Here's something I wanna know - if the Empire is keen on executing officers who fail to get results, why was Darth Vader not executed for failing to prevent to destruction of the first Death Star?
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Here's something I wanna know - if the Empire is keen on executing officers who fail to get results, why was Darth Vader not executed for failing to prevent to destruction of the first Death Star?
Arguably, the execution rule is for people who aren't Vader or the Emperor.
That being said, Vader might have been spared because he brought knowledge of someone very strong in the Force to the Emperor--someone neither of them knew about at that point.
According to various fanfic EU stuff, Palpatine did call Vader back to Coruscant for some light torture and serious groveling, before sending him back out to hunt down those responsible.
The Emperor was the only one in a position to actually execute Vader, and he's not going to do that for anything short of an outright betrayal (or finding a younger, more powerful and/or manipulable slave to trade this one in for).
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
In fairness, who are you going to send to execute Vader? He isn't going to just roll over and die, so you've got this difficult situation where you've ordered his death but there's nobody to actually carry out the sentence. Best just to let the guy keep working and shake your finger at him.
Plus, the whole thing is just to highlight how evil the Empire is. If you fuck up in the Rebellion, people figure you just got overwhelmed by the Empire. If you fuck up in the Empire, they don't even wait to find out what happened before gleefully murdering people.
Man, that is so much better than every single second of screen time Kylo Ren managed. I normally can't stand the evil guy killing his own henchmen thing, but Vader makes it work by being so cavalier about it.
Here's something I wanna know - if the Empire is keen on executing officers who fail to get results, why was Darth Vader not executed for failing to prevent to destruction of the first Death Star?
Palpatine didn't kill Vader because he didn't have a worthy replacement... at that time. The corruption and time investment into someone as powerful as Vader wasn't going to be tossed aside for one mistake, even one that large. And as Vader points out, HE didn't design the Death Star.
Palps of course had contingencies, and one of them was a group of tech enhanced cyborgs who had abilities that mimicked force powers.
Vader was demoted and put under General Tagge, the most reasonable guy at the Death Star meeting in ANH.
The first few story arcs of the Vader comic is how he comes back from that, schemes, plots, and murders his way back to the top. Proving to Palpatine he's still a worthy Sith Lord... until he either kills him and becomes the master, or Palpatine finds another more suitable apprentice.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Cyborgs, wha?
Oh comics. Eh.
Palps didn't off Vader because Snoke wasn't done baking. Clearly
Just going by the movies, Palpatine was never actually shown to be the 'execute for single fuckup' type. Vader was.
And even he kept it for what sounded like repeated fuckups, or managing to lose a single ship because Star Destroyers don't have back windows.
Just going by the movies, Palpatine was never actually shown to be the 'execute for single fuckup' type. Vader was.
And even he kept it for what sounded like repeated fuckups, or managing to lose a single ship because Star Destroyers don't have back windows.
Yeah, this whole "execute failures" thing seems less of an Empire thing and more of a Vader thing, judging by the OT at least. Shit, in ANH Tarkin is all "Goddammit, stop choking my officers Vader".
Here's something I wanna know - if the Empire is keen on executing officers who fail to get results, why was Darth Vader not executed for failing to prevent to destruction of the first Death Star?
Palpatine didn't kill Vader because he didn't have a worthy replacement... at that time. The corruption and time investment into someone as powerful as Vader wasn't going to be tossed aside for one mistake, even one that large. And as Vader points out, HE didn't design the Death Star.
Palps of course had contingencies, and one of them was a group of tech enhanced cyborgs who had abilities that mimicked force powers.
Vader was demoted and put under General Tagge, the most reasonable guy at the Death Star meeting in ANH.
The first few story arcs of the Vader comic is how he comes back from that, schemes, plots, and murders his way back to the top. Proving to Palpatine he's still a worthy Sith Lord... until he either kills him and becomes the master, or Palpatine finds another more suitable apprentice.
This is correct. I assume both Vader and Palpatine do indeed believe that the power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the force. Therefore, killing Vader for losing the Death Star is like throwing out the baby, the tub, and the towels with the bathwater.
Just going by the movies, Palpatine was never actually shown to be the 'execute for single fuckup' type. Vader was.
And even he kept it for what sounded like repeated fuckups, or managing to lose a single ship because Star Destroyers don't have back windows.
Yeah, this whole "execute failures" thing seems less of an Empire thing and more of a Vader thing, judging by the OT at least. Shit, in ANH Tarkin is all "Goddammit, stop choking my officers Vader".
