2 hours ago, Daronil said:

ANH's duel was pretty clunky in parts, especially Alec Guiness's little "spin". But I remember talking years ago to a kendo practitioner who had seen many duels between kendo masters, and he was saying that (a few clunky bits aside), the Obi-Wan / Vader duel was the most realistic of all of them. Two masters hardly move at all, apparently. There'll be a few tentative "testing" strikes that are easily parried as each gets the measure of the other, until finally one will hit home quickly in an unanticipated strike that finishes the fight.

I doubt that applies to Jedi and Sith - if the Force allows you to anticipate a second or two into the future, you really need to be outmaneuvred to lose. Also, this doesn’t really mesh with the various lightsaber forms (realistic or not).

14 hours ago, Archlyte said:

It's a pity the restraint we saw in those original movies died with them. I guess Inquisitors wouldn't have been scary without helicopter rotor blade lighstabers. Just using the Force in the manner of say ESB or ROTJ would have been something that writers couldn't have made interesting I guess.

Up to a certain point, I would agree. Yes, it would be nice to keep things simple. However, this is a kids' cartoon we're talking about- it would be unfair to expect it to completely avoid typical Saturday Morning wackiness. (Even if the show kind of pretends to be for us adults.) The Inquisitors are an interesting point, though- I feel they served a dual purpose. Sure, the kids were going to want some evil wizards to fight the good guys. You even get that nice parallel to underdog sports movies where Team-Obviously-Bad-Guys have the benefits of wealthy backers and "cool" toys. (Which ultimately turn out to be more of a hindrance than a benefit- guess they should've spent more time perfecting their Force Jump. (TM) ) Segueing into: The Inquisitors are a nice bridge from the Prequel era into the Classic era. They are adherents to the bombastic style of the old age, and when they don't even manage to survive into the third season, those traditions die with them. You may notice how the portrayal of the force tended to skew more toward spooky mysticism in the later seasons. Although there were a few missteps along the way, I feel Rebels did a pretty good job including the various sub-sectors of Star Wars mythology and treating them respectfully.

Man, the more I think about how this show ended, the more sad I am, because there was no other way it could've gone down. If this hadn't been a little kids' show, the Jedi would've all ended up with heroic deaths like Kanan's and Luke would still be the last of the Jedi in ROTJ. But Ezra and Ahsoka had to live because the writers couldn't make a choice that would make all the kids cry. They had to do what they did; they were constrained by their audience demographic. I don't even really blame them. It just sucks.

16 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Then again, the advantage of Lucas not letting himself be kept in check is what had him push to advance film technology to where he needed it to be.

Yes, that is actually part of what I said... even though it was not Lucas... but that is a different story.

On the things of the prequels doing the swordfighting better... no, actually they did not. They just went to the other extreme and not always on the better side of silly. A swordfight between masters ought infact to be quite unspectacular for the most part, unless they do it for show. The latter part being what we have in the prequels and in Star Wars since, which is fine of course, since it is a show. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren (and the coreographer in question) did quite a good job though. Kylo does fight sloppy (very fitting, due to anger and what not), but it is way closer to a swordfight and likely a good blend between show and fight.

6 hours ago, Superunknown said:

Up to a certain point, I would agree. Yes, it would be nice to keep things simple. However, this is a kids' cartoon we're talking about- it would be unfair to expect it to completely avoid typical Saturday Morning wackiness. (Even if the show kind of pretends to be for us adults.) The Inquisitors are an interesting point, though- I feel they served a dual purpose. Sure, the kids were going to want some evil wizards to fight the good guys. You even get that nice parallel to underdog sports movies where Team-Obviously-Bad-Guys have the benefits of wealthy backers and "cool" toys. (Which ultimately turn out to be more of a hindrance than a benefit- guess they should've spent more time perfecting their Force Jump. (TM) ) Segueing into: The Inquisitors are a nice bridge from the Prequel era into the Classic era. They are adherents to the bombastic style of the old age, and when they don't even manage to survive into the third season, those traditions die with them. You may notice how the portrayal of the force tended to skew more toward spooky mysticism in the later seasons. Although there were a few missteps along the way, I feel Rebels did a pretty good job including the various sub-sectors of Star Wars mythology and treating them respectfully.

first off: Superunknown was a badass album.

Yeah and I am trying to make my posts come across as coming from a fan of the show, which I am. I loved the characters and the visuals of the show, and overall it was a wonderful series. But I think I just love the setting so much that I wish they would focus more on the normal lives in the galaxy and not always on magic and wizards.

