off topic Star Wars - now with SPOILERS! (Read at your own risk)

[qwksndmonster]

Didn't they wipe the droids memories after all of that?

Retroactive continuity change has a nicer ring to it.

[shrader]

Retroactive continuity change has a nicer ring to it.

 

There was talk of wiping droid memories in Star Wars (I refuse to use the new titles), so it's not exactly a new idea.  Didn't Uncle Owen want their memories wiped before buying them?

 

But anyway, I prefer to think that the midget inside of R2 is himself a Jedi so he's in on the master plan of slowly building Luke up to his potential.

[GoPre]

Wonder if Luke briefly turns to the dark side in The Force Returns. Occurred somewhere in the books to my knowledge. Isn't he not on the movie poster or advertisement?

[darksabre]

Okay, so I'm not the biggest fan of "fan theories" about movie characters, etc., nor do I read Reddit ever, but this came across my facebook feed tonight, and after having read the whole thing, I'm entirely convinced it's true:

Jar Jar Binks is The Phantom Menace, a Sith Lord, and the most powerful Jedi in the universe, and George Lucas wimped out on his character arc after he failed to reveal him to fans as quickly as he did with Yoda. 

https://np.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/3qvj6w/theory_jar_jar_binks_was_a_trained_force_user/ 

Great, now I have to go re-watch the prequels for the first time since they came out. 

[Weave]

Okay, so I'm not the biggest fan of "fan theories" about movie characters, etc., nor do I read Reddit ever, but this came across my facebook feed tonight, and after having read the whole thing, I'm entirely convinced it's true:

 

Jar Jar Binks is The Phantom Menace, a Sith Lord, and the most powerful Jedi in the universe, and George Lucas wimped out on his character arc after he failed to reveal him to fans as quickly as he did with Yoda. 

 

https://np.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/3qvj6w/theory_jar_jar_binks_was_a_trained_force_user/ 

 

Great, now I have to go re-watch the prequels for the first time since they came out. 

 

Have you read Asimov's Foundation series? Binks as *the* bad guy would be a total rip off of The Mule from Foundation.

Edited November 3, 2015 by We've

[darksabre]

Have you read Asimov's Foundation series? Binks as *the* bad guy would be a total rip off of The Mule from Foundation.

There's a couple people in the thread who make that comparison. I'm not surprised at all that Lucas might borrow from it.

 

I really don't want Lucas to be as clever as this theory makes him look.

[Weave]

There's a couple people in the thread who make that comparison. I'm not surprised at all that Lucas might borrow from it.

 

I really don't want Lucas to be as clever as this theory makes him look.

 

Noticed that.  It's why I mentioned it.

 

Gat dammit D4rk.  You've led me down a rabbit hole I've never even considered exploring.

[darksabre]

Noticed that.  It's why I mentioned it.

 

Gat dammit D4rk.  You've led me down a rabbit hole I've never even considered exploring.

I just torrented the first prequel. Maybe I'll watch it tomorrow night. I'm going to have to re-watch them all for the first time since they came out.

 

To be fair I was 12 when TPM came out in 1999. There's no way I'd have ever picked up on these nuances as a kid. 

 

I think what's interesting is that like myself, there are other people who were my age when these movies came out and dismissed them as stupid, when really we might have just been ignorant. I don't think I saw Attack of the Clones in theater, but I think I saw Revenge of the Sith in 2005 when I was a senior in high school, and there's no way I'd have had the requisite knowledge base to get a reference like Asimov's Foundation series. I still  wouldn't get it today. But my peers have read this stuff and now they're figuring it out. 

 

Basically, if this theory is true, then we had to wait for people who were pre-teens when TPM came out to grow the f*ck up and figure out what was actually going on in a movie trilogy we were all led to believe was a cruel joke. 

 

How wild would that be? 

[ubkev]

WTF d4rk!? You're really gonna send us all down this rabbit hole?

 

Fine, it! Phantom Menace is going in.

 

See ya in 9 hours.

