Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Even like, Palpatine? Snoke? Grand Moff Tarkin? There's some pretty 1 dimension, mustache-twirling villains in Star Wars.

Also, that Deadline article is wrong. You can watch the actual interview, and the bit about Kylo Ren's arc starts around the 7:32 mark:

In the interview he said "Rian took it in a different direction, but it still tracked [with the arc Abrams pitched]" and then says "in the last one, it changed," aka the Rise of Skywalker.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

still boggles my mind that after so many decades they didn't approach the sequel trilogy with a completely filled out 3 movie arc. what a wasted opportunity for everyone involved.

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I guess I should have said any characters that got actual development, rather than acting more as plot devices. Star Wars has always had an explicit counterculture bent, and of course decrepit white guys are going to be the ones that need to be overthrown in that sort of story.

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We're usually in pretty solid lockstep, but I am totally against the idea of redemption for characters like Vader or Kylo Ren.

I've lead the corrupt fascist regime that literally destroyed planets, murdered billions of people, and committed who knows how many genocides . . . but you like my family! Besides, it may have all just been a misunderstanding. I may have made some tiny little mistakes.



https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...c60990b5c7.gif

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

So based on Adam Driver's comments, it's entirely likely that Kylo Ren would have survived to cause havoc in another trilogy had they stayed the course. An anti-redemption arc would have been a refreshing change of pace for this franchise. And it makes sense, given all the "balance" talks in the prequels. If there is to he balance, once the Light prevailed at the end of ROTJ, the Dark would need to reassert itself.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

That's not what "balance" means in the context of the Force -- at least when the idea was introduced in the Prequels (and who knows what it means in the Disney era).

The Force is in balance when it's in harmony. The Dark Side (and the Sith) introduce disharmony and imbalance. It's not supposed to be like a Yin-Yang where the black and white are equal. (Though this concept was never clearly explained in the Prequels, it's there in a couple of lines of dialog.)

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Thanks for the clarification. Given Yoda had mentioned (in response to Obi Wan asking "isn't [Anakin] meant to bring balance to the Force?") in Episode II that the prophecy might have been misread, I took it to mean the Jedi were misguided in expecting Anakin to side with the Light. Yin-Yang, as you said. I wasn't aware that Light = Harmony/Balance and Dark = Disharmony/Unbalance in SW lore.

EDIT: However, Light and Dark needing to coexist was the original endgame of the ST, before Trevorrow was fired.

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Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Yeah the whole "balance" and "rule of two" are more nonsense trying to over explain things that didn't need to be explained. See also, midichlorians. There are good guys and bad guys, just like real life. That's it. The rest is noise.

I've been watching all things Star Wars in chronological order with my teen and now we have Inquisitors, which one, are a lame concept, and two a direct result of the "rule of two." So we now have characters that are over explaining the over explanation.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

"Equal" and "balance" are not the same thing as 50/50 in this context. I like the way you put it as a "state of harmony," but I may disagree with some of your idea (if I am reading it correctly). Harmony does not mean ALL IS GOOD, it means all exists in a mutual state. That does not mean two things are equal (a concept lost in modern American politics, sorry for that slight digression, but it is relevant in the light of this conversation). Annihilating the Dark Side and wiping it out completely is NOT balance. A character embracing or rejecting one "side is NOT what the Force strives for.

The prophecy of Anakin, or The One, to bring balance to the Force is accurate. However, as "people" are apt to do, he pushes too far back, tipping the imbalance the other way. There is plenty of text and subtext about how the Jedi Council has gone too far, become too lax, and lost its ways. Anakin, or The One, was meant to bring that back. He WAS NOT MEANT TO BE GOOD. He was meant to challenge and buck the system, to bring focus on the need to rebalance. When you only put weight on the ends of the scale, though . . .

Neither the Light nor the Dark, and especially not their religious factions (the Jedi and the Sith), are meant to be in control.

This is what Luke discovers, though instead of accepting it, he freaks out and rejects his place in the universe. After seeing his father unilaterally flipped from one extreme to another (though I still argue that), he believes that good always wins. He then sees his pupil, Ben, unilaterally flip from one extreme to the other in the other direction, and it traumatizes Luke.

