Star Wars movies

[Blackleaf]

And the Jedi were apparently right about that, because his attachments to both his mother and his wife lead him down a very dark path.

But it's crazy to live without attachment (no offense to Siddhartha).  That's a big part of what makes us human.  Without emotion and attachment, people are... *gestures at separatist wardroids* like that.

Right. But imagine if the Jedi didn't try to keep Anakin from his mother, or tell him he wasn't allowed to fall in love. Anakin wouldn't have resented the Jedi for what happened, and he would have come to them for help instead of becoming a Sith.

The gray Jedi are a whole new can of worms and a contentious topic in the star wars fandom.  Some say that they're a logical impossibility because the dark side represents imbalance in the force and the light side represents balance in the force.  And also because the driving forces behind each philosophy make impartiality impossible.



I really like the idea of a third faction between Jedi and Sith (I like characters who are shades of grey, so to speak) but I'm not sure if that would really jell with canon.  Though there do seem to be a few scattered examples of a kind of blurring of the line between dark and light - especially that Bendu entity in Star Wars Rebels.  *shrugs*

The Jedi think they represent balance, but that was their fundamental misunderstanding in the prequels. The prophecy said that Anakin would bring balance to the Force, and they assumed that meant that he would help them. The prophecy wasn't wrong; they just misinterpreted it. The Force works in a cycle. One side takes dominance, and then the pendulum swings the other direction. The pendulum is the balance, and the only way to stop the cycle is for both the Jedi and the Sith to end. The existence of one necessitates the existence of the other. I think that's the idea they tried to convey in The Last Jedi.

[SGOS]

I must be the only person in the world that doesn't much care for the series.

No, that's two of us. I have tried to like them, but I can't seem to find any meaning in them.  When I was a little kid I used to turn a wastepaper basket upside down and put my head in it and talk to myself, or I might talk to my mother.  It made my voice sound funny.  You should try it sometime, although I'm not sure that the plastic buckets of today would resonate the way the old tin ones did.  I think every little kid of my generation must have tried it at sometime.  So when I saw Darth Vader for the first time, I understood how they made his voice sound so strange.  But he never seemed like this evil monster.  He just sounded like a little kid talking inside a wastepaper basket.  My impression of Darth Vader was of a guy stuck in his childhood that still thinks it's cool to talk with a wastepaper basket over his head. 

And then there's this light saber shit.  Now I've got to admit, the concept is ultra cool with the zoom zoom sound and the way they extend when you switch them on.  And I could even understand some kind of Olympic light saber competition, but as a weapon of the future, you've got to be kidding me.  If some half wit from the future came at me with a light saber, I'd shoot him with my gun before he got within 30 yards of me and be done with it.  And those silly robots always reminded me of Laurel and Hardy.  In the heat of battle, a second rate comedy duo like Laurel and Hardy just doesn't work for me.

What frustrates me is that almost everyone thinks the series is great, and I feel like the odd one out, but I guess I should be used to that.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

These gey Jedi, is that why they weren't "allowed" to marry?

[Mike Cl]

No, that's two of us. I have tried to like them, but I can't seem to find any meaning in them.  When I was a little kid I used to turn a wastepaper basket upside down and put my head in it and talk to myself, or I might talk to my mother.  It made my voice sound funny.  You should try it sometime, although I'm not sure that the plastic buckets of today would resonate the way the old tin ones did.  I think every little kid of my generation must have tried it at sometime.  So when I saw Darth Vader for the first time, I understood how they made his voice sound so strange.  But he never seemed like this evil monster.  He just sounded like a little kid talking inside a wastepaper basket.  My impression of Darth Vader was of a guy stuck in his childhood that still thinks it's cool to talk with a wastepaper basket over his head. 

And then there's this light saber shit.  Now I've got to admit, the concept is ultra cool with the zoom zoom sound and the way they extend when you switch them on.  And I could even understand some kind of Olympic light saber competition, but as a weapon of the future, you've got to be kidding me.  If some half wit from the future came at me with a light saber, I'd shoot him with my gun before he got within 30 yards of me and be done with it.  And those silly robots always reminded me of Laurel and Hardy.  In the heat of battle, a second rate comedy duo like Laurel and Hardy just doesn't work for me.

