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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga Is "Star Wars logic" a legit excuse?

Discussion in 'Star Wars Saga In-Depth' started by Darth Xalfrea, Mar 24, 2013.

  1. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 30, 2013
    If you can pull a lightsaber out of the ground, you can flick a switch. And combat is about misdirection. In boxing, you set up combinations of punches to set up an opponent. Anything you can do that makes your opponent react is a plus. That's fighting.
     
  2. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    I'm still not sure why that makes any less sense, or is any more dangerous, than the ground strategy. The real reason of course is because it would've made the rest of the story unnecessary, which is just fine I guess, but it would've been nice to have an in-story explanation of why it wouldn't work.

    I don't even take that one very seriously as a power. We see it happen once in the films, and it happens so quick that most viewers probably aren't even aware of it. For years I thought it was nothing more than an editing trick and nothing else.
     
  3. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

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    Jul 20, 2005
    Did you see how long it took Luke to pull his lightsaber out of the snow in TESB, even when it was only a few feet from him? Combat is about timing. Luke didn't have the greatest timing against Vader; he was still a novice.

    And while Vader was undoubtedly being kept alive by his suit, I don't think he was so enfeebled that he'd be all aghast if someone flicked a switch or a wire burned out or whatever.

    In TESB, Vader, in his chamber, even seems to have healed, somewhat, since his injuries were first acquired on Mustafar. He may have been getting to a point where he could survive without the suit -- at least, for a while -- but then he threw it away for Luke when he came to his aid and killed the Emperor. In his last moments, after enduring such a frightening burst of Dark Side electrocution, he was seen to be deathly-pale and horribly aged (while the back of his head had a lot of colour to it in TESB).

    That's just my reading, though. You can absolutely have your own. Half the fun of Star Wars is in the personal interpretation.
     
  4. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Oh it was a Jedi power alright it was clearly in the film. That was a LONG hallway and within the blink of an eye they were gone. Dismissing it as an editing trick. Don't make me laugh!
     
  5. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    Funny thing about stuff that happens in the blink of an eye-- it can be very easy to miss. Then when you do see it, and see that it's a matter of mere fractions of a second onscreen, it really can look like nothing more than a frame jump, a common enough thing in action movies.
     
  6. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Plus weren't there ring wraiths flying around on the back of dragons (or something) in Mordor? Stealth and trying to remain unseen was the only option they had.
     
  7. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    Not like they didn't go unnoticed on the ground, though. It's concievable to make the eagle-plan work, and at the very least cover a much more significant amount of land over a shorter time. Relay with different eagles and keep a high enough altitude and the risk/reward ratio is probably about the same. But the ground option allows for a longer story.
     
  8. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    No. You clearly saw a VERY LONG hallway and the shot held long enough for the droids to fire off several volleys of laser at them. Go back and watch it again. They were a blur.
     
  9. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 30, 2013
    You're right. They ran at a superhuman rate of speed. The movie is clear on that,
     
  10. Seagoat

    Seagoat Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jan 25, 2013


    Ok, in universe for real, he was probably exhausted from the fight and didn't have enough energy to use it.
     
  11. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Yeah mr clever. Just like if I was Dooku and it looked like Anakin was gonna chop my head off and theres my master urging him to kill me. I wouldn't feel a little pissed at being betrayed and then think **** it and say 'he's the Sith you've been looking for!
     
  12. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    That's on the blu-ray. In the theatrical version, it just looks like a frame jump, and that's the reaction I'm talking about from when I first saw the film. I've never thought of that as an inconsistent force power, because when I first saw the film it didn't even look like anything other than editing. When I first saw it, I actually thought specifically of the frame jump in Blade Runner where one of the Replicants hits Deckard's gun out of his hand. That's all it was to me.

    It may be a different story now with the blu ray version, but whatever. That's just ironing out a nitpick and inspiring more.
     
  13. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

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    Jul 20, 2005
    I actually made a long post about this on IMDb. I think you're both more or less correct. It's a trick that is conveyed through the editing and, paradoxically, concealed by it. The setting is a clue: a maze-like hallway. Paired up with HALLWAYS and MIRRORS and BARRIERS and IMAGE-DISTORTING BUBBLES we see later in the movie. The Jedi confuse these powerful, hyper-aggressive droids -- i.e., us -- by seeming to barrel away at great speed. In reality ("reality"!), they might be traveling at a "normal" speed, but they're able to play a trick on the droid's primitive sensors/brains. The original version of this scene actually has them appearing behind the droids after the droids have passed them, in a throwback to Obi-Wan sneaking past the stormtroopers after he disables that power structure (part of the tractor beam assembly) on the Death Star. Luke does a similar thing -- seemingly by accident -- on Vader when he shoots out of the carbon freezing pit and lands in a mass of piping that Vader only twigs to when they make a sound. The joke might be that Vader himself is half-droid (and was assembled by droids in ROTS; in an echo of the droid factory sequence in AOTC), so his ability with the Force is hobbled, to some extent, by the machinery he's encased in. "Impressive, most impressive". It's not easy to fool Vader -- or even Trade Federation droids, necessarily -- but it can happen. This would also explain why Obi-Wan can't just zoom ahead to catch up with Darth Maul. Simply, the technique is limited in range, and it's really a trick: not a "true" burst of speed. And this all takes us neatly back to a classic statement from Obi-Wan himself: "The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded".
     