I think that was one of the successful things about Rogue One, one of the things it did well, was to contrast Vader by having the rest of the movie deal with the Force as a mystical thing that normal people don't see and wield, and thus have to have faith. One of the problems associated with making magic objectively and obviously real, and ubiquitous, is that there is a tendency to focus on the magic all the time.

I would love to see a show where we barely ever see the Force, but the characters show us more of what it's like to live in the Galaxy without explaining. I would love to see characters who have to actually get out of situations by their own wits and physicality of their biology. In the absence of a Jedi, A Lasat or a Wookiee would be an amazing friend to have in a scrape.

14 hours ago, Daronil said:

ANH's duel was pretty clunky in parts, especially Alec Guiness's little "spin". But I remember talking years ago to a kendo practitioner who had seen many duels between kendo masters, and he was saying that (a few clunky bits aside), the Obi-Wan / Vader duel was the most realistic of all of them. Two masters hardly move at all, apparently. There'll be a few tentative "testing" strikes that are easily parried as each gets the measure of the other, until finally one will hit home quickly in an unanticipated strike that finishes the fight.

Also, don't forget that at this point, Lucas had lightsabers weighing a lot... like almost the weight of a longsword or more.
He later changed his mind (Such a shocker, I know! Totally uncharacteristic of him) and said that lightsabers were pretty much weightless.

12 hours ago, ghatt said:

In the Star Trek universe humans and Betazoids are actually related to one another most likely, along with lots of other humanoid species for that matter.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode)

Yep, I specifically addressed this in one of my posts, but it's probably been lost amid all the other chatting!

My issue with "The Chase" is that it attempts to fix the issue, but it only does so if someone has no clue how evolution works. Mixing in a bit of Progenitor DNA into the primordial soup would achieve absolutely nothing. Me and a jellyfish have 100% the same base DNA from whatever early self-replicating critter first developed 1+ billion years ago. If it had a bit of Progenitor DNA in it, it still managed to eventually develop into something like 5 million different species by now; everything from humans to mackerel to the Ebola virus.

"The Chase" makes the mistake of assuming the evolution is some kind of directed process which will inevitably move towards a "higher" life form. That's simply wrong. Humans are just the most recent product of a line that developed as a fluke. Homo sapiens happens to be the one sub-line that survived - a lot didn't; H. erectus, H. floriensis, Denisovians, Neanderthals, etc. None of them made it. More species have gone extinct than exist now. The ones surviving today are just lucky enough to have had the right adaptations at the right time.

The Progenitor DNA also existed in every other extinct life-form; and every other life form in existence. If Earth's octopus eventually became a dominant life-form, and met up with other cephalopods from other planets, then the Progenitor's little spiel would be embarrassingly wrong. Because the octopus-descendant would also carry the Progenitor DNA, but would look nothing like the Progenitor.

28 minutes ago, OddballE8 said:

Also, don't forget that at this point, Lucas had lightsabers weighing a lot... like almost the weight of a longsword or more.
He later changed his mind (Such a shocker, I know! Totally uncharacteristic of him) and said that lightsabers were pretty much weightless.

Which has been sorta kinda changed with Rebels, in that the weight comes from not having a connection to the kyber crystal. Hence why Jedi medidate and bond with theirs and Sith "bleed" theirs.

50 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Yep, I specifically addressed this in one of my posts, but it's probably been lost amid all the other chatting!

My issue with "The Chase" is that it attempts to fix the issue, but it only does so if someone has no clue how evolution works. Mixing in a bit of Progenitor DNA into the primordial soup would achieve absolutely nothing. Me and a jellyfish have 100% the same base DNA from whatever early self-replicating critter first developed 1+ billion years ago. If it had a bit of Progenitor DNA in it, it still managed to eventually develop into something like 5 million different species by now; everything from humans to mackerel to the Ebola virus.

"The Chase" makes the mistake of assuming the evolution is some kind of directed process which will inevitably move towards a "higher" life form. That's simply wrong. Humans are just the most recent product of a line that developed as a fluke. Homo sapiens happens to be the one sub-line that survived - a lot didn't; H. erectus, H. floriensis, Denisovians, Neanderthals, etc. None of them made it. More species have gone extinct than exist now. The ones surviving today are just lucky enough to have had the right adaptations at the right time.

The Progenitor DNA also existed in every other extinct life-form; and every other life form in existence. If Earth's octopus eventually became a dominant life-form, and met up with other cephalopods from other planets, then the Progenitor's little spiel would be embarrassingly wrong. Because the octopus-descendant would also carry the Progenitor DNA, but would look nothing like the Progenitor.