"Heads or tails? I don't need to remind you of the penalty for failure."
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The Imperial Academy's version of the Kobayashi Maru test is a scenario where the Emperor orders you to eliminate Vader.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Here's something I wanna know - if the Empire is keen on executing officers who fail to get results, why was Darth Vader not executed for failing to prevent to destruction of the first Death Star?
Palpatine didn't kill Vader because he didn't have a worthy replacement... at that time. The corruption and time investment into someone as powerful as Vader wasn't going to be tossed aside for one mistake, even one that large. And as Vader points out, HE didn't design the Death Star.
Palps of course had contingencies, and one of them was a group of tech enhanced cyborgs who had abilities that mimicked force powers.
Vader was demoted and put under General Tagge, the most reasonable guy at the Death Star meeting in ANH.
The first few story arcs of the Vader comic is how he comes back from that, schemes, plots, and murders his way back to the top. Proving to Palpatine he's still a worthy Sith Lord... until he either kills him and becomes the master, or Palpatine finds another more suitable apprentice.
This is correct. I assume both Vader and Palpatine do indeed believe that the power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the force. Therefore, killing Vader for losing the Death Star is like throwing out the baby, the tub, and the towels with the bathwater.
I always got the feeling that the entire Empire existed as a backdrop to Palpatine and Vader's weird relationship. Vader's killing officers left and right because he not so secretly hates them, their stupid Empire, himself, and his evil adopted dad. The Emperor is constantly browbeating Vader to keep him in line, but he's also the only person besides himself that the Emperor cares about. Luke just represented a way for both of them to break out of their unhealthy cycle and form new attachments.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Eh, I definitely don't think Vader hates Palpatine or the Empire. He is exactly the kind of guy who accidentally murders someone and the Emperor helps him clean it up and says "okay we're in this together now forever." I think he's in way over his head and at the same time has lost too much for this to not work. Otherwise what did he strangle his wife for, attempt to kill his friend and mentor for, kill all those kids for?
I think he murders the flunkies because all he has left is rage and sadness and he has no fucks left to give. He choked his pregnant wife out of anger. The random admirals are meaningless to him by comparison.
Luke breaks that cycle because now he has definitive proof of being lied to and manipulated by the Emperor, and because there remains something good that could come out of this, from his wife. She didn't die for nothing. This is why the Emperor does lie to him, his obvious love and attachment to his family (Padme, Shmi) would continue to be a liability. He knows there are one of two ways it ends if Vader has his kid: he gets overthrown in a rule of two way, or Vader turns back to the light. He offers the first and does the second.
I think the executions all take place within ESB, unless I’m mistaken, and part of the framing of that story is Vader’s growing obsession with finding Luke. In that sense, I think it’s meant to reflect Vader’s current intensity more than his standard operating procedure.
Also, having rewatched it recently, there’s a weird detail to ESB’s opening crawl regarding Star Wars chain of command logic:
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
I always got the sense that Luke was important but not really a key leader within the rebellion proper (basically Luke as head of the Force Bureau, which is a department consisting entirely of himself and largely independent of day to day rebelling). Leia got snubbed.
I think the executions all take place within ESB, unless I’m mistaken, and part of the framing of that story is Vader’s growing obsession with finding Luke. In that sense, I think it’s meant to reflect Vader’s current intensity more than his standard operating procedure.
Also, having rewatched it recently, there’s a weird detail to ESB’s opening crawl regarding Star Wars chain of command logic:
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
I always got the sense that Luke was important but not really a key leader within the rebellion proper (basically Luke as head of the Force Bureau, which is a department consisting entirely of himself and largely independent of day to day rebelling). Leia got snubbed.
Luke is Rogue Leader, head of Rogue Squadron.
Black lives matter.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
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Let's all just agree that 85% of what we know about Star Wars resides mostly in our own heads, and may or may not overlap with what other people know about Star Wars, or even reality.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Just going by the movies, Palpatine was never actually shown to be the 'execute for single fuckup' type. Vader was.
And even he kept it for what sounded like repeated fuckups, or managing to lose a single ship because Star Destroyers don't have back windows.
Yeah, this whole "execute failures" thing seems less of an Empire thing and more of a Vader thing, judging by the OT at least. Shit, in ANH Tarkin is all "Goddammit, stop choking my officers Vader".
