Lets talk all things Star Wars

[Halliwax]

Wow never noticed that!

 

[Psab keel]

Yeah I never understood the need to add a point to the lightsaber blades in AOTC and ROTS.

There really is a sense of magic and wonder in that scene when Ben hands Luke his father's weapon. The way the saber reacts as Luke waves it around really sells it for me. I get the sense that the rotoscoping in that scene and in the rest of ANH mimicked the actual spinning rod and not just covering it with a stroke of paint, thus why the effect looks almost "flat" in certain still frames if we are still to believe that the blade was a triangular rod.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Aaaaaaaah, my brain hurts just by that tiny fragment...that is one of the most horribly written schlock novelizations in existence. ADF had obviously no idea how the movie will feel and play out (neither did most to be fair) so he wrote it as his usual pulp sci-fi almost trying to be pseudo-intellectual and technical at places and it's just exactly what Star Wars could easily have become, a schlocky cheap pulp sci-fi like Flash Gordon.
I think there was even a line, something like "Kenobi said jovially as if he was discussing a stew recipe".

Didn't Luke say he remembered a dog he had once also?

 

[Psab keel]

I think Alan Dean Foster talks about a stray dog wandering the streets as Luke pulls into Tosche Station on his landspeeder. Since the novel was based on the early drafts of the screenplay it contained the scenes with Biggs and company.

 

[clancampbell]

I think Alan Dean Foster talks about a stray dog wandering the streets as Luke pulls into Tosche Station on his landspeeder. Since the novel was based on the early drafts of the screenplay it contained the scenes with Biggs and company.

Wasn't it just before they went into hyperspace? Something along the lines of, " Oddly, Luke was thinking about a dog he once owned when the ship leapt into hyperspace..."....something like that anyway.....I'm trying to remember from like 40 years ago....

Rich

 

[Kovnyn]

Is that from the original novelization? I have the OT novels on my shelf, but still haven't read them.

 

[Psab keel]

Something like that. There is definitely mention of a dog in there somewhere. Yes this is from the novelization.

 

[sztriki]

Is that from the original novelization? I have the OT novels on my shelf, but still haven't read them.

Please keep it that way, for your sake...

 

[ghostryder]

on Twitter

 

[russellsch]

on Twitter

!!!

 

[Bigdaddy]

on Twitter

That's funny but more importantly reminded me why I only saw TLJ once. Just a terrible dragged out sequence.

 

[CutThumb]

I think Alan Dean Foster talks about a stray dog wandering the streets as Luke pulls into Tosche Station on his landspeeder. Since the novel was based on the early drafts of the screenplay it contained the scenes with Biggs and company.

Some people have very good memories:

"Presently the dusty, unpaved streets were quiet, deserted. Sandflies buzzed lazily in the cracked eaves of pourstone buildings. A DOG barked in the distance, the sole sign of habitation until a lone woman appeared and started across the street."

Its at this point Luke nearly hits her with his landspeeder as he races to Anchorhead to report the battle overhead.

One of the things I loved about the OT SW movies is that there were never any real references to Earth.Until we had the prequels and things like Angels and suchlike started to creep in.

For a bit of fun I've reread the novel, probably for the first time since 1977, when I read it about once a month and wished I lived in the US until the film was released six months later here. Its been entertaining to spot the changes, like the cantina fight that had three attackers against Ben, not two and all the extra Biggs/Anchorhead scenes.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

One of the things I loved about the OT SW movies is that there were never any real references to Earth.Until we had the prequels and things like Angels and suchlike started to creep in..

Yup. Only falcons and rats and the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals and...

 

[CutThumb]

Yup. Only falcons and rats and the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals and...

Good points but as I was never well versed in Latin and Arabic , those passed me by. However, I really would have noticed a stray dog barking his head off or a white cat being stroked, Bond villain like by Tarkin or Vader.

Things like krayt dragons, tusk cats , womp rats ,goober fish etc kind of get a pass because they are generic English descriptions, like a load of stuff in SW.

Didn't the Ewoks have ponies in one of their movies though? I've never watched them so wouldn't know.

Oh and Mike Zeroh posted this:

Enjoying the thread Mike?

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Good points but as I was never well versed in Latin and Arabic , those passed me by.

These are Latin letters I'm typing with right now. And your phone number and postal code use Arabic numerals. That's what I mean. That's an X-wing fighter. They have that letter in some alphabet that isn't aurebesh, and it is at least translated from whatever language they're speaking in the GFFA into our "X". Similarly, See-Threepio. Not Cresh-Threepethosk. And so on.

And yes, there were ponies and horses in the Ewok movies.

 

[sztriki]

These are Latin letters I'm typing with right now. And your phone number and postal code use Arabic numerals. That's what I mean. That's an X-wing fighter. They have that letter in some alphabet that isn't aurebesh, and it is at least translated from whatever language they're speaking in the GFFA into our "X". Similarly, See-Threepio. Not Cresh-Threepethosk. And so on.

And yes, there were ponies and horses in the Ewok movies.

Pre-Special Edition the power node of the Death Star had a screen that said “Power” instead of the SW gibberish/Hebrew style lettering.

 

[Bigdaddy]

It's tough to create a universe that feels alien yet relatable to the audience. The OT did a great job striking that balance. Adding stray dogs wouldn't have helped maintain it.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

One of the things I loved about the OT SW movies is that there were never any real references to Earth.Until we had the prequels and things like Angels and suchlike started to creep in.

That wasn't that bad. It would have been hard to convey the point if Anakin had asked her "Are you a Xixian?" because most people wouldn't know WTH they were talking about. When he says "angel" we instantly know he means she's beautiful. It's also not a reference to the angels from the Bible because he mentioned a planet they supposedly live on.

 

[Kovnyn]

RE, Latin letters, Arabic numerals: They've since retconned the Latin alphabet into the Star Wars galaxy as High Galactic Basic.

RE, stray dog: A stray Massif Hound would be acceptable as opposed to a stray dog. There are enough dog-like creatures in SW for it not to be odd. I don't find fault with that though I'm glad they didn't include it on film. In my mind, instead of using a massif or one of the dog things from Willow, they would have a mangey yellow lab or something, which would have been terrible.


Part of me wishes they did include the Anchorhead scenes, it would have made Biggs' death more meaningful. Prior to the Special Edition, we only heard Biggs mentioned once, then he dies on the assault on the Death Star. We are left, Like, so? Special Edition at least gave us part of the scene where Biggs and Luke reunite at Yavin, which gave us more of a connection to the character.

The EU gave us a more specific English language bird, the Peregrin (flagship of Garm Bel Iblis) . But instead of being a bird, it was a sort of Correllian bogey man.

 

[ghostryder]

Darren Tibbles on Twitter