Star Wars was about, he chose to do them in a different way, as he always said he would. For instance, fans complained that R2-D2 and C3P0 are in all six movies simply because Lucas gave it zero thought, but we have interviews from the 70s and 80s in which Lucas says he plans on those two characters being the only ones that are in all "nine"(at the time) films. He'd be planning that for around twenty years but people refused to believe that he had considered it at all. You can obviously dislike what he did, but to pretend like he's an idiot who totally stumbled through this series and didn't give any thought to the themes, characters, and plots is contradictory to the evidence we have.

Yeah, I don't think he's a bumbling old dullard, either. He obviously had intentional ideas for what he wanted the prequels to be, but I think it's a matter of him failing to convey exactly what he wanted to, rather than him successfully conveying exactly what he wanted, which is disdain and scorn for his audience.

Hulk Krogan posted:

He's trying to become Darth Vader - that's his larger goal. He prays to Vader's remains, asking him to give him the strength to cut all remaining ties to his old life. He pretty clearly feels that that's his birthright and his destiny. It's why he tells Finn "that lightsaber is mine" and why it shakes him so badly when it flies to Rey instead of to him. His failure to penetrate Rey's mind is punctuated by her telling him that he's afraid he'll never be as powerful as Vader, at which point he scurries off to Snoke.

Yes, but the question is why does he want to be like Vader? Is it really something as simple as it being his birthright? Or is it because, for whatever reason, he feels he needs to be strong, and Vader embodies his (flawed) idea of strength? If it's the latter, then what is the reason he's forcing himself to be like Vader, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to want to?

greatn
Nov 15, 2006

by Lowtax
Kylo knows he must embrace the dark sides power, it's the only way he'll be able to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

greatn posted:

The reason Kylo went evil may be extremely simple and laid out right in the movie. Leia: It's not your fault! It was Snoke!

Of course I hope it's not that cut and dry, but could be.

There's also him saying that Han Solo was a lovely dad, which I'm sure we'll hear about next time/in a spinoff film/in a licensed tie-in novel.

Soggy Cereal
Jan 8, 2011

There are actually certain things unresolved, to be revealed later. The Force Awakens is not a stand alone movie, and depends on you coming back for the next two movies. This is because movie series nowadays are extremely high budget TV shows (see: Avengers, Harry Potter.) I actually love this but I think I'm in the minority.

A New Hope would have also been this way if everyone knew that it would be a success and that there would be two more movies, because Star Wars is based on a serial or in other words a TV show. The circle is now complete.

When speculating about Snoke, keep in mind that there were several designs by the art team before this one, so resemblance to Plagueis, Vader, etc. is likely coincidental.
I personally hope that he and the Knights of Ren have nothing to do with the Sith other than admiration that they Got Stuff Done. Ideally Finn is not force sensitive, Rey is not _________'s daughter, and Snoke is not a legacy character. I like the story way better if Rey and Finn are just regular people and Snoke is a mysterious outsider.

This is a cool thing about The Force Awakens that I liked - there is actually a lot more acknowledgment of people other than the Jedi or Sith knowing about the Force. Lor San Tekka, Maz Kanata, and probably Snoke are all initiated in the mysteries but aren't Jedi. Finn is the first regular normal person we've seen picking up a lightsaber (Han doesn't count, he barely uses it, and not in combat.)

Also we've still not solved the riddle of whether or not the Jedi are supposed to be good, mostly good, mostly bad, or bad.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

greatn posted:

Kylo knows he must embrace the dark sides power, it's the only way he'll be able to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong.

You laugh, but the only way any of this really makes sense is if the New Order is preparing for some yet unseen external threat. I'm not saying that that would be a good direction for the movies to go, but it would make sense.

Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

Soggy Cereal posted:

There are actually certain things unresolved, to be revealed later. The Force Awakens is not a stand alone movie, and depends on you coming back for the next two movies. This is because movie series nowadays are extremely high budget TV shows (see: Avengers, Harry Potter.) I actually love this but I think I'm in the minority.

A New Hope would have also been this way if everyone knew that it would be a success and that there would be two more movies, because Star Wars is based on a serial or in other words a TV show. The circle is now complete.

When speculating about Snoke, keep in mind that there were several designs by the art team before this one, so resemblance to Plagueis, Vader, etc. is likely coincidental.
I personally hope that he and the Knights of Ren have nothing to do with the Sith other than admiration that they Got Stuff Done. Ideally Finn is not force sensitive, Rey is not _________'s daughter, and Snoke is not a legacy character. I like the story way better if Rey and Finn are just regular people and Snoke is a mysterious outsider.

This is a cool thing about The Force Awakens that I liked - there is actually a lot more acknowledgment of people other than the Jedi or Sith knowing about the Force. Lor San Tekka, Maz Kanata, and probably Snoke are all initiated in the mysteries but aren't Jedi. Finn is the first regular normal person we've seen picking up a lightsaber (Han doesn't count, he barely uses it, and not in combat.)

Also we've still not solved the riddle of whether or not the Jedi are supposed to be good, mostly good, mostly bad, or bad.

I still half think that Finn may have some level of force ability. But him getting another lightsaber and being totally normal would be pretty cool as well.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Soggy Cereal posted:

I personally hope that he and the Knights of Ren have nothing to do with the Sith other than admiration that they Got Stuff Done. Ideally Finn is not force sensitive, Rey is not _________'s daughter, and Snoke is not a legacy character. I like the story way better if Rey and Finn are just regular people and Snoke is a mysterious outsider.

These are all good answers and I also hope you are right. Personally my guess would be that one or both of Rey's parents were Jedi trained by Luke who a) were killed by Kylo Ren or b) assisted Kylo Ren and were killed by Luke. I think it's likely that Snoke isn't someone we've met or heard of, and may not exist in the physical realm (although his "bring her to me" would seem to run counter to that theory).

greatn
Nov 15, 2006

by Lowtax
Since the First Order partially exists to hunt Luke down according to the opening crawl, they may just train their stormtroopers in basic lightsaber combat, why not?

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

The Hayden christenson ghost at the end of Jedi only kicks in if you watch 123456. However I think it assumed you e watch the movies 100 times .

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Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

greatn posted:

Since the First Order partially exists to hunt Luke down according to the opening crawl, they may just train their stormtroopers in basic lightsaber combat, why not?

It doesn't seem to be general training at least, Finn looked like he was trained how to fight but like he didn't really know how to use a lightsaber well, especially when he first uses it.

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