My canon contains no books except for some gaming supplements.

The Last Jedi gets a C-. TFA got a D, TROS got an F, and the prequels all got F-'s from me. So it's not like I'm putting TLJ up there with King Lear .

I tried to watch Rebels and the newer CW. The animation is unwatchable. And no, I don't watch Teen Titans Go , or BallMasters , or even Rick and Morty . I'm not talking about the quality of the animation, I am talking about that style of animation.

Edit: Here's the thing, @KryatDragon et al. There is now too much Star Wars to have time to consume all of it and still have time for other interests. So, I don't. Other people came up with the idea of a canon, a personal canon, a head canon, etc. I personally find the phrase unhelpful but I use it cause it's the parlance of the day. Let's say we were into baseball. You've got major leagues, minors, college, baseball cards, sports almanacs, live games, television, radio, and that's without getting into other memorabilia. Would I be seen as some sort of bitter toxic baseball fan if, say, I chose to only follow my hometown major league team? And if that team left town and moved across the country would I be some sort of crazy person to stop following them?

On 3/16/2020 at 11:58 AM, KommanderKeldoth said:

Thats my one issue with the 2003 cartoon. Its beautifully made but the Jedi power level creep is crazy.

This isn't aimed at you in particular, just an observation,

All the Jedi get power creep with each movie/show/comic trying to out perform the next

at first, the Force was this influence that obi-wan uses to trick some poorly-motivated stormtroopers and sneak around the deathstar. It was believable at that.
Then we saw Yoda and Luke move and X-wing around and Darth Vader throw some tubes and boxes at his son. Still believable.

But when all the Jedi start flying around on broomsticks and killing 4000 robots at a time and flying through space it stops being believable. If the Jedi are so powerful, just hang out in a starship and kill the enemy on the offending planet or levitate them all into space or whatever, They started creating too much power creep without paying attention to what the other consequences are.

That's where I start to just ignore stuff or stop taking in certain media (like @TauntaunScout ) Which is probably why I prefer Solo and Rogue One (and even Mandalorian) is the use of the force was limited. (Honestly I usually skip the Yoda scenes in ESB and the Emperor scenes in RotJ) because that part gets boring.

This impulse to outdo the last thing, just to prove you can, generally damaged the prequels, the sequels, and The Hobbit.

With a cartoon I don’t mind it too much, but with live action it gets old fast. And really hurts the stories.

32 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

If the Jedi are so powerful, just hang out in a starship and kill the enemy on the offending planet or levitate them all into space or whatever, They started creating too much power creep without paying attention to what the other consequences are.

The Old Republic Comics/Books/Games:



I actually enjoyed many of the old stories where the Jedi (or more often fallen Jedi/Sith) become that powerful. Exar Kun, Naga Sadow, Freedon Nadd, Revan Shan, Darth Andeddu, Darth Bane, Darth Vitiate. In a way, when viewed through the post Jedi Purge eras of Star Wars it adds a quality of mysticism. The force is this unquantifiable entity, where to the average individual it is nothing but lore and archaic tradition but to those who can connect to it a source of endless possibilities.

I find it interesting that all these characters that peak at insane levels of power, having abilities that spiral beyond anything we've ever seen, still suffer the tragedy of being human enough to fail.

@Darth Sanguis

The Knights of the Old Republic and Dark Forces games made more sense of the Force than a lot of the movies or tv shows did in my opinion. If you have that much power, why get on the ground and muck around. It kind of stopped making sense that the Emperor was worried about Luke honestly. Why not just use the Death Star on the moon of Endor and then whoosh off and rule the galaxy. Its like if you get too powerful from the force, it sucks all the reasoning capability from your brain. Why did Yoda, Mace Windu, all the Jedi counsel etc, not have a clue that something bad was brewing across the street at the Senate building?

The mystery of the untold background, ie, starting with "Episode 4", was always a cool feature of Star Wars . That's both my opinion as a viewer, and something Lucas explicitly had stated. Unfortunately too much of that impulse for mystery has been lost by Lucas et al. Too much world building, destroys that cool feature. Especially if the mystique is replaced by a detail which falls flat with the individual viewer in question.

I think if the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of The Force, then some pretty crazy stuff should be possible, after all. But that doesn't need to actually happen onscreen. And shouldn't if you can't do it right.

To me the cartoons work because they're emotional sketches. When Windu destroys 500 battle droids with a combination of levitation and his bare hands, it's more about creating emotions pertinent to being surrounded, to being cool under stress, (or from the other side of the lens, the hopelessness of facing such an adversary) etc. The only time I felt that this emotional sketch-art approach failed, was with the invincibility of Grievous.

