- Joined
- Jul 13, 2019
Not to mention, if she was doing this shit: she would be legally liable.
Not only would she lose her job, they could sue her into oblivion.
Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off
- Thread starter CowReserach Inc.
- Start date
Not to mention, if she was doing this shit: she would be legally liable.
Not only would she lose her job, they could sue her into oblivion.
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2015
Not a "ruin" if Disney never really needed Star Wars to begin with... 
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
I would argue that TFA First Order was somewhat intimidating. Snoke was mysterious. I wasn't sure if he was an alien or human. But it was clear that he had authority and was leading the First Order towards a nefarious goal. Hux was a confident fanatic, which I felt contrasted nicely with the calm demeanor of the officers of Galactic Empire. And Kylo Ren was a violent monster. Yes he was an emo bitch, but he was someone who would break a rancor in half to get to his goal.
If Disney played those traits up; that the First Order weren't dangerous because of the size of the force like the Empire, but that they were willing to burn the galaxy if it only meant that they could rule the ashes, they could have been as you put it, G1 Galvatron. But Disney decided if their villains suffered a case of the stupid instead.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
I don't think Disney wants strong or memorable villains. They want bowling pins that their Mary Sues can effortlessly knock over.
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- Jun 10, 2016
I assume a lot of people here are familiar with him already but I found only one mention of him in the thread, and his videos are pulling surprisingly low numbers, so I'll just recommend him here. Saintmillion (the guy who did the Shadows of the Empire documentary you should have watched already) is making videos on stuff from the old EU, well worth a watch. Here's his latest video about spice.
LORD IMPERATOR
kiwifarms.net
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- Aug 4, 2020
No, they were not intimidating. At most, they can appear to have the trappings of the old Empire, but unlike the old Empire where it's a mix of zealots who joined the cause willingly and war criminals from the past wars, they're an army of children playing make-believe. They'd be far more intimidating if one of them didn't just suddenly desert and start shooting up the place, freeing an important prisoner. It made Finn look like the special one while the rest looked like tools for not being able to stop this one guy from among their ranks.
Snoke was just pulling from ROTJ Palpatine's book before he was unceremoniously cut off, so there was nothing special there. He's just a dark-sider with a short fuse, kind of like Kylo Ren. And such characters were already a dime a dozen in Star Wars, except unlike guys like Vader, Ren and Snoke acted like spoiled brats who went nuts when something went wrong.
Look at how someone like Darth Tormen deals with disappointment:
And then compare that to Kylo Ren throwing a tantrum. The difference is night and day.
As for Hux, he was too young and too much of a blowhard. People were remarking that the side extras of old men in First Order uniforms would have been a better choice for military leader so they'd at least look like they have someone old and experienced. And unlike someone like say, Admiral Salen Kotch, who had the battle scars to pose as a young but scary admiral, Hux was so posh and clean you begin to wonder if this was his first command. They corrected this mistake with Allegiant General Pryde, but that was too little, too late.
The Imperial Remnant in the Jedi Knight games do it better. Not only were they more reliant on subterfuge, not only did they have an insane amount of dedication to a faltering empire, (which got really close to Imperial Japanese levels of loyalty, especially in that one mission on the Dreadnought in Jedi Academy where despite the fact the ship was being sunk by TIEs, the Imperials aboard DECIDED TO STAY ON BOARD JUST TO MAKE SURE YOU DIE) but they also were far smarter than just making new planet-busters.
They broke the code on how to MAKE Force-sensitives and began making their own Dark Jedi armies, and even plotted to revive an Ancient Sith ruler like Marka Ragnos. That would have been far worse for the galaxy if they succeeded than if the FO won, since you can always sabotage superweapons and star dreadnoughts, but an entire army of Sith leading the Empire to victory, led by an Ancient Sith whose people were capable of blowing up solar systems as if it were nothing? That would have been scary beyond belief for the protagonists of SW.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Yes, the First Order was poorly executed, made to look like the Empire but far more incompetent and petulant. But I would say that there was an inkling of something interesting. I remember after watching TFA, I wanted to know more about the backstory of the First Order, how they came to be. Then it turns out that they are just about 25% of the Empire that hid for 30 years, rearming from Imperial-sympathizing corporations and a New Republic that didn't view a large remnant of a galactic totalitarian empire as a pressing threat. Nothing to go on and doesn't make the First Order stand out.
I do remember JJ Abrams characterizing the First Order as "what if the Nazis that fled to Argentina established a junta there?". While JJ is a hack, that is an interesting concept. What if the most deranged, pyschopathic, genocidal Imperial madmen were in charge and working together? And while there are countless examples of those lunatics facing off against the New Republic, they were never a cohesive remnant. So you could get crazy shit instead of just what look like off-brand Imperial technology. How about force-sensitive stormtrooper assassins? Imperial fleets piloted by the spirits of ancient sith? Just go full Wolfenstein with it. But that would take creative, which Disney doesn't hire for.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2019
Hmm... I seem to recall something in the so-called "Legends" where this is explored.
I can't seem to put my finger on it.
It's not like there is a backlog of 30 years worth of material to borrow concepts from, right?
After all, Kathleen Kennedy herself said such things don't exist.
