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    Default Re: New Star Wars Movie in 2015

    I did have an ewok jedi who went through time by falling into a black hole.... Maybe Han Solo took a wrong turn in the Maw
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  2. - Top - End - #362
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    Default Re: New Star Wars Movie in 2015

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    Let's face it, any new Star Wars is going to be like Abrams' Star Trek
    That's a bad thing? I never saw the film, but based on what I heard it was a good movie.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Epic View Post
    That's a bad thing? I never saw the film, but based on what I heard it was a good movie.
    No, I enjoyed it too. It simply means Star Wars will probably not be made for the traditional fanbase but a far wider audience who's interest in the franchise is far more casual.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    No, I enjoyed it too. It simply means Star Wars will probably not be made for the traditional fanbase but a far wider audience who's interest in the franchise is far more casual.
    So long as it's good and/or enjoyable. I liked Tron Legacy and I'll admit it was nowhere as good as the original. And wasn't the original trilogy pretty wide open for all audiences? Sure, it was sci-fi/fantasy, but I don't remember anything in it that alienated a certain demographic from enjoying it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    'Nother in-story explanation: You go to war with the volunteers you have, not necessarily with the best people possible. A BIIIG part of the clone wars was to utterly annihilate and break non-human military power. Note that in the Clone Wars almost all the aliens seen on-screen are separatists, while the Republic troops are almost all humans and clones.

    This is not a coincidence. The Empire is human-centric and Speciesist. So was the Republic. Given that the Rebel alliance is essentially an offshot of the old Republic (formed by the human senators Mon Mothma and Baal Organa) , it's no wonder if rebel recruiting at the time of the battle of Yavin primarily reached out to other humans. Aliens, by contrast, probably can't tell much difference between gray-suited humans out to "save them from chaos For Their Own Good" and red-suited humans out to "liberate them from tyranny For Their Own Good". From the perspective of a Neimoidian who has just had most of his worldly goods confiscated, a plague on both their houses.

    The fact that there are more aliens in Return of the Jedi is explained by a combination of Imperial atrocities and rebel outreach. Which means the rebels have expanded their coalition such that they can now field Mon Calamari cruisers instead of just Tantive-IV corvettes.

    And has nothing whatsoever to do with limited budget and limited special effects

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Actually this is something I've often wondered about was Palpatine really speciest himself or was he just using the speciests as they were a quick way to gain support his empire I'd like to think Palpatine was a equal opportunity hater.

    @Jedi Houses
    Never heard of those before where are they mentioned?

    They sound like they would feet in with the Republic Dark Age I don't know if they're a popular part of the EU, but I really like the concept Medieval Crusades in Star Wars.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sotharsyl View Post
    Actually this is something I've often wondered about was Palpatine really speciest himself or was he just using the speciests as they were a quick way to gain support his empire I'd like to think Palpatine was a equal opportunity hater.
    His treatment of Thrawn, among other things, would seem to suggest the latter; Palpatine was nothing if not pragmatic.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sotharsyl View Post
    Actually this is something I've often wondered about was Palpatine really speciest himself or was he just using the speciests as they were a quick way to gain support his empire I'd like to think Palpatine was a equal opportunity hater.

    @Jedi Houses
    Never heard of those before where are they mentioned?

    They sound like they would feet in with the Republic Dark Age I don't know if they're a popular part of the EU, but I really like the concept Medieval Crusades in Star Wars.
    Old Republic, made me wonder especially after watching the prequels when Yoda whose Jedi nature was monastic enough to make it very unlikely he would have been in direct contact with the Republic Govt when the very nature of the services involved should have resulted in a lot of fallen jedi even if this only becomes apparent during the war.

    Dooku was wasted in the role he was given, he would have made a far better catspaw as head of the Jedi who dealt with the republic Govt as part of aJedi lineage of House representing those Jedi who had no problem helping the Republic to pursue their own ambitions and that would allow for Palpatine to escape detection as by then these Jedi would make detecting actual sith so hard as to require actual physical evidence to even support an investigation something Palpatine could much more easily cover up as well as arrange for the relationship between the splinter Jedi Factions to come to blows.

    That way Quin-Gonn noted as having been Dooku's padawan could be slain and guarantee Dooku would want to do something about it, with the animosity between those he considers upstarts and his own order Palpatine could use them to cause the original rift that created the Separatists and his erstwhile allies from the first movie would egg them on until he was ready to turn on Dooku and use the clones because the Republic military would have been found wanting through Dooku and the Separatists forcing them to pick sides.

    Sorry going off on another tangent again!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    His treatment of Thrawn, among other things, would seem to suggest the latter; Palpatine was nothing if not pragmatic.
    Sidelining him out in the middle of no-where despite him being a tactical genius? Not relying on him in any of his grand plans to finally eliminate the rebellion?

    I don't know. If we accept the existence of Thrawn, we pretty much also have to accept that he was under-used by the emperor. Thrawn, presumably, got where he was by being so damned good that even the Emperor couldn't think of a good excuse not to promote him, even if he was a filthy Xenos.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Epic View Post
    So long as it's good and/or enjoyable. I liked Tron Legacy and I'll admit it was nowhere as good as the original. And wasn't the original trilogy pretty wide open for all audiences? Sure, it was sci-fi/fantasy, but I don't remember anything in it that alienated a certain demographic from enjoying it.

