The General Star Wars Thread

I actually saw the original trilogy first when it was re-released in 1997. One of the good things about the prequel trilogy is the fact that, if you watch it this way, you know that it's a tragedy and Anakin will become Darth Vader — you just don't know exactly how it happens until it does.

I only got to know the franchise through the prequels because I was born in 1996. I only watched the original trilogy post-2005 from how I remember because I clearly didn't know Toy Story 2's parody of "I am your father" was a parody.

My viewing order was completely messed up.

Saw 1 first as a kid on video, then 2 on video shortly afterwards. Then a few months later 6 on tv.

A few years later I saw 3 in the cinema, another fee years 4 and 5 on DVD.

Then off course came the ST.

I believe my viewing order is. I watched 3 in cinemas as a kid. Then my dad bought the originals, then I watched 1 and 2, and then the new stuff. Plus all the cartoon stuff in between.

I saw 3 back when it came out in 2005, then 4, then 1 and 2, then 5 and 6.

Somehow i knew Anakin would turn evil, but not that he would become Darth Vader, who i barely knew as an icon.

It's that weird feeling when you know famous pop culture things like there was a James Bond movie that you know had a laser scene, a robbery at fort knox without even knowing about the series at all or watched a single movie.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 15th 2020 at 6:29:17 AM

Hmm... From what I remember, as a kid(born in 1992) I watched IV and V first in VHS tapes(borrowed from uncle), then later I, also in VHS tape. Much later, we bought OT Special Edition VHS packet. When DVD's started to be huge thing, we bought, in order, II, I, III and OT Special Edition DVD packet.

III was first Star Wars-movie that I remember going watching in the theatres, and then eventually I wached whole ST, Rogue One and Solo in theatres as well.

The First Order recruits a villain and arrests a princess.

I saw the OT when I was a kid, and have since seen all of the films released afterwards in theaters when they first came out.

Life got hard for Ren after getting married

Huh my trade of Son of Dathomir finally got delivered.

This is just a prequel issue in general. You know the destination, the question is what the route is

Ahsoka's existence helps lessen the blow since she's not Doomed by Canon.

Though one wonders what her fate was as of the time of the Sequel Trilogy given her voice at the end of E9 alongside all the deceased Jedi.

Filoni sounded in pretty much immediately after the movie’s release with something to the tune of “looks can be deceiving.”

Which I took as code for “nobody decides what happens to my characters but me.”

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 15th 2020 at 6:42:53 AM

I suspect we will see her in The Mandalorian.

Filoni has always the last say on his characters, he always will.

Granted he does kinda run that branch of Star Wars.

The movies shouldn’t encroach.

The theory I heard was that Ahsoka was alive and part of the fleet, but still lent her voice to help Rey.

The possibility of Ahsoka being alive or dead made me think of something. Despite being actively made for the franchise era, the Sequel Trilogy repeats a mistake that the Original Trilogy made in innocence, back when huge franchises like this weren't a thing.

The OT wasn't really designed for franchising, and the seams are visible when it tries to fit into its own greater universe that has sprung up over the years. It even has grinding friction with the prequels and those were made by the same guy.

The OT was meant to be a complete story. Luke's story, specifically, and every choice in crafting the world and narrative is designed to facilitate Luke's story. So some choices were made that aren't necessarily healthy for a huge expanded universe, but worked for the Story of Luke, About Luke, Featuring Luke And Characters Who Help Luke.

One of those decisions was that Luke is the last hope of the Jedi. And his sister, retconned to be Leia, but the point is that the Jedi are gone. Obi-Wan and Yoda are the last of the Order. There are no other Jedi. None. Not one. But for these two, the Jedi are completely and totally annihilated, and Luke (plus sister) is the only person capable of defeating Vader, resurrecting the Order, and carrying on the Jedi's legacy.

The EU (both versions) have more or less ignored this because it means that you can't have Jedi characters around this time. The new EU is a bit more disciplined than the old in that it still tries to remove its GCW-era Jedi from the picture before Luke comes along, but it's still kinda cheating to go "Oh, yeah, there were fifty dozen Jedi who could have fought Vader too, but they all conveniently went out for cigarettes just in time for the OT to happen."

