LogFAQs > #945925965

Special Edition Changes
Along with the ET walkie-talkie thing, the SW special edition changes are the most infamous in cinema. How much authority should you, as the creator of a work, have to go back and change things? There's no easy answer to that (unless you're JK Rowling, in which case you have the authority to tweet out that wizards normally poop on the floor and turn it invisible), but George Lucas avoided the question entirely by just charging ahead and doing it all anyway.

Some of the changes are okay. Everyone is fine with cleaning up awkward visual effects, sure. But even this isn't done consistently -- there's a cut on the Death Star with a door opening that was never fixed. Completely inexplicable.

To me, the Han/Greedo thing isn't even the worst one. I completely respect Harrison Ford just rolling his eyes and saying "who cares?" when asked about it. To me, the worst change is in RotJ, when Darth Vader looks at Palpatine shocking Luke. George Lucas must have said to himself "Man, the audience really needs a way to know what's going on in Vader's mind," then he inserted those hilarious "Noooooooooos." Lucas' actions can only be explained as those of a man who just lost his spark over time.

IG-88
A complete nothing character who shows up for two seconds, but who's more memorable than some entire movies I've seen. A masterful design.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Series)
I appreciate that they're willing to kill the clones on-screen, which is at least something in a show about a war, but the tone is normally too childish for my tastes. Sometimes you get a darker episode, which is alright, but then other times people spin lightsabers to fly like helicopters and I'm just like "nope" and disengage.

Star Wars: Masters of Ters Ksi
Having looked up a few reviews and videos of this, it looks terrible. I appreciate that it has Mara Jade, though. Nothing else to be said on this game's behalf, sadly.

A Star Wars fighting game seems like a natural progression for the franchise. Like, just make a game with Anakin, Vader, Palpatine, Yoda, Greivous, Maul, Young Obi-Wan, Old Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Qui-Gon, Luke, Han, Chewbacca, Lando, and Boba Fett, and you're done. It cannot possibly be that hard to make work.

Alas, there never was a definitive Star Wars fighting game, to the point where I associate Star Wars and fighting games with Soul Calibur... IV? V? I no longer even remember which game it was.

Matt the Radar Technician
Not a big fan of SNL, I'm gonna level with you. I watched the skit on youtube; it's fine. It's kind of a funny concept, but I'm not that into it.

Vader's Redemption: The Imperial March
I don't know anything about how music works, so this was very fun. An uplifting version of the Imperial March is a great idea, so much so that I'm now listening to the channel's other music. Sadly, it's impossible to completely change the atmosphere of the theme by changing only the key or whatever, because it's still slightly sinister at some points. I do like the main usage of trumpets to sound cheerful, though.

Blue Harvest (Family Guy)
I've never seen it! This came out just after I'd given up on Family Guy, so I never bothered. As a result, I can't rank it. Is it actually good?

Kreia
See, Kreia (and more broadly, KotOR 2) makes me more sympathetic to Rian Johnson. The idea of subverting the standard Star Wars tropes can be done well, and I know this because it was done well... but not by Johnson.

There's a meme about Kreia hating you no matter what your actions are, but that's not quite accurate. Kreia's shtick was about teaching you how your actions always have unexpected consequences, no matter how good your intentions may be. That's a more meaningful message than basically anything in an actual Star Wars movie. Sure, I could have lived without Kreia killing all of the Jedi except you (if you count KotOR as canon, which may still be the case, we've been down to "the last Jedi" at least three times), but the point is that she has something to actually say, and her speech about how "there is only you" is still a better twist than KotOR 1's actual twist.

Hell, even Kreia's physical design works this way. "My eyes work fine, I just let them atrophy from disuse." D'ya get it, kids? D'ya get it? She only sees with the Force because the physical world doesn't matter except in how it interacts with the Force. This tiny amount of character design building does a ton to flesh out Kreia.

Am I saying that the movies would be better if they adopted elements from KotOR? Maybe, I don't know. Kreia is certainly more interesting than any of the ST villains, though.

On a purely aesthetic note, her boss fight with her controlling lightsabers in the air with the Force is also super cool. You compare that to the first game, where the guy just swings a lightsaber at you, and it's like night and day.

Youngling Slaughter
In theory, Anakin murdering children should be like the defining moment for his character. And for a second, it sort of is. The kid asking Anakin what to do, Anakin igniting his lightsaber, and the kid flinching as he realizes something is wrong, all of that is good. The kid's acting is terrible, which takes away from the scene, but it's not completely ruined yet.

Later in the movie, though, Obi-Wan uses the phrase "killed younglings" several times, and the power of the scene is ruined. It's just so, so stupid. I realize we're in another galaxy, but "youngling" is... Imagine if you were watching a drama about a woman whose husband is killed in a car accident, and she's emotionally telling her friend about it while crying, and she says "He died in a vroom-vroom boom." It would not only be impossible to take seriously, it would retroactively ruin the elements of what came before that did work.

Nom Anor
Got a nice little Day of the Dead mask going on, I approve of that. I'm aware of this character a little as the spy who constantly changes sides and is hated by everyone, but I didn't know of his death. I don't know, I feel like there's no reason to commit suicide just because "the galaxy has no place for me" or whatever. Haven't you parlayed your way into every faction ten times over by this point?

Selected Passage from Heir to the Jedi
A very silly passage. I get what it's going for, but lamenting Obi-Wan's death a little more directly would probably have been less silly. Also, using the word "stark" while being so verbose was maybe not a good move.

Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit
I'd never heard of this before. I mean, it looks... serviceable? I'm not a big board game fan, so I can't really interpret how well-made the game is as a game. As a concept, game-ifying the Battle of Naboo is very odd. Even at the time, no one really liked PM, right? Surely it would make more sense to game-ify one of the many space battles. I could see a Death Star vs Rebels board game being more compelling.


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