Topic: Everything Star Wars discussion thread| How you doing, you old pirate?

TRAITOR!

I found Disney Star Wars more Star Warsy than George Lucas' Star Wars.

I don't see how anyone can like them in the prequels, they were bizarre. It's vomit inducing, ugly and horrible all at the same time. That scene where Yoda jumps like a parodied drunk lizard is only comparably terrible to that scene where Palpatine somehow does the same. Absolute crap.

I'll agree on Palpitine, but Yoda suddenly having the agility of a cracked-out monkey was awesome when I first saw it. I wasn't expecting it at all, and the entire theater went crazy at that part (in a good way). I think it's more funny than anything, plus it played on the art of misdirection that Yoda would use later on Luke.

Loved the Force Awakens so much we went and saw it a second time, and we never see the same movie twice in theaters. I really don't know where to put it in my favorites list. As of right now, I'd say it goes like this for me (Best to least favorite, but I like them all) 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2. Maybe in the middle or even better than one of the originals or so for me. I don't know.

Started reading Tarkin too by the way. Lost Stars was fantastic, so I hope this is another great one.

The point behind the prequel lightsabre battles was very much to accentuate that Jedi/Sith are on a whole other plane to that of normal people. Your expectation for realism was misplaced.

I don't remember how the audience reacted when I saw it in film, but to me, it ruined Yoda forever. When I watch Empire or ROTJ now I just focus my mind to try to erase the horrors of the prequels. No, Yoda was beyond and above that grasshopping stunt. Yoda is not a jumping maniac, and no, Palpatine is an old guy and him hopping around also looked phony and fake, like the rest of the CGI mess of the absolutely revolting prequels.

@gcunit so everybody forgot this other plane come Episode IV right? That slow strategy fight between Vader and Obi Wan happened just because? No one felt like hopping around the walls anymore like a squash ball? Yeah, it made sense, but only in the alzheimery bizzare mind of Lucas I guess.

Yoda using the lightsaber that way completely contradicts all he ever told Luke about the Force, and raises too many questions - why didn't Yoda train Luke with a lightsaber for example... it's just plain stupid, there's no way around that.

Even Lucas' own words show how stupid this whole thing is :

"I never thought I’d do the Star Wars prequels, because there was no real way I could get Yoda to fight. There was no way I could go over Coruscant, this giant city-planet. But once you had digital, there was no end to what you could do."

meaning no end to the absolute nonsense/trash I could make.

You are missing the point of Yoda using a lightsaber. Yoda NEVER tells Luke the force is non-physical. In fact, Obi-Wan literally calls a lightsaber "the weapon of a Jedi". As Luke becomes stronger with the force, his lightsaber abilities strengthen. It's very clear that in order to use a lightsaber, you have to be strong with the force.

Even so, when we first see Yoda, we don't really understand how such a small guy could be such a powerful Jedi. In Empire he demonstrates his strength by lifting Luke's plane out of the swamp. We begin to see that "size matters not", but we still don't see how he can fight with a lightsaber.

Then in clones, "size matters not" is reinforced again when through Yoda's fighting style. Yoda doesn't fight like Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, or Anakin. He uses his insane force abilities to compensate for his size. The only problem with the introduction in Clones is that Dooku is pretty much the least threatening villain in the franchise, Yoda still manages not to win for plot convenience.

Yoda doesn't train Luke with a lightsaber, Obi-Wan does in Ep. IV.

Well, if Yoda can use the force to lift a spaceship, maybe using it to flail himself around like a crazed Kermit the frog is child's play.

It helps that his limbs are stubby and short, a human doing the same thing would probably end up with a few broken bones.

One of the strengths of Star Wars is the gaps it leaves for us to fill in for ourselves. There are a number of possible explanations for why we don't see Yoda give lightsabre training to Luke in ESB. Who's to say it didn't happen offscreen, or that Yoda thought Luke wouldn't overcome the Sith with a lightsabre and so concentrated on other aspects of the Force, for example? What's obvious was that in the late 70's Lucas didn't have the tools at his disposal to make Yoda move dynamically, but by the 21st Century the tools were there. Also, in AOTC Yoda hasn't needed to confront a Sith for many, many years (if ever - I don't know the EU stuff), and so hobbles in, conjures up the strength go full-Duracell and save the lives of Kenobi and Skywalker, then hobble off again, but by the time of ESB he has experienced that the Sith are too strong for him to overcome them physically, so he's beaten, not to mention wearied from exile in his old age.

