We saw a Star War! Last Jedi spoiler thread

[billd91]

I'd forgotten that it is against C3-PO's programming to impersonate a deity. Thanks for reminding me. That said, the term "Godspeed" still rubs me the wrong way. It just doesn't feel like something someone in the GFFA would say.

I don't think it's any weirder than Han telling a rebel officer he'll see him in Hell just before he rides out on a tauntaun.

 

[billd91]

It came from a speech given to us by Pablo Hidalgo, the current canon/lore guy for Star Wars at Disney. He worked for Lucasfilm for many, many years.

He was at a convention around 1997-1998. It was just before Episode 1 had come out. One of the people in the crowd asked about why they started with episode 4 and what he told us was that what George had told him was that he had a basic outline of episodes 1-3 and 4-6 and that he felt the story of 4-6 was smaller and easier to film since it would require less special effects and that 1-3 was written in a way that it could act as a background for the other movies after they were released so he made the decision to start with those first. Since episode 1 was already announced and coming out soon, Pablo also said that the reason they were making the other movies now and the reason it took 20 years was that he felt technology had finally caught up with his vision and he could finally make what he saw in his head.

I asked him, since I had heard at the time that Lucas had written an outline for 9 movies, not 6, what about the other 3 movies? Pablo told us that Lucas had originally written an outline for 1-9 but that over the filming of 4-6 and due to thinking for a long time about it, he had decided that the theme of Star Wars wasn't Good vs Evil like he originally thought it was but was instead about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. So his ideas for 7-9 no longer fit the theme he was going for and therefore didn't need to be made any longer. Though he said that George had an idea that COULD be made into a new 7-9 that fit his new theme but that he wasn't thinking about it right now since they still had 1-3 to make.

I don't doubt that Pablo Hidalgo gave you the company line, perhaps he even believed it. But knowing the literature that was coming out at the time of A New Hope and that an earlier set of proposed prequels involved one detailing the slide of Obi-Wan's apprentice to the Dark Side culminating in the duel that leaves Vader scarred and another detailing Han's pre-Star Wars life, I'm pretty certain that any story Lucas tells about how the whole 9 episodes would be any form of contiguous story arc including the prequels he actually produced is a such a whopper that a 50 lb salt lick isn't a big enough grain of salt to take with it.

 

[Water Bob]

I don't think it's any weirder than Han telling a rebel officer he'll see him in Hell just before he rides out on a tauntaun.

Maybe the General believes in a different religion other than The Force, one where there is a deity.

 

[billd91]

But it does make sense. If those books weren’t around to confuse matters, the movie, by itself, makes perfect sense: they’re in the same system. No question.

If those licensed products didn’t exist, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation; we’d all agree we’d clearly seen several planets in the same system.

No, I don't think we would. I still think a lot of us would be shaking our heads and saying "JJ Abrams doesn't know anything about astronomy. The visuals are cool, though."

 

[pukunui]

I don't think it's any weirder than Han telling a rebel officer he'll see him in Hell just before he rides out on a tauntaun.

True. I forgot about that line too.

... I'm pretty certain that any story Lucas tells about how the whole 9 episodes would be any form of contiguous story arc including the prequels he actually produced is a such a whopper that a 50 lb salt lick isn't a big enough grain of salt to take with it.

Indeed. GL and LucasFilm are hardly paragons of consistency.

Maybe the General believes in a different religion other than The Force, one where there is a deity.

Maybe, but she could also just be repeating what the captain of the medical frigate said as his ship was blowing up. Maybe it's just the way Laura Dern says the line that rubs me the wrong way.

No, I don't think we would. I still think a lot of us would be shaking our heads and saying "JJ Abrams doesn't know anything about astronomy. The visuals are cool, though."

Exactly. I wasn't aware of any of the licensed products when I went to see TFA for the first time, and my first thought was definitely *not* "Oh, the planet Han et al are on must be in the same system as the Republic". It was "Oh dear, JJ Abrams is at it again, just like with Star Trek. He really doesn't care about how big space is, does he?"

Later on, when I saw the extra licensed products, like the official map, my thought was, "That makes it even worse!"

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

He bamboozled Kylo Ren and the attacking First Order force long thoroughly enough and long enough for the last remnants of the Resistance to get away so they could rebuild and fight another day. That's pretty effing heroic.

I think he took too long to be heroic. He could have left with Rey and actually faced them in person. But he had to be smacked in the head by Yoda and have his tree burnt before he changed his mind and actually decided to help.

If he had went in person, he might have been able to save more people than he did. But he waited to the very last second and then showed up only in a form where he couldn't be hurt. He had already resigned himself to dying, so it wasn't really a sacrifice. The movie isn't even really clear as to whether the strain was so much on him that he was already dying and decided to vanish or if he helped them and was going to live, but then chose to die anyways just so he wouldn't be around anymore to mess up any more movies.

