Disney buying Lucasfilm

[Rasix]

You know, I keep trying to think about how elbow saber man looks when he's fighting. I keep thinking it's probably something like watching somebody do a particularly exaggerated square dance, all flying elbows and such.

[Nevermore]

Most folks hate for midichlorians was summed up as, "It creates a genetic legacy for Force usage!"

In a series where Dad, His Son and Daughter were the biggest Force badasses in the universe. 

I would have less problem with midichlorians if they were a side-effect from using the Force rather than the source of the Force.  The latter just gives Star Wars a weird Parasite Eve twist.

[Sjofn]

MY issue was more it explained something that absolutely did not need to be explained, and as a bonus the explanation was stupid.

[Samwise]

MY issue was more it explained something that absolutely did not need to be explained, and as a bonus the explanation was stupid.

And then it proceeded to add absolutely nothing to the story from that point forward.

In fact, it opens up plot holes, because if you can test for Force sensitivity, there's no reason to let a Sith lord hide under your nose.  If having a high midichlorian count means you get Force powers, and the common belief is that Jedi training is the only way to use those powers safely, doctors would naturally be testing everyone for midichlorians and forwarding unusual results to the Jedi Council.  They'd have had Palpy pegged as soon as he had his first physical on Coruscant.

[Paelos]

Heh, I never thought of it that way. Maybe they tried and he used his mind puppet tricks on the doctors.

[Cyrrex]

/handwave

"This is not the urine sample you're looking for..."

[Malakili]

Heh, I never thought of it that way. Maybe they tried and he used his mind puppet tricks on the doctors.

This is sort of how they explain away the fact that Palpatine was obviously grabbing power and no one noticed.  You don't need the force to notice this guy is being a manipulative chancellor and consolidating power.  But Yoda's all just "the dark side clouds everything!" 

Well ok then, I guess that's it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Let's not try and pretend the prequels made any fucking sense.

[Ironwood]

Yuuuup.

[Malakili]

Let's not try and pretend the prequels made any fucking sense.

Well that was kind of my point, if you have to hand wave the basic plot of the entire trilogy with some "because the dark side" bullshit, that's not a good sign.

[Cyrrex]

I don't know.  The ham-fisted execution bothered me a lot more than the ham-fisted writing.  With a few tweaks, a competent director could have made much more out of that material.

[Khaldun]

The whole idea is so bad in so many ways in terms of what it does to the setting, the stories and the characters. There is really nothing that can be done to fix it except to delete it.

[Malakili]

I don't know.  The ham-fisted execution bothered me a lot more than the ham-fisted writing.  With a few tweaks, a competent director could have made much more out of that material.

Not that the execution was great, but the writing was far worse in my opinion.

[Fabricated]

MY issue was more it explained something that absolutely did not need to be explained, and as a bonus the explanation was stupid.

And then it proceeded to add absolutely nothing to the story from that point forward.

In fact, it opens up plot holes, because if you can test for Force sensitivity, there's no reason to let a Sith lord hide under your nose.  If having a high midichlorian count means you get Force powers, and the common belief is that Jedi training is the only way to use those powers safely, doctors would naturally be testing everyone for midichlorians and forwarding unusual results to the Jedi Council.  They'd have had Palpy pegged as soon as he had his first physical on Coruscant.

Basically this sort of stuff is what the RedLetterMedia reviews cover top to bottom, and ironically despite the movies being really really bad with nonsensical shit like this the thing about the reviews that stunned me the most when I looked at the movies again was just how bad they were as -movies-.

Like yes the plot is awful and makes absolutely no sense top to bottom but the direction of the movie is shockingly bad. Shot for shot almost everything is terrible. Nonsense cuts, the CGI'd rooms limiting movement in scenes that should have action and action scenes having TOO much action, all the dialogue being shot like a soap opera in shot-reverse shot, wildly inconsistent tone, etc etc. I watched it again after seeing all this pointed out and it really honestly shocked me just how bad it was in retrospect.

But yeah, seriously if you haven't watched the Red Letter Media reviews do so. They're hilarious.

[Phildo]

RedLetterMedia's reviews are the best Star Wars movie I'll get in my lifetime.

[Draegan]

RLM is the only reason I can't wait for more SW movies. If I remember correctly though, he did say somewhere that JJ is the only hope for Star Wars.

[HaemishM]

I knew things had gotten bad in the prequels when I saw that shot of Mace Windu talking with Obi Won in the hallway of the Jedi Council and it looked like two actors walking on the set of Land of the goddamn Lost. Not that there weren't bad things before that, but Attack of the Clones had so many really really shitty, unnecessary CGI shots that it took me right out of the movie. Phantom Menace had its problems but it was at least competently directed. The other two were just fucking webisode levels of bad direction on top of the bad writing.

