Miscellaneous tidbits: factoids, videos, trivia, etc.

There's a massive discussion to be had about the Jedi High Council in its entirety, the 12 apostles if you will, and how they could have been more fleshed out. I don't think TCW did enough. I've considered writing a lengthy blog entry on the matter, though its still in draft form. As you know, I'm a strong advocate for species diversity in Star Wars, and there's not a single place in the mythology where this principle is better put into practice. I've always been irked by human-centric Disney Star Wars, it's a consistent theme throughout all their material, much like their obsession with empty, flimsy, OT-knockoff spaceship interiors.

Back to the Council, however, and it oftens feels like it's the Yoda & Windu show, with Kenobi added to the mix for Episode III, and a little sprinkling of Ki-Adi. That's 4 of the 12, or 33% of the institution. I will praise the animation in so far as it allowed us to get to know Ki-Adi much better, whilst we went from knowing nothing to a modest amount on Master Plo Koon. As I recall, there was only a tiny helping of Kitt Fisto, so being very generous, that's still only 6 of 12, or half the Council we've got to learn about.

If I had been writing Episode VII, I would have each Council member given one line at the minimum, and I would showing them having a quarrel. Luke would be in the Yoda position, and trying but not doing so well as an arbitrator, trying to keep a lid on the passions on display. He'd break out of the chamber at one point, exhausted, and have a quiet moment to himself on a balcony overlooking the glittering Coruscanti night sky. He would be unexpectedly joined, perhaps by a Force Ghost of some kind.

I'm a huge fan of Luminara Unduli, she should really been on the Council. My favourite female Jedi by a mile.

I'd say it's a lot of needless mental gymnastics to justify something in purely literal-continuity terms.

In this scene? In this first installment? Of course not, as Lucas had not yet revised the story.

As for Leia's surrogate mother...

...the assumption that she dies early in Leia's life only goes so far to exist as a circular fallacy to the video author's main argument.

He seems to willfully ignore the practical intent that he even goes so far as to put in quotations.

Be it "birth" or "real", and given the context of this scene, I fail to see the difference. It's a practical piece of writing that clarifies Lucas' revision up to this point: Leia knew she was adopted, plain and simple. This is the first moment after Luke learns of his sister that we the audience are afforded a familial connection in the staged dramatic sense. Nestled within the deep feeling 'Skywalker Legacy' construction of this scene it would've been odd and irrelevant, if not emotionally counterproductive outright, for Lucas to have intended Leia's spoken recollection of her real mother to be nothing more than that of her surrogate mother. The video author is obsessing over mere continuity mechanics with virtually no regard for actual storytelling. 

It is a key scene, but not to emphasize what is ultimately a trivial matter in continuity cohesion. It's key in the presentational moment as a good ol' fashion work of operatic-montage symmetry. It's Lucas being concerned with bigger more cinematic aspects as opposed to printing in pencil (not pen) some official narrative audit ...as if that's something he's notorious for giving a shit about, anyways.

 

Yes, she did—or through whatever grander sense of intuition mythically equivalent to, take your pick. There's a lot going on in both this scene and in the lyrical & thematic trajectory that lead into it even circa 1983. The Force is not some blanket ability for starters; Leia is not Luke. It stands to interpret with reason that if the Son's journey flows in tandem with the Father then the Daughter's is linked to that of the Mother. Leia is not a Jedi at this juncture yet her connection to the Force is simply outside her consciousness. Luke asserts right then-and-there that her (Skywalker-level) power is innate; a beat later she even confesses to her own metaphysical awareness of their siblinghood. Leia feels the Force -- this cosmic wonder-tale in motion -- differently than Luke, in a way unique onto herself.   

For Return of the Jedi upon its initial release Lucas may have settled on a vague premise that Leia's real mother died not during childbirth but sometime later during Leia's early prepubescent years. With the timeline revision that follows the PT we can assume that details of Leia's biological parentage may have likely been kept from her, except such hardly negates her aforesaid ability to experience impressions of her mother. She might not have a clear mental image of her mother in the photographic sense, at least not strong enough to then identify the latter as Padme Amidala (assuming one ever saw actual video/pictures of the other), but rather a connotative sense of Padme as a woman, a lover, a source of empathy, a maternal being. Leia at once feels then imagines Padme as a portrait of "beauty", "kindness" and "sadness".

 

I heard about that on a podcast this week. The series started on July 12 on Vice TV.

We'll have to brace ourselves for potential Lucas bashing in relation to the OT, folks. It's been a while since we last had it, but it could be back with a vengeance.