Saga SW Saga In-Depth In-Depth Discussion Thread

You call this mess, this assortment of sarcastic questions and false sentences whilst not truly saying anything, a post? I thought there was an unspoken rule on the forums that posts must be constructive, i.e. worthwhile posting, not just to have something written back when one is called on out on all their bull crap (of which George Lucas does not understand democracy a single example of many).

You see, responding would be appropriate if I was dealing with a valid and/or insightful argument. Dismantling though, is the appropriate response when facts are made up (that George Lucas doesn't understand democracy), subjective loosely-arrived-at conclusions are made(Jedi offer paths to goodness in the OT), and then used as a basis for even more erroneous conclusions(Everything else in your first post and this one). Don't complain about it; I've just rolled with what you've given.

I'm sorry to hear that you find raking the PT over the coals a strange "concept" (it's not what a concept) when you have frequently indulge in it.

At least now your post has a semblance to coherence after I've trimmed down all those petulant, irrelevant, and rhetorical questions. Don't clog up your post, only one kenobi; you write obscurely enough as it is.

I haven't misunderstood anything; I read each parts of your post and subsequently, as I've stated before, dismantle them. You "suggest" that I am I implying? You cannot suggest another person to imply, only one kenobi. The sentence doesn't make sense. Your last line, regardless of your intentions, is not apparent within your post. Formulating your own incorrect, inaccurate condemnation of the PT and the OT and then noting the "alterations" in perception between the two does not arrive at a correct conclusion.

So you're saying that the present, paltry amount of concision is "as [much as you] can put together? Informative, yet ultimately unsurprising and irrelevant. I stated that concision is a backdrop to sound reasoning yet you quip on the lesser of the two.

Well, as the "great shining sir of knowledge," my first advice to you would be to remove all this sardonic, obstructive, clutter from your posts. It's the very opposite of concision.

Can you read my post? I raised the question of your diction, i.e "reasonable," very clearly. Yet you continue to miss the clear-cut and instead rattle off more petulant and rhetorical questions.

Yet you have been incapable of expressing anything correctly or reasonably.

Hard time understanding, huh? Let me explain once again. The PT is the story of the fall of the Republic and of how Anakin became Darth Vader. That's it. It is not mean to "inform one about the OT." "Meant" indicates purpose and the purpose of the PT is not to inform one about the OT.

Repeat after me. The PT is meant to be the PT. It's purpose is to tell its own story. It's purpose is not to be an information booklet on the OT despite the greater understanding that it might bring to the entire SW universe. Now continue repeating that, only one kenobi, until you can grasp that simple fact.

There is no hyphen between non and sequitur: the phrase is pure Latin. And everything else in you paragraph is similarly wrong. Breaking down a sentence is not a "false premise." What you believe happens is not an argument. It is an opinion. Know the difference. If your view of the OT changes due to things outside of explicit contradictions, i.e personal perception, then it is an opinion.

And yet you still have not showed any examples of elaboration.

You've seemingly missed my entire post. Read it again to learn that you cannot simple state a Jedi to have a "path," which you have done so, when it is incorrect.

But you haven't shown it ... at all.

So now you resort to lying. Don't insert things which I haven't said.

But you haven't explained either of those things in your initial post. Regardless, they are both wrong for reasons I stated in my last post.

Read what I said.

No, it doesn't. The removal of Valorum does not equate into "the ousting of a benign despot." You cannot just state someone to be a "benign despot" without any proof pointing towards it. Once again, you're making unfounded conclusions and then spouting off a a bunch of more unsupported statements on top of it.

No, because one has to agree that there is a subtle difference before one can miss it. Hence, why you cannot base things off of your subjectivity. If one does not see a subtle difference then nothing is lost.

You don't have anything to offer, basic or otherwise, seen in my breakdown of your initial post and now here in your post filled with unnecessary question, verbage, and other clutter.

More fake shock and bravado at being called out for the fake exclamations. It still stings, doesn't it?

Keep spouting lies: it doesn't change the fact that George Lucas knows what democracy is and the politics of his own story. You do not.

More tangents.

Well then, "let me put this as simply as I can": you are not in a position to lecture on George Lucas' understanding of democracy and your reasoning for all your statements is non-existent.