[Fabricated]

If JJ gets a good script and the new cast members put out a good performance, JJ can make a good Star Wars movie.

[HaemishM]

Of course he can. He made a good Star Trek movie and would have made two if the script hadn't been such utter shit.

[Tannhauser]

I'm fairly confident JJ will make a good Star Wars movie.  The only one of his I didn't really like was the ET ripoff.

[Sir T]

And then it proceeded to add absolutely nothing to the story from that point forward.

Now that's a lie! They had to put in Mitocloriwhatzits to explain how Darth Vader was born via a virgin birth. This microscopic things got together in a mitocloricconferance and made his momv pregnant as he was going to be the savior of the force, which explains why he fell the 2 inches the dark side inside 0.5 of a second and how the story is such a tragedy!

Anyway, ROTJ was a decent movie, though I felt it flagged in the middle somewhat. A lot of the hate on the Ewoks I think came from the 2 (yes 2) Ewok movies THAT DON'T EXIST! The scenes with the Emperor were amazing in it.

[Simond]

And then it proceeded to add absolutely nothing to the story from that point forward.

Now that's a lie! They had to put in Mitocloriwhatzits to explain how Darth Vader was born via a virgin birth. This microscopic things got together in a mitocloricconferance and made his momv pregnant as he was going to be the savior of the force, which explains why he fell the 2 inches the dark side inside 0.5 of a second and how the story is such a tragedy!

I thought that got retconned in the third prequel to "Palpatine's dead master used Sith Alchemy to engineer the perfect Force-user and then got promptly ganked by Ol' Yellow Eyes"?

[Samwise]

I think there might have been a line in there about how he used the midichlorians to create life?  Or it might have just been "used the Force to create life".  There isn't any difference so the midichlorian thing still adds nothing.

[eldaec]

The whole thing is slightly less awful if you assume the mother and Palpatine were both lying.

And Ras Al Ghul is known to be a sociopathic madman.

[Malakili]

It's sort of implied that he was a Darth Plaguis created Anakin, yeah. 

"Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying"



But uh, that's stupid as shit, so no.

[Ironwood]

The whole thing is slightly less awful if you assume the mother and Palpatine were both lying.

And Ras Al Ghul is known to be a sociopathic madman.

If you watch the scene with Qui Gon and The Mother again (oh, and please DON'T), she really, really just comes off as either lying or 'I got drunk this one time and....'

It's amazing how many cracks in the narrative there are, really.  But it's ok, because it made a lot of money and That's The High Ground.

[Phildo]

I always assumed Palaptine was lying, but the mother was not.  Because it's a George Lucas story and the Good Guys don't lie, while the Bad Guys always do.

[Samprimary]

palpatine's trickery is a shoddy, tentative patchwork of bad writing  and  unexplained undertones that is rivaled in its "it makes less sense the more you think about it"-ness by a select few other things like the qui gon podrace and chance cube bet for anakin and a ship part but not mom.

[eldaec]

Again, the pod race makes sense if it is a deal negotiated by a sociopath.

[Shannow]

btw wtf is StarWars: Rebels and where does that fit into canon?

[Fabricated]

There's so many incredibly simple ways to fix the worst problems with the prequels it'll give you a stroke trying to think of them all.

I mean Lucas was onto something with the basic concept of Anakin: "Anakin can't handle loss and is frustrated that despite how powerful he clearly is he cannot control the bad things in his life, which is mostly people he loves dying on him."

That's honestly something you could make a really great story and a tragic character out of. Then you just fuck it up completely.

[Nevermore]

btw wtf is StarWars: Rebels and where does that fit into canon?

It's a new animated series that will be on the Disney Channel in the fall.  It'll be the first Star Wars material made by Disney so I can't see how it wouldn't be canon.  The animation style is the same as the Clone Wars (probably made by the same people, I haven't checked).  It takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.  Here's a trailer.

[Khaldun]

Animation style is a bit different, I think. Seems like it will be a bit more light-hearted and is definitely trying to be as much like A New Hope as it can be and leave the prequels behind.

There's some good stories possible in this time frame: Darth Vader and other servants of the Emperor tracking down Jedi, rise of the Rebellion, etc.

[Merusk]

Animation is similar but uses more rounded edges than Clone Wars.  My complaint with their style was everything was so hard-edged, from Beards to armor.  Look at those Stormtroopers, they're practically bubbles.

Considering they killed Clone Wars for this but kept CW as canon and it's on the "Boys 7-13" channel chance of canon is 99%.  Star Wars is a property being marketed at boys in that age group* and this is how they plan on hooking them in for the new movies.


* Which is why there's still only 2 women in the new movie, which has lots and lots of women's equality groups up in arms after the cast announcements.

[Cyrrex]

As long as some of those women are hot.  Then the equality groups have no reason to complain!