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Little Oddities in the Star Wars Trilogy

#76 User is offline   Madam Corvax Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 05:10 AM

View PostSupes, on 08 March 2010 - 12:17 AM, said:

I'm certain that some point Han's history has him as a cadet in the Imperial Academy. For whatever reason he dropped out and went the route of the Scoundrel. Come to think of it this may in fact have come from the novels so yeah I may have taken some of that knowledge into subsequent viewings.


Actually, I had the same vague idea that Han at some point was at the academy, and I am enritely unsure where did I get it? Must have been novels. I did not read too many of them, though, and it was a long time ago


View Postcivilian_number_two, on 07 March 2010 - 11:51 PM, said:

MC, I just LOVE that you're following redlettermedia. I knew you'd like it. Goofy jokes about casinos, spousal abuse and dirty old men aside, his writing is funny and the video editing, crude as it is, lends the proceedings a nice watchable pace.

:rolleyes: WHat's not to love! I absolutely dig it and I am well on the way to knowing it all by heart soon.

Some people in comments call him idiot or nerd - I honesly cannot see how you cannot see that all the crudeness is completely deliberate and this guy must be a serious scholar of filmmaking at heart. This is just his way of telling the story. - exactly as you put it "serious film nerd with a bone to pick"

View Postcivilian_number_two, on 07 March 2010 - 11:51 PM, said:

I think his review of STAR TREK: NEMESIS is is his opus magnus, but he certainly tries a lot harder with the PHANTOM MENACE.


I do not know which is my favourite one. Hart to tell. I do not think it is Nemezis, but not because redlettermedia does lesser job on this one, in fact, it is the opposite, but because it is so sad - for me. I honestly liked the characters of TNG and when he says at the end that producers did not really care for the characters and "this Star Trek shit gets too violent for me" - this is so very true.
What sparked most laughs for me was Insurection. Maybe because the film itself really does catch some of the magic of the series and has SOME semblance of romance in it (Star Trek - HISERECTION - gee, I almost literally rolled on the floor), and I am a sucker for a good romance.

But for me the best "value for money" ("Brevity is the soul of wit") was short Avatar review. Goodness, this was genius how he reveales all the tricks that Cameron uses to "pull at the audeince heartstring":
"Make the Audience hate the villains in whatever way you can, no mater how cheap."
And so on, and so on. I just love it!

Mypantsareonfire:
"Without sayin one word of awkward, political dialogue which goes on for ten minutes, we need everything we need to know just by the visuals. Rebels, emipre. We get a sense how small and ill equipped the rebels are and how large and powerfult he epire is. The low angle implies dominance, and the length of the star destroyer implies the long reach of the empire. Everything we need to know without saying one word. In fact, this is so genius I have a feeling that Gorge Lucas had nothing to do with it and probably fought against putting it in the movie"

This post has been edited by Madam Corvax: 08 March 2010 - 05:11 AM

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#77 User is offline   Madam Corvax Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 05:18 AM

What's wrong with your FACE!
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#78 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 03:57 PM

The Academy is indeed the Imperial Naval Academy. Biggs "jumped ship" to join the rebellion. This is all original screenplay and novel of course, because it endangered the pace of the film, but this is the sort of background detail that would have been nice to see in a director's cut. Not, as we have frequently lamented, more shit on the screen and dumb inside jokes. Really, Boba Fett looking right at the camera? Wouldn't you prefer more scenes with Biggs and more backstory that made the prequels unnecessary? YES, I would, YES!

Browns and Beige, people! Browns and Beige!
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#79 User is offline   Madam Corvax Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 04:07 PM

And mother of pearl!

And close-ups of Marina Sirtis.


BTW : civ : do you actually plan to see redlettermedia review of AOTC? I know you never saw the film, but coooome on, you are not going to miss all that fun, are you?
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#80 User is offline   Mr Pye Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 05:53 PM

Put me down as another fan of redlettermedia reviews. I enjoyed the way he ripped TPM to pieces, and I'm glad someone gave the Star Trek TNG movies their due. AOTC should be interesting.
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#81 User is offline   Supes Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 06:40 PM

View Postcivilian_number_two, on 08 March 2010 - 03:57 PM, said:

The Academy is indeed the Imperial Naval Academy. Biggs "jumped ship" to join the rebellion. This is all original screenplay and novel of course, because it endangered the pace of the film, but this is the sort of background detail that would have been nice to see in a director's cut. Not, as we have frequently lamented, more shit on the screen and dumb inside jokes. Really, Boba Fett looking right at the camera? Wouldn't you prefer more scenes with Biggs and more backstory that made the prequels unnecessary? YES, I would, YES!