/sneed
I'm tired of these uncreative egomaniacs throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2020
That's the thing about TFA characters in general. They could potentially be functional to good characters with competent writers. As proof, I'm going to use some WEEB reasoning and cite SMT: Persona as examples of functional to good character writing and compare to Star Wars in general. Social link stories in Persona are about specific Major Arcana cards. Real Star Wars characters, and the OT in particular, have characters that fit into Major Arcana cards.
Luke: The Fool
Han: The Chariot
Leia: Strength
Tarkin: The Emperor Reversed
Vader: The Tower
Obi-Wan: The Hierophant
Yoda: The Hermit literally.
Palpatine: The Devil obviously.
Lando: The Hanged Man
Qui-Gonn: Temperance
I don't include Padme because she's not a good character. I would say she reversed Lovers, but self love refers to Anakin's reaction to her, not herself.
TFA characters COULD fit into Major Arcana archetypes, but when I try, it's a much harder challenge. Rey could be a High Priestess, which is a strange choice for a protagonist, Finn could be The Moon, and Kylo Ren is Reversed Death. Also note that Kylo Ren is the only one that fits his archetype enough and people say he's the best of the worst character in the ST. I don't think it's a coincidence either. The problem, as far as character writing goes, is that no one commits to the archetype they are assigned. Rey is not a meditative character and even in TFA, the most pivotal act she commits is giving into her anger. If she is about reflecting on her actions rather that committing asspull acts, it'd be believable that she becomes the Jedi character. No one ever really spends enough time with Finn's inner journey either as he learns what is and isn't True; he just gets gaslit by both sides for their own ends. And Kylo Ren, well, he is a static character throughout the ST. The Sequels don't even tell functional to good character stories and that's why people notice just how nonsensical the plots are.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
I was thinking more along the lines of these guys:
Force-sensitive doesn't mean that they have to use a lightsaber. They could just be specially-trained soldiers with heightened senses and some minor force powers.
That is an issue that I feel has been present through much of Star Wars. The popular understanding of the Force is Jedi or Sith, lightsabers, and using the force like some sort of magic.
Why not have a group of force users that wield the force just to manipulate the outcomes of gambling games, forest protectors that use guns to fight hunters of endangered species, or a dark side cult that actively creates force users as they believe that the only way to dominate the force is if all beings that are capable of being force sensitive draw upon it?
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
I want to defend Kylo Ren a little bit as a villain, but thinking about it more, I think I just like Adam Driver and his acting ability more than the actual character we got.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2020
Yup. I spent way more time trying to make sequel characters interesting than the writers did.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
Adam Driver himself is great. Kylo Ren is a 4 month old bag full of dog shit.
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kiwifarms.net
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- Aug 4, 2020
There was nothing interesting about them. All the FO had was newer hardware wielded by a bunch of brainwashed kids. If there were more guys like General Pryde among them, they'd be a credible threat, but as it stands, they're nowhere near as brilliant or insane as the OG Imperial Remnant:
Last I checked, nobody in the First Order was aiming for the throne of the Emperor. And since the Jedi were killed offscreen, none of them were around to prove themselves by eradicating the Jedi.
We had Force-sensitive Stormtrooper Assassins in the form of Desann's Shadow Troopers, whose armor was designed by Admiral Galak Fyyar. They managed to solve the age-old enigma of how to give people Force powers, and both them and the Cult of Ragnos would have drowned the galaxy in Dark Jedi had they not been stopped.
And they probably could have gotten an Imperial fleet piloted by an Ancient Sith had Ragnos won on Korriban in Jedi Academy. Which is why you had to stop him.
Ah, those clones. They were pretty good opponents, all things considered. I suppose the Emperor decided to replace them with the Imperial Royal Guard and the Imperial Shadow Guard instead:
You do remember the KOTOR 2 Sith assassins who rarely used lightsabers, right? They mostly used the Force to remain unseen and drain energy from their victims.
Also, there's probably no shortage of Force-sensitives who never went to the Jedi due to them being too old, or flunked out of the Jedi Trials and got kicked out or left the Order. I can imagine them using their powers to enhance their physical capabilities so they can go swoop racing or bounty hunting to make the big bucks, or use the Force to win games of chance like Qui-Gon did and make a living conning the shit out of people or beating gamblers at their own game.
Adam Driver got screwed like John Boyega did, just in a different way. Adam Driver got a shitty script that wasted his talents. Boyega was used as a racial prop to get black people to see TFA, AND he also got a shitty script that wasted his talents.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
I would actually posit that Kylo Ren is one of the worst characters in Star Wars history, as well as the uncontested candidate for the one I hate. Some may scoff, arguing that characters like Vice Admiral Holdo or Rose Tico are patently worse, but I would disagree.
Kylo Ren, to me, embodies all of the ST's worst problems. He's an aimless, underwritten character whose edgy animu conflict is shouted at the audience through maudlin exposition instead of being shown to them, and whose motives are practically non-existent. Ancillary writers for the comics and novels have had to write mountains of material to explain this character because his on-screen incarnation is so shallowly-written and paper-thin, that we as viewers have virtually no idea what drives this character, or what supposed "trauma" he's been through. It's as if the writers just expect us to care about him simply because of him being the offspring of characters we care about, and they can simply ride on that investment without having to try hard to write him well. As a result, this character lives and dies on whatever feeble exposition is thrown about him feeling isolated and alone, and Adam Driver quivering his lip like a constipated child at regular intervals. All of his struggle exists off-screen, through things that have happened to him that we didn't witness. Snoke manipulating him through the womb, being neglected by his parents, being the troubled student at Luke's academy...we aren't shown any of this, and yet we're inexplicably expected to care because we're told about it. It's telling instead of showing of the worst kind, implemented to the character whose redemption is the supposed emotional focal point of this new trilogy from the beginning, instead of being a surprise late-game goal like Vader's.
