Star Wars prequel questions

[Maxperson]

Well, yeah. And if the movie about Han had shown that we wouldn't be having this discussion. Instead we got the story of Han giving up all his reward to fund the Rebellion and still wanting to do right by Qira.

Buyer's remorse?

"Dear diary. I'm feeling good about giving up the money. The Empire sucks and the Rebellion really needed it."

Some time later...

"Dear diary. Jabba is really pissed and wants his money. He's forcing me to work for him at half price until I pay it off. Worse, the other half of what I would have gotten isn't even being applied to my debt. Bastard! I could really use those credits I gave the Rebellion."

Some time later...

"Dear diary. I haven't been able to afford a good meal in months. Jabba says that if I don't pay him back soon, he's going to hire me to talk to my great great grandfather. The problem is, he's dead! I hope that dumb Rebellion is enjoying those credits. If I ever see that Rebellion again, I'm going to punch it in the nose. No. Better yet, I'm going to have Chewie punch it in the nose."

A lot later...

"Dear diary. I'm freaking starving and it all comes down to those credits I stupidly gave the Rebellion. Today I asked Chewie to do something and for a moment I wondered how chewy Chewie was. Thinking about tracking the Rebellion down and taking my money back."

Even later....

"Dear diary. Today Jaba actually sent Greedo to try and kill me. Don't worry, though, I shot first. Some old dude and his grandkid want to hire me to go to Naboo, I mean Alderaan. Maybe I'll finally be able to have three meals in a day."

A short time later...

"Dear diary. Today I got mooned by the Empire and my meal ticket, I mean Alderaan was destroyed. Luckily the old guy's grandson saved this princess chick who works for the Rebellion! I told her that I want my money back and she said I'd get it if I helped. I'll do anything for a meal, but I'm so angry at the situation. Been taking it out on her, but so the freak what. It's been years and it all stems from that horrible decision and another pretty woman. I can't even think straight enough to remember her name, but the princess is here now, so she's getting the brunt of it."

A bit later...

"Dear diary. You aren't going to believe this. The old man is dead. The farmboy wasn't even related to him, but it turns out he's a pretty good aim and sent a proton torpedo down the space station's.... I also got to send a blaster bolt down Vader's.... Boy, you should have seen the look on his face. The Rebellion tried to give me my money back finally, but it turns out that I'm still the same person deep down that I was way back when I gave it to them in the first place, so I didn't take it. I just wish I could see the look on the Princess's face when she finds out."

 

[GreyLord]

For me, the cognitive dissonance is that I think Solo is a great Star Wars heist movie. Good story. Fun world building. Fits in nicely between the trilogies. I even liked Lando (although I would prefer without the droid romance/liberation side plot). Without the Han Solo lore, it could be one of my top tier Star Wars movies. But with Han, it drops down to middling.

That pretty concisely fits my view of it.

If they didn't do stupid things (how did he get Solo as a Last name...idiocy ensues) regarding Han Solo's backstory that tears him down in regards to how he is in the OT, I probably would have the movie rated a LOT higher.

As an aside, I was one of those that actually went on premier night, so it wasn't that I didn't support going to see the movie (I obviously was one of the first to view it in general, most likely), I just thought it did a disservice to Han Solo.

It was par for the course for Star Wars Disney though. They really haven't paid heed to what the characterizations of the original trilogy and prequel trilogy characters, and just went and did their own thing with laser swords and pistols, thinking that's all that made Star Wars rather than what composed the characters and their attitudes, growth, and behaviors.

PS: If it weren't for them saying the Main was Han Solo and his backstory, and it was some other scoundrel who was always a good guy without looking out for their own profit and security...I'd say Solo would be one of the better movies out there in the SW universe...but that's not the choice they decided on.

It would be similar if (Rogue One is probably one of the best SW movies from Disney if not the best) they took Rogue One and replaced Jan Erso with Leia and said it is Leia's backstory. Her father thus dies being an engineer...etc...and Leia of course would have died as well (which would have made everyone go...that's not how that works...how is she still alive in ANH if she got blown up in Rogue One). It would have made the movie a lot worse simply because it doesn't really work with the rest of what Star Wars has characterized her as and her life after. With them not doing that, Rogue One is a 10/10 movie for me. Without Han having Solo as his backstory, it probably would be a 9/10 movie for me...but...that's not what they did there.

 

[jian]

Another good thing about Solo was that it did some decent seeding - having taken up and used a lot of established plot, it generously seeded more for future works, such as Enfys Nest and her grunge biker wing of the Rebellion (“there are whole armies and battalions who have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause… even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward”), Dryden Vos and his Sith cult (quite separate from his Black Sun work), the droid rebellion, etc., which are all really useful and amazing additions to any Age of Rebellion campaign or media. But so far, they’ve lain idle.