    The best analogy I can provide you is, the Star Wars '15 movie is going to be to the Star Wars franchise what Kingdom Hearts is to Final Fantasy. The issue is what you expect from a Star Wars movie. If you're like me and only want to see an entertaining action movie using some of the themes and tone of the OT, you'll be happy with it. If you're among those that live, eat, and breathe SWs, you'll probably have plenty to complain about.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes View Post
    Sidelining him out in the middle of no-where despite him being a tactical genius? Not relying on him in any of his grand plans to finally eliminate the rebellion?

    I don't know. If we accept the existence of Thrawn, we pretty much also have to accept that he was under-used by the emperor. Thrawn, presumably, got where he was by being so damned good that even the Emperor couldn't think of a good excuse not to promote him, even if he was a filthy Xenos.
    You're actually buying the Imperial party for "exiling" Thrawn. Thrawn was sent to the fringe because he was good (also he was upsetting all the Emperor's other political cronies); in reality, Palpatine wanted his best commander out where he was of most use, dealing with the unknowns and securing new territory. Preparation for the vong invasion was also a factor, since the Chiss had already had some encounters with them (though they didn't know them by name at the time, and only in a generic sense of "bad stuff from the Far Rim".) Thrawn basically joined the Empire because he reckoned it gave the best chance of fighting off the invaders.) The Emperor wasn't quite as xenophobic as he let on (though he encouraged it in his other minions, and I have no doubt he harboured quite a lot himself, but most his bigotry was in reality towards non-Force-sensitives.) It wasn't so much he undervalued Thrawn as he overvalued Vader and underestimated the Rebellion, in the end.

    That aside, it was Thrawn he entrusted, remember, to deal with traitor Admiral Zaarin and his coup, who'd nicked all the Empire's best fighter tech - Thrawn was dealing with that, while the Emperor and Vader were busy with the Rebellion. Thrawn was, in fact, dealing the last blow to Zaarin at exactly the same moment as the Battle of Endor.

    (Had Thrawn - and the advanced fighters been at Endor, like I said earlier, the Emperor and Vader might well still have died, but the Rebellion would also have been crushed, because the Rebel fighters would never have made it down to the Death Star II; TIE Avengers/TIE Defenders/Missile Boats were just flat-out better than any of the fighters the Rebels had (and even the Assault Gunboats were on a par with B-Wings). And Thrawn would have been able to compensate better for the loss of Force Control and morale on the Emperor's death, very likely. Had it not been for Zaarin hemohaging those resources in his coup - because Thrawn needed advanced fighters to fight advanced fighters - Endor would have ended very differently.)

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    From a military or tactical perspective, you're right.

    From the SW perspective, I think the Death Star II would have still been destroyed even if Thrawn and co. were present. Casualties would have been higher, of course.

    But there's more levels to that fight than just the material one. I'm speaking of something much like KOTOR-1 battle meditation but beyond conscious control. In a sense, the force itself was at a tipping point in the throne room confrontation between Luke, the Emperor, and Vader. Had Vader once again stood aside and allowed the Emperor to kill Luke, or Luke had fallen to the Dark Side, the events of Episode III would have occurred all over again. The Dark Side of the Force would be ascendent, fudging the die rolls for the Empire. To put this in D20 terms, imagine a universe where the Imperials get +4 to all their die rolls and the Rebellion gets -4 to everything. So at some point Calrissien screws up his piloting check and flies into a wall. The A-wing doesn't plow into the Executor bridge in a millon-to-one chance. The rebels are slaughtered.

    If Vader saves Luke, the Light side prevails and it's suddenly the Empire that has -4 to all modifiers and the rebels have +4 to all their roles. So for the Empire, people make clumsy mistakes. Ordinary success becomes fumbles. Ordinary fumbles become critical fumbles. Machinery unluckily breaks down at exactly the wrong time and the wrong place. Minor errors become disaster becomes irretrievable catastrophe.

    When the very universe itself is fighting against you, cursing everything you do, there's only so much even a military genius with all the technology in the galaxy can accomplish.

    So if this were David Weber's honorverse, I'd agree with you completely. But this is the SW universe, where so far as I can tell the actions of material beings are simply a Plato's Allegory of the Cave puppet show revealing the truth of what is really happening in the force. Where the Force is what truly decides victory or defeat and not material resources nor tactical ingenuity. Those are merely the tools the Force uses to express itself. They are not, of themselves, decisive. In the Galaxy Far Far Away. IMO.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
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    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    From a military or tactical perspective, you're right.

    From the SW perspective, I think the Death Star II would have still been destroyed even if Thrawn and co. were present. Casualties would have been higher, of course.

    But there's more levels to that fight than just the material one. I'm speaking of something much like KOTOR-1 battle meditation but beyond conscious control. In a sense, the force itself was at a tipping point in the throne room confrontation between Luke, the Emperor, and Vader. Had Vader once again stood aside and allowed the Emperor to kill Luke, or Luke had fallen to the Dark Side, the events of Episode III would have occurred all over again. The Dark Side of the Force would be ascendent, fudging the die rolls for the Empire. To put this in D20 terms, imagine a universe where the Imperials get +4 to all their die rolls and the Rebellion gets -4 to everything. So at some point Calrissien screws up his piloting check and flies into a wall. The A-wing doesn't plow into the Executor bridge in a millon-to-one chance. The rebels are slaughtered.

    If Vader saves Luke, the Light side prevails and it's suddenly the Empire that has -4 to all modifiers and the rebels have +4 to all their roles. So for the Empire, people make clumsy mistakes. Ordinary success becomes fumbles. Ordinary fumbles become critical fumbles. Machinery unluckily breaks down at exactly the wrong time and the wrong place. Minor errors become disaster becomes irretrievable catastrophe.

