General Star Wars Thread

The scene of Luke looking towards the horizon during the sunset near the beginning of ''A New Hope'' is still probably my favorite shot in any film ever.◊

I remember seeing a statue (I think it was like a foot tall or so) of Luke from that specific scene during a Comic-Con or something and I wanted it a lot.◊

The Cantina. Say what you will about George Lucas, but don't you ever say the man can't world-build, and this is the scene that really plunges you headfirst into "a galaxy far, far away." Here's a place where running into this guy◊ is potentially an everyday occurrence; now THAT is a galaxy far, far away!

edited 13th Feb '12 9:18:25 PM by HamburgerTime

As I read that post, the cantina music started sounding in my head. Thank you.

Doot doot doot doot do-doo do-do-doo...

I was won over by the opening scene when the Imperials storm the Tantive IV.

The final showdown between Luke and Vader is what really cemented Star Wars for me. Say what you like about Jedi, but it completed Luke's character arc wonderfully.

It's also the only lightsaber fight in the Original Series that in retrospect doesn't look a little silly.

For me the duel in The Empire Strikes Back doesn't look silly.

Darth Vader striking down Obi-Wan Kenobi in ANH is a moment iconic of the entire franchise in my mind. And I must have been five or six when I watched it.

Obi-Wan's sacrifice wasn't silly (it's one of my favorite moments too), but the "fight" that came before it certainly was.

However truthful Alec Guinness' claims of not of giving a crap about the movie are, it's clear his heart wasn't in swinging the saber in that scene at all. He's was just going through the motions of waving the sword around most of the time. The dialogue was awesome though.

Vader vs Luke doesn't look goofy overall, but there are moments they move in incredibly hilarious ways. One part that sticks out in my mind is one where Luke runs away momentarily and Vader swipes at him like someone trying to swat a fly with a baseball bat and then goes after Luke like a kid running with a bat his head. The scene that happens right after (and the one right before) is awesome though.

And I swear Flynning looks even more obvious when people aren't choreographed very well in the first place.

After the first movie they obviously learned to choreograph and act the fights a little better, but in my opinion they didn't really get it until Return Of The Jedi, which has my favorite lightsaber battle of the series (just beating out Qui-Gon vs Maul on Tatooine). And the scene immediately after that is even more awesome.

And even then there's the point there where David Prowse messes up collapsing and going on the defensive in such a way that it looks like Vader suddenly decided to take a dive.

edited 16th Feb '12 5:55:06 PM by KnownUnknown

A New Hope is pretty famous for the stiff lightsaber duel. The duel in The Empire Strikes Back started off a little clumsy but really hit its' stride when Vader failed to freeze Luke. Return of the Jedi was fairly strong throughout, though the final Unstoppable Rage is a little off because it is very clear Luke is attacking Vader's lightsaber and not Vader himself.

The main thing about The Phantom Menace is that there isn't much of a personal connection between the combatants, otherwise the setting and the choreography was excellent. Attack of the Clones was very perfunctory, the choreography was solid but you had very little "story" being told as they fought (it doesn't help that it all takes place in one room with no variation of the environment, even a stairway or platform like in ROTJ would have done wonders). The way Revenge of the Sith mirrors the two climactic duels makes it my personal favorite in both choreography and emotional resonance.

Fun fact: The choreographer was Bob Anderson. He was in the Vader suit for episodes V and VI rather than Prowse. Anderson would go on to choreograph some of the most celebrated fight scenes in history thereafter, including everything from The Princess Bridge and The Lord Of The Rings.

If you noticed how Vader's choreography jumped in quality from IV to V, that's why.

R.I.P. Anderson. He died recently, I do believe.

I grew up on Star Wars. It's the world building I like the most. Like it'd be this place I would honestly want to inhabit. There really is something in there for everybody, if you look for it.

In my opinion, the movie with the best-choreographed lightsaber fights in the Saga was TPM by quite a wide margin, largely due to it being at the point where they could do more spectacular stunts but not quite at the point where everything was yet obviously faked with Conspicuous CG. Note I said best-choreographed, not best, an honor going to ROTJ, which had good choreography with the added bonus of the fight having a lot of emotion behind it, something TPM's big battle didn't.

Here's a recent blog entry detailing why "Han shooting first" is better from a writer's perspective.

You know what's funny? The first version of A New Hope I ever owned was the Special Edition, and I didn't remember the unedited version well enough to realize that the scene with Greedo scene had been edited. But even without knowing the scene was edited, I thought it seemed off. That Greedo shooting at Han, and missing, strained credibility.

So when I found out that Han did originally shoot first, my reaction was "Ooooooooooooh! That makes so much more sense!"

Me Too!.

Am I the only who feels bad for Emperor Palpatine after all the Robot Chicken specials, Jesus Christ he's the only sane man in that galaxy!

Well, as much as he was a Complete Monster I remember thinking when I was a child/young teen that he damn well earned his position considering how well he Out-Gambitted pretty much everyone.

So I watched A New Hope last night and everytime I do I can't help but notice how Alec Guinness looks exactly like my dad in this movie (minus the robes). And the really spooky thing? Prequel!Obi-Wan looks like my dad as a young man.

Of course, this really improves my own chances of growing up to be a wise Jedi master who Chessmasters the liberation of space.

edited 20th Feb '12 11:22:24 AM by TheBatPencil

It's certainly possible your Dad is Obi-Wan... from a certain point of view.

The technique Qui-Gon taught Obi-Wan and Yoda wasn't life-after-death, but time travel. They teleport to the future to our galaxy and live their lives there. Liam Neeson really is Qui-Gon. The "force ghosts" the characters see is actually an incomplete fascimile created by a second technique for travelling back in time.

You are the lost son of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I sense awesome in your future.

:D

Oh this is gonna rule.

If there was a sequel to the Return of the Jedi, it should start at the ending scene from the last movie, where Luke is watching the ghosts of Yoda, Anakin and Obi-Wan. Suddenly Qui-Gon's ghost appears and sucks all the other ghost inside of him. It's revealed, that everything that happened in all six movies, was planned by Qui-Gon, from meeting Jar-Jar, who would recommend Palpatine to be the Chancellor and Anakin, who would kill all the Jedi, who might oppose him. Qui-Gon also kills Luke but Leia and Han manage to escape.

What I find silly is the outrage at how the 8-9 year old Anakin in TPM is nothing like Darth Vader. He's 8 or 9 years old! The person you are at that age is seldom the person you are as an adult. If they are one and the same for you, you seriously need help.

If he had been brooding, horribly anger-prone at that age, you'd seriously wonder why any Jedi would want to train him. And what's worse is how much this backlash has filled Jake Lloyd with unnecessary Old Shame. Wil Wheaton was a teenager when Trekkies were pissed off at Wesley, so he was kind of able to understand the outrage. Lloyd was barely 10 when TPM first premiered!

edited 21st Feb '12 7:15:22 AM by Premonition45

Agreed. My problem with Anakin's characterization is how brooding and selfish he already is in Episode 2, when you'd expect that ten years of Jedi training would have taught him to think of others before himself. They really needed a character arc that allowed him to initially be more of a genuine hero - as in, having heroic actions and attitudes, not just being highly skilled - and have a more gradual and explained fall towards darkness.