All Things Star Wars

[JohannaK]

Snoke was an attempt at creating a shell that could withstand Palpatine's Force energy. I'm not sure that he was ever a clone of, like, a specific person, but they used clone vats to create him and his many failed predecessors. Because he wasn't suitable for possession, he was just used as a proxy (i.e. he had free will and thoughts and wasn't "Palpatine in a can").

Apparently their in-canon name is "strandcast."

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Strand-Cast

Gotta give it to them, they don't give up easily.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

So...

I know The Comic Irregulars are great writers. Early into Ep.II it was clear they'd planned the long haul; they turned the Prequel Trilogy into a thing of beauty.

Hell, they managed to preserve one of the biggest Wham Lines in cinematic history!

And yet I was still unprepared for how they're handling the ST. We've barely scratched the surface and already things are incomparably more coherent than in the original film.

Part of me is cheering and part of me is weeping. I'm in a weird place right now.

 

[Takhisis]

Hell yeah. It moderately makes sense, but ‘this is a bunch of rôle-players and their ever-beleaguered GM trying to wing it through a campaign’ does justify the plot holes in a way that ‘we ran 8 versions of each scene past focus groups and decided that Exquisite Corpse was actually a valid storycrafting technique’ does not.

 

[Synobun]

Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka worried me, even with Filoni leading the way.

She did a good job. The voice isn't the voice actor's, of course, and it's really quite different, but tolerable. The headgear also stood up to scrutiny. The togruta montrals are larger in animation, but that size would have been hell on mocapping and stunts. It's a good compromise.

The episode itself was decent, although it made apparent to me that there's only three episodes left, and I'm really not sure how the threads tugged this season can be in any way suitably resolved in the time remaining. I suspect there are cliffhangers on the horizon. I am hoping they can mitigate some of that by teasing spin-off shows, but I'm not sure if Disney is willing to do anything like that with the pandemic still in full swing. Or maybe it's with Star Wars they'd be willing to do it, given that it's almost like printing free money with the proper showrunners.

Spoiler S2E5 :

Ahsoka is still searching for Thrawn, so she and Sabine have not yet found Ezra it looks like. I think there is room here for the opposite, though, as Ahsoka mentioned that Thrawn was the magistrate's master, and that couldn't be relevant if Thrawn and Ezra were still thrown out into the Unknown Regions. I am hoping that Ezra is the one who comes to Grogu on Tython, but I'll take any of the known Force-wielders in the era, really. I don't think I can be disappointed on that front.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't really watched the animated series, but I liked Dawson here. I liked the pair of white lightsabers. I loved her little smirk when he called them "laser swords." I guess I didn't realize until this episode that the Mandalorian armor is made out of some kind of super-metal. I liked the contrasting duels, the Eastern martial arts fight in the courtyard and the Western gunfighters in the street outside. It took me a second to recognize Michael Biehn. The woman who played the town magistrate was Bruce Lee's goddaughter, Diana Lee Inosanto.

 

[Synobun]

I guess I didn't realize until this episode that the Mandalorian armor is made out of some kind of super-metal.

Beskar is a material originally made to fight against the Jedi. It's also incredibly rare. Many suits aren't made of pure beskar like Din's.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I liked the contrasting duels, the Eastern martial arts fight in the courtyard and the Western gunfighters in the street outside. It took me a second to recognize Michael Biehn. The woman who played the town magistrate was Bruce Lee's goddaughter, Diana Lee Inosanto.

I read somewhere that this scene was an homage to Yojimbo. I haven't seen that in 30 years, though, so I don't remember it very well.

Beskar is a material originally made to fight against the Jedi. It's also incredibly rare. Many suits aren't made of pure beskar like Din's.

There was the scene in the previous episode when he charges forward to reach the Stormtroopers with the hand grenades, and the other Mandalorians kind of pause as if to say "whoa." At the time I thought their reaction was "Whoa, this guy's crazy", but maybe it was, "Whoa, this guy's armor is made of beskar."

 

[Laurana Kanan]

David Prowse, Man Behind the Darth Vader Mask, Dies at 85



A beautifully orchestrated tribute video from Samuel Kim.

