Saga Loss of Innocence: stories of being introduced to bashing

-Luke Skywalker did try training a new Jedi Order and were wiped out by the Knights of Ren.

-The whole thing with the New Republic, the First Order, Resistance and Leia is admittedly not explained very well in the film. It does get elaborated on in a few sources outside the film and it actually is a cool story hook that I like. The main idea is that the New Republic got complainant and though the First Order was the Imperial Remnant on its last leg...using propaganda to make it self look stronger then it really was. Leia knew better and tried to convince the Senate who thought she was trying to make herself important again...so she created the Resistance to fight the First Order with the help from some senators inside the New Republic.

-People have their own reasons to bash the PT (along with the OT and TFA) to say all of the OT Star Wars fans hate the PT for no reason is like me saying you and other PT fans hate TFA for no real reason. Films are like art and they are very subjective to personal opinion and emotions.

 

And? He could gain support from the goverment? He really was an idiot to try to do this by his own? Sorry that is bull****.

And the second is a excuse, they could give exposition here and now, they have the budget for it, the main reason why it wasn't so many exposition in the Originals is because they don´t have the money or the technology for it, here there is no excuse.

Tell that to the Original Star Wars fans, that don't known the definition of opinion.

 

What exactly did the senate in ANH do about the Death Star? Did they debate that?
We don't know since we don't see the senate.

The FO was a great threat because of Star Killer base. Without that, they had ships yes but so did the Republic. There is nothing that suggest the Republic knew of Star Killer base.
Why should they? It was big yes but it seemed that it was a planet that had been converted into a weapon and not built from scratch. A galaxy is very big, if the FO built that in the outer reaches of their space then I can buy that the republic was unaware.

The situation in TFA seemed a bit like a cold war. The FO and Republic had not declared open war on each other but were certainly not friends.
The republic fought the FO by proxy, the resistance. Given Nux' s comment about the senate lying to the galaxy, it seems that this was an under the table support. The senate was not eager for another big war. Or they were not yet ready.

I think you missed a bit of the film. Luke DID try to build up a new Jedi order. But his students were all killed except Kylo, who helped to kill them.
This is why Luke went away, he lost everything he tried to build. Why he was looking for the temple or what he thought he could do with it is not answered.

Based on ANH alone, who is the emperor? How did he rise to power?
What was the clone wars? Where is Luke's mother?
Why does Vader have that mask and breathe heavily?

Unanswered questions does not equal dumbed down.

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Oh broad generalisations, that is good argument. Plus some condescension on top of that.

Here are some stuff from the PT.

Based on TPM alone.
Who made the prophecy, when and what does it say? Why do the jedi think it is important when they think the Sith are all dead?
What happened 1000 years ago, why do people think the Sith were wiped out and why do the sith want revenge? Who are the Sith and why are they enemies to the Jedi?
What did the TF want with Naboo? No it was not to get rid of the new tax. That is why they blockaded Naboo. To blackmail the senate. If they got control over it, which is what the treaty would apparently given the,, how does that get rid of the new tax?

Why did Qui-Gon bring a nine year kid into a war zone when all he wanted was for Anakin to hide and stay safe. Can you say plot contrivance?

AotC.
Why did Dooku fall to the Dark Side? What was the deal with Sifo-Dyas and who does the Jedi think really ordered the clone army? What does the seps want? Dooku mentions demands but not what they are.

The republic apparently have no army what so ever but there are plenty of private armies.
How can that work? What could the senate have done to the TF assuming they had done anything in TPM?
Speaking about that, in TPM the TF in effect declare war on the republic and invade and conquer a republic world. What does the senate do? Nothing, they don't even believe it happened. Oh, they sack the chancellor.

Much as you like to believe otherwise, people can give reason why they feel the PT is lacking.
There are some rather empty headed bashing and stupid and rude personal attacks on Lucas.
But not everyone acts like that.
Likewise some can critique the TFA quite well and I even agree with some of their complaints.
Others make rather empty arguments like "TFA is a stupid movie and everyone that likes it is stupid."

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

What? Everyone has opinions. Just because SOME OT Fans have a opinion you don't like means they are inherently wrong in their views. I think you need to look up the definition.

Actually Ill do it for you, opinion is a personal view, attitude, or appraisal. You have a personnel opinion that TFA is weak, which I strongly disagree with but it also doesn't change the fact that it is your opinion.

