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Gammatron 64 posted:The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot, but TFU was a literal Mary Sue story ripped straight from fanfiction.net and tried to upstage everything done in the OT and all of its characters. I thought it was funny back when TFA came out and that word was being thrown about in reference to Rey when Galen was a thing that happened.
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Feb 9, 2016 16:16
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Canemacar posted:I thought it was funny back when TFA came out and that word was being thrown about in reference to Rey when Galen was a thing that happened. Yeah, seriously. She's basically just girl Luke. Because... *gasp* she is probably a Skywalker. Spoilers! They don't say it outright, but man the movie really beats you over the head with hints, namely the whole flashback scene. And while the line was cut, the first trailer had Luke saying "The Force is strong in my family. I have it. My father had it. My sister has it. You have that power, too."
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Feb 9, 2016 16:24
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Gammatron 64 posted:Yeah, seriously. She's basically just girl Luke. Because... *gasp* she is probably a Skywalker. Spoilers! Yeah except since they don't really show who he's talking to it's pretty easily explained away by saying he's talking to Ben.
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Feb 9, 2016 16:27
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Gammatron 64 posted:And while the line was cut, the first trailer had Luke saying "The Force is strong in my family. I have it. My father had it. My sister has it. You have that power, too."
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Feb 9, 2016 16:39
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Gammatron 64 posted:Sometimes it seems like I'm the only one who hates the Force Unleashed and the huge poo poo it took all over the original trilogy. So many people are like "I thought the story in those games was good!" Indeed, when Rebels was announced, there were loads of people throwing a wobble about how it was just plain wrong, "Because Starkiller founded the Rebellion, not these nobodies!  "
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Feb 9, 2016 17:39
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Wheat Loaf posted:Indeed, when Rebels was announced, there were loads of people throwing a wobble about how it was just plain wrong, "Because Starkiller founded the Rebellion, not these nobodies! God... I really hated the whole "Starkiller founded the Rebellion" thing. You know, like the Rebels couldn't do it on their own and they needed Mr. More Powerful than Space Jesus to do it for them. And it was actually a plot to destroy them but it accidentally worked out. And then they considered him a martyr. Ugh. It's almost insulting. Before TFU, it was always pretty much established that the Rebellion was founded by the likes of Bail Organa and Mon Mothma. You even see Bail and Mon Mothma growing the seeds of dissent in Episode III. Retconning Ashoka Tano into being one of its founders works and feels organic as she was an established character and wasn't killed off at the end of the Clone Wars. Plus, she's the kind of person who would join the Rebellion, anyway. She was annoying at first, but eventually she grew into a respectable character. With Starkiller, you have a self-insert Mary Sue who came completely out of nowhere, was more powerful that both Vader and the Emperor (as well as anyone else in any of the 6 movies), he kicked both of their asses, was both a Sith AND a Jedi, AND founded the Rebellion.  Oh, and not only was he the greatest most powerful guy to ever live, nobody mentions him in the movies. The story in that game is just the loving worst bottom of the barrel grade-school level fanfic garbage but everyone else seems to love that game and I don't get it.Dark Empire is also trash because it invalidates the climax of the whole Star Wars saga by having the Emperor come back from the dead and Luke turn to the Dark Side. Also the artwork is really ugly and terrible.
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Feb 9, 2016 18:06
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Would anyone mind if I try doing a sort of mini-retrospective post about one of the Dark Horse comics at some point? I've been thinking about doing something like that for a while.
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Feb 10, 2016 00:29
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Gammatron 64 posted:Dark Empire is also trash because it invalidates the climax of the whole Star Wars saga by having the Emperor come back from the dead and Luke turn to the Dark Side. Also the artwork is really ugly and terrible. ...You're all right, Gammatron.
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Feb 10, 2016 00:31
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Wheat Loaf posted:Would anyone mind if I try doing a sort of mini-retrospective post about one of the Dark Horse comics at some point? I've been thinking about doing something like that for a while. Yes, please do, I'm rereading them now and I'd like to see other people's takes.
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Feb 10, 2016 06:14
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New issue of Darth Vader is out! And he's being a dick to Palpatine of all people. It's loving glorious.
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Feb 10, 2016 10:08
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Gammatron 64 posted:Yeah, seriously. She's basically just girl Luke. Because... *gasp* she is probably a Skywalker. Spoilers! The thing is, it wasn't "cut"; like I explained in a previous thread incarnation, the audio for that line is sourced 100% from ROTJ, just re-cut and resampled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYX_PgorRY but yeah they are not being subtle about who Rey is  though I honestly wonder if that isn't in part a "yeah we sort of feel it works best to be coy about this for one movie to do other things narratively, but y'all will guess it anyway so let's just be obvious about it" move.
