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Canon-Strike III: Star Wars

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    A timely addition to the thread - Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group has tweeted:




    So in a sense Star Wars only has a vague canon of event beats and moments can be retold without consistency as they're effectively unreliable narratives of the retellings of each tale based on the franchise having a mythology rather than a true narrative canon.

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      Hmmm... really though? Even that is giving it too much importance, like it’s some religious tome or something. They’re just movies. Toys. Books. Comics. And so on. They aren’t a telling of some core mythology, something ancient or important.

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        Originally posted by Neon Ignition View Post
        A timely addition to the thread - Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group has tweeted:




        So in a sense Star Wars only has a vague canon of event beats and moments can be retold without consistency as they're effectively unreliable narratives of the retellings of each tale based on the franchise having a mythology rather than a true narrative canon.
        I call bull****. We have never seen anyone 'unreliably narrate' these films. There is no over arching dungeon master telling the story. And if its not in the film, its not happening.
        What we do know is that, particularly for the sequels, they follow the events that happened in the original trilogy. That, I'm afraid, is how 'canon' works.

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          Oh lord that is ridiculous

          It doesn’t make a whole lotta sense not because it’s some mystical religious text where the meaning is more important than the who what where - it’s a film franchise that was made up as it went along by different people with different priorities. Which is fine.

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            Movie 08 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
            Aka the Ewok one. The weight of responsibility on this third entry was massive, to take the excitement and hype of two hugely successful and praised predecessors and attempt to deliver a fitting conclusion to an audience who not only had massive expectations but would be doubly opinionated because they knew they were going to be denied any future installments also (or so they thought). With Han trapped in Carbonite, Luke injured and the Empire still in a winning position the stakes were set.




            A long, long time ago in cinemas not so far away the Star Wars movie franchise came to its conclusion. Was Jedi a fitting end to the trilogy arc and in light of the prequels and then the sequels does it still make sense within the canon?

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              Originally posted by wakka View Post
              Oh lord that is ridiculous
              Yeah, it's definitely a way to post-rationalise issues.

              Now, Star Wars isn't entirely without precedent for this. The original stories were written as "entries from the journals of the whills" or something like that; this is the origin of "a long time ago..." in the opening. They were considered a legendary re-telling of a story, vaguely similar to Tolkien with Lord of the Rings, how that was meant to be a lost "mythic history", like if you wrote a fictional legendarium.

              But the final movies don't really carry this. I think most viewers, if they start really ****ing around with the canon and say "oh it's okay, none of what you've seen was ever strictly 'canon', it's fine"... I'd be interested to see how audiences take to that.

              Films have done this in the past. For instance, the movie of Macross is a remake of the series, and that movie is rationalised into canon as an in-world piece of media, i.e. it's the movie made within the world of Macross about the events of the series, many years after they take place. Actually in the movie of Gundam 00, they play with this by having the characters go to the movies and watch the film made about the events of the series, which are enormously embellished to a comical degree. Avatar The Last Airbender has a fantastic episode which does basically the same thing, where the characters go watch a stage play.

              What's curious about this is that Disney own Marvel/the MCU, and comic books are notorious for this. Like fans long ago accepted that comics are a collective work by different people, and every book is just an interpretation. I still suspect they're gearing up for something similar in the MCU with the multiverse stuff.

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                I've always viewed Jedi as the weakest of the OT trilogy like others but it never seems to get the pulling apart it deserves either. It's got some good moments and sequences but the Ewoks ultimately do weaken the film and its tone and the end of the film is always unsatisfying. Lots has been debated about the choice to reveal Vader at the end but more so than that it's always bugged me that (and this ties to Last Jedi too) fans often see Luke as being on an arc from whiny kid to badass Jedi and and reality if he never gets there. In a way Last Jedi read this film right, part of why the ending is unsatisfying is that after an entire trilogy of films Luke ultimately faces his ultimate test and fails. It's Vader's timely change of heart that saves the day, not Luke who effectively cry babies his way through another encounter.

                If you ignore the sequel trilogy it probably ties better to the prequels prophecies about Vader but generally Luke's legacy is that of failure which would be a brave move for the films were there any belief it was intentional.

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                  Yeah, for me it is easily the weakest of the originals and by quite a large margin. I find the opening kind of dull - Luke's rescue plan is terrible and it's basically just a big long sequence of arrivals until it eventually kicks off. What was wonderful about Yoda kind of gets pushed a bit far in Jabba's Palace for me with all the Muppets and, if you want to see the groundwork laid for Jar-Jar, look no further. For some reason the blue screen work is worse and very obvious throughout this movie too, which we see with the sail barges especially early on and then later with the speeders. Then getting into the next section, the Ewoks stuff, though cute, is so far from a big finish the trilogy felt like it was leading to. And the thing about Leia being Luke's sister? That was terrible. It's really stupid.

                  But the Luke/Vader/Emperor stuff is brilliant and, for me, kind of justifies the whole movie. But honestly, without that I'd be calling Return of the Jedi a stinker.