I think the executions all take place within ESB, unless I’m mistaken, and part of the framing of that story is Vader’s growing obsession with finding Luke. In that sense, I think it’s meant to reflect Vader’s current intensity more than his standard operating procedure.
Also, having rewatched it recently, there’s a weird detail to ESB’s opening crawl regarding Star Wars chain of command logic:
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
I always got the sense that Luke was important but not really a key leader within the rebellion proper (basically Luke as head of the Force Bureau, which is a department consisting entirely of himself and largely independent of day to day rebelling). Leia got snubbed.
Luke is Rogue Leader, head of Rogue Squadron.
Right, but after a rewatch, I’m surprised by how essential the EU is to that meaning much of anything. You only see Luke flying a ship as part of a group twice - Yavin and Hoth. And as soon as Hoth is evacuated, Luke heads over to Dagobah and never really engages in any kind of leadership activities again - he’s got his own path that is running parallel to the Rebellion, but is more of a family conflict.
I popped back to the originals after being surprised by TLJ, and boy, I’d forgotten some things about these movies. ESB and ROJ are both so much pulpier than A New Hope, and ROJ is just full of tonal whiplash. ESB holds up, but I think ROJ might be a mediocre film held together by performances and some genuinely incredible moments. The changes Lucas made over the years have, uh, really not helped solve the movie’s problems, and the script is just. It’s bad. The dialogue was never the star of these things, but whoo, it’s repetitive as hell and coasting on charisma in that one.
I think the executions all take place within ESB, unless I’m mistaken, and part of the framing of that story is Vader’s growing obsession with finding Luke. In that sense, I think it’s meant to reflect Vader’s current intensity more than his standard operating procedure.
Also, having rewatched it recently, there’s a weird detail to ESB’s opening crawl regarding Star Wars chain of command logic:
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
I always got the sense that Luke was important but not really a key leader within the rebellion proper (basically Luke as head of the Force Bureau, which is a department consisting entirely of himself and largely independent of day to day rebelling). Leia got snubbed.
Luke is Rogue Leader, head of Rogue Squadron.
Right, but after a rewatch, I’m surprised by how essential the EU is to that meaning much of anything. You only see Luke flying a ship as part of a group twice - Yavin and Hoth. And as soon as Hoth is evacuated, Luke heads over to Dagobah and never really engages in any kind of leadership activities again - he’s got his own path that is running parallel to the Rebellion, but is more of a family conflict.
I popped back to the originals after being surprised by TLJ, and boy, I’d forgotten some things about these movies. ESB and ROJ are both so much pulpier than A New Hope, and ROJ is just full of tonal whiplash. ESB holds up, but I think ROJ might be a mediocre film held together by performances and some genuinely incredible moments. The changes Lucas made over the years have, uh, really not helped solve the movie’s problems, and the script is just. It’s bad. The dialogue was never the star of these things, but whoo, it’s repetitive as hell and coasting on charisma in that one.
To be fair, I think "ROTJ is mostly kinda mediocre at best, anchored only by our love of the characters from the previous films and the excellent Luke/Vader/Emperor bits of the finale" has been a fairly common opinion for awhile now.
I've said this before, but to Palps and Vader the Empire is not an Empire. As Sith, they don't care about the institution of government, they care about power, and reshaping all things, all reality as they see fit. No officer, weapon, army, fleet or planet is sacred to them. They don't care about it. They don't care about mountains of corpses or really even bad press so long as it's controllable with a tool like the Death Star. It's just a thing. A disposable thing that's a means to an end of control. They don't care about making the trains run on time, or galactic stability or any of the things many of the people in the Empire believe in. They're all useful idiots to the Sith.
Yeah, that’s really more a comment on my memories than general consensus. I knew it tends to get set aside as clearly the worst of the three, but I never really felt that strong of a distinction when I last watched it over a decade ago.
With something like two decades of distance from my die-hard fanaticism, I see the issues more clearly. I do genuinely like how odd the movie is though, especially post Special Edition. There’s like a good 45 minutes of pre-Endor activities, including a musical number, before we address the hypothetical focus of the movie, on Endor we get a heroes meeting local primitives story for some reason, we get C-3PO doing a recap, including events of the movie you are currently watching in a made-up language. You get James Earl Jones saying “dark side” dozens of times in basically every scene.
I’m not going to say it makes it a better movie, but I enjoy just how damned weird everything outside of the Luke/Vader/Emperor business is.
