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View Full Version : Couple silly things I noticed about Star wars.


Daliman
05-17-2005, 03:18 PM
I recently bought the first three,(second three?) movies on DVD, and there's a couple of things I noticed that are pretty incongruous from the first Star wars;

- Early on, Obi-Wan mentions that the shots fired against the Jawa trading vehicle are too accurate, yet Luke and Company get fired at hendreds of times, often from under 30 feet, and are never even scratched.

- Why the hell are 6 or so Stormtroopers running from Han solo when he runs after themwhen they are armed and looking for him?

-How is Luke pulled under by the garbage monster when it is pretty apparent the water(?) in the disposal is less than 2 feet deep?

-The new footage placed in with Jabba was obviously scrapped because of animatronic limitations of the day, but it pretty obvious the scene with Greedo was a replacement, not an ncillary scene to it, as almost the eact same lines of dialogue are used by Solo in each.

- How much more obviously gay can C3PO be?

- How does R2D2, a robot on rollers, get around rough terrain so well?

Also, what has George Lucas ever said publicly regarding his initial thoughts of this series. Did he only plan on making the first one, but had always hoped he could go further with it? Was It always in the cards that Darth was Luke AND Leia's father,( I would guess not both) because if so, there's a few scenes that are pretty off then;

-Leia appearing as a love interest for Luke, albeit weakly.
-Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

Either way, still a great movie. Planning on wathing the other 4 this week, mainly since I hear #6 is the best of all of them. Hopefully there are no more annoying characters like those jawas, though.....

Sponger15SB
05-17-2005, 03:20 PM
Dough: In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a [the three nerds chuckle] magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

June: Uh, well, uh...

Homer: I'll field that one. Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?

Doug: [embarrassed pause] I withdraw my question. [starts eating a candy bar]

Shajen
05-17-2005, 03:22 PM
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/collections/1988/images/df1988-1488.gif

Daliman
05-17-2005, 03:31 PM
While not as minutae-driven as you and the other poster suggest, it's not that I'm ripping it for tiny things. Other than that, this is a discussion forum, and I thought maybe there could be some discussion, along with an answer or two.

Shajen
05-17-2005, 03:34 PM
I know dude, I just thought it was a funny and fairly appropriate pic.

pshreck
05-17-2005, 03:37 PM
Also, what has George Lucas ever said publicly regarding his initial thoughts of this series. Did he only plan on making the first one, but had always hoped he could go further with it?

This is somewhat controversial, as Lucas claims to have written it all up, but it doesn't seem to be true. One of the original producers said him and Lucas wrote up Empire and ROTJ after the first one did so well, but of course was blackballed after making the claim. Lots of people don't realize that Star Wars wasn't released as "Episode 4" when it first came out, it was just "Star Wars".

daryn
05-17-2005, 03:37 PM
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

[/ QUOTE ]


wasn't leia hidden from vader by obi-wan? aren't you a star wars nerd? shouldn't you know this?

chaas4747
05-17-2005, 03:41 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

[/ QUOTE ]


wasn't leia hidden from vader by obi-wan? aren't you a star wars nerd? shouldn't you know this?

[/ QUOTE ]

If he is so powerful then why when he is standing right in front of her, does he not detect she is his daughter, or at least some sort of "disturbance in the force"?

soah
05-17-2005, 03:42 PM
To the best of my knowledge... George Lucas began writing the story for Star Wars with the intention of making a single film, but as he continued to develop the storyline he realized it was too long. So much of the material was set aside, and once Star Wars became a success, he was able to return to that material to use for the sequels.

samjjones
05-17-2005, 03:47 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

[/ QUOTE ]


wasn't leia hidden from vader by obi-wan? aren't you a star wars nerd? shouldn't you know this?

[/ QUOTE ]

If he is so powerful then why when he is standing right in front of her, does he not detect she is his daughter, or at least some sort of "disturbance in the force"?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because she wasn't using the Force. Note that Darth Vader only discovered Luke when Luke began using the Force in a serious way to help him aim the Death Star torpedo shot.

Daliman
05-17-2005, 03:48 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

[/ QUOTE ]


wasn't leia hidden from vader by obi-wan? aren't you a star wars nerd? shouldn't you know this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I'm nowhere NEAR a Star wars nerd. I haven't seen 2 or 3 in at least 20 years each, and have seen none of the new ones.