 

Ding Ding Ding

 

I was going to respond to Keyser Soze, but you guys took care of that

Political exposition was not necessary in TFA. As it was not necessary in the OT either. If you really need that back story, read the books.

Even with all the mumbo jumbo political exposition in the PT, there are still a ton of unanswered questions and political positioning. Only through 6 seasons of the Clone Wars series do many of those questions get answered.

Star Wars is a massive universe. The movies are meant to be just a snap shot in time of that universe with a very tight focus on key characters. That tight focus allows you to get emotionally attached to the characters and actually care about what's going on in the film.

What's great about Star Wars is it allows people to enjoy those focused stories as well as expanded elements through books, TV shows, comics, etc. If that stuff interest you as a fan, great. But don't go bashing the films because they don't pile on 100+ hours worth of exposition in 2 hours. That's just ludicrous as us film bashing in general.


Aftermath and the other books explain this back story quite well. And it's actually really cool and models how our world has evolved post major wars/conflicts.

 

We all know that ANH is intentionally a very simple story, in a fairy tale/action type movie. That's exactly why we have the prequels. They provide the back story to everything not explained in the OT. Where is the back story to TFA? Maybe we will have to wait until after Episode IX? Maybe they will do some prequels to the sequels, set between ROTJ and TFA? Unless that happens TFA to me is a poorly written story. Sure, we get lots of action (too much for my taste) with very little story. We didn't need that much explanation in ANH. That story worked well on its own. Not so TFA, which is related to and based on 6 previous movies. The only "connections" we have to what happened before is an old Han, old Leia and Luke, and two droids. We might as well call TFA a reboot. Abrams seems fond of reboots, see Star Trek. Maybe there really are hard-core OT fans who wanted a reboot, I certainly did not. Let's just call this new one "Star Wars 2015 edition" instead.

The whole point is, it is not 1978 anymore. We don't need to make assumptions "based on ANH alone". The following movies improved on it, especially the prequels. TFA does nothing in that respect. ANH was a NEW story, the first of its kind, while TFA is PART SEVEN of an already existing story. But it tries hard to retell the same story again instead of improving on or adding to it. I'm not saying I hated TFA, it had some great moments and ideas. But it could have been done so much better.

 

This conversation....

Not knowing the backstory is what made growing up on the OT so magical. We speculated endlessly and formed our own consensus. George Lucas, (who has passed Star Wars on to people that he hand-picked, remember,) gave us the gift of a universe that was *not* fleshed out so that we could fill in the blanks with our own imagination.

With the coming of the PT era when he filled in that backstory, it was natural that his specific vision conflicted with our imaginations, taking away some of that magic.

Now... we once again we have been given the opportunity to immerse ourselves in this universe that we know very little about and speculate about what the scraps we have been given mean. It's all new again. Full lives have been lived between now and the last time we checked in on this universe. We, however, instead of appreciating this gift, this reboot of areas of the unknown, are spending our time bickering pointlessly about which Lucasfilm division head we prefer and whether hyperspace is the right color.

We are becoming as bad as Star Trek fans.

 

By saying the same old arguments, that in reality doesn't change the questions or really answer any, only excuses, excuses, and more excuses, great way to "answer" my questions.

 

this guy is either a troll or.. something. pay no attention.

 

First the PT does not answer some of the questions I posed.
Did the senate debate the DS? Not answered.
Who made the prophecy and when? Not answered.
Who does the Jedi think ordered the clone army? Not answered.
How can Leia remember Padme when Luke can't? Not answered.

Second, the OT does not need the PT for the story it is telling.
All that is required for the OT's story is explained in the OT. Mostly anyway.
The PT fills in some background detail but it wasn't required.
The OT stood on it's own fine for over 15 years. Had the PT never been made, it would still have stood fine.
NOTE! I am not arguing the PT should not have been made. I overall like the films but think they have a number of flaws. My point is that the OT didn't require the PT.

You do know that there are two more movies coming out right?
Some of the questions raised by ANH/TPM were answered by the subsequent films.
So how do you know that EP VIII and IX won't give some answers?
If you condemn TFA as poorly written without considering the following two films then you should condemn TPM and ANH as well.
And AotC as well because the whole Sifo-Dyas thing is not really resolved.