    When the very universe itself is fighting against you, cursing everything you do, there's only so much even a military genius with all the technology in the galaxy can accomplish.

    So if this were David Weber's honorverse, I'd agree with you completely. But this is the SW universe, where so far as I can tell the actions of material beings are simply a Plato's Allegory of the Cave puppet show revealing the truth of what is really happening in the force. Where the Force is what truly decides victory or defeat and not material resources nor tactical ingenuity. Those are merely the tools the Force uses to express itself. They are not, of themselves, decisive. In the Galaxy Far Far Away. IMO.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Now, y'see that's exactly I think the biggest problem with Star Wars, and especially the later EU, it places FAR too much emphasis on the importance of the Force. The best bits of Star Wars have always been when the Force has been dealt with sensibly, and is it important to, but not solely driving, the plot. So I'm afraid I'll have to disagree, because I just don't think the Force is all that. (It's only the later (crappy) EU and prequels where it starts to be pretty much exclusively about the Jedi and their (somewhat overrated, considering how easily they got ambushed in Order 66) shiny-light-swords.)

    I mean, that's not even the canonical explanation for the Imperial loss, which was the sudden lapse of confusion in co-ordination of Imperial forces when the Emperor died and stopped using essentially Battle Meditation - Pellanon himself reckoned that Thrawn had been there, things would have gone differently (for a kick-off, the Grand Admiral would have been in charge of the fleet, rather than bogging off to deal with one rebel and leaving it in the command of the guy whose position was achieved primarily by his ability to Not Get Force-Strangled Yet and shift blame for his mistakes to other people, rather than by any particular astounding competance. Vader was a terrible leader in his later years.) The rebels would have been in much more trouble BEFORE they got to stage of the Emperor dying, and the initial losses would have been much more telling (given there would be, for a kick off, more Imperial forces present, and better equipped).

    Point is, even if I agreed with you on the Force-centric narrative, even with stiff -8 penalties to the dice rolls, the Imperials still would have obliterated the rebel fleet - TIE Defenders are just THAT much better than anything the rebels had got, and as for MissileBoats...! If the rebels were really, really lucky, they might have just got the Death Star - though in the grand scheme of things, the Death Star was a pretty wasteful symbol anyway - but it would have certainly cost them their fleet and their ability to function as a military force (the cost in experienced personel would have been catastrophic) in any event.
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2012-11-07 at 12:58 PM.

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    Just to throw my two bits in on the above, I agree with pendell but with a clarification;
    The deciding factor is the balance in the force. BUT the force-user conflict in ROTJ that was the deciding factor was simply that way because it was the right place and the right time and the right people. NOT a virtue of them being Jedi, and in general I agree with yourself, Aotrs Commander, that the fiction is generally better when the plot doesn't boil down to Jedi worship.

    Which is to say, the force is part of and surrounds all living things, not just the jedi. The rebel/empire big throwdown at Endor is as much about the conflict of metaphysical ideals and stuff as it is about two fleets or a couple of lazer-sword-fighters squabbling next to a reactor shaft.

    Perhaps having Thrawn present would have changed the outcome in just that way, but it would be as much because of who he is and the effects his behaviors and beliefs have on those around him as anything so mundane as better organisation.

    Also, no idea of the supposed canon on the subject, but I always figured Vader was kind of outside the normal command structure, so I would have thought if Thrawn was there he would be working with Vader, likely in place of the Chokers.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes View Post
    Just to throw my two bits in on the above, I agree with pendell but with a clarification;
    The deciding factor is the balance in the force. BUT the force-user conflict in ROTJ that was the deciding factor was simply that way because it was the right place and the right time and the right people. NOT a virtue of them being Jedi, and in general I agree with yourself, Aotrs Commander, that the fiction is generally better when the plot doesn't boil down to Jedi worship.
    Aside from the half-arsed bleatings from the prequel Jedi Council, who were by their own admission, completely blind-sided by the (one) Sith Lord and whose prophecies went utterly awry (unless you count "restore balance to the force" meaning "the Dark Side 'balances' out by becoming more dominant" which is a fair point and I sort of assumed the first time I ever heard the Jedi mention it), I don't believe I've seen much historical evidence of the Force requiring any kind of "balance", and I was always mystified as to what the Jedi Council even thought "balance" to the Force even meant. I just chalked it up the Jedi's usual habit of becoming so utterly self-absorbed as an organisation, they end up spending all of their time listening and never actually hearing anything.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes
    Which is to say, the force is part of and surrounds all living things, not just the jedi. The rebel/empire big throwdown at Endor is as much about the conflict of metaphysical ideals and stuff as it is about two fleets or a couple of lazer-sword-fighters squabbling next to a reactor shaft.
    And I don't think it is. The Force was important to the conflict aside from on a personal level only inasmuch that there was a powerful Force-user supporting the conflict who make the mistake - so often repeated in the military blunders of history - of thinking that this aspect alone was sufficient to the task. The Empire didn't lose because the Emperor died, it lost because it was badly-lead and organsied and was using the Force to patch the gaping deficiencies in tactics and command structure.

    (Funnily enough, exactly what happened to the Death Star I, because Tarkin was an arrogant moron. If he'd have scrambled ANY of the Death Star's fighter complement - because only those squadrons in Vader's immediate command participated in the Battle of Yavin - the rebel fighters would have been overwhelmed with sheer weight of numbers. Heck, even another dozen TIEs would probably have tipped the tide.)

