Revenge of the Sith Easter Eggs

Ant writes "Via TheForce.Net, a StarWars.com article with a great list of Easter Eggs from the third prequel movie, Revenge of the Sith. There were many cameos and hidden images." From the article: " It's tiny, but visible enough to send a warm fuzzy through the hearts of original trilogy fans. In the establishing shot of the expansive Senate docking bays, there's a tiny Millennium Falcon easing into frame. And it's not just a non-descript Corellian freighter; it's on good authority -- namely George Lucas -- that this is the infamous hunk-of-junk before it came into the ownership of either Lando Calrissian or Han Solo."

Comments

huh?

[TheKidWho]

Who you calling a hunk o junk, that baby can do the kessel run in 12 parsecs!

Re:huh?

[sveiki_neliels]

You know, I've never really understood that line... I thought a parsec was a distance. ~3.26 l.y. specifically. Wouldn't you measure the speed of a ship by the time it takes to go a set distance?

Re:huh?

[croddy]

the kessel run, allegedly, was a test of maneuverability -- not of speed. a ship that could navigate a shorter route through a mess of spatial anomalies, asteroids, black holes, etc., was an admirable ship.

Re:huh?

[EvanED]

It is. There are sort of two schools of thought about Han meant.

Croddy gives one explanation (the maneuverability test).

The other is that Han was just boasting nonsense deliberately to try to impress Luke and Obi-Wan to see if they were suckers. Had they been impressed, had would have charged them more.

Re:huh?

[NanoGator]

"the kessel run, allegedly, was a test of maneuverability -- not of speed. a ship that could navigate a shorter route through a mess of spatial anomalies, asteroids, black holes, etc., was an admirable ship."

The author who wrote that bit into his book was trying to cover for George's mistake.

Re:huh?

[nacturation]

No doubt that was an after-the-fact explanation of why the script was wrong. In context, Kenobi asks if it's a fast ship, to which Han replies asking if he's never heard of the Millenium Falcon... and then gives the Kessel run quote followed by "She's fast enough for you, old man."

So we have two scenarios... George Lucas, who isn't an astrophysicist, writes a script with what he thinks are correct terms but they turn out to be incorrect and everybody agrees that not all movies are perfect. Or, Star Wars is *never* wrong, man... must... find... alternate explanation! Han, uh... *knew* that the info was wrong and did it to test them or something. Or maybe when talking about fast ships, you give an example about maneuverability, something which a space barge going in a straight line and plowing the asteroids out of the way could have bested.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest.

Re:huh?

[Fortyseven]

If you REALLY wanted to spread the BS a little more... we could take the "test of maneuverability" explanation as fact and say that Han was purposely trying to do a verbal slight of hand of sorts... Perhaps the Falcon isn't as fast as he'd like his potential passengers to believe, and he was trying to confuse, hoping they wouldn't know what a parsec really is. Lie to make a quick cred? Sure, why not.

Bless you Star Trek for giving the fans the ability to bullshit their way out of even the worst writing. ;D

Re:huh?

[Chess_the_cat]

There is an alternative explanation I'm willing to accept: Han doesn't know wtf he's talking about but likes to sound like he does. In fact, if you gauge Obi Wan's reaction to that line--a glance and a raised eyebrow to Luke--it seems feasible that this is the correct explanation.

Re:huh?

[hazem]

Remember, Ben had already been talking with Chewie, so he would have known (surely through his homework of communing with Kwi Gon, or the history with Yoda), that Chewie was okay.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Norway we measure the speeds of cars in kilometers per hour. When asked about a speed we usually say just "100 kilometers", not "100 kilometers per hour"

Re:huh?

[toph42]

From StarWars.com databank:
The term Kessel Run came to encompass a number of smuggler methods designed to separate spice cargoes from licensed Imperial shippers. One particular method saw the quick distribution of spice along a slowly moving train of cargo freighters, while another approach was just a pure contest of raw speed that skirted dangerously close to the black holes of the Maw Cluster. A smuggler that managed to shave off a sizable portion of the 18-parsec Kessel Run had bragging rights indeed.

More Money!

[carterhawk001]

Phase1: Relase Movie
Phase2: Profit
Phase3: Release Easter Egg List
Phase4: More Profit!!

Too late

[biryokumaru]

I wish they'd told me that before I'd seen the movie three times...

Re:Too late

[NanoGator]

"I wish they'd told me that before I'd seen the movie three times..."

It's not their fault you missed em all three times!

What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[nurhussein]

(Warning : spoilers)

He went straight into "evil mode" right after Palpatine gives him the Darth Vader title. It's like there's a "good/evil" toggle switch he pushed (maybe that's what the buttons on Darth Vader's suit is) to turn him evil. No conflicted feelings. Nothing. He could have at least said "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do" to the younglings. Anakin wasn't evil enough yet to slaughter children. He should have been obeying his new master's orders but hating them, and hating himself too... it would have been much much more tragic that way.

In the end, Obi-Wan should have tried to bring him back to the good side much the way Luke did ("Obi-Wan once thought as you do"). The fight would have been much more personal then. They should be not wanting to fight each other, but both are compelled to... that would have made awesome drama. But no....

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[sg3000]

>> He should have been obeying his new master's orders but
>> hating them, and hating himself too

> Did you notice the tear running down his check after he killed
> the separatist leaders? I think he was hating himself.

That's exactly what I saw. He had tears running down his face after he killed the younglings and after he killed the Separatist leaders. Note that before he decided to interfere with Mace Windu confronting Sideous, he brooded in the Jedi Temple for what looked like hours.

He was doing what he had to do to become powerful enough to learn how to keep Padme from dying. He probably thought he would then kill Darth Sideous, and make himself Emperor (since eliminating the Senate would make things more efficient to ensure stability for the galaxy)

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[Paralizer]

Remember "the force is a powerful influence on weak minds"? By that point in the movie, Anakin had already killed Jacksons character after being tricked by Palpatine. He was crying help, Anakin stepped in and Palpatine quickly got up and killed Jackson. Anakin was probably stunned, and with the combination of killing a Jedi and his previous admitted "being lost", Palpatine moved in and pretty much took him over. Anakin never really had a chance, he was weakened by his hate (as Yoda said in one of the eariler movies), and Palpatine just picked him up and put him in his pocket.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[ankhank]

You're seeing the problems with the Force 1.0 universe -- it's a binary, two-bit universe. Everything's black and white, morally speaking.

Universe 2.0 is 8-bit and has grayscale morality.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[sg3000]

> Luke never met his father until he discovered the truth and he
> still tried to bring him to the good side of the force. Obi-Wan
> trained Anakin from the start, created a strong bond between
> both and he just gives up on him.