Why would you watch the second bonus disc if you dislike the PT so much? So rather than move on, content with your dislike, you further incite it by willingly watching bonus material of content that you fundamentally dislike. So lack of reasoning doesn't just apply to your rhetoric, huh? And no you did not reference them in your post.

The emboldened part remains my line to your entire post. Your whole post here, which I had to filter of all the fake, sarcastic questions you posited still lacks anything of substance.

Now you're playing mind-reader that I view the OT through the lens of the PT? Wrong and irrelevant.

You cannot say there is no such truth to be argued when you are incapable of making a valid argument with even traces of correctness in them as I pointed out in my last, and gave examples of, in my last post.

And yet you have watched the bonus disc even though it's not for you...

Furthermore, you can't profess to different conceptions or ideas when you're woefully confused regarding either of them.

All in all, only one kenobi, you have shown that you are incapable of forming an actual response to my post. Your last reply was nothing but a combination of sarcastic questions, things not previously stated in your initial post, even more far-fetched, incorrect conclusions, and so forth. Basically, all that is antithetical to the word "argument." Feel free to keep 'em coming though: I'll keep on calling you out on everyone of the aforementioned things.

@Darth_Nub: I thought being overly sarcastic, i.e. endlessly asking rhetorical questions one clearly knows the answer to or is simply irrelevant, was disallowed.

Can't say that's listed in the rules - but the TOS clearly states that "Users are expected to conduct themselves in a manner which is respectful to themselves and fellow users at all times."

Something you clearly have trouble grasping. Out.

As someone who's just watching this conversation happen, I honestly can't tell what you (komodojoe) think OOK's position/motivation is in even discussing these things. Did he just start off by arbitrarily saying "I'm going to portray a dissatisfaction with these films" and then happen to write a lot about it for no reason?

Circularity is very circular it is.

One wonders what your (Komodo9Joe's) definition of 'explicit contradictions' entails....

Says the poster who prizes RHETORIC over DIALECTIC (once again).

Internet RHETORICAL tactic #205: "YOU haven't made an argument for X; therefore there IS NO argument for X!!!" .

No, what he's not able to do is prevent you from dishonestly atomizing his responses.

I thought accusing other posters of LYING* was disallowed.

*"So now you resort to lying."
"More fake shock and bravado at being called out for the fake exclamations. It still stings, doesn't it?"
"Keep spouting lies: it doesn't change the fact that George Lucas knows what democracy is and the politics of his own story. You do not"

Okay, so...my thoughts on this are ever evolving and so..just a few more ideas that I've had that might make sense of mine, and possibly others' feelings regarding the PT and its perceived incompatibility with the OT (as far as I'm concerned).

I was thinking about the idea that the backdrop of the story, it's conceptual 'outline' nature within the OT story-telling, and how that mitigates against a prequel trilogy that could ever be generally accepted as telling the story before the tale we all knew and loved.

First of all, the lack of exposition allows a further space into which our own imaginations will, naturally, flux. We will fill that space with our own conceptions; of who the Jedi were, of what the Republic was, of how Anakin came to fall. It is highly unlikely that one story could match up with the plethora of ideas that existed across the extent of the original fan base. No matter how vague the outline, there existed some level of imagery as to what that earlier period looked like, no matter how vaguely that space was decorated, there were patterns, images and ideas planted there.

That's not to say that being a fan of the OT would automatically stop you accepting the new, everybody is different and some are doubtless happier than others to allow that space to be washed out by the newer images and ideas; perhaps their own versions were close enough that they could merge them, or perhaps they could find a way to combine them.

But, there's more to this, which I thought of when thinking about the OP here, and about an example with another favourite 'saga' of mine - Dune. The prequels to Dune I hated. I put that down to them being the work of someone else other than the original author. But, thinking about it; the later novels (after the third, which itself was weaker, imo, than the first two) were written by Frank Herbert, and the ideas in the 'prequel' novels are apparently based upon noted left by Frank Herbert. That's when it dawned on me that it is the explication of events that are simply conceptual spaces that might be the problem. It's not, in other words, that the explication might not match that which the viewer/reader has rendered there, it is that by telling the story you cannot but explicate it in some way. That space is no longer, can no longer be, a space; it will be filled.

That got me thinking; even if Lucas had told a story generally within my expectations I might still not have been able to accept it. The mystery, the empty conceptual space is an integral part of the story.

