Star Wars 7 shit talk

i always thought the blue collar fixit work was a natural extension of lucas' interest in american grafitti-style hot-rod culture - the millennium falcon is han and chewie's bitchin' customised ride

I think it's also a genre trope. Space Opera heroes are always having to be their own crew chief, because radioing Houston to fix it and/or dying adrift are just not great storytelling.

Chewie fixing up 3PO too

I wonder if Star Dads all give their boys the same lecture when they get their learner's permit (for spaceflight, for owning robots, you know. I assume there are massive, galaxy-wide safety and occupational certification standards and enforcement apparatus; perhaps the breakdown of essential DMV services is part of why the place is all still fucked up 30 years after the Emperor's death?). "If you're gonna DRIVE one then you're gonna know how to FIX one! Here, catch! Do you know what that is? That's right, a hydro spanner! Do you know what it's for? No? Watch and learn!"

Harrison Ford was doing actual carpentry work when they had him stand in for Han

shit i'm sayin

i really think we ought to raise the starpiloting age to 18 folks. especially with all the distractions available in those cockpits: holograms, etc.

Exactly. When Luke turns off his targeting computer it's clear he's just not done the hours under Instrument Flight Rules - should have been a clear disqualification for an X-Wing combat pilot

I rewatched "Looper" recently and, while I like it overall as a sort of pulpy B-pic with a glossy budget, I noticed that Rian Johnson's visual sense is straight out of TV. It's pretty much establishing shot >> a medium shot >> close ups close ups and more close ups with very little other than meat n' potatoes story elements taking up the frame. No sense of visual elegance. Reminds me stylistically of the latest "Mission:Impossible" film (visually basic) in comparison with what Brad Bird came up with for "Ghost Protocol". The one thing that can be said for Abrams is that he can often create compelling compositions and set pieces - even if much of the time they're nothing more than emulations of old Spielbergian tropes. But I'm fine with these kind of tropes in a SW film. I hope Johnson'll switch up his approach for the next films in this series.

R2 also fixes shit on the X-Wing though. I always thought that was a weird conceit, but cool anyway -- that the x-wing has this little plug-and-play hole for a droid. Why wouldn't you just build whatever functionality the droid has into the x-wing?

well R2D2 serves another role, in making luke likable -- the role that might be served, in another film, by a loyal dog. and i can imagine that the very idea of a self-fixing plane is a kind of artificial intelligence that wasn't quite on many people's minds in the 1970s. a kind of human surrogate (droid) as handyman probably seemed more realistic, or at least more relatable.

if you are stuck somewhere on a planet the little droid can pop out and repair the underside of your x-wing while chatting w/you

he's twice as interesting as Dak was on Hoth, and that dude lasted about five minutes

One of Lucas' few interesting comments in the commentary tracks is noting that R2 is really the hero of the six movies, always saving the gang at the last minute.

I never owned the Kenner R2 figure. My parents got me R5 D4. Cooler design too.

bad motivator tho

It only just now occurred to me that there aren't really any computers (other than displays or communication consoles) in Star Wars and if there were they would accomplish many of the tasks that droids accomplish

I'm now imagining an alternate universe where Star Wars only first gets made in 2015 and R2D2 and C3PO are basically just smart phones

I don't think any of the little side stories outside of the movies have addressed when c3p0's memory was wiped between Eps 1-3 and 4-6, but I would like to think R2 kept his, making him the only character with real continuity throughout the whole saga

bad motivator tho

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, October 28, 2015 10:30 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

R5-D4 was a proto-slacker.

I believe on another thread somewhere we discussed that R2-D2 is the Owen Meany of Star Wars.

Also this guy http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/Darth_Vader/R2-D2_Fulcrum_of_the_Force.html

R2 also fixes shit on the X-Wing though. I always thought that was a weird conceit, but cool anyway -- that the x-wing has this little plug-and-play hole for a droid. Why wouldn't you just build whatever functionality the droid has into the x-wing?

Because updating your playlists on the spaceship itself is a pain. Easier just to have a droid that can rove back and forth from your desktop to the hangar bay, etc.

there are totally computers in star wars! they're just unseen mainframes, as in star trek and basically all scifi of the period. the garbage compactor scene in star wars is resolved by R2 plugging in to basically a random terminal to poll the computer as to whether our heroes have been found, and from there, shutting down every trash compactor on the detention level.

there's a pretty significant scene involving a targeting computer iirc

One of the first lines of dialogue is "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer!"

ok, I guess it's just been way too long since I've seen these movies.

I guess my main point is that there is lots of AI in Star Wars in the form of droids, but for some reason the computers themselves are not intelligent, which is a bit weird when you think about it.

Obi-Wan: How long before you can make the jump to light speed?

Han Solo: It'll take a few moments to get the coordinates from the navi-computer.
[the ship begins to rock violently as lasers hit it]

Luke: Are you kidding? At the rate they're gaining...?

Han Solo: Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the scene in Jedi when the Gammorrean Guard was looking up baseball scores on his Macbook.

They're all purpose-built machines though - all hardware, no real idea of software - the astromech slot is there so that when you want to upgrade your X-Wing, you get a smarter droid for the slot.

Hah, just went to check and Wikipedia sez: "The history of the personal computer as mass-market consumer electronic devices effectively began in 1977"

what proportion of under-30 fans of SW and Indiana Jones (not hardcore geeks, just y'know regular people) know that in '77 and '81, the selling line for both was "pastiches of old movie serials"?

Just the ones that dress like hip grandparents

I'm not sure who would know what movie serials are, and why.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.refinedguy.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F09%2FE.T.-Cereal-general-mills.jpeg&f=1

Those were better than

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100323121721/starwars/images/2/22/Cereal_Box_C3P0s.jpg

there is a great ilx post about C-3P0's lodged in my brain, no idea where/when it was though

ETs cerial looks like a bowl of tiny turds.

et's basically cocoa puffs, c3po's basically alpha-bits iirc. mr t's smoked both of them.

ET cereal presaged Reese's Puffs and is therefore the best.

And, yes, it was meant to look like you were eating a bowlful of ET's tiny turds.

Speaking of, I'm glad Lucas eventually started addressing this, but when did the SW gang ever take a shit? The logistics wrt like Chewbacca and Darth Vader are mindbending.

mr t's smoked both of them.

geez I hope he was okay afterwards

I'm glad Old Lunch is finally bringing this thread on-topic

Star Wars shit talk thread moving in an interesting direction.

So Mr. ETs were a combo option?

feel like the Endor moon trip probably settled a lot of questions about rebels in the woods

Think they are going to eventually do a 'ironic' mas special reboot?

they should remaster and rerelease the original xmas special just to fuck with lucas

Despecialized!

Speaking of, I'm glad Lucas eventually started addressing this, but when did the SW gang ever take a shit? The logistics wrt like Chewbacca and Darth Vader are mindbending.

― Hellmann's All-Beef Bolognnaise (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 28, 2015 5:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

figuring with Darth's organs all fucked up they rerouted all the sewage to the back of his head

also how high ranking was Vader as a manager? could he hire and fire or did he merely 'make recommendations'

what proportion of under-30 fans of SW and Indiana Jones (not hardcore geeks, just y'know regular people) know that in '77 and '81, the selling line for both was "pastiches of old movie serials"?

I think many fans of all ages know this factoid, but only as that - there's barely any frame of reference for "old movie serials" though! Not like those things are getting re-issued as criterion sets

It's a straight shot from Vader's meditation chamber to the trash compactor

Xposts