I still hope that one day they will make a movie series on the Thrawn books, and good ones. I think those would do well in theaters. I asked this a while ago somewhere and they said that Disney will not be making episode 7 based off any already created content, and that the story will be entirely original. Depending on how they do it, that could be a good or a bad thing.

HUGE POST AHEAD WARNING!

Tom wrote:As a footnote, I would be remiss if I failed to note that, presenting cuddly teddy bears in the guise of the noble savage archetype was not only a notable failure that stank of rank commercialism but also presaged Lucas' missteps in the prequel trilogy.

I'm discussing this in another forum, and although a huge fan of the Star Wars universe i don't know all the details, but it appears that originally the Ewoks were going to be Wookies and all that Endor stuff was going to take place on a wookie planet (their home world?). Sort of along the lines of what the game KotR did with the wookie planet (oppressed native wookies etc)?

In that context i can see that kind 'teddy bear' army being a problem for the Stormtroopers, but by switching to the little Ewoks, yeah that was the biggest problem in the original trilogy imho, 3 foot high cute teddy bears taking on (and beating quite comically) a legion of hardened Stormtroopers.

Why that change was made i just don't know?

Dessadence wrote:

MrPerson wrote:I have watched all the star wars movies, and read many books (as you can tell by my Pic) and I think If I was to introduce someone to star wars that had never seen the movies, I would show them in order from 1-6. not 4-6 then 1-3. that way they get the whole story without being confused.

I don't reckon the viewing order will confuse anybody! Watching the prequels first ruins the entire mythos and the sense of mystery and wonder we love so much about star wars. We all watched the OT and possibly even the PT as children, right? our brains couldn't comprehend the world in its entirety, we ignored 'midichlorians' and the like and focused primarily on the magic. We all wanted to be jedi and master the force, heck, even to this day I want to!

Furthermore, This also ruins the most important revelation of the saga. Remember the gasps and screams at the big unveiling of Luke's parentage! Moreover watching it in chronological order makes Ben Kenobi and Leia seem like liars.
How does Leia remember her mother? Why doesn't Ben tell Luke that Leia's his sister? Ben doesn't even know about Leia! Why would Ben feel nostalgic about the "Good old days" with Anakin, when Anakin was nothing but a prick to him?

Also why would you ever want to have people believe that Boba fett is nothing more than a mere clone trooper?
If you've read the novel that touches on his origin story (Which is awesome btw) letting people believe this does the character a woeful injustice.

PS - I hope I've managed to convey my opinion clearly, it's late and I'm half asleep

Yep, you explained it pretty well

And one of the reasons in general i have to sort of ignore the prequels (i can take them as their own thing, or a bit like fan-fiction (not great fan fiction either)).

Again i mentioned this in another forum, but coming out of the cinema after the Phantom Menace was completely a different experience compared to Empire Strikes Back or even Return of the Jedi. People were much more enthused after those original films, where as it was like leaving a funeral (silent, heads down) after that first prequel, and i never went back for the 2nd and 3rd (got the dvd's instead).

And, this is hard for a massive fan to admit, but i have only ever fallen asleep in one cinema trip, and that was for the Phantom Menace (just for 5 mins), but right from the start the characters were not interesting, and then we had Jar Jar and fart jokes for the rest (pretty much), that annoying kid etc.

JoshParnell wrote:Fantastic, you're right, it's really a shame that we didn't have a thread on SW already

It remains my favorite of all sci-fi. For me, it is the atmosphere that simply cannot be beaten. When I think of a vibrant, sci-fi universe, I think of Star Wars.

Personally, I am a die-hard fan of the films, but have no knowledge outside of them. I love each and every one, and have watched all at least 10+ times I'll admit that Episode I is notably lacking in comparison to the rest, but, other than that, I will absolutely not concede that the prequels are inferior, and will in fact argue to the last with anyone who wants to do so

I'm a huge fan of the "flashback" viewing sequence...I've never done it any other way ever since I learned about it!

Interesting fact: if you end up enjoying Limit Theory, you'll need to thank the prequel series It was only after watching Episode III that I decided I had to become a graphics programmer. Truthfully, I've no idea what I'd be doing today if someone hadn't shown me the potential beauty of a universe like that (III was just...above and beyond any other sci-fi film I had ever seen at the time in terms of atmosphere).

