LogFAQs > #945961421

Star Tours
Compared to Rise of the Resistance, this is almost charmingly quaint. You've got one indoor line where you walk past a bunch of robots under blue-tinted lights, and eventually you sit down in a room with a Threepio animatronic sitting next to a TV screen. The screen shows Vader and Empire guys doing bad stuff, and the room (which is supposed to be a vehicle) shakes around as you escape. I wonder what made them choose Threepio as the animatronic? Is that he's the most cowardly of the main characters, so he could react with the appropriate amount of fear when Darth Vader appears?

As a kid, I really enjoyed Star Tours. I know I went on it at least four or five times, but I don't remember all of the details. I doubt I'd have the patience for an hour-long line for five minutes of entertainment, but I guess that's what you did in the 90s.

The Mandalorian
After TRoS, I thought I was done with Star Wars. But then everyone was like "No, bro, you have to give this one more shot." I refused for months, until it finally I had no more excuses. The Mandalorian was the shot of adrenaline the franchise needed. No gigantic epic plots (though Baby Yoda seems like he'll tie into one), just a serialized show about a badass and a baby wandering the galaxy, to the point where this feels like a show from the 1990s with modern production values.

Everything about this show is done right. I could point to specific episodes, but instead I'll just talk about the climax of the last episode. The heroes are on the ground while an Imperial guy flies around in a TIE fighter and shoots at them. The Mandalorian comes up with a half-baked plan to fly up with a jetpack, hook around the TIE fighter's wings with his restraining cord thingy, and then has an extremely awkward time attaching a bomb to the surface of the fighter because he's going like three-hundred miles per hour. No highly choreographed Jedi fights, just a guy barely scraping by.

It's nice that Disney finally managed to get something right, but now that the Mandalorian has gone from a side project to the only active Star Wars project, I wonder if they won't increase the stakes to be more epic. We'll see.

BB-8
Great design, I'll give it that. This is just another case of no one thinking through how the ideas JJ Abrams introduces in TFA will be used in later movies, so nothing is done with BB-8. I cannot remember a single thing BB-8 does after TFA. I just looked it up, BB-8 went to Canto Bight and was with Rey at the end of TRoS? I have literally zero memories of that.

As a storytelling tool, BB-8 serves literally the exact same purpose as Artoo. There is no functional difference between these characters in the way the script uses them. I realize Artoo is supposed to be a little more heroic, but it matters so little. And because the audience already cares about Artoo and Threepio, after TFA, all of the important robot moments go to them, so... Yeah. Waste of a character, but every Star Wars thing is contractually obligated to add at least one new cute robot.

Padme Amidala
You know what's weird? The most proactive, heroic female character in the entire series isn't Leia or Rey, it's Padme. Padme is the only one who really goes out and tries to get the things she wants (which eventually includes someone she knew as a nine year-old boy) without being part of a larger organization that makes these broad decisions that she's merely part of. PM and AotC are awful, of course, but Padme is actually not a terrible depiction of a female hero, even if she's the most useless main character in a fight (I guess Threepio is, but whatever).

The problem for Padme is that the prequel people remember is RotS, which is the one where she's pregnant for 95% of the movie and does nothing except fuss over her upcoming babies, which is absolutely not the thing you want in a space adventure movie. Add to that the fact that Natalie Portman is inexplicably the best actor in that movie (which is shocking, given what she does in those Thor movies), and she has no big memes.

Anyway, I guess I should address "she has lost the will to live." Yes, okay, robot. Padme just gave birth to two children she spent months gushing over, but she lost the will to live because Anakin is a meanie. I don't even know what to say about that.

Leia/Luke Kiss
Lucas occasionally claims that he intended for Luke and Leia to be siblings from the start. This is obviously a lie for many reasons, but the most obvious reason is that he would not have included incest on purpose. What is this, Fire Emblem?

Did the EU ever address this? Did we learn that Luke and Leia felt each other's similarity through the Force or whatever?

Sith
I like the Sith as a concept. They're Force users who use their powers for self-gain. Fine as an idea, I suppose. My problem with them is the stupid Rule of Two thing. It's the absolute dumbest method of training, which is probably why every video game just has billions of Sith for you to fight.

Speaking of video games, I played The Old Republic when it went F2P, and played a Sith Inquisitor. I enjoyed torturing people with lightning for no reason. That game's not great, but it does give you some fun evil options.

X-Wings
I can recite practically the entire lead-up to the Death Star battle, where all of the pilots are talking in their X-Wings. It's such a good, simple design for space fighter jets. "Fighter jets, but with Xs for wings." Sometimes, something simple that is better than anything more complicated or realistic.

Darth Nihilus' Voice
Very good "mysterious lost soul given over completely to evil and madness" voice. I played KotOR 2, but I actually don't even remember how he dies. I do remember his mask and voice, though.


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