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Star Wars: The Wrong Trousers


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5 hours ago, RumHam said:

He's probably the thing I found most disappointing about Rogue One. "Bad Rebel" is an interesting idea, as Star Wars goes. They kinda set him up as a rebel reflection of vader, with his robot parts, willingness to torture and breathing problems. 

But then no, he just fucks off and basically suicides. (you have robot legs, dude.) and so he's reduced to just an obstacle for the gang to overcome. A couple more scenes and he could have had an impact. 

He basically just gives up, after mentioning that he's "no longer running away". Man he really showed that explosion who's boss, lol

The annoying part is, there are so many ways to write Saw's death and make it cool. They could have had a rock about to fall on Jyn and have Saw push her out of the day at the last minute and get hit by it himself. Jyn and the others could try to pull the rock off him and Saw could yell at them "NO LEAVE ME BEHIND, SAVE THE REBELLION, SAVE THE DREAM". That's literally all it would take.

Edited by sifth
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2 minutes ago, sifth said:

The annoying part is, there are so many ways to write Saw's death and make it cool.

I don't know if you're looking at this from the perspective of a Clone Wars fan, but I don't know the character from those cartoons, and to me giving him a "cool" ending would undercut the actual message of the character in the film, which is that he's someone who has destroyed himself for a cause to the point that he is no longer willing to continue fighting and, consequently, no longer willing to live.

 

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54 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't know if you're looking at this from the perspective of a Clone Wars fan, but I don't know the character from those cartoons, and to me giving him a "cool" ending would undercut the actual message of the character in the film, which is that he's someone who has destroyed himself for a cause to the point that he is no longer willing to continue fighting and, consequently, no longer willing to live.

 

"Cool" might have been the wrong word to use. I should have said "meaningful".

I sort of hate characters who give up. I honestly found Saw's death rather laughable in that film and felt there were so many ways to do it better. In the cartoons, Saw comes off as this guy who's willing to fight to the bitter end. Heck he just discovered that the Empire's super weapon has a weakness, he should be beyond happy, because he has something new to destroy.

Edited by sifth
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Heck, from the Rebels cartoon (which probably retconned him after Rogue One but I'm not wanting to research it) he was the only one who actually thought the empire was building a superweapon and wanted to take action against it. 

I get the idea of him wanting to give up to a point, but he didn't act weary and done - he acted defiant, which is a very weird thing to do when no one is watching and no one cares.

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4 hours ago, sifth said:

"Cool" might have been the wrong word to use. I should have said "meaningful".

I sort of hate characters who give up. I honestly found Saw's death rather laughable in that film and felt there were so many ways to do it better. In the cartoons, Saw comes off as this guy who's willing to fight to the bitter end. Heck he just discovered that the Empire's super weapon has a weakness, he should be beyond happy, because he has something new to destroy.

Saw Gerrera is a joke character in RO. The guy has literally nothing to do with the guy from TCW - that man was an Onderonian freedom fighter fighting against the Separatist puppet king on his home planet. He was supported by the political body that would eventualy become the Empire - the Galactic Republic.

The notion that this guy would eventually turn into an anti-Imperial rebel because of 'reasons' we are never given makes little sense - it is kind of like a Vietcong turning into an fierce anti-communist and the audience is just handwaving this as 'natural development'. Even with Rebels in mind Saw makes no sense at this point as we have no clue what happened to Onderon in Imperial days ... nor are we given any reason why the Empire should have slaughtered Onderonians. And there is no reason given why the hell Saw of all people should suddenly care about other people and their plights.

The biggest problem with the Saw plot, though, is that it is a completely wrong approach to have the nutcase terrorist guy be the only rebel to believe in the Death Star project. That's something the people with actual connections with the Imperial bureaucracy and military should have uncovered.

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4 hours ago, sifth said:

"Cool" might have been the wrong word to use. I should have said "meaningful".

Within the context of the thematic points being raised by the film, it absolutely was meaningful. He was a person who had lost all hope, burning through all of it, losing everyone he loved (I gather he had a sister who got killed in Clone Wars?) and even lost much of his own body, and he simply was done with it. He had no hope left.

Hope's very central to the film's narrative, and Saw's death is one aspect of it through the idea of hopelessness.

 

4 hours ago, sifth said:

I sort of hate characters who give up. I honestly found Saw's death rather laughable in that film and felt there were so many ways to do it better. In the cartoons, Saw comes off as this guy who's willing to fight to the bitter end.

I was thinking about this, and obviously there's a lot to say about how The Last Jedi treated Luke Skywalker, and the divisiveness it caused. I admit, I paused because, of course, while I don't know Saw outside of Rogue One, I know Luke...

