Underrated bit from Star Wars (the original): Not once does Luke use his lightsaber in a fight...

Underrated bit from Star Wars (the original): Not once does Luke use his lightsaber in a fight. It makes complete sense from a narrative perspective since he'd only just started to learn the ways of the Force, but in hindsight it's an amazing show of restraint to not have Luke jump into the fray against Vader, lightsaber in hand. Especially when you consider that the movie's success was very much in doubt and a sequel was not guaranteed.

The movie instead shows Luke's growth in the Force in a different context, something the audience already knows he is skilled at: Piloting. Luke makes mention on two separate occasions that he's an experienced pilot and shows his skill to the audience firsthand during the TIE Fighter attack sequence. Using the Force to augment a skill he already has makes much more sense than suddenly making Luke a lightsaber savant after three hours of training on the Falcon.

On a semi-related note, I love how Luke's progression in his Jedi training is signified by his reliance on a blaster. In Star Wars/ANH, Luke relies entirely on a blaster for combat, leaving the lightsaber on his hip at all times. In ESB, Luke uses his blaster to dispatch Stormtroopers but switches to the lightsaber for single combat with Vader. And finally in ROTJ, he feels completely self-assured with the lightsaber in all situations, showing his maturation as a Jedi.

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i love how Luke's outfit color shows where he is at in his moral progression as a character.

starts out white, cause he's young and naive and just learning about the force

then grey, because he learns that the force has a dark side and there is real temptation revolving around its use

and black for after he is revealed to be vader's son and his future is unclear; whether he will follow vader's steps or not.

and then it is revealed to have a white interior to the suit to show that after he decides to be a jedi, that he was really good underneath all along and it came out when he makes that declaration

>black for after he is revealed to be vader's son and his future is unclear; whether he will follow vader's steps or not.

YES. This is a ssuper underrated aspect of ROTJ, I feel. Before ROTJ, the only examples we have for those mature in the Force are Obi-Wan, Yoda and Vader. So when Luke rolls into Jabba's palace cloaked in black and chokes Jabba's guards (something only Vader has been shown to do), it should have raised some red flags. Even his green lightsaber blade (I know it was because of the blue sky, shut it) implies a certain neutrality, somewhere between the Jedi and the Sith.

In retrospect I think the audience was supposed to legitimately wonder if Luke was going to take the Emperor's offer during the climax, but for whatever reason it just didn't land the way it should have.

ROTJ is a supremely underrated film anyway.
and mark hamill's performance in all 3 movies too

i mean, try to think of a scene involving luke where you don't immediately understand what he's thinking/feeling.
and the character changes so the performance has to as well, while still being true to the core of the character.

ROTJ is my favorite of the star wars saga, but i do acknowledge that ESB is the better film.

youtube.com/watch?v=aJTsQEoIcvA

This is a good thread.
Nothing really to add except that Hamill is really great in these movies. Lukes progression in 4-6 is a bit on the nose in terms of character development, but it's still my favorite of all time. What I mean is that. It's very obvious, but so we'll done that I can't help but love every second.

Let me paraphrase a point this guy made.

>"People criticize the second Death Star, but look at how things are. The Senate has been disbanded, the systems are being ruled by fear, and then the Death Star is destroyed. The Empire's deterrent is gone and the Rebels have scored a huge moral victory. What choice does the Empire have but to build a second one?"

That's a damn good point, I'd never even thought of that. Thanks for posting this, user.

But that's Monarchy v. Republic nonsense... Any tyranny would have had a lot of options at that point, they would've blamed the New Republic for being terrorists, and used the moral outrage to develop a more aggressive police state, surveillance technology, sham democracy, a corrupt senate more like late Rome, etc.

yea I have always loved ROTJ but never able to defend it properly until i hear Witwer talk about it, and he says it so perfectly

and he's right when he says that they're trying to build a death star as fast as they can and how that really ties into the plot of why the emperor is there at the climax.
because they built political policy on having a death star and then it was immediately destroyed.
The first scene of the movie is darth vader showing up to make them work faster and then sheev shows up to accelerate the process moreso

You can't change the mind of people who dislike you and see themselves as being separate from you by bitching about what a victim you are.

