I think this is interesting enough to give a comment on.

Both with Hoth and the Ewoks, Lucas wanted to give a commentary on the Vietnam War. Something about the evil, technologically superior force being beaten by the more primitive but more spiritual, naturally inclined force.

So why doesn't this work as a critique? Well, because it implies the U.S. lost the Vietnam War. The U.S. didn't lose that war. Nor did it win. The war was not a war of winning or losing. It had stupid target aims which were unmatchable. All that happened is a massive amount of people suffered and died for no good reason at all. To present any kind of Vietnamese triumph over the U.S. is just not how it went. You never really win in a war with the level of devastation they faced. To recognize the ultimate pointlessness of the Vietnam War is the key insight. Something George Lucas apparently did not see.

This conversation is reminding me of this:



Still, I'm not sure that Hoth can be construed as an allusion to Vietnam as you're describing it (as a "technologically superior force being beaten by the more primitive but more spiritual, naturally inclined force"), because the Empire is the side with superior technology yet it also crushes the rebels without any real resistance. It's something more similar to the idea of asymmetrical war being an act of extermination (hence why I think critiques of colonialism and romanticizing indigenous societies are more relevant here than Vietnam specifically, although of course Vietnam was a colonial conflict).

I wouldn't try to understand the "underlying message" of anything George Lucas did too hard, since the man is basically world famous for (apparently) finding people to spruce up his half-assed ideas into brilliant spectacles of special effects, texture, emotion, etc. In fact I really don't know how he managed to do it in the OT, it's just so brilliant....

In fact, you could say that TPM's failure was nothing more than the result of Lucas trying too hard to make the thing good. I've read here that the screenplay / novelization is better than the movie, and yet with all the budget for the special effects that went into making it, the convoluted story couldn't make up for the disconnect between what he was apparently trying to do (and the super dumb things like Jar Jar that actually made it to the final product, so I'm going to guess that absolutely nobody had any kind of veto power over Lucas), and what he could pull off. I think a lot of the problem is that Lucas is enamored by a lot of his own really stupid ideas, far too many of which made their way onto the screen.

Still, as was mentioned here, TPM really shines through in terms of setting, score, and some amount of coherent focus on characters and their journey through the SW universe (for example, Duel of the Fates is epic, and we really cared about Qui-Gon's fate, hah). It's just that a slightly less dictatorial Lucas could probably have conjured a far more brilliant work had he done whatever the heck he did in ANH and ESB.

There is a lot to be said for resource limitations being a saving grace for the OT. New hope went over schedule and over budget, but I think that kept Lucas in check with his more elaborate ideas, which forced him to focus more on the narrative, which his editors were able to bring into focus even more.

A good parallel to this idea is Peter Jackson, who, because of budget cuts had to scale his vision back. Originally he wanted the Nazgul to be CG. The Budget didn't allow it, and instead the problem was solved by going for the less expensive route, which I think would have been cheapened being done in CG.

But when both Lucas and Jackson had the grandeur and big budget they wanted in order to flesh out their visions the narratives suffered.

I'm not saying this is always the case, but it is something to consider.

I lost the video on it, but some documentary made the claim that it's what Lucas had in mind when writing the Hoth battle.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/bdimb9/a_video_message_from_george_lucas_for_the_phantom/

Can’t help but think reason why the PT failed is that he tried to string a narrative together, knowing that he had to fit in at various places events that were described in the OT, such as the clone wars. He didn’t have to accept that constraint, and another story teller could’ve pulled it off more effectively, but he did accept the constraint, and he didn’t pull it off.

Like, we didn’t really need an explanation for where the clones came from. The war could’ve been happening already, and could’ve provided the background for an episode. So too, we didn’t need to see Palpatine’s rise to power and the transition from the Republic to the Empire, but he chose to make it central to the arc, meaning that the entire story was effectively just an explanation for another story.