SW forever!!!

(That being said I am still a hardcore BSG, Firefly, TNG, and Voyager fan...in that order)

Well, you know what, just the fact Episode III made you want to become the coder you are gives it some extra respect from me that it didn't previously, and even though we can never agree fully on which part of Star Wars is the 'real' Star Wars, how can I (or anyone here) give you, Super Josh, a hard time about it.

You like the prequels, good for you, i just can't, probably because i was too close to the originals (age difference and all that etc).

Glad you joined the debate, as like for you, SW is my sci-fi gold medal, but that led me to love all sci-fi, so i'm a big nerd of many of the other series you mention also.

He he, this will be fun: Check out (for everyone also) the sci-fi series 'Blakes 7' (an old british Star trek, kind of) and 'Space 1999', just in case you didn't know about them. Quite cult, quite sci-fi nerd awesome in there different ways

Flatfingers wrote:In terms of story, it gave us heroes and said it was OK to root for the good guys (and they were good) when the previous decade had been one of anti-heroes drawn shades of miserable gray.

In terms of atmosphere, there is no better moment than Luke standing outside his home on Tatooine, staring past the dust into the distance as the two suns set to John Williams's incredible, swelling, heroic score. All the science fiction was awesome... but that moment made the movie for me.

I just pulled that out of your all around awesome post, as they are also probably the two most powerful aspects of the original films for me. I've always wanted to live in a twin sun system ever since that day, and fight evil and oppression where ever it crosses my path in life.

---------------

Great comments all around guys, from both sides of the fence as well

I think what i liked about the angry girl Star Wars fan you tube clip i posted was that she hit on some key points that i really can't get over from the prequels.

In particular i feel (and it is as vague as that, like a gut feeling) that the use of green and blue screen technology for the prequels might have had an effect on the actors themselves. Keep in mind many were young and inexperienced at the time, and that lack of connect i feel with the characters in the prequels (which was completely opposite in the original films) might largely be down to that.

Also they were stoned of their heads in the original series by all accounts, and that might have meant they actually believed they were in the world George had created for those first films!

Don't get me wrong here, i love technology, i thought Gollum in LotR was brilliant (and much of that had been green screen filmed), but i very much have a feeling of too many special effects blurring into one another so i can't pick out details in the prequels (They are very fast paced also). And ultimately my brain stops trying to see anything deeper, so those films sort of wash over me like a big wave full of special effects (and Jar Jar's farting noises/jokes), but little actual content (the acting is too weak/bad to bring the characters past that special effect bonanza).

Another big aspect is that i was a adult when the prequels came out, and compared to the original films, where only the Ewoks in RotJ can really be sure as purely for the kids stuff (because Luke's family getting killed, his crush on his sister, Darth being his father etc is NOT kids stuff in any shape or form), pretty much everything in the prequels seemed to be aimed either at a little kid, from the child actor for anakin to the droids (roger, roger!) to Jar Jar, or aimed in badly handled tribute to the original films (Anakin building C3P0, Ben Kenobi actually saying he had never owned R2D2 or even acting like he knew him etc).

All that (and there is a lot of it) just rubbed me the wrong way completely. So much so that i can really only say with hand on heart, that there are only three real Star Wars films, the original episodes 4-6, and that all the rest from the great fan fiction to books and cartoon series and episodes 1-3 AND the 'special edition' remakes of the original trilogy, are somehow separate from the magic space those first three original version films occupy. At least for me

Flatfingers wrote:

Tom wrote:

Flatfingers wrote:And for all the talk about George Lucas being an idiot...

Umm, who said that Lucas was (is) an idiot?

Well, a cursory search reveals this, among others.

But that was simply a succinct way of describing today's general attitude about Lucas -- that he's a hack, that he doesn't know how to make a good movie, that he sold out, and so on. I certainly have my own gripes about some of his choices and comments. But people today live in a time when all six movies exist and can be watched by anyone at any time. People today live in a time when a general dismissal of someone goes viral, and the next generation reads and hears that conventional wisdom and assumes it must be true.

