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[Insanegame27]

Also didn't Kimino (The place where the clones were cloned) get hit hard by the separatists in the Clone Wars? Hit hard to the point where all the cloning facilities had to be rebuilt meaning that they lost what DNA samples they had? That was always my reasoning for the clones not being in the Imperial Army. Although there would have been some left over from the Clone Wars at the very start of the empire, but by the time of Episode 4 they had all died out.


Which begs the question: Why didn't Boba go back? Yes I know he was a clone, but he was the only non-engineered one so his DNA would have been more-or-less stable. I know he had a vendetta against the jedi (Esp. Mace), but when Order 66 happened and the Empire rose, he could have gone to the Emperor and said, "Hey, my father was the guy the Clone troopers were cloned from. I could do the same for you, for a price"

[Rolepgeek]

I thought a rather large part of the Imperial Army was clones.

[Furtuka]

In the old legends canon the Empire occupied Kamino after the war and stopped relying on them after they attempted to rebel with a force of Fett clones they had trained in secret and outfitted with old surplus clone trooper equipment. During the battle the 501st retrieved the samples of Fett's DNA and afterwards the empire decided to start downsizing the clone program and use multiple dna donors at multiple sites. It's detailed in Battlefront II's campaign.

[Insanegame27]

Nah, at the start, maybe, but they kinda died off and by the time Luke got Vader's lightsaber in Ep4 there probably wasnt many left. Assuming Episode 3 ends the whole clone wars, then it's been about 18 years between ep3 and ep4. Clones growth rate is either x2 or x4 from memory, so that means that soldiers in their prime are way past it by Luke's time

[Putnam]

A clone appears in Rebels. He's old by that point, much older than characters of similar age.

[scriver]

Finally made it through this thread. Posting to watch.

[Flying Dice]

Hooo-kay. Finally went to see it. Here's a brief summary of my thoughts, condensed after much threshing-out IRL.

First, the saber fights. Fucking spot on, A++. They perfectly recaptured the emotional intensity and the hierarchy of significance that the original trilogy had.

The aesthetics were spot on, with one flaw: too overtly referential.

The characters? Good fucking god poor Chewie, he carried the film on his back. It felt as if they were trying too hard to recapture the chemistry of Luke, Leia, and Han with the new core cast, Rei/Ray(?), Finn, and Definitely Not Wedge Antilles. Rei/Ray was the nascent Force-user who grew up in poverty on a desert planet but also the tech-head who flies around as the pilot of an old junker (by the end of the film, anyways). Finn was the refugee with important information who doesn't actually do much of use and also the fish-out-of-water who isn't very good at anything. Definitely Not Wedge Antilles was the sarcastic, quip-spewing rogue and also the ace pilot who pulls off the nigh-impossible saving shot.

Ben/Kylo Ren? Angsty teenager (who's actually 30-something if we go by looks) trying too hard to emulate a grandfather he doesn't actually understand as the production team and director try too hard to recapture the perfect evil of pre-prequel-release Darth Vader. Ginger General is a faceless nobody. Soccer Ball Droid is an annoying shit in need of a punting. Giant Sith Voldemort is unthreatening and underwhelming. Also I genuinely thought that he was legitimately just a 50 foot tall dude until it turned out to be a hologram. Little orange Force-sensitive woman with the goggles was excellent, felt like she belonged in the original trilogy.

The plot? God damn now I understand the jokes about just watching A New Hope again. This is where the overly referential characters, scenes, and visuals came together to bite the film in the ass. The plot felt incredibly rushed, far too connect-the-reference-dots-y, didn't convey the sort of emotional attachment to/hatred of the protagonists/antagonists that A New Hope did, &c., even when they so closely copied so much of A New Hope in an effort to do so. By the very end of it I had only begun to feel a slight bit of an emotional connection with Ray/Rei, and that's it for the new characters after 2.5 hours of screentime.

Speaking of Ray/Rei, Luke's daughter Y/N? I'm guessing yes. They mirrored so much else about A New Hope, that plot "twist" is probably included as well. She's got a heavy parallel to Luke and Anakin, the death of Han closely mirrored Obi Wan's death scene in terms of intended emotional impact and visual presentation, and it would lend an additional level of significance to her fight with Ben/Kylo Ren in the forest. Evidently Luke put his dick in crazy, considering that it was apparently her mother who sold her/abandoned her in a tiny desert shithole.

Also, major plot hole. More than one map of the galaxy exists, yes? If so, why did the Definitely Not Rebel Alliance need the rest of R2's map? Couldn't they have just pulled up another map of the galaxy and matched the soccer ball's piece to the appropriate section?

