crash landing

Grounded very much

sum1

Here's the general thread.

crash landing

Thanks for the bump

sum1

Here it is again.

MWave36

As some of you here may recall, a few months ago I posted some images of a trove of old b/w test footage I obtained back in 1980 from the garbage cans used by the building on Tunstead Ave. in San Anselmo during the editing of Empire Strike Back (acquired legally by waiting for the cans to be dumped into the back of a garbage truck). At the time I was inquiring about the potential value, and to give everyone a heads up that I was offering a few of the film cells on eBay. I received a lot of positive feedback, and requests to not chop up the footage but rather to have it all professionally restored, spliced together, and converted to digital for viewing. I also got a lot of offers to help me do this, which I still intend to do after I complete my move from Nevada to Indiana after the New Year. I've attached a couple images of the collection.

Many of the strips are too short to produce anything meaningful, or are too damaged and only have a few clean cells left (although about 80% is still good). These are the strips I have taken four cells from to offer on eBay, which I am about to do again, so don't worry. I'm not chopping up the footage.

Several of you on this and other Star Wars forums asked for advance notice if I were to ever offer cells from this film on eBay, so if you're still interested the listings go live beginning at 3:00 pm PST today, Dec. 15th. Search for the title "Star Wars Episode V Empire Strikes Back • Film Cells from Found b/w Test Footage".

I'll also let you know when the restoration process begins and when the compiled footage is available for viewing.

Thanks.

Len

crash landing

Thanks for letting us know and keeping us updated

jefferywinkler

I wrote the following article before I watched the last Star Wars movie.

When George Lucas was writing the first Star Wars movie, in the earliest drafts, it was called "The Star Wars", the hero was named "Starkiller", and it was set on 23rd Century Earth. It was more similar to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Then George Lucas read "Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, and was profoundly influenced by it. He penned the famous "fourth draft", which was steeped with mythos, with elements like "the kybur crystal" and the "princess of ondos". He continued to rewrite the script, and it went through numerous iterations. Even after it was filmed, he continued to edit it very heavily, cutting out whole scenes, and then it was finally released on May 25, 1977. The only reason 20th Century Fox took a chance on his odd movie was because of his previous success with "American Graffitti".

Before it was released, neither George Lucas or anyone else could have possibly imagined how popular it would be. Therefore, George Lucas wrote the script on the assumption that the first movie would be the ONLY Star Wars movie EVER MADE!!!! Let that fact penetrate your skull. Try to remember that before the first movie was released, it would have been ludicrous for him to assume anything else. Therefore, the first Star Wars movie was intended as a stand alone film. Now try to imagine an alternate version of history in which the first movie was the only one ever made. Anyone watching the movie would have no doubt in their mind about the fact that Darth Vadar was killed when the Death Star exploded, the Empire ceased to exist with the death of their leader, Han Solo received redemption by showing up at the end of the battle, proving that, aww shucks, he does care about other people, and then Luke and Leia get married, and live happily ever after. We see Vadar's ship spinning out of the control, and then he is caught in the explosion, so he presumably was killed in the explosion. Therefore, Luke Skywalker killed his father's murderer, successfully avenging his father's death. There is no mention of anyone more powerful than Vadar. It would be no more possible for a farmboy to be related to a princess than for a jawa to be related to a bantha. Han Solo even got the reward money from helping to rescue the princess so he could pay off his debts so even that loose end was tied up.

This original intent by George Lucas also had a striking resemblance to "Lord of the Rings". In both cases, a small rag tag group of rebels fight a losing war against a vast evil empire led by a dehumanized faceless omnipotent force of evil, whose power is derived from a specific physical object. An unlikely hero from a small rural community on the edge of the known world destroys the evil object, which destroys the evil villian, which destroys the evil empire.

Then, to George Lucas' flabbergasted shock, Star Wars was single the most popular movie to ever exist since Eadweard Muybridge invented the motion picture in 1878. Also, in incredible good fortune, there was a very unusual clause in George Lucas' contract that gave him rights to money from merchandise. George Lucas did not need to beg 20th Century Fox to let him make a sequel. He could just found his own company of Lucasfilm, and do it himself. Then he would allow 20th Century Fox to distribute it.

Then, he did face a slight problem of how do you write a sequel when he tied up all the loose ends. His solution was to change his mind about all of those things. Fortunately, he had previously cut out a scene where Luke and Biggs were discussing Vadar killing Luke's father in great detail. If he had left that in, there would be no back peddling out of it. He invented Palpatine. He invented Yoda. He invented the idea that Darth Vadar was Luke's father, and Luke and Leia were brother sister, as far fetched as that sounds. None of these things crossed his mind in 1977. However, he was able to get it to work, and "Empire Strikes Back" was one of the best Star Wars movies. All three movies in the first trilogy are motivated primarily by the themes George Lucas drew from ancient mythology and Joseph Campbell. It has overarching themes of the hero's journey, and the triumph of good over evil. The hero has to reject evil, which is what Luke does on Bespin when Vadar reaches his hand down to Luke hanging over the precipice, and Luke chooses to jump off rather than take Vadar's hand.

When "Return of the Jedi" was released in 1983, George Lucas and everyone else assumed that would be the last Star Wars movie made. He was previously made off hand remarks about making prequels but he did not actually seriously think that would ever happen. The first trilogy stands on it's own, and if that had been the end, no one would have been surprised or disappointed. What changed, is that in the 1990s, computer animation improved to the point where George Lucas thought he could do things in new movies which he could not have done before, and he embarked on a second trilogy of prequels. "Phantom Menace" was released in 1999. The much maligned prequels actually deal with thought provoking subtle issues, such as what causes a good person to become evil. Anakin's personal transition from good to evil is mirrored by the entire country transitioning from good to evil, from Republic to Empire. The Republic under Palpatine was modeled directly on the administration of George W. Bush. In the months and years immediately following 9/11, the United States government committed unspeakable atrocities all over the world, as well documented by books such as "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer, and "Hubris The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War" by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. What enables a small number of bad people to do evil things is a large number of good people willing to look the other way. In real life, people went along with the U.S. sliding into brutal tyranny and war crimes because they were terrified of Muslim terrorists. In the prequels, the good people of the Republic went along with their country transitioning into the Empire because they were afraid of the separatists. This macrocosm of suffering on a galactic scale is mirrored by the microcosm of Anakin's tormented mind, as he spirals out of control. Of course this subtle psychological study and political commentary is lost on the Star Wars fans who never tire of their favorite past time which is trashing the prequels.