I think the real issue here is confusing Star Trek and Star Wars pseudo science with real world science. Star Trek and Star Wars are space opera settings, not hard sci-fi, and thus don't need their science to be provable, just somewhat believable to the audience for which they are produced. It's all plot/space magic. We also know a lot more about genetics nowadays than we did when "The Chase" was produced, which makes the episode less believable now than when originally produced, but that doesn't make it any less relevant to this conversation.

On 3/9/2018 at 6:47 PM, penpenpen said:

I dunno. I think the special editions prove that what you see as "restraint" was actually a lack of special effects technology, time and budget.

EDIT: Ninja'd. That's what I get for not reading to the end before answering.

Well I think that makes the same point though doesn't it? More isn't always better.

9 hours ago, OddballE8 said:

Also, don't forget that at this point, Lucas had lightsabers weighing a lot... like almost the weight of a longsword or more.
He later changed his mind (Such a shocker, I know! Totally uncharacteristic of him) and said that lightsabers were pretty much weightless.

I always liked the idea of the thing having a gyroscopic effect that felt like "weight." George has great ideas and often revisits them to make them un-great. lol

16 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

But Ezra and Ahsoka had to live because the writers couldn't make a choice that would make all the kids cry.

But it's perfectly in line with the movies for the good guys to survive with minimal losses. I wouldn't blame this on being a kids show. It's how Star Wars has always rolled.

6 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I always liked the idea of the thing having a gyroscopic effect that felt like "weight." George has great ideas and often revisits them to make them un-great. lol

Indeed. While the blade (not the hilt) has no weight to speak of, the field generated to contain the energy resists penetration (and thus cutting things). This would be what makes lightsabers so difficult to wield effectively (aside from being dangerous). The hilt itself would still have some weight to it. A connection to the force and being in tune with the kyber would enable you to feel the lightsaber as a mere extension of your self, making it way better to handle.

As for Lucas changing his mind without any regards for what was established or any reflection on the quality of his whims, that is old news by now... In the end, the comparison of the original and the prequels shows pretty clearly how much of Star Wars relied on Lucas being forced to rely on other people and the heed their advice. The prequels simply is what happened, once he could do as he pleased and relied few if any people who dared to advise him. Sadly I am less and less convinced of the job Lucasfilm is doing under Disney though.

That being said, I did like Rebels for the most part. To me season 3 was having a few steep lows and season 4 continuing the downwards trend... with the final few episodes making me thankful it is over.

21 hours ago, ghatt said:

I think the real issue here is confusing Star Trek and Star Wars pseudo science with real world science. Star Trek and Star Wars are space opera settings, not hard sci-fi, and thus don't need their science to be provable, just somewhat believable to the audience for which they are produced. It's all plot/space magic. We also know a lot more about genetics nowadays than we did when "The Chase" was produced, which makes the episode less believable now than when originally produced, but that doesn't make it any less relevant to this conversation.

I agree completely. The only reason I addressed the whole "Star Trek genetics" thing in the first place was that I'd said that up until recently, Star Wars didn't have interspecies relationships the way Star Trek had done so for decades. And I idly mentioned that it amused me that people in Star Trek seemed happy to mate with species that were far, far more distantly related to them than, say, a jellyfish. From there it sort of spiralled out of control!

42 minutes ago, Daronil said:

I agree completely. The only reason I addressed the whole "Star Trek genetics" thing in the first place was that I'd said that up until recently, Star Wars didn't have interspecies relationships the way Star Trek had done so for decades. And I idly mentioned that it amused me that people in Star Trek seemed happy to mate with species that were far, far more distantly related to them than, say, a jellyfish. From there it sort of spiralled out of control!

See, that’s where you’re mistaken. Star Wars has had interspecies relationships and hybrid offspring since at least the publication of Dark Empire . (1991). Shug Ninx was a hybrid. One of the dancers on Jabba’s Palace in the Special Editons was also a hybrid. Star Wars has included interspecies relationships and hybrids for decades .

42 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

See, that’s where you’re mistaken. Star Wars has had interspecies relationships and hybrid offspring since at least the publication of Dark Empire . (1991). Shug Ninx was a hybrid. One of the dancers on Jabba’s Palace in the Special Editons was also a hybrid. Star Wars has included interspecies relationships and hybrids for decades .

Well, I wouldn't know anything about EU depictions.

Which of Jabba's dancers was a hybrid?

PS: Besides, you're ruining it for me! The fact that Star Wars didn't have the relationships like Star Trek was, in my opinion, a plus.

5 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Well, I wouldn't know anything about EU depictions.

Which of Jabba's dancers was a hybrid?

PS: Besides, you're ruining it for me! The fact that Star Wars didn't have the relationships like Star Trek was, in my opinion, a plus.

Rystall Sant

17 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Rystall Sant

Well, there you go.