    I dispute that Star Wars is inherently about the Force anymore than Lord of the Rings was about magic. It is important to the plot, but in and of itself it is not solely a means to an end. (Even at the high of his power, the One Ring didn't make Sauron able to casually "I Win" everything.) There's far more to SW than space-magic and laser-swords, and every time the Force gets over-subscribed or assigned more mystical importance than it deserves, it denigrates all the rest of those things (many of which are better and more interesting than them)1.

    If the Force was as powerful as some of the more stupid bits of the EU (and Jedi spouting taken as face value, Yoda) would have it, you wouldn't ever have needed starships in the first place; if size was truly no object, Yoda, then the Emperor just could have started chucking planets into suns without the need of a ruddy great space-laser to do it for him...

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes
    Also, no idea of the supposed canon on the subject, but I always figured Vader was kind of outside the normal command structure, so I would have thought if Thrawn was there he would be working with Vader, likely in place of the Chokers.
    He would have been, and with Vader neglecting his duties and off getting killed, Thrawn would have been left in charge. And he has gone on the record before as saying to Emperor's face "no, that's a stupid plan", and after that first time, the Emperor actually listened, so odds are the plan would have been better from the outset; even if Vader insisted, Thrawn would have come up with something that would have compensated, because he wasn't a yes-man like Piett was.



    1And this is exactly what I'm afraid "replacement" canon movies will do; focus on the Jedi, just like the prequel era has done, to the exclusion of everything else of interest.
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2012-11-07 at 02:00 PM.

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    EDIT: Posted in response mostly to this.

    @pendell: Interesting and insightful, very much so, but you may be giving George Lucas far too much credit. I can't help thinking back to Han Solo's dialogue at the introduction of the Millennium Falcon way back in the original movie. "Point-five past lightspeed" doesn't mean anything, and speaking of parsecs as a unit of time is Just Wrong - forcing science-minded fans to scramble to invent a context in which these lines made sense. Lucas didn't have one, because he didn't (and possibly still doesn't) even realize that the lines were nonsensical: he just threw them in because he thought they sounded cool. (To be fair, they kinda did - assuming you're either unaware of the terminology problems, or have accepted the fan-made justifications for them.) I very much suspect that fandom is once again trying valiantly to come up with rationalizations for things Lucas threw in without understanding how little sense they made.

    In this case, though, I think it's less that Lucas didn't put any thought into the matter, and more… um. Let's say, "more a consequence of the way he views the world." Unfortunately, I suspect that much more specificity would violate forum rules; but bear in mind that Lucas believes that the PT, and even the OT, are loaded with complex & subtle political machinations and moral ambiguity.
    Last edited by Philistine; 2012-11-07 at 02:11 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post

    If the Force was as powerful as some of the more stupid bits of the EU (and Jedi spouting taken as face value, Yoda) would have it, you wouldn't ever have needed starships in the first place; if size was truly no object, Yoda, then the Emperor just could have started chucking planets into suns without the need of a ruddy great space-laser to do it for him...
    That's a paraphrased quote, remember. The full line is "Size matters not. The only difference is in your mind." So Yoda is 100% truthful even when taken at face value - the Force is potentially all-powerful, but limited by the user.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    Aside from the half-arsed bleatings from the prequel Jedi Council, who were by their own admission, completely blind-sided by the (one) Sith Lord and whose prophecies went utterly awry (unless you count "restore balance to the force" meaning "the Dark Side 'balances' out by becoming more dominant" which is a fair point and I sort of assumed the first time I ever heard the Jedi mention it), I don't believe I've seen much historical evidence of the Force requiring any kind of "balance", and I was always mystified as to what the Jedi Council even thought "balance" to the Force even meant. I just chalked it up the Jedi's usual habit of becoming so utterly self-absorbed as an organisation, they end up spending all of their time listening and never actually hearing anything.



    And I don't think it is. The Force was important to the conflict aside from on a personal level only inasmuch that there was a powerful Force-user supporting the conflict who make the mistake - so often repeated in the military blunders of history - of thinking that this aspect alone was sufficient to the task. The Empire didn't lose because the Emperor died, it lost because it was badly-lead and organsied and was using the Force to patch the gaping deficiencies in tactics and command structure.

    (Funnily enough, exactly what happened to the Death Star I, because Tarkin was an arrogant moron. If he'd have scrambled ANY of the Death Star's fighter complement - because only those squadrons in Vader's immediate command participated in the Battle of Yavin - the rebel fighters would have been overwhelmed with sheer weight of numbers. Heck, even another dozen TIEs would probably have tipped the tide.)

    I dispute that Star Wars is inherently about the Force anymore than Lord of the Rings was about magic. It is important to the plot, but in and of itself it is not solely a means to an end. (Even at the high of his power, the One Ring didn't make Sauron able to casually "I Win" everything.) There's far more to SW than space-magic and laser-swords, and every time the Force gets over-subscribed or assigned more mystical importance than it deserves, it denigrates all the rest of those things (many of which are better and more interesting than them)1.
    Quote Originally Posted by wikiquote
    Skywalker: You don't believe in the Force, do you?
    Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. [Kenobi smiles] Anyway, it's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
    Though when it comes to anything on the topic in the EU or especially prequels, I tend to come a lot closer to agreeing with you.

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    I've no idea what the official answer may be but I've always fondly imagined that Thrawn kept his distance from Vader specifically to avoid being arbitrarily executed for some minor strategic set back that even he could not evade.

    As for Endor... well he probably would have called the whole scheme absolutely ridiculous and may well have refused command of the whole operation until the Emperor agreed to clear cut the forest around the shield generator just to start.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Philistine View Post
    EDIT: Posted in response mostly to this.