And this wouldn't piss me off as much if the story didn't bend itself five ways to Sunday trying to not only get the audience to feel sorry for him, but justify him as some kind of fucking victim. These writers want me to feel sorry for some emotionally-turbulent manbaby, who throws a diaper-shitting tantrum if someone so much as looks at him funny. And not content with framing the trilogy's tragic undercurrent around this insufferable cunt, they actually wrote the OT Heroes completely out-of-character in order to narratively accommodate him. Han and Leia are suddenly awful parents, with Leia being a business-first workaholic and Han being a neglectful asshole who walks out at the first sign of trouble and regressing back to his selfish smuggler self. And Luke? Well, he exercises the restraint, patience and understanding to work and train with every other student at his Academy, but when he has trouble with Crylo and senses a potential vision of what he might do, he relapses into the impulsive idiot he was during ESB, the kid who reacts to visions too quickly and acts without thinking....all to absolve little baby Kylo of any blame, and make his actions and Dark Side Turn the fault of other people.
Now, I'm not married to the OT or its characters like a lot of other people are, but I know fanfic levels of hamfisted character insertion when I see it, and Kylo stinks of it like a Reylo stinks of cat litter and boxed wine. The way this character is written is like the misguided tween author on FF.Net or Wattpad who really, really wants their edgy self-insert OC to be some kind of tragic victim, so they write all of the prestablished characters like abusive assholes--bending them out of character--in order to elevate their character. Or they'll force their ship into reality by breaking up existing couples, and forcing together couples without any sort of in-universe justification. These type of writers do this because they're so creatively inept, that they can't find a way to organically accomodate their ideas, so they just whimsically break canon to satisfy their creative impulses. It's the glaring mark of a misguided fanfic author, and it's on full display anytime Kylo is on-screen.
And what the writers don't even realize with their exhaustive attempts to trace Kylo's growth and origins to other people exclusively--neglectful parents, abusive uncle, an evil Sith filling his head with false voices of Vader--is that they've unintentionally created a villain with no agency. Nothing is ever his fault. Nothing ever happens directly because of a choice he made on his own, it's always attributed to the machinations or failures of other characters. These retarded writers were so bent on obliterating any personal responsibility for his character, to absolve him of any of his crimes to make him tragic, that they purged any real agency he had. This character has no real motives or actions of his own, at least not ones that can't be attributed to other characters being mean to him or remotely manipulating him, a la Palpatine. He doesn't have the obsession with attachment that drives Anakin, or even the closed-off philisophical sense of martyrdom that Jacen has. They put events into motion, and have sole-ownership of their actions and goals. But Kylo? This stupid raging incel just accelerates to different points of the story because of the whims of other characters--because Mommy and Daddy didn't pay enough attention to him, or because Darth Vader told him to in his head, or because Rey finally brushed hands with him. He's driven solely by the actions of other people, and has virtually no character agency as a result. The story splits itself in half to create forced drama around him that doesn't come about by his hand, but by the way other characters treat him. By what his current Dark Side Master tells him to do, or whether or not Rey rejects his advances.
Ultimately, Kylo Ren is little more than an object of forced, vapid drama that came at the cost of not only the entire emotional subplot of the new films, but the integrity of the pre-established characters. The writers wanted so badly for the audience to care about this sniveling cretin that they actively downgraded existing characters to placate his navel-gazing self-victimhood, to make him some kind of "pOoR aNd mIsUnDeRsToOd" ornament of Tumblr landwhales. And by doing so, he helped open the franchise up to the narrative sensibilities of woobifying harlequin romance, with all of the pants-shittingly retarded romance writing and abusive undertones inherent to that genre...spawning the loudest, most insufferable kind of Star Wars autism in the form of Reylo's, who are the uncontested rock-bottom of the fandom.
Nothing, and I repeat, nothing good came from the creation of Crylo. If I have a seething hatred for any focused part of the ST, it's for this abortion of a character...for what he did to the story, and the fandom blight he brought to the franchise.
Kylo Ren, to me, embodies all of the ST's worst problems. He's an aimless, underwritten character whose edgy animu conflict is shouted at the audience through maudlin exposition instead of being shown to them, and whose motives are practically non-existent. Ancillary writers for the comics and novels have had to write mountains of material to explain this character because his on-screen incarnation is so shallowly-written and paper-thin, that we as viewers have virtually no idea what drives this character, or what supposed "trauma" he's been through. It's as if the writers just expect us to care about him simply because of him being the offspring of characters we care about, and they can simply ride on that investment without having to try hard to write him well. As a result, this character lives and dies on whatever feeble exposition is thrown about him feeling isolated and alone, and Adam Driver quivering his lip like a constipated child at regular intervals. All of his struggle exists off-screen, through things that have happened to him that we didn't witness. Snoke manipulating him through the womb, being neglected by his parents, being the troubled student at Luke's academy...we aren't shown any of this, and yet we're inexplicably expected to care because we're told about it. It's telling instead of showing of the worst kind, implemented to the character whose redemption is the supposed emotional focal point of this new trilogy from the beginning, instead of being a surprise late-game goal like Vader's.
