Random Star Wars Thoughts

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Cut to Bastion, the Imperial capital. Zoom in on the Imperial Palace, an unusual cross between a pyramid and a Gothic cathedral, all black except for the red Imperial flag decorations, and studded with spires. Cut to the tallest central spire:

A black armored figure, a Knight of the Sith, kneels before a man in his thirties with brown eyes and long dark hair. He should be handsome, but something is unsettling about him.

“It is just as you foretold in your wisdom, Master. The Jedi took the bait.”
“Excellent,” replies Darth Cadeus. “Take your ship, the Cleanser, and head to …”
“But Master, you said I could be part of the fleet that will be dealing with the Jedi Temple,” Darth Viral interrupts.
Darth Cadeus’s brow narrows as he flexes his hand on this lightsaber. Tempting, but there is no one else available for the task. He releases his grip.
“If you should complete your mission, you will have leave to join the rest of the fleet. Go to the Teriais system, and obliterate the rebel base. No quarter for those who aid and shelter insurgents, either. Most importantly, your task is to deal with any Jedi saboteurs you can encounter.’’
“Saboteurs,” laughs Viral. “As though any Jedi could make it past the defenses of my ship, with their feeble light-side abilities.”
Cadeus is tempted again. This ignorant cur is testing his patience. Viral was the youngest of his knights, not even twenty years old.
Cadeus cannot help but raise his voice: “The Jedi will certainly try to infiltrate your ship. You have never faced a Jedi. Do not underestimate them and do not fail me. Eliminate them, or bring them before me. If you fail me in this, joining the fleet will be the least of your worries.”
Viral finally gets the point.
“Yes, my liege.”
“Rise.”
Viral rises and exits the Supreme Leader’s chambers.

Caedus sighs in exasperation. Some day he would find a proper apprentice. They could also take on the task of managing these vermin, surely, but they would also be his equal. Someone capable of grasping and appreciating his plans for the galaxy. Someone who could understand what his doddering uncle never could. His uncle and those fools at his temple claimed to value peace, but what they never understood was that there was only one path to peace, only one way to the greater good. Building structures on the mold-covered peel of the Old Republic was no way to secure a better future for anyone. No one but him knew the magnificence of Palpatine’s genius. He alone understood what Palpatine was trying to accomplish, and this time there would be no traitorous grandfather to stand in his way.

Darth Viral may be dumb, but many canonical Sith names are just as dumb. I think it suits the character

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

A part of me says I wish it had stayed a silent movie.
Star Wars names are just rough.
The deeper you go the more you can tell people were just using place holders of nonsense that just never got update.​

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

A part of me says I wish it had stayed a silent movie.
Star Wars names are just rough.
The deeper you go the more you can tell people were just using place holders of nonsense that just never got update.​

Having written my own stuff in this universe now, I think this must be exactly what was happening. Personal names in Star Wars are odd because sometimes they are normal Earth names like Ben or Luke, and sometimes they aren't. When I was thinking of good non-Earth names, I decided that Jyn was a good name, and I decided to reuse it.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Pretty much he's the only thing giving interest and direction to all of this. Sometimes he's a little on the nose, but he seems to be enjoying himself so much that he's fun to watch.

Yes, exactly. There are moments in Episode III that are particular on the nose, but even those I've come to appreciate. Palpatine is ecstatic with glee because he knows he's winning, and he can finally stop putting up with these loathsome Jedi.

Yeah.... That. It's kind of insulting, considering what a big deal she was in the first film supposedly.

Hilariously, there are so many spins on all this. Like, if GRRM had written The Phantom Menace, I bet he would have killed the actual Padme and had her body double ascend to the throne and pretend for the rest of the narrative that she was the real Padme. It certainly would be more interesting, lol. Or at least there would be rumors of it.