Like. Rebels goes to all the trouble to kill off two of its Jedi and banishes the other to unknown regions of the galaxy before it catches up to the OT. But then it resurrects one of them, so the answer to where the f*ck she was during the OT winds up being a noncommittal shrug.

Rogue One is similarly careful about killing off its Jedi character (along with the rest of the cast) before the OT happens. But that's still another dude for Obi-Wan and Yoda's Jedi Survivor army that they never built 'cause the OT mandates they spend 20 years hiding under a Sole Survivor rock and preparing for the last and only hope of the Jedi.

So. Like. There's some friction, caused by the fact that the OT wasn't intended to have a million spinoffs, prequels, sequels, prequel-spinoffs, etc. The OT says that Luke is the last hope of the Jedi, and the EU says nuts to that 'cause we want to have Jedi characters in our GCW-era stories, goddammit. If an ironclad rule was passed down, "You can either set your stories in the most popular time period in the franchise OR feature the most popular type of character bar none, NOT BOTH," it would be detrimental to Star Wars's success.

Now, the problem is, the ST has that same friction. Luke is the titular Last Jedi. One of the films is literally titled that; the intent of the movies is that there are no other Jedi anywhere in the universe. The Jedi Order dies with Luke, with the hope that it will be revived by Rey.

Like the OT, that's, uh, that's a pretty narrow tunnel to be building your franchise around. But unlike the OT, the ST doesn't have innocence from an age where franchises weren't really a thing to justify the creative choice. It was created with the full intention that there would be a bunch of spinoff works: comics, shows, video games, novels, the whole nine yards. And they still made the baffling decision to play the "All Jedi are gone (unless another writer flips the bird)" card.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 15th 2020 at 8:25:30 AM

And that's why Pandering to the Base should never be done too explicitly, sooner or later you'll end up writing everyone into a corner for ideas

That's why ST gets a lot of flack. After ROTJ, it didn't have to be that way. I could write a story of how Luke along with Leia, Ezra and Ahsoka built the New Jedi Order together. Only Ahsoka has any experience with the Jedi Order but she has come to believe that the old Order must die if the new one should thrive. Thus the Jedi Order would be created by a bunch of newbies who don't really have any guidelines of what the new Jedi Order should be.

In fact, that's what many people expected in ST. A new Jedi Order. Small but stimulates the imagination of new viewers.

ST doesn't do that. It instead preys on the OT nostalgia at the expense of everything else, with no real respect of what came before. Like imagine Legend of Korra featuring Aang's son, Tenzin being the only Airbender left in the world, with no Air Acolytes or Airbending Children. That weakens the story potential after The Last Airbender storyline concluded. Who wouldn't want to see the restoration of the Air Nomads? It'll be difficult and long but it can be done. And the Harmonic Convergence only makes it a lot easier to have new Airbenders, including a villainous one like Zaheer.

Edited by Shadao on Feb 15th 2020 at 7:36:03 AM

I mean, I didn't want the show to clap its hands and go, "BOOM, magic plot device! Now the genocide is totally healed forever, like it never even happened." That's kind of a tone-deaf way to handle genocide as a plot point.

But that's getting off-track.

Man if Legend of Korra was like the ST it be only Aang & Katara only ever had one kid & their prolly either evil or dead.

The republic city would be destroyed, the relations between all the nations are strained again as the Fire Nation is invading again headed by Zuko’s kid or grandkid, Toph’s Metal-Bending police force never panned out, Aang & Katara would be separated with the former becoming a sullen depressed monk as his attempts at recreating the Air Nomads didn’t work out.

Holy shit is that fucking depressing.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 15th 2020 at 7:40:41 AM

But the point is that even without the Harmonic Convergence, it is possible to have greater potential in storytelling if the Last of His Kind is allowed to have his culture recover and grow rather than be stagnated by an obsession with this cliche trope. With Korra, you get to see the Muggles being true Air Nomads even without Airbending and Tenzin's life being much easier to deal with because of them.

Unlike the Air Nomads, the Jedi Order should be very easy to recover considering that all Luke had to do is find a bunch of Force Sensitive people to train.

Edited by Shadao on Feb 15th 2020 at 7:43:39 AM

I'm a little surprised to see a good deal of people didn't like the Implication Ashoka was dead

Like, its been 3 decades sense the OT era where she was already a grown adult.

Edited by Kylotrope on Feb 15th 2020 at 5:53:32 AM