Starwars, but IN 3D!

I saw the prequels first.

Ok, actually more like Ep 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 3.

Ep 4 is great but the prequels are not that bad, sans the first part of Phantom Menace (before pod racing) and the middle of Ep 2 (that love story with bad acting thing).

I knew that Darth Vader was Luke's father lol, I can't believe I am actually putting this inside spoiler tags long before watching the movies. I mean, it is just about the first thing that gets referenced in any show... And beyond that, I cannot think of any thing that the PT would spoil for OT.

edited 16th Aug '11 7:39:28 PM by nabaduco

Midichlorians.

I don't get people's problem with midichlorians, honestly.

It's not like they make The Force into a science rather than magic. They just mean that the people of this galaxy have a way to genetically measure who has the potential to become a wizard and who doesn't.

edited 17th Aug '11 1:38:12 AM by Kerrah

Which defeats the entire point of it being a spiritual force. In a setting filled with advanced technology, the Jedi use unexplainable powers and carry what amounts to an Absurdly Sharp Blade; a part of the Jedi's power is founded on that contrast from an audience perspective.

The Force is still a spiritual force. The supplemental materials explain that the Midichlorians simply allow beings to use the Force.

Mind you, that brings up the whole debate of needing supplemental materials to fully understand a work (glares at Final Crisis)...

I never got, and still do not get, why Star Wars fans take the sanctity of the OT so seriously. They're just really, really good movies, they're not religion or anything like that...

For most Star Wars fans, or even most people who simply like Star Wars casually, the OT is still the core conflict and the centre of emotional investment. It wrote all the rules, and it wrote them with simple words. When you bring in the PT and EU, either the rules of the setting become so complex as to require obsessive discussion or you've got complete contradictions on your hands. That's a big issue when you're trying to live up to films as powerful as the OT.

When you subvert the big things in the OT (like the mystical nature of the Force), you're kinda chipping away at people's own interpretations and the personal relevance they find in those things.

Ironically, the Force was more impressive when Luke was moving rocks around Dagobah with no theoretical knowledge than when everyone was throwing lightning bolts around and talking about midichlorians. That's the power of audience investment.

Probably the biggest issue with Star Wars today is its crippling overcomplexity. With so much EU material, it's easy to lose track of what matters in a narrative sense and focus on the literal aspects of it. The OT wasn't so far removed from a fairytale, and its setting was constructed around the story expressed rather than the other way around. That, essentially, is why the OT is "holier" than the rest. It exists to be what it is rather than to be Star Wars in particular or to make sure it's Star Wars in particular.

edited 17th Aug '11 5:29:59 PM by MadassAlex

I noticed no contradictions relevant to Midichlorians. The OT never explains exactly how beings can use the Force, after all.

edited 17th Aug '11 5:35:18 PM by HamburgerTime

The contradiction is in how we view the Force.

In the OT, the Force is entirely spiritual and mystical. It's a juxtaposition with the overwhelming power of technology in the setting.

In the PT, the Force becomes more psuedoscience, measurable by technology and Force sensitivity is strictly a biological trait.

It's a telling change, because the OT's Force is about the values it represents; the PT's Force is only about the literal power gained from using it. Compare how the Jedi are presented in each series. In the climax of the OT, Luke refuses to kill Vader and throws aside his weapon, completing his transformation into a Jedi Knight. In the PT, we never see the movement from a learner to a established member of the Order because it's not considered relevant enough to explore.

The Force doesn't just exist to give the good guys special powers in the OT; it's a vehicle for characterisation. That's why its spiritual relevance is important, as it represents internal change, ultimately for the better, in Luke Skywalker.

So you're saying that, because of the inclusion of Midichlorians, the films violate their own themes? I guess that could be considered something to get rankled over, though if you don't mind my saying so it's impressively nerdy that you thought about it long enough to come to that conclusion.

I wouldn't be surprised if Alex came to those conclusions in about 30 minutes or less of actually thinking about it.

If you have to think about the themes of Star Wars for 30 minutes, I'm sorry, but that's really nerdy in my book...

edited 17th Aug '11 6:21:44 PM by HamburgerTime

If you're posting in this forum at all, I'm sorry but that's really nerdy in my book.

As for the original topic, I don't really care to be honest. If it's an improvement then that's good, if not we've still got the originals.

Then I think you have a really loose term for nerdy

Kekeke, that took me less than 10 minutes.

Themes are important in all fiction, because they're one part of what makes that fiction relevant to real life. After all, something like The Lord Of The Rings isn't so much a story about a wizard's midget black ops mission as it is about The Power of Friendship.

Notice that I never said I wasn't a nerd, too.

Since this has basically become the general Star Wars thread for now, I have a quick question about the ending of Episode VI.

If I remember correctly, the new ending has scenes of Courascant and Naboo celebrating "the demise of the Empire." I was wondering, should they be celebrating? I mean, they don't seem to have been effected by the Empire in any noticeable way, in fact, shouldn't they be doing the opposite? I mean their entire government was just destroyed by a bunch of crazy terrorists lead by a group of 20-somethings and a Sasquatch. And it's not like all the Stormtroopers were forced to work for the Empire and would just quit doing their jobs just because Palpatine and Vader are gone (not to mention that there were probably tons of guys working in the Empire that would've taken over at the first chance), and I'm sure they didn't put all of the Imperial Forces on the Death Star and I'm sure there were tons of people on the side of the Empire. The people of Courascant should've been getting hit with tear gas or something when they started celebrating or something, right?

> Politics
> Star Wars

This was always going to be a mistake.

@Null Child Pretty sure that did happen. I seem to recall the discussion coming up a while ago.q

Here's Wookieepedia's take on the matter:

Battle of Endor: The celebrations, and the violence that came with them, spread to Coruscant, then called Imperial Center, citizens staged an uprising upon hearing of the Emperor's death. They set off fireworks, attacked Imperial forces in the streets, toppled statues of Palpatine, and desecrated other symbols of the Empire. However, the Empire cracked down on the celebrations, killing citizens and covert Rebels before order was restored. The New Republic was finally able to invade Coruscant and liberate its people from Imperial rule a little over two years later.

Naboo: After the Battle of Endor, when news of Palpatine's death had spread across the galaxy, Naboo saw an uprising against the local Imperial garrison by a combined force of Gungans and Naboo's Security Forces. This attempt at liberation was struck down, as it was on several other prominent worlds in the Palpatine regime, but Naboo would eventually see its inclusion in the New Republic.

But that seems to imply that everyone was against the Empire, which seems far to black and white to me. Like I said, it didn't seem like either planet was even effected by the Empire and it would be stupid to think the Empire didn't paint the rebels as anarchist or terrorist or something (and even dumber to think nobody believed it).

It implies that the people we saw cheering in the streets were against the Empire.

There's no information about what proportion of the citizenry the cheering crowds represent—we see one street on each entire planet—it's only the inclusion of these scenes at the end of a movie that should have a happy ending which causes us viewer to make assumptions about the size and success of these demonstrations. Assumptions that the expanded universe knocks down.

I don't really care what some random guy said happened in a book he wrote. I only care enough to pay attention to the movies.

edited 17th Aug '11 8:38:29 PM by NULLcHiLD27

The expanded universe stuff is notoriously irreverent of anything not written by the particular author in question.

Which is a pity, because in the prequel time period, the stuff that happened off-screen was a hell of a lot more interesting than most of what happened on-screen.

Which doesn't surprise me one single, solitary bit. But all that matters to me when Star Wars is the subject is the films themselves.