Luke was trying to recreate the extreme Light faction -- to push the scale too far the other way -- and saw it blow up in his face His takeaway was that this was too big for him and he should not be meddling, so he goes in to hiding. Where as Obi Wan was hiding for his own survival, Luke was hiding to prevent more death. In another variation on that theme, Luke attempted to exert free will, the Force bitch slapped him down, and he went into exile because he knew he could not resist the temptation. (In this regard, it is a version of Frankenstein! Should he have tampered with the universe?)

From this view, the arcs that were being laid out for Rey, Luke, and Kylo Ren could have been masterful. But, you know . . . money is made in food processors.

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If the story follows the "religious-political" bent that is there, the idea of Inquisitors is not lame. However, the way they did it, they were lame, as is most of the cartoon stuff.

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If the Snoke that Kylo Ren killed was a clone what happened to the real Snoke?

Was it ever explained in a novel, comic book series, coloring book or cave painting?

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I believe the novels explained that Snoke was a cloned engineered for Palpatine as a body to possess. Same with Rey's dad. Except neither was good (Rey's dad cos he couldn't wield the Force, and Snoke because he was a botched clone, hence his deformities).

EDIT: Per Wikipedia

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

It's not my idea. This comes from Lucas himself. A long time ago, before the Clone Wars cartoon and the Disney sale, I was curious about what "balance of the Force" actually meant, looked it up, and that was his answer. A lot of people had notions about "Gray Jedi" and the Force being balanced when there an equal number of users on each side (ie, OWK and Yoda on one side, Vader and Sidious on the other), and I wanted the definitive answer.


But that is exactly the idea Lucas was going for when he made the Prequels.

The best analogy would be a body. A healthy body is in balance (or harmony, or whatever). The Force is like that body. The Dark Side is like a disease on the body. The disease (Dark Side) throws the healthy body out of balance. A healthy body is disease-free, as the balanced Force is. When the Dark Side (or disease) is introduced, it's unbalanced. Disease does not exist in balance with a healthy body; you're either disease-free or you're sick -- there is no balance between the two in that sense.

This isn't really explained outright in the movies, though. The closest it comes is in a couple of lines of dialog in Revenge of the Sith, spoken by Ob-Wan:

The first line comes during a conversation Obi-Wan is having with Mace Windu and Yoda, who both don't fully trust Anakin and Yoda believes they might be misinterpreting the prophecy. But it's spelled out that the Sith need to be destroyed to restore balance, they just don't grasp how extreme the measures to balance the Force will be.

Now, personally, I'm not really a fan of this idea within an ongoing franchise. It is, ultimately, limiting from a storytelling perspective. Once the Sith have been eliminated, the Force is balanced and you can't really bring the Sith -- or any other kind of Dark Side user for that matter -- without invalidating the story told in Episodes I-VI. At the time, Lucas wasn't really planning on extending the saga beyond ROTJ, so it didn't really matter since it was a closed story. Presumably, the Chosen One business was an ancient prophecy, which gives it a lot of weight in that universe, and they've been waiting a long time for the Force to be balanced. And, when looking at only what's up on the screen, we can ignore all of the stuff from the EU novels and comic books so we don't need to worry about Exar Kun or Darth Revan.

The Prequel Trilogy often comes off rather messy, and it feels like a lot of the things introduced were done to reconcile things we saw in the Original Trilogy and fit them into the Prequels. Like the "Rule of Two" was there to explain why there were only two Dark Side users in the OT. And George really didn't seem to know what to do with Obi-Wan and Yoda's bodies disappearing and them becoming Force Ghosts, as it didn't seem like an element he wanted to include in the movies so that wasn't brought up at all until it was handwaved away in the final minutes of the final film. Same with the midiclorians and prophecies; they're only there to provide narrative shortcuts.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

And redemption of Sith is in the Universalist vein of things like Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam. That said, I understand your viewpoint about how people would perceive genocidal dictators switching sides. I think that's part of the interesting stories possibilities.

Regarding "balance" of the Force, Lucas is drawing phrases like that from the above philosophies, which are pretty clear about the existence of evil throwing things out of balance. Taoism, one of the most direct influences on the nature of the Force, doesn't specify "evil", but does emphasize harmony as coming from a singular path. The "you need a little bad in the good side" that often gets misinterpreted through the Yin Yang symbol is really about false separation in the nature of reality and how our perceptions are limited .