 

[JohannaK]

I read somewhere that this scene was an homage to Yojimbo. I haven't seen that in 30 years, though, so I don't remember it very well.

Well now you really are making me have to watch this show.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Rest easy Prowse old boy, Vader's swagger levels were through the roof thanks to you.

Star Wars Actor David Prowse, Who Played Darth Vader, Dead at 85
The British actor who played the iconic Star Wars villain has passed away.


David Prowse, a one-time weightlifter and bodybuilder who became a film icon by playing Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died at age 85 after a short illness.

According to multiple reports, the British actor’s death was confirmed via Twitter by his management, which stated, “It’s with great regret and heart-wrenching sadness for us and millions of fans around the world, to announce that our client DAVE PROWSE M.B.E. has passed away at the age of 85.”


It's with great regret and heart-wrenching sadness for us and million of fans around the world, to announce that our client DAVE PROWSE M.B.E. has passed away at the age of 85. #DaveProwse @starwars #DarthVader #GreenCrossCodeMan #iconic #actor #bodybuilder #MBE pic.twitter.com/dL2RmdIqg8

— Bowington Management (@BowingtonM) November 29, 2020

Although Vader was famously voiced by American actor James Earl Jones, it was Prowse’s massive six-foot, six-inch body that filled out the black suit and mask worn by the Sith Lord once known as Anakin Skywalker.

Prowse was born in Bristol, England on July 1, 1935. His early interest in bodybuilding led to him winning the 1962 British heavyweight weightlifting championship. After several more years in competitive weightlifting, he landed his first screen role (uncredited) as “Frankenstein’s Creation” in the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale. He later played an official creation of Frankenstein in two Hammer films, 1970’s The Horror of Frankenstein and 1973’s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell.


It was his small role as a bodyguard in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange that first brought him to the attention of Star Wars creator George Lucas, who eventually asked him if he wanted to audition for either the role of Chewbacca or Darth Vader. Not wanting to wear a furry mask, he chose Darth Vader — but claimed he was unaware at the time that the character would be masked as well.


Prowse played Vader in the original 1977 Star Wars, a.k.a .A New Hope, as well as 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi, although British Olympic fencer Bob Anderson handled several of the lightsaber duels instead of Prowse. And when Vader’s mask was finally removed at the end of Jedi, it was the face of actor Sebastian Shaw that viewers saw.


Prowse’s relationship with George Lucas and Star Wars production company Lucasfilm became strained over the course of the trilogy, starting in 1978 when Prowse allegedly blurted out that Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father — although Prowse later claimed it was a lucky guess because the script had not even been written at that point for what became The Empire Strikes Back.

Prowse also appeared in films like Vampire Circus and The People That Time Forgot, as well as TV series such as Space 1999 and Doctor Who. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2000 for his role as the Green Cross Code Man in a series of early 1970s U.K. road safety ads aimed at children. He was also the subject of a documentary called I Am Your Father, which dealt in part with his later estrangement from Lucasfilm.


He was also a regular on the fan convention circuit — although not welcomed at official Star Wars events allegedly because of the earlier controversies — until his retirement from that circuit in 2016 due to ill health.



Prowse was married in 1963 to Norma Scammell, with whom he had three children.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Well now you really are making me have to watch this show.

It's fun. Theme song is pretty dope.

 

[Synobun]

The Kenobi series is going to finally start filming early 2021.

In... Boston?

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Kenobi series is going to finally start filming early 2021.

In... Boston?

Boston and Coruscant are practically indistinguishable.

Unless it's just a random trend, I wonder if the state started giving movie studios tax breaks, or something. I think I read that Jennifer Lawrence is filming something here, and I saw Noomi Rapace on the subway a year or so ago.

 

[GenMarshall]

Boston and Coruscant are practically indistinguishable.

I would think New York City would be more appropriate.

 

[Synobun]

Latest The Mandalorian episode was very good.