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Feb 10, 2016 12:26
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Ensign_Ricky posted:New issue of Darth Vader is out! And he's being a dick to Fixed that for you. He's really beginning to get into that Empire groove now, just gonna start sassing and choking every mofo who even looks at him funny.
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Feb 10, 2016 12:59
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SpaceDrake posted:The thing is, it wasn't "cut"; like I explained in a previous thread incarnation, the audio for that line is sourced 100% from ROTJ, just re-cut and resampled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYX_PgorRY I figure there are two paths: One is the one you mentioned, the other is they do have a twist in play which involves the audience assuming that Rey is a Skywalker and plan to pull the rug out but in order to deflect an internet audience away from guessing a plot twist they plant clues for a more obvious plot twist.
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Feb 10, 2016 16:19
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The original trilogy was about Luke Skywalker. The prequel trilogy was about Anakin Skywalker. It would be dumb to make the new trilogy about Rey Johnson
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Feb 10, 2016 16:28
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boom boom boom posted:The original trilogy was about Luke Skywalker. The prequel trilogy was about Anakin Skywalker. It would be dumb to make the new trilogy about Rey Johnson Seriously. It would be extremely dumb if instead of Rey Skywalker, the movie is about random person Rey Johnson. That would be missing the point of what the Star Wars saga is about. If the big twist is that she's not actually related to anyone, I'd honestly be kinda pissed off.
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Feb 10, 2016 16:55
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The rumors suggested that the sequel trilogy was supposed to be about the next generation in the form of Kylo Ren, before everyone  'd Disney by liking the actual protagonists.
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Feb 10, 2016 17:56
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Squizzle posted:The rumors suggested that the sequel trilogy was supposed to be about the next generation in the form of Kylo Ren, before everyone Yeah, Rey and Finn weren't even big parts of the trilogy going forward and they were casting around for a new female lead at one point.
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Feb 10, 2016 19:05
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PriorMarcus posted:Yeah, Rey and Finn weren't even big parts of the trilogy going forward and they were casting around for a new female lead at one point. Really? Finn I could see since his arc was largely concluded and he was possibly crippled at the end, but a good chunk of TFA was setting Rey up as a successor to Luke. Hard to imagine she'd just be a background character after that.
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Feb 10, 2016 19:31
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Canemacar posted:Really? Finn I could see since his arc was largely concluded and he was possibly crippled at the end, but a good chunk of TFA was setting Rey up as a successor to Luke. Hard to imagine she'd just be a background character after that. All this happens in the background, implied-like, so that they have a chance to crank out Comics, books and, eventually, sidequel movies. MEANWHILE episode VIII riffs on Empire and starts with Darth Patrix looking for a rumored enclave of force-sensitives/Sith/etc.
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Feb 10, 2016 20:07
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PriorMarcus posted:Yeah, Rey and Finn weren't even big parts of the trilogy going forward and they were casting around for a new female lead at one point. Was it a new female lead for Star Wars 8 or was it just one of the spin offs that they are doing between them?
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Feb 10, 2016 20:15
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Sentinel Red posted:Fixed that for you. He's really beginning to get into that Empire groove now, just gonna start sassing and choking every mofo who even looks at him funny. Oh yeah. Although I half expected when Vader was leaving the throne room that Palpatine had called him back to CLEAN THIS CORPSE OFF MY FLOOR! Also, what's the over/under on any of the other "replacements" surviving the war?