It's not a flaw. That's the whole point of the movie. Lucas talks about the duality of nature and the circular nature of violence. In each character, there is good and evil. More specifically, evil exists in good and good exists in evil. At the same time, violence begets violence, so the only way to end the cycle of violence is to refuse to fight. The only character who knows this as true is Luke Skywalker.

Obi-Wan tells Yoda he can't kill Anakin even after what Anakin had done (killed Younglings and aligned himself with Darth Sideous). Yoda tells him that Anakin is dead ("consumed by Darth Vader"). Obi-Wan accepts that reluctantly, and he confronts him. Obi-Wan tries to bring Anakin back, but he is too quick to use violence as his solution.

Luke on the other hand, throws away his lightsaber, and refuses to kill his father, which brings Anakin back (the spark of Anakin that was left in Vader). Anakin then kills Sideous (sacrificing himself) instead of allowing Sideous to kill Luke, and completes the fulfillment of the prophesy.

What people see as inconsistencies are often illustrations of the greater themes in the movies. Yoda was wise in Episode V, but he acted foolishly in Episodes II and III. Of course that makes sense, because how does one gain wisdom except by learning from one's mistakes? Yoda figures out that by Episode V that wars do not make one great. The events of Episode II and III taught him that. Except, Yoda did not learn one lesson between Episodes II and III: that he should not have given up on Anakin.

Luke for all his poor formal Jedi training understood that and that's why he prevailed in the end.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[Rob_Bryerton]

Universe 2.0 is 8-bit and has grayscale morality./i>

You're either with us, or against us, or.... well, 254 other things

Two-bit universe indeed ;)

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[be-fan]

Women and children are just people. People die in wars. In fact, they die all the time. Sometimes, them dying in wars can prevent other women and children fro dying as a result of the status quo.

Besides, you're not supposed to forgive Vader. You're supposed to realize that Vader and Anakin aren't the same person.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[jason_ukfsn]

Did it not occur to you that Sidious knew about Padme because he had influenced Anakin to have those dreams or that perhaps Anakin had confided them to him?

As for Order 66 that's fairly easy - we know that Sidious was behind the commissioning of the Clones so it's a reasonable assumption that he had some programming input.

I agree that the film was fantastic. Up until I saw ROTS I never believed Lucas when I heard him claim that Vader is the central character of all of the films. For me the whole focus of all of the films changed after watching ROTS.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[cpt kangarooski]

Sure, try it sometime.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[sg3000]

> Instead of basically just a one-liner saying how he'd run the
> galaxy, it would have been more interesting for him to 'see'
> lack of order in the galaxy causing chaos.

It wasn't just a one-liner. Anakin's feelings about this were all through Episodes II and III.

In Episode II, there was the whole discussion between Padme and Anakin on Naboo. Anakin says the system doesn't work. Padme asked how would he make it work.

Anakin: We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problems, agree what's in the best interests of all the people, and then do it.

Padme: That is exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't
wlways agree. In fact, they hardly ever do.

Anakin: Then they should be made to.

Padme: By whom? Who's going to make them?

Anakin: I don't know. Someone.

Padme: You?

Anakin: Of course not me.

Padme: But someone.

Anakin: Someone wise.

Padme: That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.

Anakin: Well, if it works...

Anakin in the scene can tell that Padme is shocked, so he plays it off that he's joking. Padme can't believe that Anakin feels that way so she assumes he's just kidding.

In Episode III, when Obi-Wan laments that the Senate is going to vote for more direct power under Palpatine, Anakin is pleased because it will help them make decisions faster and fight more effectively.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[chriso11]

People seem to forget that Palpatine had been screwing with Anakin's mind for a decade or so. He was always twisting things, and so that Anakin was never really sure of anything.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[SensitiveMale]

Luke for all his poor formal Jedi training understood that and that's why he prevailed in the end.

Ahh, you had me until that last sentence.

Luke received very good training. Yoda knew exactly how to train him for the reasons you mentioned.

Remember the jedi training and the "cave" scene? That was to teach Luke not to kill Vader because if he did he would kill himself.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[The One and Only]

He probably thought he would then kill Darth Sideous, and make himself Emperor

That's his plan all along. He tells Padme that they can rule the galaxy together, and when that falls through he tries to recruit Luke for ruling-the-galaxy duty. He just doesn't want to rule the galaxy alone. His main character flaw is his inability to be alone. He was upset enough from losing his mother to commit a minor atrocity, but luckily for him, he can in a way replace her with Padme. He's obsessed with saving Padme, and when he ultimately loses her, only Palpatine is there to be a father figure. And he's loyal, at least until he finds Luke and figures he can off Palpatine and rule the galaxy with his son.

Probably comes from the fact he never had a father. Interesting, eh?

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[sg3000]

> That's his plan all along. He tells Padme that they can rule the
> galaxy together, and when that falls through he tries to recruit
> Luke for ruling-the-galaxy duty. He just doesn't want to rule
> the galaxy alone.

Interesting.

I also find it fascinating that Anakin is never free.

He starts life off literally as a slave on Tatooine. Then he starts his Jedi training, and he's not free there either. Remember in Episode II when Padme asks him if he's even allowed to love? He's still a slave, but now he's a slave to the Jedi order, in a sense.

Then he joins the Sith to save Padme, and he's now a slave to the dark side. he tells Luke in Episode VI that it's too late for him, he must obey his master. Anakin's situation makes one reinterpret Leia's line in Episode IV, about Tarkin holding Vader's leash.

The only time Anakin is truly free is when he kills Sideous. And he dies minutes after that.

I guess it can go beyond that. If the Jedi are "slaves" to the Jedi order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct about his dream where he freed all the slaves.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[sg3000]

>> I guess it can go beyond that. If the Jedi are "slaves" to the Jedi
>> order, and the Sith are "slaves" to the dark side, and he's a
>> slave his whole life, then Anakin's line in Episode I is correct
>> about his dream where he freed all the slaves.

> Except the Wookiees. Please, will somebody think of the
> Wookiees?

Aaah, no one cares about the Wookiees anyway. Why do you think Chewbacca didn't get a medal? ;-)

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[be-fan]

Sure I can. Once is a natural process, the other requires technology to achieve.

what is the distinction? What is a womb other than a technology for turning embroys into babies? There is no reasonable way to distinguish "natural" from "unnatural". What is natural? Something that arises in nature? Well, people arise in nature, and people build houses, so aren't houses natural? Are anthills natural? You can only distinguish the two if you believe that people are somehow fundementally different from any other creature on earth, not in terms of capabilities, but intrinsicly different. You can say, "what God created is natural, but what humans create is not natural". But you can't prove that, so again, we're back to having no provable distinction.

This doesn't follow, since the unaided kidney cell isn't an embryo.

You mean an unaided kidney cell cannot grow into a human? Well, sorry to break it to you, but an unaided embryo cannot grow into a human either.

If this future technology was used to transform a kidney cell into an embyro, then that embryo should be protected.

