The General Star Wars Thread

You can tell they looked up info on the old chariot races of the past.

Those were almost as dangerous for their riders, and that was just with horses and not rocket engines.

Which is why Owen and Beru clearly had it coming.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 5th 2024 at 7:53:58 PM

Yeah. Colonizing the native lands of the Tusken Raiders may be evil to the Tusken Raiders, but we reasonably don't say that they therefore are bad people. Luke did look up to them and they did protect him.

They were his first guardians.

Yeah, even a Wretched Hive has at least some innocent people.

And it is not even the whole planet that is called that. Just Mos Eisly.

Granted they are buying droids, therefore participating in droid slavery, but that is not at all unique to them. If there were innocent people on Tatooine, besides Obi Wan, Owen and Beru would be them.

And them being killed is deemed horrible after all. The music tells you to feel sad and enraged as you see the burning homestead.

And again, the movie doesn’t have Obi-Wan call the whole planet a wretched hive. Just that one city which is the heart of Jabba’s criminal empire.

Luke isn't even the only small town kid from Tatooine who went on to fight for good against the Empire. And we can reasonably assume those people had friends and family who were also pretty decent at the bare minimum.

Yeah, Mos Eisley is basically that one place nobody on Tatooine seems to like - even Mos Espa seems to have some legitimate business going on, while Mos Eisly almost completely died the moment the Hutt Cartel collapsed.

And it still maintained its Wretched Hive reputation in the aftermath.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 5th 2024 at 8:19:38 PM

The Star Wars Holiday special had a surprisingly poignant segment featuring the bartender of the Mos Eisly cantina, Ackmena (played by the late Bea Arthur), as her cantina faces closure due to the Empire's new curfew.

It's one of the few times we see the cruelty and oppression of the Empire on a local scale.

And yeah, the Empire being able to call the shots like that on Tatooine really shows who is in charge between them and the Hutts. The Hutt Cartel ironically has the same relationship with the Empire that those under them did with them. The people below are free to do all kinds of shit — but they can never forget who is the boss of them.

Edited by M84 on May 6th 2024 at 2:27:53 AM

Star Wars: Phantom Menace Re-Release Beats All But 1 New Movie At The Box Office

Hey not bad for a twenty year old film.

Clearly, this means the prequels are superior to the sequels and originals.

Suck it.

Hoenstly now I'm wondering how much revenge of the sith could make. This re-release is actually the second highest re release box office in the last decade. Revenge would be insane

Well the markets are eager for a new Star Wars after all this time.

Heck, Rise of Palpatine made a billion dollars so there’s that.

Oh I heard online people had a blast watching it again in the cinemas. Impressive for a punching bag film for years

Nostalgia and hate for the sequels might have played a role, but Phantom Menace has all sorts of action schlock to excite people.

We need more Star Wars with that stuff.

I assume it also helps that the people who grew up with the prequels are adults now - remember that a lot of the hate was pushed by comparatively older people who saw the prequels as a violation of their childhood.

Do you think 50 years from now, we'll see angry youtubers bashing the newest movies for being a stain on the sequels which was their childhood?

As long as ragebait brings views? Yes.

I can definitely imagine that happening. Obviously this is just a general trend and doesn't apply to everyone, but there's definitely a case of appreciation for what came before improving as something new and more divisive comes out.

From

"The original trilogy is great, except for ROTJ, what a disappointment"

To

"Remember when we thought ROTJ was the worst Star Wars would get, these prequels sure proved us wrong"

To

"I miss the days of the interesting plots and imaginative worldbuilding of the prequels, these sequels are so soulless."

To

"Wow, we didn't appreciate how good the sequels were. Sequels 2 Electric Boogaloo are terrible!"

Hell, original TESB was controversial (though it didn't take long for that to be vindicated).

Actually, yes. My theory is that there's a specific mechanic to new Star Wars media being disliked, something I call "Intruder Effect" for now.

People are attached to the Star Wars films that they grew up with. They come to view them as a cohesive whole and form an interpretation of the Star Wars films based on that cohesive whole. They form fan clubs, write fanfiction, etc, and they talk on a mildly sacred status.

Then along comes some new movies that are "claiming" to be part of that same whole. They exist in conversation with the previous films and in some ways alter their meaning. It's kind of like trying to add new books to the Bible if you will.

By contrast, I believe that a new fan will generally view the nine films as a whole set, rather than "six films and three new films". As such, any new Star Wars film will innately be in an uphill battle.

Now, this shouldn't be taken as a shield from all criticism of the films. However, I do think it should be kept in mind, particularly in regards to how hyperbolic the fandom can be.