 

[Vael]

Admittedly, I had a bad experience with Solo at the theatres. The opening set piece on Corellia didn't show up properly, and so a lot of the dark scenes were practically a radio play. So by the time we get the Imperial recruiter calling him "Han ... SOLO", I more or less told the movie to eff off. And whenever the movie would take a step forward with me, it'd also find a way to piss me off. Train heist was cool. Playing off Droid liberation as a joke was a wtf moment. "I'm just gonna call you Chewie" is when I thought the film thought the audience was deeply stupid, because who needs nicknames explained to them?

That said, I did like the cast. Alden made for a hot young Han, Donald Glover was pitch perfect, Emilia Clarke deserves better ... I am sorry that Solo bombed because I would have been in for more with this cast, or at least launched them into more and better things. Also, I believe that Rogue 1's success and Solo's failure taught Disney and other execs the wrong lesson, recasting is great, stop the CGI deep fakery.

 

[jian]

Once again, I’ll state that I’m happy for Lucasfilm to remake SW with Alden Ehrenreich, Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, and whoever else is up for it. Maybe Moses Ingram, it’d be nice to see her character back. Maybe this time Obi-Wan doesn’t have to die.

 

[Bohandas]

For some reason, I have just rewatched Phantom Menace and (shudder) Attack of the Clones. I guess I'll continue with Revenge of the Sith.

They aren't great, but aren't as bad as I remember. The greenscreening and CGI, though, has dated terribly.

Anyway, questions. Well, some questions and some observations.

1. Queen Padme Amidala has Kiera Knightly pretend to be her, while she disguises herself as a handmaiden called.... Padme? She's as bad at subterfuge as Bond, James Bond!
2. What IS that giant room next to the hangar where they fight Darth Maul? Is it the spare walkway storage area for excess walkways? It's in the stone palace/hangar complex, just through a door, and it's this cavernous metal room, clearly bigger on the inside, filled with precarious walkways and some random laser doors which turn on and off sequentially for... reasons? And then a room with a giant hole in it because why wouldn't you have a room with a giant hole in it? Seriously, what IS this room?
3. I still to this day don't really understand Palpatine's plan. If you own both a giant clone army and a giant robot army, instead of making them fight each other in a giant fake war, why not just use them both to just say "hey, I'm in charge now". Seems like a lot of effort to get to the same goal. Also why does Jango Fett leave the clone army planet and fly to the robot army planet? Just so Obi Wan can follow him because plot? I assume this means he's in on the whole thing and knows all about the fake war and the two armies and stuff, since he hangs out at both places.
4. Why do the Gungans and the droids fight on the Windows XP desktop background?
5. Oh my god that endless droid building factory video game level sequence in Clones hurts my eyes and my brain and my very soul.
6. Why can't jedi actually use swords? They just wave them round ineffectually most of the time. I mean, I know it's all fake laser sword nonsense, but at least make it look good! The main characters are generally OK, Mace Windu isn't great, and all the jedi in that arena just look awful like they've just been handed a plastic sword and told "try to look cool". Which they fail to do.
7. Talking of which, there's one jedi with a really long 3-foot neck which seems like a massive disadvantage when your primary method of combat is swordfighting (and there's no way he's fitting in a starfighter).

I'm sure I'll have more questions later after I've rewatched Return of the Revenge of the Sith: Electric Boogaloo. As I recall, that's the best of the three.

You missed the biggest question:

If the droids all share a brain in the control ship, why do they need to talk to each other?

It can't even be justified from a doylist angle because the droids don't say anything expository

 

[Bohandas]

Regarding Solo, my main takeaway from it was that repulsorlift technology is kind of garbage. It was pretty strongly implied that it doesn't work over water.

It would be similar if (Rogue One is probably one of the best SW movies from Disney if not the best) they took Rogue One and replaced Jan Erso with Leia and said it is Leia's backstory. Her father thus dies being an engineer...etc...and Leia of course would have died as well (which would have made everyone go...that's not how that works...how is she still alive in ANH if she got blown up in Rogue One). It would have made the movie a lot worse simply because it doesn't really work with the rest of what Star Wars has characterized her as and her life after. With them not doing that, Rogue One is a 10/10 movie for me. Without Han having Solo as his backstory, it probably would be a 9/10 movie for me...but...that's not what they did there.

And yet it still manages to mess up Leia's backstory anyway. It's pretty clear in New Hope that she was supposed to be undercover and that when the opening crawl said "rebel spaceships...have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire" it didn't mean literally 5 minutes ago