There is nothing special about an embryo, intrinscally. The reason people want to protect them is because they have the potential to grow into a human being. If they didn't, they'd be just like every other cell in the body. However, the only reason an embryo can turn into baby and a kidney cell cannot is because the technology we use to create babies (wombs), operate on the former and not the latter. If the technology existed to create babies from kidney cells (after all, they are as genetically complete as an embryo), then should kidney cells be protected?

I would not do it and I do not agree that it should be done. The end does not justify the means.

You believe that, but that doesn't make it true. I don't believe either that the ends justifies the means. But like Machiavelli said, certain ends to justify certain means. Any rational analysis suggests that saving 1000 lives is worth taking one. Only if you leave our world and postulate the existence of some higher truth that prevents such a thing, only then can you claim that those children should not be saved.

Then I assume you won't mind if those of us who think you're wrong drag you to the disintegration chamber?

That does not logically follow what I said. I'd protest not because I believe human life is invioble, but I believe in self-preservation. But let me play along with your scenario. If you were dragging me to the disintigration chamber, and I killed you to protect myself, then very few people would fault me for it. Thus, human life is obviously not invioble. As soon as you justify taking life in one way, you cannot claim its inviobility. It becomes just one more priority to be balanced with all the other priorities people have.

Re:What bothered me about Anakin's downfall

[be-fan]

It is in capabilities where we are fundamentally different.

Our differences are a matter of degree, not quality. That makes us quantitatively different, not fundementally different.

Not any more than sperm or eggs.

You're missing the point entirely. It's not as if fertilized eggs are any more genetically complete than eggs or sperm or kidney cells. They have a different genetic makeup, but all three have an equally complete set. All three contain all the knowledge to create a human being. The only difference is that right now only fertilized eggs can be turned into people. But that's just a factor of what we use to turn embryos into people (wombs) at this point in time. In a situation where that is no longer true, this distinction will no longer hold.

Let me approach the point this way. Scientists are not killing babies. Embryos are not yet babies, but they could be. So what you're really complaining about is the fact that scientists are not putting the embryos into a place (ie: a womb), where they could turn into babies. If there existed a technology to turn a kidney cell into a baby, using your logic someone could fault scientists for not putting the kidney cell into that machine. That's the sort of innane conclusions you reach when you try to protect something based on what it could become, rather than based on what it actually is.

As written, these are self-refuting statements.

Not self-refuting, rather mutually contridictory, but the point is well taken. I intended to add a "in general" in there. I don't believe that in general the ends justify the means, but rather that particular ends to justify particular means.

Rational? Using what basis of morality? And does this only apply to those who cannot defend themselves, or will you apply it to everyone?

Rationality requires no morality. Morality is a construction of man, that differs from person to person. Rationality is universal.

So would the embroys, if they but had the chance to live.

So would my steak, if it had been given the chance to live. So would the bacteria that you so callously wash off in the sink. Self-preservation is not unique to man. But we kill cows and bacteria all the time, because life is not sacrosenct. We avoid killing people, because that would have negative social ramifications, but we do not consider even human life to be invioble. The fact that human life is vioble is written into our very laws.

But if you can justify destroying those who cannot defend themselves, I'm sure we can come up with a justification for ignoring your protestations.

There is no "themselves" there. The word "self" refers to sentient creatures. Embryos are not sentient. They have no "self".

As for my protestations, you miss the point. You said that I shouldn't mind if you decide to kill me. My point was that I have a good reason to mind (self-preservation), one that has nothing to do with my believing that life is inviolate. The fact that you could come up with justifications really has no bearing on either mine or your original point.

But I'll play along again. Depending on your justifications, you could very well be right. If, after all, I was about to shoot your child, well, most people would consider you quite justified in killing me. We see yet again that human life is not inviolate at all, but rather that its taking is justifiable for a number of reasons.

And who are the elite who decide?

You're dodging my point, which is that life is just a priority among many. Not that it "should be" (I have no interest in "should be"), but that it is whether we like it or not. Who decides where it stands on the list of priorities is really irrelevent to my point.

heh

[pocketfullofshells]

I'm just glad they snuck in a Willhelm among all those screams.

Re:heh

[Guano_Jim]

I'm just glad they snuck in a Willhelm among all those screams.

Parent is referring to the Wilhelm, a sound effect that sound artists seem to stick into every film they can as a joke.

From the above linked article:

The Wilhelm has punctuated the death and dismemberment of dozens of characters in some 20 to 25 movies, particularly in those associated with George Lucas. With appearances in some of history's biggest hits, from Star Wars to Raiders of the Lost Ark to Toy Story, clearly this sound gets around.

Listen to the RealAudio of the Wilhelm article.

hilarious

[vitamine73]

Check out this remake of episode IV:


Grocery Store Wars: The Organic Rebellion

Bush

[Servo]

You forgot about the references to Bush in the Darth Vader dialog.

Re:Bush

[Lord Pillage]

You forgot about the references to Bush in the Darth Vader dialog.

You mean, "If you aren't with me, then you're my enemy!" of course. (right before he and Obi-Wan go at it/also a Bush quotation)

Re:Bush

[be-fan]

It's not those lines. It's the "you're either with my, or your my enemy" (from Anakin), and the "only the Sith see things in absolutes" (from Obi Wan).

While I agree with him, I personally couldn't really care less what Lucas thinks, and his references to the situation are as simple and without subtlety as we accuse Bush of being.

Re:Bush

[BigGerman]

so "do or do not.. there are no try" and now "only the Sith see things in absolutes".. Hmmm.

Re:Bush

[Scrameustache]

so "do or do not.. there are no try" and now "only the Sith see things in absolutes".. Hmmm.

Remeber in ep1 when Yoda looks into Anakin's future, frowns, and declares it "fuzzy" and says he can't see?

He lied.

He saw the awnser to the riddle of the Balance of the Force: From an imbalance of thousands of light-side weilder and only two dark-siders, Anakin will bring balance: Two of each.

Yoda keeps his mouth shut and makes sure he's one the two.

Re:Bush

[glyph42]

That's the best line ever: "Only the Sith see things in absolutes." Hahaha! You should never generalize, Obi Wan. Everybody always generalizes.

Additional Easter Eggs

[jounihat]

There's also two Easter eggs not mentioned in the article, because they're very difficult to find. In the first you can see someone in the background mumbling something, which is clearly a decent part of a dialogue. In the second, for one frame, you can see Hayden Christensen actually acting (it's uncertain, however, is it the real Hayden Christensen or just a Hayden Christensen 3D-model).

Re:Additional Easter Eggs

[pg110404]

Easter egg 1 - background mumbling - during normal shooting, background actors are usually asked to pretend like they are talking but not actually make any noise. This allows the boom mic to pick up the main actor's voice more clearly without the distraction of somebody in the background. The background dialogue you hear in this case is more than likely the ad-libbing of the foley sound stage actors.

