The Continuity Error That Grew and Grew

The Aqualish, IMHO, are the biggest continuity goof of all time, spanning both the movies, WEG, and WOTC, as well as DK, Del Rey, and Bantam Spectra.

OK, for starters, the continuity problems started in ANH itself.

Ponda Baba had finned, unfingered hands the whole movie until his arm was cut off. Then, his deetached arm was hown with a hairy, fingered, human-like hand.

So the continuity problems started in the original movie itself.

WEG tried to fix it. In one of the worst continuity fixes of all time, they really just compounded the continuity break!

According to WEG, there are 2 races of Aqualish: Quara )fingered) and Aquala (finned).

Why does this "fix" not work? B/c on ANH, the finned Aqualish and fingered Aqualish we see are the SAME INDIVIDUAL, Ponda Baba! Explain to me, how did he magically change from an Aquala to a Quara at the exact moment the lightsabre cut off his arm? Two different species "created" by WEG from ONE character?

OK, that makes me ill.

Acc. to WEG, Quara were lower o the social ladder than Aquala.

BTW, the Holiday Special Aqualish had the same costume as Ponda Baba, and he also had flipper hands; included that for the sake of completeness.

Then it got worse.

The Phantom Menace came out.

It featured Aqualish of a whole new sort. They had four eyes, instead of Ponda Baba's two. They had naked tusks, instead of flesh-covered ones (such as Ponda, the Holiday Special Aqualish, and all EU illustrations had). They had neither the flippers of Aquala nor the fingered hands of Quara. They had fewer fingers than the "detached arm" from ANH. Their fingers were also a different shape: blunter, thicker, ending in big talons.
They were clearly not Aquala, nor Quara.

Along came the original Alien Anthology.

It TOTALLY IGNORED the existence of the four-eyed Aqualish. It followed WEG, claimed there were two races: the Aquala and "near-Aqualish" Quara.

To further complicate things, along came the Ultimate Alien Anthology.

At last, the 4-eyes were given a name: Ualaq, a THIRD species.

Continuity problems got worse.

The UAA claimed there were 3 species of Aqualish. This directly contradicts ALL PREVIOUS sources claiming there are 2.

The UAA claims the Ualaq are IDENTICAL to Quara except for having 4 eyes, and even specifically says they have fingered hands just like those of Quara.

That is a blatant LIE!

The Ualaq differ from the Quara in 2 different ways (not countign the eye count):
1) Ualaq tusks are naked, appearing pincer-like and enhancing their arachnoid look; Quara tusks are covered in lumps of pinkish flesh
2) Ualaq hands feature fewer fingers than those of Quara; Ualaq hands are large, blunt, thick, with heavy talons; contrary to what UAA says, they do not have the five-fingered, human-like hands that Quara possess

Another discrepancy:
1) All previous sources indicated Aquala were the highest caste of Aqualish society. The Imperial Senator from Ando (in TME) was an Aquala.
2) All the Ualaq seen in the prequels are Ualaq. The Andoan senator to the Republic (who joins the CIS), Po Nudo, is Ualaq, as are all his aides (actually, one of them is a Shi'ido imposter). HNN news reveals the loyalist Senator of Andosha II is also Ualaq. Why are Ualaq serving as Senatrs if Aquala are the top caste of society who look down their noses at Ualaq and Quara?

As you can see, this continuity error has grown larger and larger over the years. Each movie makes it worse. Each attempted fix by the EU only compounds and enlarge the error. THese aren't continuity fixes, they are continuity breaks!

My solution would have been to simply acknowledge the detached arm as a goof and only have two races, Aquala and Ualaq; say Ponda is an Aquala; and never invent the Quara race.

Since the UE has firmly established the existence of Quara, and Ponda as a Quara, I instead have this soulution:

Ponda is a hairy-fingered Quara. Since Aquala are higher-caste, he disguises himself as an Aquala by wearing fake "flipperhand" gloves. When OB1 chops off his arm, hi

 

"Why does this "fix" not work? B/c on ANH, the finned Aqualish and fingered Aqualish we see are the SAME INDIVIDUAL, Ponda Baba! Explain to me, how did he magically change from an Aquala to a Quara at the exact moment the lightsabre cut off his arm? Two different species "created" by WEG from ONE character?"