It is said that sometimes it takes more courage to live than to kill yourself. Luke shows he is a coward.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I don't doubt that Pablo Hidalgo gave you the company line, perhaps he even believed it. But knowing the literature that was coming out at the time of A New Hope and that an earlier set of proposed prequels involved one detailing the slide of Obi-Wan's apprentice to the Dark Side culminating in the duel that leaves Vader scarred and another detailing Han's pre-Star Wars life, I'm pretty certain that any story Lucas tells about how the whole 9 episodes would be any form of contiguous story arc including the prequels he actually produced is a such a whopper that a 50 lb salt lick isn't a big enough grain of salt to take with it.

Well, I did get the impression that he was trying not to say some things he wasn't allowed to. I came away thinking that what he actually MEANT was that George Lucas had a VERY loose outline for 1-3 that pretty much just said "Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker falls to the dark side. Then he fights with Obi-Wan over lava and falls in." (that last part I saw on Usenet threads as early as 1994 due to an article published back in 1977 (https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-wizard-of-star-wars-20120504?page=9) where Lucas said:

"Vader kills Luke's father, then Ben and Vader have a confrontation, just like they have in Star Wars, and Ben almost kills Vader. As a matter of fact, he falls into a volcanic pit and gets fried and is one destroyed being. That's why he has to wear the suit with a mask, because it's a breathing mask. It's like a walking iron lung. His face is all horrible inside. I was going to shoot a close-up of Vader where you could see the inside of his face, but then we said, no, no, it would destroy the mystique of the whole thing."

I don't think he had much more planned than those events. At that time, Vader and Luke's Father were different people and Lucas only changed his mind between ANH and ESB. Still, I think it shows that the idea that there was a plan for a basic outline of what happened even that far back.

Though I really did get the impression that the outline was changed heavily in order to agree with Lucas' new thinking on the themes.

 

[trappedslider]

I bet the whole parsec line also rubs some of you the wrong way......god i swear sometimes i'm ashamed to be part of this fandom.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe the General believes in a different religion other than The Force, one where there is a deity.

The more I think about it, the more references I see. Moff Tarkin tells Vader that he's the last of his religion, strongly implying that there are others out there.

 

[pukunui]

"... I was going to shoot a close-up of Vader where you could see the inside of his face, but then we said, no, no, it would destroy the mystique of the whole thing."

That's how I felt about the prequels when they first came out. I remember thinking at the time that I would've preferred to leave Vader's backstory to the imagination. I've gotten used to the prequels now, though, and I find myself wanting to know Snoke's backstory, so ... take from that what you will, I guess.


On a side note, I've thought about the way Luke is portrayed in TLJ, and as someone who has suffered from depression, I can only say that, given the circumstances, I don't think Luke's behavior is really that incomprehensible (or out of character). For one thing, he's no longer the spunky youngster he was in the OT. For another, he'd allowed himself to believe he was as infallible as the stories made him out to be, so when his world literally came crashing down around him, it would've been devastating. And because he not only cut himself off from the Force but also from everyone who cared about him by running away and hiding, he had no one to bring him out of that depressing sphere he'd put himself in. No Han to talk him out of it, no Leia to kick some sense into him, no Yoda to make fun of him ... I know what it's like to be all alone with just the thoughts in your own head.

It's not at all surprising to me that when Rey finds Luke, he's a defeated man who just wants to die. I've been there. And I don't think it takes him "too long" to claw his way out of that pit.

Also, once he reconnects with the Force again, he can see into the future. How do we know he didn't see that appearing on Crait would be the most efficient way to help the Resistance? What difference could he have made by appearing as a Force projection in Snoke's throne room? How could he have saved more people when the Resistance was still out in space?

Honestly, having seen this movie three times now, I would have to say that it's biggest flaw is not the way it portrays Luke. It's the way it portrays Leia, and I'm not just talking about the ridiculous flying through space bit.* She's fought the good fight all her life, without ever giving up hope, and where does it get her? Instead of going out with a bang like Luke, she's just going to fade away, her star dimming as Poe's rises to take its place.



*The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it gets. Despite being blown out of the bridge, she appears to be floating without moving when she revives ... yet, if that were to be the case, then the Raddus would've had to have come to a complete stop as well, otherwise it would've left her far, far behind since it's supposedly traveling at full sub-light throttle. Yes, she was moving along with the Raddus when she got sucked out, so perhaps she was just continuing to move at the same speed as her ship? But then the explosive decompression had to have accelerated her movement, so shouldn't she be moving *faster* than the Raddus? I dunno. It does my head in ...

The more I think about it, the more references I see. Moff Tarkin tells Vader that he's the last of his religion, strongly implying that there are others out there.

There are plenty of references to other religions and spiritual philosophies in the EU, and Disney's been sneaking a few into the movies and cartoons, but the vast majority still seem to be centered around the Force in some form or another (eg. the Dathomiri witches' magic is just a weird way of using the Force). There's very little mention of deities in Star Wars lore.