JLCM: Clone Wars

[terribleparable]

I'm curious as to what evidence there is that links Anakin's birth to Darth Plagueis, certainly none in the movies. Meh, I don't actually care, it's just something that made me raise an eyebrow. I suppose it shouldn't though since it seems like there's two stories; that of the movies and that of everything else. And the everything else is bloated on the multiple canons, fanons, upgraded fanons, and subtext-reading to the point where even that is fractured. I think I'll stick with Star Trek.

Actually their is one single and tightly controlled canon. The large majority of this stuff comes from the additional novels and the table top RPG's and the video games. I believe the stuff about Plagueis is from one of the RPG supplements but I'm not 100% sure.

The canon's a large part of the fanbase's ire for Lucas, actually. He didn't touch Star Wars for 20 years, meanwhile the rich and varied canon started to build up in the hands of the various authors working on officially licensed Star Wars novels. Officially licensed is the key term here, Lucas signed off on the creation of all major characters and was basically informed every step of the way.

Then Lucas gets a hair up his butt to make new Star Wars in the early aughts and, among other things, he completely ignored the canon he basically caused to be created. Lots of things that had been canon in Star Wars for 20 years were scribbled over so Lucas could make a Hutt named Stinky and a guy named Jango.

Anyway, Plaugeis' ties to Anakin are always only implied, but he's been a kind of shadowy historical character in the novels for a few years now. The quick rundown is this: Plaugeis supposedly learned how to create life with the Force, because of the large role of midichlorians in creating life any being born via this form of virgin birth would be an embodiment of the Force itself (stated in the novels). Anakin is born to a virgin mother, Anakin is the Chosen One, the one who will bring balance to the force (movies).

If a virgin Force birth would make a being that embodies the Force, and Anakin is a virgin birth who's astoundingly powerful in the Force, Anakin is probably the Sith-made messiah.

[opie301]

I suppose it shouldn't though since it seems like there's two stories; that of the movies and that of everything else. And the everything else is bloated on the multiple canons, fanons, upgraded fanons, and subtext-reading to the point where even that is fractured. I think I'll stick with Star Trek.

Right. Because that kind of thing would never happen to the Star Trek property.

[batsofchaos]

Right. Because that kind of thing would never happen to the Star Trek property.

Haha, you got me. The fundamental difference being six movies versus 5 tv shows and 10 (soon to be 11) movies as canon, "on screen" information. One could talk shop about centuries of Star Trek lore and adventures without needing to crack open a book, let alone a roleplaying supplement. It is a double-standard, though, so I rescind my previous implication that Trek isn't a bloated canon/fanon-mess.

[opie301]

The fundamental difference being six movies versus 5 tv shows and 10 (soon to be 11) movies as canon, "on screen" information.

Of course, the flip side is that Star Trek just has way more "on screen" contradictions as well.

One could talk shop about centuries of Star Trek lore and adventures without needing to crack open a book, let alone a roleplaying supplement.

But at the end of the day, a lot of the Star Trek lore that people discuss comes back to the supplemental publications like the technical manuals, the novels, the video games, and, yes, role playing modules to flesh out the universe that is portrayed on screen.

Though the two universes operate on different principles and types of stories, the canon hierarchy is quite similar. Spend some time doing research on Memory Alpha or Wookiepedia, and you'll see the similarities.

No matter how many stars we have on our bellies, we're all just Sneetches.

[batsofchaos]

Yeah, I definitely spoke with too much haste about Trek. My sphere of friends can discuss Trek without digging into the supplemental materials, but I'm sure that other groups out there do. Not really my cup of tea, but no judgement is being passed on those who are interested enough to go that extra mile digging in. After all, I know crap-tons about other series' garnered from supplements that casual fans, or even hardcore fans that haven't branched from the original source won't necessarily know.

I mean, how many people know the details about the original plan for Roy and Miko Miyazaki's aborted relationship in Order of the Stick?

[Valatan]

Chekov said that you shouldn't introduce a gun in the first act unless you intend to use it by the third act.