At one time, in the early 1980s, they were planning to make a Star Trek TV series using the same actors as the original series, except Leonard Nimoy was not available, so they were planning to replace Spock with a different Vulcan named Xon, played by a different actor, who literally received several death threats in the mail from several different people. Why did all of these different people send death threats to this innocent actor? They never made that TV series, but later, they made a different TV series using different actors called "Star Trek: Next Generation". Today, it is a consensus among Star Trek fans that TNG is the best Trek series, but this is ironic because when it first aired, it was the target of irrational hysterical vitriol from Star Trek fans. The more devoted a Star Trek fan you were, the more vicious your attack on the very idea of "Next Generation" without having ever watched it. Why? Because it did not have their favorite characters in it! The very idea of Star Trek without Kirk was regarded as some sort of blasphemy.

You had a similar problem with the prequels. Even the characters that were supposed to be the same, such as Obi-Wan, C3P0, and Yoda, were different than what they remember. Their favorite characters, Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, were not in it at all. The fans of the Star Wars movies were fans of absent characters, and they were never going to warm up to the prequels. Also, by that time, they had been waiting almost 20 years for a sequel, and no movie was going to live up to that level of expectation.

In the early 1970s, George Lucas was a member of an informal group of writers and film makers who were against the cooperate world of studios and networks, and who were desperate to be free of it. Other members included George Lucas' friends Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. All three agreed that the studio system was stifling, and that film makers should be free to pursue their vision. They believed that it was wrong to be motivated by profit, and this was partly influenced by the hippie philosophy against capitalism. Other people who were part of this movement were Jim Henson and Ken Burns, both of whom made shows for PBS which has no profit motive. Jim Henson made the Muppet Show in Britain since at that time British television was owned by the government. Ironically, this is all perfectly consistent with George Lucas making a fortune off Star Wars since that gave him the independence from the studio system they all craved. Basically, he made so much money, he did not have to care about money. Jim Henson created many of the characters in Star Wars. It is therefore puzzling that decades later, both Jim Henson and George Lucas sold out to the ultimate epitome of the corporations they were fighting against, which is Disney. Their motivation may have been so their beloved creations could outlive them, which happened tragically all to soon, in the case of Jim Henson. George Lucas, in his twilight years, may have been considering his legacy. However, the quality of both the Muppets and Star Wars, has diminished since Disney took charge.

Disney, the archetypal giant cooperation, is obsessed with profit, to the exclusion of all else. George Lucas gave up creative control of his own characters. When George Lucas was in charge, they would release Star Wars movies in May, so kids could easily see it when they are not in school. When Disney was in charge, they would release Star Wars movies in December, so people would buy more Star Wars merchandise as Christmas gifts. Disney made a calculation that they could make more money giving the fans what they want which was a sequel to Star Wars that was identical to the first Star Wars movie, which was what "Force Awakens" was, to appeal to the nostalgia of old men who want to relive their childhood, and recapture the feeling they had as a little boy sitting in the movie theater in 1977. In order to make it the same, you have to go back to it being a small rag tag group of good guys fighting against an all powerful evil empire. Basically, you have to pretend that "Return of the Jedi" never happened. It does not matter if that does not make any sense. The audience in the theater roared with applause when they first saw Harrison Ford on the screen. The grand finale at the end of the movie, the moment you have all been waiting for, was catching a glimpse of Mark Hamill for a few seconds.

Star Wars, a New Hope, and the Force Awakens have the following identical plot.

A teenager living on a remote desert planet stumbles upon a comical small droid that contains a secret message which must be brought to the leaders of a group of good guys fighting much more powerful bad guys. The unlikely hero gets swept into a galactic civil war. They have to rescue a love interest that has been captured. They run into Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon. At the end, they destroy the Death Star after it destroyed a planet. The good guys pull it out despite long odds.

You might say a major difference is that in the first movie, the teenager is a boy, but in "A Force Awakens", it is a girl. However, even that is less of a difference when you consider that, in an early draft, George Lucas considered making Luke a girl, and then changed his mind.

However, it is worse than that because the politics of the galaxy in "A Force Awakens" is the same as it was in the first Star Wars movie. In the first Star Wars movie, you have a small rag tag group of rebels fighting a quixotic battle against a much more powerful evil empire. The bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

The theme of a small number of good guys defeating far more powerful bad guys is a reoccurring theme in fantasy. In "Lord of the Rings", the small group of good guys are able to defeat the far more powerful forces of Sauron. This is also a reoccuring them in George Lucas' career, underlying films as diverse as "THX-1138", "Tucker", and "Willow".

Then at the end of "Return of the Jedi", the good guys won. After that, the good guys took over the government. Then the good guys were the government. Their military would look like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. If the bad guys reconstituted, they would now be the small group of rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

Or so you would think. Instead, in "The Force Awakens", the bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships. Not only that, but everyone looks identical to what they looked like in the first Star Wars movie. Their uniforms look identical. Their ships look identical. In "The Force Awakens", the Empire has stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and star destroyers that look identical to the first movie. How could they afford all of that, without a country? Where were those ships built? Meanwhile, the good guys still look like a ragtag group of rebels. Why don't they have uniforms? Why are they still flying small X-wing fighters identical to what they had in the first movie? Everything looks the same as the first movie.

Basically, they said, "Oh, let's just pretend Return of the Jedi never happened!"

In fact, we know the reason for this. They were trying to appeal to the nostalgia of men in their 40s and 50s trying to recapture how they felt when they were a little boy sitting in the movie theater in 1977. In order to do that, they intentionally made "The Force Awakens" as similar to the first movie as possible. J. J. Abrams publicly said that was his goal. They went so far as to include the superfluous Death Star at end of the movie, which was totally unnecessary and irrelevant to the supposed goal of getting the data in BB-8 to the good guys so they could locate Luke Skywalker. Their target audience would not feel the same as they did when they were a little boy unless you blow up a Death Star at the end.


I wrote the following article after I watched the last Star Wars movie.