Just going by the movies, Palpatine was never actually shown to be the 'execute for single fuckup' type. Vader was.
And even he kept it for what sounded like repeated fuckups, or managing to lose a single ship because Star Destroyers don't have back windows.
Yeah, this whole "execute failures" thing seems less of an Empire thing and more of a Vader thing, judging by the OT at least. Shit, in ANH Tarkin is all "Goddammit, stop choking my officers Vader".
"The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am."
Even in that scene they are giving him a shot to fix his fuckup.
The movie doesn't really establish that idea that execution for failure is a thing outside Vader and somewhat the Emperor and it seems to suggest that Vader's deployment of it in ESB is not standard procedure and instead a way for the movie to tell us that Vader is getting more and more extreme in his attempts to find Luke.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Let's all just agree that 85% of what we know about Star Wars resides mostly in our own heads, and may or may not overlap with what other people know about Star Wars, or even reality.
I honestly think that this is some of the magic of the OT that was ground to dust by the long lag time of the prequels and then sequels. You had all these theories and these movies had a lot of depth to them so there's room for an interesting discussion of Vader's motives, and then because there was so much time between movies there was a lot of time for theories to become deeply held beliefs that were then contradicted (poorly).
If the PT and ST were released on a more MCU timescale, you wouldn't have had a lot of time to be like "Wow the Clone Wars! That must have been Obi-Wan fighting his double to a standstill and full of intrigue because who was real and who was a clone" and then you find out "oh it's just a fuckton of Boba Fetts. Who gives a shit?"
It's like the difference between watching a show as it comes out and binge watching it on Netflix. When you binge it you can paper over the flaws because you're a more passive actor and the questions are immediately answered. When you have time to think about it the flaws become more relevant and the disappointments hurt much more. I bet there are a lot of people watching Battlestar Galactica, Lost, or How I Met Your Mother for the first time now that don't understand why I am so bothered by how those shows ended. I was invested. What WAS the goal of the Cylons? How did it all intertwine with the religion and prophecies of the colonists? What the hell was the Six that Baltar saw? And then I ended up being strung along for like five years with that crap ending. Nowadays you'll finish that shit in a week and not be too bothered.
And now everything in Star Wars is so codified, there's no mystery. Every character named with a backstory. The OT presented a galaxy of wonder, you knew a small slice of a massive whole teeming with possibilities. The current setting has no possibilities. It's the same shit, over and over.
Yeah, that’s really more a comment on my memories than general consensus. I knew it tends to get set aside as clearly the worst of the three, but I never really felt that strong of a distinction when I last watched it over a decade ago.
With something like two decades of distance from my die-hard fanaticism, I see the issues more clearly. I do genuinely like how odd the movie is though, especially post Special Edition. There’s like a good 45 minutes of pre-Endor activities, including a musical number, before we address the hypothetical focus of the movie, on Endor we get a heroes meeting local primitives story for some reason, we get C-3PO doing a recap, including events of the movie you are currently watching in a made-up language. You get James Earl Jones saying “dark side” dozens of times in basically every scene.
I’m not going to say it makes it a better movie, but I enjoy just how damned weird everything outside of the Luke/Vader/Emperor business is.
I think for ROTJ, a big turn in the visible common narrative happened around when the Red Letter Media PT videos were dropping. Which led to a lot of discussion about Lucas and his roll in the OT and how much control he had. Which led to a lot of discussion about him taking a more direct hand in ROTJ then ESB and how that led to a worse result and why and the discussion of Ewoks and the original ROTJ script pitches and all that shit.
After that I started seeing a lot more people openly being like "Yeah, I always thought ROTJ was kinda weak".
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Handsome CostanzaAsk me about 8bitdoRIP Iwata-sanRegistered Userregular
Handsome CostanzaAsk me about 8bitdoRIP Iwata-sanRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
If you bust out the no one liked TROS jokes I will bust out the meta audience scores and we will just get into the same exact argument everyones been getting into all over again. How bout we just both run through that in our own heads, and then not do it? We have a choice here. We can step away from the precipice.
Let's all just agree that 85% of what we know about Star Wars resides mostly in our own heads, and may or may not overlap with what other people know about Star Wars, or even reality.
I honestly think that this is some of the magic of the OT that was ground to dust by the long lag time of the prequels and then sequels. You had all these theories and these movies had a lot of depth to them so there's room for an interesting discussion of Vader's motives, and then because there was so much time between movies there was a lot of time for theories to become deeply held beliefs that were then contradicted (poorly).
