How I realized I was over Star Wars completely

[anarky]

Here's a nice WTF I just learned about.

Remember Shatterpoint? Great book. Depa Billaba goes on a mission to Mace's homeworld, but goes crazy. Mace goes after her, only to find how corrupted she's become, and it winds up a Star Wars retelling of Heart of Darkness. In the end, Depa is institutionalized, with no one knowing when or if she'll recover. Which explains her absence in ROTS.

Jump forward. In Rebels, Kanan was Depa's former padawan. No biggie. And there's a recent comic telling of his adventures with Depa at the end of the Clone Wars.

So they retconned Shatterpoint away, right? No biggie. Wouldn't be the first great Clone Wars novel to be deemed non-canonical.

Wrong. Apparently, "we're not sure if the best Jedi can ever heal her" now means "she'll be back to normal in a few weeks!"

[Jargo]

I don't know Shatterpoint. I never paid any attention to the Jedi or Clone wars stuff. I know it's an integral aspect of the saga but there's just so much of it and it's so rife with shitty made up on the fly stuff it's more or less invoked the same repulsion that the EU did. In fact as I've been re-acquainting myself with SW I've noticed that through the games and the Clone Wars toon, the Star Wars galaxy started to resemble our earth more and more with a large smattering of very star trek inspired design. Rebels does at least seem more grounded in authentic SW design even if they do have Aladin as the main character.
As far as Depa Bilaba goes. I imagine any religious order has its fair share of nutcases especially if you give them weapons and authority. I think the whole Jedi order is one huge melting pot of self delusion and egoism.

One thing that sticks in my craw is the insistence that any character wearing a brown robe is a jedi. I believe Wioslea in some corners of fandom is now a jedi undercover. Ugh. The Jedi wear brown/muted robes in order to blend in with indigenous peoples of the backwaters of the galaxy who thanks to poverty can only afford basic garb. I half expect someone somewhere to try saying that the entire population of tatooine are jedi because they wear brown robes and muted colours. This is why the EU had to die. people didn't expand the galaxy, they bloated it with crap.

[mabudon]

so I read this, who knows, but if it's anything like that it seems solid-ish (obviously there are maybe spoilers) bhttp://makingstarwars.net/2015/05/a-compiled-synopsis-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

[Diabolical]

Here's a nice WTF I just learned about.

Remember Shatterpoint? Great book. Depa Billaba goes on a mission to Mace's homeworld, but goes crazy. Mace goes after her, only to find how corrupted she's become, and it winds up a Star Wars retelling of Heart of Darkness. In the end, Depa is institutionalized, with no one knowing when or if she'll recover. Which explains her absence in ROTS.

Jump forward. In Rebels, Kanan was Depa's former padawan. No biggie. And there's a recent comic telling of his adventures with Depa at the end of the Clone Wars.

So they retconned Shatterpoint away, right? No biggie. Wouldn't be the first great Clone Wars novel to be deemed non-canonical.

Wrong. Apparently, "we're not sure if the best Jedi can ever heal her" now means "she'll be back to normal in a few weeks!"

I'm confused. How does the old, negated timeline make any difference to the new timeline?

[anarky]

Apparently, the Kanan comic (novel?) references the events of Shatterpoint, specifically Depa going bonkers, making it canon again... despite this being insane beyond words.

[jjreason]

Still not as fucked as DC.

[Ran]

I skimmed the link Mabs posted and it makes sense why they scrapped the EU. My EU knowledge is limited, but everything I know about post-ROTJ is blown away. Also, they can't just go through series by series and say which ones are still valid and which ones are scrapped.

Reading through the last day or two's posts also made me realize how little I know about the prequels. I didn't know who Depa Billaba was or that she disappeared in between movies.

[Jargo]

That plot synopsis unfortunately seems like it has some accuracy. Though as with all these 'spoiler' reports, a lot reads like an eleven year old's fanwank fan fiction. Is it fair to describe J.J. Abrams that way?

On another geekwad note i just noticed that if you look at the approach to the cantina SE, there's a shot of the speeder passing two docking bays with a couple of towers at the end of the street. I think one is the spaceport control tower which looks like a death star gun turret tower. Anyhoo, skip to the end of Jedi where george shows us lots of people rejoicing at the demise of the Emperor and the whole of Mos Eisley has been mirrored so George can continue his pan right to left. Those same two docking bays and two towers as the T-16 flies past. Just a pointless mention but interesting to me anyway.

Edit.

If Endor's fifth moon is the one with the Ewoks on it then where are the other four moons and the actual planet Endor? I've wondered about this for years. Finally saw Endor right at the start of the movie behind the star destroyers as Vader's shuttle approaches the death star where it looks grey in colour. Also again as the Tydirium makes its approach to the moon when Endor, or possibly another moon is right behind the Tydirium and is a mottled pink, maroon and grey. How have I never seen this before? Obviously I've just been awed by the sight of the shuttle and wondering why they fly the Tydirium so close to the SD bridge I guess. Still, nice to finally notice that Endor or one of the other moons show up in the movie. I don't have an old copy to check if it was always there though which is a shame.