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Feb 11, 2016 05:26
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Disclaimer: I took a fall yesterday, got a mild concussion and have spent today feeling sort of woozy; that's the only excuse I have for writing far too many words about a 15-year old Star Wars comic. I mentioned previously that I wanted to try a sort of retrospective post on an old Dark Horse comic. Here it is. It's not one of the most well-known samples of the DH era, compared to comics like Dark Empire or Legacy, but hopefully you will all find it interesting. It's pretty long (it sort of got away from me), but don't worry, because for all its length it's pretty low on substance. It's Star Wars: Jedi vs Sith, as prosaic a title as you're likely to find.  Originally published in late 2001, written by Darko Macan, a Croatian science-fiction and fantasy writer, editor and essayist, who had previously written several original comics for Dark Horse and had been nominated for two Eisner Awards for his wok on Grendel Tales: Devils and Deaths and Prayer to Sun. The penciller was Ramón F. Bachs, a Spaniard who had worked extensively in European comics and would subsequently illustrate the miniseries Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: Last Stand on Ord Mantell and Jango Fett: Open Seasons (both good - worth checking out). There's a certain degree of manga influence in his work (see above), comparable in some respects to what Joe Mad or Chris Bachalo were doing at the time. I first read this comic when it came out as a TPB in 2002. I was 11, and I remember being scandalised by this scene:  A rude word! In a Star Wars comic!  Set a millennium before the films, this is one of the relatively scant pre-KOTOR stories to explore the ancient history of the Star Wars galaxy. Previously, the most notable media in this category had been the Tales of the Jedi comics by Tom Veitch and the notorious Kevin J. Anderson, which took place mainly 4000 BBY (i.e. Before the Battle of Yavin), and even those had really been expansions on said authors' Jedi Academy and Dark Empire trilogies. Even though the success of The Phantom Menace had prompted a huge flood of new EU material, most of it stuck to the movie time period, with Dark Horse's new flagship Star Wars comic focusing on some of the Jedi introduced in the new movie (initially a semi-anthology title focusing on Ki-Adi-Mundi and his supporting cast, before Quinlan Vos became the main character with the ascent of John Ostrander as lead writer). So where did this comic come from? In 1997, LucasArts released one of their most popular games, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, a first-person-shooter which allowed players to fight with a lightsaber (also adapted as an audio play and a trilogy of illustrated novellas):  Its cut-scenes are all amazing. The protagonist of this game was Kyle Katarn, a Rebel mercenary who discovers that he has the Force, and uses his newfound abilities to thwart the schemes of the villainous Jerec, a Dark Jedi who murdered his father and now seeks the location of the lost Valley of the Jedi, the site of an ancient battle between Jedi and Sith, in which the Sith were defeated but both sides were destroyed, their souls trapped for one thousand years, becoming a This story is probably most famous for two things. First, this starship:  Second, this fucker:  This is Lord Valenthyne Farfalla, and he is the most fabulous Jedi Mater who ever lived.  And this is actually one of the most interesting parts of the series - Star Wars is essentially space fantasy, but no series emphasises the "fantasy" part as much as this one. It essentially portrays a universe which functions along similar lines to medieval Europe or feudal Japan, in which the Jedi are a noble class of warriors, literal knights in shining armour who inherit baronies or kingships, command retinues of household retainers, and are commemorated by the common folk in verse, song and saga for their glorious deeds and valour in battle.  But one of the most interesting things about the series is that the only character who explicitly says this entire thing is bullshit is a Sith Lord, Darth Bane:   (About five years later, Bane was the main character of a novel called Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpshyn, who was the lead writer on KOTOR. I haven't re-read it in the 10 years since it came out, but I recall thinking it was pretty good - the first sequel wasn't great and I didn't read the third. Said novel relates some of the events in this comic, but reconfigures them to bring them more into line with the "traditional" Star Wars style. More recently, Bane appeared in the new canon as a Force ghost - voiced by Mark Hamill! - who confronts Yoda on the Sith homeworld in the Netflix season of The Clone Wars. In this comic, Bane's subplot centres around his resentment of Lord Kaan, the leader of the Brotherhood of Darkness, who he views as narrow-minded and weak, spreading the dark side too thinly by declaring every Sith equal, rather than allowing it to become concentrated in one overwhelmingly powerful vessel, which culminates in his creation of the "Rule of Two" at the end of the story.) When you read this, keep in mind that, "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic."   