That's still not nostalgia. It is just an acknowledgement that that is the story I fell in love with and...the PT never really had a chance. Maybe.

I like the idea that it's the fact that the space is no longer there at all rather than necessarily what was used to fill the space. I think we naturally fill the space with what fits with our own conception of what SW is, in line with what we believe to be most important to the story. As long as that option's available, everyone can be happy. When it becomes more defined, it can be problematic for some as what we perceived as being important apparently no longer is.

What can the ST add to the Saga?

That's what we are about to find out.

Tolkien worried about this effect when he was writing the Silmarillion. There is a quote of his (apparently in Letter #247) on how he was concerned that part of the appeal of Lord of the Rings was how it showed little snippets of the backstory and worldbuilding, but didn't nail everything down. He thought the appeal was like seeing a distant vista, and that going there wrecked the magic... unless from that vantage point, you found more distant views that would spur you on farther, and so on.

Is that a relevant metaphor for the SW prequels too? I guess it depends on the person. Were there enough new vistas shown in the prequels to still make the viewer go on into the future? And were the prequel vistas actually the same ones glimpsed in the OT to begin with, or were they a few degrees off on the ol' map? I think that does actually seem to be quite a bit of the problem people tend to have.

For myself, I like the 1980s-era story. But having read some of Lucas's thoughts and stuff, there are also some ideas (even in the old stuff) that I don't necessarily agree with him on, and obviously certain aspects of storytelling appeal to him more than they do to me (interventionist Force, etc). So I guess nothing would be perfect, in my opinion. Empire isn't perfect either. But that's not the same as saying that such a film 'would never have had a chance.'

Thanks for that..good to know that I'm in good company with my thinking

You raise a couple of good points here. I think the vistas are of a different nature. Old Ben's words are key to this - Guinness added so much depth to what he was describing just from the delivery. There is an image of a very different world "...before the dark times". There is the prospect of an order of Jedi Knights. Clone Wars etc. Later we wonder how Darth Vader ended up on the dark side, how he ended up in the suit, what is the history between he and Obi-Wan.

There are vistas to explore from the PT; Qui-Gon and his stewardship of young Obi-Wan, the Sith and why they desire revenge over the Jedi and Dooku. But, in terms of Dooku, he is so little used that there hardly seems a story - there is no great impetus given to understand what happened to him; there is no emotional pull (in the way that there would have been had anybody spoken of him in high terms, as Oi-Wan does of Luke's father, for example). The Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan background would operate in a very similar environment - the Republic has stood for a thousand years. The only real differentiated vista is the story of the Sith and their opposition to the Jedi.

That's all to be expected because there has been a massive shift between this past and the now (the dark times) of the OT, but it does mean that many of the vistas are..pretty narrow in scope - and so by narrowing the vistas then all of it is shrunk in some way. There aren't as many places to peer off into.

As to the second point, well it sort of covers something that you said in the next paragraph...

Empire, of course, follows Star Wars (ANH) and so is simply building upon what is there. Any mentions of the past would act to build vistas, not narrow them. Except, Lucas does an odd thing; he alters the story (clumsily imo). From that moment on, should there be any surprise that he seeks to subvert the story already told in order to fit some new idea for the story that he has had (or older idea that he has decided to re-introduce)?

Just food for thought, I don't know if this has ever happened to anybody else:

Have you ever watched TPM right after ESB (or vice versa) and think to yourself "Holy Crap, these movies are part of the same franchise?"

Cinematography, Art Direction, Humor, Flow of Dialogue, Thematic ambitions, pace, tone, EVERYTHING. Everything that has to do with what kind of story is being told and how it's told is radically different between those two films. The difference is jarring.

I'm not trying to condemn one approach or worship the other necessarily. I'm just saying that the difference is huge, and it's palpable.

^ I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree that the difference(s) are that stark.

I just started re-watching the Saga in order (1-6), and realized something that hadn't really occurred to me before: although ANH and RotJ are considered by most to be 'fun' action-adventure films, they're actually rather bleak in tone, which is entirely appropriate given their placement in the overall tapestry of the Saga. TPM is really the only installment in the Saga that is truly light-hearted because it's the one film that takes place before everything goes to pot.

In some respects yes. In others, no.

When I look at Qui-Gon and Vader, for example, I have no problem believing they are part of the same universe. Similarly, when I see Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon staring at the sunset on a balcony in Coruscant, I have no trouble believing that Cloud City will also exist in this universe.

