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Episode I: The Phantom Menace - 20th Anniversary
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Whill
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PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2019 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sutehp wrote:
Whill wrote:
I seem to recall some confusion from more casual fans that thought little Ani was Luke as a child. The Disney era seems more confusing to these people though. There were people confused by why Rey wasn't in Solo, and someone actually asked me if there was going to be a Rogue One 2. LOL.

Did that person who asked about "Rogue One 2" (I blame that same person for actually making me think and type the words "Rogue One 2" and will never forgive such a crime against humanity) actually see the part of Rogue One where the entire party got killed? How do you have a direct sequel when all the primary characters are already dead?

He wasn't trolling me because it was in person and the person was my brother. I feel I should still give the full context. It was before he saw the movie, and I was trying to not spoil it. It went something like this.

HIM: Will there be a Rogue One 2?
ME: A New Hope is Rogue One 2.
HIM: But will there be a Rogue One 2?
ME: Rogue One segues directly into A New Hope.
HIM: But will there be a Rogue One 2?!
ME: Rogue One is the previously unknown first half of the story. There's no where else for the Rogue One story to go except to A New Hope.
HIM: But will there ever be a Rogue One 2?!!
ME: <sigh> No.
HIM: Thank you. That's all I wanted to know.

On second thought, maybe he was just trolling me. But it seemed to me that he was just trying to find out if everyone died at the end or not. But you can still blame him forever. This is the same guy who argued with me that Solo 2 and Solo 3 were secretly in development and then canceled due to Solo 1's failure. He never understand the "anthology" things, and just assumed that Star Wars was going to be Marvel and have all these spin-off character franchises as part of the greater franchise. He saw the main Skywalker saga as the Avengers. Solo was Ant-Man or Doctor Strange but more expensive so less profitable. In his mind Solo was always planned to be a trilogy from the get-go.

Of course he has no evidence that Solo 2 and 3 were officially (but not publicly) in development, and his whole argument was mainly based on the fact that Jabba wasn't in Solo 1 so they must be saving him for Solo 2. And that Disney is greedy so they just couldn't help themselves from planning a Solo trilogy. I do feel that Disney would have loved it if Solo had warranted its own sequels, which unlike Rogue One could actually been applicable, but that doesn't mean that the Solo sequels were secretly green-lighted before Solo came out and then cancelled after, so it just so happened that we never knew about these movies that they will now never admit they were making.
Rolling Eyes

TauntaunScout wrote:
Obi-Wan et al dress like samurai, from the samurai movies being copied at the time. Owen et al dress like Japanese peasants, from the same movies.

After seeing several Kurosawa movies, that makes sense.

TauntaunScout wrote:
I never thought of it as "moisture farmer" clothes, just "Star Wars" clothes.

I suppose one could think of it as both Jedi and farmers as being subsets of the population that dress very old fashioned though. As opposed to city fellers like Han and Lando.

That's quite reasonable.
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Solo4114
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PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 12:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Solo4114 wrote:
It's still hampered by some other poor design choices (why are Jedi all apparently dressed like Tatooinian farmers?), but on the whole, it's pretty clear it's a Star Wars film, just one that doesn't rely on a ton of visual familiarity as a shortcut to "Yup, that's Star Wars."

Quote:
As these garments were not usually elaborate, the outfit mirrored their attachment-free philosophy, as well as showing their requirement to live almost devoid of luxury and also their devotion to service.

Here's more about it. It was a conscious design choice, but not for TPM. The design choice was made in the production of the original Star Wars. Old Obi-Wan was meant to be wearing Jedi apparel in that film, which was always intentionally similar to what common folk of the galaxy wear (like Uncle Owen). It seems apparent that your judgement of Jedi apparel in the prequels is based on an inaccurate assumption that in the original film Old Ben was wearing crazy dessert hermit wear and not his original Jedi apparel. It's quite amazing what all Lucas envisioned about the Star Wars galaxy back in the 70s. We have proof that Midi-chlorians, Threepio being built by a boy working for an outer rim junk dealer, and stormtroopers being clones all come from the 70s. Lucas imagined what Jedi would wear back when there was only one Jedi in the story, and it was intentionally similar to Tatooine farmers.

Now if you disagree with Jedi wearing clothes like common farmers of the galaxy, that's your prerogative and I would be interested in hearing what you think Jedi should wear instead. But I still wouldn't consider your particular sense of aesthetics to be a poor choice of Lucas.