There were a lot of theories about clones after the first film came out, given how much there was about body doubles and that there was some kind of clone war. One popular theory was that the Palpatine in Episode one was not the Palpatine we knew in Return of the Jedi. Instead, Darth Sidious was actually a clone of Palpatine who took over, pretending to be the original Palpatine. There were countless variations on this.

I think it's just ironic that out of the multitude of story decisions that could have been taken, Lucas seems to continually pick the least interesting or most boring options available.

Yes, unfortunately.

Agreed. Also -- one line doesn't save a really slop of a narrative. It would be a great line if it were the culmination of a lot of lesser ones and incremental steps, but I think it's just something you read a MAGA posting on Twitter and snort because of no underlying context.



That is such a great way to say it. Creativity needs constant influx of new material and ideas, synthesis with external things. Disney is just inbreeding Star Wars at this point, and the young are all dying at birth from fatal mutations and inability to thrive.

Yeah. But I'll probably give the Acolyte a spin (the first two episodes, anyway), and see what I think. Some of these later trailers are leaning less heavily on the incestuous elements, which is getting me to at least give it a chance.

It got such great reviews. I remember when the Richard Chamberlain version was so big. I know I had the book, I just can't remember whether I actually read it at the time (the miniseries rolled out in 1980, I was barely a tween). But I should definitely watch this new version.

I watched an episode or two of that in history class in high school and I was disappointed I never got to learn how the rest of the story went. I mostly know Chamberlain for those awful Alan Quatermain movies which were Cannon's attempt to capture that Indiana Jones magic; but Chamberlain really wasn't what was wrong with those movies from what I recall.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well here's a rehash of a main "prequels" problem -- too much green screen.

“I didn’t rate him that much as a director, really”: Superman Actor Will Never Forgive George Lucas for Not Letting Him Share the Screen With Natalie Portman in Star Wars

Terence Stamp once revealed that his collaboration with George Lucas on Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) had not gone well.

fandomwire.com

Terrence Stamp complains that instead of getting to act with Portman, he had to act against a piece of paper taped to the wall. He had mainly taken the role to do some scenes with her.

This probably goes a long way to explaining flat performances.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Well here's a rehash of a main "prequels" problem -- too much green screen.

“I didn’t rate him that much as a director, really”: Superman Actor Will Never Forgive George Lucas for Not Letting Him Share the Screen With Natalie Portman in Star Wars

Terence Stamp once revealed that his collaboration with George Lucas on Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) had not gone well.

fandomwire.com

Terrence Stamp complains that instead of getting to act with Portman, he had to act against a piece of paper taped to the wall. He had mainly taken the role to do some scenes with her.

This probably goes a long way to explaining flat performances.

I remember him complaining about that after the movie came out. I think a lot of those other British actors were quite upset by the experience. Hugh Quarshie (Captain Panaka) also comes to mind; you'll notice his role in 2 and 3 is replaced by a different character.

 

[The Cat]

What makes Cuttlefish so strong in the Force?

Squiddyclorians.

 

[Totenkindly]

Glad to actually see a balanced review rather than the smarmy hype that saturated last week.

The New Star Wars Show Reveals the Problem With the Whole Star Wars Universe

The Acolyte follows what’s become a familiar pattern.

slate.com

We know from the beginning that Osha’s doppelgänger is out to kill Jedi—four of them in particular, including one played by Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss, although she doesn’t seem unduly concerned about how many other bodies she drops along the way. And for a while, The Acolyte indulges the idea that her quest might be a just and even righteous one. A century before the rise of the Empire, as the series’ opening crawl tells us, the Jedi are scouring the universe looking for potential padawans, children to take in and teach their ancient ways. But the lack of a clear and commensurate enemy seems to have allowed a bit of mission creep. If the Jedi aren’t fighting a force of equal and opposite strength, they’re just the space police, and that leaves open the possibility that they might occasionally be on the wrong side. When the story takes us back to Osha’s childhood, in a flashback episode helmed by After Yang and Columbus director Kogonada, we’re teased with a truly radical idea, maybe the most potentially world-shifting since The Last Jedi: What if the Jedi aren’t the only ones capable of harnessing the Force, and what if there are other, equally valid, ways of drawing the line between light and dark? Could the Jedi be … the bad guys​