Even the humor is largely the same. For all that Jar Jar gets on people's nerves, I see C3PO as playing much the same role at the end of ESB.

For me, I would say they are actually more alike than they are different. TPM is more suggestive of an underlying darkness, though, whereas ESB really brings it to the forefront.

The culprit revealed.

A follow-up to my earlier comment:

In terms of tone, I think TPM is most indicative of the kind of 40s-style space fantasy serials that initially inspired Lucas to create the concept(s) for the Saga, with AotC, ANH, and RotJ sharing a somber tonal quality and RotS and TESB sharing an ominous and tragic quality, so that, when watched in order, there's a progression of tone that escalates with each movie.

As an aside, this new 'epiphany' I've had has me wondering what kind of tonal quality the Sequel Trilogy will end up having and how said tone will mesh with the existing films.

Completely off topic:

Darth_Nub, ATMachine, LtCmdrThrawn - this might interest you guys......"Star Wars Storyboards: The Original Trilogy" (J.W. Rinzler) book is set for release sometime in May, according to Amazon. It'll feature boards by ALL of the OT's storyboard artists, from the description on Amazon.

It'll be cool to see the art, though I'm not sure if it would have any new information on development. But then, the Prequels book had that tidbit about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon being switched at one point, so there is the possibility for it.

In some respects, they probably both have the most impressive cinematography of their respective trilogies, too.

I dunno. They are quite opposed in tone, but in a way that is oddly complementary, even poignant.

Two extremes in mood and atmosphere. But two extremes can make a whole.

The connections between TPM and TESB are, perhaps, the most exciting in the saga.

I find it notable, for example, that both films feature the main Skywalker protagonist remarking that they feel cold. TPM has the main Skywalker repeating this assertion, in fact.

Look also at this graphic:

http://starwarsverses.tumblr.com/post/40718149357

The objection by elder Jedi Masters -- one by Yoda directly, the other with him explicitly present -- that the main Skywalker is "too old" also occurs in both movies. Again, the objection actually occurs twice in TPM, with Obi-Wan first making it to Qui-Gon. Ironically, Obi-Wan is on the son's side in TESB, despite the catastrophic outcome of training the much-younger father, which Obi-Wan does against Yoda's wishes.

A very odd couple, TPM and TESB. Yet it feels so right.

Lots to enjoy with this saga -- as always.

Hey you guys - @Darth_Nub , @TOSCHESTATION , @oierem , @Samuel Vimes , @ATMachine , etc - anybody have The Sounds of Star Wars book? I just heard something interesting. Apparently in that book, Ben Burtt says that originally, Lucas was going to have Order 66 happen in Episode II - something I can't remember ever hearing before. It makes sense, though; the backstory as seen in MoSW has Senators rebelling against a corrupt Chancellor when he exceeds the limits of his term, with the Jedi coming to their defense but being attacked by secret forces built up by the Chancellor. The Jedi later try to regroup in an attempt to restore order, but they are ambushed and killed off by special forces led by Vader. This sounds like it could have been what GL was still thinking of, if Order 66 was to be in AOTC.

Of course, Ben Burtt has been working on Star Wars since the beginning; he might even be referring to those same very early plans (if anyone has the book, they could look and see if there is any more detail). He might be using final-film terminology to describe vaguer plans/ideas from the 70s or 80s.

Also, if this version of the story were actually the plan, it might go some way to explaining why the Jedi seem not to pick up on any of the suspicious aspects of the movie... perhaps originally they didn't have so much time to think about them, or maybe they didn't have so much information to begin with. Maybe they'd only be able to try to figure it out in retrospect, too.

As it happens, I do own the book, and here is the quote:

From the sound of it, it doesn't seem as though the Episode II scenes were meant to include the wholesale slaughter of the entire Jedi Order, as would be seen in the next film. Rather it appears that (on secret orders from Palpatine) Jango would be hunting down and killing Jedi one-by-one as the gigantic arena battle took place.

Quite an interesting revelation!

I'm glad, however, that Order 66 and the wholesale massacre of the Jedi was saved for ROTS, personally.

A long time ago, I had done a basic comparison between Luke and Anakin's journey and really noted a lot of similarities between them. And that was before ROTS came out. When you really look, you can see these similarities and differences. Lucas was right in saying that they faced many similar situations, but one said yes and one said no.

