CT One of those things you have never understood...

I have always wondered, when R2 and C-3PO run across the hallway during the Battle of the Tantive IV - during the opening of A New Hope - what is the reason for the explosion at the side of screen they run into (as if they have just stepped on a mine). They run across a hallway, through the cross-fire of Stormtroopers and Rebel Troopers, into a door on the other side, when suddenly it seemingly explodes.

I have always wondered this and have never figured it out.


I suppose this thread could be used for other scenes or sequences like this as well...

 

I always assumed it was a random blaster shot hitting something explosive on the wall. I know that's a trivial thought, but it's all I could think of. It's kind of like the scene shortly after that when Leia fires the shot at the stormtroopers, misses, yet one of them falls over as if he were shot. Did he suffer a heart attack?

 

I thought this too.

Yes, probably good to have an ongoing thread for that purpose.

 

I have a question, that me and the buds only recently found disagreement on.

In ROTJ, when Luke first confronts Jabba, he pulls back his hood, and
takes one step forward to address Jabba. At this time, all of jabba's
guard (gammies) *ALSO* take one step forward *AND THEN ALSO STOP*.

I always watch this, and think that somehow LUKE has all of these guys
in MIND CONTROL, and he controls them to take one step forward with him
to try and intimidate Jabba. Now I learn that my buds all see this
differently. They think they all take a step towards LUKE to maybe
apprehend LUKE.

So, I post in this thread... what is your take on this quick scene element?

Are the gammies under Luke's control, or not?

 

Not... I see it as the guards taking a step forward at the same time Luke does, preparing to stop or catch him if they need to.

 

In our parody FanFilm, we paid homage to that mysterious explosion on the Tantive IV

http://www.youtube.com/user/edthedoc#p/u/72/dsSdupgv3bk

Go to 7:20

 

What I have never understood in the whole OT is why the hell Miss C.Fisher wasn't dressed a little more sexy at least (apart from ROTJ's first act), especially in ANH...

God she was really gorgeous ! Gary Kurtz himself even said she had a tremendous body...And that the princesses should always end up undressed !

Joke.

I know G.Lucas didn't want any sexual hint to these movies. And He was right actually.

But so sad...

 

That movie was hilarious. Especially the emperor's popcorn, the lightsaber in the door, and "Join the darkside, step in time!"

 

I grew up watching ANH in pan and scan, and in that format it looks like Threepio blows up.

Mr. K

 

I've always wondered why stormtrooper and AT-AT/AT-ST blasters fire orange-red lasers instead of the destinctive green lasers of other Imperial weaponry.

 

What I can't stand is when a TV program puts someone in a "slave Leia" costume and then gives her the ANH hairstyle at the same time!

Those are two different movies fool!!!

 

So, yeah, that stream of TIE fighters going past the hangar when the Emperor arrives on the DS2?


This guy thought the DS2's maintenance team had chosen a singularly poor time to eject that week's trash.

 

About that stormie who was killed after the blast hit the wall behind him, I always thought that the blast created some shrapnel when it hit, and some of it missed the armor and cut in deep inbetween the seams. What kind of massive, internal injuries could happen if some hot (possibly burning) metal went flying into someone's neck and/or chest?

 

Yeah, that happened in "Friends", when Rachel dressed up for Ross. My inner geek wanted to yell at the TV when I saw that!

 

Yeah, and a couple pics of her from that are up as icons in the latest round in the icon submission voting thread in the Comms forum.

 

lol I know which episode you're talking about and I agree. I think TV shows do that for people who are not SW fans. That hair style is always associated with SW but the gold bikini I think some people forget where it's from, until they notice the hair and they go, "Oh that's from Star Wars."

 

That was also the only scene where Rachel was ever anything beyond skinny and plain-looking, so it's noteworthy in several ways.

 

As a kid I thought they managed to avoid all that blaster fire darting across the corridor only to be hit by an explosion coming out of the hallway they're running into. Kind of like a silent-age visual gag. Why they weren't badly scorched?
I never really had trouble ignoring that continuity detail.

What I never really understood is why they didn't make a much shorter trench run in ANH. But the reasons have become obvious over the years:
Filmmaking explanation: A long run in a narrow trench with enemies enclosing dramatically increased the tension.
In-universe explanation: The on-board computer requires a long run to precisely lock in the target.

 

Yeah, I always wondered about that trench run thing too. I always thought "Why don't they just fly straight to the area where the exhaust port is and fly right up to it from above?"

I know this had been widely discussed before the blu-rays came out, but WHY is the Falcon flying towards a galaxy in ESB? I could never make sense of that. There's been some xplanation that they're on the "outer rim," but if you look at it from perspective, the rebel fleet is WAY far away from the entire galaxy...

 

In SW things hit by blaster fire seem to explode as necessary for the scene - eg Greedo explodes quite a lot simply to make it more dramatic and there are some stormtroopers who give off a big shower of sparks when shot and others who don't at all. So in that Tantive IV scene, I think there is an explosion there because there's already a lot of action going on, and it shows how the droids just avoided it as part of the ship blew up.

Also, I think that Threepio's "Help! I think I'm melting!" moment which happens as the Falcon escapes the Death Star was originally supposed to happen right after that explosion on the Tantive IV. It was shot for that early sequence but then used in the Falcon scene. So that's probably why there's an unnecessarily big explosion at that point during the Tantive scene. It probably wasn't the right time for a comedic moment, so the shot was eventually included to provide a lighthearted moment at the end of the Falcon escape scene.

 

One thing that I always thought about was when 3PO was getting into the escape pod in episode 4, as he is telling R2 he is not getting in there then an explosion from what seems to be blaster fire goes off above his head and then he gets scared and runs into the pod? Was that a blaster or just a malfunction? I would lean towards malfunction. But it seemed like it was a blaster shot that was meant to hit him?

 

It's just audience candy.

 

I think entering the trench from a distance was the only way to avoid the guns guarding the exhaust port.

 

Beginning of ROTJ Luke tells Jabba that he's a jedi knight. Hell, even Chewie tells Han that Luke is now Jedi. Pretty much word on the street is that Luke Skywalker is a Jedi.


Later in the movie, Yoda tells Luke that he "must confront Vader, then and only then a Jedi will you be."

Why in the hell Vader??

Is becomming a jedi like earning your black belt in Jiu jitsu?? You must beat someone with that rank in order to move up?

Or is it more like a gang where you need to be jumped in and get your ass kicked before you can join??

And why would Luke surrender himself to Vader AND The Emperor??? As a kid that always baffeled me. He's not even a jedi yet and he thinks he's going to clean house and come out alive after beating the Sith lord and his apprentice??

If there's anything Star Wars taught me...it was that a Jedi in training has balls the size of watermelons.

 

It had nothing to do with scoring points, or even necessarily killing Vader - Luke needed to confront the fact that his own father turned to the Dark Side of the Force, accept it, understand it, and not go the same way. If he didn't, his mind, his conscience and his soul would be constantly tormented by it, and such a tormented, conflicted person could not ever be considered a Jedi Knight.
As Yoda instructed, Luke confronted Vader (Yoda never said he had to kill him). Luke emerged from the conflict alive, without completely succumbing to the Dark Side, despite tasting it. When he resisted the urge to kill Vader, then threw his lightsaber away, he was a Jedi - just as he said to the Emperor. If Vader hadn't saved him, Luke still would have died a Jedi Knight.

As far as Luke claiming earlier on to Jabba and the like that he was a Jedi - pure bluster, but also perhaps a very early reflection of his father's arrogance, much as the dark robes were deliberately meant to look 'Vader-esque'.