Incidentally though, a failure of the new trilogy is that we have no idea what’s going on with the political conflict there. But we also have no emotional investment in it.

I suppose was I’m getting at was encapsulated by this bit, like, forever ago:

Oh man, that's fantastic. Thanks for sharing that, Eversor.

When I started with showing Star Wars to my kids I started with TPM and AotC because I thought they would be the most kid friendly. Oh how wrong I was. I managed to bore them to death with Star Wars. By the time I tried to show them ANH they had lost all interest and didn't want to watch any of it.

But when they saw some poster of TFA they wanted to see the movie so I showed it to them and my son exclaimed "Wow, Star Wars is actually good!" And I can see that. Story aside the movie is kinda fun.

But when I finally showed them the OT Star Wars became awesome. They very much liked Rogue One as well.

So my fully scientific study shows that the OT is the best and not just because of nostalgia.

Excuse me, but are you suggesting that children don't enjoy movies about road taxes?

Unbelievable, right?

When I tried to show them RotS (which I kinda like) I noticed how much time is wasted with talking to set up Anakin for the dark side. I think it's about half an hour of talking from the end of the battle over Coruscant to Obi-Wan starting his fight with Grivous (or is the fight with Palpatine first, can't remember). They started playing with Lego at the opera scene.

So, the best movie to get your kids to play more and stop watching TV is RotS.

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/sci-fi/star_wars/star-wars-kathleen-kennedy-confirms-plans-for-a-knights-of-the-old-republic-movie-tv-series-a167829

Good news: great source material
Bad news: they'll screw it up

Next show them the Holiday Special (be sure to skip the part where one of the Wookiees goes into a VR sexual fantasy simulation). (Actually, you can probably skip the whole thing...)

The Holiday Special is a masterpiece of bad choices in production. It's actually stunning that you can even make a film that bad.

Science fiction has a lot of good political drama. The problem with TPM was that it was obtuse and told via. boring exposition. The politics justified the action after the fact, they didn't drive the action.

Star Wars would have been a great setting for a fictional adaptation of late 19th century Europe. The British Empire, for example, could be great villains from the perspective of one conflict but the heros of another. Post ROTJ would have worked well for that, because the Empire would have been severely weakened, and a number of great powers could have risen to vie for power. The movies could tell one story with one set of heroes and villains, but spin offs could tell other perspectives.

Agreed.

Very well, but is that not better than driving the 'plot' forward by happenstance and action-packed tedium? I'd rather be bored than confused. And no, The Matrix: Reloaded was not any better than The Last Jedi, as far as that goes.

(That said, Lucas also put a bunch of idiotic slapstick action sequences in the prequels. I seem to remember something about Threepio in a robot assembly line that just had me groaning. And of course, Jar Jar, not to mention Anakin blowing up the Trade Federation stations basically by mistake, HOW CUTE.)

I don't think they'll be using KOTOR. Disney hates everything that was done without them. Probably just something new set somewhere in the old republic timeline.

The FGR watching order of SW films would indeed be:
- The Clone Wars cartoon (2003-2004) Because you don't really need any other premise for the prequels than "hey, a war's happening and this guy will turn evil"
- RotS
- TODOA
- Rogue One
- OT

RotS so high. Lots of people seem to like RotS... maybe I should watch it. For the first time since 2005.

Oh, I meant the chronological order of watching the films.

(And yes - dropping the character in here for a moment - the mention of TODOA in there is a joke, but despite the usual reasons for me including it there, TODOA still once managed to get a genuine compliment from a random Internet dweller https://twitter.com/mattcrotts/status/639811315356278784, which was awesome. Alright, switching the FGR character back on)

That said, I still like RotS enough to... say that I like it (more than RotJ overall as a movie).

If not so much for the movie's plot itself, but definitely due to a lot of aesthetics. Republic Commando is one of my favorite SW games and a lot of TODOA is (partially intentionally?) packed with direct RotS setpieces and references.

reading the novel made me appreciate RotS a lot more. It's one of my favorite movies in the saga.