That is an oversimplification and misrepresentation of Chekhov's Gun. The point of that statement was a admonition that writers shouldn't include unnecessary plot points. Though the statement is that the gun/rifle should be fired by Act 3, the point is one of significance. Why introduce a plot element if it won't be significant later on down the road. The same is true of characters and set pieces.

In the case of RotJ, the bring up Leia's relationship to Luke early in the movie. That relationship has great significance later in the movie. Because there is another potential Jedi, Luke is comfortable facing Darth Vader, and, possibly, death. That relationship helps to clarify Leia's feelings for Luke, allowing her to pursue a romantic relationship with Han. That familial relationship to Luke ended up being a weakness and a tipping point for Luke during his final confrontation with Vader and the Emperor. Just because Leia didn't become a Jedi in the final act doesn't mean that the revelation wasn't significant to the plot.

In fact, if Leia had become a Jedi in the final act of the movie, that would have been an example of poor story-telling. I mean, Luke's journey to Jedi Knighthood spans three movies. That's all wasted if Leia does the same thing in a half an hour.

Following the events of RotJ, the EU proposes that Leia was too focused on her role as a statesman and politician, too caught up in the development of the new Republic, to pursue Jedi training until well after the Vong invasion. Leia believed that she could accomplish more, contribute more, as a political leader than as a Jedi Knight. It's a storytelling choice that fits with what we know of the character.

There's something to be said for this, but I still have a few criticisms of it:

1)If Luke dies, then there are literally no more Jedi anywhere in the universe to train Leia. Jedi knowledge would die with her, unless she can see the ghosts, which they sorta hint at at the end of Return of the Jedi.

2)Obviously making her Luke's sister was a very clever and insightful resolution to the love triangle subplot. If they did this, without making the huge emphasis that she has Jedi potentiality, I'd have been fine with it.

And some of it is that I just feel that the subsequent novelizations are authorized writers taking existing canon and builiding a universe beyond it, rather than a part of the intended narrative as it was presented. Return of the Jedi has a very much concluded feel to it when it ends, and I always find it bizarre that they left such a colossal loose end hanging.

[opie301]

Return of the Jedi has a very much concluded feel to it when it ends, and I always find it bizarre that they left such a colossal loose end hanging.

That may be, but what are you going to do with it? You can't really make her a Jedi, there isn't a satisfying way to do it in the half a movie you have left at this point. Maybe this is just an issue of expectation, but I know that I never expected Leia to be turned into a bad-ass Jedi Knight by the end of the movie. Certainly, beyond the movie's finale I always envisioned Leia taking the time to develop her Jedi skills, but that's not the point here.

In fact, I've always felt that the realization that Leia shared Luke's strength in the force was foreshadowed in Empire. So that recognition, closes the circle on the inexplicable moments of... extra-perception that she and Luke share.

[Valatan]

Return of the Jedi has a very much concluded feel to it when it ends, and I always find it bizarre that they left such a colossal loose end hanging.

That may be, but what are you going to do with it? You can't really make her a Jedi, there isn't a satisfying way to do it in the half a movie you have left at this point. Maybe this is just an issue of expectation, but I know that I never expected Leia to be turned into a bad-ass Jedi Knight by the end of the movie. Certainly, beyond the movie's finale I always envisioned Leia taking the time to develop her Jedi skills, but that's not the point here.

In fact, I've always felt that the realization that Leia shared Luke's strength in the force was foreshadowed in Empire. So that recognition, closes the circle on the inexplicable moments of... extra-perception that she and Luke share.

I'd just have removed the plot point entirely. Or, stretch out the story for another movie, do it as a montage/time lapse sort of thing while the empire engages in galactic wide war and closes on the rebels (which would probably be horrible, so maybe not), or even just get her to the point that she can see Obi-Wan's ghost, go into hiding and begin her training as he goes off to the Death Star to fight Darth. As the story unfolds, though, it just seems like what he does is every bit as reckless, and perhaps more reckless, as what he did in the Empire Strikes Back.