If the PT and ST were released on a more MCU timescale, you wouldn't have had a lot of time to be like "Wow the Clone Wars! That must have been Obi-Wan fighting his double to a standstill and full of intrigue because who was real and who was a clone" and then you find out "oh it's just a fuckton of Boba Fetts. Who gives a shit?"
It's like the difference between watching a show as it comes out and binge watching it on Netflix. When you binge it you can paper over the flaws because you're a more passive actor and the questions are immediately answered. When you have time to think about it the flaws become more relevant and the disappointments hurt much more. I bet there are a lot of people watching Battlestar Galactica, Lost, or How I Met Your Mother for the first time now that don't understand why I am so bothered by how those shows ended. I was invested. What WAS the goal of the Cylons? How did it all intertwine with the religion and prophecies of the colonists? What the hell was the Six that Baltar saw? And then I ended up being strung along for like five years with that crap ending. Nowadays you'll finish that shit in a week and not be too bothered.
And now everything in Star Wars is so codified, there's no mystery. Every character named with a backstory. The OT presented a galaxy of wonder, you knew a small slice of a massive whole teeming with possibilities. The current setting has no possibilities. It's the same shit, over and over.
I think the Mandalorian show this to not really be true at all. The movies have painted a setting with lots of interesting times and places. Now lets get some solid character dramas in there without any direct relationship to the Skywalkers, et al, and play in this space we have.
If you bust out the no one liked TROS jokes I will bust out the meta audience scores and we will just get into the same exact argument everyones been getting into all over again. How bout we just both run through that in our own heads, and then not do it? We have a choice here. We can step away from the precipice.
We could bust out the RT scores, where it's tied for last place among the main line films with TPM.
Interestingly Attack of the Clones actually sits slightly higher at like 65%. Which I can see even though there seems to be a lot of people who think AOTC is the worst one.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I mean ROTJ was always the worst one but that's because A New Hope is amazing, it's The Hero's Journey made perfect in a sci-fi setting. It's also the most "fun" movie of the trilogy in my opinion. It's lighter and more triumphant throughout. And ESB is the dark one that has maybe the most iconic twist in cinema history and has the incredibly iconic Battle of Hoth and Luke's first lightsaber fight. It's gonna be hard for another movie to keep up with it.
I mean ROTJ was always the worst one but that's because A New Hope is amazing, it's The Hero's Journey made perfect in a sci-fi setting. It's also the most "fun" movie of the trilogy in my opinion. It's lighter and more triumphant throughout. And ESB is the dark one that has maybe the most iconic twist in cinema history and has the incredibly iconic Battle of Hoth and Luke's first lightsaber fight. It's gonna be hard for another movie to keep up with it.
I think you can look at the Luke/Vader thing and see the ways it would have been fine. The problem is that the other side of the story, the Rebellion vs Empire bit, has few real good ideas in the film and the entire "Rescue Han" sequence ends up taking up a bunch of time at the start of the film while not doing a ton of work towards either finale. (it does some, but again mostly towards Luke's story and not the rest of it)
Yeah, that’s really more a comment on my memories than general consensus. I knew it tends to get set aside as clearly the worst of the three, but I never really felt that strong of a distinction when I last watched it over a decade ago.
With something like two decades of distance from my die-hard fanaticism, I see the issues more clearly. I do genuinely like how odd the movie is though, especially post Special Edition. There’s like a good 45 minutes of pre-Endor activities, including a musical number, before we address the hypothetical focus of the movie, on Endor we get a heroes meeting local primitives story for some reason, we get C-3PO doing a recap, including events of the movie you are currently watching in a made-up language. You get James Earl Jones saying “dark side” dozens of times in basically every scene.
I’m not going to say it makes it a better movie, but I enjoy just how damned weird everything outside of the Luke/Vader/Emperor business is.
I think for ROTJ, a big turn in the visible common narrative happened around when the Red Letter Media PT videos were dropping. Which led to a lot of discussion about Lucas and his roll in the OT and how much control he had. Which led to a lot of discussion about him taking a more direct hand in ROTJ then ESB and how that led to a worse result and why and the discussion of Ewoks and the original ROTJ script pitches and all that shit.
After that I started seeing a lot more people openly being like "Yeah, I always thought ROTJ was kinda weak".