Lucas' intention (and the majority of fans' understanding, according to a StarWars.com poll) of "balance in the Force" up until about 20 years ago was "evil is defeated". Then I'm guessing a fan theory about "Woah... what if Vader created balance by cutting the number of Jedi down to the same number of Sith? *bong rip*" made it to Lucas and he started thinking about that more and mentioned it to people he worked with. Even though thinking about it for 5 seconds now makes it completely dumb.


Sorry for the rant that is not aimed at you, although I disagree with your assertion that characters are supposed to use both the Dark and Light side of the Force together. The text and subtext I've always gotten is that while the Light Side is the correct one, you can't have so much rigidity, dogma, and indoctrination. That feeds into the counterculture aspects I mentioned earlier. The Ultimate Good Guy is a weirdo frog who lives off-grid in a swamp. The Hero didn't get much formal training, but had a desire to help others and a firm belief in good possibilities. Luke and Yoda's comments in The Last Jedi reaffirm that the Jedi were simply too set in their ways, but were overall on the right side.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

The Phantom Menace back in theaters for its 25th anniversary

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"Be Disappointed All Over Again" should be on the poster for the 25th rerelease.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Watching Episode 1 was one of the most memorable movies going experiences I’ve ever had…and not in a good way.

I think I’ve posted this before but there was so much energy leading up to the start of the movie. People in costumes, the theater was doing Star Wars trivia contests, everyone was in a joyous mood, then the movie started. “LucasFilm” popped up on screen and the crowd went crazy. “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…” popped up and the crowd went nuts. The Star Wars theme blasted and “Star Wars” scrolled across the screen and the theater went absolutely batshit! Then about 10 minutes in when Nute Gunray was endlessly blathering on about trade federations, New Republic bureaucracies, and trade route blockades you could literally feel the energy being sucked out of the theater. The entire audience watched the remainder of the movie in silence. By the time the movie was over you’d think the audience had just watched Schindler’s List. Everyone just solemnly shuffled out of the theater to their cars.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I don't remember if I even saw The Phantom Menace in the theater. May 1999, when this was released, I was 25 years old and early in my professional career and I don't think I went to the movies that much back then.

It's been at least 15 years since I've seen the movie even though I own it on DVD and BD.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I stupidly got caught up in the Phantom Menace hype. I bought all of the action figures and other merch before the film came out. I just recently got rid of the last of it during last summer's garage sale. I didn't fall for that shit when The Force Awakens. I waited until after it came out and bought a few things. Then The Last Jedi came out and I got rid of all of TFA crap.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I went opening day with a friend who had never seen a Star Wars film. He fell asleep about 10 minutes in and snored off and on throughout.

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I saw it 12 times in the theater back in the day and I will do what I can to see this again. This is the only prequel that is truly what George wanted on the screen and regardless of its flaws, it just feel the most honest.

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TPM was the only movie I’ve seen twice in theaters :lol:

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I actually convinced my wife to go see it with me. She had never sat and watched a Star Wars movie before. Afterwards, she asked, "That's the shit you are always carrying on about?" I said, "No. No. That was . . . I don't know what that was."

I'll admit I cried TWICE. Once when it started because it was something special to me to have Star Wars back in the world again . . . and once when it was over. Not the movie being over, but Star Wars was over. That was the death of it.

Thankfully, I was out of the toys after the POFTOO line. I think it was because I was working at Suncoast when TPM came out and I saw the massive amounts of shitty merch we were getting.

I am torn . . . I don't know if I will go to the anniversary release or not.

Whoever would have thought we would be HOPING George Lucas would mess with this and "fix" it.

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I went twice as well. First was opening night, I fell asleep an hour or so in. So I went back for a second viewing before it left theaters. I fell asleep again. I don't think I saw Anakin stealing the Naboo fighter sequence until I watched it on DVD.

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If the local theater gets The Phantom Menace I’ll probably go. I’ve gained a guilty pleasure appreciation for it over the years. I also have nostalgia for it because I was like the prime target age for it when it came out. Saw it a bunch of times and had a bunch of the toys.