That's probably more accurate. The only left over was the death of Coleman Trebor and that was more to do with his going after Dooku and paying for it. It's probably wiser that Lucas dropped that from AOTC, since it would give away how the Purge began in ROTS.

True. But it's also curious that one feels cold in a place of nature, next to an ancient tree / cave, while the other voices a more fragile "it's very cold" in a place of gleaming, protective technology, on their way to a city planet, where they repeat the assertion of feeling cold. And remember how excited the latter was to board the very starship where this malady takes hold?

Anakin apparently feels the loss of serenity and warmth well before his son does; though he learns to put on a brave face and assume a defiant persona. TESB, the gloomiest chapter of the saga, ominously underwrites TPM, the lightest, and suggests a catastrophe in the making. Anakin has been ripped away from the hearth of home and the muse has already left him, even though he nominally made the choice to leave of his own accord and wanted to move onto better and brighter things.

It's also notable that Luke has a clearer trigger for his feelings of coldness: his proximity to the cave. Yet Anakin twice asserts the same feeling in different locations. The films never really bring that aspect back up, but that's not to say it's quickly brushed aside without purpose (something, by the way, a lot of people seem not to understand about the prequels and Star Wars generally). We're just left to assume the character has moved on and no longer feels cold -- I mean, he'd surely bring it up again, right, if he did? Or would he...?

There's a great hidden darkness that works to make itself known through repeated gestures and complex symbolism. And it's very much in the contrast between one film and the next, and one trilogy and the next, that we can become aware of a larger story with a meaning that runs much deeper than the polished surface.

Just one way of looking at this basic -- but also (as I see it) epic -- interplay.

Plus, it sort of makes more sense of the Clone Wars, with the conflict being a ploy to both gain emergency powers and thin the Jedi out, placing them on some strange worlds, further dulling their senses and overwhelming them when the time comes and the order is given.

IMO, anyway.

So I just got my copy of the Star Wars Storyboards: The Original Trilogy book and am leafing through it. So far I'm quite pleased with it.

A few tidbits stand out. The first is that the book contains four recently discovered storyboards for ANH, the only ones known to survive from the short period between the second and third drafts when Luke briefly became a girl. The storyboards, which may originally have been part of a larger sequence, feature the scene from the second draft where girl-Luke, Han, and Chewbacca (carrying the unconscious Deak, Luke's brother whom they have come to rescue) encounter a monstrous Dai Noga creature in the tunnels deep beneath the Imperial prison planet of Alderaan. The Dai Noga itself is not shown in the surviving boards.

This entire scene would be reworked in several ways; the prisons of Alderaan were moved on board the Death Star, and the monstrous Dai Noga, originally found wandering the corridors deep beneath the prison cells, was later combined with the garbage-masher scene, which was initially a separate incident. In the second draft the Dai Noga is said to be a supernatural monster bred by the Sith Lords, and in fact blaster bolts pass right through it. Han and Chewbacca (carrying Deak) have to sneak around the monster while Luke draws its attention by firing at it with his blaster; they ultimately trap it by firing at the ceiling above it and bringing down an avalanche of debris.

There are also some interesting previously-unseen boards for ROTJ in the sail barge fight scene. Both of them, interestingly, involve severed hands. In one board Luke severs Boba Fett's hand when Boba tries to fire on him, then uses his lightsaber to damage and activate Fett's rocket pack for his ultimate demise. In another board Luke has himself lost his mechanical right hand, and the severed cyborg hand crawls of its own volition toward the lightsaber hilt that he has dropped.

One minor omission I noted is the lack of boards for ANH and ESB that were drawn up for alternate title sequences--ones for ANH in which THE STAR WARS crawled backward at the same angle as the main text crawl, and ones for ESB with black letters set against the white snow-fields of Hoth, with the crawl header reading Episode II. Both of these have previously been seen in other Making Of books, though, so they're really little loss. I'd much rather see storyboards I've never seen before anywhere.

Also worth noting--there are two variant versions of the storyboards for the last shots in ROTJ: one with only Ben and Yoda appearing as Force ghosts, and one with Anakin (Sebastian Shaw version) added. This of course reflects that the decision to add Anakin to the scene was only made during principal photography; the shooting script didn't mention him.