    @pendell: Interesting and insightful, very much so, but you may be giving George Lucas far too much credit. I can't help thinking back to Han Solo's dialogue at the introduction of the Millennium Falcon way back in the original movie. "Point-five past lightspeed" doesn't mean anything, and speaking of parsecs as a unit of time is Just Wrong - forcing science-minded fans to scramble to invent a context in which these lines made sense. Lucas didn't have one, because he didn't (and possibly still doesn't) even realize that the lines were nonsensical: he just threw them in because he thought they sounded cool. (To be fair, they kinda did - assuming you're either unaware of the terminology problems, or have accepted the fan-made justifications for them.) I very much suspect that fandom is once again trying valiantly to come up with rationalizations for things Lucas threw in without understanding how little sense they made.

    In this case, though, I think it's less that Lucas didn't put any thought into the matter, and more… um. Let's say, "more a consequence of the way he views the world." Unfortunately, I suspect that much more specificity would violate forum rules; but bear in mind that Lucas believes that the PT, and even the OT, are loaded with complex & subtle political machinations and moral ambiguity.
    I always thought the official reason was Han Solo was talking out of his ass, but Harrison Ford delivered the line so convincingly most people assumed it was a mistake.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Philistine View Post
    EDIT: Posted in response mostly to this.

    @pendell: Interesting and insightful, very much so, but you may be giving George Lucas far too much credit. I can't help thinking back to Han Solo's dialogue at the introduction of the Millennium Falcon way back in the original movie. "Point-five past lightspeed" doesn't mean anything, and speaking of parsecs as a unit of time is Just Wrong - forcing science-minded fans to scramble to invent a context in which these lines made sense. Lucas didn't have one, because he didn't (and possibly still doesn't) even realize that the lines were nonsensical: he just threw them in because he thought they sounded cool. (To be fair, they kinda did - assuming you're either unaware of the terminology problems, or have accepted the fan-made justifications for them.) I very much suspect that fandom is once again trying valiantly to come up with rationalizations for things Lucas threw in without understanding how little sense they made.
    Actually, George Lucas knew exactly what a parsec is. That line was intended to show that Han Solo was talking out of his posterior. It just didn't come across as that.

    In the words of the Comic Irregulars,

    "Han's line about the Kessel Run in the movie has a long and convoluted back-story. The various drafts of the film script include notes about Han's boast that the Millennium Falcon is "the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". The problem of course is that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. (At least in English it is - but then the characters are speaking English on the screen, so one may reasonably assume that words have the same meanings they do in regular English.)

    The revised fourth draft of the film script makes it very clear what Han's line means. Immediately after the line, it says:

    Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.

    In other words, Han is trying to boast, and using a word he doesn't know the meaning of, which makes it obvious to Obi-Wan that he's lying through his teeth. Even in the shooting script, Han's line is followed by a note stating that he is "obviously lying".

    Which is all well and good, but unfortunately even the acting talent of Sir Alec Guinness did not make it quite clear enough that Han's line was intended to be interpreted as a completely bogus fabrication. The result is that masses of Star Wars fans have tried to come up with a reason why the Kessel Run really could be flown in "less than twelve parsecs"."
    Last edited by An Enemy Spy; 2012-11-07 at 02:34 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Xondoure View Post
    I always thought the official reason was Han Solo was talking out of his ass, but Harrison Ford delivered the line so convincingly most people assumed it was a mistake.
    Supposedly the script outline or some such calls for exactly that. I'd point out citing a parsec in a space faring civilization even on a world farthest from would still be like saying "I can go to NYC in under a kilometer" so why would anyone try that but... but yeah.

    However that was never followed up on giving us the boast about how closely Han can navigate close to the Maw which displays an almost as shockingly ridiculous failure of the understanding of space. Because seriously folks even that navigational route nonsense should just mean that Han made it in 11.99 parsecs to everyone else's so dramatically less impressive 12.01 parsecs.

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    In the ANH novel it said "less than Twelve Standard Timeparts".

    Han's line about the Force is far less dismissive than it is in the movie, too:

    "I've been from one end of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange things. Too many to believe there couldn't be something like this "Force". Too many to believe there could be some such controlling one's actions. I determine my destiny - not some half-mystical energy field. I wouldn't follow him so blindly if I were you. He's a clever old man full of simple tricks and mischief. He could be using you for his own ends."

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    . Because seriously folks even that navigational route nonsense should just mean that Han made it in 11.99 parsecs to everyone else's so dramatically less impressive 12.01 parsecs.
    In the Han Solo Trilogy by A. C. Crispin, we're told that the Maw black hole cluster distorts space enormously near it- and that's the cause of the distance reduction. Even then, Chewie thinks it's far more likely to be an instrument malfunction that caused such a low reading- Han avoids disputing this in Chewie's hearing at the time.
    Last edited by hamishspence; 2012-11-07 at 02:56 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    In the Han Solo Trilogy by A. C. Crispin, we're told that the Maw black hole cluster distorts space enormously near it- and that's the cause of the distance reduction. Even then, Chewie thinks it's far more likely to be an instrument malfunction that caused such a low reading- Han avoids disputing this in Chewie's hearing at the time.
    A parsec is 3.26 light-years of distance. Remember that a single light-year will take you to out of the Sol system entirely.

    Basically everyone should be able to avoid the Maw at completely inconsequential distances next to a parsec.