I strongly disagree with the decision to bring Palpatine back. It negates Vadar's sacrifice where he sacrificed his own life to kill Palpatine to save his son's life. It makes the victory at the end of Return of Jedi completely meaningless because it turns out that they did not defeat Palpatine after all. It makes all the good guys look stupid for being duped. It begs the question of how he could have survived, much less continued the pull the strings behind the scenes without anyone knowing, much less amassed a staggering military, much larger than what the Empire had, much larger ships, much more ships, more powerful weapons, all in secret without anyone knowing. How was all of that paid for? If he could do all of that without being the leader of a country, then why did he bother becoming the political leader of the galaxy in the first place? Before it was assumed that he became the leader of the galaxy so he could turn it into a totalitarian regime, and then divert the national resources to the war machine to fuel conquest, so he could rule the world, as many men have done in real life. Here, somehow without a country, without resources, without a source of revenue, he inexplicably created a military a thousand times large as what the empire had, not so he could rule the world, but so he could kill everyone for no reason, and rule no one. In the first movie, Darth Vadar required all the money and resources of the Empire to create the first Death Star so he could use it to threaten planetary leaders so he could rule the galaxy. Here, Palpatine, without a country, without any resources, without money, without anyone knowing, created literally thousands of death stars, because each ship is a death star that can destroy a planet, and not to threaten people so he can rule them, no, but instead so he can just send out the ships to blow up all the planets with people on them so there will be no people left in the galaxy, for no reason whatsoever, so he would then be left ruling nobody at all.

At the end of "Return of the Jedi, Special Edition", we see scenes of celebrating crowds on different planets all over the galaxy, celebrating the death of Palpatine. It makes all those people seem extra stupid.

However, the most stupid part is none of that. The most stupid part is lowering and reducing Star Wars to the level of low quality mediocre children's TV shows were the bad guys are never killed because they always come back. It is like a comic book or Saturday morning cartoon. On Superman, they are not going to kill Lex Luther. On Batman, if the Joker is killed, you know he's going to come back. On G.I. Joe, they are not going to get rid of Cobra. On Transformers, you know the Decepticons will always come back. They are literally reducing Star Wars to the level of a low quality children's Saturday morning cartoon where the villain is never killed, or even if they are killed, they always magically come back. Not only that, but he's more powerful, and each dasterdly plan is more grandoise and far fetched than the last. In the first Batman movie, the Joker falls off the top of a skycraper and is killed, but of course that's not the end of the Joker, since of course, he comes back and nobody cares. They have reduced Star Wars to a really bad Saturday morning cartoon. It's like an episode of Voltron. They went from small death star to big death star to thousands of death stars. Otherwise, the good guys are not topping themselves each time they defeat him.

And how on Earth was he able to come back? At the end of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vadar picks up Palpatine and directs the lightening from Palpatine's fingers onto his own face, and then throws him into a bottomless pit. You imagine that maybe he grabbed ahold of a ledge, and later climbed out. He could have used his powers to heal himself. That would be consistent with Palpatine's appearance in the last movie where he is haggard, and hooked up to machines that keep himself alive. Since he's hanging by a thread, it makes it harder to believe that he was able to achieve everything he achieved, and control everything behind the scenes, but at least, it would make it more consistent with him surviving and climbing out of the pit he was thrown into. HOWEVER, this somewhat plausible explanation is then contradicted, in the same movie, with the good guys talking about "cloning", and then in Palpatine's secret lair, with what look like vats of liquid containing bodies, presumably clones of Palpatine. Ok, so are they then claiming that this Palpatine is a clone of the one that was killed? If that's the case, then why is he old and haggard, barely alive, being kept alive by machines? If he was a clone, then wouldn't he be young, and fit as a fiddle? If he was old and in bad shape because he was thrown in the pit, then why mention clones? Which is it? I mean the writers are stupid, and never made up their own mind about how Palpatine came back to life. I guess they did not think that was important.

In the opening crawl, it says that Palpatine broadcast a message but then it was never mentioned again. What was the message? Why would he send a message to the good guys unless this is another example of Star Wars being reduced to the level of a bad comic book when the villain inexplicably warns the good guys for no reason?

Another thing I strongly disagree with was the decision to make Rey the granddaughter of Palpatine. When George Lucas wrote Star Wars, he never imagined that Darth Vadar, Luke, or Leia were related. When he wrote "Empire Strikes Back", he thought up the idea that Darth Vadar was Luke's father, and that Luke and Leia were brother sister. After that, the Star Wars fans just expected that all the characters had to be related. When they first released "The Force Awakens", all the fans speculated what Rey's family relationship was. Was she Luke's daughter? Rian Johnson was the writer and director of the next movie "The Last Jedi", and he said that he wanted to put an end to that, and decided that Rey was not related to anyone famous. I agree with that decision. How many people live in the Star Wars galaxy? What percentage are related to the main characters? What is the statistical likelihood that someone chosen at random will happen to be related to one of the main characters? Why does the main character have to be biologically related to other characters? Are we saying you can't be important unless you are biologically related to someone important? Are we saying that someone from a humble background without famous parents can't become a hero? Rian Johnson was making a fair point, but in the last movie they had to fall back into form and suddenly declare that Rey was the granddaughter of Palpatine. It just came out of the blue. It implies that she would not be important otherwise.

Even more stupid than that, they then declare that Luke and Leia "always knew". What? How would they know? Even Kylo Ren had no idea despite his immense power with the Force. Why would they not tell her? She lived with Luke, and he never thought to bring it up? When Rey meets Leia for the first time, Leia doesn't even acknowledge her at all. She just dismisses her as some waif that her ex-husband picked up. Now we are supposed to believe they "knew all along"?

"Star Wars, a New Hope", and "The Force Awakens" have the following identical plot.

A teenager living on a remote desert planet stumbles upon a comical small droid that contains a secret message which must be brought to the leaders of a group of good guys fighting much more powerful bad guys. The unlikely hero gets swept into a galactic civil war. They have to rescue a love interest that has been captured. They run into Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon. At the end, they destroy the Death Star after it destroyed a planet. The good guys pull it out despite long odds.

However, it is worse than that because the politics of the galaxy in "A Force Awakens" is the same as it was in the first Star Wars movie. In the first Star Wars movie, you have a small rag tag group of rebels fighting a quixotic battle against a much more powerful evil empire. The bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

Then at the end of "Return of the Jedi", the good guys won. After that, the good guys took over the government. Then the good guys were the government. Their military would look like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. If the bad guys reconstituted, they would now be the small group of rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

Or so you would think. Instead, in "The Force Awakens", the bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships. Not only that, but everyone looks identical to what they looked like in the first Star Wars movie. Their uniforms look identical. Their ships look identical. In "The Force Awakens", the Empire has stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and star destroyers that look identical to the first movie. How could they afford all of that, without a country? Where were those ships built? Meanwhile, the good guys still look like a ragtag group of rebels. Why don't they have uniforms? Why are they still flying small X-wing fighters identical to what they had in the first movie? Everything looks the same as the first movie.