And this wouldn't piss me off as much if the story didn't bend itself five ways to Sunday trying to not only get the audience to feel sorry for him, but justify him as some kind of fucking victim. These writers want me to feel sorry for some emotionally-turbulent manbaby, who throws a diaper-shitting tantrum if someone so much as looks at him funny. And not content with framing the trilogy's tragic undercurrent around this insufferable cunt, they actually wrote the OT Heroes completely out-of-character in order to narratively accommodate him. Han and Leia are suddenly awful parents, with Leia being a business-first workaholic and Han being a neglectful asshole who walks out at the first sign of trouble and regressing back to his selfish smuggler self. And Luke? Well, he exercises the restraint, patience and understanding to work and train with every other student at his Academy, but when he has trouble with Crylo and senses a potential vision of what he might do, he relapses into the impulsive idiot he was during ESB, the kid who reacts to visions too quickly and acts without thinking....all to absolve little baby Kylo of any blame, and make his actions and Dark Side Turn the fault of other people.
Now, I'm not married to the OT or its characters like a lot of other people are, but I know fanfic levels of hamfisted character insertion when I see it, and Kylo stinks of it like a Reylo stinks of cat litter and boxed wine. The way this character is written is like the misguided tween author on FF.Net or Wattpad who really, really wants their edgy self-insert OC to be some kind of tragic victim, so they write all of the prestablished characters like abusive assholes--bending them out of character--in order to elevate their character. Or they'll force their ship into reality by breaking up existing couples, and forcing together couples without any sort of in-universe justification. These type of writers do this because they're so creatively inept, that they can't find a way to organically accomodate their ideas, so they just whimsically break canon to satisfy their creative impulses. It's the glaring mark of a misguided fanfic author, and it's on full display anytime Kylo is on-screen.
And what the writers don't even realize with their exhaustive attempts to trace Kylo's growth and origins to other people exclusively--neglectful parents, abusive uncle, an evil Sith filling his head with false voices of Vader--is that they've unintentionally created a villain with no agency. Nothing is ever his fault. Nothing ever happens directly because of a choice he made on his own, it's always attributed to the machinations or failures of other characters. These retarded writers were so bent on obliterating any personal responsibility for his character, to absolve him of any of his crimes to make him tragic, that they purged any real agency he had. This character has no real motives or actions of his own, at least not ones that can't be attributed to other characters being mean to him or remotely manipulating him, a la Palpatine. He doesn't have the obsession with attachment that drives Anakin, or even the closed-off philisophical sense of martyrdom that Jacen has. They put events into motion, and have sole-ownership of their actions and goals. But Kylo? This stupid raging incel just accelerates to different points of the story because of the whims of other characters--because Mommy and Daddy didn't pay enough attention to him, or because Darth Vader told him to in his head, or because Rey finally brushed hands with him. He's driven solely by the actions of other people, and has virtually no character agency as a result. The story splits itself in half to create forced drama around him that doesn't come about by his hand, but by the way other characters treat him. By what his current Dark Side Master tells him to do, or whether or not Rey rejects his advances.
Ultimately, Kylo Ren is little more than an object of forced, vapid drama that came at the cost of not only the entire emotional subplot of the new films, but the integrity of the pre-established characters. The writers wanted so badly for the audience to care about this sniveling cretin that they actively downgraded existing characters to placate his navel-gazing self-victimhood, to make him some kind of "pOoR aNd mIsUnDeRsToOd" ornament of Tumblr landwhales. And by doing so, he helped open the franchise up to the narrative sensibilities of woobifying harlequin romance, with all of the pants-shittingly retarded romance writing and abusive undertones inherent to that genre...spawning the loudest, most insufferable kind of Star Wars autism in the form of Reylo's, who are the uncontested rock-bottom of the fandom.
Nothing, and I repeat, nothing good came from the creation of Crylo. If I have a seething hatred for any focused part of the ST, it's for this abortion of a character...for what he did to the story, and the fandom blight he brought to the franchise.
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- Joined
- Apr 16, 2017
I remember some speculated that it would be the Harry Potter franchise that JJ would target next what with it needing a woke reboot since JK pissed off the lgbTbbq, and it definitely would've been a more larger target to fuck up, and JJ likes going for big franchises, but I guess Superman is just as easy a target. Its hard to imagine how he can fuck up Superman more than DC, but if anyone can fuck Superman worse than DC comics themselves, it would be JJ.
As with all of JJ's works, it will either:
a) Start off by getting praised by normies and sfxfags but it will then fade into mediocrity after a year or two.
b) Or the sequels will be so bad people will start dunking on the first one and realizing all his plot points and mystery boxes never went anywhere.
Much like with ST, SW, LOST, West World, and anything else he ever had a writing, directing or "creative" hand in. Only exception to this seems to be Mission Impossible III and Super 8 (which I've never watched but everyone seems to love) but I guess we can all have our flukes once in a while, and for Super 8 he did have Uncle Spielberg holding his hand (more than usual anyway).