As for the ANH Vader-Kenobi duel: Kenobi (and the actor playing him) is an old man, and he's not intending to defeat Vader - he's the distraction while the young heroes escape (and arguably his sacrifice in front of Luke is key to Luke's development), and it's arguably not even an action sequence - it's a confrontation where the words and emotions far outweigh the actions. Do you really think Lucas was obliged to make all lightsabre fights as slow and static as one filmed with an old man in the 1970s?

The rest of your post made sense, but I disagree with this. Dooku is a long-lost Jedi gone rogue, leading up the Separatist movement, and has just disarmed (literally in Anakin's case) Skywalker and Kenobi. He may not be snarly and evil looking, but he is quite clearly a very potent threat by the time Yoda enters.

I meant in the way he is portrayed. Of course in the story he and the separatists are supposed to be such a great force that it forces the senate to grant Palpatine emergency powers.

However, in my opinion Clones completely fails at this (along with pretty much everything else). We pretty much never see the separatist army as a threat. Dooku doesn't really do much to make him seem super imposing either.

I actually like Ep 1 and 3, but I'm with most star wars fans that Ep 2 was a trainwreck.

Yes, I heard all the excuses. You can always make up that this happened off screen and this actually is okay, but for most people who watched the prequels, and liked the originals, they know it's all crap. The decisions that Lucas made in the prequels (not to mention the special editions... cringes) are just bizarre. Period.Yoda is NOT kermit the frog by any means, people (not just Obi Wan and Vader) but everybody else didn't "forget" how to somersault all of the sudden, Yoda is NOT a warrior - he literally tells that to Luke. It doesn't add up. Prequels suck. People even made excuses as to why Tantive IV looked completely different, on why R2D2 suddenly has flying capabilities, on why Leia "remembers" her mother, on why Owen forgot about C3PO, on how Anakin could build C3PO in the first place and so on. Prequels are dumb, bizarre and .... crap.

@dumedum: Well, to be fair, Yoda lied to Luke several times, so claiming he isn't a warrior to Luke doesn't make it fact.

@Klimbatize That's true, but that's another excuse Maybe off screen he actually told him that he WAS a great warrior. Maybe off screen we also saw the memories of Yoda, Obi-Wan, Artoo, Vader, Chewbacca and Boba Fett erased, so that the prequels would make sense there too.

Nobody wants to talk about it, but Yoda likely had dementia. His race was known to be very susceptible to that sad, memory-destroying disease when they hit 900.

You are mixing Yoda with Lucas.

Btw, the prequels also managed to destroy the best scene of Episode IV.

I want to hear the explanation as to why General Motti believes that the Force is a silly ancient religion, where he obviously lived through the events of the prequels.

Propaganda brainwashing? With the Sith in charge and the only ones who could stop them being Jedis they'd want to discourage people taking it up by bad mouthing it like in America where a free health care system is a believed to be a bad thing

The Force is ancient. If something is thousands of years old it is quite common to be referred to by humans as 'ancient', regardless as to whether it is alive, faded, or dead. The idea that this single point, which you are clearly confused about, destroys the entire scene for you does nothing to help your credibility.

Come on then.... where exactly, pray tell, does Yoda literally tell Luke he is not a warrior?

Let me help you a bit - here's the script for TESB and ROTJ: http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Empire-Strikes-Bac... and http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Return-of-the-Jedi.html

Let me help you even more. He doesn't say that, or anything like it, so far as I can see. Closest he seems to get to anything like it is when Luke says "I'm looking for a great warrior", to which Yoda replies, "Ahhh! A great warrior. Wars not make one great."

I'm not sure there's much point continuing the discussion with you as seem doggedly attached to your belief while evidently not knowing what you are talking about.

You guys can't deal with anything unless it conforms to your view of 'badass', is that right? Dooku is shown to be within milliseconds of striking a fatal blow against Kenobi, and then lops off the arm of Skywalker, before showing he is as powerful as Yoda. But because he doesn't look cool or menacing, because he's composed, he doesn't fit your template for 'super-imposing'. You guys need to broaden your horizons somewhat.

And regarding the emergency powers etc. - the Republic has no army. The Separatists are found to be forming a secret army. The Republic is kinda threatened by that development... kinda needs an army PDQ.... kinda needs them emergency powers to do so. It's very straight-forward, perhaps that's what you don't like about it, but how else do you suggest that Palpatine manipulate things to get those powers, to manufacture a war, if there aren't any armies to fight that war?

Feel free to lay down your stupendous ideas as to how you would have done it better.

@gcunit: Good responses. Man, people really do let the silliest things get in the way of their fun.