Basically, they said, "Oh, let's just pretend Return of the Jedi never happened!"

However, in the last movie, "Rise of Skywalker", they made it a thousand times worse. One of the leaders of the "First Order" said, "They will increase our ships a thousand fold". So he is saying that, despite the staggering number of ships that the First Order had, Palpatine had one thousand times as many as that. They are also saying they have thousands of death stars because each ship is a death star because each ship can destroy a planet. In the first Star Wars movie there was a Death Star. In "The Force Awakens", there was a giant Death Star. Now, in "Rise of Skywalker", they are claiming that every single one of the bad guy's ships is a death star, since every ship can destroy a planet. Think how difficult it was for the Empire to make the first Death Star. Think of how much of the national economy had to be diverted into that single huge project. Think how many years it took to build it. Think how many people it took to build it. It was a strain for a huge powerful rich country with unlimited resources. Now imagine the farcical world of "Rise of Skywalker" where Palpatine, who magically came back to life, barely hanging on by a thread, kept alive by machines, without a country, without money, without resources, has been secretly running everything without anyone knowing, just casually built thousands and thousands of death stars, each with the capabilities of the original, as if it was no big deal at all. How on Earth could he do this? If it was that easy, why was it so difficult to build the first one? If he could do it without a country, then why did he bother becoming the leader of a country? The good guy's victory at the end of "Return of the Jedi" was all for nothing because he was more powerful afterwards than he was before. Furthermore, why is he doing this? Before, it was assumed that he was like many brutal tyrants in the real world who use tyrannical regimes and military conquest to "rule the world". However, in the last movie, he says he is going to use the ships to blow up all the planets and kill all the people in the galaxy so he would end up ruling nothing at all. Why would he want to do that?

He says he wants Rey to kill him, and then he says he doesn't want Rey to kill him? He says he wants Rey to kill him so his soul can go into her? Has his soul been previously going into clones, and if so, why not continue doing that? Earlier the writers were claiming that if Rey kills Palpatine, that will blacken her soul, and she would become a Sith, but then she does kill him, and that does not happen, so the writers can't make up their mind about that. If this dagger is a thousand years old, how can it contain the location of the small pyramid among the wreckage of the Battle of Endor? Whoever made it had detailed knowledge of what the wreckage would look like a thousand years later? Why was that small pyramid on the wreckage anyway? Why on the second death star would there be a small pyramid containing the location of where this fleet of a thousand death stars would be hiding 35 years in the future? What was Finn's secret? When they are sinking into the quicksand, Finn is presumably about the tell Rey he loves her but this is never brought up again so that entire story line, which existed throughout the last three movies, is left entirely unresolved. They could have easily included a short scene where Rey says "What were you going to say?", Finn says "I love you", and Rey says "I know". I think it is obvious the writers originally intended the romantic interest to be between Finn and Rey but then changed their mind. Why couldn't Rey sense that Chewbacca was not on the transport that was destroyed, since later, she can sense him when he is far away? Later on, she senses he was on a ship. Why couldn't she do that earlier? How did Lando so easily and quickly assemble this entire giant fleet, apparently the largest the galaxy had ever seen? Is a copy of C3PO's entire brain always stored inside R2D2, and if so, why was anyone sad when they rebooted C3PO? Normally you might think that claiming R2D2 contains a copy of C3PO's entire brain inside him would be the most ludicrous thing in Star Wars if it wasn't for the fact they now had thousands of death stars. Why did they include that scene where Po's ex-girlfriend hands him this small circular fake ID if he was not going to use it, and it was never mentioned again? I expected him to use the fake ID to gain entry to the enemy ship, but instead, they just land, kill two guards, and casually waltz around the ship. What would happen if a small plane landed on a U.S. aircraft carrier without permission, and when two U.S. Navy officers approached the plane, people on the plane shot and killed the two U.S. Navy officers? How and why were those horses running around on top of a spaceship, and what happened to them, because they are never seen again? They greatly rewrote the script after Carrie Fisher died. They had to write the script around the unused footage they had of Carrie Fisher. They should release the original script they wrote before Carrie Fisher died so we could at least know what they were planning to do. Perhaps part of the reason why this monstrosity was so badly cobbled together is because they cut out scenes with Carrie Fisher. The crawl mentions a message from Palpatine which was never mentioned again. Maybe originally, there was supposed to be a scene with Carrie Fisher where she talked about it.

jefferywinkler

I wrote the following article before I watched the last Star Wars movie.

When George Lucas was writing the first Star Wars movie, in the earliest drafts, it was called "The Star Wars", the hero was named "Starkiller", and it was set on 23rd Century Earth. It was more similar to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Then George Lucas read "Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, and was profoundly influenced by it. He penned the famous "fourth draft", which was steeped with mythos, with elements like "the kybur crystal" and the "princess of ondos". He continued to rewrite the script, and it went through numerous iterations. Even after it was filmed, he continued to edit it very heavily, cutting out whole scenes, and then it was finally released on May 25, 1977. The only reason 20th Century Fox took a chance on his odd movie was because of his previous success with "American Graffitti".

Before it was released, neither George Lucas or anyone else could have possibly imagined how popular it would be. Therefore, George Lucas wrote the script on the assumption that the first movie would be the ONLY Star Wars movie EVER MADE!!!! Let that fact penetrate your skull. Try to remember that before the first movie was released, it would have been ludicrous for him to assume anything else. Therefore, the first Star Wars movie was intended as a stand alone film. Now try to imagine an alternate version of history in which the first movie was the only one ever made. Anyone watching the movie would have no doubt in their mind about the fact that Darth Vadar was killed when the Death Star exploded, the Empire ceased to exist with the death of their leader, Han Solo received redemption by showing up at the end of the battle, proving that, aww shucks, he does care about other people, and then Luke and Leia get married, and live happily ever after. We see Vadar's ship spinning out of the control, and then he is caught in the explosion, so he presumably was killed in the explosion. Therefore, Luke Skywalker killed his father's murderer, successfully avenging his father's death. There is no mention of anyone more powerful than Vadar. It would be no more possible for a farmboy to be related to a princess than for a jawa to be related to a bantha. Han Solo even got the reward money from helping to rescue the princess so he could pay off his debts so even that loose end was tied up.

This original intent by George Lucas also had a striking resemblance to "Lord of the Rings". In both cases, a small rag tag group of rebels fight a losing war against a vast evil empire led by a dehumanized faceless omnipotent force of evil, whose power is derived from a specific physical object. An unlikely hero from a small rural community on the edge of the known world destroys the evil object, which destroys the evil villain, which destroys the evil empire.