Agreed - for me, the main reason I wanted to revisit the originals was to try to watch them outside of the perspective of myself as a Star Wars fan, since I realize that perspective is pretty far removed from my opinions these days. Just doing my best to watch them as movies instead of the Star Wars behemoth. It was a fun experience, and I enjoyed trying to look at these things critically.
And to get a better sense of where TLJ falls in my estimation of the whole series - ANH continues to reign, and I think Empire is such well-executed pulp punctuated with occasional emotional weight that it holds the second spot, but it gets complicated after that. I think TLJ is unquestionably more consistent and well-constructed than ROTJ, but when Return shines, it shines real bright. Nostalgia might get too in the way for me there.
It’s funny, because while the RLM videos have really furthered a specific take on the development of the franchise, and especially Lucas’s role in it, I think Lucas’s weirdness is getting some greater appreciation as a result now that the ST has played itself out too. I count myself in there. I’m not going to say the prequels are good in the least, but there’s something really amusing about watching such expensive movies do such dumb, dumb things, and I doubt we’re going to get anything like that for a long time now that the franchise is under Disney.
God, I’m clearly edging closer to watching the prequels just to round out the armchair film-critic bent I’m on, and I hate that knowledge.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Let's all just agree that 85% of what we know about Star Wars resides mostly in our own heads, and may or may not overlap with what other people know about Star Wars, or even reality.
I honestly think that this is some of the magic of the OT that was ground to dust by the long lag time of the prequels and then sequels. You had all these theories and these movies had a lot of depth to them so there's room for an interesting discussion of Vader's motives, and then because there was so much time between movies there was a lot of time for theories to become deeply held beliefs that were then contradicted (poorly).
If the PT and ST were released on a more MCU timescale, you wouldn't have had a lot of time to be like "Wow the Clone Wars! That must have been Obi-Wan fighting his double to a standstill and full of intrigue because who was real and who was a clone" and then you find out "oh it's just a fuckton of Boba Fetts. Who gives a shit?"
It's like the difference between watching a show as it comes out and binge watching it on Netflix. When you binge it you can paper over the flaws because you're a more passive actor and the questions are immediately answered. When you have time to think about it the flaws become more relevant and the disappointments hurt much more. I bet there are a lot of people watching Battlestar Galactica, Lost, or How I Met Your Mother for the first time now that don't understand why I am so bothered by how those shows ended. I was invested. What WAS the goal of the Cylons? How did it all intertwine with the religion and prophecies of the colonists? What the hell was the Six that Baltar saw? And then I ended up being strung along for like five years with that crap ending. Nowadays you'll finish that shit in a week and not be too bothered.
And now everything in Star Wars is so codified, there's no mystery. Every character named with a backstory. The OT presented a galaxy of wonder, you knew a small slice of a massive whole teeming with possibilities. The current setting has no possibilities. It's the same shit, over and over.
I think the Mandalorian show this to not really be true at all. The movies have painted a setting with lots of interesting times and places. Now lets get some solid character dramas in there without any direct relationship to the Skywalkers, et al, and play in this space we have.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I don't actually think the setting has no possibilities. It's just that's what the creatives in charge of the movies appear to think.
RotJ has some really high highs, but also really low lows, and I think it's the one movie of the OT that you can point to as having really obvious structural issues. Like anything that happens on Endor just kills the pace of the movie dead. It's like time stands still. And that's not a stealth dig at the Ewoks, who honestly are fine except for that one battle which is pretty silly.
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Arguably, the execution rule is for people who aren't Vader or the Emperor.
That being said, Vader might have been spared because he brought knowledge of someone very strong in the Force to the Emperor--someone neither of them knew about at that point.
The Emperor was the only one in a position to actually execute Vader, and he's not going to do that for anything short of an outright betrayal (or finding a younger, more powerful and/or manipulable slave to trade this one in for).
Plus, the whole thing is just to highlight how evil the Empire is. If you fuck up in the Rebellion, people figure you just got overwhelmed by the Empire. If you fuck up in the Empire, they don't even wait to find out what happened before gleefully murdering people.
Man, that is so much better than every single second of screen time Kylo Ren managed. I normally can't stand the evil guy killing his own henchmen thing, but Vader makes it work by being so cavalier about it.
Palpatine didn't kill Vader because he didn't have a worthy replacement... at that time. The corruption and time investment into someone as powerful as Vader wasn't going to be tossed aside for one mistake, even one that large. And as Vader points out, HE didn't design the Death Star.