Imagine if they do. Rosario Dawson gets cancelled and with her the Ahsoka show, thus starting off a chain reaction that would lead to the last devoted part of the Disney fanbase getting fucked over, the Filonifags/Ahsoka waifuists. No doubt they might try and salvage that shit by announcing an animated version of the Ahsoka show a year after its cancellation, but that will go about as well as you'd expect. The reactions would be delicious. Also Rosario being a lefty won't make her immune, others like her have been canned or branded traitors for far less.
I am really interested in how this will go. Considering she's very left-wing. So I will have my eyes out on this one.
The only thing I take exception to is the notion that her being fired is somehow "proof" of a feud within Lucasfilm between a Kennedy Faction and a Favreau Faction. No matter how you slice it, that shit is just a lot of horseshit by people who desperately want to find reasons to continue consuming and believing things will change, or that Favreau and Filoni are on their side, despite proving time and time again that they're only on their own side or on the side of politics. If Kennedy is fucking over Favreau, its not because of some silly fear of getting replaced because Favreau made a decent attempt (she's even gotten credit for the Mando's former success), its simply because everyone at Disney-Lucasfilm is an out of touch moron or boomer and early gen xer that just does whatever the investors want or just follow whatever the hell is trending on Twitter that doesn't align with "problematic" mentality.
SW is never getting fixed nor the sequels retconned because those desires are believed to be controversial and politically wrong by the powers that be. Things will never get better unless by some miracle or freak accident SW ends up getting sold to someone that cares or all of its corrupt staff (even those within Disney) get replaced with people that give a damn, but that's about as likely to happen as me praising Dr. Aphra and begging to suck her repulsive cyberfutacock. And if SW were to get unfucked from Disney and all of its creative leeches replaced, well, it definitely wouldn't happen within this fucking century.
Anyway, I've been wanting to finish my ANH concept dump for a while now especially since it was tied to something from the Mandalorian, but I wanted to wait for all the shitty "announcements hype" and the Disney drama to blow over, but its clear this drama train isn't going to stop any time soon, as Disney will keep finding new and surprising ways to shoot themselves in the foot. So fuck it. Here's the next one. Hope no one misses it.
Where I left off last time (Jawa and Tusken Raider concepts):
Now moving right along now:
Krayt Dragon Concept:
Here we have the Krayt Dragon or as it was known during production: the "dragon", "beast", "that dinosaur" or "Krayat Dragon". It was given its noble name near the end and was formally identified to the public even before the film's release in the ANH novelization of 1976 which simply referred to it as the Krayt Dragon.
The krayt started off as a pile of bones on Tatooine to showcase more of the exotic fauna of the setting, something George would show more fascination in as special effects advanced.
Here we have one of the first depictions of the krayt's bones, showcasing its long and large body with R2 standing at the front of its skull, who was originally supposed to be the one to find the skeleton rather than 3PO.
The skeleton itself was a massive prop made of fiberglass and was actually recycled from the 1975 Disney film "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing", with the skeleton itself being based on the Diplodocus. Parts of this prop are still out there in the Tunisian desert where the movie was filmed, however like with most of the props left behind it has likely fallen into decay.
Small fragments of the skeleton though are preserved in a few museums dedicated to SW. Some are even sold online on occasion. Some people, for whatever wretched reason, tend to assume that JJ & Disney went back to Tunisia to restore the ruins of the ANH sets for IX, but that wasn't the case at all. They just remade it somewhere else and you can tell by some notable differences in the set and landscape. Anyway, despite the brief appearance of the skeleton in the film, an additional scene was conceived but it did not go beyond the initial sketches as seen below.
The krayt was intended to appear at later point to scare away the tusken raiders that were attacking Luke, but due to budget and time constraints, this never materialized beyond some basic sketches. However Kenobi's cry would still be identified as that of a krayt's within the novelization.
A krayt was also considered for ROTJ (pictured above as a maquette next to the old sketch) as one of the many creatures on Tatooine but was cut out due to constraints. Years later, McQuarrie would feature an up-to-date finalization of the low quality sketches along with many other concept art pieces from the other films and some new works also based on rejected ideas for the Illustrated Star Universe guide he worked on with Kevin J. Anderson which served as an in-universe guide to the main planets of the OT as told by an alien anthropologist named Hoole of the shapeshifting Shi'ido species. The finalized design was notably rounder and more plump than the original sketches, and while its hard to tell from the angle McQuarrie depicted it in, it seems to have a shorter neck.
Despite this, a krayt dragon based on the earliest sketches and maquette was depicted for the prequels' Wildlife of SW guide in 2001 as well as a trading card.
Having a more slender frame and a longer neck. Regardless, the original designs don't really match up with the skull or te length of the neck on the skeleton, do they? Thus in the same 2001 Wildlife Guide, the Krayt Dragon was divided into to two distinct species, the Canyon Krayt and the Greater Krayt, with the source implying that the canyon krayt may possibly a juvenile greater krayt but left it ambiguous to leave it open to the imagination.
