General grievances (random fan rants)

I've been eating a lot of power bars.
Sith power bars.

Well, there are those who claim that the bigger problem is Lucas screwed up the implementation of Anakin's Force Ghost. The idea was there, they say, but the way he went about it was lacking. Fortunately, I have corrected this oversight...

The quote the article is about appears to originally come from the making-of book for AOTC that came out in 2002. The Archives book must have merely re-printed it. So this was not an excuse Lucas made up twenty years later. It was something he said at the time, before the movie was released. 

Again, no fact-checking required. 

The thing is, just about every character in the OT talks like just about every character in the PT.

Basically it's just Luke and Han and sometimes Leia, when she's talking with Luke and Han, that kind of don't.

Tarkin, Vader, The Emperor, Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Imperial officers, etc. etc. I don't know why people were shocked to find that characters also spoke like this 20+ years earlier.

One of my favorite shots in the series, too! 

It's such a uniquely Lucasian image: 19th century Romanticism mixed with 21st century digitalism, augmented by a bunch of absurd alien creatures with comically huge butts. But not a single pixel of it insincere or self-parodying. I'm like a broken record with this, but we're never going to see the likes of this again any time soon, I'm afraid. 

Thanks, Alex. That's great! 

I've been meaning to acquire the book for years, but every time I would always say, "In a few months' time..."

And now, if I'm ever to pump out my AOTC treatise (it's still in the works), I need it to finish off a few sections. It's not that the book is crazily expensive, but it's way more than the books for TPM and ROTS, and I own both of those -- so the principle is pissing me off!

Star Wars product that I don't own (versus the stuff I do) has a nasty habit of going up in price. I wanted to finally buy TCW (on DVD) a few months ago, and I was shocked to discover the price: £179.99! I was willing to pay up to £100, but that insane price tag (on, let's face it, an inferior format) ruled it out for me. Darn infuriating.



"Magnificent, aren't they?"
"I don't know."

Anyway, yeah -- it looks like they really went to town on that shot and invested time in getting it right. It could easily be the shot of the movie -- if there weren't like 100,000 other good frames. It's an awesomely rich tableau; which is basically the prequels in a nutshell. It's also very bright and colourful. That might seem obvious, but very few filmmakers are keen to stain the canvas in light to that degree. Most seem to enjoy deep blacks, hard shadows, murk, grain, etc. Not Lucas. Not on AOTC. Even though the picture is moody in tone and thematically dark, scenes are very readable; even the dark/night-time ones. Lucas isn't afraid to bare all. But his frames are also so dense, and the intercutting so precise, you'll never hope to drink it all in. Try to catch every droplet of those waterfalls. Impossible. His imagery is truly alive. Its fecundity cannot be contained or restrained. Maybe that's what all the bluster online has been about the past twenty years. Good luck, all you "objective" critics. Just try to unweave that digisheen rainbow.



It's up to you. Some articles are better than others, but none are particularly great. This last one, however, is pretty pathetic. As thephantomcalamari indicated, it is built around a single quote and demonstrates a total lack of fact-checking. Prequel fans are rightly irritated at this low-effort crap, but it's also a good encapsulation of what we've been dealing with through the years.

Alright. But you'll have to excuse me for whizzing through them -- or for any whizzing that occurs. Also, four of the ten alleged plot holes pertain to the Disney films, and ArchdukeOfNaboo has made it abundantly clear he'd prefer to keep talk of them in this section -- the Lucas Era -- to a bare minimum. Mind you, I'm Cryo, and he's an Arch, and cryo don't like obeying no arches. 


Most egregious? Even before the article begins, we have a hyperbolic, attention-grabbing, clickbait headline. Quite tedious how often this happens. Many people would probably agree, however, that there are problematic, questionable, or bizarre lapses in logic -- or, at the least, storytelling ellipses -- in all the movies. Not that that is automatically a bad thing. What is an epic work of fiction without the odd contradiction or quirk? What is any human undertaking without omission or flaw?

Two resonant metaphors: The Death Star with its fatal weak-spot and Poe engaging in lightspeed skipping. Sorry, Disney movie reference. But it's neat how the "first" and "last" Star Wars films offer self-aware synecdoches to better interpret their odd makeup. In the PT, this would be Jar Jar. Star Wars is a cosmic jester -- the whole thing, in a way, is cosmic jest. Qui-Gon's wonderful maxim can ever be applied to these articles, too: "Your focus determines your reality." In the words of Pyrogenic : "Star Wars already said that."