But the thing that made it different to me is the fact that TLJ so clearly did something very different with Luke than what Mark Hamill (and, more importantly, George Lucas, as conveyed by remarks Hamill made) thought should have happened. There was some lip service paid to the fact that Lucas had been consulted, had unveiled his ideas and plans, and that they were charting a course through that... but TLJ was maybe the first point where something radically different was done, that was no longer about weaving in Lucas's notions (whatever they were) but about carving out something entirely new in the middle of the final third of the Skywalker Saga. 

11 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Heck, from the Rebels cartoon (which probably retconned him after Rogue One but I'm not wanting to research it)

From what I can tell, the Rebels cartoon and Saw's appearance in it was being done concurrently with Rogue One filming, so I think they thought it dovetailed? I don't know.

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11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Saw Gerrera is a joke character in RO. The guy has literally nothing to do with the guy from TCW - that man was an Onderonian freedom fighter fighting against the Separatist puppet king on his home planet. He was supported by the political body that would eventualy become the Empire - the Galactic Republic.

The notion that this guy would eventually turn into an anti-Imperial rebel because of 'reasons' we are never given makes little sense - it is kind of like a Vietcong turning into an fierce anti-communist and the audience is just handwaving this as 'natural development'. Even with Rebels in mind Saw makes no sense at this point as we have no clue what happened to Onderon in Imperial days ... nor are we given any reason why the Empire should have slaughtered Onderonians. And there is no reason given why the hell Saw of all people should suddenly care about other people and their plights.

The biggest problem with the Saw plot, though, is that it is a completely wrong approach to have the nutcase terrorist guy be the only rebel to believe in the Death Star project. That's something the people with actual connections with the Imperial bureaucracy and military should have uncovered.

You're right that at the time that hadn't happened. But aren't we given that reason in season 1 of The Bad Batch?

But even if The Bad Batch didn't happen, it still makes sense, I don't know why you would say it wouldn't. Saw fought for Onderon's independence. It makes perfect sense he would fight against the Empire which is another entity that controls people and planets.

But we're slowly getting the life and times of Saw Gerrera through all the shows, movies, video games, and probably comics that explore this period.

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Just now, Corvinus85 said:

You're right that at the time that hadn't happened. But aren't we given that reason in season 1 of The Bad Batch?

Oh, right, I kind of forgot that development. But this is something that didn't have to happen.

Just now, Corvinus85 said:

But even if The Bad Batch didn't happen, it still makes sense, I don't know why you would say it wouldn't. Saw fought for Onderon's independence. It makes perfect sense he would fight against the Empire which is another entity that controls people and planets.

If they were to occupy Onderon ... but why would they? The Onderonian guys were proto-Imperial people, basically. He could just as well have become a die-hard Imperial, persecuting former Separatist worlds, say. Conceptually it would have been much more interesting if former Separatists had made up a core portion of the future Rebellion.

Just now, Corvinus85 said:

But we're slowly getting the life and times of Saw Gerrera through all the shows, movies, video games, and probably comics that explore this period.

Sure enough - but they all have to do it with the RO end result in mind ... which I'd say was a stupid idea for that character. Now they have to make it make sense when there would have been so many other more reasonable ways to use that character. I mean, why a nutcase guy and not, you know, some seasoned and sane rebel leader.

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3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If they were to occupy Onderon ... but why would they? The Onderonian guys were proto-Imperial people, basically. He could just as well have become a die-hard Imperial, persecuting former Separatist worlds, say. Conceptually it would have been much more interesting if former Separatists had made up a core portion of the future Rebellion.

Because that's what the Empire does, they occupy planets. I don't fully understand your they were for the Republic, therefore they should be for the Empire take. The Republic was made of autonomous worlds. Just because Palps manipulated the whole system and turned into a dictatorship doesn't mean all should go along with it. Most staunch Imperials probably believed in the ideals of the Republic regarding unity, plus law & order and all that. People like Saw were more on the line of being fully independent.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure enough - but they all have to do it with the RO end result in mind ... which I'd say was a stupid idea for that character. Now they have to make it make sense when there would have been so many other more reasonable ways to use that character. I mean, why a nutcase guy and not, you know, some seasoned and sane rebel leader.

A seasoned and sane rebel leader would have handed over the turncoat pilot and valuable information without the Rebel leadership needing to recruit someone to convince him. Therefore, the movie would have been very different.

I see Saw as a tragic figure. I don't think the end of his story is stupid, but it may not have been the best idea to show it before so much of his story was written. We had only known the beginning of it by then.

