LogFAQs > #946243046

Not Showing Luke's Reaction to Han's Death
Eh, I'm okay with it. We know that Luke is going to be upset by it, but actually showing that upsetness would undermine Luke's refusal to interact with the galaxy. It's awkward, but it has an actual purpose.

Garik Loran
Again, this is the kind of cool thing the EU specializes in: making complicated, fleshed-out characters you've never heard of. "Movie star turns Rebel turns spy" is a weird concept, so I'm okay with this guy.

Vader's Helmet
The face of evil: a robot Samurai thing with a breathing problem. It's funny how something thrown together in the mid-70s by some guy can be so famous and genre-defining. It's even used as a storytelling device: Luke taking Vader's helmet off symbolizes Vader's death and Anakin's return.

Boba Fett's Helmet
The important part about Boba Fett's helmet is that it has scuff marks everywhere and the paint is damaged. Darth Vader is part of a giant empire and can afford to have shiny equipment, but Boba Fett is a scum-of-the-galaxy bounty hunter, so he doesn't have the time to fix that kind of thing. Very good attention to detail, I appreciate that.

Kylo Ren's Helmet
Kylo Ren as a concept is one of TFA's few good original ideas. How do you make a Darth Vader clone? You have him be a literal fanboy with impulse control problems. The helmet itself even looks like a low-rent Vader clone from a knockoff movie.

I appreciate how Kylo's helmet is unintentionally made into a symbolic storytelling device. Rian Johnson's entire movie is about killing the past, so Kylo destroys his helmet and that's that. But then Abrams returns and has Kylo fix his helmet, and that ends up symbolizing him undoing everything Johnson tried to do. It's so blunt and obvious that I'm not even sure that I'm reading too much into things, and that Abrams might have legitimately known what he was doing.

70s Computers
What started as a necessity of the time turned into an intentional thing. This is as opposed to Star Trek, which updated its concept of computers over the decades (sort of to its detriment when you get to DIS), and puts Wars more in line with the Alien franchise. I would say that Alien is another franchise where the science aspect is really just in service to something else, so it doesn't matter like it does in Trek -- except where Wars' science is in service to mystical fantasy nonsense, Alien's science is in service to horror and truly terrible Paradise Lost analogies. I can't believe how bad those Alien prequels are.

What's the least ruined big 70s/80s sci-fi franchise? It has to be Back to the Future, right?

Star Wars, Minus the Movies with Prime Numbers
Oh, uh, so subtracting 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7? That leaves us with ANH, RotJ, TLJ, and TRoS. Yeesh. I mean, there are movie franchises that have done worse.

ANH is fantastic, of course, and RotJ is pretty okay. TLJ, though, I'm imagining someone making a third movie in a franchise that tries to subvert everything the first two did. I don't think TLJ works as well as it does (not that it works especially well) unless Star Wars is already this huge cultural phenomenon with a guaranteed place in pop culture history, so I don't think TLJ is capable of being 'only' the third movie. TRoS being the fourth, though, would be an indication that the Star Wars universe just has no new ideas left, which, hey, is probably the case anyway.

Build Your Own Lightsaber Toys
Honestly, lightsabers have reached a point where they're no longer, like, an iconic piece of movie history. They're more like just an image people have and can do whatever they want with. I'm struggling to think of an analogy here, but my point is basically just that lightsabers aren't special anymore, so you can make an extremely dumb triple-lightsaber toy.

Lightsaber Whip
I hate it. I hated it when the Ferengi did it, and I hate it when Star Wars does it. The more types of lightsabers you introduce, the less special they are. This goes back to the Build Your Own Lightsaber Toys, but basically, all you need is the standard lightsaber and maaaaybe the double-bladed one. It also doesn't help that where swords are actual weapons and are associated with combat and nobility, etc, whips aren't weapons? They're tools that hurt when you get hit by them. It's like making a lightsaber wrench.

Star Wars Music
Does Star Wars have the best overall music of any film franchise? I think it might. It certainly kicks the crap out of Star Trek (sorry, Trek). They knew exactly where and how to use whimsy, fantasy, ominousness, adventure, and tragedy. I can't think of a single misfire.

AT-STs
Oh, these things. Not quite as fun as the AT-ATs, AT-STs are the woodland equivalent. The fact that AT-ATs need Rebel fighters to defeat, but AT-STs can be defeated by ewoks, really takes away from their scariness. It's also kind of more inherently comical when their legs are long and spindly and clearly could not hold up their heads, whereas the AT-AT legs are at least big and strong-looking.

I do like that episode of the Mandalorian where they're ****ing their pants at the idea of fighting one, and have to come up with a plan specifically to defeat it.

Ass Pull Page (TVTropes)
Eh, not my style. I like complaining about thematic things falling apart than strict story logic. I also like talking about story logic and plot holes, but this is a little too much for me. Like, I don't care that Rey can fly the Falcon without training, that's whatever. Some of these things aren't even ass pulls, they're more like just bad writing.

Starkiller Base
You can justify a lot of TFA's rehashes with "well, it's the Force." Not this one. I won't talk about how illogical it is that the First Order can build this thing. Instead, I'll talk about how the characters in the movie itself, or at least Han Solo, comment upon how this has been done before. I almost kind of like Han just being like "Fine, where's the weak point, where do I shoot, just get to the point."

I appreciate that we need a location for the third act, but come on.


---

Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005