Calling all Star Wars geeks!!!!

Never.

When they re-released Return of the Jedi, I was tempted to attend a showing, then give a standing ovation when the lone Ewok dies in battle. But I thought better of it.

 

Speaking of the flaws in logic ...
I think I remember someone involved (Lucas?) explaining all the other books, comics and cartoons were there to supplement the story. I believe he actually compared it to the Arthurian legacy -- various versions of the legend have been written over the years, some add to the story, some take away, some directly conflict others that were written before or that would follow; but the basic gist behind the story remains intact.
I prefer to refer to this when people get too nitpicky about the plotline/storyline.

 

Well, I thought the post was going to actually be about the VH1 series that was on. I caught probably the last 20-30 minutes while I was at the gym and thought it was pretty interesting. You had Harrison Ford calling out Pres. Reagan for saying, "pardon me for stealing this, but the Force is with us." It was interesting commentary. That's for sure.

 

You've had sex ???




(I keeed).

 

:

 

The first Star wars = the greatest B-movie ever made, with great effects, great music, poor acting, and rousing scenes. And the formula has been repeated since, with better plots.

The only "Expanded Universe" books I read were Timothy Zahn's excellent yet quite derivative (lifted quote after quote from the films) trilogy of Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command. As far as this geek is concerned, those were episodes 7-9. I never made the time to read further. I hear they're good.

As for Mr. Binks . . . people fail to see him for what he was. An experiment, a moment of "Can we do this, and just in case we can't, we'd better make sure it's an innocuous character for kids." Sure, he was annoying, but the Jedi stuff in that movie was absolutely breathtaking, a quantum leap ahead of anything we had seen before. Strange what happens when the Jedi aren't old (Ben), half-trained (Luke) or 75 percent mechanical (vader).

So for me, that makes Phantom Menace a better film than the "Jar jar sucks because I forget that the family dog drove the Millennium Falcon and Miss Piggy is the most powerful being in the universe!" crew gives it credit for. I still remember a friend saying to me he hated Phantom because "Where's our charming rogue?" Well, that movie was made 20 years ago, go watch your recording of it.

Add in the podrace, which was a clear signal that Mucas was very happy to defy what people expected in this trilogy, and I liked Phantom a lot. Yes, the child actor sucked; so do most. And the midichlorians thing needed to rally in Episode III, because it fell flat in Episode I. But it's entertaining, Williams did a great job writing new music, Mucas did a great job creating a new universe within the same narrative as the old-school, and I liked it a lot.

As for Clones . . . . it's my least favorite of the six. But it's like saying Temple of Doom is the worst Indiana Jones film; it's still pretty good and better than most other films in the genre. It's not like any of the Star Wars films plumbed the depths like Star Trek V or Star Trek I did. Talk about horrendous . . . .

My wife notes that, while Mucas likely didn't think of this and simply wrote bad love dialogue, there is a logical explanation for the situation in Clones. Anakin has been raised among warrior priests who discouraged romance; when did he learn how to talk to a girl? So he remembers this girl, and just pours it out to her like the lovesick dork he is. Padme (which I always took as a NICE reference to ms. Portman's flat chest) has been a politician her whole life, with no time for romance. So, thrust into a dangerous situation with this young hero, she says why the hell not?

My personal rankings:

Empire
(and a small dropoff to)
Sith/the Original (every action/adventure movie since has tried and failed to match the dialogue, the scene-setting, the music and the rousing quality of the original film's climax)

Phantom Menace

Return of the Jedi (the only one of the six that is predictable from beginning to end, though I'll hear arguments in its favor due to Leia's space bikini)

Attack of the Clones (did like the love theme and Portman's outfits)

 

While I find the first part of your post very impressive . . . this TV series has been known for a while. I personally wish they would leave well enough alone, but oh well. I know I'll tape it every week.

 

All this Star Wars talk is well and good, but I only have two questions ...

a) How long has Boba Fett been in that big Tatooine vagina now?
b) How many more years does he have before he's digested by it?

 

hehe...yeah, she's living, breathing proof. You can even see the family resemblance (poor kid)

 

Lucas very certainly DID, on several occasions in the 1980s, refer to an eventual nine-episode 'trilogy of trilogies' Star Wars series. The last 10 years or so, he's been furiously denying he ever said such a thing, but he did, in a TIME magazine interview among other places. And he said it enough times, it wasn't just an off-the-cuff comment tossed off in a careless moment.

The third series, as many have mentioned, would feature the children of Leia and Han Solo, and the children of Luke Skywalker, leading a reestablished Jedi order, with Luke serving as the senior elder, the Obi-Wan/Yoda role. The reestablished Jedi would face a new challenge of evil, with the Sith destroyed by the dual deaths of Palpatine/Vader. Although presumably there were a lot of bad people involved in the Empire who wouldn't just simply have faded away after the big boys went down.

I could see a long-form TV series, like a Deadwood of Star Wars, filling in the inter-trilogy gaps, and maybe also serving as a epilogue/sequel to the series overall.

A number of loose ends were quite blatantly left hanging in 'Sith' -- Yoda tells Obi-Wan he will "learn to commune" with Qui-Gon. In the funeral procession for Padme, the camera slowly pans over her nieces -- pre-teens at the time of Luke and Leia, who coincidentally would be almost the exact same age as Han Solo. There's some reason Lucas did that.

As far as Lucas' constant denials he will ever make (or allow to be made) any more SW movies:

1) He spent much of the late 80s/early 90s denying he was ever going to make ANY more SW episodes; and

2) All the denials become moot the minute Lucas utters four words: "I changed my mind."

 

Those are being done as books, not movies. And a hella lot more than 3.

 

Rasputin: Bravo on the defense of TPM. (That shows you're a true SW Geek, when you refer to the movies by acronym.) I couldn't agree more, especially about seeing a full-fledged band of bad-ass Jedi. How can that not entertain a Star Wars fan? Jar-Jar wasn't that bad. No, he wasn't.

Bubbler: Well played.

Dye: Now you've done it: You've challenged the great George Lucas, and are about to get an explanation from a SW Geek.
The theory is that the Emperor's powers were strong enough to control each individual Stormtrooper, all of whom were clones. So when Vader f-ed up the Emperor aboard the Death Star, the 'Troopers were rendered hapless, thus the final score: Teddy Bears 1, Empire Warriors 0.
Take it or leave it.