Then, to George Lucas' flabbergasted shock, Star Wars was single the most popular movie to ever exist since Eadweard Muybridge invented the motion picture in 1878. Also, in incredible good fortune, there was a very unusual clause in George Lucas' contract that gave him rights to money from merchandise. George Lucas did not need to beg 20th Century Fox to let him make a sequel. He could just found his own company of Lucasfilm, and do it himself. Then he would allow 20th Century Fox to distribute it.

Then, he did face a slight problem of how do you write a sequel when he tied up all the loose ends. His solution was to change his mind about all of those things. Fortunately, he had previously cut out a scene where Luke and Biggs were discussing Vadar killing Luke's father in great detail. If he had left that in, there would be no back peddling out of it. He invented Palpatine. He invented Yoda. He invented the idea that Darth Vadar was Luke's father, and Luke and Leia were brother sister, as far fetched as that sounds. None of these things crossed his mind in 1977. However, he was able to get it to work, and "Empire Strikes Back" was one of the best Star Wars movies. All three movies in the first trilogy are motivated primarily by the themes George Lucas drew from ancient mythology and Joseph Campbell. It has overarching themes of the hero's journey, and the triumph of good over evil. The hero has to reject evil, which is what Luke does on Bespin when Vadar reaches his hand down to Luke hanging over the precipice, and Luke chooses to jump off rather than take Vadar's hand.

When "Return of the Jedi" was released in 1983, George Lucas and everyone else assumed that would be the last Star Wars movie made. He was previously made off hand remarks about making prequels but he did not actually seriously think that would ever happen. The first trilogy stands on it's own, and if that had been the end, no one would have been surprised or disappointed. What changed, is that in the 1990s, computer animation improved to the point where George Lucas thought he could do things in new movies which he could not have done before, and he embarked on a second trilogy of prequels. "Phantom Menace" was released in 1999. The much maligned prequels actually deal with thought provoking subtle issues, such as what causes a good person to become evil. Anakin's personal transition from good to evil is mirrored by the entire country transitioning from good to evil, from Republic to Empire. The Republic under Palpatine was modeled directly on the administration of George W. Bush. In the months and years immediately following 9/11, the United States government committed unspeakable atrocities all over the world, as well documented by books such as "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer, and "Hubris The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War" by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. What enables a small number of bad people to do evil things is a large number of good people willing to look the other way. In real life, people went along with the U.S. sliding into brutal tyranny and war crimes because they were terrified of Muslim terrorists. In the prequels, the good people of the Republic went along with their country transitioning into the Empire because they were afraid of the separatists. This macrocosm of suffering on a galactic scale is mirrored by the microcosm of Anakin's tormented mind, as he spirals out of control. Of course this subtle psychological study and political commentary is lost on the Star Wars fans who never tire of their favorite past time which is trashing the prequels.

At one time, in the early 1980s, they were planning to make a Star Trek TV series using the same actors as the original series, except Leonard Nimoy was not available, so they were planning to replace Spock with a different Vulcan named Xon, played by a different actor, who literally received several death threats in the mail from several different people. Why did all of these different people send death threats to this innocent actor? They never made that TV series, but later, they made a different TV series using different actors called "Star Trek: Next Generation". Today, it is a consensus among Star Trek fans that TNG is the best Trek series, but this is ironic because when it first aired, it was the target of irrational hysterical vitriol from Star Trek fans. The more devoted a Star Trek fan you were, the more vicious your attack on the very idea of "Next Generation" without having ever watched it. Why? Because it did not have their favorite characters in it! The very idea of Star Trek without Kirk was regarded as some sort of blasphemy.

You had a similar problem with the prequels. Even the characters that were supposed to be the same, such as Obi-Wan, C3P0, and Yoda, were different than what they remember. Their favorite characters, Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, were not in it at all. The fans of the Star Wars movies were fans of absent characters, and they were never going to warm up to the prequels. Also, by that time, they had been waiting almost 20 years for a sequel, and no movie was going to live up to that level of expectation.

In the early 1970s, George Lucas was a member of an informal group of writers and film makers who were against the cooperate world of studios and networks, and who were desperate to be free of it. Other members included George Lucas' friends Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. All three agreed that the studio system was stifling, and that film makers should be free to pursue their vision. They believed that it was wrong to be motivated by profit, and this was partly influenced by the hippie philosophy against capitalism. Other people who were part of this movement were Jim Henson and Ken Burns, both of whom made shows for PBS which has no profit motive. Jim Henson made the Muppet Show in Britain since at that time British television was owned by the government. Ironically, this is all perfectly consistent with George Lucas making a fortune off Star Wars since that gave him the independence from the studio system they all craved. Basically, he made so much money, he did not have to care about money. Jim Henson created many of the characters in Star Wars. It is therefore puzzling that decades later, both Jim Henson and George Lucas sold out to the ultimate epitome of the corporations they were fighting against, which is Disney. Their motivation may have been so their beloved creations could outlive them, which happened tragically all to soon, in the case of Jim Henson. George Lucas, in his twilight years, may have been considering his legacy. However, the quality of both the Muppets and Star Wars, has diminished since Disney took charge.

Disney, the archetypal giant cooperation, is obsessed with profit, to the exclusion of all else. George Lucas gave up creative control of his own characters. When George Lucas was in charge, they would release Star Wars movies in May, so kids could easily see it when they are not in school. When Disney was in charge, they would release Star Wars movies in December, so people would buy more Star Wars merchandise as Christmas gifts. Disney made a calculation that they could make more money giving the fans what they want which was a sequel to Star Wars that was identical to the first Star Wars movie, which was what "Force Awakens" was, to appeal to the nostalgia of old men who want to relive their childhood, and recapture the feeling they had as a little boy sitting in the movie theater in 1977. In order to make it the same, you have to go back to it being a small rag tag group of good guys fighting against an all powerful evil empire. Basically, you have to pretend that "Return of the Jedi" never happened. It does not matter if that does not make any sense. The audience in the theater roared with applause when they first saw Harrison Ford on the screen. The grand finale at the end of the movie, the moment you have all been waiting for, was catching a glimpse of Mark Hamill for a few seconds.

Star Wars, a New Hope, and the Force Awakens have the following identical plot.

A teenager living on a remote desert planet stumbles upon a comical small droid that contains a secret message which must be brought to the leaders of a group of good guys fighting much more powerful bad guys. The unlikely hero gets swept into a galactic civil war. They have to rescue a love interest that has been captured. They run into Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon. At the end, they destroy the Death Star after it destroyed a planet. The good guys pull it out despite long odds.