Now it is possible that the other two films skip over everything and don't give any answers. If so, then we can talk about poorly written.

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ANH was stand alone and designed that way. Had there never been more SW films, it would have worked by itself more or less.
As I said above, most of what was necessary for the story in the OT was explained. The rest, while neat to know, was not 100% needed.

The story in TFA has similarities to ANH yes but it isn't the exact same story.
It added to it by some of the new characters, whom I liked a lot.
It feels the most unresolved of all the films, not even ESB ended this abruptly.
The next film would most likely pick up right after this one ended.

The fallout of the destruction of the republic capital and fleet plus the FO's loss of their big weapon, I hope are dealt with. Both sides would have lost a lot and would be much weaker.
The republic side is most likely disorganized and confused. The FO has lost it's big weapon and have revealed themselves as mass murderers to the rest of the galaxy but now lack the fear of their new weapon.

That I will say is a weakness in the OT, that the loss of the DS didn't seem to affect the empire at all. It's grip is as strong as before. The initial draft of ESB, back when it was chapter 2, did have some lines about this and more political talk about the situation. That was something I liked.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

ANH had quite a bit of backstory and even political exposition. They even mentioned the Emperor and Senate even though neither was shown in the movie. And it had to introduce the whole new universe. TFA didn't need to do it, only a few lines to clarify the situation.

 

No, not all the questions are answered but some of the most important ones. We see how the emperor came to power, how the Empire came into being, we see why Anakin became Vader. We find out what the Clone Wars are. We find out what the Jedi really are and what role they play in the Republic. We see a charismatic politician turn into a dictator. We see why he is popular and how he seduces Anakin. Those are the things we really wanted to know. Sure we don't get answers to EVERY SINGLE LINE of dialog in ANH. Did the Senate debate the DS? Very likely, and you bet the DS was not popular with the Senate. Who made the prophecy? Open to speculation, but likely it goes back thousands of years of Jedi history and mythology. It does not really have to be explained. The clone army? I agree that could have been made clearer and was not satisfied with the way that element was treated in AOTC. All we (and the Jedi) know is there was one Jedi named Syfo Dias who apparently acted without knowledge of the council and somehow managed to come up with enough money for the clone army - not to mention the fleet of starships that went with it. It would have been nice to have that one answered but you can't have everything. There will always be questions in any single episode we won't get answers to. But the important thing is the OT back story pretty much is there in the prequels.

 

ANH mentions it just about as much as TFA.

In ANH we got that their was an "Imperial Senate" that Leia was a part of. We also learned that the Senate would not like the Death Star but the Emperor dissolved the Senate. Really not much of anything, but enough for us to start painting pictures in our mind.

In TFA we got that the New Republic had a Senate. That parts of it was supporting the Resistance. That the First Order wanted to destroy the Capitol and their fleet for this reason. Again not really much to go in comparison to the PT, but definitely aligns with the OT.

 

Ya, he joined the forums just over a week ago and has done nothing but attempt to bash TFA. His posts have become meaningless at this point.

 

No one was confused after ANH. A lot of people (even fans) were confused after TFA.

 

I was first introduced to bashing when I said I thought the PT was better to one of my high school friends (I thought it was an obvious statement too!), and got a bit of a sarcastic reply as a response.

 

If you don't want to listen fine, but it seems that others that I speak aren't so blind.

 

No more personal attacks, or it's more time off.

 

I never knew prequel hating was even a thing until around after the time Revenge of the Sith came out. And it was just on the internet, and mostly just targeted at The Phantom Menace. I didn't see full-on hate for the entire trilogy until after maybe 5 years. I didn't see it become "mainstream" to hate the prequels until the last couple of years.

Everyone I knew in real life, youngling and adult alike, thought the prequels were cool since 1999.

 

The person I was responding to made the argument that TFA is dumbed down because it leaves unanswered questions.
Ex that we don't have a scene in the new senate where they talk about the FO and Star Killer Base.
My response is that by this logic, ANH is also dumbed down because we don't have such a scene there. And both the OT and PT still has unanswered questions so if the criteria is "Unanswered questions = Dumbed down" then all SW films are dumbed down.