I *have* to pick a sequel to own and rewatch for my daughter. Not because of the female leads, but because of the female extras. She very much notices that in the sequels there are plenty of random women working on Star Destroyers and as groundcrew in bases and whatnot, and in the OT/ST there aren't. Now, in my opinion, storywise, all 6 ST/PT share egregious problems. However, due to quality of acting, quality of sets/costumes (ie, practical instead of CGI), and a lack of offensive if accidental racial tropes, it is at least possible for me to rewatch the ST without turning it off halfway through a film.

Thus, with "I can see Hosnian Prime from my house" simply being a bridge too far for me, and TROS being, well, TROS, I am left with only TLJ as a plausible sequel to own. This has the bonus of Rose, possibly my favorite prequel character, and the death of Paige, which is arguably the best few minutes of cinema in the ST.

6 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The mystery of the untold background, ie, starting with "Episode 4", was always a cool feature of Star Wars . That's both my opinion as a viewer, and something Lucas explicitly had stated. Unfortunately too much of that impulse for mystery has been lost by Lucas et al. Too much world building, destroys that cool feature. Especially if the mystique is replaced by a detail which falls flat with the individual viewer in question.

This is a problem of all movie/film making in the last 50 years. There is no one who really understands this aspect much anymore. Now if someone dies, we have to see it in all of its gory detail. If someone has an affair, (what?!?) we have to see two people having sex. Now, sometimes they put violence and sex, the entire plot in a scene instead of letting the viewer's imagination put their stamp on it or allowing a mystery to develop. Everything is made for robots (droid revolution!) instead of allowing Humans to do what they do best, CREATE!

everything has to be laid out on a plate for us to consume instead of taking a bite and letting the flavor sink in or the food digest before getting another morsel.

11 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

@Darth Sanguis

The Knights of the Old Republic and Dark Forces games made more sense of the Force than a lot of the movies or tv shows did in my opinion. If you have that much power, why get on the ground and muck around. It kind of stopped making sense that the Emperor was worried about Luke honestly. Why not just use the Death Star on the moon of Endor and then whoosh off and rule the galaxy. Its like if you get too powerful from the force, it sucks all the reasoning capability from your brain. Why did Yoda, Mace Windu, all the Jedi counsel etc, not have a clue that something bad was brewing across the street at the Senate building?

This: 110%

But it makes sense to me. If I had all the powers any of those Sith had, I'd undoubtedly get taken down by something pedestrian too.

13 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Why not just use the Death Star on the moon of Endor and then whoosh off and rule the galaxy.

Well, I think it has a lot to do with the idea of balance. Much like the actual universe is in a perpetual state of trying to reach equilibrium, it appears the force is too. I think that's part of the Emperor's genius. He knew that if he killed Anakin Skywalker, another would just rise in his place. The emperor went through great efforts to convert potential threats to keep the darkside (and himself) in power.

The guy who voiced Kanan Jarrus did an interesting interview explaining some of the conversations he and Dave had and the idea of balance in the SWU.


Be aware, it gets a little wordy

5 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Be aware, it gets a little wordy

Fwordy

Freddie Prinze - Ha Ha, I was just glad he still had a job.

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

This isn't aimed at you in particular, just an observation,

All the Jedi get power creep with each movie/show/comic trying to out perform the next

at first, the Force was this influence that obi-wan uses to trick some poorly-motivated stormtroopers and sneak around the deathstar. It was believable at that.
Then we saw Yoda and Luke move and X-wing around and Darth Vader throw some tubes and boxes at his son. Still believable.

But when all the Jedi start flying around on broomsticks and killing 4000 robots at a time and flying through space it stops being believable. If the Jedi are so powerful, just hang out in a starship and kill the enemy on the offending planet or levitate them all into space or whatever, They started creating too much power creep without paying attention to what the other consequences are.

That's where I start to just ignore stuff or stop taking in certain media (like @TauntaunScout ) Which is probably why I prefer Solo and Rogue One (and even Mandalorian) is the use of the force was limited. (Honestly I usually skip the Yoda scenes in ESB and the Emperor scenes in RotJ) because that part gets boring.

I think the ESB yoda scenes are still the best dialogue about the force in the entire franchise. And Yoda lifting the X-Wing hinted at the great wonders that the force could accomplish in the old days.

One of the things I love about the sequel trilogy is the fact that they canonized a bunch of force powers like healing, mind stealing, force illusions etc. that had appeared in other media.

5 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I think the ESB yoda scenes are still the best dialogue about the force in the entire franchise. And Yoda lifting the X-Wing hinted at the great wonders that the force could accomplish in the old days.

One of the things I love about the sequel trilogy is the fact that they canonized a bunch of force powers like healing, mind stealing, force illusions etc. that had appeared in other media.