Browns and Beige, people! Browns and Beige!


Cool! I knew it had come from somewhere reasonable. Some time back I made a commentary about George getting so confused and not actually reviewing the OT when he made the PT and that in fact he was referencing material that he didn't end up putting in the OT. It would be a very sad thing indeed if I had started to walk down that dark path myself ;-)

And YES, YES I WOULD. Damn it YES I WOULD love more of the actual back story.

Interestingly I'm currently reading the Annotated Screenplays and I find the description of Fett mugging for the camera quite amusing. The author describes this as Fett surveying the area menacingly, when in fact as we all can see he just stops and mugs for the camera.
Luminous beings are we... not this crude matter.
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#82 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 08:52 PM

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Interestingly I'm currently reading the Annotated Screenplays and I find the description of Fett mugging for the camera quite amusing. The author describes this as Fett surveying the area menacingly, when in fact as we all can see he just stops and mugs for the camera.


"Surveying the area menacingly" I guess is shorthand for "looks cool for no-one in particular." And if we had any idea at this point who he was, maybe that would make sense. Ignoring the garbage they shoveled into the prequels (as I will), having a guy show up like that and glower at nothing is something of limited value. But having him look roghjt down the lens is a total no-no. Any filmmaker should know that looking right down the lens always looks odd. Obi-Wan saying "Well hello there" in STAR WARS looked odd to me even as a kid. But at least that one can be handwaved away, when we allow Lucas's even-at-that-time explanation that the films would be the story of a civil war as seen from the point of view of these droid characters. ... ok, stupid, but at least motivated. There is no motivation for the Boba Fett moment, apart from Lucas's apparent belief that if you don't focus right on something, it will never be noticed.

I watched Shaun of the Dead again recently. Every person who appears in the opening sequences will later appear as a zombie. Even folks placed deep in the background have a role. There is even a complicated backstory for "Mary," the first zombie that Shaun encounters directly. These details would not be noticed the first time out; you'd have to have a perfect memory even to notice them. And these details don't enhance the entertainment value of the film, but they do make it more fun on REPEAT viewing. On the other hand: There is a cameo of Warwick Davies in TPM. This might have been a cute little add-on, and if you missed it it might appear on a later viewing. But just in case you missed it, Lucas went back to him twice. Two of his three appearances, IIRC, are head-and-shoulders close-ups. This is not subtle. This is the kind of thing that Lucas is famous for.

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 24 May 2010 - 12:47 AM

"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#83 User is offline   Supes Icon

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Posted 08 March 2010 - 10:29 PM

It certainly has been interesting reading some of the thought processes (I'm currently just starting "Return of the Jedi") that Lucas undertook. It's even more interesting to wonder what happened to those understandings from even 1995 or 1996 when he made some of the comments in the "Annotated Screenplays" to what was delivered in the PT.

Even still there are hints of the confusion. During the "Star Wars" discussion he talks about how he had to get rid of Obi-Wan as there was no further use for him. Then by the time "Empire Strikes Back" he is commenting about how he had to come up with someone to replace Obi-Wan in order to assist Luke further in his journey. I sort of get how you make decisions and then later may come to regret them, but given he still used Obi-Wan in spirit form it's all a little bit odd.
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#84 User is offline   KurganX Icon

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Posted 21 May 2010 - 09:34 PM

Maybe the Falcon is designed to tow cargo containers or something? He says the floor boards are for smuggling, but he might have a front job as a legitimate cargo hauler. Think of the ship in Alien which is a small ship but carries around a much larger ship.