1) About the DS and senate. I really doubt that the senate knew of the DS. Consider, one officer was worried about holding Leia captive and thought it could generate sympathy for the rebellion in the senate. So Vader had to fake an "accident" with her ship to throw the senate off. I really don't see the senate knowing about the DS and this NOT creating a lot of support for the rebels.
Until the DS was ready, Palpatine had to walk carefully, the empire couldn't do anything they wanted.
Once it was ready, then the kid-gloves were off and the senate was disbanded and now he would rule through force and fear.

2) The prophecy. Since we know that all Jedi can see into the future but this ability was uncertain. "Always in motion is the future". This is apparently something different so the question is why?
Plus the Jedi think that "Bring balance" = "kill all Sith". But since TPM starts with them thinking that the sith are centuries dead, why is the prophecy of any concern to them? To them, it already has come true.

3) Sifo-Dyas. I don't think the film implies your conclusions. Instead it seemed that Sifo-Dyas had nothing at all to do with the army as he was dead when the order was placed. Instead Dooku placed the order after Sifo-Dyas death and possibly Dooku was the one who killed him.
Dooku hired Jango and deleted the Kamino file.

I find it very far fetched that a single Jedi would have the money to make this order, it would have cost a huge fortune. Plus why would a Jedi put order 66 there?
Also Obi-Wan said that as far as he knows, Sifo-Dyas was killed before the army was ordered.
So they Jedi would NOT think he did it. Instead they would know that the army was ordered under a false name. And they know enough to suspect Dooku for doing it.

@-NaTaLie-

Well a lot of people had many questions after ESB. "Was Vader really Luke's father?" "Who is the Other?"
People also had questions after TPM. "What does bring balance to the Force mean?" "Why do the Sith want revenge." And after AotC. "Who is Sifo-Dyas?"

In closing, TFA could definitively have used a bit more political back story and that is a weakness of the film to me. It doesn't ruin it but makes it less good than say ANH that did that stuff much better.
It also reuses a bit too much when it comes to plot. Star Killer base comes to mind.
Either they should have kept that for later films. maybe show that they are building it or just refer to "the project".
Or they try to destroy it but fail and the republic capital is blown up. Not the resistance base.
So at films end, the base is still there.
Or they find another way to destroy it. An idea that struck me was that they could fly through shields as long as they were going faster than light. So have a ship fly through the shield and hit the planet at near light speed. The kinetic energy of 1000 tons, traveling at near light speed would be huge.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

True. They probably did not know of the DS prior to Alderaan being blown up. After that it did not matter anyway since the senate was about to be dissolved.

You are probably right about this too. Frankly I had not given much thought to the Sifo-Dyas story, and neither the movie nor the novel gave any explanation. It probably was Dooku or another previous Sith apprentice that placed the order, under Palpatine's instruction.

Agreed. The way they destroyed that base was a little too close to ROTJ for my taste (Han and Chewie using explosives to deactivate the shields from inside). That whole sequence could have been handled a lot more originally.

 

as well as the obvious similarities to anh, tfa shares even more than those. dropping in on a story with barely any info, less exposition, barely any explanation of planet/place names, etc. not much talk about the government at all, anh had maybe one line mentioning the senate. snoke got much more screen time and mentions than the emperor did in anh.

it's modeled after the structure as well as some plot points and is actually a great entry in gl's rhyming motif.

 

It's funny how these things work out. I recently watched I-VI with my 14 year old sister. She knew the basic storyline and had seen all films when she was younger but remembered little. When it was all said and done she loved II and III the most. She got really emotional towards the end of III and let out a heartfelt aww when Anakin shows up at the end of VI. My 15 year old cousin hasn't seen any of the films but again knows the general storyline. She has seen IV, V, I and II for now and says that IV is her least favorite and II her most favorite for now. I have never shown all SW movies to a "virgin" and had them bash the PT un-equally. III seems to be the most cited favorite and the most emotional at least for the girls/women I have shown it to. Again, funny what happens when someone goes into something with a pretty clear head. Good thread.

Edit: Also my sisters favorite character is Anakin. She loves and hates him at the same time. "He ruined everything!" at the end of III with some pretty heavy emotion at the end of VI.

 

Does this mean the entire internet has to come with a trigger warning now? I think calling it a "loss of innocence" is a bit of an overreaction. Certainly, surprise can be expected, but a loss of innocence? It's not exactly witnessing a murder, right?