--

Basically, there was a lot good about the film and I plan to see the next one, but they tried too damn hard to tie it to A New Hope, and that forced referencing and mirroring dragged it down. They could have completely cut everything after Han and Chewie met up with Ray/Rei and Finn. After that, use the major points in the story to build something new: (Han reunites with Leia, audience is given more information about Ben/Kylo Ren, Finn finds out that Definitely Not Wedge Antilles is alive, R2D2 wakes up) reorients the film and cast on the "find Luke" overarching goal rather than shoehorning in the Death Star Mk3 fight. Han, Chewie, Finn, Rei/Ray, and R2D2 set off in the Falcon in search of Luke, possibly accompanied by Definitely Not Wedge Antilles in his X-Wing (to give him more screentime and better establish his relationship with Finn). They're intercepted by Kylo Ren, Han is killed, Chewie breaks our hearts, the Rei/Ray+Finn vs. Kylo Ren fight happens (if Definitely Not Wedge Antilles is along for the ride, he spends this time in his X-Wing disabling Kylo Ren's ship to prevent pursuit). The main group flee onward aboard the Falcon. The falling action is them grieving and bonding, culminating with Rei/Ray meeting Luke exactly as in the actual film.

Boom. Less rushed, fewer forced references, more time for us to grow to care about the new characters. Everything that's done right shines through, and even if the plot/characters aren't the greatest, they're at least better than they were. Of all the things the prequels got wrong "not having a Death Star fight in the second or third ones" wasn't one of them.

But yeah, the saber fights were perfect.

[Putnam]

I'm fairly sure Kylo Ren is canonically 30-something. Got some arrested development up in there.

Ben/Kylo Ren? Angsty teenager (who's actually 30-something if we go by looks) trying too hard to emulate a grandfather he doesn't actually understand as the production team and director try too hard to recapture the perfect evil of pre-prequel-release Darth Vader.

I cannot even begin to understand how you manage to reconcile the first half of that sentence with the second half. Angsty 30-something trying too hard to emulate a grandfather he doesn't actually understand is a perfect summation of his character, then you act as if it was unintentional.

[Flying Dice]

Huh, really? The way the character was played felt thoroughly like someone who was in their early 20s and never got over the "Mom and Dad just don't understand me" kick. Figured he'd turned when he was maybe 17 or so. The hairstyle and greasy face matched that (though I suppose it could just be what happens when you wear a helmet 24/7 except when you're trying to mindrape your hot maybe-probably-first cousin).

Part of that was also relying on my assumption that Han and Leia didn't manage to shut up and kiss fuck already until they were in their 40s. 

[inteuniso]

Methinks maybe you are just tired of watching too many action movies?

I believe you've hit the mark.

[Starver]

Little orange Force-sensitive woman with the goggles was excellent, felt like she belonged in the original trilogy.

I'd just like to say that her image/voice didn't fit.  Not her actions (MoCapped, I understand, from the voice-actress), but the Muppet-sized Yoda had a Muppet-sized voice (naturally enough) that seems to work, the Jabba had the right tone of voice for his bulk, etc...  But Maz Kanata (a.k.a. little orange retired space-pirate-cum-cantina-owner) just doesn't seem to fit the voice of  Lupita Nyong'o in either age or stature.

Of course, if they'd tried to "semi-Muppetise" her speech (or her Yodafy her grammar, they did) we would have had had due cause to complain that she was even more a Yoda-expy than she already was, so I'm not sure what would have worked.

Anyway, as an envisaged character I would have put her more into Phantom Menace territory.  Sebulba but in Galactic Standard or Watto without the thick accent.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, the voice wasn't great. The goggles zooming was shit. But the interaction with other characters, the body language, the vague mysticism, that was good.

Incidentally, thank fucking god they dropped midichlorians like the shit-bomb it was.

[hector13]

Yeah, the voice wasn't great. The goggles zooming was shit. But the interaction with other characters, the body language, the vague mysticism, that was good.

Incidentally, thank fucking god they dropped midichlorians like the shit-bomb it was.

Didn't they do that after Episode 1? Like... no more mention of them again ever?

[Flying Dice]

Presumably that was everyone just "forgetting" to include it, considering that the alternatives are that someone involved in those productions managed to work up the guts to tell Lucas that his stupid ideas were stupid (without being quietly shuffled away) or that Lucas himself consciously realized that it was stupid and was willing to cop to his mistake.

Or it just never came up again, seeing as how II and III had basically nothing to do with the Force.

[Rolepgeek]

So am I the only one who found Rei's method/ease of learning the Force to be really stupid?