Maybe in a real world, with real politics that could make sense but it's just lazy writing in this instance.
>Destroy death star
>Make another death star
Why did they only make one to begin with?
>Destroy the other death star
>Make a bigger death star
Why didn't they make multiple, bigger death stars?

No, you do it by taking aim. Ideology is just a method.

>Any tyranny would have had a lot of options at that point, they would've blamed the New Republic for being terrorists, and used the moral outrage to develop a more aggressive police state, surveillance technology, sham democracy, a corrupt senate more like late Rome, etc.

The movies don't address it but it would be expected for the Empire to do all those things, in addition to building Death Stars.

>Luke makes mention on two separate occasions that he's an experienced pilot and shows his skill to the audience

You can also see the T-16 and the toy of it when he's in the garage. It's clear he flies that thing a fucking ton when it's not broken.

The implication is that the Empire, for all its military might and authority, are stretched pretty thin trying to control the whole galaxy. In ANH Tagge says, "How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?"

Basically the idea is that if the entire galaxy rebelled, the Empire would be quashed pretty quickly. But as long as people are placated by a puppet government, or cowed by the fear of a superweapon, the Empire will be able to crush the Rebels sooner or later.

This idea is made literal in the Special Edition of ROTJ, when people across the galaxy rebel and celebrate the destruction of the second Death Star.

The Empire is supposed to have several thousand Star Destroyers, but I guess even that's not enough to really control the entire galaxy.

>In ANH Tagge says, "How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?"
What's the historical parallel for dumping the civil nobility like that?

Because it sounds like several inter-planetary organizations were decommissioned in favour of partitioning, factionalizing, nationalizing, or something. To say that the bureaucracy is just gone is funny...

>The implication is that the Empire, for all its military might and authority, are stretched pretty thin trying to control the whole galaxy. In ANH Tagge says, "How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?"

The fact that the Emperor simply disband the senate show he was already fully in control and the Death Star was his ace in a hole.

Empire promoted Military and Civil nobility on expense of bourgeuous senatorial class that was dispanded. With power moved to local Govenors, Moffs and Grand Moffs.

Star Wars is great setting but for me it falls in that Rebels victory is implausible when you look actual lore. Its way too forced with incredible plot armour.

So it's a lower chain of command which ascends under the Empire, a knight class essentially.

>You can't change the mind of people who dislike you and see themselves as being separate from you by bitching about what a victim you are.

That's where you're wrong kiddo

>tfw you contrast this to Rey's sudden masterful lightsaber skills at the end of TFA...

Have you guys seen that dude on Youtube that does like 2 hour long video reviews, he calls the "Ruminations" or something.

His StarWars & LoTR ones are pretty good you guys should get along well.

rofl

that guy is hilariouis

great for long car rides. agree with him 100% on final fantasy but he IS a pleb

for example, he loves the harry potter movies and hates LOTR books but thinks the movies are goat

In battle of Endor even destruction of Death Star II and Excecutor would have left Imperial fleet so ovepowering strong that even if 20% fleet left would decided to selfdestruct, They would have still crushed rebel fleet. This is scale of stupidness of Battle of Endor. Rebellion victory is forced and just stupid.

Has he reviewed one of the dullest franchises in the history of movie franchises? Seriously each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert.

Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody, just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the books were good though
"No!"
The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Good triumphing over evil even against overwhelming odds is a common story trope. The hopelessness adds suspense, and makes the victory more meaningful.

Its not just that but in endor if you really look into lore. Rebellion victory there is just implausible even with great feats that happened in movie. Star Wars has always been strugling to explain in expanded universe how empire actually managed to lose and new republic to win. Whole thing is usually forced with such bad writing that its embarasing.

I don't find it hard to believe that the Empire was completely full of itself and thought it was unbeatable. Even realistically, they are not the first "mighty empire" to fall in such a way.

