star wars 9 grim resignation thread

I'm rewatched the prequels, mostly because all the post-mortem discourse about "Episode 3 being actually pretty good" made me realize that I had no memory of ever seeing it. (I don't think I actually ever did!)

It's pretty easy to target the awfulness of the "romance" elements, Jar Jar, and talk about how "an explanation for the mystical elements of this series are not what drew us to it in the first place", but as a plot schematic, I'm pretty begrudgingly surprised at how well Lucas was able to create a compelling character out of Palpatine.

Lucas has proposed (I think) that the series be viewed in order-- this would mean that Luke Skywalker's origins, and parentage, would be established before the reveal in 5, so, fuck that-- but I am attracted to the idea that viewing 1-3 might create in the viewer a not-knowing of Palpatine's intentions, and make his re-appearance in 5 (and re-emergence in 6) be that much more compelling, idk. I think there's a lot of good work done here even if, if, if, etc.

This whole fuckery ended better than Game Of Thrones, at the very least

Weird! I was gifted a year of Disney+ for xmas so, as you do, I spent the weekend watching eps 1-2 (for the second time ever in their entirety) and starting on The Clone Wars cartoon, and my impression is pretty much identical to your own. For all the garbage in the prequels that people justifiably denounce, the Palpatine plot and the machinations of the Clone Wars are actually pretty decent. And it kinda shines a light on (no spoilers) how comparatively half-assed certain plot developments are in the new one.

Jar Jar is absolutely cringeworthy, but his quiet moment is actually the pivot that brings Palpatine to power!

There's a very leading discussion in Ep. 2 about how using the clone army could turn the tide, but there's no way that a majority of the senate would vote in favor of using it. Cue Palpatine sadly ruminating that were Senator Amidala here, she could give a speech that would convince the senate to grant the chancellor war powers. Next scene? Jar Jar gives this speech, and Palpatine ends up with the ability to make unilateral decisions in the time of war.

It's unknown whether future historians would hang the entire mess on Senator Binks

I hate the character, and it makes me sound like a geek, but I am kinda interested in knowing what on earth happened to Jar-Jar after the fall of the republic, the jedi, and Anakin. What does this goofy idiot do after everything he cares about has collapsed?

be sorry

I guess when he is sorry he makes a hilarious sound with his mouth.

i assume he was liquidated in the conversion of the senate into the empire. emperor prob had anakin kill him

replace "senate" with "republic" lol

It's implied in a book that he's a street performer and broke

I literally can't tell if that's a joke or not :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jar_Jar_Binks#Literature

I wish

^ maybe the least-enticing url i have ever seen on this board

I had the same reaction, really.

Relevant part:
Chuck Wendig's 2017 novel Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire's End, set after the events of Return of the Jedi, finds Binks as a street performer who entertains refugee children but is loathed by adults who blame him for his part in the rise of the Empire.

I feel like a worse human being for knowing and posting this

wow my idea is much better

Aw, that's grim. That's kinda not even darkly funny :(

mh your sacrifice was for the greater good

I was just reading something the other day where Ahmed Best said Lucas intended to have a scene (or scenes) where Jar Jar is shown to be more explicitly a puppet of Palpatine (like at least not quite the fuck-up he seems to be) but that they didn't wind up filming it.

It's really just an awful character in both conception and execution. I've been digging the Clone Wars cartoon but I got to a Jar Jar episode last night and I believe I said aloud 'fucking why'.

I was told that Jar Jar was at one point tipped to be an actual Sith, and I pictured him squeaking "you can do it, Ani!" at a certain grisly moment in Episode 3

I did like that he absolutely Empire'd everyone, nice little dovetail for a hated character. Was sad to read earlier that Ahmed Best was personally distraught about the character's reception

Dental plan

the Reddit thread about JJB being a covert Sith was both convincing in evidence (mouthing others’ dialogue as they say it, Jedi level acrobatics and fighting) and a good explanation of the Phantom Menace title. I do wish that had been the way Lucas went.

Rewatched the prequel trilogy again this past weekend. I feel as if it takes on an entirely different place, now... given that it's no longer "the last thing we're getting", it feels somewhat less-important, more effervescent, and thus more enjoyable. I said earlier in this thread that I definitely underrated Lucas's skill at creating a feasible narrative for Palpatine, his machinations and deceptions feel very well-rendered and convincing.

I have always kind of repped for Episode 1, given that podracing and Darth Maul provided some genuinely thrilling moments. Episode 3 on second-viewing is genuinely moving in places, even if Palpatine's "I'm the Sith Lord btw" reveal is clumsy. Overall, the dialogue of the trilogy, which is dreadful, kind of has its charm at this point, it seems no-less-offensive or annoying than any Marvel movie.