In that way you could compare the Falcon to a semi-truck without the trailer. So maybe Han is like a trucker who installed some machineguns and a high performance engine on his truck. Just a thought (I know it's a creative explanation for an oddity/oversight).
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#85 User is offline   KurganX Icon

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Posted 21 May 2010 - 10:12 PM

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There's an actual effect in fiction that basically dictates that at least SOME aspect of a character's behaviors and characteristics would have a chance to become the dominant thing even if it was originally portrayed as something minor. For Example, Jedi did not wear brown robes as a 'uniform'. I mean look at Luke, he never wore a robe at all, he was in whatever the Rebels were wearing in ESB and had that cool all-black outfit in ROTJ. Obi-Wan could have conceivably wore a brown robe because it seemed to be fairly common on Tatooine to wear robes, and Yoda wore one that was so old it seemed to be falling apart. In fact, he could have made it himself out of old materials as there wasn't exactly any shopping malls around where he could drop in and pick up new outfits or anything, so it could have been more out of practicality than a uniform.


Luke wears a dark brown robe over his black outfit in ROTJ though, and only loses it during his conversation with Jabba in the throne room. It makes sense that he'd wear it in that limited context considering the sun/sand and as a light kind of disguise (the whole "sand storm" scene was deleted).
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#86 User is offline   KurganX Icon

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Posted 21 May 2010 - 11:42 PM

View PostRadu094, on 01 February 2010 - 09:38 AM, said:

Man, some guy wrote an awesome list of "Reasons to Hate Episode I,II&III" on the internet! This was quite a while back, but let me see if I can still remember where to find those links...

Those were great lists. Anyone else here read those?


Great sarcasm. I wasn't talking about ChefElf's list, I'm talking about this:

50 Reasons Why Return of the Jedi Sucks (just one of the many places it's posted, I read it in a book of essays on the movies, "A Galaxy Not So Far Away," iirc). Of course this was created long before the Prequels (and ChefElf's much wittier comments)

I understand why a lot of SW fans don't like ROTJ as much, and love ESB the best. This thread also brings up the point that you can reduce any of the movies to ridiculousness with sufficient analysis. And the analysis is fun and doesn't ruin the movies for us in the least.

This post has been edited by KurganX: 21 May 2010 - 11:43 PM

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#87 User is offline   KurganX Icon

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Posted 08 June 2010 - 01:48 AM

I think I may have gotten the source wrong. According to Kaminski's page it was in "The Unauthorized Star Wars Compendium." In any case... see above.
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#88 User is offline   videinfra78 Icon

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Posted 25 October 2010 - 02:48 PM

View PostJust your average movie goer, on 09 December 2009 - 04:55 AM, said:

Amusing little oddities of the Star Wars trilogy

Forget the stories of sand-phobic teens and a galaxy of incompetents struggling to come to terms with the meaningless of their existence and their every deed. Come back to Star Wars.

Now, a disclaimer before I begin this post. Anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that I love the Star Wars trilogy. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are two of the greatest movies ever made in my opinion and there's much to love about Return of the Jedi as well (you can find it in the second half of the film interspersed between a whole lot of pointless crap).

However, it struck me last time I watched these movies through that there are a few little oddities about them that I generally skim over. This thread is dedicated to those oddities. Not the obvious ones like Luke and Leia, possible love interests one moment, brother and sister the next. Rather, the things that usually get glossed over when we watch these movies.


A lot of the things you mention I don't think qualify as oddities, but just you not agreeing with the way the story was told or edited. That's just your opinion, maybe it works better your way, but it doesn't make it odd per se.

The Emperor - Why can't he have mystic powers in Star Wars? It's obvious he is running things - he is the emperor! And how in the world is an emperor a civilian? And what emperor (that wasn't for traditional show) HASN'T commanded an army? And by the third movie, the Emperor definitely has been there all along. And did you miss Vader bowing to him in ESB? You've got this one all wrong.

Vader - I don't think it's so weird that Vader takes orders from Tarkin. I see Vader in that movie kind of separate from the military, although the role between Moff and Vader changes drastically by ROTJ, I'll give you that. But Vader is also pretty comfortable talking back to Tarkin and telling him 'I told you so!' in SW. I had always assumed it was a respect thing, Tarkin was very old and well respected. Moff Jerjerrod looks like a young buck who was just promoted to Moff. I never really saw Vader as a lackey in SW either. And I also like his redemption, I have no complaints there. The only thing I didn't like was that it wasn't plausible that Luke goes on a crash course of Jedi training, doesn't finish it, and then defeats Vader. In my mind, Vader just gave up and never was going to kill Luke. But a lot of people don't agree. I think it works better the way I think of it.