Edited by Corvinus85
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3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Because that's what the Empire does, they occupy planets. I don't fully understand your they were for the Republic, therefore they should be for the Empire take. The Republic was made of autonomous worlds. Just because Palps manipulated the whole system and turned into a dictatorship doesn't mean all should go along with it. Most staunch Imperials probably believed in the ideals of the Republic regarding unity, plus law & order and all that. People like Saw were more on the line of being fully independent.

Saw's rebels were never for an independent Onderon as such, they were for an Onderon ruled by a king with Republic leanings.

The Clone War was a galactic civil war ... and Saw's faction won both on Onderon during TCW as well as when the Republic crushed the Confederacy.

Certainly, the Empire is more authoritarian and, yes, they also do occupy worlds. But Onderon is a Republic membership world ... which makes them also an Imperial world. It makes no sense to assume that the Empire randomly exploits and oppresses its very own membership worlds. That can happen occasionally, but we cannot interpret this as being a regular thing. If we do, then the entire Empire as a political body should collapse because it cannot devour itself and function.

Dictatorships like Palpatine's only stay in charge if a majority of the people actually have the feeling they do profit from the new regime. That's how the Nazis did it, that's how the KP stays in charge in China, etc. Andor actually shows how this goes ... and how insane draconian measures like 'you never get out of labor camp prison' destroy the system.

Onderon isn't the kind of world we would expect the Empire to target.

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

A seasoned and sane rebel leader would have handed over the turncoat pilot and valuable information without the Rebel leadership needing to recruit someone to convince him. Therefore, the movie would have been very different.

It should have been very different ;-).

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I see Saw as a tragic figure. I don't think the end of his story is stupid, but it may not have been the best idea to show it before so much of his story was written. We had only known the beginning of it by then.

It destroyed what the TCW character could have become - a proper leader of the Rebellion or, as I suggested, an Imperial Moff, say, believing that Palpatine actually was a hero who restored order, etc. Onderon is the perfect place where the rise of the Empire could be welcomed since it suffered from severe divison during the Clone Wars. Mina and Lux Bonterri were originally Dooku fans and they represented Onderon both in the Republic and Confederate Senate.

As TBB shows - the worlds suffering from the Imperial yoke should be mostly former CIS worlds and neutral/non-Imperial worlds. The Republic/Imperial establishment would not really care if such worlds were exploited and the people there mistreated. From there you could then have democratic idealists/Republic fans who reject Palpatine's rule on principle gaining traction by way of convincing others to care about the plight of the people the Empire does exploit.

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On 4/26/2023 at 5:33 PM, Lord Varys said:

I mean, if you think about it that's like assuming, say, random Frenchmen with no political affiliation is going to spearhead the efforts of the Resistance.

Heh, as an aside I remember reading an old historical(?) novel as a kid, where a group of random Frenchmen became involved in a "heroic" Boers revolt/war against the British Empire in South Africa, using bicycles as a major innovation in military tactics :rolleyes:. Ahem.

And well, random people do get involved in rebellions and revolutions - but I somewhat agree that the Rebellion comes across pretty badly in RO. OTOH, even in the OT it only becomes really organized and numerous in RoTJ - before that the groups we saw, while effective and involved in important events, were relatively small and may have been fairly independent. There is more than enough iRL precedent for something like this, though - where many very disparate groups are unified only by opposition to an oppressive regime and have very different ideas about how it should be expressed.

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1 hour ago, Maia said:

And well, random people do get involved in rebellions and revolutions - but I somewhat agree that the Rebellion comes across pretty badly in RO. OTOH, even in the OT it only becomes really organized and numerous in RoTJ - before that the groups we saw, while effective and involved in important events, were relatively small and may have been fairly independent. There is more than enough iRL precedent for something like this, though - where many very disparate groups are unified only by opposition to an oppressive regime and have very different ideas about how it should be expressed.

While we don't see much of the Rebellion in ANH and TESB ... we learn that there is an open civil war going on and that the Rebellion have a clear military command structure with an effective and professional leadership. We see this both in ANH and TESB. And the (in the Special Edition) half cut Biggs subplot clearly establishes the Rebellion is popular enough even on backwater Tatooine to convince young people to join up. Even Luke knows about them.

Is anyone actually going to buy that the Rebellion as portrayed in RO would be popular with anyone? The first time they apparently did anything of note was at the end of RO.

The Rebellion as portrayed in Andor is totally fine - independent small organizations which have yet to unite and form the Rebel Alliance. The problem there is more with the way they portrayed Mon Mothma - which we can also blame RO for because that's the movie where they turned her into a woman without bite.

