Star Wars Megathread

[Habbaku]

Building hundreds of hidden Star Destroyers ain't cheap, buddy.

[Valmy]

I want that Star Wars: The Imperial Bureaucrat show.

[Habbaku]

An entire show centered around guys like the speeder-bike scouts BSing with one-another or Imperial bureaucrats carping about the number of old passcodes still in the system would go along great with me.

[The Larch]

I want that Star Wars: The Imperial Bureaucrat show.

The Office, but set in the Death Star's HR department.

[Barrister]

An entire show centered around guys like the speeder-bike scouts BSing with one-another or Imperial bureaucrats carping about the number of old passcodes still in the system would go along great with me.

That scene was awesome.

I wonder if you could get away with an entire show set from the POV of lower-ranking Imperial troops.  The kind of guys who just want to make it home to see their kids, but without glamourizing "the dark side".  Probably not, but might be interesting.

[The Minsky Moment]

Building hundreds of hidden Star Destroyers ain't cheap, buddy.

There's a reason why no one wants imperial credits in the Mandalorian and it's not just regime change. Too much quantitative easing and monetizing the deficit.

[Habbaku]

Building hundreds of hidden Star Destroyers ain't cheap, buddy.

There's a reason why no one wants imperial credits in the Mandalorian and it's not just regime change. Too much quantitative easing and monetizing the deficit.

I was thinking something similar.

[celedhring]

Relevant to the discussion of work safety while working for the Empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA

[Barrister]

Relevant to the discussion of work safety while working for the Empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA

I just knew this was going to be from Clerks.

[celedhring]

I know it's not as funny anymore, but when Clerks came out seeing a movie making a Star Wars joke was pretty awesome.

[viper37]

Finally to around to seeing it. I don't get the hate for it.

Palpatine was never in the plans from the beginning.  It was a last minute addon from JJ Abrams, and it shows.
C'mon.  In RotJ, he gets vaporized as his body his thrown in the Death Star's generator.  Coming back as a Force ghost is possible and has had numerous examples of it done in the EU and the canon movies&tv series.  Coming back in flesh&bones is ridiculous.

That Palpatine could secretely ammass an entire fleet of planet killer star destroyers with no means at all?  How did he do that?  These things don't come out of the void. AFAIK, the last Star Destroyer producing machine in the world was destroyed in KOTOR 1

There could have been cloning vats for the Stormtroopers, that's been done before and it's plausible.

Using force lightning to destroy so many ships should be very taxing.  See how he changed from "Senator Palpatine" to "Emperor Palpatine" when he used forced lightning on Mace Windu in Ep #3.  How, in his decrepit state, could he have come up with the energy to do such a thing?
Mind you, manipulating large objects on a grand scale has been done before in the EU, but it did kill its user.

And so many incoherent plots.  Like, that Death Star Ruins: "We've searched for it but never been able to locate it".  Oh yeah, like, a giant ball of steel exploding over a planet would leave ruins scattered over the galaxy???  C'mon.  It's a wreck, it didn't travel elsewhere by itself.  It's on Endor or one of its moon.

It's got a light touch, daring-do, sense of fun.

Not enough.  Not like "I love you" - "I know" of Han and Leia in the face of danger, say.

It's very Star Warsy and isn't that the point?

Not really.

The narrative is a bit of a mess but that's always been true from 1-8, why worry now? 

No.  1-3 suffer from poor character development.  Lucas was great at planning a story, bad at telling it.  When it gets into the micro details of how to tell the story, he wasn't up to it.  The big picture, how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader was great, but how Anakin besomes Vader in 5 seconds was bad.

The Expanded Universe (Legend, now), has done as much better job at telling the fall of a character, from light side to dark side.

[viper37]

but without glamourizing "the dark side".  Probably not, but might be interesting.

non Jedi don't glamour the dark side. They glamour order   Just like the average Nazi didn't glamour the Holocaust and the civilian executions, they glamoured for the order restored.

[Barrister]

Finally to around to seeing it. I don't get the hate for it.

Palpatine was never in the plans from the beginning.  It was a last minute addon from JJ Abrams, and it shows.
C'mon.  In RotJ, he gets vaporized as his body his thrown in the Death Star's generator.  Coming back as a Force ghost is possible and has had numerous examples of it done in the EU and the canon movies&tv series.  Coming back in flesh&bones is ridiculous.

Stolen from another web site, but it sort of makes sense:

First of all, Force Ghosts are really a Jedi thing.  No idea if a Sith has ever come back in that way.

But more generally, the idea is that Palpatine isn't really Palpatine (at least when we first see him).  He's a projection of the All Sith - the vast group of the spirits/projections of the former Sith that we see in the shadows.  As the Dark Side is a part of the Force, and will always be a part of the Force, it was a projection of the Dark side that really just took the form of Palpatine.

That's why 'Palpatine's' goals seem so nebulous and ever-changing.  First he wants Kylo Ren to kill Rey - so that he fully becomes Sith (ahd the All Sith can be one with him).  Then he wants Rey to kill 'Palpatine' - so the All Sith can be one with Rey.  And finally, when both Rey and Kylo reject him, it is only after he drains their life force that Palpatine assume a more physical form, and only then that he can start to manipulate the force himself.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Empire Strikes Back is regarded by many as the pinnacle of the SW films and for good reason.  But the narrative is a mess and plot holes are cavernous. If you actually try to describe the plot to someone who never saw SW it would sound nuts.  The Rebels, fresh with the momentum of destroying the Empire's secret weapon and killing the top imperial minister, hole up in an remote, indefensible and logistically nightmarish ice planet where they are discovered through the simple expedient of sending a cheap probe. Rather than simply nuking the pathetic base from orbit using their vast fleet, the Empire implements a pointlessly complex ground assault using the worst designed AFVs in the history of any known universe, thus allowing sufficient time for the copiously plot armored protagonists to escape. The movie then splits into two plots: a getaway gone wrong with most of the main characters while the lead character (and audience) suffers through barrages of grammatically mangled koans delivered by a wrinkled muppet with a chronic throat condition.  The interlude proves to be mere time wasting as lead character belatedly rushes away to save the others, negating the purpose of the training that took up most of the previous hour.  After battling the Black Codpieced Bad Guy in a series of sets that --  like the Death Star in the original film --  appear like they were designed by a 10 year old that got bored with his erector set and quit halfway through, we get the big reveal: in a vast galaxy of quadrillions of people it just so coincidentally happens that hero and villain are related!  Then as our hero is on the verge of perishing he is saved by space ghosts to rejoin a vast mobile rebel armada . . . the existence of which makes pointless the whole Hoth base business that started things off.