Ok. So, how does one square that with George's statements during production of ROTJ about how Luke's look was "more jedi-like"?

I mean, it doesn't really matter because I find George's own statements on stuff like this to be inconsistent and unreliable anyway, but it does seem to stand in contrast to the notion that Obi-Wan's look in ANH is the actual proper Jedi outfit.

Also, narratively, that doesn't make a ton of sense. If you've gone into hiding, dressing in the uniform of the well-known organization you used to work for -- and which is being hunted to death -- is probably not the wisest course of action.

I lean towards the "They dressed kinda like samurai" notion and that they didn't think too much about the in-story background reasons for it. I suspect, although I have no proof, that the decision to garb TPM-era Jedi in the same or very similar outfits as Old Ben's outfit was more about visual familiarity than some in-universe justification. Or, you know, maybe George just changed his mind again.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 1:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Solo4114 wrote:
Also, narratively, that doesn't make a ton of sense. If you've gone into hiding, dressing in the uniform of the well-known organization you used to work for -- and which is being hunted to death -- is probably not the wisest course of action.

The Imperial presence in Tatooine is very small - It was controlled by the Hutts. And again, if that sort of dress is what common poor masses of the galaxy wear (including moisture farmers on that planet), then most Jedi are blending in with them. Things that would stand out would be padawan braids, lightsabers, overt use of Jedi powers, etc. Stormtroopers talked to Obi-Wan in Luke's landspeeder and didn't immediately try to apprehend him before he used the Force on them. They asked them how long they have had the droids. They didn't come running into the cantina until after Obi-Wan whipped out his ligthsaber for a little snicker-snack.

Solo4114 wrote:
Ok. So, how does one square that with George's statements during production of ROTJ about how Luke's look was "more jedi-like"?

I can't say since I don't remember that. I remember a BTS segment in From Star Wars to Jedi where Mark Hamill comes on set with the black costume and the discussion with Lucas being about how similar it was to his ANH costume. The shirt is not so loose - It's got a tighter fit and it is all black, but it is similar.

Maybe Lucas did say it was more "Jedi-like" too though. Lucas created the Star Wars universe and he has stated a lot of things, especially about aesthetically values, without any explanation. He sees some concept art and it is just approved or denied, Star Wars or "not Star Wars enough". That's his prerogative. I'm sure that in Lucas' mind, Luke's RotJ outfit is "more Jedi like" in some way.

There's another Jedi in RotJ - Anakin Skywalker. His Force Ghost is wearing the same clothes as Obi-Wan. And little's Yoda's costume was very similar. And since the title of the film is Return of the Jedi, I'm pretty sure they were all meant to be wearing Jedi clothes in this scene. Even if Anakin were Owen's brother as stated in the novelization, why the hell would Yoda be wearing Tatooine farmer clothes??



Solo4114 wrote:
It's still hampered by some other poor design choices (why are Jedi all apparently dressed like Tatooinian farmers?), but on the whole, it's pretty clear it's a Star Wars film, just one that doesn't rely on a ton of visual familiarity as a shortcut to "Yup, that's Star Wars."

Solo4114 wrote:
I mean, it doesn't really matter because I find George's own statements on stuff like this to be inconsistent and unreliable anyway, but it does seem to stand in contrast to the notion that Obi-Wan's look in ANH is the actual proper Jedi outfit.
...
I lean towards the "They dressed kinda like samurai" notion and that they didn't think too much about the in-story background reasons for it. I suspect, although I have no proof, that the decision to garb TPM-era Jedi in the same or very similar outfits as Old Ben's outfit was more about visual familiarity than some in-universe justification. Or, you know, maybe George just changed his mind again.

Before you said Star Wars doesn't rely on a ton of visual familiarity to communicate a sense of verisimilitude to fans, but now you are saying that prequel Jedi's clothes matching Old Ben's was for the sake of visual familiarity. So I guess you are saying it is an exception to the rule.

Even if Lucas had newly decided for the prequel era to base Jedi apparel on Old Ben in ANH and the factoid of Jedi dressing like monks and the poor masses of galaxy was just a retcon to explain Tatooine farmers in 1977, Old Ben's apparel is samurai like. That would mean that it was a good design choice for the prequels, and a bad design choice for ANH. You criticized TPM for poor design choices, when it seems that you should have a problem with ANH, not TPM.
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Solo4114
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PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 3:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:

Solo4114 wrote:
It's still hampered by some other poor design choices (why are Jedi all apparently dressed like Tatooinian farmers?), but on the whole, it's pretty clear it's a Star Wars film, just one that doesn't rely on a ton of visual familiarity as a shortcut to "Yup, that's Star Wars."