Easter egg 2 - Hayden's acting - Given 2 hours + of movie time, it's entirely possible he appears to be able to act decently for that one frame through pure random coincidence. A similar concept of a stopped 'analog' watch is right accurate a day.

I think George Lucas got lucky with these two points.

Sith Easter Eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

Milk chocolate or darth chocolate?

Re:Interesting reference...

[Leroy_Brown242]

ooooo, I hadn't heard that one!

Homage to ET?

[bbzzdd]

**Minor Spoiler**

Did anyone else feel the scene where Yoda leaves Kashyyyk was entirely reminiscent of the last scene in ET? Even Yoda's little pod looked a lot like ET's ship to me. I could even swear I heard the ET theme playing in the background.

Re:Pedant time

[Leroy_Brown242]

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=asinine

On the bright side

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Anything to take your mind off the awful acting can't be a bad thing...

Re:On the bright side

[be-fan]

So true! That was exactly my reaction to Episode III. Now, it's not like I expect great acting in a Sci-Fi movie, but I expect passable acting. I expect good enough acting that I'm not continuously drawn out of the action by bad it is (or how cringe-worthy the dialogue is).

I watch Sci Fi channel, for god's sake, so I'm not a movie snob by any means. The acting in those movies is bad, but they are also filmed on $10. In a $200m major blockbuster with well-known actors, I expect the acting and dialog to at least keep up with something like Stargate, a series filmed for a fraction of a fraction of that cost.

Re:On the bright side

[Snaller]

Remember to watch "Serenity" later this yeah, there you'll have great acting from a cast of unknowns on a small budget.

Re:Interesting reference...

[Richy_T]

The sarcasm thread was a couple of days ago...

YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[janestarz]

As I was discussing with a friend on my regular D&D night, the difference between a YT-1300 Corellian freighter and the Millenium Falcon, is that the MF is slightly...modified, shall we say? It's a YT-1300++, so to speak
I did not know for instance, that the original YT-1300s have seperate jets while the MF has a big semi-ring of motor power block jet thingies.
(Girl going tech/mech here, beware.)

Ah well, Lando did some last minute remodifications when visiting the Second Death Star and scraped the hull a bit, incidentally losing the communications array too.

What do you mean, -3 off-topic? I'm a girl geek, what do I know of topics anyway!

Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[be-fan]

You know, the whole D&D playing Star Wars watching thign doesn't imply intelligence any more than the "let's go to the mall and shop to kill time" thing. Indeed, it implies stupidity, just about different things.

Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[rokzy]

you say "girl" twice for no reason. I don't buy it. either you're a guy with big tits, or a girl with small tits.

Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[eobanb]

Will you marry me?

Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[Nokey]

Wrong on both counts bub, she's a big girl with big tits (I should know, with her being my S.O.).

Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[janestarz]

I'm a girl.
I read /.
I know and like Star Wars.
I know and like and play D&D.
And thanks to someone else's comments my boob size is now being discussed on the /. comment thread.

Boy, you're easily swayed, aren't you?

PS: Sorry, no, I'm with NoKey who teaches me linux (gotta love a man who teaches you linux!).

PPS: sorry for off-topic.

Re:YT-1300 vs Millenium Falcon

[Scooter]

Yeah - Solo claims that he "made a lot of special modifications myself"

Liar - this is what really happened:-

Xzbit "So this is your ride? What a piece of Junk!"

Han "Yeah - she may not look like much.."

Xzbit "Damm man, you got that right. So.. what IS it?"

Han "It's a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter"

Xzbit "You mean it USED to be! Look at this paint job - is that paint or dandruff ?"

Off to 'Western Spiral Arm Customs!' ....Later, down at the dockyard..

Xzbit "Well, Han Western Spiral have done an amazing job on your YT, and here's ma droid Q to take you round the outside"

Q "When we first got your YT, Han it was so badly beat up, we didn't think it would fly at all.

Now we know you do a bit of smuggling so first we hit you with these Quad turbo laser cannons..

And that's not all: for a really powerful punch, we also added you very own Arakyd Concussion missile tubes!"

Han "No waaay - get outa town - you gave me my own missile launcher?!"

Q "We sure did, right there on your YT. Now, those weapons are great for when you're out on the
sublight highway, but what if some low lifes try and steal your ride from the docking bay? Well check this out: Taim & Bak hooked you up with this neat ventral Auto Blaster. It drops down and
takes out the bad guys."

Han "That is sooo neat"

Q "In fact, we couldn't let this one go without giving you the ultimate smuggler's package, so we
hit you with the Seinar Fleet systems Active Sensor Pulse Generator, a Torplex Fore Deflector
Shield generator, and Carbanti hooked you up with this 29L Electro-Magnetic Countermeasures
package. Not only that but here you got your Nordoxicon Anti-concussion Field generator, a
KaproCorp Acceleration compensator, for those tight turns, a Torplex Tandem Flight Computer with
the Microaxial HyD Modular Navicomputer with optional crop duster program. And round the back we got you a Novaldex Stasis-type Shield generator on the port side, with a Kuat drive-yards shield generator on the starboard side, and an Ion Flux Stabilser with Alluvial damper, and chrome spinners. We also did some boring shit to the engines but we don't talk about that on the show.."

Han "I can't believe what you guys did to my YT! It's the fastest hunk-a-junk in the galaxy
now!"

Xzbit "And that ain't all - check out your interior. Mike tell him what you did.."

Mike "When we got your ship in to the shop Han, you didn't *even* have a stereo, so we hooked you
up with the biggest satellite dish we could find, and a state of the art holographic display
right here in your lounge. And if there's nothing on the TV, it even plays chess!"

Xzbit "Now I know you're wondering where you actually store the stuff you're smuggling - Mike
show Han our special modification"

Mike (lifts floor panel) "Check out your very own smuggling copmpartments!"

Han "Oh. My. God. That is soooo awesome!"

Mike "And if you ever find that you need to smuggle yourself in these, we installed 10 inch
monitors and Holo player right here in the compartment lids, so you can watch movies whilst
hiding out!"

Xzbit "and finally Han, what's a ship these days without strobe lights? Now we want you to stand
out on the approach apron down at Mos Eisley so we hit you with the latest Gelieg 20m-cp
Strobe/C-beams. These puppies will light up the inside of an asteroid!"

Han "This is unbelievable - wait til Chewie sees this!"

Xzbit "Han - you officially bin pimped!"

This really does belong on /.

[Lennavan]

Wow, news about easter eggs in Star Wars? This really is news for nerds.

/me wonders why he read the article anyways

/me wonders why he is writing "/me"

/me has to log off immedi

Re:not seen yet

[IANAAC]

Not surprising that the best line in episode 5 (second in the original), when Leia says "I love you" and Solo says "I know" was not actually in the script. Harrison made it up on the spot. (He seems to do a lot of that, no?)