My comments were specifically to point out that, for those who lived through the time when there was no Star Wars, and through the time when each movie came out individually and was something to look forward to, the body of Lucas's work has a more complete historical context. And in that fuller context, the picture of George Lucas looks considerably more positive.

If that didn't come through in my earlier comments, thanks for giving me the chance to clarify.

(Edited for grammatical errors )

I definitely get what you're saying here, especially since I am one of those "people today" (90's kid ). As I mentioned earlier, I grew up watching the original trilogy with my dad and his family, and when the new movies started to come out, I got more and more interested as I developed. I live in an area that isn't too densely populated, and I am the only one in my class that has even the slightest interest in science fiction, and, contrary to what you would expect, that just made me even more and more interested in it! I grew up thinking of the "big three" characters as my heroes; you know, wanting to be just like them.

Now this is just me, but I hardly ever find a lot wrong with movies because I tend to think on the positive side of them- the good things, not the bad. I see comments and rants about how bad the prequels were and I just think, "That's interesting, never thought about it that way... I still love them."

What it all boils down to for me is, I grew up with (all of) the Star Wars movies, and it's one of those childhood things you just can't let go of

It's really very simple: being an adult and feeling a shiver on your back each time the opening fanfare starts playing while the crawling text starts its march through space exactly like the first time you saw it being a kid... that's pretty descriptive. That feeling will probably be with you forever

Lum wrote:It's really very simple: being an adult and feeling a shiver on your back each time the opening fanfare starts playing while the crawling text starts its march through space exactly like the first time you saw it being a kid... that's pretty descriptive. That feeling will probably be with you forever

I guess this is what Flatfingers was talking about when he spoke about how one or a few things about a game or whatever is memorable to us. The crawling text through space is probably one of the most distinguishing features of Star Wars.

ThymineC wrote:I guess this is what Flatfingers was talking about when he spoke about how one or a few things about a game or whatever is memorable to us. The crawling text through space is probably one of the most distinguishing features of Star Wars.

Ah yes, very iconic. The whole opening sequence of any thing Star Wars still brings the magic (no matter how weak the content that follows may be). All that was a huge part of my love of X-wing, Tie-fighter, Jedi Knight (I+II), Supremacy (I think that game was 'Rebellion' in the USA?), and a couple of the later games (Jedi Outcast had a couple of decent outings also, and KotoR in particular).

Oh and just because i stumbled across it, 'angry female Star Wars fan' made a small update video in response to the comments from her first rant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnNT-aaU5A

Pretty much most of the people i know that love Star Wars as much as I do are male, so it was just really refreshing to see such a motivated attitude from a women imho, whether or not you agree with her about the prequels.

Kvallning wrote:For the tabletop gamers amongst us, Fantasy Flight Games released a new Star Wars publication, Edge of the Empire, which I've been itching to try.

Quite frankly, none of the newer Star Wars Pen & Paper adaptions came even close to the original West End Games Star Wars D6 RPG. As far as I'm concerned, Bulldogs! (the FATE edition, at least) does a better job at being a Star Wars RPG than the official Star Wars games. But that's probably just me.

One of the main problems I have with the prequels and the newer game publications in general is that everybody and their dog is a frelling Jedi, and that these frelling Jedi are annoying as a bunch of whitewashed Elven Paladins cranked up to 11. Except of course, when you're supposed to play a Sith, then you dress funnily, get a weirdly-coloured complexion and do stuff for the Evulz. There's Jack all moral ambiguity left, and the universe is a lot worse off due to it.

I'd rather see a young Han Solo instead of a bunch of Jedi acolytes. Instead, we get a metric crapload of hookey religion and ancient weapons™. With colour-coded villains for your viewing convenience. With the prequels, Star Wars has pretty much hit Saturday morning breakfast cartoon level, and I don't mean that in a good way. Heck, Galaxy Rangers probably felt more like Star Wars than the dreaded Episode 1 ever would.

By doing overblown exposé pieces on just about every minor and major character, they killed the mystery. And they didn't even do it gracefully - the whole Anakin/Vader story is hamfisted at best, and has a similar effect like showing baby photos of the evil overlord around - you have a frelling hard time to take him serious afterwards. Vader was the embodyment of graceful, lawful evil. The Dragon incarnate, a role model for quite a few villains to come afterwards.
Prequel Anakin, however, is a whiny jerkwad with poor impulse control. Nothing more.
Boba Fett was the silent, mysterious bounty hunter shrouded in mystery.
Prequel Jango/Boba was revealed a throwaway copy of the dumb cannon fodder that gets shot to bits left and right throughout the rest of the series. Way to go, really.