Unfortunately, the answer, at least thus far, seems to be no. The show pulls back from its most audacious possibilities in a way that suggests the heavy hand of brand management, chipping away at anything that might rock the boat. There’s a pattern here, a desire to shake things up followed by a fear of the consequences. It’s how you get the audacity of The Last Jedi followed by the reversion to mean of The Rise of Skywalker, how you go from Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Solo to Ron Howard’s Solo. It’s how The Mandalorian starts off as an adventure-of-the-week show blissfully unencumbered by lore, only to accrue more and more of it; how it wound up surrounded by prequels and spinoffs instead of self-contained stories. Overpromise, underdeliver. (May the Force be with Andor Season 2.)

The Acolyte tries to carve out its own territory. There are some cool fight scenes, including one centered on the Jedi master Sol, played by Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae, but despite the reported $180 million budget, it’s a show that shrinks the world rather than expanding it, blowing its money on lavish set pieces rather than building out environments for us to inhabit. The Acolyte acts like it’s swinging for the fences, but when the time comes, the best it can manage is a bunt.

 

[The Cat]

The best thing laser swords and mind powers could do for themselves is find a new series where they arent wasted on the same three scenes over and over again.

Sword Presentation
Sword Fighting that will take a hand.
Sword Loss/Recovery

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Glad to actually see a balanced review rather than the smarmy hype that saturated last week.

The New Star Wars Show Reveals the Problem With the Whole Star Wars Universe

The Acolyte follows what’s become a familiar pattern.

slate.com

What I expected, but disappointing nonetheless.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I watched the first scene.

It goes the way you expect, meaning that the main draw is out of the picture pretty quickly. Too bad, because I thought the mixture of arrogance and compassion the character had was interesting. Parts of it seemed "fake" to me, but it seems like at least it's better than the Book of Boba Fett. Anyway, if I'm a good boy tonight, I'm going to watch Shogun.

 

[Totenkindly]

Yeah, I watched it too, then turned it off. It mostly feels like "Star Wars as Always" to me, honestly. The fight scenes were mostly choreographed better, mainly when the girl was taking on the rest of the people at the table. But it's like every fucking Star Wars starts with the old joke caveat, "A Jedi and an opponent walk into a bar..." except of course this bar is populated by a weird assortment of unsettling but cuddly aliens.

I really hate really dumb world-building. Like the scroll talking about how there had been "centuries" of peace. Like, seriously? Centuries? Has mankind ever had "centuries" of peace ever? What does that even look like? And if you have centuries of peace, why would the Jedi be trained as warriors? They would be poets and writers and artists mostly. If the world is a dangerous place, then the Jedi could be justified in their focus on physical warfare. Or if they PERCEIVE the world as potentially deadly and they are the policemen who keep things in check, then yes as well ("I carry a big stick so as to deter open conflict" or the "H-Bomb" approach to peacekeeping)... but then it's not really peace, it's just the Jedi keeping the lid of the boiling kettle from blowing off by quietly removing overt threats or intimidating society into submission.

I would hope the series actually is willing to explore this.

The end of that fight was a disappointment. How was that move not anticipated? I saw it coming a mile away and I'm not in physical shape or a Jedi with the Force enabling me to read my opponent.

I think at this point I can't deal with another cookie-cutter Star Wars story. How many times will they tell the same story over and over?

 

[Totenkindly]

10 best Star Wars shows ever, ranked

In honor of The Acolyte streaming on Disney+, we're taking a look back at the 10 best Star Wars shows ever, and counting down until we reach No. 1.

www.yahoo.com

lol. Well tell us things we don't know next time. (Mando might not be in agreed-on position for some, however.)

