Saga Unpopular Star Wars opinions!

Ehhhh...Rian Johnson is no JJ, though. Just sayin...

 

Slicer87 wrote

Depends on which version you go by. Lucas said a few times that OT stormtroopers are clones, but he has flipped flopped back and fourth on it as has Lucasfilm. Back in 1978 they stated they were clones.

I'm not aware of any such statement, this is something a third party (SW poster magazines) came up with in their "in-universe" article about stormtroopers.

Rinzler's Making of Star Wars features the 1977 'Lucas Notes' where Lucas merely stated that some stormtroopers are also women. I for one believe he would have mentioned "clones" in this context, too, if that would have been his intention.

 

Here is the full version of that MTV interview, which shows that there was not a clean progression of turning Stormtroopers into normal humans and how he badly contradicts himself in that interview to were no real conclusion can be reached from it.

So Lucas begins by saying yes, they are all clones. But when grilled by the interviewer, Lucas first claims he changed the ANH troopers to sound more identical, which reinforces the idea they are clones. Then he switches gears and goes on about shanghai troops, not recruit or even drafting, but kidnapping people which the Disney OT lore does not follow, but the ST does. Also at the same time Lucas stated on 60 Minutes there was going to be no Episode 7, but he flipped flopepd, yes there was going to be a ST, no there isn't, yes it will be again.

Yet many of the elements in that poster round up in the PT, such as instead of growing clones as adults, they create them as kids and train them through childhood to be soldiers, and are brainwashed to want nothing else but to serve. Also they see killing comrades as nothing more as orders, which fits with Order 66. Plus I know you bad mouthed that article as being written by a Trekkie writer, ignoring that Lucas himself is a big Trekkie who did use some Trek in SW. Also that same poster magazine stated Vader fell into lava which again shows up in the PT. So either the writer got ideas from Lucas, or Lucas appropriated ideas from the poster magazines. If there are any female Stormtroopers in the OT, they never show up on screen as all the talking stormies are clearly male as are all the officers and guards, you never see an on screen female imperial in the OT. This makes Lucas note regarding female stormtroopers in the OT highly dubious. Sadly there is some disconnect between what Lucas says and what his films show. In the PT we see a few female Republic officers but by the end of ROTS on the VSD bridge, all the officers are male. Lucas clearly decided the Empire is not a equal opportunity employer.

In some ways, ANH did portray the Empire very similar to the evil version of the Federation from classic Trek, where rival starfleet officers backstabed and murdered each other to get promoted. As in ANH, high ranking Imps bickered with each other like rivals and Vader could kill his comrades. Officers in both organizations are very egotistical and view each other with disdain, just lots of hostile internal politics. Both appear to be highly sexist.

 

unpopular opinion:

I would find it more interesting if Palpatine's story of Plagueis the wise was more of a fable or an out right lie told by Palpatine to lure Anakin to the dark-side. Instead of being an actual character in the canon. Whether he existed or not would then be up to the individual viewer to decide. I find that SW needs more myths and legends IU...rather than every story having basis in fact.

 

That was actually amazing. Consider me a fan of your idea.

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Rian Johnson is also no George Lucas, just sayin'...

 

I'm so glad to see other people who feel this way! I've always preferred the idea that Plagueis was a literal Sith legend or a lie told to Anakin. But I guess we can't have any actual myths in Star Wars and everything told in the films must have been something that was real.

 

True. But I think RJ is capable of reaching for the level of genius behind the OT, whereas I never thought JJ would be. We shall see....

 

It's never going to happen.

You cannot produce the next Darth Vader, the next Yoda, the next Han Solo, the next Death Star, the next 'I Am Your Father'... without delivering some second rate version of them.

If RJ is the genius you believe him to be then he should be out there creating something new, not more Star Wars movies. We have already seen the best that this series has to offer.

 

Well aren't you an optimistic one?

 

He *has* created something new. A few new things, actually: "Brick", "The Brothers Bloom" and "Looper". I didn't realize Lucas-level geniuses are *only* supposed to create new things and leave franchises begun by others alone. And if that's your philosophy, why on earth were you "beyond excited when Episode 7 was announced"?

 

None of those even belong in the same sentence as Star Wars.

You thought wrong.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt, I was wrong.

 

Good thing I didn't put them in the same sentence then. But taking your meaning to obviously be that these movies are several light years down in quality from Star Wars, which, by the way, is a matter of opinion, it's irrelevant to the fact that he has gone "out there creating something new" and likely will again.

You're saying they *are* supposed to create only new things or they don't necessarily have to create only new things? The syntax of your response did not make sense with my actual statement.

So you were willing to give JJ the benefit of the doubt, but not RJ, despite the many reports that TLJ was the movie least interfered with by Lucasfilm and Disney executives. Makes sense to me.

 

Or every last little thing given complex back stories.

