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Post by Horsie on Jul 2, 2017 14:57:42 GMT
Yet during most of the prequel films the most powerful Jedi can't sense that they're in close proximity to a Sith lord.
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Post by StyxD on Jul 2, 2017 15:21:59 GMT
@ Vader turning to Light Side
I think you're committing a fan's original sin and thinking about it more than the writer did.
Vader turned to Light Side despite apparently violating Jedi teachings is because he did something most of the audience would deem good. So he's good now. It's probably that simple.
@ Jedi leading troops and not using blasters
Remember that Jedi are knights. Since Jedi is the state religion of the Republic, they are probably guaranteed some commanding stations, like bishops in Middle Ages. Whether they actually know anything about leading an army is another thing.
As for blasters, maybe it's traditional for Jedi to use only lightsabres. And you can't argue with tradition.
Also, how many times does Darth Maul die in the same way in all the spinoffs?
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Post by Horsie on Jul 2, 2017 16:07:12 GMT
Yeah, tradition, I think it's a theme of Jedi tradition causing most of their problems.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 2, 2017 18:12:27 GMT
Jedi are pro slavery. The old republic was only good from their point of view because they were in charge of it. It was shitty for everyone else having to live under their brutal regime.
Remember, if you try to leave the republic they will send armies of their slave soldiers to force you to rejoin.
Note they couldn't get a volunteer army. Literally no one would volunteer to defend their shitty society except the Jedi (who have all the power), so they have to make soldiers to force people to comply in factories. they didn't even consider conscription, probably because they couldn't trust planets not to want to defect as soon as they were given weapons.
Say what you want about the Empire, but at least it seems like you could find people willing to defend it outside of a creepy religious cult.
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Post by TempestFennac on Jul 2, 2017 18:27:27 GMT
That's a really good point, Hark. This really makes the Jedi look worse when you think about it (it's kind of a shame that there wasn't more about the alleged corruption which had infected the Senate in the movies but the fact that space merchants who had caused a major incident a decade before were able to convince a lot of people to leave the Republic suggests it had major issues).
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 2, 2017 18:47:01 GMT
I would have made the old republic a nice place. You get the impression it isn't meant to be that bad in the prequals, like we aren't meant to want it to be destroyed, they are just badly written movies so the old republic seems like a shit hole.
I would have made the old republic peaceful adn enlightened. The jedi would be in temples giving out wisdom and sage advice and adjudicating disputes. They have swords because its a more civilised age, where people settle things with honourable duels, not mass battles.
The some threat comes along, I guess evil clones invading because its meant to be a clone war and you dont name a war after your old soldiers. The jedi are brave but they arent up to fighting thousands and thousands of these evil clones, so some people in the senate start pushing for the Republic to militarise and start making a volunteer army. It isn't long before the militant branch gets stronger and they start drafting people. The peaceful, spiritual society is swept asside in favour of militancy, obedience and industry. A storm trooper is not as good as a jedi, but you can deploy a thousand storm troopers for every jedi.
This would fit the tone that the Imperial officers scoff at the "ancient religion". Yeah Jedi know a few tricks, but so what? Their magic isn't as good as a star destroyer or a legion of troops. A jedi can block a blaster shot, but he can't block a dozen! From a military point of view, jedi and force magic is obsolete.
This is a new kind of industrial war, where people are an expendable resource, their faces covered in white helmets, ironically becoming like the interchangeable clones they are fighting.
In the end the Republic starts to win, and there are calls to take the war to the cloners home worlds, to end them forever. The Jedi are against this (the force is for defence, not aggression) so they have be eliminated. Vader betrays them, and they are destoryed. The Republic is now an Empire, taking territory and dominating it by force. The cloners are brutally exterminated, with the Empire becoming as evil as the forces fighting the war to oppose.
The Death Star will serve as the ultimate expression of this new order, a society built on industry and force, where ideas of spirituality and peace are seen as weakness to be trampled under storm troopers boots.
Since Star Wars is WW2 in space, the prequal should be world war 1 in space. Not a heroic struggle, but a cruel tragedy, where the idea of honourable warriors and chivalry is destroyed by the gears of uncaring industry.
Or...y'know...they could have racist cartoon aliens with exaggerated Japanese voices who build goofy robots trying to leave the republic because its shitty.
I'm sure that would be good too.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 2, 2017 20:57:09 GMT
Yeah, the clones pretty much were slave soldiers programmed to fight from "birth" and the Jedi didn't really complain all that much about it, since it seemed necessary. A very good point. Funny the Guardians of Peace and Justice didn't really notice/care that much.
In fairness to the Jedi, though, it wasn't their idea to begin with and the Senate was fine with it and they are servants of the state... in theory. Also, the Separatists were forcing other planets to leave by force, invasion, and slavery. So it isn't like the Seppies were only victims who just wanted to peacefully leave. Of course, this is because Darth Sidious was pulling all the strings.
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Post by Horsie on Jul 2, 2017 23:01:36 GMT
I was watching some stuff about the prequels, and it's kind of amazing how some of the Jedi will notice disturbances in the force, or can sense when something is going on in general, or when a bad guy is around or whatnot, but even the most powerful Jedi, members of that council, don't notice anything untoward when they're in discussions with an honest to God Sith lord.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 2, 2017 23:18:24 GMT
That got handwaved away with a "the force is being clouded". Probably by Palpatine himself.
Though I'm pretty sure they at one point said the Dark Side surrounds the chancellor.
And even if the force was clouded... fucking hell, use your brain. Deductive logic isn't so hard.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 2, 2017 23:54:31 GMT
That beomes like the cover all answer "the dark side clouds it". I mean if palpatine can do that, why does he need all the plans? He can just mind control everyone some how to make them do stupid shit.