With the Greater Krayt being presented as a more massive creature with 10 powerful legs and capable of 'swimming' through the sands and its skull matching with the one on the original skeleton, right down to the same teeth shape. The body of the Greater Krayt also served as the basis for the one used in the Mandalorian, however much of it is not seen and they took some rather phallic liberties with the head... The species was, at the time of the wildlife guide (2001), described as having many subspecies, all of them violent and SW.com explained that researchers in lore believed them to be descendants of the precursor Star Dragon species (which I covered a bit in my cosmic shitposts covering Supernatural Encounters). Despite this interesting rise in new lore, small details about the species were given as far back as the 80s, like the the SW guide released in 1984.
And for those curious about the krayt dragon pearl that appeared in the Mandalorian and its lore, the pearl originates from the 1997 Bantam novel Darksaber, where Han and Luke were able to sneak into a Tusken Raider camp, where Han's greedy eyes quickly took notice of the gleaming krayt dragon pearls, which the Tusken Raiders told tales of as having hunted for and even stolen from rival tribes. The pearls are essentially special unrefined stones swallowed by the krayts that over the decades become rounder and smoother and give off a strange energy while inside the krayt. The pearl's most memorable appearance would be in KOTOR, where the amnesiac Revan would help a Twi'lek hunter take down of these monsters and received its pearl as a reward (you could then choose to do whatever you want with it in-game, which was either give it to a Sand People tribe to recognize you as an honorable warrior, sell it for a heavy wad of creds, or turn it into a conduit crystal for your lightsaber). And finally, the Han Solo Trilogy (which take place before the OT) Han said that he had "found" a krayt pearl of his own which he planned to use to bet his way into the infamous sabacc tournament on Cloud City where he won the Falcon which replaced his first ship, the Bria (named after his ex-gf). Also of note was Darth Krayt, the main villain of the SW Legacy saga taking place 200 years after the OT who took Krayt as his sith name in honor of these beasts.
As a final note, here is a Greater Krayt fighting a Red Krayt which only appeared once in the SW RPG edition "Ultimate Adversaries" from around 2004.
And with that I think I'm done with the Krayts. Now onto the Millennium Falcon.
Here we have one of the first depictions of the krayt's bones, showcasing its long and large body with R2 standing at the front of its skull, who was originally supposed to be the one to find the skeleton rather than 3PO.
The skeleton itself was a massive prop made of fiberglass and was actually recycled from the 1975 Disney film "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing", with the skeleton itself being based on the Diplodocus. Parts of this prop are still out there in the Tunisian desert where the movie was filmed, however like with most of the props left behind it has likely fallen into decay.
Small fragments of the skeleton though are preserved in a few museums dedicated to SW. Some are even sold online on occasion. Some people, for whatever wretched reason, tend to assume that JJ & Disney went back to Tunisia to restore the ruins of the ANH sets for IX, but that wasn't the case at all. They just remade it somewhere else and you can tell by some notable differences in the set and landscape. Anyway, despite the brief appearance of the skeleton in the film, an additional scene was conceived but it did not go beyond the initial sketches as seen below.
The krayt was intended to appear at later point to scare away the tusken raiders that were attacking Luke, but due to budget and time constraints, this never materialized beyond some basic sketches. However Kenobi's cry would still be identified as that of a krayt's within the novelization.
A krayt was also considered for ROTJ (pictured above as a maquette next to the old sketch) as one of the many creatures on Tatooine but was cut out due to constraints. Years later, McQuarrie would feature an up-to-date finalization of the low quality sketches along with many other concept art pieces from the other films and some new works also based on rejected ideas for the Illustrated Star Universe guide he worked on with Kevin J. Anderson which served as an in-universe guide to the main planets of the OT as told by an alien anthropologist named Hoole of the shapeshifting Shi'ido species. The finalized design was notably rounder and more plump than the original sketches, and while its hard to tell from the angle McQuarrie depicted it in, it seems to have a shorter neck.
Despite this, a krayt dragon based on the earliest sketches and maquette was depicted for the prequels' Wildlife of SW guide in 2001 as well as a trading card.
Having a more slender frame and a longer neck. Regardless, the original designs don't really match up with the skull or te length of the neck on the skeleton, do they? Thus in the same 2001 Wildlife Guide, the Krayt Dragon was divided into to two distinct species, the Canyon Krayt and the Greater Krayt, with the source implying that the canyon krayt may possibly a juvenile greater krayt but left it ambiguous to leave it open to the imagination.
With the Greater Krayt being presented as a more massive creature with 10 powerful legs and capable of 'swimming' through the sands and its skull matching with the one on the original skeleton, right down to the same teeth shape. The body of the Greater Krayt also served as the basis for the one used in the Mandalorian, however much of it is not seen and they took some rather phallic liberties with the head... The species was, at the time of the wildlife guide (2001), described as having many subspecies, all of them violent and SW.com explained that researchers in lore believed them to be descendants of the precursor Star Dragon species (which I covered a bit in my cosmic shitposts covering Supernatural Encounters). Despite this interesting rise in new lore, small details about the species were given as far back as the 80s, like the the SW guide released in 1984.
As a final note, here is a Greater Krayt fighting a Red Krayt which only appeared once in the SW RPG edition "Ultimate Adversaries" from around 2004.
And with that I think I'm done with the Krayts. Now onto the Millennium Falcon.