Certainly better than this outing's

"It's because I love you so much"
"No. I love you more... Pookie"

Well, at least that's what I got out of it.

I mean, has he not been in love since high school?

Re:Interesting reference...

[Leroy_Brown242]

DAMN!

I always miss the good threads.

I don't know how this one didn't make the cut

[pteaxwa]

Silent film star wars

Another Easter Egg I found

[Council]

If you hit up-down-up-left-A-B-B-A when you see the Lucasfilm logo, you see an extra splashscreen.

And also it changes directors to Spielberg.

There's a good easter egg in The Phantom Menace...

[rollerbob]

... in fact it's one of TPM's few redeeming features.

A dusty EVA pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey can be seen in amongst the junk in Watto's junkyard. Must have been the one that cut Frank Poole's air supply, eventually ending up in a galaxy far, far away.

Re:Interesting reference...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Towards the end of THX 1138, as the characters approach the city shell, and there are some shots of the guards picking up wierd lifeforms. There's a bunch of radio chatter during which one of the guards says "I think I hit a Wookie back there".

Another overlooked easter egg....

[jdgeorge]

If you look carfully during the "touching scene" between Anakin and Padme, you'll see the wet paper bag that Hayden Christensen was unable to act his way out of.

Just a coincidence

[sg3000]

> You forgot about the references to Bush in the Darth Vader
> dialog.

The dialog is superficial. Calls for dramatic absolutes are common when dictators are trying to gain power, as well as anyone with extreme viewpoints. It helps them manage the cognitive dissonance.

Actually all the Star Wars movies are describing, among other things, how Democracy can fall to fascism.

In summary, Palpatine starts a fake war[1] (where he controlled both sides[2]) in order to get elected and stay in office[3] by appealing to people's fear and rallying nationalism [4]. He convinces the Senate to vote Emergency Powers to him [5] in order to consolidate more power under himself. He finally declares the end of the Republic [6] in order to bring "peace" to the galaxy.

The movies are not intended to directly catalog Bush or his policies. The original plot was written in the 1970s, and it was inspired by a number of events in history, including Hitler's rise to power and the Vietnam War. The way we humans move from democracy to fascism happens in roughly the same way each time.

It just so happens that it can be argued that Bush has been following the same pattern as any drive towards fascism. Thus, any parallels to the current state of the U.S. is purely coincidental.

-----

[1] Whoops! No weapons of mass destruction found. Our bad.

[2] Didn't we used to fund and support Saddam Hussein?

[3] Tom Ridge finally admits that the Department of Homeland Security twice questionably raised the terror alert status in order to prop up Bush's poll ratings during the election.

[4] Freedom fries, anyone?

[5] Secret sneak and peek searches via the PATRIOT Act, anyone?

[6] "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier," Bush said, pausing and then joking, "just so long as I'm the dictator."

Re:Just a coincidence

[Artifakt]

"unlike hitler and other fascists in history"

We really can't tell how much anyone wants power in and of itself, and how much they have goals that "justify" their quest for power. I'm sure Hitler thought there were good things comeing that made a few sacrefices necessary. We can't really tell by racial doctrines either, unless you include racial superiority arguements without always requiring megadeaths to accompany them. It's worth remembering that the Italians under Mussolini were practically the epitomy of fascism, but they didn't round up their local Jews and other ethnic types nearly as much as the Germans did (near the very end of the war, the Italians did turn over about 4,500 Jews to Gestapo representitives, under strong pressure from Germany. That's a lot of individual tragedies, but when you look at it against the background of WW2, it almost disappears.).
Fascism seems to require telling your chosen audience they are special, and in some poorly defined way, superior to everyone else, and in blameing every complex problem on scapegoats that are well defined enough to make the problems look simple and solvable. Trotting out the Scapegoats whenver there's a reversal of fortune is one of the clearest signs of it.

Re:Just a coincidence

[SketcheeBoy]

Tolkien was pointing out that allegory is intentional by the author while applicability was made by the reader. Tolkien's books aren't an allegory. Whether or not this Star Wars movie is an allegory is a different matter entirely.

Re:Just a coincidence

[sg3000]

> It's not like the Jedi *don't* see things in absolutes, nor do
> they seem to have a problem with absolutes of their own.

I think that's an interesting point. Perhaps the line is more telling that we think. The original lines are:

ANAKIN: Don't lecture me, Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire.

OBI-WAN: Your new Empire?

ANAKIN: Don't make me kill you.

OBI-WAN: Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic ... to democracy.

ANAKIN: If you're not with me, you're my enemy.

OBI-WAN: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.

Obi-Wan should have tried harder to bring Anakin back to the good side, the way Luke did in Episode VI. But Obi-Wan did not, and I believe that Lucas is trying to say that Obi-Wan's subsequent actions were wrong.

Maybe dealing in absolutes is a Sith tendency, and Obi-Wan was falling for the same thing. He believed that Anakin was now evil, and no longer worth saving. In other words, Obi-Wan was considering that either Anakin was his friend or was a Sith. Perhaps Obi-Wan should have avoided the absolutes himself, and he should have tried to save Anakin. This was Lucas's way of indicating that while Obi-Wan's thinking was correct, his actions were wrong.

It seems that Obi-Wan learned his lesson after 20 years of solitude on Tatooine. In Episode IV he tells Han Solo, "There are alternatives to fighting."

This would not be the first time that Lucas has made a character say dialog incongruent to their actions to indicate when their actions are wrong. For example, in Episode II, Mace Windu tells Padme, "We're keepers of the peace. Not soldiers." However, at the end of the movie, Mace is leading clone troops into battle like ... well ... a soldier.

Re:Just a coincidence

[SeanAhern]

Sigh. This has been hashed out long before. But I'll go ahead and add comments anyway. This will get modded way offtopic, since it is.

Read the following quotes, and ask yourself, if this were the information you had, wouldn't you consider Iraq to be a clear and present danger? If we can't trust the assertions of our Democratic leaders, who can we trust?

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a

C3PO

[Umbral Blot]

Does anyone know how C3P0 lost his right leg, which is silver in the original films instead of gold. I expected him to lose it in episode 3.

Re:C3PO

[Andrew-Unit]

Anthony Daniels discusses this question on his personal website:

Q Thank you for connecting to your fans. We really appreciate that one of our idols will actually listen to our opinion. Will we ever discover the backstory for the silver shin? LoserkidBXCR

A As you may have gathered from all the fluff that is surrounding Episode III, Threepio is, for the first time, completely gold from knee to foot. I believe this is in honour of the expensive carpets in Miss Padme's bedroom and the rather elegant designs of her more public areas. I hope that remark isn't open to misinterpretation. And now I come to think about it, in Ep II, her bedroom had the privacy of Penn Bus Station. Oh well. Actually, Threepio was always slightly embarrassed not to be perfectly formed so it's a topic of conversation best not attempted. Artoo likes to talk about stuff like that. AD

Re:tarzan vine cry

[Toad McFrog Esq.]