Not sure what you mean by Leia bieng hidden tho. In first star wars, Leia and Obi-wan never even see each other, but mebbe that was somehting that happened b4.

Daliman
05-17-2005, 03:49 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Also, what has George Lucas ever said publicly regarding his initial thoughts of this series. Did he only plan on making the first one, but had always hoped he could go further with it?

This is somewhat controversial, as Lucas claims to have written it all up, but it doesn't seem to be true. One of the original producers said him and Lucas wrote up Empire and ROTJ after the first one did so well, but of course was blackballed after making the claim. Lots of people don't realize that Star Wars wasn't released as "Episode 4" when it first came out, it was just "Star Wars".

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds exactly like what I was thinking. He had a bit of an idea about it, but that was all.

daryn
05-17-2005, 03:54 PM
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

[/ QUOTE ]


wasn't leia hidden from vader by obi-wan? aren't you a star wars nerd? shouldn't you know this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I'm nowhere NEAR a Star wars nerd. I haven't seen 2 or 3 in at least 20 years each, and have seen none of the new ones.

Not sure what you mean by Leia bieng hidden tho. In first star wars, Leia and Obi-wan never even see each other, but mebbe that was somehting that happened b4.

[/ QUOTE ]

oh must have been someone else i was thinking of.. that scored perfect in star wars triv. pursuit. maybe whiskeytown.

anyway, i'm no star wars nerd either, just a guy w/ good memory, and i seem to remember the phrase "obi-wan was right to hide her from me" being said to luke by vader in return of the jedi

samjjones
05-17-2005, 04:00 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I recently bought the first three,(second three?) movies on DVD, and there's a couple of things I noticed that are pretty incongruous from the first Star wars;

- Early on, Obi-Wan mentions that the shots fired against the Jawa trading vehicle are too accurate, yet Luke and Company get fired at hendreds of times, often from under 30 feet, and are never even scratched.

- Why the hell are 6 or so Stormtroopers running from Han solo when he runs after themwhen they are armed and looking for him?

-How is Luke pulled under by the garbage monster when it is pretty apparent the water(?) in the disposal is less than 2 feet deep?

-The new footage placed in with Jabba was obviously scrapped because of animatronic limitations of the day, but it pretty obvious the scene with Greedo was a replacement, not an ncillary scene to it, as almost the eact same lines of dialogue are used by Solo in each.

- How much more obviously gay can C3PO be?

- How does R2D2, a robot on rollers, get around rough terrain so well?

Also, what has George Lucas ever said publicly regarding his initial thoughts of this series. Did he only plan on making the first one, but had always hoped he could go further with it? Was It always in the cards that Darth was Luke AND Leia's father,( I would guess not both) because if so, there's a few scenes that are pretty off then;

-Leia appearing as a love interest for Luke, albeit weakly.
-Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

Either way, still a great movie. Planning on wathing the other 4 this week, mainly since I hear #6 is the best of all of them. Hopefully there are no more annoying characters like those jawas, though.....

[/ QUOTE ]

I am what most people would consider a SW mega-geek, so will try to answer these.

- its a lot easier to hit a 3 story high Sandcrawler than it is people running away from you and shooting at you

- they were ambushed, and retreated to the safety of greater numbers

- i'm sure you can imagine the creature pulling him down so that he was on his back. kids drown in kiddie pools all the time, so this isn't a stretch

- this scene was wisely left out of the original, and senselessly restored for the Special Edition. You are right, there is no reason for it, other than to show that ILM could de-age Jabba a bit, and to give Boba Fett a cameo. The Greedo shot first thing also cut Han's balls off, but we'll leave that for another day.

- c'mon, he's just an effeminate English butler kind of character. i don't think he wants to have droid sex with R2-D2, do you?

- he's able to navigate rough terrain because the camera conveniently moves away from him whenever he reaches rocks, steps, etc.

- lots of conflicting stories on this. When writing the script for Star Wars, he developed a short backstory (like 2 or 3 pages) and character arcs for all of the characters. So I think he had the idea of the Original Trilogy in mind, if not the actual plot points. Similarly, I think he had a pretty good idea of the "general" plot points of the Prequel Trilogy back around 1976 or so. And by "general", I mean that Obi-Wan trained Vader, Vader was a former Jedi who turned bad, etc. The "Luke and Leia are siblings" thing didn't come until after Star Wars was released. And 95% of the Prequel Trilogy plot was probably thought out in the mid-90's, although characters like Count Dooku and General Grevious were simply plot devices given life at the last minute.

jedi
05-17-2005, 04:04 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I

- Early on, Obi-Wan mentions that the shots fired against the Jawa trading vehicle are too accurate, yet Luke and Company get fired at hendreds of times, often from under 30 feet, and are never even scratched.