And this dense package of entertainment has also contributed -- subjectively speaking -- an embarrassment of riches to the wider entertainment, imagination nexus, and philosophical/parallel universe fields. I mean, Star Wars is a monster: a great big sprawling beast. "I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me." Oh, it probably will.

Basically: 

Glass half-empty/half-full.


Nah. He always knew. "Somehow, I've always known." It really comes down, per the Qui-Gon line above, to one's focus. Even the author begins by calling the Force mysterious. It gives characters (and viewers) intuitions and intimations, but it is rarely (if ever) concrete. That's down to the interpreter/receiver. Like searching for advanced extraterrestrial intelligence. Would we even recognise it if we saw it? Vader half has the answer after interrogating Leia: "Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable." Wakey, wakey, Darth. The Forcen needen to awaken, sah!

In fact, Vader is quite the comedian in ANH. Leia's resistance to the mind probe is considerable, while he comments about struggling to lock onto Luke's X-Wing: "The Force is strong in this one." Vader has become so business-as-usual that he has forgotten what the Force -- and what family -- feels like. A grand cosmic gag. No wonder he is left with the proverbial egg on his face at the end of the movie.

He goes into TESB with additional knowledge, though he misses out on the daughter connection to Leia until the end of ROTJ. It's one of the joys of the series: characters realising the truth was under their nose all along. Just like some scientists posit there are more dimensions of space and time than we can perceive, and some of them may be coiled up right under our nose (literally). The metaphysics of Star Wars are ace. There is some basic agreement that reality is not quite what it first (and persistently) seems both sides of the screen. You have to keep existing and working through the problem to find the wayfinder that takes you to the clone Palpatine hiding in the mystery box temple. Oh, sorry. Disney again.


One of the weirdest plot holes? Seriously? This author is an amusing troll. It is possible the Ewoks are familiar with humans and even have human clothing at their village. Maybe Leia even had extra survival garments under her main forest disguise. Maybe the Ewoks refashioned them into Earth Goddess apparel. Leia's long hair shows how much hair she was hiding and keeping bound up in the previous films. A bit like her daughter -- yes? Wicket seems happy to lead Leia to their village. So maybe they had expected humans to show up for a while. Perhaps the appearance of the rebels was fulfilling an ancient prophecy.


Poe is like Threepio. He's basically invincible. And he has hot Latino sex appeal.

What other explanation could there possibly be? What more of an explanation could one possibly want?


She learned Wookie playing on her GameCube. Probably being the granddaughter of Palpatine enabled her to learn things really fast. Also: We don't see her earliest years. She was deposited on Jakku as a small girl. She could have been taught one or two things before then. In another JJ film, a character adept at languages boasts about having "exceptional aural sensitivity". Perhaps this is part of the explanation. Jedi have heightened senses and hearing seems to have a metaphysical aspect. This definitely plays out in Rey's arc in the film when she "hears" sounds coming from the cellar (the mystery box vision sequence) in Maz's tavern. So maybe Rey was able to understand Chewie's vocalisations because they are closer to the way the Force works or something. Even Yoda says he has "good relations" with the Wookiees in ROTS. So maybe Rey could just intuit what Chewie says. Maybe Han had the same ability. 


Qui-Gon never tells Obi-Wan that. It's the Jedi Council that are strongly opposed to masters having more than one apprentice. There's no lack of continuity between the films -- there's merely an expanded vision. Yoda was one of Obi-Wan's old masters because Yoda trained the younglings and seemed to continue giving Obi-Wan training during and after his apprenticeship to Qui-Gon. Moreover, Obi-Wan is obviously simplifying for Luke. Yoda is the last remaining Jedi Master (ever shown on-screen) in the timeframe of the OT. Mentioning other Jedi Masters would be beside the point. I mean, did your parents tell you everything about their past, including all the people they dated and might even have married in their earlier years? The past is something of a forbidden/rocky place (Artoo venturing away from Threepio to a rocky area in the original movie) and people often cover things up; or "don't want to talk" about them. It shouldn't be any surprise the past is surprising. 


"It's ironic."