You might say a major difference is that in the first movie, the teenager is a boy, but in "A Force Awakens", it is a girl. However, even that is less of a difference when you consider that, in an early draft, George Lucas considered making Luke a girl, and then changed his mind.

However, it is worse than that because the politics of the galaxy in "A Force Awakens" is the same as it was in the first Star Wars movie. In the first Star Wars movie, you have a small rag tag group of rebels fighting a quixotic battle against a much more powerful evil empire. The bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

The theme of a small number of good guys defeating far more powerful bad guys is a reoccurring theme in fantasy. In "Lord of the Rings", the small group of good guys are able to defeat the far more powerful forces of Sauron. This is also a reoccuring them in George Lucas' career, underlying films as diverse as "THX-1138", "Tucker", and "Willow".

Then at the end of "Return of the Jedi", the good guys won. After that, the good guys took over the government. Then the good guys were the government. Their military would look like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. If the bad guys reconstituted, they would now be the small group of rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

Or so you would think. Instead, in "The Force Awakens", the bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships. Not only that, but everyone looks identical to what they looked like in the first Star Wars movie. Their uniforms look identical. Their ships look identical. In "The Force Awakens", the Empire has stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and star destroyers that look identical to the first movie. How could they afford all of that, without a country? Where were those ships built? Meanwhile, the good guys still look like a ragtag group of rebels. Why don't they have uniforms? Why are they still flying small X-wing fighters identical to what they had in the first movie? Everything looks the same as the first movie.

Basically, they said, "Oh, let's just pretend Return of the Jedi never happened!"

In fact, we know the reason for this. They were trying to appeal to the nostalgia of men in their 40s and 50s trying to recapture how they felt when they were a little boy sitting in the movie theater in 1977. In order to do that, they intentionally made "The Force Awakens" as similar to the first movie as possible. J. J. Abrams publicly said that was his goal. They went so far as to include the superfluous Death Star at end of the movie, which was totally unnecessary and irrelevant to the supposed goal of getting the data in BB-8 to the good guys so they could locate Luke Skywalker. Their target audience would not feel the same as they did when they were a little boy unless you blow up a Death Star at the end.


I wrote the following article after I watched the last Star Wars movie.

I strongly disagree with the decision to bring Palpatine back. It negates Vadar's sacrifice where he sacrificed his own life to kill Palpatine to save his son's life. It makes the victory at the end of Return of Jedi completely meaningless because it turns out that they did not defeat Palpatine after all. It makes all the good guys look stupid for being duped. It begs the question of how he could have survived, much less continued the pull the strings behind the scenes without anyone knowing, much less amassed a staggering military, much larger than what the Empire had, much larger ships, much more ships, more powerful weapons, all in secret without anyone knowing. How was all of that paid for? If he could do all of that without being the leader of a country, then why did he bother becoming the political leader of the galaxy in the first place? Before it was assumed that he became the leader of the galaxy so he could turn it into a totalitarian regime, and then divert the national resources to the war machine to fuel conquest, so he could rule the world, as many men have done in real life. Here, somehow without a country, without resources, without a source of revenue, he inexplicably created a military a thousand times large as what the empire had, not so he could rule the world, but so he could kill everyone for no reason, and rule no one. In the first movie, Darth Vadar required all the money and resources of the Empire to create the first Death Star so he could use it to threaten planetary leaders so he could rule the galaxy. Here, Palpatine, without a country, without any resources, without money, without anyone knowing, created literally thousands of death stars, because each ship is a death star that can destroy a planet, and not to threaten people so he can rule them, no, but instead so he can just send out the ships to blow up all the planets with people on them so there will be no people left in the galaxy, for no reason whatsoever, so he would then be left ruling nobody at all.

At the end of "Return of the Jedi, Special Edition", we see scenes of celebrating crowds on different planets all over the galaxy, celebrating the death of Palpatine. It makes all those people seem extra stupid.

However, the most stupid part is none of that. The most stupid part is lowering and reducing Star Wars to the level of low quality mediocre children's TV shows were the bad guys are never killed because they always come back. It is like a comic book or Saturday morning cartoon. On Superman, they are not going to kill Lex Luther. On Batman, if the Joker is killed, you know he's going to come back. On G.I. Joe, they are not going to get rid of Cobra. On Transformers, you know the Decepticons will always come back. They are literally reducing Star Wars to the level of a low quality children's Saturday morning cartoon where the villain is never killed, or even if they are killed, they always magically come back. Not only that, but he's more powerful, and each dasterdly plan is more grandoise and far fetched than the last. In the first Batman movie, the Joker falls off the top of a skycraper and is killed, but of course that's not the end of the Joker, since of course, he comes back and nobody cares. They have reduced Star Wars to a really bad Saturday morning cartoon. It's like an episode of Voltron. They went from small death star to big death star to thousands of death stars. Otherwise, the good guys are not topping themselves each time they defeat him.

And how on Earth was he able to come back? At the end of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vadar picks up Palpatine and directs the lightening from Palpatine's fingers onto his own face, and then throws him into a bottomless pit. You imagine that maybe he grabbed ahold of a ledge, and later climbed out. He could have used his powers to heal himself. That would be consistent with Palpatine's appearance in the last movie where he is haggard, and hooked up to machines that keep himself alive. Since he's hanging by a thread, it makes it harder to believe that he was able to achieve everything he achieved, and control everything behind the scenes, but at least, it would make it more consistent with him surviving and climbing out of the pit he was thrown into. HOWEVER, this somewhat plausible explanation is then contradicted, in the same movie, with the good guys talking about "cloning", and then in Palpatine's secret lair, with what look like vats of liquid containing bodies, presumably clones of Palpatine. Ok, so are they then claiming that this Palpatine is a clone of the one that was killed? If that's the case, then why is he old and haggard, barely alive, being kept alive by machines? If he was a clone, then wouldn't he be young, and fit as a fiddle? If he was old and in bad shape because he was thrown in the pit, then why mention clones? Which is it? I mean the writers are stupid, and never made up their own mind about how Palpatine came back to life. I guess they did not think that was important.

In the opening crawl, it says that Palpatine broadcast a message but then it was never mentioned again. What was the message? Why would he send a message to the good guys unless this is another example of Star Wars being reduced to the level of a bad comic book when the villain inexplicably warns the good guys for no reason?