[/ QUOTE ]

Obi-Wan is probably referring to where the sandcrawler was NOT hit. The sandcrawler is huge, but the stormtroopers hit the right spots to disable it. Sand People tend to just go wild on everything.

[ QUOTE ]

-The new footage placed in with Jabba was obviously scrapped because of animatronic limitations of the day, but it pretty obvious the scene with Greedo was a replacement, not an ncillary scene to it, as almost the eact same lines of dialogue are used by Solo in each.

[/ QUOTE ]

Jabba refers to Han blasting Greedo, so it's clear that Greedo WAS an ancillary scene, not a replacement.

[ QUOTE ]

Also, what has George Lucas ever said publicly regarding his initial thoughts of this series. Did he only plan on making the first one, but had always hoped he could go further with it?

[/ QUOTE ]
As others pointed out, Lucas had a big story, realized it was too big and then decided to start in the middle where the action was. The films would never have gotten off the ground if it started with Phantom Menace. He arranged for the merchandising rights just so he could make more movies. He didn't realize that it would become the giant it is today.

pshreck
05-17-2005, 04:08 PM
[ QUOTE ]

The films would never have gotten off the ground if it started with Phantom Menace.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are definetly wrong if you think he had written any part of the Phantom Menace before the first 3 were written.

deacsoft
05-17-2005, 04:13 PM
[ QUOTE ]
oh must have been someone else i was thinking of.. that scored perfect in star wars triv. pursuit. maybe whiskeytown.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't consider myself a nerd, just a fan. However, I have never been defeated in Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. When it comes to Star Wars and trivia I'm simply all-powerful and all-knowing. And that's without using the force. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Mansavage
05-17-2005, 04:37 PM
The "Obi-Wan hid Leia from Vader" mystery is cleared up at the end of Episode III. I read the book and it really does tie everything together very well.

hogua
05-17-2005, 04:45 PM
[ QUOTE ]
How does R2D2, a robot on rollers, get around rough terrain so well?


[/ QUOTE ]

In the new movie, R2D2 solves this by being able to fly. Maybe as he got older (i.e. the first three movie made, he lost that ability or it just wasn't shown)

in the new movie, R2D2 also has the ability to spray foes with oil and them light them on fire. Guess he lost this ability as he got old too. Otherwise, he would have fried the monster that tried to eat him on Yoda's planet in Empire Strikes Back.

hogua
05-17-2005, 04:55 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Darth torturing his own daughter,(yeah, Dark side and all, but doesn't he show mercy later on in the series toward Luke?).

[/ QUOTE ]


wasn't leia hidden from vader by obi-wan? aren't you a star wars nerd? shouldn't you know this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Luke was hidden by Obi-Wan. Leia was hidden by Jimmy Smit's character.

Daliman
05-17-2005, 05:00 PM
Although I don;t necessarily agree with all you said, this is a fantastic reply, and exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

TYVM

B-Man
05-17-2005, 05:26 PM
in the DVD version (and only the DVD version, I believe) of TESB, the dialogue in the scene where we first see the Emperor (when he is speaking to Vader via hologram) is changed from the original version. The change is subtle, but significant, in that in the new version, it implies that Vader never knew he had a son.

No, I am not embarrassed that I noticed this.

Daliman
05-17-2005, 05:28 PM
[ QUOTE ]
in the DVD version (and only the DVD version, I believe) of TESB, the dialogue in the scene where we first see the Emperor (when he is speaking to Vader via hologram) is changed from the original version. The change is subtle, but significant, in that in the new version, it implies that Vader never knew he had a son.

No, I am not embarrassed that I noticed this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. I'll watch for that later tonight then.

How does he find out then?(mebbe answered in TESB?)

Blarg
05-17-2005, 05:37 PM
The mythic structure for Star Wars was already laid out by Joseph Campbell in his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces," before the first Star Wars was written. Lucas lifted the mythic structures, as did Spielberg in some of his films. Campbell's gathering together the myths and religions of the world and finding the commonalities in their structures has had a huge influence on Hollywood from the 70's onward, and writing courses are actually taught using his book and an abbreviated version made just for screenwriters as the primary texts.