What frustrates me is that almost everyone thinks the series is great, and I feel like the odd one out, but I guess I should be used to that.

Wellllll..................I did not think I'd admit it, but I've done the waste basket thing a couple of times.  And now that you brought it up, Darth Vader does sort of sound like that. 

And now that you've mentioned the light saber thing, I was not all that impressed with it either.  A rifleman would take out any light saber you can think of.  It was an okay movie, but nothing grabbed me about it.  Carrie Fisher did not impress--not a big fan of her acting.  It was all just---meh, okay.

As for being the odd man out feeling, that's me.  My wife even thinks I'm weird--I just happen to see things different than most.  But it no longer bothers me and my wife happens to think the way I see the world is just fine--if odd--for her.  So, SGOS, that makes two of us. :))

[Hydra009]

Right. But imagine if the Jedi didn't try to keep Anakin from his mother, or tell him he wasn't allowed to fall in love. Anakin wouldn't have resented the Jedi for what happened, and he would have come to them for help instead of becoming a Sith.

Yeah, a case can definitely be made that that was on them.

The Jedi think they represent balance, but that was their fundamental misunderstanding in the prequels.

Well, it's Word of God that light side represents balance in the Force.  I can't really disagree with that.

The prophecy said that Anakin would bring balance to the Force, and they assumed that meant that he would help them. The prophecy wasn't wrong; they just misinterpreted it. The Force works in a cycle. One side takes dominance, and then the pendulum swings the other direction. The pendulum is the balance, and the only way to stop the cycle is for both the Jedi and the Sith to end.

They misinterpreted in the sense that they thought Anakin would end the Sith during the Clone Wars and thus the balance of the lightside would be restored.  In reality, he ended the Sith (temporarily) when he (temporarily) killed the Emperor decades later.  (Man, the sequels really screwed that up!)

The existence of one necessitates the existence of the other. I think that's the idea they tried to convey in The Last Jedi.

Which is why I would have absolutely loved it if Rey had taken Kylo's hand and both of them decided to end this Light-Dark conflict and chart a new path together.  That would have been something new.  Plenty of Sith and plenty of Jedi have fought and won or fought and lost, but afaik no one ever fought and then made peace.  Johnson seemed to be going in that direction, but he didn't have the cahones to fully commit to this upheaval of the status quo that he had been hinting it the entire movie.  So frustrating!

[Hydra009]

And then there's this light saber shit.  Now I've got to admit, the concept is ultra cool with the zoom zoom sound and the way they extend when you switch them on.  And I could even understand some kind of Olympic light saber competition, but as a weapon of the future, you've got to be kidding me.  If some half wit from the future came at me with a light saber, I'd shoot him with my gun before he got within 30 yards of me and be done with it.  And those silly robots always reminded me of Laurel and Hardy.  In the heat of battle, a second rate comedy duo like Laurel and Hardy just doesn't work for me.

Imo, it's a mistake to think of a Jedi as just a guy with a glowy sword.  A lot of people have gotten killed that way.

Jedi normally have a wide range of what are essentially superpowers plus the standard heightened awareness, increased reflexes, and increased speed.  Imagine Usain Bolt combined with Muhammad Ali and at least a couple years of combat experience under his belt.  He'd be force to be reckoned with if he only had a slingshot and a couple sticks of gum.

Mandos had the right idea and used atypical, hard-to-dodge ranged weapons - flamethrowers, explosives, etc.  But even then, there's a good chance the Jedi could close the distance unharmed.

Imho, the best way of dealing with elite troops like that is to simply blow up their spaceship.  In space, most of their powers are worthless and they have to rely on the same equipment as anyone else to survive.  That's where they're most vulnerable.  Knock out their life support and they're just as dead as anyone else.

[Baruch]

The problem with anti-heroes?  They are made of anti-matter, touch anything and … Boom!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Regarding the sniper: The Jedi would know he's there, would know when he's fired, would know where to put the sabre to deflect the bullet. They do this all the time in the movies.