It's not unlike the image of the Jedi from this Japanese (?) ANH tie-in from the late 1970s : Subsequent EU authors would explain (this is the Star Wars EU, after all) that this was because the galaxy at this time was at the end of its rope; after centuries years of war, the Republic has retreated to the galactic core, the Outer Rim has been abandoned to Sith warlords and the galactic economy and communications had completely collapsed. Individual Jedi took it upon themselves to go out and single-handedly liberate planets and star systems, then installed themselves as their protectors, becoming the hereditary lords defending their holdings against the Sith. Very medieval, of course. It's an unusual angle (and one that's perhaps a bit undermined by the KOTOR games, where the galaxy seems completely unchanged from the movies) but one I really like. Jedi vs Sith doesn't really explore this but the hints of how desperate the situation has become are made clear in the first issue, in a scene with the Jedi commander (Lord Hoth) and his aide-de-camp, Master Pernicar:   The Jedi are on the brink; they've been pushed so far that they have essentially started to conscript Force-sensitive youths as child soldiers, because they know that if they don't, it's only a matter of time before the Sith find them and do the same. It's ugly and it makes us uncomfortable (I'm not sure if this was meant to put any particular spin on the idea introduced in The Phantom Menace that Jedi are trained from close to birth and Anakin is inordinately old at the age of nine) but I think that's the point. We know that the Sith are evil (one of the first things we see Darth Bane do is straight-up murder a bunch of children):  But the task of defeating them has forced the Jedi to compromise their principles, and for all their benign intentions, that's led them to a very dark place. It's similar to the whole "We're keepers of the peace; not soldiers" narrative in the prequel trilogy, where the Jedi are forced to become generals and prosecute a war, except this time, underneath all the bright colours, it's even more visceral. And this brings us to our protagonists: Tomcat  Bug  And Rain  They are three Force-sensitive cousins recruited by a Jedi scout, who become separated when they attacked by Sith starfighters immediately on their arrival on Ruusan. In many ways, their story is a very cruel subversion of traditional "children go on an adventure" narratives. Take the scene I just described, where two other Force-sensitive siblings they meet come to a disturbing end:     Bug probably has the least interesting character arc. He's a self-centred smart-rear end who uses the Force pettily and looks out for number one. He's basically kind of a dick:  But in response to Tomcat joining the Sith (spoilers) he faces up to his responsibilities and resolves to bring him to justice:  He also meets a grisly end when (having had one of his legs chopped off in a fight with Tomcat) the Sith leader, Lord Kaan, uses a Sith technique called the thought bomb to suck the life out of every Force-sensitive within range:  Rain's story isn't as interesting, because she spends most of it off on her own, not really doing much. She is separated from her cousins as soon as they arrive on Ruusan, but is soon picked up and befriended by Laa, one of the planet's native psychic "bouncers", whose prophetic dreams warn that she will become a powerful Dark Jedi. She resolves that this future will not come to pass, and that she will follow the example of her cousins by becoming a great Jedi (unaware, obviously, that Tomcat has already gone over to the Sith).  But then Laa is killed by one of the Jedi, and Rain takes it poorly:    And she ends up leaving Ruusan with Darth Bane as his new apprentice. Hurrah! A happy ending!  Tomcat, I think, has the most interesting arc. He has dreamed of being an heroic Jedi Knight his whole life, but his entire image of the Jedi has been formed out of songs and stories. When he actually gets to Ruusan and joins the Jedi army, his illusions are shattered by the harsh realities of life on the battlefield, and he struggles with the realisation that Jedi are as human - and Jedi can die just as easily - as anyone else. It's not something we've ever really encountered (to my knowledge) anywhere else in the Star Wars universe; the Jedi are traditionally the focus of any story they're in and we don't usually get a good look at them from an outsider's perspective (Karen Traviss telling us they were all Nazis notwithstanding).  But it's still a credible angle. Tom is, for all intents and purposes, a Star Wars fan. He's someone who wants to be a Jedi Knight, wield a lightsabre and be a great and powerful hero, but he can't see past those trappings. nd again, this is a fun way of portraying a fall to the dark side: it isn't Anakin's desire to save his wife or Palpatine's lust for personal power, it's disillusionment; when the actual life of a Jedi Knight fails to meet his expectations, he's traumatised, and decides that what he really has to do is join the Sith.  But then his life gets no better, because the Sith leader, Kaan, has gone off the deep end and plans to use a weapon (the aforementioned thought bomb) which will kill everyone, Jedi and Sith alike. Tomcat confronts Bug in a duel with lightsabres and beats him, then admits why really did it: fear of dying. And it's true, because the whole series encapsulates Yoda's line in TPM: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.  But the final irony is only really hinted at (it's made explicit in the aforementioned Darth Bane novels), namely that Tomcat doesn't actually have the Force, and whenever he thought he was using it back on his home planet, it was always Rain (who was assumed to have no Force sensitivity) subconsciously using it on his behalf, letting him live out his dream. The though bomb, which kills anyone Force sensitive within range, has no effect on him: Again, But in many ways, Tom has something approximating a happy ending. He finds his inner peace by acknowledging his failures and putting them behind him, essentially setting aside childish things and acknowledging that the time has come for him to grow up, that in the grand scheme of things, the only thing he can do is his best.   And also, Rain uses the Force to blow up his hand: 
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Feb 12, 2016 22:05
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I feel bad saying this after the brain thing but it seems like amost none of those images work.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:37
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ImpAtom posted:I feel bad saying this after the brain thing but it seems like amost none of those images work.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:39
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redbackground posted:Counterpoint: I see them all. 