[qwksndmonster]

Hahaha you guys are lehm. Nothing could compel me to watch the prequels again.

 

And as far as theories go... What is the evidence?

[darksabre]

Hahaha you guys are lehm. Nothing could compel me to watch the prequels again.

 

And as far as theories go... What is the evidence?

You gotta read the Reddit post. Dude makes a compelling case.

[Weave]

You gotta read the Reddit post. Dude makes a compelling case.

 

As compelling as geeking out in your mom's basement about an animated fictional character can be, anyway.  The video stuff he showed was meh.  The backstory behind his theory is thought provoking.  In a "MOM, we want pizza bagels!" kind of way.   :P

[darksabre]

As compelling as geeking out in your mom's basement about an animated fictional character can be, anyway. The video stuff he showed was meh. The backstory behind his theory is thought provoking. In a "MOM, we want pizza bagels!" kind of way. :P

Who the heck else even cares about Star Wars? :p

 

It all makes sense though if you throw out the idea that Jar Jar wasn't a serious character. It's not like an unimportant character ever gets this much time in any other Lucas film. And we know Lucas liked to draw from Asian warrior cultures for inspiration, so the movement of Jar Jar fits that trend too.

 

If his goal was to be subtle, then he achieved it almost too well. By hitting us over the head with the facade.

 

I can live with the approach having been too clever. That would allow me to continue to hate Lucas. Only a fool and an egotistical maniac would have decided that hiding a critical plot point in plain sight in such an offensive manner would have been a good idea. He essentially sunk the prequels with it. I could live with laying that blame on him.

[LTS]

Well... add to this the theory of Luke actually being on the dark side.  Couple that with the Lucas' commentary that the pre-quels would follow the original trilogy in some story lines and plot devices...

 

So, the unsuspecting evil guy was Luke, he played everyone.

Binks is the unsuspecting evil guy, he played everyone.

 

Yoda was the unassuming power character.

Binks was the unassuming power character.

 

What if Skywalker/Binks actually built the New Order (or whatever its called).. the male Skywalkers are evil and the female Skywalkers resurrect the Jedi?

 

Just have fun with that.. you can get your head spinning.

 

Okay.. I'm done... I just want to see the movie.

[thewookie1]

Luke better not be the bad guy, that'd be quite the disappointment. 

[shrader]

I want Chewie to be evil because I never trust a wookie.

[TrueBlueGED]

Luke better not be the bad guy, that'd be quite the disappointment.

I read an article a few weeks back about how Mark Hamill pitched both Lucas and Abrams (at different times, obviously). Not to reignite the argument over the end of RotJ, but I think it could be both logical and compelling if done correctly.

[LTS]

He had to love voicing the Joker in the animated Batman series.  Psycho-evil... he's good at it.

[qwksndmonster]

He had to love voicing the Joker in the animated Batman series. Psycho-evil... he's good at it.

I love mark Hamill for this. The Joker and Luke Skywalker. That said I hope Luke isn't evil, or his evil is born out of interesting character choices.

[shrader]

He had to love voicing the Joker in the animated Batman series. Psycho-evil... he's good at it.

He's apparently voicing an animated version of The Killing Joke. If you're familiar with that story, it has the potential for him to take the psycho-evil factor up to a whole new level.

[TrueBlueGED]

I love mark Hamill for this. The Joker and Luke Skywalker. That said I hope Luke isn't evil, or his evil is born out of interesting character choices.

Does the dark side have to be equivalent to evil? I'd love them to work in more nuance to the light/dark dynamic.

[WildCard]

Does the dark side have to be equivalent to evil? I'd love them to work in more nuance to the light/dark dynamic.

Dark Side = raw emotion

 

Light Side = cool logic

[qwksndmonster]

Does the dark side have to be equivalent to evil? I'd love them to work in more nuance to the light/dark dynamic.

The original trilogy is so much about black/white good vs evil. It'd probably be a good touch of modernization to show more angles. But I really don't want the focus of the new movie to be the plot. I want it to look good and be fun.