    Yes hyperspace can play by its own rules and that's what's being discussed. I stand by my point all the same

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    The "obvious misinformation" idea is an interesting one- but I'm ok with the EU answer. I think 14 parsecs was given once as more usual for a Kessel Run.
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Ford coming back...sweet.
    Hamill coming back..sure, why not.
    Fisher coming back...OH GOD WHY.

    Seriously, she's a mess. When her and Shatner had their little Youtube video spat, I looked up their ages...Shatner is 81 and looks like he's in his 50's. Fisher is 56 and looks like she's in her 80's.
    Likely, they'll come back as cameos with the focus on younger characters. Ford might only come back for one movie on the caveat that they'll kill off Han. I doubt it'll be like the new Indiana Jones movie with Ford and Karen Allen (who was great in Animal House) in prominent roles.

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    Maybe this has already been stated, but has a director been attached to this yet?

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    Nothing even close to official I can find.

    I mean just about anything else I'd say we're still only "probably" going to see a film actually result out of this

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    How, y'see that's exactly I think the biggest problem with Star Wars, and especially the later EU, it places FAR too much emphasis on the importance of the Force. The best bits of Star Wars have always been when the Force has been dealt with sensibly, and is it important to, but not solely driving, the plot. So I'm afraid I'll have to disagree, because I just don't think the Force is all that. (It's only the later (crappy) EU and prequels where it starts to be pretty much exclusively about the Jedi and their (somewhat overrated, considering how easily they got ambushed in Order 66) shiny-light-swords.)
    I agree with you about the EU. I think film-Force is to EU-Force as Middle Earth-magic is to D&D-Magic. Which is to say it is supposed to be subtle. When Sauron bends his will to something he doesn't do it by throwing fireballs. Instead , when he draws all evil things to Mordor someone like Gollum, open to the summons, just sort of finds his way there by
    coincidence and contrivance.

    That's the way Force-writing is done *right*. It isn't supposed to be a bazooka. It's supposed to be something subtle
    in the background indistinguishable from author contrivance. Done that way, it is at the same time both all-powerful
    and all-encompassing while also being subtle to the point that the ignorant can disbelieve in its existence altogether. See: General Motti on the Death Star, Han Solo.


    I mean, that's not even the canonical explanation for the Imperial loss, which was the sudden lapse of confusion in co-ordination of Imperial forces when the Emperor died and stopped using essentially Battle Meditation - Pellanon himself reckoned that Thrawn had been there, things would have gone differently
    Pelleaon is a naval officer, not a Force-user. Joruus C'baoth thought differently.

    At any rate, that is the Zahn and the EU explanation. I'm thinking the in-film universe owes a lot more to Lucas' reading of Hero with the thousand faces and the structure of a fairy tale .. help me out here, Sir Pratchett ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terry Pratchett
    Morally suspect? Shorn of its trappings, most fantasy would find approval in a Victorian household. The morality of fantasy and horror is, by and large, the strict morality of the fairy tale. The vampire is slain, the alien is blown out of the airlock, the evil Dark Lord is vanquished and, perhaps at some loss, the Good triumph -- not because they are better armed, but because Providence is on their side. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be Hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.
    Bolding mine.

    "The Force" is the GFFA word for "Providence" -- that force that predisposes the good to win over the evil not because good is smart or powerful or well numbered, but simply because the universe itself prefers that good triumph over evil. The very universe itself fights on the side of the right.

    Of course, in Star Wars, "Providence" is not a sapient being in its own right, but something which has a symbiotic relationship with the living beings, Force-Sensitive and non-, who inhabit their universe. It can be a force for evil when the Dark Side is ascendent, but it can also be a force for good when the Light Side is ascendent.

    Thus, when the Force has it in for you, there is no hope of escape no matter how many guns you've got. Because in fairy tales the Force/Providence is indistinguishable from author contrivance or ticked-off-GM-whose-last-soda-you-just-drank-and-whose-girlfriend-you-slept-with. Don't care about the missile boats. Rocks are going to fall, and everyone is going to die. Even if he has to bring the rocks in from an alternate dimension .

    That's why Darth Vader warned that "the power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the force". He was laughed at by General Motti. Darth Vader didn't mean that the Force would necessarily throw a sun at the Death Star and blow it up. He meant its subtle influence on events means that a clueless farmboy who's never flown a fighter before manages to make the one-in-a-million shot that even the best targeting computer in the galaxy couldn't make.

    In a way, it was better that luke was clueless and inexperienced. If he had any skill, he'd be tempted to rely on that skill and not on the Force. And he would fail. The whole point of the Red Leader segment of episode IV was to show what happened when un-Force aided humans gave it their all and did everything which was humanly possible, and it just wasn't enough.

    The battle of the Death Star was won by the Force. Not by X-wings and not by plans. It was won by contrivance and "luck" and the love of friends for each other (Han rushing to Luke's rescue).

    And so it was that the good guys triumphed not because they were clever or skillful but because pro- the Force was on their side.

    Just like at the Battle of Endor.

    Star Wars is lousy science fiction but it is a very, very good fairy tale. And the logic of the fairy tale says that even if Thrawn had allied with the Yuuzhan Vong and brought back not only the YV but the entire Galactic Alliance Fleet on his same side somehow back in time to the battle of Endor, He's still going to lose. The fix is in. All you're doing is taxing Lucas' ability to come up with authorial contrivance. Rocks are going to fall, everyone is going to die.

    There is no escape.