It seems like they really went out of their way to piss on pretty much every character from Episode IV-VI.

My hopes for VII+ are pretty low. Given the quality of what Hollywood puts out lately, the best we can hope for is a "turn your brain off please" 120 minute special effect extravaganza. A "good" movie or a worthy sequel? About a snowball's chance in Hell.

And this is a link to that quite epic (and clever) deconstruction of the first prequel film, all 7 parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQg ... 1EC9D3C45E

Hardenberg wrote: Boba Fett was the silent, mysterious bounty hunter shrouded in mystery.
Prequel Jango/Boba was revealed a throwaway copy of the dumb cannon fodder that gets shot to bits left and right throughout the rest of the series. Way to go, really.

Well didn't you hear? Arndt (The writer for VIII, IX and the spin off films) modified the Boba fett story pretty extensively. In his script he had Boba (Clone from the prequels) be killed by an elusive assassin who then stole Boba's identity and became the Fett we know from the original series and EU.

So don't write off the mysterious badass we know and love just yet!

Moreover, I'm also pretty excited by the possibility of an incredible origin story for "New Boba". It's a neat little trick to get rid of the ungodly stench of the prequels. Now, if only they could figure out a way to fix Anakin

By the looks of it, they, or at least, Arndt, is trying to restore Star wars to its former glory.

It'll be interesting to see what a new director will give to starwars. As far as the movies go I'd rather follow a story line with a less well known character (such as Han's Uncle) if the directors want to make their own version of the EU. Otherwise, accuracy will be important as well as not upsetting the timeline.

Dessadence, Anakin Skywalker is dead unless you mean Anakin Skywalker Solo who may or may not be in the next film.

BFett wrote:Dessadence, Anakin Skywalker is dead unless you mean Anakin Skywalker Solo who may or may not be in the next film.

What I was intending to say when I said I wanted them to "fix" Anakin was that they should fix the Anakin aspect of Vader's story.
I wasn't a fan of their portrayal of the character and I believe they should attempt to "fix" that, in a similar way that they're attempting to "fix" Boba Fett from being just another clone trooper.

Vader was a truly menacing character in the original trilogy and we were informed that he was once a noble jedi and a good friend of Obi Wan Kenobi. However, in the prequels we don't see any signs of friendship or any character development for that matter. He lacked depth. I personally believe that the prequels completely undermined the character and emasculated him.

After watching the prequels, I just couldn't see Vader the same way again. He just wasn't scary anymore.

This, unlike Fett, is gonna be very difficult to fix unless they openly declare episodes 1-3 are not canon

This is what I want them to "fix". I'm aware of Vader's death, obviously. I just want them to restore the character to what he originally was.

I'm not seen Fett neither in need of a "fix" nor as a clone trooper. He was born a clone but grew up without the system. He grew up free and in the middle of a shady galaxy. He took a mandalorian armor and created a reputation for himself. People got shiver if his name came up in a conversation. This character has depth and has a strong personality (sideeffects of growing up with Aurra Sing and other good hearted folks, I suppose ). He survived a vacation inside the Sarlacc and came back to take his name and reputation back from Jodo Kast. If a character in the SW universe don't need a fix that's Boba Fett.

My opinion, of course

OK, I can understand that. With regards to Boba Fett, I personally don't mind that he's an exact copy of his "father" Jango. He's not just another clone because he grows at the normal human rate unlike the other clones which grow at twice the rate of normal humans.

'Chewbacca' attack hits shops in 11 nations:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25978460

An interesting story

What is your favorite Star Wars Book Series?

For me I'd have to say The Young Jedi Knight series was my personal favorite and it's also why I chose to go with the name BFett instead of DMaul or another character. Boba's ability to fight for the highest bidder and look cool while doing it was one of the reasons why I chose my name. The characters in the series felt real and the chapters always stopped with a cliff hanger so I always wanted to keep reading.