See its easy to make it all seem silly through analysis.

[Valmy]

The Empire Strikes Back is regarded by many as the pinnacle of the SW films and for good reason.  But the narrative is a mess and plot holes are cavernous. If you actually try to describe the plot to someone who never saw SW it would sound nuts.

Except that has zero to do with why the other movies don't work for me. The plot and whatever holes it has are usually not the problem. Basic narrative structure, having some sort of internal logic that get you involved in the story, stakes, characters...all that stuff. You know, the shit that actually matters when telling a story.

The Rebels, fresh with the momentum of destroying the Empire's secret weapon and killing the top imperial minister, hole up in an remote, indefensible and logistically nightmarish ice planet where they are discovered through the simple expedient of sending a cheap probe.

Because the Empire knew where their base was so they went to some remote place hoping to not be noticed. Darth Vader used his voodoo Sith shit to know that the probe droid had found them. In this universe it is well established the magical Force stuff gives its users intuitive knowledge.

Rather than simply nuking the pathetic base from orbit using their vast fleet, the Empire implements a pointlessly complex ground assault using the worst designed AFVs in the history of any known universe, thus allowing sufficient time for the copiously plot armored protagonists to escape.

Because they had some kind of shield thing. This is all well accounted for, once more, in the basic plot structure and points in the film. I don't know does it make sense in some weird military analysis of the technological capabilities of fantasy star ships? I don't know. But it is adequately explained in the internal world of the film. I get it if I watch the film, that is what is needed not some advanced military analysis of fake fictional empires.

The movie then splits into two plots: a getaway gone wrong with most of the main characters while the lead character (and audience) suffers through barrages of grammatically mangled koans delivered by a wrinkled muppet with a chronic throat condition.

I mean fair enough, maybe Yoda is too goofy looking. But they already set up that he was going to seek out this Jedi Master dude earlier. The fact that Yoda is this goofy little puppet has a narrative and character purpose that is blatantly obvious. The Force(tm) makes even goofy little puppets strong and don't judge him by size. He says those things AND shows you. So they both show and tell. I fail to see how anybody would miss those story beats.

As for the getaway gone wrong well they already set up that Harrison Ford's spaceship was broken somehow so again it was told as one would normally expect a story to be told. Now they don't bother to tell you WHY his stupid ship is broken but lots of time has passed since the first film so you just sort of figure something happened in there.

The interlude proves to be mere time wasting as lead character belatedly rushes away to save the others, negating the purpose of the training that took up most of the previous hour.

I disagree. I mean they blatantly hit you over the head setting up the final battle during that time. It has a narrative purpose and explains the stakes. Now maybe you think it is boring shit but there is a logic to it.

After battling the Black Codpieced Bad Guy in a series of sets that --  like the Death Star in the original film --  appear like they were designed by a 10 year old that got bored with his erector set and quit halfway through, we get the big reveal: in a vast galaxy of quadrillions of people it just so coincidentally happens that hero and villain are related!

Well it is random space shit. You just presume it all does magical space stuff. As for the reveal, well shit like that happens in fiction all the time. And again they set it up a bit by talking about the main characters dad before. You know, information that actually serves a narrative purpose. 

Then as our hero is on the verge of perishing he is saved by space ghosts to rejoin a vast mobile rebel armada . . .

I mean based on what you have been told before about the magic in this world it wasn't too ridiculous. However no space ghost appeared in that scene. But hey it has been a long time so...whatever.

the existence of which makes pointless the whole Hoth base business that started things off.

Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares? Maybe it makes perfect sense based on the intricacies of space military strategy. However, the already set it up narratively that the rebels were regrouping at some secret rendez-vous point and there it is.

See its easy to make it all seem silly through analysis.

Through really nerdy analysis of space military strategy I guess. But the overwhelming majority of people who have seen a movie before and know how fiction works and how stories are told should have no problem following all the beats. And it is in those areas that the prequels and the recent trilogy don't work for me, not the space magic or space military technological realism or the logistics of having a secret planet destroying base or whatever.

I mean let's take [spoiler]Palpatine returning in the recent trilogy. Now does that make sense? Is that a plothole? I mean not really, the Sith are basically magical space wizards. And they even set up that they can prevent death in a previous film. But as a narrative story telling beat this just fucking sucks. The whole plot of the six previous films was that Darth Vader was supposed to fulfill this big prophecy to kill the Emperor. Then they bring him back? Lazy story telling. Hate it. We already did that and it serves no narrative purpose besides lazily getting to avoid telling a new story.[/spoiler] But again go back and read my previous post on this. The whole way they told the story was incompetently told like a hack cable TV show and the characters didn't work for me. I don't care about plot holes and thinking through space magic and space strategy. Just tell a good story that has some point to it.

But anyway the whole "well the original movies sucked to you must like the new one since you liked that one!" game was played 20 years ago with the prequels. It was nonsense then and it is nonsense now.