Palps of course had contingencies, and one of them was a group of tech enhanced cyborgs who had abilities that mimicked force powers.
Vader was demoted and put under General Tagge, the most reasonable guy at the Death Star meeting in ANH.
The first few story arcs of the Vader comic is how he comes back from that, schemes, plots, and murders his way back to the top. Proving to Palpatine he's still a worthy Sith Lord... until he either kills him and becomes the master, or Palpatine finds another more suitable apprentice.
Oh comics. Eh.
Palps didn't off Vader because Snoke wasn't done baking. Clearly
And even he kept it for what sounded like repeated fuckups, or managing to lose a single ship because Star Destroyers don't have back windows.
Yeah, this whole "execute failures" thing seems less of an Empire thing and more of a Vader thing, judging by the OT at least. Shit, in ANH Tarkin is all "Goddammit, stop choking my officers Vader".
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
This is correct. I assume both Vader and Palpatine do indeed believe that the power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the force. Therefore, killing Vader for losing the Death Star is like throwing out the baby, the tub, and the towels with the bathwater.
"Heads or tails? I don't need to remind you of the penalty for failure."
I always got the feeling that the entire Empire existed as a backdrop to Palpatine and Vader's weird relationship. Vader's killing officers left and right because he not so secretly hates them, their stupid Empire, himself, and his evil adopted dad. The Emperor is constantly browbeating Vader to keep him in line, but he's also the only person besides himself that the Emperor cares about. Luke just represented a way for both of them to break out of their unhealthy cycle and form new attachments.
I think he murders the flunkies because all he has left is rage and sadness and he has no fucks left to give. He choked his pregnant wife out of anger. The random admirals are meaningless to him by comparison.
Luke breaks that cycle because now he has definitive proof of being lied to and manipulated by the Emperor, and because there remains something good that could come out of this, from his wife. She didn't die for nothing. This is why the Emperor does lie to him, his obvious love and attachment to his family (Padme, Shmi) would continue to be a liability. He knows there are one of two ways it ends if Vader has his kid: he gets overthrown in a rule of two way, or Vader turns back to the light. He offers the first and does the second.
Babu Frik
He’s Babu Frik-aaayy
Also, having rewatched it recently, there’s a weird detail to ESB’s opening crawl regarding Star Wars chain of command logic:
I always got the sense that Luke was important but not really a key leader within the rebellion proper (basically Luke as head of the Force Bureau, which is a department consisting entirely of himself and largely independent of day to day rebelling). Leia got snubbed.
Luke is Rogue Leader, head of Rogue Squadron.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
"The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am."
Right, but after a rewatch, I’m surprised by how essential the EU is to that meaning much of anything. You only see Luke flying a ship as part of a group twice - Yavin and Hoth. And as soon as Hoth is evacuated, Luke heads over to Dagobah and never really engages in any kind of leadership activities again - he’s got his own path that is running parallel to the Rebellion, but is more of a family conflict.
I popped back to the originals after being surprised by TLJ, and boy, I’d forgotten some things about these movies. ESB and ROJ are both so much pulpier than A New Hope, and ROJ is just full of tonal whiplash. ESB holds up, but I think ROJ might be a mediocre film held together by performances and some genuinely incredible moments. The changes Lucas made over the years have, uh, really not helped solve the movie’s problems, and the script is just. It’s bad. The dialogue was never the star of these things, but whoo, it’s repetitive as hell and coasting on charisma in that one.
To be fair, I think "ROTJ is mostly kinda mediocre at best, anchored only by our love of the characters from the previous films and the excellent Luke/Vader/Emperor bits of the finale" has been a fairly common opinion for awhile now.
With something like two decades of distance from my die-hard fanaticism, I see the issues more clearly. I do genuinely like how odd the movie is though, especially post Special Edition. There’s like a good 45 minutes of pre-Endor activities, including a musical number, before we address the hypothetical focus of the movie, on Endor we get a heroes meeting local primitives story for some reason, we get C-3PO doing a recap, including events of the movie you are currently watching in a made-up language. You get James Earl Jones saying “dark side” dozens of times in basically every scene.
I’m not going to say it makes it a better movie, but I enjoy just how damned weird everything outside of the Luke/Vader/Emperor business is.
Even in that scene they are giving him a shot to fix his fuckup.
The movie doesn't really establish that idea that execution for failure is a thing outside Vader and somewhat the Emperor and it seems to suggest that Vader's deployment of it in ESB is not standard procedure and instead a way for the movie to tell us that Vader is getting more and more extreme in his attempts to find Luke.
