Star Wars Misc. Catch-All

Kehama wrote:

And a prior Star Wars catch all that I'd made years ago but who's keeping track?

*edit* And to contribute... Has there been any more talk of a possible Star Wars live action series or is all of that strictly animated now?

It's been rumored a bit - the one that was canceled during the Disney takeover has been brought up by Kathleen Kennedy:
http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-t...

The recent quality of some of the Marvel shows gives me hope that they could pull off a really good series despite how over the top and non small budget friendly Star Wars can be. The key would probably be to leave the Jedi and Sith main characters for the movies and instead focus on everybody else in the universe.

It would be cool to have a live action show. Just hopefully it doesn't suck like Agents of Shield....

AoS got a lot better. I can happily report that it's watchable now.

I hope if they do a SW series it's on Netflix.

Rainsmercy wrote:

It would be cool to have a live action show. Just hopefully it doesn't suck like Agents of Shield....

I don't think AoS sucks at all. The first season was sucky-ish until Winter Soldier released and they could get out of the holding pattern they were forced into in terms of a season arc, but since then it's been pretty great. Not as good as the Netflix shows, but by no means bad.

oilypenguin wrote:

AoS got a lot better. I can happily report that it's watchable now.

I hope if they do a SW series it's on Netflix.

I don't. Shows on Netflix usually have 1/10th the budget of a network show, and I'm having a hard time picturing a low budget Star Wars show.

I would love a live action Mandalorian focused show.

I'm fine keeping it animated.

The problem with some of the low budget Marvel shows is they can do impressive things on a limited budget, but sometimes they have entire episodes of expositional dialogue because it's clear they are saving the effects budget for the big season finale . Agent Carter was guilty of doing a lot of standing around debating and it really drug out an otherwise well written show with very interesting characters. (Mostly)

So kinda like the holodeck episodes of Star Trek?

I know a few of your listen to the Star Wars Minute podcast. What did you guys think of this week's guest, Jacob Sirhof? I didn't buy a lot of his arguments, but I did think it was refreshing to have a guest on that apologetically loves the Prequels. Brought balance back to the show after Chris Radki's full on hate explosion of a week last month.

mwdowns wrote:

I know a few of your listen to the Star Wars Minute podcast. What did you guys think of this week's guest, Jacob Sirhof? I didn't buy a lot of his arguments, but I did think it was refreshing to have a guest on that apologetically loves the Prequels. Brought balance back to the show after Chris Radki's full on hate-boner of a week last month.

Honestly, I'm not sure he even believed half of what he was saying

That said, I've been slowly coming around on the prequels, and even.. kinda appreciated parts of Attack of the Clones, so I'm sympathetic to his point of view.

I think the broad strokes of the prequel story were fine, but the execution was abysmal. For people who are polarized on the issue, this seems to represent the two perspectives. People are either defending the general story or criticizing the execution of that story.

mwdowns wrote:

I know a few of your listen to the Star Wars Minute podcast. What did you guys think of this week's guest, Jacob Sirhof? I didn't buy a lot of his arguments, but I did think it was refreshing to have a guest on that apologetically loves the Prequels. Brought balance back to the show after Chris Radki's full on hate explosion of a week last month.

I still haven't listened to the last three but I was surprised to find another person in this world that doesn't hate the concept of midichlorians.

complexmath wrote:

I think the broad strokes of the prequel story were fine, but the execution was abysmal. For people who are polarized on the issue, this seems to represent the two perspectives. People are either defending the general story or criticizing the execution of that story.

This is how I've come around to seeing it myself. I freely admit I was a bit of an apologist at first, but it was kind of a denial thing where I just wanted them to be good so I kind of talked myself into it despite all evidence to the contrary.

The reality is that the bones of a good story are in there but they chose to flesh out the wrong parts. Then there's problems with casting and the way they chose to film and just... god almost everything about the actual films themselves is so terrible. There are these tiny little bright spots here and there but they're so drowned in everything else it's impossible to assign any weight to them.

Before I went to the theater for TFA I actually went back through and watched them all again, or tried, but it's really difficult to sit through the prequels. I ended up spending a lot of time on twitter and playing games on my tablet while the movies kind of played in the background. I couldn't just sit and watch those things again.