Isn't it just a simple matter of them winning the battle, causing dissaray and forcing the imperial to flee in all direction?

It's a pretty common thing for a side to break and run rather than die to the last man but I thought it was implied that at least around the galaxy the people rose up after the battle was won?

Their death star was gone & their emperor, both leaders were gone. Who was going to keep them organized & together?

It was never grey though

Luke not taking on Vader directly during ANH is an example of decent filmmaking. If it were 2017, Luke would be Lucille and would have kicked Vader's ass after Obi-Wan died, completely destroying Vader's credibility for the rest of the films.

>Why did they only make one to begin with?
IIRC DS2 was under construction already at the time the first was destroyed. Cant remember if that was some EU thing or novelization or what.

The Empire wasn't really defeated anyway. The new movies, and even the expanded universe, had surviving Empire remnants.

I think its supposed to be implied with the SE celebrations that since the Emperor could no longe control all of the puppets after he was he was killed and the fact there was apprentice Sith to rise up and keep the whole Imperial government kind of broke apart while the Moffs fought it out.

>This ain't like Dustin Krop's boy

There's a scene where Han Solo mentions a little known character called Dustin Krop and refer's to the son of this character.

Han says to Luke, "This ain't like Dustin Krop's boy!'', when the Falcon is being pursued by an Imperial ship.
Is this a reference to some heroic or infamous incident by the son of Dustin Krop?

However, I cannot find any reference on Wookiepedia.

Does anyone know anything about the mysterious son of Dustin Krop? Or, for that matter, Dustin Krop himself?

kekked

ANH is like a joke made by a good comedian, and tfa is the same joke but is telled by a 8 year old kid which doesn't know what made it funny, he skips important parts and makes it little to no funny at all

hahaha fucking lost

>Desenet will decide your fate
>I am Desenet
Who or what is Desenet? A group that's pulling all the strings in the Star Wars universe?

desu net

...

I keep thinking this has to be copy pasta but I don't think I've seen this before

Don't.
I know you're trying to ruin the reputation of that pasta but you can stop anyways.

But TFA clearly established that Rey was a skilled fighter with weapons when she fights the people trying to take BB-8. It makes sense given that she grew up in scrapyards fighting for her survival.

It was also established that lightsaber combat is unlike anything else, at least in Legends/EU, so I doubt her experience using that long dildo of hers will translate to lightsaber proficiency.

More like she grew up in the scrapyards turning tricks for one quarter portion

Lightsabers have pretty much been reduced to "le cool lazer sword bro". They don't require any training established in previous lore now. It's just a "powerful weapon" that "some dudes in robes once used".

Wish they had kept that part of the lore, desu... that it required knowledgeable use and mastery of the force to control the beam of a lightsaber. Something about the energy it produces required concentration from the user to keep it stable.

Would it have been better if Finn learned to use the lightsaber and Rey stuck with her staff?

Is not creatively bankrupt enough for Disney?

That was broke when han did it in ESB.

I think it's more like using the force to be aware of the weightless blade at all times especially during combat; essentially using lightsabers would be akin to swinging a flashlight around. Han did use the lightsaber in ESB after all.

>Using a lightsaber for four seconds to cut open an animal carcass is the same as using one for acrobatic ninja-samurai swish swoosh moves

the force enhances ones reflexes and thus allows one to be able to react fast enough to deflect lasers and other lightsabers. So while a non jedi/force user can use a lightsaber, their lack of enhanced reflexes would mean that they would not last long in any kind of combat situation.

if you can use it for four seconds and you have ninja-samurai movies you can use it for ninja samurai swish swoosh moves.

Luke's face is great in that photo.

>(I know it was because of the blue sky, shut it)
Actually it was done to make it clear it wasn't the same light sabre from Empire, since people would wonder how he got it back.

Ah I see reddit is parroting shit opinions about star wars again just because some fuccboi did a video of it on youtube.

Bigger Luke was always using the lightsaber when we weren't looking