I honestly think that this is some of the magic of the OT that was ground to dust by the long lag time of the prequels and then sequels. You had all these theories and these movies had a lot of depth to them so there's room for an interesting discussion of Vader's motives, and then because there was so much time between movies there was a lot of time for theories to become deeply held beliefs that were then contradicted (poorly).
If the PT and ST were released on a more MCU timescale, you wouldn't have had a lot of time to be like "Wow the Clone Wars! That must have been Obi-Wan fighting his double to a standstill and full of intrigue because who was real and who was a clone" and then you find out "oh it's just a fuckton of Boba Fetts. Who gives a shit?"
It's like the difference between watching a show as it comes out and binge watching it on Netflix. When you binge it you can paper over the flaws because you're a more passive actor and the questions are immediately answered. When you have time to think about it the flaws become more relevant and the disappointments hurt much more. I bet there are a lot of people watching Battlestar Galactica, Lost, or How I Met Your Mother for the first time now that don't understand why I am so bothered by how those shows ended. I was invested. What WAS the goal of the Cylons? How did it all intertwine with the religion and prophecies of the colonists? What the hell was the Six that Baltar saw? And then I ended up being strung along for like five years with that crap ending. Nowadays you'll finish that shit in a week and not be too bothered.
And now everything in Star Wars is so codified, there's no mystery. Every character named with a backstory. The OT presented a galaxy of wonder, you knew a small slice of a massive whole teeming with possibilities. The current setting has no possibilities. It's the same shit, over and over.
I think for ROTJ, a big turn in the visible common narrative happened around when the Red Letter Media PT videos were dropping. Which led to a lot of discussion about Lucas and his roll in the OT and how much control he had. Which led to a lot of discussion about him taking a more direct hand in ROTJ then ESB and how that led to a worse result and why and the discussion of Ewoks and the original ROTJ script pitches and all that shit.
After that I started seeing a lot more people openly being like "Yeah, I always thought ROTJ was kinda weak".
Yeah well YOU CANT HAVE ANY.....
...JK I got extras you totally can...
......even though your opinion is wrong and bad..... XD
Edit: there's a wait list though and you are in approximately "behind all the people who like TROS" place.
This was also a joke.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
I think the Mandalorian show this to not really be true at all. The movies have painted a setting with lots of interesting times and places. Now lets get some solid character dramas in there without any direct relationship to the Skywalkers, et al, and play in this space we have.
We could bust out the RT scores, where it's tied for last place among the main line films with TPM.
Interestingly Attack of the Clones actually sits slightly higher at like 65%. Which I can see even though there seems to be a lot of people who think AOTC is the worst one.
I think you can look at the Luke/Vader thing and see the ways it would have been fine. The problem is that the other side of the story, the Rebellion vs Empire bit, has few real good ideas in the film and the entire "Rescue Han" sequence ends up taking up a bunch of time at the start of the film while not doing a ton of work towards either finale. (it does some, but again mostly towards Luke's story and not the rest of it)
Agreed - for me, the main reason I wanted to revisit the originals was to try to watch them outside of the perspective of myself as a Star Wars fan, since I realize that perspective is pretty far removed from my opinions these days. Just doing my best to watch them as movies instead of the Star Wars behemoth. It was a fun experience, and I enjoyed trying to look at these things critically.
And to get a better sense of where TLJ falls in my estimation of the whole series - ANH continues to reign, and I think Empire is such well-executed pulp punctuated with occasional emotional weight that it holds the second spot, but it gets complicated after that. I think TLJ is unquestionably more consistent and well-constructed than ROTJ, but when Return shines, it shines real bright. Nostalgia might get too in the way for me there.
It’s funny, because while the RLM videos have really furthered a specific take on the development of the franchise, and especially Lucas’s role in it, I think Lucas’s weirdness is getting some greater appreciation as a result now that the ST has played itself out too. I count myself in there. I’m not going to say the prequels are good in the least, but there’s something really amusing about watching such expensive movies do such dumb, dumb things, and I doubt we’re going to get anything like that for a long time now that the franchise is under Disney.
God, I’m clearly edging closer to watching the prequels just to round out the armchair film-critic bent I’m on, and I hate that knowledge.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I don't actually think the setting has no possibilities. It's just that's what the creatives in charge of the movies appear to think.