But the real Achilles heel, interestingly, is the action in the second half of Episode 2. People focus on the romance falling flat (and it does, sure) but the entire Geonosis sequence (factory, gladiator arena, droids vs. clones, chasing after Dooku, final showdown) is so wretchedly rendered and storyboarded, it's a painfully bad bit of visual storytelling.

I will say that, based on what I've seen so far, there's very little in Jar Jar's Clone Wars appearances that contradicts that theory.

the dialogue of the trilogy, which is dreadful, kind of has its charm at this point

this bowl of shit tastes delicious if you just keep eating it!

both the star wars 9 anticipation thread and the star wars 9 spoilers thread are now simultaneously about the prequels: justice

xpost Feel like you said exactly that like four days ago.

But then so have the rest of us at this point, so.

it's all a rich tapestry

for someone who hates the taste of shit, you sure hang around a lot with people eating it. like you want the smell but not the taste.

I mean

The romance shit just floats by unobtrusively. The "my young Padawan learner" doesn't ruffle me any more. What grates most, oddly enough, 20 years on, is all the Yoda inversions and 3P-isms

When Anakin is like "I hate sand" I felt like "well, these people ARE aliens, it would make sense that their methods of seduction seem alien to me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmHvUX2iuJE

i know i posted the "padmé and anakin looking through windows" scene upthread but how good is the fucking music too

for someone who hates the taste of shit, you sure hang around a lot with people eating it. like you want the smell but not the taste.

hey I'm not the one putting this thread at the top of Site New Answers for over a month. It's more like the river of shit just carries me along and every now and then I feel it's my duty to remind people that the river is, in fact, made of shit.

sand speech is good. the boy just longs for order

i also hate sand for similar reasons

brings us back to

Are the people in the Star Wars movies humans?

Palpatine being all like "*sigh* wish Amidala were here to propose such a thing as my seizure of power", pretending not to notice Jar Jar's attention, segueing into "MY DELLOW FELEGATES!" was very enjoyable

xxxxpost so you're the Cassandra of Shit?

John Williams is probably at this point underrated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52wByO_SFxA

so fuckin sick

I mean I do my best to get other threads to the top of Site New Answers but ppl love their Shit Wars more than the Bee Gees and Ari Aster I guess

for a second I thought Immolation wrote a Star Wars song and got excited. then I remembered that immolation was a word that long predates blast beats

Episode 2 has about 10 seconds tucked into a battle sequence where John Williams wrote the theme song to Game of Thrones, btw, noticed that

sand speech is good. the boy just longs for order

What is it, my young Padawan learner, that repulses you personally about the desert?
It's clean.

for someone who hates the taste of shit, you sure hang around a lot with people eating it. like you want the smell but not the taste.

― papa stank (Neanderthal),

now carve into a Williams-esque stanza.

Alfred's here so I can quickly add that JW's score for JFK really grounds the insanity from the start, it helps guide you into the conspiracy zone.

xxp ha, desert to lawrence there stands for basically the opposite, no? (p much the difference you'd expect between a tatooine native and a desert-loving english.) to anakin the sand "gets everywhere". (little dots, way down there.) he likes engines, machines, things that work just so; when they are breaking down, corrupted and damaged, full of sand, he fixes them-- cleans them-- so that they work properly again. later, the person he admires as "smooth" will be on the verge of death, and so will the republic. what will he do?

I mean I do my best to get other threads to the top of Site New Answers but ppl love their Shit Wars more than the Bee Gees and Ari Aster I guess

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, January 14, 2020 2:55 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

like movie theater attendance records, the most popular threads aren't a mark of quality of interestingness, just a common boring culture that might reach above mediocrity that we can all bond over

only paying attention to most popular threads is like standing in the middle of the river when it's fun to swim out there sometimes but the majority of time is fun on the shores and in the shallows (niche threads)

fred in the other thread that's the same as this thread made me think more about rough vs smooth--

It has become quite a bit muddled over time, but I think technology vs nature was a big part of the subtext at the beginning of the saga. The Stormtroopers and Darth Vader and the Imperial Pilots are kinda inhumane, like robots, while all the Rebels are living beings. Luke has to turn off the computer and shoot with the force!

in anakin's formative years as a slave he has no control over his own body or life-- but he has control over the pod, and his (congenitally subservient) droid, and later over any spaceship he touches. with freedom perhaps he expects to gain the kind of mastery over himself that he has always had over machines. but he doesn't, and yoda and his pathological order (out-of-balance ever since the sith schism imo) keep rebuking him for his impulsiveness, only filling him with more desire for this impossible state of control. eventually, his rough body burns away, and machines build him a smooth shining machine to live in.