Star Wars Movie and Streaming Series Discussion

The Vader comic run by Greg Pak did a great job of showing how much Palpy was constantly fucking with Vader while not getting directly into his head, which allowed the gravitas to remain. It was good stuff.
 
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Greg Pak! That was the run! I could not for the life of me remember who the writer was but the way Palpatine fucked with Vader was a really interesting turn of camera angle on their relationship.

When I call Sith religious zealots I'm really just leaning in on that dialogue from ANH by Tarkin, Han, etc. I don't think the galaxy looks at the Force as a religion the way we do in modern day Earth. I kinda wonder if, once the Jedi are gone and forgotten, people look at Force believers the way society looks at crystal girls, astrology addicts, and tarot readers. (Apologies to anyone in the room who is into crystals, astrology, or tarot.)
 
I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it. We need a Band of Brothers style Rebellion based show. No Force, Jedi, or Sith. Just everyday people trying to take back their freedoms by any means necessary. I'd love to see more of Saws rebels, and their tactics. I'd like to see him going from the virile man he was, to the broken, paranoid shell we see in Rogue One.
 
Ru1977 said:
Yeah, how dare you. Astrology addiction ruins several marriages every century.
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Bit of a side note, but my partner back in Galway got all cagey on me for a few months. I knew she was up to something but I figured she'd tell me eventually comes home from work one night wailing crying - "Oh, I've been LYING to ye! LYING!"
Me: (So, she's cheating. That's cool, I guess I'm moving home to America or--)
Her: Those water committee meetings I told ye about on Wednesdays, they aren't water board meetings!
Me: What's his--
Her: I've been going to a psychic named Hazel to talk about me anxiety! I am so ashamed!
Me: Is it helping?
Her: ... yes?
Me: Darlin, psychic or psychologist, whatever you need to be happy just keep at it.

I'll now forever think of that incident as "I've been practicing the FORCE on Wednesdays, I am so ashamed!"

Anyway. Heck yes band of brothers style show. I was just messing around with my Endor troopers and thinking I'd love a story, kind of bad batch style, about a couple of reprobate commandos being send into absolutely garbage situations by the rebels, only because it's the rebellion, leadership actually cares if they come home or not...
 
45 YEARS AGO TODAY ....
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I still remember it like it was yesterday. Empire was EASILY the most anticipated movie that came out that year and everyone wanted to see it. The problem was I was serving in the US Navy at the time and I was stationed in a little town in Ventura County CA called Port Hueneme. We were not deployed at the time so that wasn't a problem. We were right there in So Cal. The problem was I drove a beat up old 1974 Datsun B210. No joke. It ran okay, but lordy, was it SMALL. It was not a family car at ALL. The other problem was I was the only one of the guys in my little social circle that had a damn car. Remember, we were all very young (late teens, early twenties) and away from home serving in the military. And some of the guys were from New York and they never learned how to drive.

The last problem was the closest theater the movie was playing in. It was in a town called Thousand Oaks that was right on the LA county/Ventura county line, about 25 miles from where we were stationed. Why was such a popular movie not playing in a theater that was closer? Keep in mind this was 45 years ago and there were a LOT fewer movie theaters back then. When E.T. came out it was only playing at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. That was the only place in LA, Ventura and Orange counties you could see it at. You had to get your tickets a month in advance unless you knew somebody. True story. After a time it finally went into a wider release but those first couple of months it was playing were rough. People were sleeping on the sidewalk to get in there.

Soooo, back to Empire and May 21st 1980 ... Of course I was going to see that movie on opening night. But I couldn't leave my friends behind. I had to get us all there somehow. And so lord help me there were seven of us (possibly eight. I lost track) crammed into a little car that could comfortably fit four. I could not see out the back window. I could barely see out the front. And we sped down the 101 freeway like that. I don't recommend that you do that. Ever. Not unless you have no wish to retain your sanity.

But we got there and back in one piece. And we had so much fun. What a fantastic movie. So many little twists and turns and iconic lines. A mark of a truly great film is how well it holds up over time and I can tell you this picture is still a masterpiece.

It's so cool that we now live in a day and age where you can sit comfortably in your living room and watch a movie like this anytime you want, on your big 70 inch screen TV in high definition and with surround sound.

And I think that's what I'll do tonight. I'll put on Empire and re-live some great memories. I'll think about my old shipmates and wonder how they're doing. I'll wonder if they ever think about the old days. And I'll hope they're still with us and doing well.

Here's to you, lads. May The Force Be With You.
 
My closest big screen theater this was a huge 1,500+ seat theater that showed the 70 MM prints at the closest mall. I am not sure if the assumption was it was sold out all weekend or if they sold advance tickets and we hadn't gotten any, but I didn't think I would get to see it opening weekend.

My memory is fuzzy but at the last minute they added a 10 AM Saturday morning showing - I believe the huge print ad in the paper did not list that time, but the local morning paper that Saturday had the 10 AM listed in the "schedule" summary, so I called the theater for times and they had on the phone recording 10 AM as well - I think we saw this around 9 AM that morning, so my Dad and I drove the 20 minutes and were able to walk up, get tickets, and the place was almost empty - when we left the line for the 1 PM show was around the building...

I had spoiled myself for the plot as the local Woolworths had put out a few copies of the Treasury Edition (11 x 14) adaptation of Empire on the shelves the week prior and I happened to have gotten that, but still a great experience. I was sure that dastardly Darth Vader was lying about being Luke's father as no way Ben would have hid that from him.