Regardless, I think my point, which I now realized I failed to conclude earlier, is that even the original three movies are far from perfect. There are loose plot lines, inconsistencies, and horrible lines. Not to the exetent, perhaps, that we've seen in the original trilogy, and now, in the Clone Wars, but the amazing technical advances Lucas was able to make in the 70s were very well able to paper over weaknesses in the original trilogy, while today, CGI has become trite, and Pixar has made 98% of animation look like crap. And while there were solid plot lines and (thanks to an absolutely stellar cast) great performances in the first three, I doubt they would have worked even a fraction as well as they did without that 'wow' factor that they had in the 70s. And now we are left with Lucas's dialogue, and feeling betrayed.

I just don't think he's changed as much as people claim he has. I think the world today is just immune to a lot of his tricks.

[batsofchaos]

I'm curious to hear your opinion on other stories that leave threads hanging, or completely unexplored. Especially ones that are much bigger than Leia's potential to become a Jedi. It's certainly not uncommon in media for important features to be left unexplored by the time of the story's conclusion, if for only the reason that it was not important enough to the A-plotline to be explored. I mean, Jabba gets killed in the main movie trilogy, which had to have caused a huge power vacuum on Tatooine. That never got explored in the movies. Considering how prevalent Jabba and the other Hutt's have been in the original trilogy, the newer trilogy, and this new animate movie, it's a large thread to leave hanging.

[Valatan]

I'm curious to hear your opinion on other stories that leave threads hanging, or completely unexplored. Especially ones that are much bigger than Leia's potential to become a Jedi. It's certainly not uncommon in media for important features to be left unexplored by the time of the story's conclusion, if for only the reason that it was not important enough to the A-plotline to be explored. I mean, Jabba gets killed in the main movie trilogy, which had to have caused a huge power vacuum on Tatooine. That never got explored in the movies. Considering how prevalent Jabba and the other Hutt's have been in the original trilogy, the newer trilogy, and this new animate movie, it's a large thread to leave hanging.

It annoys me with a lot of movies, certainly. But this particular problem with the Hutts is more the Phantom Menace trilogy going back and completely screwing up the continuity of everything--for example, if seven year old Anikin is too young to learn to become a Jedi, then isn't Luke, like, absurdly too old to learn to become a Jedi? I realize that he's known Obi-Wan most of his life, but there is a distinct point where something labled as 'his training' begins. There are all sorts of things like this that get messed up by the second trilogy.

Also, the Hutt political system isn't made to be a central plot point on which the fate of the universe hinges, especially before the release of the Phantom Menace. Tatooine is an irrelevant backwater where it was easy to hide Luke and Obi-Wan from the empire. It's totally different than the fate of one of the central heroines of the story and her role as a failsafe for Luke, should he fail.

[opie301]

I don't think anyone here will argue that the original trilogy is without its flaws.

As far as the apparent change in Lucas' quality from the Originals to the Prequel, I think a lot of people will point out the greater collaboration that Lucas used during the original trilogy. In the prequels, there wasn't anyone around to really tell George, "no." At least, that is what some people will say. Other folks have different opinions.

[mlsterben]

In the prequels, there wasn't anyone around to really tell George, "no."

I think the biggest example of this is the inclusion of Jar Jar Binks and pod racing... *shudder* If Phantom Menace at least didn't have Jar Jar, I might have liked it more than I did.

[Valatan]

In the prequels, there wasn't anyone around to really tell George, "no."

I think the biggest example of this is the inclusion of Jar Jar Binks and pod racing... *shudder* If Phantom Menace at least didn't have Jar Jar, I might have liked it more than I did.

People make this argument, but the original trilogy has annoying stuff direct at kids that is pretty grating to adults. C-3PO and R2-D2 and the Ewoks leap to mind on my first thought.

[Tom Brazelton]

...if seven year old Anikin is too young to learn to become a Jedi, then isn't Luke, like, absurdly too old to learn to become a Jedi?

I believe Yoda makes reference to Luke being too old to begin training in Empire.

But, y'know, when the Jedi have all but been wiped out completely, beggars can't be choosers.

[joerules]

You could argue that his powers were so strong that it's never too late to begin training. Same with Lea down the line.