Star Wars [3]

Great last episode of Andor.

It's getting a free viewing on one of the networks tonight. Hope to catch it and if I get that magic feeling it will be time to subscribe to Disney.

Wife gets me it each year as a Xmas present. Think the price goes up December 3rd. So get it before then.

Ah, thanks. I actually missed the free broadcast because the friend I was staying with doesn't have a TV antenna.

That brings to mind something I should have realized before: so many films are filmed using British studio lots, yet Britain is credited with producing comparatively few films. What's going on with that? I suppose it's the funders that get the credit, not the facilities and hired teams.

{{ Loads of major Hollywood films are shot here, always have been, Alien and Aliens were shot here for example and of course all the Harry Potter films, the new Batman movie was shot in Glasgow doubling for Gotham (its also doubled for New York and a few other US cities in various films).





In the BAFTA Best British Film category there have been a couple of winners who on the surface dont seem to be British films- not set here, not got British Actors or writers, but then you look at where it was filmed (usually Pinewood) its directors, and everything else and they are all Brits. }}

Watched the first 2 episodes of Ahsoka.
This guy describes it perfectly.

Love the supplemental theme music.

What little scraps I've seen of Ashoka looked horrendous. But despite other failures, both Mandalorian and Endor have been good. More misses than hits, but Disney has not been a complete failure for Star Wars. We have to remember that Lukas himself was already driving it into the ground with prequels, ewoks, and the worst love scenes ever scripted.

{{ Probably posted before, its 4 years old but popped up on my feed- it's a reimagining of the Vader Obi fight from the original SW. In my view, if films are to have new effects added to them years after release, this is the sort of thing it should be used for; making something closer to the original vision if it weren't for issues of the time preventing it being fully realised. In the case of this fight a number of things, an older less sprightly actor, another in a cumbersome suit hard to even see out of, and saber props that shattered to bits if you actually hit them against each other with any real force.
I also like it as a fight, it's over the top in that they are Jedi with amazing powers, but it's not Yoda bouncing off the walls stupid, I also like how well they reflect both characters in their fighting style, with Vader's much more brutal and even hands-on approach and Obi's more balletic movements, yet both retaining discipline and precision in their movements.
No doubt some of the composting could be done better these days, or even 4 years ago if they had the budget of a major studio rather than being fan made but its still impressive stuff. }}
Enjoy if you haven't seen it before. }}

definitely more of a fight, but Obi-Wan came across as more noble in the original. Seeing him tossed around like a bean bag doesn't do much for his character.

{{ I think it's fair enough in context, Vader is supposed to be at the peak of his Dark Side powers during this period, and Obi-Wan has spent decades basically retired living in a cave in a desert and is considerably older and without any bio-augmentations. Also narratively as far the original trilogy goes it's more important to set Vader up here as a seemingly unbeatable force who can even take out basically SW Gandalf, than it is to show Obi at his best. }}

If Vader is clearly the better fighter, then Obi-Wan did not sacrifice himself at the end, he just took his last remaining option.  In the original they are evenly matched; it's only when Obi-Wan sees Luke that he smiles to himself and gives himself up to be killed.  This final act is far less psychologically meaningful in the revised version.  It's lost its significance and is no longer memorable.

{{ It was his only ever option, more than that it was what he went there to do- from as soon as he realised he was going to be pulled onto the Death Star with Vader he knew now was the time to lose to Vader. That I think is clear from earlier dialogue, first when Vader tells Moff Obi is there, Moff says he must not be allowed to escape, and Vader replies "escape is not his plan." Vader assumes his plan is to kill him. But he's wrong.
Obi when he seperates from Luke tells him, "Your destiny lies along a different path from mine." Obi knows Lukes destiny is to restore the balance by eventually facing and defeating Vader, so he knows it's not his own destiny to kill Vader. Rather Obi has spent all those years mediating in the desert the Jedi powers needed to become a Force Ghostie, what he is here for, what he needs now is for Vader to kill him, but not till, like a wizard, he arrives precisely when he means to, that being dying at Vader's hand right in front of Luke, providing Luke necessary motivation, and Obi the means to Ghost out of there. Vader was always going to win that fight, and Obi not only knew it even in the original cut, he was counting on it.}}

But he can't manipulate the timing unless they are evenly matched. And it really isn't clear in the new version that this was his carefully planned choice - he actually appears fairly desperate.

{{ I noticed something in A New Hope I don't think has ever been addressed, in any of the films at least, maybe it has in extended media so if anyone knows let me know the answer.

In the holographic message Leia sends Obi Wan via R2, her mission was not about the stolen plans, she just happens to have ended up with them, her actual mission was to go to Tatooine and speak to Obi-Wan, her real job to put to him a proposal from her father, as they need Obi's help against the Empire.
But what after all this time did they need Obi for? What was the proposal Leia's father had for Obi and why? Why was Leia so anxious to deliver Obi to her home planet and her father?
As far as I know these have never been answered. Anyone got any insight? }}