Lets talk all things Star Wars

have to still say, props to Lucas for foreseeing the rise of streaming and trying to get in on it. Too bad that it requires other networks to actually have a platform and no one was interested. Could have contributed to the burnout.

I agree that origin stories really dont work because you already know the end goal which makes the character development very restrictive. It also really only goes one of two ways: the character was always like they are now or more common, character is the exact opposite of who they were but one or some major event changed them to who they are now.

In this case, Palps was either an actual positive role model for peace and a spurned lover turned him evil or he was always evil and spurned love made him more evil (probably the former). Im fine with a character exploration but would prefer it be a one off or story arc as opposed to a whole series. Motivation is nice but love is also a done to death concept. Maybe something like seeing the jedi as inadequate and the dark side would be “better” for a more equitable society could be interesting and some universe building.
 
A conflict like the one at the heart of the original Assassins Creed games could be interesting. In which the protagonist Assassins believe in truth and transparency being right if not peaceful, and the evil Templars believe that the honest truth is too much for most citizens, and that blind but comfortable subjugation is the path to peace.

Both parties kill, both try to control a narrative and offer their vision of peace to the populous, but at times it’s hard to outline who exactly is better off for humanity.

If Palpatine was like the Templars, and saw that the peace the Jedi promised was tenuous at best it would open the door for him to explore the alternative. His “evil” being earned through his absolutist and pragmatic approach. He doesn’t need to be some arcane avatar of evil, nor is he the love spurned hero of his own story.
 
I mean the other thing is that the PT was essentially Palpatine's story if you really break it down. He was the only character with a clear motivation which was to conspire behind the scenes to generate a false crisis in order to seize ultimate control of the galaxy. He may not have been given exposition the way a central protagonist typically does, but it's obvious that his story was the strongest in those movies, for better or worse.

Though the ideas HeartBlade and harrisonp you both raise would have been really interesting ways to explore the same essential story of the PT.
 
HeartBlade said:
I agree that origin stories really don't work because you already know the end goal which makes the character development very restrictive. It also really only goes one of two ways: the character was always like they are now or more common, character is the exact opposite of who they were but one or some major event changed them to who they are now.

In this case, Palps was either an actual positive role model for peace and a spurned lover turned him evil or he was always evil and spurned love made him more evil (probably the former). Im fine with a character exploration but would prefer it be a one off or story arc as opposed to a whole series. Motivation is nice but love is also a done to death concept. Maybe something like seeing the jedi as inadequate and the dark side would be “better” for a more equitable society could be interesting and some universe building.
Click to expand...
In addition to what you said, I've always felt that not all characters, particularly supporting characters, need much of a backstory, much less an origin story. Most of these characters are there to serve a specific purpose, either to move the plot along or to provide exposition for the audience and we don't need to know more about them. In some cases, like Boba Fett, the less we know about the character, the better they work. Then we have characters like Obi-Wan and Yoda who are there to act as mentors to the main character and to provide some exposition to how some things work in the universe, there's no need to know more about them.
 
Absolutely.

The Emperor in the original films was the literal embodiment of everything the Empire valued. He was total domination without compromise or compassion and it wasn't necessary to understand how he came to be, only that he represented the ultimate evil Luke would have to face in Return of the Jedi. The lingering question in that film is will Luke be able to rescue his father from the clutches of the Emperor or would he cave to the Dark Side and become like his father who had already fallen from grace?

Every example of the Empire's cruelty and evil was exemplified throughout the actions of Vader and the Empire through ESB and ANH and so when you saw Palpatine face to face by ROTJ, you hated him because you knew that he was the man responsible for all that devastation and death. Plus it was inferred that Palpatine was at least partly responsible for Anakin's fall, which made Vader a tragic figure in a sense and Palpatine's evil that much more personal to Luke because his father was a victim.

A New Hope and Empire had built up the Emperors reveal by the time ROTJ came about. *Character and motivation established. The Empire was now the result of one man's actions and that man had to be brought to justice. The faceless stormtroopers and Vader himself, the death like agent of said evil, now gave rise to a human face in Palpatine, which meant the Empire was merely a twisted version of humanity, simply because it lacked humanity. Lucas even reinforced this idea by having his countenance warped and withered as if he was unnaturally staving off death. This also meant that the Empire could be defeated because if a human created it, that person also had human flaws that could be exploited.

