Robot Style posted:

I guess it's technically true if Snoke was ever being directly controlled by Palpatine, since "Palpatine" is now just the outer shell of a thousand year old Russian nesting doll of Sith consciousness and would include Plagueis.

Alchenar posted:

However the prequels are interpreted and reinterpreted, they'll never escape Lucas's 'stand still with your arms at your sides and say the line blankly' director style.

Robot Style posted:

Modern action movies usually have stunt-vis rather than storyboards, where the stunt team gets together and just shoots a low-budget version of the fight to reflect what the final version might resemble. Since it's actually filmed and performed by stunt people (and has to sell the fight to the director), it can sometimes be more kinetic than the final sequence.

Here's one for Winter Soldier, and you can see how a version of the TLJ fight done like this could be approved by Rian Johnson in concept, with the assumption that any gaps in believability would be filled in once the scene is shot with the right costumes, sets, and VFX.
Also, since these sequences are designed to play to specific camera angles, changing any of the shots in the sequence would reveal the gaps in choreography.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

There's a lot going on.



As noted earlier, the shot practically does everything in its power to draw your eye away from the two characters being launched into eachother. The actual point where the two weapons bump is offscreen, so we never even see it happen.

On top of this, the actors don't do a very job of 'selling' the physical impact. The spear is lightly bumped, but the actor is supposed to act as though it was blown out of his grip, so he's like "whoa, look!!! it's flying out of my hand!!!" while he gently tosses the prop aside.

The end result is that it looks like he's deliberately tossing the spear away in order to block the lightsaber with his hands instead.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It’s really not complicated at all: if Vader is just Anakin in a different hat, then his entire life revolves around serving Padme and protecting Republican liberal democracy.

So, Vader would have just hosed off with Obiwan and Yoda before joining the rebellion. Yet he didn’t do that???

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

That’s where it gets weird because, yeah, the chair scene is occurring fairly late in the final film and seemingly proving that telekinesis is real. And this is really bizarre for the narrative, because it’s literally the first time Han and the rest have actually seen something levitate - yet there’s no focus on their reactions whatsoever. They don’t even seem to notice.

Moreover, the joke is that the telekinesis is somehow completely mundane: “these Ewoks are so dumb; they think the robot is their god, when I’m really just using the everyday radio waves from my brain to swing him thru the air.” The previous equivalent scene is when, after months of gruelling indoctrination, Luke sees Yoda make the X-Wing float and it totally shatters his mind - to such a degree that I guess he forgets X-wings have built-in antigravity generators. It was a big deal.

So the chair scene is notably the first and only scene in the OT where the magic is played for comedy, the first where it’s presented as totally boring, the first where it isn’t dismissable as a trick or hallucination, and the first where it’s done right in front of muggle onlookers who don’t give a poo poo. This is a strange break from the logic of the previous films, and a clear precursor of the prequels and midichlorians. You could really say that midichlorians were entirely based on the implications of the chair scene.

But, like a lot of things in Episode 6, it just happens without any real impact and instantly vanishes from the mind (like the part where Chewbacca gets shot). So nobody spent the last 30 years complaining about the demystification.

Detective No. 27 posted:

How did Kamino go from a planet so obscure that Obiwan had to uncover it in a conspiracy plot to them having a representative in the Republic Senate? Did they say "hey we're making your army, can we get a seat?"

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

So: what are we talking about when we talk about telekinesis? From where did this concept originate?

porfiria posted:

I'm 95% sure this conversation has been had before, but faster than light travel is arguably even more impossible than telekinesis.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Well yeah; that’s what’s shown on the prequels - specifically when Anakin and Obiwan stop, build up power, and then repel eachother like magnets. It’s that literal animal magnetism. But, back in the OT, we are presented with three very different ideas of how magical things work.

We’ve already gone over Episode 4, but it bears repeating that Han’s a conman, Vader’s a hypnotist, Obiwan’s a conman/illusionist/hypnotist, etc. There’s an extremely heavy emphasis on trickery. The first “force power” we ever see is Obiwan waving his arms in a makeshift ghost costume and making spooky sounds to scare people. Astonishing!

In the sequel, we get a rather sudden shift into altered states of consciousness. The first “force power” occurs as Luke is freezing to death after a traumatic head injury. Later, Yoda sends him on a ‘vision quest’ - which implies that Luke is under the influence of something like fasting, sleep deprivation, or hallucinogens. A good chunk of Yoda’s training involves pushing the trainee into a state of physical and mental exhaustion, then making them stare at rocks for hours - which is some obvious cult initiation stuff. Consequently, reality itself is getting distorted - at times of high stress and intense concentration. Visual hallucinations overtake the auditory.

Episode 6’s thing is theatricality and storytelling: the stuff Luke tells himself to stay sane, the stuff they tell the Ewoks to make them fight, etc.

teagone posted:

mllaneza posted:

I have good news about The Mandalorian for you.

The United States posted:

Jewmanji posted:

I just noticed in TPM how hosed up it is that Qui-Gon runs an assay on Anakin’s blood without getting anything even resembling consent. Absolute bullshit.

Darko posted:

In case you did not understand the picture posted beneath you, The Bendu is literally exactly what you said to a tee. You've got some stuff to watch.

And yes, Clone Wars has a Godzilla as well.

Edit: how did I miss your response. This response is now for everyone else.

ungulateman posted:

he's the rich failson of the senator(s) that we see in episode 1

Bongo Bill posted:

The films contain so little evidence of what's at stake in this star war that I can find almost any interpretation credible.

Martman posted:

Sure it does! We all exist on the surface of the earth (plz don't @ me hollow earthers)

Ingmar terdman posted:

Unless someone can remind me of a line in the OT, no human can understand the details of a beepboop droid beyond inference. Luke's more nuanced responses to artoo are set up with a shot of the translation screen. The sequels immediately break that but I dont really care because it's as out there as han understanding chewie

Anakin of course could kinda understand but could speak perfectly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibahqzkwvXk