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[PA Comic] Friday, July 13, 2012 - Exceptions
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Posts
Here's the complete list of what Hasbro was selling at the booth. You can't get Carbonite Jar Jar without buying the whole set including unfrozen Jar Jar, a Clone Trooper, a Shock Trooper, a Sandtrooper, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader.
Variant.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Star Wars contributors are, by and large, uncreative hacks.
Edit - Just to be clear I'm referring to remote + lightsaber training.
Edit : Oh, and I wouldn't call the remote/lightsabre combo 'improvised'. Actually, that remote is am extremely specific tool. I can't imagine what else it would be used for given it's specific design and power settings. More likely Ben had an old remote in his 'Jedi' trunk, saved from the old days. Same place he kept Annakin's saber and all that.
Don't even need a big complicated machine for it there, either. Just spray on a light dusting and they're frozen.
Sure, it wears off in 2.5 seconds in a combat situation, but the cutscene version, capturing actual bounties for extended transport, involves the exact same spray mechanism. And this is Old Republic, long before ESB. Vader could have just said, "Hey, Boba. Spray down Han now, but when Luke gets here, hide in the corner and when he's distracted, jetpack out and spray him too."
Actually, Lucas still has time to do that if he decides to just remake the original trilogy in a series reboot.
It's not the remote that's in question. It's the blast helmet and standing lined up like a choir that was retarded. Especially when wielding dangerous weapons. What the fuck is going to happen if a kid gets hit and swings wildly in reaction to the sudden pain?
Further, lightsabers are something Jedi students gain when they're ready to be padowans. Not something they're given as children. Oh wait, Lucas is the King of Hacks.
Training lightsabers. Permanently set to a low-power setting, not all that dangerous.
Are you making an excuse for it or telling me something that's been 'established' that's just going to make me into an angry old man?
Plus the blast helmet was just something Obi-wan grabbed on the MF as a training lark because Luke wasn't getting it with just the remote. He didn't pull it out of his Jedi Training Kit.
Fuck Wookiepedia.
It's the thing that made me turn against my infinite love for Star Wars. Now it's pick-and-choose love.
Still, even without those, you could deduce that the film handed out nonlethal weapons to a class full of kids.
No I'll second that. I don't remember the exact name of the series, but there were a couple of Star Wars pre-prequel books where Obi-wan was a (kid) padawan under Qui-gon, and they used training sabers frequently.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
The obvious corollary to this is that Mike does in fact look an awful lot like Beaker.
It's a sword made of light... set that to low power and you have a flashlight.
Me and my friends were training correctly all along!
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
G&T Grass Type Pokemon Gym Leader, In-Game Name: Dan
http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/esb_final.txt
Even the laser jabs from the remote device in A New Hope didn't do more than sting Luke's leg. It probably doesn't take much to deflect or absorb that blast.
Someone needs to redub a clip of Beaker and Honeydew with audio from PATV or the podcast. Honeydew talking about fucking bitches or Beaker asking the cameramen if they've gotten their butts checked would bring me great joy.
At the risk of nerding out here, it's possible that it's an old technique that fell out of use that Vader was bringing back based on some obscure Sith lore or something. I mean, TOR takes place thousands of years pre-ANH, plenty of time for knowledge to be lost, regained, then lost again. Especially in a galaxy that erupts into Jedi/Sith war with such regularity.
I can imagine a few lines in a centuries old bounty hunter's journal "I froze his ass in carbonite, then took him in for the bounty" and Vader thinks to himself "Hey that sounds like a good idea for transporting a dangerous potential Jedi with unknown capabilities... Now, who do I know that has a carbonite freezing plant I can borrow..."
All Jedi wear Ben's robes!
All Jedi have Blast Helmets for training!
Carbonite is just like a thing!
In fairness, there was nothing particularly special about Ben's robes. I mean, if he was wearing a pair of Levi's, would you complain about EU characters wearing Levi's?
That doesn't specify Bespin's facility wasn't meant for it all. That same evidence can point to carbon freezing being an unknown quantity when freezing lifeforms in it.
Not that this argument matters, since the EU decided carbon freezing is an everyday thing. Which really detracts from the impact of the Empire's evil actions and the possible loss of Han Solo's life. Why leave something standing as intriguing when you can rip it down and make it non-substantial?
Luke's abilities were generally known to Vader and whatever Imperial agents were gathering the intel. Vader didn't scheme to have Solo fly to Bespin; Solo flew to Bespin as a matter of circumstance to get away from the Empire, and he was followed. Boba Fett is clever enough to figure out likely routes Solo would be taking so he notified the Empire of things and hyper-spaced to Bespin while the Falcon was flying at regular speed. Hence the Empire being there waiting for it. The idea of freezing Luke likely only came up the moment Vader was made aware Bespin had such a facility. But him plotting it in advanced? No.
The Jedi teachings, established by Yoda in Empire - an original trilogy film so don't tell me this doesn't have weight - don't place any emphasis or high value on waging war. Combat. Not in a positive light, at least. There is more to being a Jedi than the ability to swing a lightsaber around, and because of the danger it presents it would only make sense for it to be among the last things younger force practitioners are taught. I don't care if Jedi start learning as children. They're still children. They are just as likely to throw temper tantrums as the next child. They will mature faster likely, but come on, are you really going to be able to tell the difference with a group of six year olds? And does undergoing Jedi training somehow automatically make you pseudo-English?
"MASTER SKYWALK-AH, THERE'S TOO MANY OF 'EM, WHUT ARE WE GOING T'DOO?"
Children are likely going to learn history and have concepts of right and wrong, good and evil heavily imposed upon them (for better or worse). Training a child how to wield a weapon in an order that only values martial skill for defensive purposes makes no sense. Training in other physical ways is one thing. Learning karate or whatever, fine. But a weapon with that much dangerous potential?
The floating ball thing is teaching defensive tactics. Whether in Yoda's little kindergarten or on the Millennium Falcon in ANH, the point of that exercise isn't attacking the thing. It's protecting yourself.
The Jedi Order is a religious body. Not a military academy. They're learning and doing more than fighting ability. There's holidays and rituals and all sorts of shit, implied by the very nature of it being a religion (established again in the original films and all EU content calls it this). Nobody ever addresses or expands on that. No, it's not as cool as action. But by repeatedly hammering on the combat ability of the Jedi, suddenly Yoda looks like a crazy loner.
Surely they can do better than using a lightsaber.
No. Though again, the only thing people ever write about when it comes to Jedi training is lightsaber play, contradicting writing (probably from the same people) about how lightsaber play is among the least important things Jedi can train for.
I mean, Ben's robes are basically desert-wear, and he was living in the desert.
Is it possible that different Jedi specialize in different areas and train accordingly? Or will you also resolutely find fault with this entirely reasonable and even probable idea because it's reflected in the EU as well?
Jedi are basically warrior monk-wizards. Wizards and monks are typically thought of as wearing robes, ergo Ben wears robes, ergo all Jedi wear robes. Not much more to it than that.