 

Yep. People often talk about material widening the mythology and expanding the legend etc, when what they are talking about is a bit of dialogue that had a purpose that transcends what actually did or didn't happen to inspire it. And what we get that is "inspired" by that dialogue actually winds up explaining and making definitive what was once mythic, obscure, enigmatic and legendary. It tends not to be a good thing. The material often falls short of stimulating us as much as the line of dialogue it was extrapolated from.

 

Slicer87 wrote

Plus I know you bad mouthed that article as being written by a Trekkie writer, ignoring that Lucas himself is a big Trekkie who did use some Trek in SW. Also that same poster magazine stated Vader fell into lava which again shows up in the PT. So either the writer got ideas from Lucas, or Lucas appropriated ideas from the poster magazines.

I really don't know where you could have possibly gotten the idea I was "bad mouthing" a Trekkie writer. Being a hardcore Trekker myself this is illogical, I merely tend to equally point out conjecture both in Trekverse and the GFFA.
Just a look at the first draft of ESB makes it abundantly clear, that the original premise of the Clone Wars weren't clones fighting in it, but rather clones (like originally Lando) being apparently persecuted (with a high probability that Bail Organa and Kenobi helped them).
That Vader had fallen into a lava pit was something Lucas told Rolling Stone magazine in 1977 to explain his breathing, the SW poster magazine editors merely used a lot of contemporary magazines (e.g. Cinefantastique) to gather information they published or rewrote for their articles.

 

But if Plagueis never existed how Palpatine learn about the Dark Side?

 

From a more "ordinary" Sith Lord - Darth Fred presumably.

The newcanon seems to be sticking with "A Sith Lord called Darth Plagueis was Palpatine's actual master" though.

 

Darth <insert name here>

it really doesn't matter, just as it doesn't matter we never learned who Yoda's master was.

"My mentor taught me everything about the force...including the nature of the dark-side" was all we needed. If movies were all we had, I would conclude that Sidious' master was an elusive figure who did indeed taught him ALL sides of the force, the dark, the light, etc. But being the character as he is; Sidious neglected all other "sides" of the force and concentrated only on the dark-side, thus bringing back the Sith from extinction. OR Sidious was being a lying little ******. Who knows? let the viewer decide things, keep things mysterious. Sidious WAS The Phantom Menace. A mystery.

 

Yeah, especially since the novel Tarkin pretty much confirmed it. It even had Plagueis's old droid.

 

My latest random thought about Star Wars that may be unpopular - I don't like any of the Sith names except Vader, and Palpatine is just Palpatine or the Emperor to me, not Sheev and certainly not Darth Sidious. All the Darth names are stupidly on the nose - Sidious, Maul, Tyranus, Malgus, Bane, Plagueis, etc. Snoke isn't a great name, but I imagine GL would have named him Darth Evillus or something equally goofy.

 

Maul and Bane's names are actually relevant to their characters though (especially Bane). I understand your misgivings with the rest though. I've always thought Tyranus was cool as a name but I didn't think it fit Dooku's character all that well despite him being a favorite of mine.

 

Possibly,

Possibly, but it does seem to be more than accident that some of the elements in the poster books made it into the PT. I forgot these other quotes from Lucas:

 

@Slicer87​

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This is obviously just another example of George Lucas remembering things "from a certain point of view", i.e. that stormtroopers were meant to be clones (I'm still angry with myself that I forgot to ask Gary Kurtz about the issue back in 2002 when I had the opportunity).​

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1. we have the visual evidence that not all stormtroopers have the same body height
2. in ANH's post-production Lucas had the opportunity (also to minimize costs) to just hire one voice actor for the stormtroopers, but it's evident that different voice actors were involved (e.g. MP stormtroopers discovering Tantive IV life pod, actors on location were Tunisian extras with no English language skills).
3. we have his stormtrooper statement in the 1977 Lucas quotes, i.e. that there were also female stormtroopers but nothing remotely suggesting these were clones
4. we have Biggs' and Luke's statement from the Anchorhead scene that they won't let themselves be drafted into the Imperial Starfleet, I wonder how they could have been sure not to end up as stormtroopers.

Here is the passage from ESB's first draft, suggesting clones were originally refugees:​

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LEIA​

Is [Lando] a clone?​

HAN​

Is he a what?​

LEIA​

You said his people family were refugees from the Clone Wars. Is he a clone?​

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And regarding Boba Fett, the official Lucasfilm information provided through Bantha Tracks regarding this new ESB character stated that he was a Mandalorian, wearing the armor of the shocktroopers that had been defeated in the Clone Wars by the Jedi.​

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Yeah, on the nose names definitely didn't exist in Star Wars before the prequels. Not like there was a pretty famous character called Greedo in the very first film. Or Han Solo. Get it? Cause he likes to go solo. That would be downright ridiculous.