    Point is, even if I agreed with you on the Force-centric narrative, even with stiff -8 penalties to the dice rolls, the Imperials still would have obliterated the rebel fleet - TIE Defenders are just THAT much better than anything the rebels had got, and as for MissileBoats...! If the rebels were really, really lucky, they might have just got the Death Star - though in the grand scheme of things, the Death Star was a pretty wasteful symbol anyway - but it would have certainly cost them their fleet and their ability to function as a military force (the cost in experienced personel would have been catastrophic) in any event.
    When I said -4 to rolls, that's a mechanical effect. I could just as easily said, say, that a glitch in the targeting software suddenly scrags the missile boat IFF recognition, such that they start shooting at their own side rather than just at the rebels. Or one of the commanders suddenly decides that NOW is the time to make his bid for supreme power. Or something nasty got slipped into the ship galleys and the TIE Defender pilots are not only fighting the rebels, but also fighting a losing battle not to throw up all over the cockpit.

    You see a squadron of missile boats and a squadron of tie defenders. *I* see a bunch of complex machines with thousands of moving parts, dozens of software programs, and human pilots with fallible brains and fallible bodies, *all* of which has to be working exactly right in order for them to be combat-effective. There are thousands, possibly millions of ways for a malevolent Force to throw a monkey wrench into the works and turn this proud force into a shambling, useless wreck.

    The same for Thrawn himself. Thrawn is the most brilliant military leader in the Star Wars universe. But he can only act on the information he receives from ship's sensors/communications et al, and absent those same communications he is not an admiral but a passenger, a meaningless spectator to the battle before him.

    If the Force has decided the battle will be won, there are a million ways to neutralize an effective military leader. Perhaps someone in the engine room stumbles against the wrong control and , in a million-to-one chance, the Chimaera is sent on a hyperjump across the galaxy. By the time the crew is able to correct the problem, the Chimaera is somewhere in the Deep Core with fried hyperdrive engines.

    Or perhaps today is the day that the malware attached to some crewer's downloaded porn subverts the entire computer network, with the result that instead of battle reports Thrawn and company are treated to a nonstop holo-show of passionate Twi'leks with their Hutt masters. By the time they get it fixed, the battle is over.

    Or perhaps today is the day that a medical condition suddenly manifests itself and Thrawn spends the entire battle in sickbay.

    And so on.

    A lot of the things humans want to do are based on the assumption that the universe around them will act in a certain way. If , as in the GFFA , the universe suddenly stops playing along and starts actively trying to sabotage you at every turn, it's impossible to recover.

    And that's how a stone-age tribe armed with spears can defeat an entire legion of the Empire's best troops.

    unless you count "restore balance to the force" meaning "the Dark Side 'balances' out by becoming more dominant" which is a fair point and I sort of assumed the first time I ever heard the Jedi mention it), I don't believe I've seen much historical evidence of the Force requiring any kind of "balance", and I was always mystified as to what the Jedi Council even thought "balance" to the Force even meant.
    This is spelled out in the Novelization of EPIII. From the perspective of the novel's author, there is always going to be greed and lust and murder and the rest of it. The Dark Side is always around. It can't be abolished. But it can be restrained.
    Just as murder can't be abolished but it can be held in check by force of law, so the Dark Side can be held in check and contained by agents of justice such as the Jedi Knights.

    The ideal situation, from the Jedi point of view, is one in which there is a Rule of Law and Dark Side is restricted to the odd Hutt boss or criminal mastermind. The Dark Side exists but it is restrained, held in check and within tolerances.

    The Force is considered out of balance when the Dark Side bursts those bounds and begins to run roughshod over the galaxy. When the forces that are supposed to restrain evil instead propagate it. That is why, when the battle of Geonosis was fought, Yoda believed the Jedi had already suffered a serious defeat. The outbreak of war in the galaxy and the chaos it
    causes meant that the Dark Side had burst its bounds and was now wreaking havoc throughout the galaxy. "The shroud of the dark side has fallen".

    Which is to say, the force is part of and surrounds all living things, not just the jedi. The rebel/empire big throwdown at Endor is as much about the conflict of metaphysical ideals and stuff as it is about two fleets or a couple of lazer-sword-fighters squabbling next to a reactor shaft.
    Agreed. To my mind the lightsaber fight is just as much a part of the Cave-shadows as the starfighter battle. The difference is that in the lightsaber fight the duel between Light and Dark is most clearly demonstrated on a personal level. It is the tip
    of the boil, the balance point on the fulcrum, and as that little weight shifts so the entire mechanism does.

    So .. is it the choices of the combatants that dictate the actions of the Force? Or does the Force itself manipulate the combatants to do what they do? I suspect in-universe Jedi could debate that forever and not find an answer.

    Interesting and insightful, very much so, but you may be giving George Lucas far too much credit. I can't help thinking back to Han Solo's dialogue at the introduction of the Millennium Falcon way back in the original movie.
    As I quoted above from Terry Pratchett, I think that GL knows exactly what he is doing in writing fairy tales even if he's not a good SF writer. As a fairy tale, the Force-centric narrative makes sense. If you throw away the fairy tale and try to treat the Star Wars universe as a mechanistic, rational universe, I think much of Star Wars becomes incomprehensible.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

    -Valery Legasov in Chernobyl

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    Quote Originally Posted by pendell
    When I said -4 to rolls, that's a mechanical effect. I could just as easily said, say, that a glitch in the targeting software suddenly scrags the missile boat IFF recognition, such that they start shooting at their own side rather than just at the rebels. Or one of the commanders suddenly decides that NOW is the time to make his bid for supreme power. Or something nasty got slipped into the ship galleys and the TIE Defender pilots are not only fighting the rebels, but also fighting a losing battle not to throw up all over the cockpit.