                  And yes, I agree that The Last Jedi is a perfect reading of Luke's character. Luke is arrogant throughout most of this movie and it bites him in the ass every time. He finally lets go of that but his lesson is essentially not to fight - it's to give in to defeat. Which as you say, without Vader's change of heart, would just have resulted in the Emperor going on to do all the things he wanted to do. Oh and related - the idea of Vader's redemption is ridiculous. He was a murderer all the way through those films and his one act of good was just to murder someone else. There is no redemption there. It's clunky storytelling.

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                    I love Jedi. **** it, I even love the Ewoks.

                    And I totally accept that it's childhood nostalgia talking.

                    When I watch it, I'm suddenly 7 years old again, sitting on the sofa with my dad.

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                      Yeah, definitely the weakest film, although the Luke and Vader stuff is incredibly badass. There are some cool sequences and I do like the Ewoks, but they dominate to a ridiculous extent. Also the idea that the whole Death Star is protected by one shield generator which is taken down by them kind of undermines thIs horrific all powerful space reich and instead, right at the moment of triumph over them, makes them look pretty ridiculous.

                      I do like the lightsaber stuff in this one a lot but overall it’s not a great film at all. Very much standing on the shoulders of the first two.

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                        It's definitely a mess. The worst part is C3PO being treated like a god.
                        I assume it didn't go through enough rewrites. Ford didn't want to be in it, but he was written back in. You can tell he's just going through the motions.
                        I like all the Luke stuff though.

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                          Movie 09 - Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
                          The first film of the new era brought with it the weight of responsibility of tapping into another new generation of viewers, pleasing fans and not repeating the issues that had plagued the prequels. The result is a love letter than borders on a retread of the first film that EpVI had already, itself, been very close to as well. None the less the film was a massive hit and brought in new characters alongside modern visuals that sat more naturally alongside the style of the original trilogy than we'd seen in Lucas's personal efforts of the 90's.




                          Did Force Awakens successfully add anything of worth to the arc of the franchise coming off where the story lies following the destruction of the second Death Star in Jedi or is the film a disappointment?
                          Last edited by Neon Ignition; 24-05-2021, 07:21.

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                            I love The Force Awakens. It's far too heavy on the references and, yes, large chunks follow very similar ideas to previous films and it leans heavily on the old designs too. But given it was a new Star Wars film and with all the weight that comes with that and especially following the prequels, I thought it was great. It has a real sense of fun and adventure. The characters are engaging and, again, look like they're having fun. It all feels very alive, by total contrast to the wooden prequels. And the practical effects and sets and puppets are absolutely wonderful. Abrams deserves huge credit for what he brought back to Star Wars. And if that comes at the cost of ending up a bit too close to the originals, so be it.

                            Like most of Abrams' work, it is riddled with conveniences and threads left dangling but, with this movie, I think it's mostly strong enough to take us through it in spite of those. I never thought we'd get another good Star Wars movie so enjoying this was a real treat and I do remember being amazed how quickly I was invested in Rey, Finn, Poe and BB-8. If anything, I could have taken more of the new and less of the old. Unlike some, I never needed a movie that was about the original heroes as old people.

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                              Originally posted by Dogg Thang View Post
                              I love The Force Awakens. It's far too heavy on the references and, yes, large chunks follow very similar ideas to previous films and it leans heavily on the old designs too. But given it was a new Star Wars film and with all the weight that comes with that and especially following the prequels, I thought it was great. It has a real sense of fun and adventure. The characters are engaging and, again, look like they're having fun. It all feels very alive, by total contrast to the wooden prequels. And the practical effects and sets and puppets are absolutely wonderful. Abrams deserves huge credit for what he brought back to Star Wars. And if that comes at the cost of ending up a bit too close to the originals, so be it.

                              Like most of Abrams' work, it is riddled with conveniences and threads left dangling but, with this movie, I think it's mostly strong enough to take us through it in spite of those. I never thought we'd get another good Star Wars movie so enjoying this was a real treat and I do remember being amazed how quickly I was invested in Rey, Finn, Poe and BB-8. If anything, I could have taken more of the new and less of the old. Unlike some, I never needed a movie that was about the original heroes as old people.
                              Definitely my favourite of the new trilogy.

                              Comment


                                If you told me to sit down and watch a Star Wars film this would be the one I'd pick. I think the main thing it picks up on canonically is how daft the ending of Ep6 is. Whilst the death of the Emperor would have been a massive moment it wouldn't have made the Empire vanish so Ep7's First Order pick up makes sense. Whilst all sorts can be picked at this first film is knowingly the first in a trilogy so it's easy to overlook hanging plot threads too and given the year even a lot of the similarities to the old stuff. It's a film, arguably the only non-OT film, that works because it truly understands what the original trilogy films were - adventure films. They were simple adventure tales that had a sci-fi image draped over them. They're effectively old school swashbuckling sword fighting movies and Force Awakens keeps things light and stripped down to giving you a faithful adventure with good humour and solid action. Yes it's too similar to New Hope but whilst Ep4 is superior in many aspects Force Awakens is an easier watch. It was the perfect jumping point for modern era Star Wars.

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