Offended? No. Saddened? Yes. Check out this (urbandictionary.com) for more information about this strange phenomenon.

lightsaber accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

someone could make those lightsabers a lot better if they just added a wrist strap. How many times did they drop those things??

Easter Eggs??

[fm6]

Easter Eggs are, by definition, hidden. These are inside jokes, or references, or whatever, but they're certainly not Easter Eggs. Especially not the Wilhelm Scream, which has been an inside Hollywood joke for decades.

Re:lame costume

[Anonymous Coward]

Anakin was dead for all intents and purposes. The switch was complete. Obi-Wan should have insured the burning corpse was truly deceased, but showed his compassion immensely in not filleting the body. Then I read the rest of your comment: Did you completely miss the part where his body was on fire? Not many people I know decided to take their bathroom break during this scene.

What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[reporter]

I do not understand the fixation with the Millenium Falcon and other trivial "Easter Eggs" in the "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith".

Other issues are more important. Although I generally consider the new movie to be excellent, I wish that Lucas would have un-did a major thematic flaw in the first 2 stories in this new trilogy. I am referring to the comment, in "Star Wars I", about the force being transferred from person to person via mitochondria (which is labeled "mito chlorians" by one of the characters.)

Note that in the original trilogy, episodes IV-VI of "Star Wars" (SW), Lucas alludes that anyone can be part of the force. Your participation depends solely on your commitment to open-mindedness and the good side of the force. With this force, you can transcend the difficulties that you currently face. That message is a wonderfully uplifting message for kids of past and present generations.

Then, in SW I, Lucas trashes that egalitarian view and says that Jedis are born, not created. Namely, you cannot be part of the good side of the force by your own choice. Jedis are some sort of elite, snobby group whose membership is determined by blood. Such a message, in my opinion, is atrocious and runs counter to the fundamental egalitarianism of Western society.

Was anyone bothered by this fundamental change in one of the themes of SW?

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[pikayou]

Obi-wan in the original trilogy: "The Emperor knew that if Vader were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him." Why? Because force sensitivity is heritable, and passed down to children from parents. This was not a new notion that Lucas suddenly introduced in the new movies.

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[Jace of Fuse!]

Was anyone bothered by this fundamental change in one of the themes of SW?

What bothered me most about the whole thing wasn't that aspect of it. It was that they bothered to explain any aspect of the force at all.

I really enjoyed the SW movies much more when the Force was some mysterious, unexplainable power that certain people learned to tap into. But the moment they start talking about blood tests and midichlorians then suddenly it becomes techno-bable BS.

It's like any other force of nature or technology. The more unrealistic it is, the more I would prefer them not try to explain it with stupid crap to further drive it home to me that what I'm seeing isn't possible.

I have many other serious gripes with Star Wars. RotJ, TPM, and AotC all did me in for even liking Star Wars at all.

Even if III is really that good, I probably won't enjoy it because it's still built on those other piles of crap.

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[sg3000]

> Note that in the original trilogy, episodes IV-VI of "Star
> Wars" (SW), Lucas alludes that anyone can be part of the force.
> Your participation depends solely on your commitment to
> open- mindedness and the good side of the force. With this
> force, you can transcend the difficulties that you currently
> face. That message is a wonderfully uplifting message for kids
> of past and present generations.

I think this illustrates the problem with many fans of the original trilogy with regards the new movies. Lucas never said what you described above, and the concept that you describe is not one of his themes. You may have drawn this conclusion as a theme after watching Episodes IV-VI, and it may appeal to you, but it's not part of Lucas's story.

You have to think of Episodes I - VI as as a single movie, and due to the way Lucas made the movies, you walked into the middle of "the film". You drew some conclusions based on incomplete information, and unfortunately your conclusion was wrong.

It's kind of like if you walked into the last half of -- oh I don't know, let's say "Star Trek: First Contact" and you missed the whole part about Picard having been captured and made into a Borg in the first scene. Without this information, you had to create your own "beginning" to make sense of it. So maybe you drew a conclusion that Picard had initially created the Borg initially. Maybe you thought that the movie had a theme similar to Frankenstein, where it was about science dabbling into things that should be left alone. You're happy with the theme, but some years later, you get the opportunity to go back and see the first half of the movie. You see the events you missed, and that new information kills the theme you thought existed.

Episodes IV-VI are like that. Lucas themes existed throughout the movies, but they may not match whatever back story that some fans have created in their own minds once they see all six films. The issue is probably compounded by the fact that Star Wars sprouted a host of ancillary novels and other paraphernalia, to which Lucas does not feel constrained to tie his story.

The midichlorians are important for two reasons. First, they help with a theme of when the Republic degenerates into a dictatorship, science makes way for religion and superstition. In Episode I, it is clear that the Jedi understand the science behind The Force. For example, they actually could measure someone's potential related to the Force by their midichlorians count. By the time Episode IV came around, no one even knew the science behind the Force, and people dismissed it as a "hokey religion." Asimov did a similar theme with his Foundation series of stories.

Second the midichlorians provide an important explanation of why Darth Vader had lost much of his power and why Darth Sideous wanted Luke to be his replacement. Anakin had the highest midichlorian count of any Jedi, including Yoda, and he was destined to be the most powerful Jedi of all. However, when he lost his arms and legs, he lost nearly half his body mass and thus his midichlorian count fell by half. Thus he went from being more powerful than Darth Sideous to being maybe 80% as powerful. Still strong, but not exactly as powerful as Sideous would like. Thus, Sideous sought a replacement in Luke.

As for whether midichlorian counts are contrary to egalitarianism, I don't agree. If you want to be a fighter pilot, you have to have good eyesight. If you're born blind, you could learn to fly a plane (with the audio equivalent of instruments), but it would be surprisingly if that blind pilot flew anywhere nearly as well as the pilot with perfect vision. And perfect vision is often related to genetics. In Lucas's story, Force ability is related to genetics via midichlorians. This was foreshadowed in Episode VI, when Obi-Wan said that Luke and Leia had to be hidden because if the Emperor discovered Anakin had any offspring, they would be a threat to him. In other words, Anakin would pass his genetically high midichlorian count on to his children.

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[AndroidCat]

Bah! If Captain Kirk had been there, he would have had Spock and McCoy whip him up a super-charged shot with the same stuff, and once his midideloreans hit 88, you'd see some serious shit!

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[david.given]

...the force being transferred from person to person via mitochondria...

Uh, midichlorians. Nothing to do with mitochondria.