Solo4114 wrote:
I mean, it doesn't really matter because I find George's own statements on stuff like this to be inconsistent and unreliable anyway, but it does seem to stand in contrast to the notion that Obi-Wan's look in ANH is the actual proper Jedi outfit.
...
I lean towards the "They dressed kinda like samurai" notion and that they didn't think too much about the in-story background reasons for it. I suspect, although I have no proof, that the decision to garb TPM-era Jedi in the same or very similar outfits as Old Ben's outfit was more about visual familiarity than some in-universe justification. Or, you know, maybe George just changed his mind again.


Before you said Star Wars doesn't rely on a ton of visual familiarity to communicate a sense of verisimilitude to fans, but now you are saying that prequel Jedi's clothes matching Old Ben's was for the sake of visual familiarity. So I guess you are saying it is an exception to the rule.


Reread my whole original post, please. The primary focus of my post is on the design themes in Naboo and of Nabooian culture, which is quite different. I also said that the newer films rely quite heavily on visual familiarity in the form of white-armored troopers, wedge-shaped giant spaceships, yet more X-wings (now looking closer to McQuarrie's original designs). I did not say that Star Wars as a whole does not rely on visual familiarity, nor even that TPM as a whole does not. Rather, I said that Naboo and Nabooian culture are visually distinct and that I appreciate that.

Quote:
Even if Lucas had newly decided for the prequel era to base Jedi apparel on Old Ben in ANH and the factoid of Jedi dressing like monks and the poor masses of galaxy was just a retcon to explain Tatooine farmers in 1977, Old Ben's apparel is samurai like. That would mean that it was a good design choice for the prequels, and a bad design choice for ANH. You criticized TPM for poor design choices, when it seems that you should have a problem with ANH, not TPM.


The design choices in ANH were about stuff that, I suspect, had very little to do with in-universe backstory or history. Ben looked kinda like a samurai. Luke looked kinda like a Japanese peasant. Owen looked a lot closer to Ben in his outfit, though, but it's all basically visually referencing jidaigeki like the stuff Kurosawa made that Lucas loved. I don't think they had clear reasons within the universe for why people were dressed this way or that way.

When ROTJ comes out, Lucas apparently thinks something about Luke's outfit looks more "jedi-like." Is it the color? The cut? The fact that he doesn't have any hakama? I don't know. Anakin ends up dressed like Obi-Wan for reasons we're not clear on. Is it because it's all Jedi outfits? Or is it because Anakin was apparently from Tatooine and would've dressed like a moisture farmer too? Who knows. We never really find out at the time.

When TPM finally comes out, Lucas has apparently settled on some kind of hybrid design that involves the brown robe that Obi-Wan wore in ANH, a similarly designed top to his ANH outfit, but which abandons the hakama for the kind of trousers-and-high-boots look that Luke has in ROTJ, only not in black. And that becomes the uniform of the Jedi. The films never really explain that "Well, that's because they wanted to look like the common people." That strikes me as a post hoc justification for a design choice that was primarily to create visual familiarity. Naboo is already pretty different looking, and that's where a good portion of the film takes place, so it helps to have a familiar visual touchstone...but it still raises questions of "Why do they look like how Obi-Wan looked when he was supposed to be in hiding?"

I'm basically fine with the post-hoc justification. It's as good a reason as any in-universe. But I still think it's probably a post-hoc justification rather than something the design team decided when choosing outfits. In other words, I doubt they said "The Jedi should dress like common people, and since the common people were dressed like Obi-Wan in ANH, let's stick with that general look and color scheme for the Jedi." I think it's far more like "Let's make them look similar to Obi-Wan in ANH" and that was that.

I see that as...hmm...not necessarily a flaw in the sense of "It ruins the film" but rather in the sense of "Did they even consider the implication that Obi-Wan would have been 'hiding' in the uniform of his outlawed order if we make that the uniform of the Jedi order?"
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TauntaunScout
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PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lucas also said that he was copying a general vibe in foreign films where there are tons of details that make no sense. Because you're not from that culture.

So there may be visual inconsistencies that are just there to BE inconsistent and subconsciously un-nerve you.
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