Thank you for saying that. I really don't get most of the hate towards that movie. Also, I have the XBox version of Republic Commando and somewhat recently installed the gog version with some upgrade I found. Didn't get into it much yet, though.

I thought I installed some mod for RC that fixed some issues and enhanced other things but I might have had that mistaken. I just launched it and the mouse is stupid fast in the menu and nothing appeared to be modded. These are the sorts of dumb things I get obsessed with when I should be in bed already. I'm also downloading KOTOR to see if it supports an old school gamepad. RC does not appear to. Just spent a short amount of time with Outlaws and it's pretty cool being able to play that with the old logitech controller I mentioned recently in another thread. What all this has to do with the new Rise of the Skywalkers film I don't know.

Oh yeah, I remember the stupid fast mouse issue and having to fix it manually every time in the settings until I fixed it in the .INI files or something. And this was already back in 2009 when the game was merely 4 years old.

To tie this conversation back to the Rise of Skywalker film (wouldn't The Truth of the Destruction of Apocalopolis have been a better name anyway), I liked how TFA brought back Grievous' guards' staffs, so maybe this new Star Wars film about Luke's long-lost uncle Bob Skywalker finally getting out of (a carbonite) bed should feature a throw-back to RC (or RotS).

I guess I probably did have the fixed version installed. The mouse is still bad (mostly just menus) but doable.

IMO, I agree. I really don't like it when the plot seems arbitrary.

the last jedi was good so this probably wont be as good

https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/2019/5/7/18535642/star-wars-new-movies-release-dates-disney?fbclid=IwAR08w--d3NYQYYN1SM2OAqcFGsueZpM5JzUqY4gAb_QOiJD27EpBg6tQO8M

Phew, what a relief

2039: A year forever marked in history as the year that the Disney corporation released the most expensive movie ever before or after, Star Wars Episode 10. Although the final budget was never released to the public, it is easily estimated to be tens of trillions of dollars, thanks in large part to a jaw-dropping 3621 rounds of reshoots with new directors and creative teams, a fraught production which also saw principal photography shift between nearly every jurisdiction on earth in a tax incentive world tour (production would eventually settle on Somalia).

Star Wars Episode 10 also holds the record for the physically largest ever home video release for its Episode 10 Ultimate Edition box set, which shipped in a piano crate and included another record-setting 6 years of deleted scenes. (Only one was ever produced, to satisfy Disney's obligations to a 2021 contest winner. The 1182nd disc was scratched.)

It's estimated that Star Wars Episode 10's investment fundraising converted the entire sovereign wealth of most money laundering states, including Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Nevada, and Delaware. The film was considered a massive flop despite literally the entire population of earth paying to see it in theaters multiple times. Historians believe Episode 10's commercial failure may have led to a wave of violent uprisings in 2040 that eventually resulted in a billion deaths.

98% fresh, 11% audience score.

Star Wars: The Last Bad Guy Still Exists (Yet Again!)

They cart out a 90 year old Ian McDiarmid on his hospital bed and he waves at the crowd.

Oh is that why Luke's TLJ hobo hut happens to be in Ireland.

yes, but they wouldn’t let Disney exterminate the puffins so you can bet they won’t be back any time soon

(fortunately they found a way to trademark puffins, which in capitalism is almost as good)

i really cant wait for them to make a star wars movie thats not about making money sheesh

At the risk of explaining the joke, with break even now exceeding half a billion it's hard to argue that the movies currently are about making money. In order for Solo to break even they would have needed to sell 102 million first-run tickets in the United States. lol. Their budgets are complete bonkers.

Okay, I wanted to share this a couple weeks or so back but I never got around to it. In the interest of transparency, these guys are Glenn Beck guys but he and his minions are pretty much all around our age and, basically, Star Wars nerds like us. Still, I think most will find the following video humorous.