Another thing is also a form of...Critical Dissonance of sorts? Hardcore fans of a long-running Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy series will tend to be more interested in the arcane technical details of the setting. Also if they're fond of the subculture of a fandom, then a work becoming super-popular can be outright undesirable.

Okay, missed a lot of conversation by going to sleep.

On Watto, he's not good, he's simply better than a lot of the other options, which both Anakin and his mother recognize, but they still want to be free (as seen by Anakin's attempts to figure out where the bomb in their bodies are so he can have them removed). It's not perfect, but if you want to you can see it as analogous to an abusive partner/parent who does actually provide things that you need. Doesn't make them good, does often make your feelings about them...complicated.

On the Pod-Race versus trying to make a trade, I believe the Pod-Race is literally the next day, isn't it? Any deal they can make is likely to take a lot longer than that, especially as ships in the Star Wars universe, though not that expensive, don't tend to just sit around, unless they're either military or owned by the extremely rich. They're out working. And a swap for someone's livelihood, which is what a ship is likely to be is not going to be a fast proposal.

Especially on Tattoine. Someone comes to me offering to swap their Ferrari, minus some random part for my junker and I'm gonna be having my mechanic go over that thing with a fine tooth comb, because this sounds like a giant scam (even assuming I want a Ferrari for my transport/smuggling/whatever business).

Now, I actually do think simply holding Watto at sword point to force him to free his slaves and hand over the part is arguably morally correct, given he won't negotiate and people are actively dying on Naboo as this is going on. However...I also don't know that it will work?

Not because of Hutt enforcers, though the Hutts would make a lot of hay out of Jedi robbing their citizens, which might not look good [side note: this doesn't prevent a place from being a hive of scum and villany even if they do protect their merchants, as like, remember the cantina scene? One person's killed, another is maimed, but no one actually attacks the cantina operator or their employees, who would be paying the protection money, so the Hutts don't care. And that's without getting into the lower level gangs and internal conflicts, which BOBF, despite its many flaws, show do exist.], but because...what if he says no? They can just walk out with the part, but if Anakin, or his mother are removed, their heads explode.

So, what if Watto says no, you cannot take my property, that is a large part of my business, I refuse to give them up? Do we start torturing him? What exactly is the plan if 'make a threat that we are unwilling to follow up on [kill an unarmed civilian]' doesn't work? And even if you are willing to do it, that doesn't solve the problem of the bomb in the enslaved!

ETA: Also I think is correct—but that doesn't actually mean that things will be re-evaluated. They certainly can be, but it's not in any way inevitable. The Holiday Special hasn't undergone some great revival/re-evaluation...because it's bad. Whether the ST and other things will be re-evaluated like the PT, or continue to be reviled is pretty ambiguous to me. Personally, I think it'll likely end up at 'okay trilogy, shame about the ending' territory.

Edited by ECD on May 6th 2024 at 7:12:32 AM

If Watto does say no, they could just take the part they need to repair the ship and start smashing stuff if Watto doesn't deactivate the bombs. Eventually the price of having his inventory destroyed will be greater than the cost of releasing two slaves. I think most Jedi would agree that smashing a slave traders inventory in order to save the lives of two slaves is still light side especially if they tried asking for their release first.

The Hutt enforcers aren't going to care about a single shop getting smashed up by a group of weirdos that immediately left. If they did, they would never get any sleep.

Edited by Freshwater on May 6th 2024 at 7:39:46 AM

I will note my "Intruder Theory" mostly applies to the mainline films, it applies a bit less when you get to side-material.

Even beyond that, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a bit of...well, it's a special case for a few reasons:

• It's really bad.

• It's one of the oldest pieces of Star Wars media ever created. In a sense, it predates there being a series to intrude upon.

• It was shown a grand total of once, it was retconned out of existence right away, and is very hard to come across.

• Due to the above, nobody actually grew up with it and its existence is easily ignored.

The funny part is that parts of it are actually referenced in canon (like Life Day) because at least one of the people involved with Star Wars nowadays has a weird soft spot for it.

I mean, isn't it the film Boba Fett debuted on? It didn't create the character, he was going to be in TESB regardless, but was, I think, the first time he appeared. Given he ended up becoming an Ensemble Dark Horse and, sort of, the backbone of the Clone Wars (as in it is from his character that the character of Jango Fett was created, and from him all clones derive), as well as getting his own show. Not bad for a character first appearing in one of (if not the) most hated pieces of Star Wars media.

Edited by king15 on May 6th 2024 at 3:14:10 PM