Lit A/V The Force Awakens and the EU [TAGGED spoilers.]

Leia needing retraining by someone her junior:
But seriously, if he just refrained from using the Hapans, Killiks, Squibs, Barabels etc. in every book he'd not be too bad. SBS was very good, yes.

 

well, who here will come to CELEBRATION EUROPE to witness Sequel announcements live and share some despair and joy with me?

 

The OT had a grand total of three lightsaber duels, one each movie, each against the same solitary villain. You don't need an army of Sith to provide a challenge to the heroes, or even to the Jedi heroes. TPM got by with two lightsaber duels, one of them very abbreviated, and AOTC got by with one extended one. Only ROTS included more than about one and a half lightsaber duels. Did anyone really see Luke fighting a whole sail barge of heavily armed crooks in ROTJ and go, "Oh, but where is the tension, where's the action, where's Jabba's lightsaber?" Stormtroopers, battle droids, and thugs were good enough for the first two trilogies. If we're limited to one Force-sensitive Mandalorian leader, or a fallen student of Luke's working as an enforcer for the Hutts, or whatever . . . who cares? If there isn't even a Force-sensitive villain at all, who cares? Luke never even used his lightsaber in ANH. No one cared. If he gets to use a lightsaber and the bad guy doesn't this time around . . . so? Was Thrawn not a good villain because Luke couldn't get in a lightsaber duel with him? Was Tarkin? Nobody dueled Palpatine in ROTJ. Nobody cared.

And epic war? TPM got plenty of conflict out of an internal trade dispute and highly localized invasion and occupation. AOTC got most of its mileage out of an assassination investigation. ANH's drama came from trying to get secret data to the heroes' headquarters and escape an enemy installation. TESB relied on Force training and flight from pursuers. ROTJ started with the gang springing their friend from the clutches of a crook and then infiltrating an enemy installation for sabotage purposes, and then Luke trying to redeem his dad. There are battles, and in all the films save TPM they're part of a big galactic war, but that's not a necessary condition for the existence of battles, or for the plots of the movies to work. It's not essential to the Star Wars universe, or the Star Wars brand, or even big-budget Star Wars film storytelling.

Don't define the entire Star Wars saga by ROTS. A saga of ROTSes would be incredibly lame.

 

I will actually be in Germany in June so I may.

 

even if I do not want to use TCW as an argument... Mandalorians can use lightsabers... Pre Vizla and Darksaber recently anyone? aside that I fully agree with Havac... and I am shocked by that

 

there needs to be a TFN reunion someplace.. lets see if we can meet then.

 

As far as lightsabers go, I only feel the ST needs to maintain the tradition of having at least one lightsaber fight in each movie. Though as far as I'm concerned, whatever movies come after can kick that tradition to the curb.

Of course, they could cheat and just have the lightsaber fight in the first movie be the new hero against Luke in a training match (I'm envisioning a scene where all of his students think old man Skywalker is over the hill... only for him to proceed to take them all at once). It will be worth it just seeing Mark Hammill in a lightsaber fight.

 

Seeing Luke pull off PT-era moves would be a mastery for him indeed. I'm all for Luke fighting again.

 

Luke needs no lightsaber anymore, he is beyond that... a true master needn't even pull his sword to win. a word suffices. or he is a master of evasion Pei Mei style

he should show true mastery and not be lightsaberready

 

If you're going to train your son/daughter/nephew/niece in the use of a lightsaber, it probably helps to use a lightsaber. Let's not have the new Grand Master Skywalker be as hypocritical as Master Thon

 

Heh. "ROTSes".

 

Even better would be for his students to pull off PT-era moves, and for him to not have to move at all.

 

If we see Luke fight, I'd rather it be him training his students, or a much less flashy style than what we tended to see in the PT. We should definitely see him primarily using the Force.

As I've said, I want this movie to be the passing of the torch, not to skip to a time where it has already been passed, so I'm sure we'll see him in some kind of action. It should be the same role that Yoda played in AOTC, though; a much smaller role, but one that hammers in to the younger characters that they have so much to learn.

 

You mean hypnosis.

 

One OT wink I would be okay with: Luke watching his students do crazy PT lightsaber stuff, and thinking "man, in my day I just swung the thing around like a log".

 

besides... in the OT Yoda never used a lightsaber or moved a lot and nobody doubted that he is THE Master having Luke do PT stunts would be unneeded and betray that true mastery.

 

sure but why would I want to train them in warfare during a time of peace... or rather, have other Jedi show it to them while I wisecrack about true mastery and not pulling your sword etc. like it should be for a true Master

besides, then it is even more epic when in beginning Luke talkes about not using it and not having used it in a long time and then... he pulls it nevertheless in the end showing what a true Master CAN do with it if necessary sadly indeed. then it has a point, but I do not want to see lightsaberfun with no reason and betraying philosophy.

 

I'd rather have Luke pull an Indiana Jones (famous bullet vs. sword scene)... adversary shows impressive lightsaber moves beyond anything we have seen yet... Luke does not draw his sword but merely Forcecrushes/pushes him as his father would have done (and like he did with Jacen pinning him down with the Force) and moves on.

 

I dunno watching Ian Mcdairmid/Chris Lee bounce around CGI like is not that great.

One of the best things about ANH duel was that it was exactly what it was an Old man and a Cripple fighting, they didn't need to add them bouncing around the walls like Plaps and Yoda were in RotS

 

Well, I would hope Luke would be a bit more agile than that, if it became necessary. Too slow, and we might start wondering why he doesn't just give up and use a blaster already.

 

there is more than lightsabers and blasters... like... a Verpine Shatter Gun

 

So a Chair Scene™ on the big screen? Oh hell yes.

 

One of my favorite parts of Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader is the description of a group of Jedi attempting to twirl and flip about Vader, with Vader brutally and methodically taking them all out with minimal effort and movement. I'd laugh if there's some kind of acknowledgement that a more acrobatic lightsaber combatant is not necessarily the better fighter.

If we see Luke fight, either in training or in a real combat scenario, I'd like to see it as faster than it was in the OT, but also much more grounded than the PT. Similar to Vader in ESB; elegant, but deadly.

 

I'd like to see a new lightsaber capability. One that could flicker off then back on in a micro second. As an opponent blocks a strike with a conventional lightsaber or cortosis blade, the flicker-saber would flicker off before contact, flicker back on to decapitate that opponent, making it look like the lightsaber was unblockable.

 

Wouldn't the blade that didn't get blocked then decapitate the person doing the non-blocking decapitating as well though?