Also, just noticed as Vader escorts Luke to the Emperor, as the elevator doors open onto the throne room, Vader's helmet is speckled with dust. Not really bad if you consider they're on a construction site but probably not intentional. bit like the Emperor's lazy eye where the contact lens wasn't centered.

[Jargo]

Right, so I'm sitting here collating pictures trying to come up with an actual configuration of the corridors and control rooms of the Endor moon bunker. It suddenly occurs to me that the control room they place the detonators in and the corridors around it would have no impact on the actual generator itself. Not in any immediate sense. And certainly wouldn't cause the transmitter array to explode so spectacularly. Unless the Imperials were using some sort of volatile fuel or gas to power the generator. There are pipes running across all the ceilings in the bunker which as we know is the back door to the larger complex of blocky buildings we see in the long shot of the landing platform at night. The explosion itself is a large fireball of the type you get from ignited liquid fuel. So can we infer that the imperials were fuelling their generator with something akin to gasoline? I reckon we can.
Also if the route taken by Han and the rebels inside the bunker is only what we're shown in that extended deleted scene then following the curvature of the corridors and the angles of the walls it places them right below the bunker rear entrance to the left of the entrance as seen from outside. With the generator array curving away to the rear left from us the viewer. Which puts it right in line with the shield projector array if you follow that curve round. Which puts the the main imperial complex and landing platform right behind the bunker beyond the trees. So where the hell is this legion of troops the Emperor blathers about? If the barracks are so close to the bunker rear entrance how come more troops don't appear? Is that where Major Panno, Orimaarko and the other Dressellian come into play? They left for Endor but never seemed to arrive. Presumably then they were a separate strike team of crack marksmen who picked off the Imperials one by one as they attempted to leave the barracks. Or they commandeered a Walker and obliterated the barracks. Or suicide bomb attacked the place. Maybe it was them not Han and his team who really destroyed the shield projector array. Dresselians are the true heroes of the battle on the sanctuary moon.
Also, I noticed that there are AT-ST feet stuck to the bunker entrance roof. I have a feeling I might be suffering from dementia. This is likely really old news regarding said AT-ST feet yet I have no recollection of it ever being discussed..........

[jjreason]

I don't recall seeing the ATST feet on the roof of the bunker, I'll have to look at that. I know I've spent a lot of time around the bunker playing Lego Star Wars, but don't recall seeing them there - I'll have to investigate that as well to see if they translated it over from the movie. As far as the directions go, I'm bad for just getting transported away & not thinking critically at all during the movies - until afterward. With the OT I guess I just never considered anything too strongly - just took it for granted. For the longest time I thought Yoda training Luke & the Falcon getting to Bespin was in something akin to "real time", not anywhere near the 6-8 weeks folks believe it took.

[Jargo]

To be honest, I only started to take note of the details watching the movies with the sound off. I'm so familiar with the story I needed something else to absorb me so i started looking at the set construction and where they re-used certain elements they had from other sets. This is also partly born out of looking at models people have made and claimed to be accurate when I can see they aren't. Would love to know if the bunker set is in the mega pricey blueprints book. It's an odd set. Seems designed so you never see the end of corridors and like a lot of corridor sets they reconfigure it for different camera angles and shots. It's basically a wonky T shape in the main shots and then as the characters break into the command room they re-use a side passage and ditch most of the main corridor set. The ceiling of the command room is plastic corrugated sheeting usually used on out buildings and sheds.
I've reconsidered the position of the command room. I think it's probably directly under the rear door having taken into account a further bend in the set and the fact they go down steps immediately after entering the bunker. Two sets of steps would give proper head room for the thing to be feasible. The ceilings are curved suggesting the bunker was machine bored out of the ground. Amazing details in this stuff. Norman Reynolds really thought about the design. It's used for three or four shots and then cut from the movie. Same goes for the set of the Executor on Empire. Have you seen that? It's gorgeous but barely seen in the final film. If Kubrick had directed Star Wars there'd have been half an hour of lingering shots on that Executor set.

You do have to wonder where han and Leia went before Bespin if Luke's training took so long. Which I don't think it did. Yoda and Ben were fairly desperate so i think they gave Luke a crash course and fast-tracked him. I think a week is possible and Yoda put Luke through trials straight away unlike normal Jedi training which took years before they got to that. Still, it does leave Han and Leia with time on their hands. And even if their arrival on Bespin was concurrent with Luke's on Dagobah they'd be kicking around on Cloud city for a few days before dinner with vader. One can therefore assume Leia was hitting those malls and snapping up fashionable rags while Han was with Lando at the gaming tables. R&R after the troubles of Yavin and Hoth I guess. That's my take. Longer than real time, but nowhere near the ridiculous 6-8 weeks.

[Slicker]

I too have noticed the AT-ST "feet" on top of the bunker but wasn't ever sure what exactly they were.

As for Bespin I always assumed that it took the Falcon a long time to get to Bespin with the hyperdrive not working. I've always assumed it was a month or so journey to get there.

[anarky]

And Han and Leia fucked the whole damn time.

[jjreason]

Oh you got that right. And if they were not showering that whole ship reeked of sex by the time she touched down at Cloud City.

[anarky]

Chewie also got lonely and stuck his massive Wookiee dong in the hyperdrive.