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The Rebellion, as portrayed in Rebels, Rogue One, and even Bad Batch shows the Rebel Alliance hasn't coalesced into anything that can be considered a significant challenge to the Empire. Some of those seeds as to why the Alliance isn't able to be one cohesive thing seems to be what Andor is setting up.

At Yavin, many of those different factions apparently had gathered to work out their differences, but it was Jyn and Rogue One going out and forcing the factions to finally confront what they are meant to be.

That all works on a bunch of levels...but I do admit that it also comes into the trouble of how the timeline works. The ultimate decision to have Luke and Leia be the children of Anakin Skywalker and confining the Empire to an age of only 19 years at the time of A New Hope really does stunt some things...

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45 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

At Yavin, many of those different factions apparently had gathered to work out their differences, but it was Jyn and Rogue One going out and forcing the factions to finally confront what they are meant to be.

And that doesn't work on so many levels - it returns the people who built the Rebellion into morons who needed some suicide guys to inspire them. It also shifts the focus completely to the Death Star - which is just a sympton of Imperial tyranny, not the embodiment of it.

ANH and Rebels also established that the Rebel Alliance did have other planetary bases before Yavin - Dantooine and the bases from Rebels. They did work together earlier, and they did actually fight the Empire earlier - most notably Grand Admiral Thrawn in Rebels.

Mind you, showing how a charismatic leader like Mon Mothma slowly but surely forges the Rebel Alliance out of many small and disparate rebel groups would be a great plot. But it would be a plot for the 20 years between PT and OT. By the time of RO this should be long over.

45 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

That all works on a bunch of levels...but I do admit that it also comes into the trouble of how the timeline works. The ultimate decision to have Luke and Leia be the children of Anakin Skywalker and confining the Empire to an age of only 19 years at the time of A New Hope really does stunt some things...

It is not just that - it is the simple fact that no times passes between RO and ANH, so whatever impact this event had on the galaxy at large ... it wouldn't be well-known by the time of ANH.

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The problem is the very first movie states that the rebels have only just "won their first victory", which pretty much rules out them being an effective force earlier than that.

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12 minutes ago, felice said:

The problem is the very first movie states that the rebels have only just "won their first victory", which pretty much rules out them being an effective force earlier than that.

Not necessarily - there could have been earlier missions which ended in standoffs or which made the Empire look bad even if the Empire won the actual battle.

RO actually ruined the 'first victory' talk there as the finale of the movie doesn't exactly portray the Rebels as the victorious party there. They have to flee and the guys on Scarif all die.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Not necessarily - there could have been earlier missions which ended in standoffs or which made the Empire look bad even if the Empire won the actual battle.

RO actually ruined the 'first victory' talk there as the finale of the movie doesn't exactly portray the Rebels as the victorious party there. They have to flee and the guys on Scarif all die.

But by your own argument, the battle of Scarif is still a Rebel victory. The Rebels suffered heavy losses and abandoned the field, except winning the field wasn't their primary objective. They achieved their primary objective and their actions led to the destruction of Scarif base and the Imperial Navy lost two star destroyers.

If anything, I would say Thrawn's complete defeat at Lothal is the first major Rebel victory and that throws the line from the original title crawl off. Lothal weakens the Empire in that they lose their best strategist and tactician.

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1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

But by your own argument, the battle of Scarif is still a Rebel victory. The Rebels suffered heavy losses and abandoned the field, except winning the field wasn't their primary objective. They achieved their primary objective and their actions led to the destruction of Scarif base and the Imperial Navy lost two star destroyers.

If anything, I would say Thrawn's complete defeat at Lothal is the first major Rebel victory and that throws the line from the original title crawl off. Lothal weakens the Empire in that they lose their best strategist and tactician.

It depends on how you define victory. But I'm fine with interpreting the opening crawl as 'first meaningful victory' or 'first big victory'. After all, the movie itself makes it quite clear that Leia and the Rebels have been a pain in the ass for Darth Vader for quite some time, so it doesn't make sense that organized Rebel attacks are a new thing.

Although I'd say the fact that the Death Star itself blew up the station and the Rebels had to flee isn't exactly a good definition of 'victory'.

The problem with the later seasons of Rebels and RO simply is that the Rebellion (leadership) as depicted in RO would never be able or willing to pull off the things we see the Rebellion doing in Rebels ... and that's a problem with RO. Only there do we get craven/incompetent/unwilling Rebels/Rebel leaders.

And the entire point of that silly plotline is to play up the roles and sacrifices of Jyn and Cassian which is just a silly clichéd standard plot.

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