Anakin's story arc is... fine but told poorly. Extremely poorly.
The only woman character in the trilogy should be awesome and yet makes bad decision after bad decision and then just... dies?
The Sith story is actually pretty ok but gets complicated and bogged down with characters that aren't really fleshed out and should be more interesting. Like, Ray Park was scary as hell and is basically wasted.
And is there a worse way to start a trilogy than a trade dispute? Speaking as someone trying to get his kids into star wars, I have a really hard time with that first movie and the BS that just... happens. Even the golden book treatment can't save it.

All that said, Clone Wars is pretty good, y'all.

oilypenguin wrote:

Like, Ray Park was scary as hell and is basically wasted.

Yeah. I still think he should have been built up as the big physical baddie to go alongside Palpatine's background maneuvering over the three movies, and then have Anakin kill him to take his place toward the end of the third.

oilypenguin wrote:

And is there a worse way to start a trilogy than a trade dispute?

I mean I'm sure there is? Maybe? But off the top of my head... not so much.

A ten minute history lesson about jewelry?

I know there's a clever reference there of some kind but I can't get dredge whatever it is up.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

A ten minute history lesson about jewelry? ;)

LOTR?

A poorly explained trade dispute, between people we don't care about yet, for impersonal terms we don't understand.

I mean, Babylon 5 basically revolves around trade disputes for its first season or two (mixed in with centuries-old grudges). Star Trek has had way more than its share of trade disputes. "Darmok", "Rules of Acquisition", "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", and so on.

You can build a plot around trade disputes, is what I'm saying. It's a realistic thing to have a conflict about.

And that's maybe the problem, because unless your main conflict is people sitting around and arguing, there's usually some larger issue at stake. You usually don't use the trade dispute as the main excuse for your war: whatever trade disputes the Trojans and Greeks had, Helen was the excuse to launch the ships. The Centauri and the Narn have their revenge. Your epic needs an epic instigating incident, not taxes.

I mean, maybe we humans should get more up in arms about invading planets in pursuit of a tax avoidance scheme or tariff reductions, but that unfortunately doesn't seem like something we're instinctively wired to do.

It's also the first and only Star Wars film not to open in media res. Yes, it's the first one, but the opening crawl format is for the second episode in the serial.

Here's the opening for the first Flash Gordon serial:

You get the establishing infodump (and casual racism) but not the introductory intertitles.
Here's the second chapter of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (which was re-aired on television a few years before Star Wars came out):

Episode 4, in contrast to Episode 1, is a masterpiece of setup. An opening crawl giving an appropriate epic introduction, followed by an immediate action sequence (a chase! a boarding!) that still manages to borrow from 2001's aesthetic of space realism, with the slow crawl of the Star Destroyer as it gradually dominates the screen.

Crazed Java wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

A ten minute history lesson about jewelry? ;)

LOTR?

Yep. I love those movies (even the opening), but when they released most of my friends and family hated that it starts with a history lesson and some dude's long birthday party.

Tanglebones wrote:

Damnit.... I need 16 grand now...

manta173 wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Damnit.... I need 16 grand now...

Er...you can actually build one that does most of that for a few hundred.

karmajay wrote:

Er...you can actually build one that does most of that for a few hundred.

Yep. The original lightsaber was made from the body of a Graphlex flash gun. Here's a good site for movie-quality kits. Though I'll admit that putting the crystals in the middle of that one above is pretty cool.

I figured that for 16 grand, someone had actually built some kind of crazy holo-projector into a handle. Not glued some quartz into a vintage flash.

Just finished the 5-issue Lando comic. That was some seriously good stuff.

Spoiler:

Tragic as hell though. Lobot's backstory is explained, and it's not happy.

I keep misreading the thread title as "Star Wars Minsc" and then get sad.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

I keep misreading the thread title as "Star Wars Minsc" and then get sad.

Give it time, Disney will own him eventually.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

I keep misreading the thread title as "Star Wars Minsc" and then get sad.

Butt kicking for Light Side!