[LastPommerFan]

You gotta read the Reddit post. Dude makes a compelling case.

 

The case is predicated on the idea that Lucas creates deep plot lines and stories.

 

He doesn't.

 

Ever.

 

It's not that kind of movie.

 

Han shot first.

[darksabre]

The case is predicated on the idea that Lucas creates deep plot lines and stories.

 

He doesn't.

 

Ever.

 

It's not that kind of movie.

 

Han shot first.

 

You gotta remember, the original movies stories were reigned in by Lucas' friends/producers/etc. He was all over the place. I have no doubt he's capable of writing deep plots and stories. They're just not any good.

 

 

 

Now, I just got done re-watching Episode 1 and I have to say, I think it still sucks. But not because it's necessarily bad. It's just wrong. 

 

One of the charms of the original Star Wars trilogy was how intimate every scene felt. Almost everything was very tight camera work, with the actors being the focal point. Phantom Menace is the exact opposite. Now, to be fair, a lot of movies from this time period suffer from being too vast. CGI was really becoming a thing and they wanted to show it off. But it totally kills the feel of the movie. There's no contrast between intimate and jarringly overwhelming. Take the big Death Star reveal in ANH. Outside of some landscape shots on Tattooine you've been looking at things in a pretty narrow lense. Then all of a sudden you're overwhelmed with the bigness of the Death Star. You don't get this in Phantom Menace. It's just scene after scene of grandiose CGI work. It's hard to feel like you're a part of the movie. You feel like a spectator. Not to mention the CGI, which someone should have been smart enough to realize then was not the way to go, has not held up over time.

 

I think Episode 1 turns out a lot different if exploiting CGI wasn't the only place where any work was put in. 

 

This movie also has a penchant for being overly verbose and for being far too explanatory. There are a number of times in the movie where you're almost expecting characters to break the fourth wall for a few moments. Organic conversations are interrupted by weird "hey, this is what this is in case you were wondering" moments that could very well have just been left out. For example, when Palpatine tells the trade federation dudes he's sending Darth Maul to go hunt down the Queen. All he has to do is stop there. "Hey, I'm sending this bad motherf*cker." But he doesn't. Hologram Palpatine brings Hologram Maul into the hologram with him, like "HEY HERE HE IS IDIOTS REMEMBER HIM FOR LATER". Completely unnecessary! We'd have figured it out! You could have just had him show up on Tattooine later and we'd all have been like "OH SH*T IT'S THAT GUY PALPATINE WAS TALKIN BOUT." This movie doesn't let you put the pieces together on your own. It just 'splains them to you. There are a ton of other examples of this in the movie that just totally ruins it. 

 

Is this movie for kids? Maybe. Probably. It shouldn't have been though. It should have been like the originals. Just plain old Sci-Fi. Instead we've got wanna be high fantasy or something. I don't even know. It just doesn't make a lick of sense. 

 

 

Now, moving on to the Darth Jar Jar theory. I don't see quite as much evidence for it as the author of the reddit piece does. Some of his observations are reaches. BUT...the one real sticking point with me is Jar Jar and his fellow Gungans. This whole situation is why I think the theory is right. He starts the movie having been goddamn EXILED from his home. You don't just get exiled for peanuts. He glosses over it just like any criminal would who has done something really really unsavory. And it's true, when they show up at the Gungan city, the other Gungans are clearly far more concerned that Jar Jar is back than that the Jedi are there. They put Jar Jar in IRONS. 

 

Where it gets really weird, is when Jar Jar gets released to the Jedi, they go off doing some adventuring, and then when he comes back to find the Gungans on Naboo later, suddenly he manages to convince Boss Nass to make him a f*cking General? And all of them totally love him now? And no one is even remotely concerned anymore about the whole BEING EXILED thing? 

 

That's really the red flag. Some of the other stuff is kinda iffy, but Jar Jar and the other Gungans is the weirdest part of the movie. It makes no sense. None. 

 

If Disney was smart they'd completely remake the prequels. They could be so good. They're just a product of their time and of some really poor judgment.