It wasn't intended as an explanation to fix Ponda Baba's issue, however they thought it would be fun to create two species aqualish from that goof, IIRC.

As for 4 eyes species, you should check out Visual Dictionary for yet another explanation, calling them "Mutant Aqualish with second pair of eyes", based on apparently, "Nuclear-Waste" handling.

Which doesn't explain why the Aqualish senators would have handled toxic waste before becoming senators, ...

 

Well, the mutant thing makes more sense to me than a separate race.

But UAA still says they have hands just like those of Quara.

They DO NOT!

Well, if mutants can become senators in the Republic, I guess we can't expect any X-Men type spinoff plots in the GFFA

 

I'm assuming they mean that the mutation was passed on from generation to generation.

 

It must be. THe HNN clearly shows an Ualaq family, and the kid has four eyes like his parents.

 

Ponda is a hairy-fingered Quara. Since Aquala are higher-caste, he disguises himself as an Aquala by wearing fake "flipperhand" gloves. When OB1 chops off his arm, his glove fallsoff, revealing his true hand.

You know you're a geek when you start coming up with continuity fixes this complicated.

 

Doesnt really surprise me. These are exactly the type of threads I expect to see around here these days. Personally I think some of its due to NJO withdrawal as well as the fact that SQ came and went and the next new novel isnt due out until June.

 

Well the implication of the mutant thing is contrasted with info about the certain aqualish also being a Nuclear Waste handler next to to it.

 

I think the short and simple answer is this: GL and his crew made a mistake in ANH and at the time they didn't know even if the movie was going to become as popular and as good as it did, so they probably just left it be. And then when the SWT (Star Wars Trilogy) became very popular, GL probably smacked himself in the head, thinking that he should of fixed that. We have to remember, that GL himself said that they were running on a limited bugdet, so they couldn't fix everything. I won't be surpised, if this topic creates enough of a disruption to reach GL's ears, that the issue is explained on the DVD release of the SWT.

 

You know, I think in all this excitement, we're missing the true victims in all of this: the children.

Which is why I've started the International Foundation for Children's Aqualish Awareness.

Sure, it's easy to look away; To say, "what could I possibly do to help". But by in the time it takes to finish reading this post, another innocent child will have mistook Ponda Baba's hand for a flipper.

Do you really want to live in a world where an entire generation cannot tell the difference between an Aquala and a Quara hand? I know I don't. So please, instead of turning away from the problem, do something about it.

For as little as 79 cents a day, you too can sponser a child. It may not seem like much, but this donation will go a long way in educating your sponsered child about the realities of Aqualish speciation.

Together, we can make a difference.

 

Rogue Ten, I forgot, but what's the current exchange rate between US dollars and GFFA credits?

Differing numbers of digits on the limbs maybe to Aqualish what eye, hair, and skin color and wisdom teeth are to us.

 

Perhaps it wasn't Ponda Baba's hand that Obi-wan cut off?

There we go, continuity problem fixed. Next!

 

so, was it his /thingy/ that got lopped off?

 

I never noticed that Ponda had finned hands in the movie. I've always thought he was completely fingered.

 

Heck, are we even certain that the arm we see during ANH is Ponda's arm? For all we know, the camera simply decided to zoom in on a random arm somewhere on the ground after Obi-Wan started slicing and dicing.

(hell, this would even explain the sometimes-discussed blood. )

 

Um, hello? It's so obvious. When an Aquala Aqualish's arm gets cut off, it instantaneously transforms into a Quara Aqualish's arm. It's a defense mechanism. That way, the arm has fingers and can fight back by pinching the attacker into submission.

In fact, the entire Quara race is actually Aqualish zombies; sewn-together and reanimated parts of dead Aqualas.

Duh!

 

That wasn't a serious fix, it was just a joke.

Yeah, we DEFINITELY need a new novel to discuss. At least an RPG book. Anything.