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Feb 12, 2016 22:42
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They're showing up fine for me.  But seriously, uploading all those images was a chore so I probably won't do this for Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire as I had planned. In fact, I should've done that one instead, because there's only three issues of it.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:43
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Take it easy, BSS Mild Concussion Buddy.  
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Feb 12, 2016 22:48
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Well, like I say, it's reasonably minor, and I've been feeling a lot better this evening. The most annoying part of it is that I have to miss out on the gym for the next few days, which probably makes me the shittest comic book nerd ever. Posting too many words about obscure Star Wars media is my way of making restitution.
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Feb 12, 2016 23:10
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Wheat Loaf posted:They're showing up fine for me. The Awful App makes uploading pictures quick and easy... when the feature isn't broken.
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Feb 12, 2016 23:53
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I could never get into any of the stuff set thousands of years before the movies (not even the KOTOR games!) but that comic looks pretty neat. It would be cool if more of that stuff went for a very medieval space fantasy feel like that. That, and the comic adaptation of the rough draft of Star Wars (which isn't terrible good, mind you) remind me a lot of Dune.
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Feb 13, 2016 01:12
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There is an element of that in the TOTJ comics but for the most part it's limited to the designs. The TOTJ comics are set 4000 years before A New Hope (some of them are set a further thousand years before that), and for the most part they try to look like it. For instance:  Top image: Battle of Coruscant, 5000 BBY. Bottom image: Battle of Coruscant, 4000 BBY.
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Feb 13, 2016 03:04
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Wheat Loaf posted:(Karen Traviss telling us they were all Nazis notwithstanding). ???
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Feb 13, 2016 10:40
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Long story short - Karen Traviss accused anyone who sympathised with the Jedi of "Nazi-think" and generally portrayed them as a bunch of inept fascists in her books. Eventually, she quit the EU when Dave Filoni's Clone Wars series portrayed Mandalorian society and culture in a fashion (pacifists who have put aside their warrior past, with a revanchist fringe movement who cling to the old ways) which didn't jibe with how she'd been writing about them (uniquely skilled Jedi-killing badasses cum gentleman farmers). She did not like her work being ignored, having previously remarked that she didn't bother to read other EU material because she would just ignore it anyway.
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Feb 13, 2016 21:04
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Wheat Loaf posted:Long story short - Karen Traviss accused anyone who sympathised with the Jedi of "Nazi-think" and generally portrayed them as a bunch of inept fascists in her books. God that woman is a oval office.
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Feb 13, 2016 21:33
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She later went on to write several HALO novels and IIRC shat all over/killed off several characters in the series that were the favorites of another author for the series that she was bickering with. I don't remember the details though.
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Feb 13, 2016 22:05
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Reading licensed fiction is like exploring an abandoned sapphire mine: sometimes you uncover an unexpected gem, and sometimes the wall collapses, leaving you to spend your last days sealed in a frigid hell where you can only cry into the darkness, begging it to let you finally die.
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Feb 13, 2016 22:20
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I remembered thinking fleshing out the Mandalorians and their background was a cool and good idea, and having them be competent was nice, but I had no idea of how far that was overextended.
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Feb 13, 2016 23:51
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Squizzle posted:Reading licensed fiction is like exploring an abandoned sapphire mine: sometimes you uncover an unexpected gem, and sometimes the wall collapses, leaving you to spend your last days sealed in a frigid hell where you can only cry into the darkness, begging it to let you finally die. Except that the sapphires you find are actually just blueish rocks. You only think they're sapphires because you don't spend much time enjoying actual sapphires.
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Feb 14, 2016 01:20
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Wheat Loaf posted:Long story short - Karen Traviss accused anyone who sympathised with the Jedi of "Nazi-think" and generally portrayed them as a bunch of inept fascists in her books. Also she got in a massive slapfight with one of the other authors on the Legacy of the force series and they engaged in passive-agressive sniping through the rest of the series. Including Jaina Solo, an accomplished Jedi Knight in her own right, tracking down Boba Fett to teach her how to fight a Sith Lord - rather than say, Luke Skywalker, her uncle, who actually did fight a Sith Lord and various other darksiders whiel Fett only ever killed the occassional Jedi. Oh and trying to insert the Mandolorians as the 'Third edge of the blade' in the Jedi/Sith conflict - despite the fact that the Mandolorians have pretty much only ever used as cannon fodder or patsies by the Sith.
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Feb 14, 2016 13:15
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Yvonmukluk posted:Oh and trying to insert the Mandolorians as the 'Third edge of the blade' in the Jedi/Sith conflict
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Feb 14, 2016 18:25
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