Imperial Officers - I'll agree with you there. Veers seemed to be the only competent one of the bunch after ANH. But I don't think this is such a big deal. Vader really exerts his will starting in ESB. I think he has more motivation after he finds out about Luke.

Stormtroopers - Not a big deal, I mean come on, it's still a movie. No grunt can ever hit anything in any action movie, that's just movie science, not odd.

Jedis - How do you get, "I was once a Jedi Knight like your father", means that there is absolutely other Jedi? I'm not seeing that connection.

Yoda - Huh? People can't go from good health to very bad health in the space of 3 years?! Are you serious. Ever known someone that got cancer? I've known people that were dead after 3 months of being diagnosed. I hardly think that 3 years is sudden. How is that at all odd? And walking with a cane is hardly spry.

Han - Totally agree. ROTJ while still being Star Wars and miles apart from the prequels does have a lot of flaws. I liked Ford's suggestion that Han should have died.

Rebellion Leaders - Yeah, I guess that could be odd, but within the span of 3 years between each movie? Maybe not. Lots of things could have happened in between, I mean, there is a civil war going on.

B-Wings - Yeah, ok. I've never even noticed, but just because they showed them to you once, why do they have to show them again? They were not important in any way to the plot of the story.
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#89 User is offline   videinfra78 Icon

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Posted 25 October 2010 - 02:59 PM

View PostJust your average movie goer, on 10 December 2009 - 12:20 AM, said:

Now onto some more oddities. There were a few I forgot in my last list but have remembered since then.


Command Bridge - Ok, now you're really nitpicking because that's just you not agreeing with the design of the ship. Not an oddity. I guess Han should have recognized that that is a Super Star Destroyer, unless there are other Super Star Destroyers which because of his statement, I assumed. And Han's dialogue, those are probably his only good lines in the movie. He is not himself through most of ROTJ.

Tatooine - Why do they have to say the name of the planet, I bet if you would have said that he said the name of his planet just to tell the audience that would be odd. "That's odd, doesn't he know the name of his planet as well as everyone else in that scene?"

Boba Fett - Boba Fett definitely looks cool and he has some very cool toys. I don't think he's stupid either. How do we know that the Empire didn't give him 100 times as much as Jabba? It's not like Jabba is the most trustworthy character in the galaxy, he's a gangster! So if you're going to give your bounty to A. not trustworthy person who will give you a million dollars and then let you make more money with another untrustworthy person or B. also not trustworthy person who will give you a hundred. I don't know, I may go with A. But does he die stupidly? Yes, but that's another ROTJ blunder and the Boba mystique might have started before that, I mean he was pretty cool in the X-mas special if you've ever seen it.

Man, if you consider all these oddities, I can't wait to see your list on the prequels.

This post has been edited by videinfra78: 25 October 2010 - 03:00 PM

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#90 User is offline   Mr Pye Icon

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Posted 31 October 2010 - 09:54 AM

This may have been brought up already but I was watching Star Wars again yestreday and found myself asking this. In the attack on the Deathstar there is a moment where Biggs says 'I'm going in. Cover me Porkins.'

But this happens before the enemy fighters arrive. So I wonder what was it Biggs wanted Porkins to cover him from? I would have guessed that he wanted him high to keep a lookout for any fighters that might arrive while he is down, but Porkins seems to go down with him, since he crashes into the Deathstar.

The next guess is that he wanted Porkins to cover him from the guntowers on the surface. Isn't that a little cruel though? Hey Porkins I wanna make a strafing run. Please go down and absorb all the gunfire for me ok! There's a good chum.

Now I am not a fighter pilot and I don't know the routines. Perhaps there is a special need for cover when attacking ground targets that I do not know about. It just seemed a little oddity to me.

This post has been edited by Mr Pye: 31 October 2010 - 09:56 AM

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