Okay here is a question...will Last Jedi be any good?
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Post by Horsie on Jul 3, 2017 0:02:06 GMT
He clearly wasn't exactly a great thinker to begin with, I could be wrong, but it seems like a lot of his plan in the prequels required relying on luck and coincidence to move things along the way he wanted.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 3, 2017 0:04:23 GMT
Will it be good?
Maybe, if they make the point that the Prequel Jedi were stupid. It looks like they're going in that general direction. So maybe. I dunno.
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Post by TempestFennac on Jul 3, 2017 4:44:42 GMT
I'd forgotten about the Separatists doing stuff like that. Based on how many people were in the Galactic Senate, I just assumed it was a bureaucratic nightmare which could never work practically. Hark, your idea for the prequels would have probably worked better.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 3, 2017 8:51:39 GMT
I saw Wonder Woman. Erm. SPOILERS, obviously.
It was alright. Good even. But as good as some people have said? No.
First off, Ze Germans are the bad guys again. Now, part of the problem is that in WW1 the Germans were the enemies of the allies, but they were much more justified than they were in WW2. But the real villain, Ares, is believed by Wonder Woman to be controlling Ze Germans into doing evil things because she's totally naive. That's her thing in this, a coming of age story basically, where she learns that the world is not black and white and that Superman kinda stuff.
Thing is, it is revealed that Ares, while real and the actual villain, doesn't actually mind control people. Just kinda... suggest things to them. Meaning all the evil shit the Germans do in the movie is... well, just what ze Germans do. This is basically one of my problems with Inglorious Basterds. So what do ze Germans do?
Ludendorf (an actual historical person), shoots one of his own men because... evil. I guess it was kinda Vadery but... what? I guess they did it to make you think Ludendorf is actually Ares but... he isn't. Oh, Ludendorf also tests weapons and gas on prisoners of war. Hmm. Stereotypical villain. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! He also murders the entire German Military High Command, including General Von Hindenburg (also an actual historical person, I guess this means WW2 didn't happen the same way in DCville, if at all). Maybe Wonder Woman also kills Rommel and Adolf Hitler. But nevermind that. The fact is there is no way Ludendorf could get away with any of that shit. Especially in the German army, he committed high treason!
But it isn't just Ludendorf. No, all Ze Germans host a gala to demonstrate the new gas weapon (after Ludendorf murdered the High Command no less), which they then fire at a village that Wonder Woman had rescued, killing all the Belgians there... or at least most of them. Innocent civilians. So Ze Germans are fine with all that... however... that was more WW2, not WW1.
This is like if, say, the Germans believed Tolkien had written LOTRs as an allegory for WW1 and 2 with Germans being Orcs. They wouldn't like it. Except in this case, they're actually Germans. Historical, actual, people.
And we don't really know why Ludendorf is so bad. What are his motives? We get one little aside about how war elevates man beyond his normal self. But that is all.
Then there is Dr. Poison, the gas developer. She's... uh. Evil.
And Ares himself. So he isn't the God of War. He's the God of Truth (in his own words), he figured that humanity was just terrible and needing to be wiped out, so he instigated them into murdering each other. He killed the other gods one by one and was defeated by Zeus who then died (he's Wonder Woman's dad though, but this all happened ages ago, so... how long does this all take? I'm not sure about the timeline). So he wants to murder humanity because they're not good enough, despite being created by Zeus (yes, created by Zeus). He's at best Ronan the Accuser level.
He ends up being a British Dude secretly the whole time... which is... actually good. It was kinda clever, though Ludendorf being the proxy for him but not really him... that was not a surprise.
Finally regarding the villains... Wonder Woman thinks that Ludendorf is Ares and straight up murders him. He gets a powerup to fight back against her, but is disarmed and helpless when she sticks her sword right through him. Not saying he didn't deserve it, because he was cartoonishly evil, but don't fool yourself into thinking that Wonder Woman has compunctions about murdering people. Man of Steel's Superman was more troubled about the prospect of murdering Zod.
Secondly, the fights. They're alright. But they treat you like an infant. Slo mo everywhere. I'm getting sick of this. There is one fight early on where the Amazons take on a German landing party... and its actually not bad. Turns out guns are good. Some fights do have an emotional impact. So the battles are eh, a wash. Some good bits and some bad bits. Also, lots of things are dark and the final battle is a CGI snoozefest.
Thirdly, Wonder Woman, Steven Trevor, and the merry men (as I call them) are what carry the movie. They're good. There is connection between all of them and they've got charisma. I cared about them, for the most part.
I liked it better than most superhero movies so far, better than the DC ones I've seen. Its kinda about Iron Man 1 level. Not as good as the Avengers, but better than Ultron, Winter Soldier, and Civil War (though in Truth I was... unimpressed by those three). Not as good as either Guardians of the Galaxy films, but then again, the second one might be my new favourite movie in the whole action genre.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 5, 2017 16:02:58 GMT
Your thoughts pretty much confirm what I had heard/suspected about it.
It's good, but its not some mind blowing land mark of cinema.
And the thing of having the German army be treated as the fores of darkness is really dumb.
I don't really like the idea that Wonder Woman says she wants to end the war, but her plan to end it involves helping one side (the one she met first that has a hunky guy) win the war. By that logic all armies in war want peace...the peace that will be achieved when they win.
If a german spy had landed on her island, and told her about this big war, and then a load of American troops with guns had unloaded on the island to come get him...Wonder Woman would have been fighting for the Central Powers.
And acting like the german army was super horrible for wanting to use gas...cause the allies never threw that shit around in ww1, right?
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