Another thing I strongly disagree with was the decision to make Rey the granddaughter of Palpatine. When George Lucas wrote Star Wars, he never imagined that Darth Vadar, Luke, or Leia were related. When he wrote "Empire Strikes Back", he thought up the idea that Darth Vadar was Luke's father, and that Luke and Leia were brother sister. After that, the Star Wars fans just expected that all the characters had to be related. When they first released "The Force Awakens", all the fans speculated what Rey's family relationship was. Was she Luke's daughter? Rian Johnson was the writer and director of the next movie "The Last Jedi", and he said that he wanted to put an end to that, and decided that Rey was not related to anyone famous. I agree with that decision. How many people live in the Star Wars galaxy? What percentage are related to the main characters? What is the statistical likelihood that someone chosen at random will happen to be related to one of the main characters? Why does the main character have to be biologically related to other characters? Are we saying you can't be important unless you are biologically related to someone important? Are we saying that someone from a humble background without famous parents can't become a hero? Rian Johnson was making a fair point, but in the last movie they had to fall back into form and suddenly declare that Rey was the granddaughter of Palpatine. It just came out of the blue. It implies that she would not be important otherwise.

Even more stupid than that, they then declare that Luke and Leia "always knew". What? How would they know? Even Kylo Ren had no idea despite his immense power with the Force. Why would they not tell her? She lived with Luke, and he never thought to bring it up? When Rey meets Leia for the first time, Leia doesn't even acknowledge her at all. She just dismisses her as some waif that her ex-husband picked up. Now we are supposed to believe they "knew all along"?

"Star Wars, a New Hope", and "The Force Awakens" have the following identical plot.

A teenager living on a remote desert planet stumbles upon a comical small droid that contains a secret message which must be brought to the leaders of a group of good guys fighting much more powerful bad guys. The unlikely hero gets swept into a galactic civil war. They have to rescue a love interest that has been captured. They run into Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon. At the end, they destroy the Death Star after it destroyed a planet. The good guys pull it out despite long odds.

However, it is worse than that because the politics of the galaxy in "A Force Awakens" is the same as it was in the first Star Wars movie. In the first Star Wars movie, you have a small rag tag group of rebels fighting a quixotic battle against a much more powerful evil empire. The bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

Then at the end of "Return of the Jedi", the good guys won. After that, the good guys took over the government. Then the good guys were the government. Their military would look like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. If the bad guys reconstituted, they would now be the small group of rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships.

Or so you would think. Instead, in "The Force Awakens", the bad guys are the government, and their military looks like the military of a country. They have a large number of well trained organized soldiers in identical uniforms. They have a large number of large ships. Meanwhile, the good guys are just a small band of rag tag rebels, without formal training, without uniforms, with a small number of small ships. Not only that, but everyone looks identical to what they looked like in the first Star Wars movie. Their uniforms look identical. Their ships look identical. In "The Force Awakens", the Empire has stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and star destroyers that look identical to the first movie. How could they afford all of that, without a country? Where were those ships built? Meanwhile, the good guys still look like a ragtag group of rebels. Why don't they have uniforms? Why are they still flying small X-wing fighters identical to what they had in the first movie? Everything looks the same as the first movie.

Basically, they said, "Oh, let's just pretend Return of the Jedi never happened!"

However, in the last movie, "Rise of Skywalker", they made it a thousand times worse. One of the leaders of the "First Order" said, "They will increase our ships a thousand fold". So he is saying that, despite the staggering number of ships that the First Order had, Palpatine had one thousand times as many as that. They are also saying they have thousands of death stars because each ship is a death star because each ship can destroy a planet. In the first Star Wars movie there was a Death Star. In "The Force Awakens", there was a giant Death Star. Now, in "Rise of Skywalker", they are claiming that every single one of the bad guy's ships is a death star, since every ship can destroy a planet. Think how difficult it was for the Empire to make the first Death Star. Think of how much of the national economy had to be diverted into that single huge project. Think how many years it took to build it. Think how many people it took to build it. It was a strain for a huge powerful rich country with unlimited resources. Now imagine the farcical world of "Rise of Skywalker" where Palpatine, who magically came back to life, barely hanging on by a thread, kept alive by machines, without a country, without money, without resources, has been secretly running everything without anyone knowing, just casually built thousands and thousands of death stars, each with the capabilities of the original, as if it was no big deal at all. How on Earth could he do this? If it was that easy, why was it so difficult to build the first one? If he could do it without a country, then why did he bother becoming the leader of a country? The good guy's victory at the end of "Return of the Jedi" was all for nothing because he was more powerful afterwards than he was before. Furthermore, why is he doing this? Before, it was assumed that he was like many brutal tyrants in the real world who use tyrannical regimes and military conquest to "rule the world". However, in the last movie, he says he is going to use the ships to blow up all the planets and kill all the people in the galaxy so he would end up ruling nothing at all. Why would he want to do that?

He says he wants Rey to kill him, and then he says he doesn't want Rey to kill him? He says he wants Rey to kill him so his soul can go into her? Has his soul been previously going into clones, and if so, why not continue doing that? Earlier the writers were claiming that if Rey kills Palpatine, that will blacken her soul, and she would become a Sith, but then she does kill him, and that does not happen, so the writers can't make up their mind about that. If this dagger is a thousand years old, how can it contain the location of the small pyramid among the wreckage of the Battle of Endor? Whoever made it had detailed knowledge of what the wreckage would look like a thousand years later? Why was that small pyramid on the wreckage anyway? Why on the second death star would there be a small pyramid containing the location of where this fleet of a thousand death stars would be hiding 35 years in the future? What was Finn's secret? When they are sinking into the quicksand, Finn is presumably about the tell Rey he loves her but this is never brought up again so that entire story line, which existed throughout the last three movies, is left entirely unresolved. They could have easily included a short scene where Rey says "What were you going to say?", Finn says "I love you", and Rey says "I know". I think it is obvious the writers originally intended the romantic interest to be between Finn and Rey but then changed their mind. Why couldn't Rey sense that Chewbacca was not on the transport that was destroyed, since later, she can sense him when he is far away? Later on, she senses he was on a ship. Why couldn't she do that earlier? How did Lando so easily and quickly assemble this entire giant fleet, apparently the largest the galaxy had ever seen? Is a copy of C3PO's entire brain always stored inside R2D2, and if so, why was anyone sad when they rebooted C3PO? Normally you might think that claiming R2D2 contains a copy of C3PO's entire brain inside him would be the most ludicrous thing in Star Wars if it wasn't for the fact they now had thousands of death stars. Why did they include that scene where Po's ex-girlfriend hands him this small circular fake ID if he was not going to use it, and it was never mentioned again? I expected him to use the fake ID to gain entry to the enemy ship, but instead, they just land, kill two guards, and casually waltz around the ship. What would happen if a small plane landed on a U.S. aircraft carrier without permission, and when two U.S. Navy officers approached the plane, people on the plane shot and killed the two U.S. Navy officers? How and why were those horses running around on top of a spaceship, and what happened to them, because they are never seen again? They greatly rewrote the script after Carrie Fisher died. They had to write the script around the unused footage they had of Carrie Fisher. They should release the original script they wrote before Carrie Fisher died so we could at least know what they were planning to do. Perhaps part of the reason why this monstrosity was so badly cobbled together is because they cut out scenes with Carrie Fisher. The crawl mentions a message from Palpatine which was never mentioned again. Maybe originally, there was supposed to be a scene with Carrie Fisher where she talked about it.