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, I watched it too, then turned it off. It mostly feels like "Star Wars as Always" to me, honestly. The fight scenes were mostly choreographed better, mainly when the girl was taking on the rest of the people at the table. But it's like every fucking Star Wars starts with the old joke caveat, "A Jedi and an opponent walk into a bar..." except of course this bar is populated by a weird assortment of unsettling but cuddly aliens.

I really hate really dumb world-building. Like the scroll talking about how there had been "centuries" of peace. Like, seriously? Centuries? Has mankind ever had "centuries" of peace ever? What does that even look like? And if you have centuries of peace, why would the Jedi be trained as warriors? They would be poets and writers and artists mostly. If the world is a dangerous place, then the Jedi could be justified in their focus on physical warfare. Or if they PERCEIVE the world as potentially deadly and they are the policemen who keep things in check, then yes as well ("I carry a big stick so as to deter open conflict" or the "H-Bomb" approach to peacekeeping)... but then it's not really peace, it's just the Jedi keeping the lid of the boiling kettle from blowing off by quietly removing overt threats or intimidating society into submission.

I would hope the series actually is willing to explore this.

The end of that fight was a disappointment. How was that move not anticipated? I saw it coming a mile away and I'm not in physical shape or a Jedi with the Force enabling me to read my opponent.

I think at this point I can't deal with another cookie-cutter Star Wars story. How many times will they tell the same story over and over?

The years of peace thing didn't bother me. I want to offer my take on it, and hopefully, I can do so without starting a flame war. Perhaps that had been made possible by the Jedi, which we don't have on Earth. Of course, I doubt they will ever get around to showing us exactly how this works, though.

It's also probably more of a relative peace. I'm assuming there are crime lords and other sorts. There was a book released a few years ago called Light of the Jedi which I really enjoyed (more than some of these D+ shows, for sure); it was set before this and had the Jedi working in disaster relief, and showed that each Jedi had a unique way of understanding the Force which was so cool. At the end, it turned out somebody had deliberately caused the disaster. That was all meant to be in a period of peace. There are other books in this series which I haven't read, but probably should.

I don't see why the Jedi can't train for war but also study other things. Ene had a cool quote about how it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war that makes me think of this.

I mean, I didn't like what I saw of the show, but that crawl wasn't why.

I didn't like the show because they killed off the character that I thought was the most promising. It felt like she was just there so they could do, "hey, what if we combined the Matrix and Star Wars." I see that they did that. Now what?

How DO you mention people these days?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It's hard to pick between Andor Season 1 and the Mandalorian Season 1. I think after Season 1, the show gradually became too focused on Baby Yoda; the show became a victim of its own success. They had a popular new character, so everything had to be about that new character. What was interesting about Season 1 was that it was the story of this hardened mercenary finding his softer side, a little like Han Solo in the first film.

Season 3 ends with a big battle that looks really cool, but I have to stop and wonder why I'm not enjoying it. I think it's because I find it hard to care about anything that's happening. I should love that I'm seeing the good Mandalorians and the bad Mandalorians fight each other, but I don't.

 

[The Cat]

It's hard to pick between Andor Season 1 and the Mandalorian Season 1. I think after Season 1, the show gradually became too focused on Baby Yoda; the show became a victim of its own success. They had a popular new character, so everything had to be about that new character. What was interesting about Season 1 was that it was the story of this hardened mercenary finding his softer side, a little like Han Solo in the first film.

Season 3 ends with a big battle that looks really cool, but I have to stop and wonder why I'm not enjoying it. I think it's because I find it hard to care about anything that's happening. I should love that I'm seeing the good Mandalorians and the bad Mandalorians fight each other, but I don't.

Ive come to realize that if you want to understand how Star Wars keeps happening as it does, you gotta look at it from a marketing and merchandising perspective. Whatever the most people want to buy and put on their shelf is what moves the monster. Everything else is just the cost of doing business.