 

[warpus]

WOW that was honestly the best Star Wars I have seen since 1983

Thanks for reminding me that there's a new ep, that was a fun ride

edit: Been watching the Clone wars cartoons, finishing up season 1. Man, the Jedi are morons when it comes to battlefield tactics. They're lucky their opponents are stupid robots. In the episode I'm watching the Jedi/republic troops decided to take a convoy of heavily armoured vehicles down a ridge with a crazy drop down. If the robot army was smart enough to blow up that ridge, the whole convoy would have fallen to their deaths below. But nope, they didn't think to do that either.

In an earlier episode the Jedi had a "brilliant" plan to invade a planet by first sending in Skywalker with a fleet to take out the "blockade", and then a second fleet would arrive, land on the planet, and send in the troops. But.. Skywalker's fleet was woefully inadequate to take out the blockade. He failed the first time and then with 50% of his fleet destroyed or damaged he got lucky and took out the blockade with a clever plan. The other fleet (captained by Obi Wan) showed up casually, just assuming that the blockade would be gone. Like two independent armies doing their own thing with no coordination, relying on Skywalker's antics to succed, which was by no means guaranteed.

So yeah, I get these were made for kids, but it's tough to take some of this stuff seriously. I've heard this show gets better, and it's usually fairly entertaining, so imma keep watching.

I also wish they did a better job drawing the faces. Sometimes the backdrop and everything looks like something from a movie, but then you look at Anakin's face and.. Oh.. it looks far less detailed and realistic.

 

[Synobun]

The Kenobi series is going to finally start filming early 2021.

In... Boston?

Turns out this is actually Boston, England, and not Boston, Massachusetts. The correction might be worse?

edit: Been watching the Clone wars cartoons, finishing up season 1. Man, the Jedi are morons when it comes to battlefield tactics. They're lucky their opponents are stupid robots. In the episode I'm watching the Jedi/republic troops decided to take a convoy of heavily armoured vehicles down a ridge with a crazy drop down. If the robot army was smart enough to blow up that ridge, the whole convoy would have fallen to their deaths below. But nope, they didn't think to do that either.

In an earlier episode the Jedi had a "brilliant" plan to invade a planet by first sending in Skywalker with a fleet to take out the "blockade", and then a second fleet would arrive, land on the planet, and send in the troops. But.. Skywalker's fleet was woefully inadequate to take out the blockade. He failed the first time and then with 50% of his fleet destroyed or damaged he got lucky and took out the blockade with a clever plan. The other fleet (captained by Obi Wan) showed up casually, just assuming that the blockade would be gone. Like two independent armies doing their own thing with no coordination, relying on Skywalker's antics to succed, which was by no means guaranteed.

So yeah, I get these were made for kids, but it's tough to take some of this stuff seriously. I've heard this show gets better, and it's usually fairly entertaining, so imma keep watching.

I also wish they did a better job drawing the faces. Sometimes the backdrop and everything looks like something from a movie, but then you look at Anakin's face and.. Oh.. it looks far less detailed and realistic.

The first couple seasons are noticeably simplistic for a younger audience before it matures, but I wouldn't say it ever gets to the point of utilizing genuine battle tactics. Much like pretty much any other show.

 

[r16]

a box of clones advance , the good side is winning

a box of Roger Rogers advance , the good side is losing

a box of clones is smaller than a box of Roger Rogers , the advantage is not with the good side , their victory achieved none-the-less shows the quality of the good side

honestly with talk ranging about kilotons to petatons of firepower in a single bolt of light , the distance between troops would be like a lightyear if tactics were to be "right" ...

 

[EgonSpengler]

I noticed the latest ep of The Mandalorian, "The Tragedy", was directed by Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi; From Dusk Til Dawn; and Desperado, one of my favorite action movies of the '90s).

I would think New York City would be more appropriate.

Tokyo.

 

[JohannaK]

You know I also just started watching The Clone Wars. I sure hope it does get better. It's okay fun-wise but narratively very disappointing. It is its own microcosm detached from the rest if the world. Coming fresh off She-Ra, Kipo, or ATLA, it's definitely an inferior product in every way. Hell, even Ladybug works better.

It's like every episode is completely detached from the rest, even the ones about the Malevolence seem to take place in different worlds. It's amazing. I'll keep watching ofc, it's just really really meh atm.

Tokyo.

Los Angeles 2049