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  14. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    Guess he was willing to take one for the team. Fanatics tend to attract that sort of self-destructive impulse.
     
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  15. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Yeah right.
     
  16. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    No. They run off at speed out of shot. Then the view switches to behind the droids who are firing at them down a huge hallway that even Usain Bolt would have trouble clearing in 10 seconds, and their both a fuzzy blur that clear it in a couple of seconds. It was a Jedi power that if Obi wan had used later on he could've saved Qui Gonn.
     
  17. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Sorry but that's a cop out. It just is.
     
  18. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    That's a point of view. Not a hole in the plot.
     
  19. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 30, 2013
    It's a funny video clip though
     
  20. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Yeah sorry that is a funny clip! Was replying to the nonsense of not having enough energy
     
  21. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

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    Jul 20, 2005
    I wanna just add to my last post...

    There could be some more classic Lucasian rhyming at work here.

    Just as Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, working together, pull a trick on the droids, in a confined space, so Obi-Wan, when he finds himself in a precarious situation, in an intimate setting, works again with Qui-Gon -- embodied, this time, in minimalist fashion by Qui-Gon's available lightsaber (a "2001"-ish ape-bone metaphor) -- when he breath-takingly pulls himself out of the pit, jumps over Maul, pulls Qui-Gon's lightsaber into his hand, activates the blade, and slices Maul.

    That is rather a lot to pull off on someone who clearly has the upper-hand (the "high ground"), but Obi-Wan could have used some kind of "Force Speed" (remember: perception trick) variant on Maul at close-range, when it was literally do-or-die. The editing of this gambit is not pristine, and that seems to fit the outrageous nature of what's being performed. Imagine a person being perceived to be at position X, but they're actually at Y. These positions are similar, but not identical.

    A clue to this extent can be found in the split-body persona of Obi-Wan behind the gates as he waits behind the last one to take on Maul: there are two different Obi-Wans placed at two slightly different spatial and temporal intervals (in reality, this arose because two different sets of reaction shots were filmed of Ewan as Obi-Wan, and the film integrates both). Which one is "real"? Maul perhaps falls under a similar confusion in his final seconds, thinking Obi-Wan is in one configuration, but he's actually in a slightly different one. WHOOSH.

    This interpretation works quite well because Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon share a strange bond throughout the film, almost as if a third character, or entity, is generated between them (the "third eye" of Amidala -- a rare, precious gemstone -- is a neat manifestation of this idea; and Obi-Wan is clinging onto a small sconce encompassing such a jewel when he's hanging in the pit). A special alchemy is created, or maybe lost, when their bond is severed (or very nearly severed -- remember: The Force! -- when Qui-Gon dies). That works, too: pits/smelting/chemicals/heat/transmutation.

    This is George Lucas all over: two's and three's, off-centre framings, portals and passageways, mirrors, inversions, rhyming, clones, "lifeforms working together for mutual advantage", etc. Lucas encourages you to take a poetic tack and find your muse.
     
  22. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    ^ This thread in a nutshell.
     
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  23. Jedi_Ford_Prefect

    Jedi_Ford_Prefect Jedi Master star 4

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    Jun 9, 2003
    I honestly think it's just a frame-jump, in the first place, and a retcon in the second place. But whatever. It's something I didn't even notice 'till watching it on video, and even then, just chalked it up to editorial whatnot. I find it and the response to it more amusing than anything else. It's the SW equivalent of theories about the munchkin who hung himself while Dorothy takes off on the yellow brick road.
     
  24. Jcuk

    Jcuk Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Mar 16, 2013
    Cop out.
     
  25. Joanne

    Joanne Jedi Youngling

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    Mar 12, 2013

    Hmm, I don't really see this as a question of blame but I also feel that just because we're talking about a series of movies doesn't mean that they can't have a consistent internal logic either.

    Personally I'm really deeply into hard sci-fi. It's not really a personal choice as much as a result of my scientific background. When I'm watching any film and the science appears to be wrong it 'jumps' me straight out of the story which is annoying. (Likewise if I see continuity errors or random lapses in logic.) Even as a nine year old I found the whole - landing in the mouth of a creature living on an asteroid in space - difficult.

    I think what seems to work for me has been to try to find ways to explain these odd bits and pieces to myself so they don't get in the way and I can still enjoy the film. I don't think the SW saga was ever intended as hard sci-fi so I feel it's kind of unfair to take issue with it on that score. At the same time I do understand folk who find this stuff makes it harder to enjoy these brilliant films.