    You see a squadron of missile boats and a squadron of tie defenders. *I* see a bunch of complex machines with thousands of moving parts, dozens of software programs, and human pilots with fallible brains and fallible bodies, *all* of which has to be working exactly right in order for them to be combat-effective. There are thousands, possibly millions of ways for a malevolent Force to throw a monkey wrench into the works and turn this proud force into a shambling, useless wreck.

    The same for Thrawn himself. Thrawn is the most brilliant military leader in the Star Wars universe. But he can only act on the information he receives from ship's sensors/communications et al, and absent those same communications he is not an admiral but a passenger, a meaningless spectator to the battle before him.

    If the Force has decided the battle will be won, there are a million ways to neutralize an effective military leader. Perhaps someone in the engine room stumbles against the wrong control and , in a million-to-one chance, the Chimaera is sent on a hyperjump across the galaxy. By the time the crew is able to correct the problem, the Chimaera is somewhere in the Deep Core with fried hyperdrive engines.

    Or perhaps today is the day that the malware attached to some crewer's downloaded porn subverts the entire computer network, with the result that instead of battle reports Thrawn and company are treated to a nonstop holo-show of passionate Twi'leks with their Hutt masters. By the time they get it fixed, the battle is over.

    Or perhaps today is the day that a medical condition suddenly manifests itself and Thrawn spends the entire battle in sickbay.
    No, not buying that even remotely, sorry. The Force is not the Infinite Improbability Drive. With an agenda. I don't even buy the Force being sentient in any meaningful sense, like at all. It's not a deity.

    It's certainly not capable of spontaneously affecting non-living objects for no rhyme or reason, that directly contradicts everything I've ever read about the Force.

    Furthermore, such a Force-centric narrative renders every single non-Jedi character as utterly meaningless and empty as if they were Imperial citizens in 40k; they don't MATTER, because they don't have free will to act; because the Force will just step in and say "nuh-uh, that's not what I want to happen", and I just won't accept that. It means that the entire Rebellion, all the lives lost - on both sides - were completely and totally wasted, because Luke was the only character whose actions and choices actually had any meaning; everyone else would have been at the mercy of the Force's caprious whim and they only could have succeeded if the Force deigns to let them.

    That actually comes across as rather darker and more depressing than 40K itself, really - with the knowledge that you can do everything right, but still lose because some incomprehensible, omnipotent Force has decided to railroad you in a fashion that would get any tabletop DM rightly pummeled into unconsciousness with his own DMG, because some dude did something somewhere. That's well beyond what even the crapper parts of EU has tried to claim.

    It would also, if that were the case, prove Palpatine absolutely 100% correct in his opinion that everyone who is not a Force-user is inherently inferior.

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    If you throw away the fairy tale and try to treat the Star Wars universe as a mechanistic, rational universe, I think much of Star Wars becomes incomprehensible.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    On the other hand if you don't, I think it renders everything and everyone who is not a Jedi or a Sith completely irrevelevant and pointless, nothing more than window dressing for the rather-too-full-of-themselves-samurai and their frequently-badly-executed philosphical mumbo-jumbo. I'll stick by rational every single day of the week, thanks.



    Star Wars would have worked (and does, in fact) fine without the Jedi or the Force, in my opinion, but the Jedi without the Star Wars backdrop would be indistinguishable from many a generic fantasy/fairy-tale (or many an anime). The Jedi made Star Wars memorable; they alone did not make it great.



    Incidently, the sort of strategic and tactical blunders made at Endor by Vader and Palpatine are sadly not even unrealistic, as a passing glance at the more cretinous of historical commanders will show. Sometimes military leaders just ARE that stupid and/or arrogant - and the price was always paid in the blood of the troops they command.
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2012-11-07 at 07:56 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    Furthermore, such a Force-centric narrative renders every single non-Jedi character as utterly meaningless and empty as if they were Imperial citizens in 40k; they don't MATTER, because they don't have free will to act; because the Force will just step in and say "nuh-uh, that's not what I want to happen", and I just won't accept that.
    For my money, this is practically the exact opposite of my own standpoint. The force is everyone. It isn't a seperate thing that decides your destiny or applies mechanical penalties as much as it is a metaphysical layer of reality, made up of the combined actions essences emotions or whatever of everyone and everything. The Jedi can do a few neet tricks by tapping into this, and more importantly can allow it to guide them in their actions in such a way as to be more successful. This means they are more likely to be involved in the kind of turning point moments and events that decide the nature of this conglomerate gestalt, but it doesn't make them any better or intrinsically more important than anyone else as such.

    The Deathstar trench run was helped just as much by Han doing the selfless thing as by Luke having the faith to try without the targetting assistance. In essence, Han coming to help his friends is the light-side push that tipped the balance of that conflict, allowed Luke time to take the shot and saved the rebellion.

    This kind of thing should probably be more common than it generally is in the assorted tie-ins, but then in the tie-ins practically everyone is a Jedi. Or will be after half an hour travelling with the protagonist, if we go by the KOTOR games.

    Likewise, I don't think it's so much that Luke and Vader were special snowflake Jedi/Force Users that made them the pivitol point in the metaphysical side of the Endor battle, it was that they were right at the center of events and their entire Ideologies were clashing. It was decided by their battle of philosophies, by whichever one convinced the other. Either Vader sided with Luke, as he did, or Luke Sided with Vader. Pretty much no-one else in the battle was in a position to switch sides or have the potential to make a meaningful difference by doing so.

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