I have a love/hate with the sequel powers. Seeing old canon revived was cool, but this scene really bothered me.




Started to seem a little too much like



Half way through the episode I was expecting someone to start talking about power levels.

25 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I have a love/hate with the sequel powers. Seeing old canon revived was cool, but this scene really bothered me.




Started to seem a little too much like



Half way through the episode I was expecting someone to start talking about power levels.

Yeah thats definitely the worst implication of making rey a palpatine. It ties force powers explicitly to bloodlines. The Skywalker family kind of made sense because of the chosen one thing, but if any force user produces force sensitive children it raises some disturbing scenarios.

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah thats definitely the worst implication of making rey a palpatine. It ties force powers explicitly to bloodlines. The Skywalker family kind of made sense because of the chosen one thing, but if any force user produces force sensitive children it raises some disturbing scenarios.

Disney: We're never going to mention Midichlorians because people didn't like how it made the Force more biological and less mystical.

Also Disney: Rey is strong in the Force because she's related to Palpatine.

2 minutes ago, Lochlan said:

Disney: We're never going to mention Midichlorians because people didn't like how it made the Force more biological and less mystical.

Also Disney: Rey is strong in the Force because she's related to Palpatine.

On the upside I do like the theme of the Skywalkers ultimately defeating their enemy by converting his legacy into one of love instead of violence. Fits nicely with the theme of ROTJ

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah thats definitely the worst implication of making rey a palpatine.

In addition to making Rey his granddaughter, by making Snoke (by extension, Ren) a puppet of his, they made it into The Palpatine Saga.

I prefer the Science/Explanation in Ghostbusters over the Science/Explanation in The StarWars Franchise

2 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

On the upside I do like the theme of the Skywalkers ultimately defeating their enemy by converting his legacy into one of love instead of violence. Fits nicely with the theme of ROTJ

The thing about the sequels that's difficult to reconcile is, while they are all three labyrinthine disasters of a story, they still each contain many scenes that make me get all psyched up. When Han says "Chewie, we're home." for example.

20 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The thing about the sequels that's difficult to reconcile is, while they are all three labyrinthine disasters of a story, they still each contain many scenes that make me get all psyched up. When Han says "Chewie, we're home." for example.

I agree. On whole, the trilogy itself is very hard to get excited about, but there are moments that grab my attention.

TLJ, for all the hate it received, had the most of those moments.

The prequels kinda ruined the idea that Jedi were these wise old sages who defined themselves as passive. Maybe that was the point looking back. TLJ was the first time I saw Luke as a proper Jedi.

36 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The thing about the sequels that's difficult to reconcile is, while they are all three labyrinthine disasters of a story, they still each contain many scenes that make me get all psyched up. When Han says "Chewie, we're home." for example.

Yeah I think its a mixed bag. The sequels did some things terribly (world building, needing flashbacks to tell the story) but they also did some things really well (acting, representation, effects, Adam Driver)

The prequels are also a mixed bag for opposite reasons. The world building was really strong (new unique planets, races and designs) but the acting, screen plays and effects (bad bluescreen tech that has aged horribly) really set it back in quality. The prequel story is much cooler and more streamlined in concept, but the execution was so poor that the story still mostly falls flat and feels rushed.

I enjoy all the films overall, but right now Im glad they are giving us a break from new movies. The best star wars since the OT has been mostly non-movie media in my opinion.

20 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

TLJ, for all the hate it received, had the most of those moments.

Agreed. The whole throneroom sequence and Luke astral projecting to confront Kylo are the standout iconic and great film scenes from the Sequel Trilogy.

I know many fans wont agree, but I got goosebumps from those scenes in a way that I hadnt gotten from Star Wars in a long time.

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Luke astral projecting to confront Kylo are the standout iconic and great film scenes from the Sequel Trilogy.

And this is why it pulls ahead as the only Sequel I’ll have a hard copy of.

On 3/12/2020 at 12:33 PM, TauntaunScout said:

It is too strange to look at all those talking polygons. I can’t watch it or Rebels.

I felt the same way when I first saw it, eventually (rather quickly actually) you get past it and the animation improves.
The time you take to do that really is rewarded in a great story. And right now we've all got nothing but time.

Crusty middle aged star wars fans can enjoy a little Clone Wars.

As a treat.

47 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

Crusty middle aged star wars fans can enjoy a little Clone Wars.

Well I'm not middle aged for several more years so no thanks!

23 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

I felt the same way when I first saw it, eventually (rather quickly actually) you get past it and the animation improves.
The time you take to do that really is rewarded in a great story. And right now we've all got nothing but time.

Gotta agree with you there, it's just too good of a show and has so many fantastic arcs not to watch. I will admit, the animation is a little rough at the start, but It does get better and it did start to grow on me.