Like all these items, it's open to interpretation -- was Luke using the Force or not? I would argue he certainly isn't using the Force in an overt way, and that might be the point. Luke is arguably tricking Jabba in order to lower his defences for later. As the author notes: "His later escape from Jabba is full of Jedi tricks." Either that or the rancor is too overwhelming for Luke to even begin thinking of applying the Force to his situation. It's a raw encounter that is similar to Anakin taming the reek (admittedly with a sprinkling of the Force, it seems) and Obi-Wan fighting the acklay (no particular Force tricks in evidence).

Sometimes, maybe, Jedi are overwhelmed. And Luke isn't yet at the full height of his powers. His confidence is something of an illusion. Symbolically, too, when Luke drops into the pit, he loses his cloak -- perhaps indicating that he essentially had the wind knocked out of him and is left without his usual crutches. The rancor may also be powerful enough that using the Force around it is difficult. When the reek chases Mace in the arena, all he really does is desperately try and outrun it; and the reek almost gets the better of Mace in that moment, who is meant to be (at least according to Anakin) among the most powerful Jedi in the entire Jedi Order.

It is notable that Luke also tries shooting Jabba first. This is either part of his deceptive gambit (trying to make himself look like an out-of-his-depth, rash idiot), or it shows that Luke has a bit of Anakin in him (his warning to Jabba not to underestimate his power is an echo of Anakin's warning to Obi-Wan on Mustafar), and maybe Luke is pretty weak-sauce without his cloak or Jedi weapons to make him feel safe and powerful. In other words, falling into the pit (to repeat myself) is a shock to his senses, and he is forced into a raw-combat mode, relying solely on his basic wits. But either reading works well. The basic message being put across here is: Never underestimate a droid... Jedi.


The Falcon belonged to Unkar Plutt. It was being kept in a state of flight readiness. Admittedly, Rey does say to Finn, "This ship hasn't flown in years." But I'm not sure how literally that should be taken. It maybe didn't have a ton of fuel to keep galaxy-hopping, but maybe enough to leave the planet and make a few jumps. It's possible that the compressor Plutt installed, which Rey says puts too much stress on the hyperdrive, was a way to make it more fuel-efficient, at the cost of weakening other system components over time. I don't know why it hasn't been stripped for parts, or why there was no lock on the door, but maybe Plutt was untouchable and everyone knew to keep their hands off his property.


Oh, not this one again. It's been explained a thousand times already. If the author doesn't accept the explanation, there's not much more to say. Although their reading is simplistic. The argument is not that Leia could form memories at birth (although that's one form of the argument), but that the Force later makes it feel like she has an authentic memory. Leia believes, at that early stage in her Jedi journey, she is genuinely remembering her mother from a young age ("She died when I was very young"). But the context of the scene makes it clear Luke is testing her abilities.

Leia is basically perceiving Padme backwards through time. Yoda tells Luke in TESB that this is an ability the Force grants people: "Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future, the past. Old friends long gone." It's right there in the first sequel! Unfortunately, very few Star Wars fans would make particularly good Jedi. They have zero imagination and miss key facets of the mythology that aren't even difficult to apprehend (or, I guess, they are). 

But of course: Leia doesn't know what this memory is. She has a more naive view of the way the Force works than Luke. Luke is confident that she will eventually develop her latent abilities and become as adept as he is. The scene is predicated on one character knowing more than the other, yet being amazed at how good the other character already is and warm to the the potential for them to be really good. Basically, the scene between Luke and Leia is the OT equivalent of the PT's blood test scene between Qui-Gon and Anakin. People have an impaired understanding of both.


Unlikely, but not impossible. Or maybe he used it many times before and Chewie was just humouring the senile old man. Could even have become an in-joke. "Stop pretending you've never used this thing before and just use it." That kinda thing. If Wookiees could talk...


No -- the droid that accompanies Obi-Wan to Kamino and then to Geonosis is R4-P17. Granted, this means that Obi-Wan basically owned a droid before, but maybe he doesn't see it that way. Given the Jedi's emphasis on no attachments and possessions being forbidden, Obi-Wan is maybe being a bit coy or has a bit of a blindspot. The look he shoots Artoo when Artoo plays the message in his hovel is very telling. At that moment, Obi-Wan seems to know what is at stake. Maybe it all comes flooding back to him in a flash of lightning. Jedi seem to have their own ways of forgetting and remembering.

Ah! Nicely done.