I wrote the following article about Science and Star Wars.

Science and Star Wars

I love Star Wars but the truth is George Lucas always had zero knowledge of science. He was knowledgeable on the history of film, since the movies contain many obscure references to old movies. He was knowledgeable on mythology since he closely studied the work of Joseph Campbell, and incorporated much of that into Stars Wars, which was most evident in the famous “fourth draft”.

But science?…sadly, not so much.

When he initially referenced the “Clone Wars”, he intended the “clones” to be the enemy the good guys were fighting against, since we name wars after the enemy (In classical history: the Peloponnesian War, the Punic Wars, in modern history: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, etc.,) So who exactly were these “clones” that he imagined the good guys were fighting against? He was probably imagining a bunch of guys that look the same. This was a well worn sci-fi trope before Star Wars. Once Buck Rogers went a planet full of clones. They were people who looked like each other but there was no reference to who they were clones of. Also, in science fiction, it was assumed that clones are magically created in adult form. No doubt this was Lucas originally envisioned, and fortunately, they corrected it later.

Real proof of George Lucas’ lack of scientific knowledge comes from the famous “fourth draft”, I mentioned earlier. He had light sabers in that version, but that was before he invented the name “light saber”. What did he call them? He called them “lazer swords”. You know what? He spelled the word “laser” “L..A...Z…E…R” What did he think it stood for? “Light Amplification by the Zoological Emission of Radiation”? Since this is science fiction, you could imagine animals with bioluminiscent flatulence. But of course, he had no clue that it was an acronym. He thought that “laser” was spelled with a “z”. Nobody who knew anything about science would be so misinformed.

When Han Solo says you have to set a destination, he said otherwise might materialize inside a star. What percentage of spatial coordinates in a spiral galaxy the size of the Milky Way would just happen to be inside a star?

Once on Mythbusters, they tried to recreate the scene where Luke and Leia swing across a chasm on the Death Star, and determine that it would be almost impossible, aside from the fact it would have given Luke a hernia.

When they do the swinging on Jabba the Hutt’s barge, the fulcrum is on the same side as Luke, so it would be physically impossible for Luke to swing 40 feet to the other barge.

When the good guys blow up the Death Star, why don’t they just fly directly to the Achilles’ Heel instead of flying through the trench first, needlessly exposing themselves to enemy fire?

The banthas, which were actually elephants in costume, were inspired by the musk ox which evolved to survive in the frozen Arctic, one of the coldest places on Earth. If you transported a musk ox to the Sahara Desert, it would die in half an hour from overheating. Yeah, that shaggy animal with thick hair looks like it evolved to survive in a sweltering desert.

R2D2 has a clearance of two inches, so how exactly he is able to effortlessly navigate through sandy desert, temperate rain forest, and tropical swamp is something of a mystery. I myself purchased a R2D2, and the instructions say that it can not be used on a shag carpet.

Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". A parsec is a unit of distance, not time. I love George Lucas, but I think we can just safely say that he believed that “parsec” was a unit of time.

Here is the actual definition of a parsec, taken from Encyclopedia Britannica.

“Parsec, unit for expressing distances to stars and galaxies, used by professional astronomers. It represents the distance at which the radius of Earth’s orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc. Thus, a star at a distance of one parsec would have a parallax of one second, and the distance of an object in parsecs is the reciprocal of its parallax in seconds of arc. For example, the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, which is part of the Alpha Centauri triple-star system, has a parallax of 0.769 second of arc, and, hence, its distance from the Sun and Earth is 1.30 parsec. One parsec equals 3.26 light-years, which is equivalent to 3.09 × 10^13 km (1.92 × 10^13 miles).”

I actually give great credit to the writers of “Han Solo” for figuring out a way to write themselves out of Lucas’ error. That was no small feat.

It is more inaccurate than it needs to be for the purpose of the story. I do not criticize them for having ships traveling faster than light because you would not have a story without it. On the other hand, a lot of the above examples were unnecessary errors resulting from ignorance.

The fact that "Indiana Jones" had the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are not criticisms of "Indiana Jones". What is a criticism of "Indiana Jones" is that scene where a semi truck is barreling down the road, and Indiana Jones is underneath the truck, with his back literally in contact with the road, and he goes from the front to the back of the truck, sort of using the axles of the truck as the rungs of a ladder, while laying on the moving road while the truck careening down the road, and if that's not enough, this happened immediately after Indiana Jones was shot at point blank range. Is that realistic? Do you excuse it by waving your hand saying, "Hey! It's a fantasy! How do you explain the Ark of the Covenant? It's magic!"

crash landing

I've moved your post into this thread and will try to give it a read sooner than later

sum1

Star Wars has gone way downhill these days.

crash landing

am intrigued to see new direction that is taken and interested to learn what is come to besides 2nd season Mandalorian and the Obi series

sum1

That's where we differ. After I see The Rise of Palpatine (to give it its proper title) I'm done with Disney Star Wars. As far as I'm concerned they've kind of spat in the face of longterm fans like myself and I don't want to waste any more money on it.

crash landing

That truly sounds about right for title of last from what I know where still need to see it

I frakkin swear there was talk rumor about Old Republic which might be the next trilogy and I would totally be down for that

Believe that Steph just shared literature news of throwback to 200 years in past

BehrItAll

Project Luminous. They are doing some content for KotOR

Tech Noir

I'm planning on rewatching the Star Wars films starting with Phantom Menace (which I've only seen once -when it first came out ), but I'm a bit hesitant, wondering if I might find myself not being too much into the prequels enough to sit through them...

Which were better in your opinion: 1-3 or 7-9?