Millennium Falcon/Tantive IV Concept:
And here we have the Falcon/Tantive IV.
The early sketches of the proto-Falcon were conceived by John Dykstra and Joe Johnston, and were finalized by McQuarrie. But the real daddy of the Falcon from who this ship was truly born is the very talented Colin Cantwell.
The great pappy of SW's most iconic ships.
However many helped to father the Falcon, such as Steve Grawley (via orthographic sketches) and Jamie Shorts and Grant McCune (pictured below) who breathed the model to life.
Below we have some early designs of the proto-Falcon, a very few of which made it into lore (my memory fails me a bit here, but I think a few were featured in the Guide to Vehicles and Vessels and possibly the first Sourcebook).
Doesn't look much like the original does it? That's because the Falcon, back when it was simply the 'pirate ship', was essentially what would become the Tantive IV, Antilles' escort ship for Leia. However the ship's main cockpit would go on to be inherited by the Falcon and moved to its side to make it look less orthodox (while the original design, when given to the Tantive IV, would receive a whole new cockpit) as George wanted something new and more unconventional befitting the junkier setting, as he disliked the initial ship designs for looking too much like those from Space: 1999. And he weren't kidding for those who never saw Space 1999.
The Tantive IV itself also always existed but was simply called the Rebel ship, and it shared much of a similar aesthetic with the Falcon, which probably only drew more dissatisfaction from George.
However the proto-Falcon already had so much work put into it that it was remade into the Blockade Runner aka the Tantive IV.
Even concept art was updated to replace the proto-Falcon with the new design, including McQuarrie's designs. However this was no issue for McQuarrie, as he constantly had to come into the production room and take pictures of the ever changing ship designs and update them for concept art.
And thus the Millennium Falcon was born.
Despite the Falcon's new design, its cockpit remained unchanged, and much like with the rest of its previous design, the cockpit's look was not wholly original, with the cockpit being based on that of the B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber.
However the redesign was still a last minute change, which resulted in imperial officers reporting that escape pods had been jettisoned despite nothing being visibly missing. This was corrected in following cross-sections of the Falcon, showing that its escape pods were stored in its side compartments. Here's its uncolorized cross-section:
Disney erroneously retconned the front viewport and missile storage into the escape pod port for their Solo film and gave it one obnoxiously large escape pod in the middle of its clamps (despite being multiple), rendering its use as a freighter null and void cuz fuck it; gotta sell more toys and not give George any more royalties.
In-universe lore would give the Falcon's serial number as YT-1300 492727ZED while its official model would be the YT-1300 light freighter. Much like Han, the ship was also from Corellia, with the planet Corellia itself existing as far back as the first drafts for SW even back when Han wasn't human, with Han's clothing still being referenced as Corellian. Han originally won the Falcon about 3 years before ANH in the Sabacc tournament I mentioned in the krayt post above, as before that he owned the Bria. Lando however was not the original owner of the Falcon, with it having belonged to many owners over its long 50 years of life prior to ANH. The ship even appeared in a very small and barely visible cameo in ROTS back when it was known as the "Stellar Envoy".
Also unlike in Disney's Solo where sjw droid L337 is the ship's brain, the Falcon actually had three electronic droid brains for its AI, all completely different and each operating the ship, which resulted in the Falcon's amalgamated mind having a paranoid and bipolar personality that caused it to argue with itself and speak three different droid languages at the same time, making it difficult for regular droids to deal with, hence the peculiar dialect.
One for deception (slicer droid), one for maintenance (R3 droid) and one for transportation and also causing conflict with its stupidity.
The great pappy of SW's most iconic ships.
However many helped to father the Falcon, such as Steve Grawley (via orthographic sketches) and Jamie Shorts and Grant McCune (pictured below) who breathed the model to life.
Below we have some early designs of the proto-Falcon, a very few of which made it into lore (my memory fails me a bit here, but I think a few were featured in the Guide to Vehicles and Vessels and possibly the first Sourcebook).
Doesn't look much like the original does it? That's because the Falcon, back when it was simply the 'pirate ship', was essentially what would become the Tantive IV, Antilles' escort ship for Leia. However the ship's main cockpit would go on to be inherited by the Falcon and moved to its side to make it look less orthodox (while the original design, when given to the Tantive IV, would receive a whole new cockpit) as George wanted something new and more unconventional befitting the junkier setting, as he disliked the initial ship designs for looking too much like those from Space: 1999. And he weren't kidding for those who never saw Space 1999.
The Tantive IV itself also always existed but was simply called the Rebel ship, and it shared much of a similar aesthetic with the Falcon, which probably only drew more dissatisfaction from George.
However the proto-Falcon already had so much work put into it that it was remade into the Blockade Runner aka the Tantive IV.
Even concept art was updated to replace the proto-Falcon with the new design, including McQuarrie's designs. However this was no issue for McQuarrie, as he constantly had to come into the production room and take pictures of the ever changing ship designs and update them for concept art.
And thus the Millennium Falcon was born.
Despite the Falcon's new design, its cockpit remained unchanged, and much like with the rest of its previous design, the cockpit's look was not wholly original, with the cockpit being based on that of the B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber.