I'm a bit disappointed, I must say. It was a thing I thought Star Wars did better than Star Trek, but I guess I was mistaken...

The special editions look like defecated dog crap anyway. They took an old movie and somehow made it look older.

55 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Well, there you go.

I'm a bit disappointed, I must say. It was a thing I thought Star Wars did better than Star Trek, but I guess I was mistaken...

Well, to be fair, hybrids Between humans and humanoid aliens are common Science Fiction tropes. You’ll find them not only in Star Trek and Star Wars, but many other sf shows, books, comics, anime, etc.

On 10.3.2018 at 12:31 AM, Archlyte said:

It's a pity the restraint we saw in those original movies died with them. I guess Inquisitors wouldn't have been scary without helicopter rotor blade lighstabers. Just using the Force in the manner of say ESB or ROTJ would have been something that writers couldn't have made interesting I guess.

The flying stuff was definitely silly. The design of the sabers, I must say I liked - and the explanation for the spinning made sense to me: It's a crutch, a martial equivalent of the scholar's mate - a cheap trick that can kill the unwary, but be easily thwarted by anyone who knows what they're doing. Considering the primary targets of the inquisitors are inexperienced force users who most often won't even have a light sabre, it's absolutely adequate for their role.

17 hours ago, Cifer said:

The flying stuff was definitely silly. The design of the sabers, I must say I liked - and the explanation for the spinning made sense to me: It's a crutch, a martial equivalent of the scholar's mate - a cheap trick that can kill the unwary, but be easily thwarted by anyone who knows what they're doing. Considering the primary targets of the inquisitors are inexperienced force users who most often won't even have a light sabre, it's absolutely adequate for their role.

I'm pretty sure they didn't put that much thought into it and just wanted to animate the thing spinning for the visual. If it did a fast rotation (almost instant) into a set position with the switch of a button I could see it being a tricky weapon, but they had this little round handle and then they would set it spinning for obvious visual effect. Also considering the primary targets of the inquisitors, it makes more sense to just have a normal lightsaber.

4 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I'm pretty sure they didn't put that much thought into it and just wanted to animate the thing spinning for the visual. If it did a fast rotation (almost instant) into a set position with the switch of a button I could see it being a tricky weapon, but they had this little round handle and then they would set it spinning for obvious visual effect. Also considering the primary targets of the inquisitors, it makes more sense to just have a normal lightsaber.

The thing about the spin-mode being both a "cheat" and an intimidation tool against inexperienced opponents come straight from Dave Filoni in an interview, and almost want to say it was the Rebels Recon for the episode that had the Grand Inquisitor's first proper appearance in the series.

So there was more thought and rationalization than "hey, spinning's cool, let's make it spin!" put into the Inquisitor lightsabers, which itself was based off concept art for the Force Unleashed video game that was never used (likely due to complexity of programming into a game that already had a lot going on in terms of the physics engine and how destructive to the environment Force powers could be).

Just now, Donovan Morningfire said:

The thing about the spin-mode being both a "cheat" and an intimidation tool against inexperienced opponents come straight from Dave Filoni in an interview, and almost want to say it was the Rebels Recon for the episode that had the Grand Inquisitor's first proper appearance in the series.

So there was more thought and rationalization than "hey, spinning's cool, let's make it spin!" put into the Inquisitor lightsabers, which itself was based off concept art for the Force Unleashed video game that was never used (likely due to complexity of programming into a game that already had a lot going on in terms of the physics engine and how destructive to the environment Force powers could be).

Ah well that helps me to understand why I don't like it if it was something from The Force Unleashed. Yeah I forgot about how they do obsess over every detail, but man it's such a bad idea. I would almost understand if they thought "ok well we can totally make this work as a toy," because a spinning weapon for an action figure makes sense to give it some, well, action. Imagine putting longsword blades on a bearing like that. I guess fencing wasn't hard enough. Wait til I spin my blades before you press the attack, no hang on they need to get up to full rpm. At which point you have something that has a gyroscopic force that will resist being moved in a certain axis. Doesn't make any sense, it's like putting a tripod on a gun you never put down.

Why do you need to intimidate inexperienced Force users? Their overconfidence is the Inquisitor's boon. No I think it was the audience that was supposed to be intimidated, which means Filoni is saying something that sounds good in the interview, but I just don't buy it. Somebody pitched that spinning lightsaber and the room probably went "Whoooaa," as they pictured it in their heads.

14 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Why do you need to intimidate inexperienced Force users?

Because intimidation is a tried-and-true darksider shtick and an enemy who's too afraid to do anything is less dangerous than one who may be overconfident, but could still get a lucky hit in. Inquisitors are not the equals of Sith or actual Jedi, and that's very much by design.