But the Aqualish thing has always kinda bugged me. To me, this screams out, "We never acknowledge sometimes SW has flubs, so we make lame continuity fixes that DON"T ACTUALLY WORK!!!!!!"

We could also get into Twi'leks, Gran, Nikto, Quarren, and other races.

Gran have five fingers in ROTJ, six in prequels.

Nikto and Quarren have human-like hands in ROTJ, weird clawe alien talons in prequels.

Bib Fortuna and all female Twi'leks have human-like hands, ROTJ and prequels, but Orn Free Taa has weird alien talons with fewer fingers.

The Rancor has "I love Mom" tatooed on his left shoulder in early shots, but this is missing in close-ups. OK, I'm lying about the close-ups.

And those are just movie mess-ups. That's not even touching on EU messups. I know this is an EU forum, but really, the EU is so HUGE I think we can forgive a few goofs. There are only so many movies, goofs are less forgiveable to me in the movies.

You may thing it is strange WI've noticed all that, but being a nature addict, and loving to go to zoos and birwatching, I notice some anatomical details. I love to look at aliens and try to figure out their RPG stats before the official stats come out. SO yeah, I do notice things like that.

Did you know Pacithhip have more than two nostrils? Check it out.

 

ironically, i just bought and read the WOTC Alien Anthology today (Gamekeeper stores going out of business 40% off!)... i thought it odd that they forgot to mention the 4 eyed ones..

perhaps the 4-eyed variety are a relatively new subspecies due to mutation after several generations of mutagenic waste handlers passed on defects to their offspring, and so aren't fully listed in most sources as serious xenobiologists don't consider them a full species as they feel that the mutant variety will go extinct as they continue to mutate and eventually will break down..
.... or the arkanians have been monkeying around again!

rogue 10 .. where do i send my 79 centicreds?

 

As I recall, Alien Anthology actually came out a year before Attack of the Clones (first source to put 4-eyed aqualish in prominent foreground positions in scenes). Which is why it doesn't have anything on 4 eyed aqualish, because either they didn't exist in TPM, or more likely they are very hard to see, so the EU writers overlooked them.

As for 4-eyed aqualish in TPM which scenes exactly?

I do remember though that 4 eyed aqualish weren't pointed out by LFL until articles released around the time of AOTC, or sourcebooks reffering to certain aqualish characters in AOTC, as if they hadn't noticed them before.

 

JawaJames: Send all donations to Sally Struthers the Hutt.

 

Was there a few Aqualish in KOTOR? Not as ubiquitous as the endless Rodian/Twi'leks, but I think there were some here and there. I just saw some on the way to Yavin Station, pictured in those little breaks between scenes.

 

I believe you meet a few of them at Taris as well.

 

if alien anthology came out a year before AOTC, that would put it at 2001. in the year 2000, Decipher's Young Jedi CCG uses a 4-eyed Aqualish in the Battle of Naboo expansion:

[image=http://www.decipher.com/youngjedi/cardlists/battleofnaboo/dark/images/91aqualishgalacticsenator.gif]

Presumably, since it came out in 2000, Decipher was using images from TPM.

Bib Fortuna: {i]I never noticed that Ponda had finned hands in the movie. I've always thought he was completely fingered. [/i]
I'm not sure if you can actually see the hands in the movie, however the same costume was used in the holiday special, which may have been more clear in the type of hands. Finally, several production stills (from either the ANH set or the Holiday Special) have made their way into various books, including the Alien Anthology, showing finny hands.

btw, i found a pic online of the aqualish senators:
[image=http://www.artoosnews.com/artooscustoms/imagearchive/images/characters/episode1/aqualish_senators.jpg]

 

So apparently decipher noticed it (or at least published the picture without noticing there were more than 2 eyes), but it took longer for other EU licenses to pick up on it (explaining the weird articles around the release of AOTC discussing AOTC aqualish production art and info as if AOTC was the original source for that style)?

 

How about this: a single species!

In ANH Ponda Boba had his 2nd pair of eyes closed the whole time.

Aqualish have special appendages in which a flipper can extend from the wrist and enclose the fingered hand, and the flipper is not extended when relaxed (i.e. arm removed from shoulder via lightsaber).