The best part of all of this is that we see all this through the visuals and the audience can infer meaning from them without having to be explicitly told. You just know by watching the story. How Palpatine came to power wasn't necessary for Luke's story in the original films. The Emperor merely played a part. Just like so many characters in these movies. Too often focus is given to characters or elements that don't serve the story which ideally should be about the protagonist. Which is why I say it all comes down to the writing.
 
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As to why every thread devolves into TLJ, it's the same reason why every thread prior to TLJ devolved into Prequel discussions: because they are sharp dividing lines in the fandom. They're the points of controversy/conflict. So, naturally, they get much of the discussion.

I've softened my attitude on the prequels. They're flawed, but I appreciate that they're coming from somewhere. Like, there's a creative vision behind it that's clear and trying to tell a specific story. It's not exactly a story I want to hear, and I think the execution of telling it is deeply flawed, but it has a real perspective.

The sequel trilogy...I dunno...I mean it's fun on a surface level, but it's also a tonal whipsaw. And if you look beneath the surface, it just feels like a mess, especially the JJ stuff. It feels like a lot of random "wouldn't it be cool if..." ideas that don't really string together effectively. I love TLJ, but it's also wildly out of place with the sequel trilogy. It works ok with TFA, but TROS completely ignores it which leaves the whole trilogy feeling completely disjointed and all of the movies suffer from it as a result.

I gather the stuff with Rey's parentage also shifted around a bunch during the filming of TROS. At one point, she's Obi-Wan's granddaughter, then she's Palpatine's granddaughter, and that was happening during filming apparently. I mean, maybe that's just rumor, but if it's true...*****, no wonder the whole thing feels so wacky.
Emotionally, it works. It hits beats. But the beats are unearned, they're derived from nostalgia rather than story, and the moment you start to actually think about them, the whole potemkin village comes crashing down.

And so much of it is due to the trilogy structure.

This, I think, is a big part of why The Mandolorian has been so successful: it's not tied to a 2-2.5hr runtime. It's not trying to cram a ton of story into a specific limited window. Instead, you get more like three movies worth of runtime for a single tale, and that tale is so much more enjoyable for it. The pacing still needs to be good. The individual episodes still need to be good. But the overall story is much more able to breathe, characters can be developed more fully, and it's just a better experience than a film. And given the budget it has, visually it's every bit as nice to watch as the films. I think this just proves that the old plan of Flash Gordon style serials better suits Star Wars than an insistence on trilogies because George was burned out from making the three films back in the early '80s.
 
I think too much explanation in Star Wars goes against what George was trying to accomplish in ANH. Like any American that didn't grow up in Japan, to watch a Kurosawa film meant to be thrown into the deep end of a culture & time in which we have no point of reference, but there was enough there that the audience could fill in the blanks with the info it was given.

We could see that Tattooine was a desert with 2 suns. We find out that the Owens were farmers. Farming what? - moisture, which would make sense on a desert planet.

Now to me, all I need to know for the story to progress & make sense, is that Luke wants to leave & basically go away to school, his uncle is afraid for him to leave because of something in the past(which we do find out), his aunt understands that it's time for him to go, & though frustrated, Luke loves & respects them. That's all I need to know about Luke to have a starting point for his story.

If I feel like I need to know what a vaporator is, how it works, & why you harvest moisture in seasons, then that's on me for not being invested in the actual story that's trying to be told.
 
harrisonp said:
Usagi Pilgrim
That’s because (as I’m sure you’re well aware) SW is a fantasy story wearing a spacesuit. Fans have always taken it too far trying to crowbar the franchise into being Sci-Fi.
Click to expand...
Absolutely!

I wish I could find it, but I recently saw a clip with Harrison Ford back in '77 or '78, & he was correcting the interviewer that referred to SW as sci-fi. He called it fantasy way back when.
 
harrisonp said:
Effectiveness of Underworld aside, we REALLY need some more urban environments in modern SW. I’m so tired of the barren planets they’re constantly going to. Seriously this galaxy has so many desert, forest, and water planets that the crime syndicates should abandon spice and invest in eco-tourism.
Click to expand...

Yes. I want some show to go back to Coruscant. I always loved when they went into the weird places way under the city in the books.
 

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