However the redesign was still a last minute change, which resulted in imperial officers reporting that escape pods had been jettisoned despite nothing being visibly missing. This was corrected in following cross-sections of the Falcon, showing that its escape pods were stored in its side compartments. Here's its uncolorized cross-section:
Disney erroneously retconned the front viewport and missile storage into the escape pod port for their Solo film and gave it one obnoxiously large escape pod in the middle of its clamps (despite being multiple), rendering its use as a freighter null and void cuz fuck it; gotta sell more toys and not give George any more royalties.
In-universe lore would give the Falcon's serial number as YT-1300 492727ZED while its official model would be the YT-1300 light freighter. Much like Han, the ship was also from Corellia, with the planet Corellia itself existing as far back as the first drafts for SW even back when Han wasn't human, with Han's clothing still being referenced as Corellian. Han originally won the Falcon about 3 years before ANH in the Sabacc tournament I mentioned in the krayt post above, as before that he owned the Bria. Lando however was not the original owner of the Falcon, with it having belonged to many owners over its long 50 years of life prior to ANH. The ship even appeared in a very small and barely visible cameo in ROTS back when it was known as the "Stellar Envoy".
Also unlike in Disney's Solo where sjw droid L337 is the ship's brain, the Falcon actually had three electronic droid brains for its AI, all completely different and each operating the ship, which resulted in the Falcon's amalgamated mind having a paranoid and bipolar personality that caused it to argue with itself and speak three different droid languages at the same time, making it difficult for regular droids to deal with, hence the peculiar dialect.
One for deception (slicer droid), one for maintenance (R3 droid) and one for transportation and also causing conflict with its stupidity.
There's more but since I want to cover the rest of ANH and move onto ESB as soon as possible, you can learn more about the Falcon's history in Luceno's Falcon novel.
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- Joined
- Jan 16, 2021
Post-Palpatine Emperors in legends weren't that impressive either. Two I can recall were fraud Trioculus and fatboy Carivus, then nobody aimed for the title for years.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
^Good-ass novel, btw. Highly recommended if you want to see how the Falcon evolved as a ship over several years, and how every crew that inhabited it imparted some of themselves on the craft and aided in its evolution.
It also has a lot of nice character-building between Han, Leia, and their granddaughter...in particular, depicting Leia's emotional recovery from the loss of Jacen, and her reconciliation of those events as she raises the best thing he left behind, in the form of Allana.
It has a lot of the same charm as Tatooine Ghost, which is another Han & Leia-focused bridge novel.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
I watched this movie Edison Force with Justin Timberlake, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kevin Spacy. This movie was completely, hilatiously bad. But besides the actualy script, everything else about this movie was actually pretty good - good casting, good direction, characters with reasonable motiviations even the bad guys, solid broad stokes plot, competent shooting - but the script is so completely horrible none of that matters.
Imagine a normal 80s kid adventure movie, but you carve out most of the soul try to make it JJ Abrams dark and gritty and morally grey because Cloverfield. And you have Super 8. You can see JJ tried to insert a few of his classic mystery boxes - but this case they sort of work because its a stand alone work, so he doesn't have a lot of time to make them rattle and almost no opportunity to have them be opened disappointedly; the only mystery box that is opened is the Alien and we knew what was in there the whole time. The movie has some decent themes about letting go of past hurt when its stopping you from moving on, but is clumsy in execution (Dead mom's locket is the key to finishing the thing for no reason other than it is metal! Not space metal, just metal. We couldn't have used literally any other metal, not pried out a few nails from nearest structure. No, the allegory requires it be dead mom's locket). If you are bored out of your mind need something to do for two hours, you could do a lot that's better than watching Super 8, but you could something even stupider, like watching Episode 9 despite the terrible, insulting plot having been leaked months ago.
tl;dr Super 8 was only decent because Spielberg tard-wrangled JJ & his mystery box shit.
Agreed.
There is no "Favreau" side, just KKK trying to protect her fiefdom and Favreau deciding "Oh, well, I guess I'll just focus on Marvel" (and Filoni putting on his hat & wolfskin then going to have a tear-stained jack in his Ashoka closet) . Even if we pretend Favreau has been sent on a holy crusade by Disney's Board to defeat and dethrone KKK and clean house at Lucas Film... do you think he's doing that because anyone gives a shit about Star Wars lore or as a cultural property? No, it'd be because Star Wars isn't turning the sort of profits they want.
Really I think Ashoka the series is being killed from the board for financial and not political/lore reasons. Given that other than putting Dawson in orange make up and paying her for a few lines, this cost them nothing and they got a rather tepid reaction to it, definitely didn't see an upswell of consoomers filling their pants when it was announced. Dawson herself is over 40, and while she's in good shape she's likely not in action TV shape.
Likely it was something they dangled to Filoni to ensure he doesn't get head-hunted (since TCW devotees; Disney understands the power of nostalgia) and now are walking back.
QFT
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2019
Iger renewed Kennedy's contract after what- Last Jedi? Solo? Either one of those was significantly worse to the brand than the current kerfuffles, especially with the benefit of hindsight. My odds are on her staying at least through her contract. There won't be a housecleaning until a replacement head comes in who is at odds with the status quo at LFL. At that point, expect everyone (outside of ILM) to be moved/replaced from the Bay Area to soCal in order to be more tightly subsumed into the Disney corporate Empire.