Saw Return at the same theater on the opening Friday afternoon as we had a half day of school which worked out great.
 
joshsquash729 said:
Not every single background alien needs an in-depth spinoff, but some of the bigger names, why not?
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I have, in my opinion, a pretty good answer for why not; it can retroactively damage the story - both intrinsically and in your memory. Don't tell me that Anakin being a little fucking bitch ALL THE GODDAMN TIME doesn't edge in a little bit to the mystique and even terror that the name VADER once inspired. You can never go back to the Vader that you knew at the end of RotJ. That version of Vader is gone forever.

Certain characters, in certain narratives, exist in this liminal space where they are interesting -because- you don't know. Anyone into world building will see this struggle play out a lot across fiction; the desire to tell the audience all the cool things (or, AS the audience - to learn all the cool things) without realizing that part of what makes them cool is specifically that the audience wants to know more.
If HP Lovecraft wrote an entire encyclopedia on all the gods and monsters and creatures and gave us their exact real names and ages and powers and we got little short stories told from all their perspectives and full descriptions of how the physics of all it work and what's magic and what isn't -etc etc etc.... Lovecraft's entire anthology collapses on itself. All interest in the stories themselves dissolves because NOT ever fully understanding what's happening is part of what makes those stories good.
Did Midichlorians - easily the stupidest thing ever introduced to Star Wars aside from, maybe, 'somehow the Emperor returned,' damage some of the mystique of The Force and who can manipulate it? Absolutely. No way around it.

Would a Grievous show be interesting? Potentially. Could it also make the character ultimately way less interesting or otherwise damage what that character is supposed to be? -Absolutely-. That's sort of my point overall here. Sometimes the dwarves can delve too greedily and too deep and now we have an entire show from the Balrog's perspective that recontextualizes his entire existence and now that famous scene will never be the same, even though the scene itself is completely unchanged.
That is to say - some things exist to create a sense of depth, history, and mystique. And it's very easy to rob your setting of those things by trying to explore too many nooks and crannies.


docsilence said:
One of the reasons I avoided Jedi Survivor was it was so linear. I find I like slow, unchallenging, open-world or turn-based stuff most. I'm stressed out 98% of the time, so I don't want games that also challenge me. I want games that assume I'm there for the vibes.
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To be fair - First Order was quite challenging - especially if you're not a Souls veteran. But Survivor's easy mode basically plays itself. It is still linear - but I'd also argue that Survivor has a really good story. I enjoyed it a lot. In fact, I think I enjoyed Survivor's story more than half of the existing Star Wars TV shows and movies - maybe more.


Ru1977 said:
I get that, and maybe LFL agrees since I would have thought after Rogue One was when the iron was hottest. I don't need him to emote or grow as a character. Vader should be Vader, and that's why I think an Empire series would be cool, and Vader could show up in a couple of episodes. But when I think of Vader on screen, I think of moments like "You're surrounded, Vader"/"I'm only surrounded by fear and dead men". So really, I want stories Vader can show up in. And DOES show up in, since he could have shown up on Andor.
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I think that's the best use of Vader going forward - if he HAS to be in things at all; cameos. Tidbits. Pieces of the puzzle of what he's up to between time A and time B, without giving us the full picture. I want to be left wondering a bit. There needs to be places between for our imagination. In my opinion.


Ru1977 said:
And I still don't see Vader as redeemed at all. He did ONE good thing for one person he care about. For Luke, obviously that's wonderful, but I don't think it absolves him of anything at all.
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Agreed.
I'd add that the danger in trying to tell more of Vader's personal story post-RotS is that the PT handled his turn so. incredibly. poorly. And anything spinning directly off that needs to acknowledge the timeline of events and therefore you're putting more stress on how fucking bad and stupid it is. Also, again, the mystique of the character gets sacrificed to the audience's, probably ill-advised, NEED to know more.
I've said before that I really like the comic run - but I also am not convinced it translates well to anything but a comic book. It's basically a lot of splash pages. Again - for TV maybe more fitting as cameos and asides than as the main thrust of a story.
 
ESB was my first bootleg. My uncle had something like a tenth generation copy of a camera version of Empire so he made me an eleventh generation copy, heh. I watched that until the tape literally broke. When it came on HBO or something, my mom taped it and that was a far better copy, which I watched slightly more sparingly until I bought a priced to own trilogy set.

It's still my favorite, and obviously I was IMMEDIATELY taken with Boba Fett. He looked awesome, he outsmarted Han Solo, and back talked to Vader. And his ship was nuts.
 
Damien said:
Don't tell me that Anakin being a little fucking bitch ALL THE GODDAMN TIME doesn't edge in a little bit to the mystique and even terror that the name VADER once inspired
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Probably for a lot of people, but somehow I NEVER reconciled the two versions of the character. I can't explain it because obviously on some level I recognize the guy choking Captain Needa is supposed to be the same guy who won the boonta eve, or even cut off Dooku's head... But mostly I see them as very separate. I don't even see Lloyd as entirely the same character as Christianson.
 
Ru1977 said:
Probably for a lot of people, but somehow I NEVER reconciled the two versions of the character. I can't explain it because obviously on some level I recognize the guy choking Captain Needa is supposed to be the same guy who won the boonta eve, or even cut off Dooku's head... But mostly I see them as very separate. I don't even see Lloyd as entirely the same character as Christianson.
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So now we all know that Ru's trauma response to a bad Vader is to mentally wall off the bad Vader from the good Vader.
 
That's a healthy trauma response in my book. I think it helps that they're visually so incredibly different. My neurons fire different paths upon the visual.
 
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