[trdsf]

I'm extremely partial to the original trilogy (New Hope and Empire were masterpieces, Return was a big iffy in places but decent overall).  Aside from the big setpiece battles and Order 66, I didn't care for the prequels.  Except for Rogue One, which was pretty good with a hell of a beach battle and a memorable space battle.  I really wanted to like the sequels, and I think Force Awakens was decent, but Last Jedi and whatever movie came out after that were dumpster fires imho.

I'm with you.  The original trilogy is still the best of them and IMO, New Hope is still the benchmark.  Lucas had no idea if it was going to be a hit or not -- I'm not sure he had a goal other than proving Joseph Campbell was right.  He wasn't building (or worse, protecting) a franchise because despite having a whole story arc in mind, if SW:ANH had not been a hit there would have been no original trilogy, much less any prequels or sequels.

Empire was probably the better story, even though New Hope was the better movie.  Unfortunately, it suffered from the plague that affects almost all middle acts in a trilogy, not really having a satisfactory wrap-up and necessarily leaving things hanging for the next movie to resolve.

Return ended for me the first frame that showed an Ewok.  That marked the point of no return, the moment where Star Wars ceased to be a story to be told and became only a franchise to be marketed.

[Baruch]

trdsf hated ewoks ;-(

[Hydra009]

I'm with you.  The original trilogy is still the best of them and IMO, New Hope is still the benchmark.  Lucas had no idea if it was going to be a hit or not -- I'm not sure he had a goal other than proving Joseph Campbell was right.  He wasn't building (or worse, protecting) a franchise because despite having a whole story arc in mind, if SW:ANH had not been a hit there would have been no original trilogy, much less any prequels or sequels.

Empire was probably the better story, even though New Hope was the better movie.  Unfortunately, it suffered from the plague that affects almost all middle acts in a trilogy, not really having a satisfactory wrap-up and necessarily leaving things hanging for the next movie to resolve.

Return ended for me the first frame that showed an Ewok.  That marked the point of no return, the moment where Star Wars ceased to be a story to be told and became only a franchise to be marketed.

I would have been okay with the Ewoks if they served to distract imperial forces and/or they provided much-needed aid to the rebel forces.  But as a frontliine military force...yikes.

It makes the imperial military look like a joke, undercutting its formidable reputation.  And it also makes the rebels looks desperate and horribly undermanned.  All in all, a bad look.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't forget the Stormtroopers were supposed to let the rebel escape so they could be tracked back to their rebel hideout.

[Hydra009]

Don't forget the Stormtroopers were supposed to let the rebel escape so they could be tracked back to their rebel hideout.

Yeah, in A New Hope, the stormtroopers are ordered to let the protagonists escape.

And throughout the whole original trilogy - there's a brilliant thing Lucas did with the imperials.  They're orderly and calm.  Tarkin is even superficially charming with Leia right before casually bringing up that he signed her termination order, like he just signed a lease on a new house.  The imperials have this aura of authority and control.  They're used to getting their way and treat with rebels with a mixture of disgust and pity, like a disobedient stepchild rather than a mortal adversary.

Compare that with the First Order where Hux is quite literally spitting as he yells his speech.  Kylo Ren regularly loses his cool, lashing out and slicing open some wall-computer like a petulant child.  That's because Hux and Kylo are not in control.  They are not confident.  They do not command much loyalty or respect.  They are pretenders, inferior copies of the actual empire - trying and failing to emulate their ancestors.

Such a Huxtaposition.  :P

[Gawdzilla Sama]

They're the bridge between the old empire and the final order.

[Baruch]

I would have been okay with the Ewoks if they served to distract imperial forces and/or they provided much-needed aid to the rebel forces.  But as a frontliine military force...yikes.

It makes the imperial military look like a joke, undercutting its formidable reputation.  And it also makes the rebels looks desperate and horribly undermanned.  All in all, a bad look.

Apparently you don't get that asymmetrical local guerilla forces always win in the long run (if aided by outside superpowers, like France helped Washington).  See Iraq.  Obama smartly agreed "it was a win" and withdrew.  George W was incapable of that, being the author of that stupidity.  We are still tying to declare victory in Afghanistan, and withdraw.  The inside story on the Ewoks is that they ate humans, same as wookies.