I saw it last night, in a mostly empty cinema. The main thing I had against the film was quite simply that it wasn't much good. Oh, it was pretty, but that's about all I can say for it --- the acting was awful (although Senator Palpatine was fun in a giggling, frothing-at-the-mouth kind of way and Obi-Wan was doing a workmanlike job); the pacing was rubbish (it kept jumping from scene to scene without actually letting anything resolve itself); the choreography was incoherent (the big space combat at the beginning of the film was practically unfollowable; the battle on Kashyyk was largely non-existant); and, most damning of all, it was clumsy.

For example: on (mumble), the volcano planet at the end. Anakin flies in and we get a nice panoramic shot of the facility. Hey, cool, I think, noticing the blue glow around the base of all the structures. Force shields! Fifteen seconds later, during a long, lingering pan past some more of these force shields, I realise that the only reason that Lucas is putting so much emphasis on them is because at some point they're going to fail and the facility is going to fall into the lava. I was right.

Another example: the whole business with Anakin and the Younglings (hey. Sounds like a 60s band name). Yeah, thinks Lucas. Lets show how eeeeevil Anakin has become by letting him slaughter a whole bunch of innocent children! Muhahaha! And just to ram it home, lets have some doe-eyed kid lisp an unconvincing line to tell us just how much they trust him! That's such blatant, clumsy emotional manipulation that it's almost worthy of Spielberg.

Meh. I'm not even going to go into the Fall of Anakin Skywalker. ("Anakin! Be evil!" "No." "Sure?" "Well... all right, then.")

Incidentally, I don't agree with you in what you're reading into Episodes 4-6. The main thing about these films is that they're not SF; they're epic fantasy wrapped up with science and spaceships. (Luke == the unknown prince who grew up on a farm; Leia == the feisty princess; Han == the rogue with a heart of gold; Darth Vader == the Black Knight; the Emperor (who is never referred to by name) == the evil sorceror...) The original Star Wars films have nothing to do with egalitarianism. They're set in a simpler world of fairy tales where kings and queens rule with absolute power, and where hard work means nothing and destiny means everything.

The Force is magic, plain and simple. It's not something learnt, it's innate. Most of the Force-sensitive people in the Empire have been killed; apart from Obi-Wan, Yoda and the Emperor, the only Force-sensitive people we meet are the Skywalker family --- and the fact that they're family is crucial to the plot. Han does not have it, and never learns it. He simply doesn't have the ability.

(Interestingly, it's canon that R2D2 has some Force sensitivity. Not a lot, but he's the only droid ever to feel the Force --- it's not supposed to be possible.)

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[BRSloth]

It is really sad when someone say "you are jumping into conclusions" and find explanations to the original complain jumping into conclusions...

Nowhere is said that Darth Vader/Anakin gets weaker losing limbs. What is the midichlorian just jumped from the limbs to his head? He would be strong anyway. But I would be jumping into conclusions, don't I?

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[hazem]

Second the midichlorians provide an important explanation of why Darth Vader had lost much of his power and why Darth Sideous wanted Luke to be his replacement. Anakin had the highest midichlorian count of any Jedi, including Yoda, and he was destined to be the most powerful Jedi of all.

Now it sounds like you're drawing your own conclusions without any real store.

In "real-life", my cholesterol count has nothing to do with the volume of blood in my body. If I have my legs cut off, I lose a lot of blood, but once I stabilize, my cholesterol count will be the same - as it's a ratio.

Now, I'm not going to even pretend that I know if "midichlorian count" is a ratio (like cholestrol, red/white cell count, etc), or a summation of the total number - I don't think it was ever mentioned.

So, without knowing that basic fact of the "science of the force", you can't really make any assumptions about that being why Vader lost his power.

Maybe he was just getting old. Even Yoda died of old age.

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[Reverberant]

Nowhere is said that Darth Vader/Anakin gets weaker losing limbs. What is the midichlorian just jumped from the limbs to his head? He would be strong anyway. But I would be jumping into conclusions, don't I?

It's never stated in the movies, but the idea of Vader losing power because he loses his limbs comes straight from an interview with Lucas in the February issue of Vanity Fair (the one with the SW actors on the cover, p 167, 1st paragraph).

The article isn't online, but you can find people who have quoted portions of the article:

"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful. But he ended up losing his arms and a leg and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there's not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now he's maybe 20 percent less than the Emperor. So that isn't what the Emperor had in mind. He wanted this really super guy, but that got derailed by Obi-Wan. So he finds that, with Luke, he can get a more primo version if he can turn Luke to the Dark Side."

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[david.given]

Was this the first Star Wars movie you've seen? The acting was as good or better than any of the other 5 movies, and every Star Wars movie has the same battle in space\battle on land\battle between individuals thing happening all at once. It happens, with the same jump cuts, in EVERY episode.

I know the films quite well, thank-you. (I don't like to think about episodes 1 and 2.)

And no, the choreography in 3, 4 and 5 doesn't work like that. It's a completely different style. The camera-work is far more static and tends to focus on single characters far more; and there's usually only one plot thread --- the only example of multiple plot threads I can think of off-hand is Luke and Vader vs the Rebel attack on Death Star II at the end of RotJ, and even then, the two strands were related.

I think one major difference is that RotS was rushed. There's just too much stuff happening, which meant that they couldn't devote enough screen time to any particular plot thread to do it justice... I mean, what actually happened to the battle on Kashyyk?

You know, given that RotS is the only prequel in which anything actually interesting happens, they'd have done much better to chuck the first two episodes and expand RotS into a trilogy in its own right. But don't let George Lucas write it, for gods' sake...

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[Kirsha]

(Interestingly, it's canon that R2D2 has some Force sensitivity. Not a lot, but he's the only droid ever to feel the Force --- it's not supposed to be possible.)

And how is that canon? Where was that shown?

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[Brandybuck]

You have to think of Episodes I - VI as as a single movie, and due to the way Lucas made the movies, you walked into the middle of "the film".

Hate to burst your bubble, but that's utter crap. It's Lucas Revisionism at its worst. The original Star Wars was a stand alone movie. Period. It didn't even have the "Episode IV" subtitle in the original theatrical release. The plot wasn't one sixth of a story, but a near-direct reuse of the plot from "The Hidden Fortress".

Lucas may have orginally envisioned a series of movies, but he most certainly did not have a complete plot in mind for all six episodes.

Re:What's Wrong with New "Star Wars" Trilogy?

[Brandybuck]

Lucas really did have the basic outline for the story we see in Episodes I-VI created before the original Star Wars film.

Did he really have C3PO and R2D2 in E1 to E3 and still have Obi Wan not recognize them in E4? Did he really have Jar Jar and the Gungans? Did Chewbacca really know Yoda personally? Did Anakin really kill all the younglings? Was Jango Fett always the template for the clones? How come E1, E2 and E3 directly conflict with early to middle era Lucas approved Star Wars novels?