Lucas himself publicly gives Campbell mucho credit for his influence on Star Wars.

kerssens
05-17-2005, 05:41 PM
[ QUOTE ]
in the DVD version (and only the DVD version, I believe) of TESB, the dialogue in the scene where we first see the Emperor (when he is speaking to Vader via hologram) is changed from the original version. The change is subtle, but significant, in that in the new version, it implies that Vader never knew he had a son.

No, I am not embarrassed that I noticed this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I asked this last night....didn't Vader realize that Luke's last name is Skywalker? Is Skywalker the equivalent of Smith in their time? Did he forget that his name is Skywalker also? Wouldn't necessarily mean father/son but some relation should be realized.

M2d
05-17-2005, 05:49 PM
I assumed that Leia was adopted by Jimmy Smits' character.

M2d
05-17-2005, 05:53 PM
How about:
Leia, in episode 4, is introduced in such a way that it's assumed that she's a born princess (the title is her birthright). in episode 2, we find out that "Queen" in that same society is an elected position.
obviously there are some loopholes here. Maybe Bail Organa is the current (as of E4) "king", so his daughter is the "princess". maybe, with the fall of the republic, the position becomes a a birthright and you are king/queen for life.

M2d
05-17-2005, 05:57 PM
lots of dudes named skywalker

http://www.geocities.com/Baja/Canyon/4525/t89walker.gif

jedi
05-17-2005, 06:25 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The films would never have gotten off the ground if it started with Phantom Menace.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are definetly wrong if you think he had written any part of the Phantom Menace before the first 3 were written.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well it's a good thing I'm not wrong then. But if he HAD started with Phantom Menace, the other movies would have been less likely to have been made.

jedi
05-17-2005, 06:28 PM
[ QUOTE ]

I asked this last night....didn't Vader realize that Luke's last name is Skywalker? Is Skywalker the equivalent of Smith in their time? Did he forget that his name is Skywalker also? Wouldn't necessarily mean father/son but some relation should be realized.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that it wasn't very smart of Obi-Wan to go hide Luke and 1) give him the same last name as his father, 2) give him to his father's step-brother and 3) put him on the same planet where his father grew up.

Daliman
05-17-2005, 09:44 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I asked this last night....didn't Vader realize that Luke's last name is Skywalker? Is Skywalker the equivalent of Smith in their time? Did he forget that his name is Skywalker also? Wouldn't necessarily mean father/son but some relation should be realized.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that it wasn't very smart of Obi-Wan to go hide Luke and 1) give him the same last name as his father, 2) give him to his father's step-brother and 3) put him on the same planet where his father grew up.

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed on all fronts.

Holes in the force...

whiskeytown
05-17-2005, 10:01 PM
I mentioned this in a post earlier -

as to why Vader didn't notice - one must remember (as Lucas said on the Commentary Track) that Vader is much weaker then he should have been -

half his body is now artificial, and so his resulting midichlorian count is lower - and some stuff (like Force Lightning) he just can't do thru artifical arms -

That's why the Emperor wanted Luke to kill Vader - to replace him and be the apprentice Vader could never be after the events of episode 3

RB

Dynasty
05-17-2005, 10:29 PM
[ QUOTE ]
How about:
Leia, in episode 4, is introduced in such a way that it's assumed that she's a born princess (the title is her birthright). in episode 2, we find out that "Queen" in that same society is an elected position.
obviously there are some loopholes here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Padme Amidala is from the planet Naboo. Leia Organa is from the planet Alderann.

There's really no reason at all to think their from the same society.

CCass
05-17-2005, 11:00 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I asked this last night....didn't Vader realize that Luke's last name is Skywalker? Is Skywalker the equivalent of Smith in their time? Did he forget that his name is Skywalker also? Wouldn't necessarily mean father/son but some relation should be realized.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that it wasn't very smart of Obi-Wan to go hide Luke and 1) give him the same last name as his father, 2) give him to his father's step-brother and 3) put him on the same planet where his father grew up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Vader doesn't know he has a son, therefore he would never look for him. Why would he concentrate his time and energy watching what his step-brother was doing? He has a huge galaxy to try and oppress.

CCass
05-17-2005, 11:03 PM
One of the things I have always wondered about. In SWANH, when Luke takes the droids to find "Old Ben", Kenobi at one point says that he never remembers owning any droids like these. I don't know that he ever actually owns R2D2 and C3P0, but he sertainly would have remembered them.