Methinks he had, at most, a rough one-pager for a complete story arc, just so he knew where the characters were coming from.

p.s. Reading that first script from your link, it's so far removed from the Star Wars that was filmed (bureaucrats instead of droids? Luke a general? huh?), that any argument that he had a comprehensive storyline at that time for all six (nine) episodes that were filmed is completely ludicrous.

The Millennium Falcon Cameo

[Badmovies]

Six degrees of separation my butt! From what Lucas has shown us, it is more like one or two in the "Star Wars" universe. Between the droids being around young Anakin and now the Millennium Falcon showing up, I have lost track of how many times things are tied in together. I am surprised that the Ewoks did not turn out to be Chewbacca's midget children that he never knew about.

Re:The Millennium Falcon Cameo

[iphayd]

The droids being around Anakin is natural, actually. Remeber, they are first Leia's droids in ANH. Now, why would Leia ever need a personal astromech droid with an attitude? Remember, in RotS (Star Wars:Rots, I like it :), C3PO's memory gets erased, but R2D2's does not.

I would imagine that he was given to Leia not because she needed an astromech, but rather that Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted someone who knew exactly what her father was capable of watching her. C3PO was given to her because someone needed to talk for artoo.

Re:The Millennium Falcon Cameo

[interstellar_donkey]

Pfft!

I am surprised that the Ewoks did not turn out to be Chewbacca's midget children that he never knew about.

Everyone knows the Ewoks are a race of midget wookies.

Also, if you really pay attention, you learn the following things:

Yoda is Chewbacca's father.

While technically, yes, Anikin was "conceived" by the midicholorides or whatever the heck they're called, the real reason Anikin's mom was so vague about his conception was that she was having an affair with Watto at the time.

The real reason why Jar Jar was kicked out of the secret underwater city is because he was gettin' it on with Padame, an act strictly prohibited by the Gungan. However since they're pretty much all stupid, the gungans only description for sexual miconduct is "being clumsy". Proof of this is found in Episode II's tortured romantic discussions between Skywalker and Padame when she talks about her first boyfriend, and finalized by a split second shot in Episode III when Padame shoots Jar Jar one of "those" knowing looks.

If you pay close attention to the Millennium Falcon in Episode III, you notice that it is NOT the same ship they used in Episodes IV-VI. It's actually the original TOY they released to the general public back in the early 80s. This way, Lucas and his merchindising buddies can say that they toys everyone bought back in the 80s was actually a model of the ship in Episode III, and they should all go out and buy a new Millennium Falcon if they want the REAL Ep IV-VI toy.

Episode III is also the first Star Wars where we discover that people a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away sometimes suffered from terrible gas pains. This was shown by the expressions on Palpatine's face many times in the film (at first I thought it was bad acting, but later learned it was just gas).

Re:On the other hand...

[jacen_sunstrider]

Not really. She goes on to become President of the New Republic, and doesn't really learn that much about the Force during that time. She does step down eventually, and learns a bit, but she's never as strong as her brother.

Someone failed Bio

[scapermoya]

mitochondria are tiny sub-cellular organelles that reside in every living cell in the human body. They are the location of the 'electron transport chain', where various chemicals are converted to ATP, the most basic of all chemical energy carriers in the human (and other animal/plant organisms) body.

Midichlorians are exclusively in the Star Wars universe, and a 'count' of them determined one's affinity for feeling, interacting with, and manipulating omnipresent Force. In the original triology, there is no bureaucratic order of Jedi, so midichlorian counts were not performed. In the Star Wars universe, every living thing has SOME midichlorians, but only those with a high enough number had the abilities necessary to complete the training to become a Jedi Knight. This is similar to certain people not having the innate ability to compete in the Olympics. Everyone alive can interact with the Force to an extent, but only those born with enough midichlorians and trained properly could ever be Jedi Knights. There is no discontinuity between the two trilogies because the Jedi order didn't exist as an entity that actively sought and trained younglings with the proper credentials.

Saying the Jedi order in the I-III is 'snobby group' is like saying the U.S. Olympic Team is elitist.

There was no toggle switch.

[jasonhamilton]

You have to keep in mind he killed another Jedi. Once he decided that he would do what it took to save her, there was no turning back. The Jedi wouldn't accept him back after killing their own and betraying them. The fate of his wife depended on his actions and once he went down the side of the dark side....

Re:Easter Eggs or hidden drivel?

[interstellar_donkey]

I thought the exact same thing about Easter Eggs. I'm not sure if there's been some change in the meaning of "Easter eggs", or if the writer misunderstood what the term meant.

Perhaps the writer was too busy inserting hyper-links willy-nilly to look up the term.

I just hope this isn't a part of a changing trend where writers start to misuse words and before you know it people just accept the missuse as normal. Like the case with emoticons. Somewhere along the line writers decided that "emoticon" was too big and confusing as a word, so they started using the word "smiley" instead. Sadly smiley caught on.

This just in!

[lullabud]

Lucasfilm has just released a statement informing us that it's not too late to see it a FOURTH or FIFTH time! Get your original Lucasfilm Starwars: Revenge of the Sith easter eggs while you still can, because they won't last long! A whole new round of easter eggs is lined up for each of the seven DVD installments that will be released over the next 20 years! That's right! These film-only easter eggs will not be sold in stores! Get yours TODAY!

Crossovers are fun : )

[Scrameustache]

Did anyone else feel the scene where Yoda leaves Kashyyyk was entirely reminiscent of the last scene in ET? Even Yoda's little pod looked a lot like ET's ship to me. I could even swear I heard the ET theme playing in the background.

You are not alone.

Remember, in ET, it's halloween and ET sees a kid in a Yoda mask and gets all excited, saying "Home! Hoooome!"... and the reciprocal ETs in one of ep1's Galactic Senate scenes.

Re:Senile Yoda

[Squid]

Can somebody explain why Yoda is serious in the Old Republic and playful and infantile / senile in the Empire?

He's trying to test Luke's patience (and Luke fails the test: "I cannot teach him, the boy has no patience.") After that, Yoda is dead serious the rest of the film, and only attempts to be funny once in Return of the Jedi ("when 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not").

And what did he do with his laser?

His lightsaber? I think I saw it get dropped during the battle with Palpatine in the big Senate room. I suppose Yoda could have used the Force to retrieve it, but he was probably in a hurry - or figured, in exile, he would not need it.

Besides, when Luke comes around looking for a "great warrior" the last thing Yoda would have wanted to do was break out the lightsaber and show Luke a few cool moves. Luke was stuck in a mindset of expecting Jedi to just be saber-wielding killing machines, something Yoda probably wanted to correct. Seeing Yoda using a lightsaber would only have convinced Luke that the lightsaber makes the Jedi, and he'd have ignored or misinterpreted all the lessons after that.