Star Wars & Story Structure

Happy birthday, Star Wars!  The present I was hoping to get you is not quite ready yet.  So instead, inspired by some debates on episode 7 (e7), I’ve recently read, I’ve decided to analyze why the original films of SW worked, and the new stuff less so.

Note that this does not need to affect your enjoyment of any of these movies.  However, neither does your enjoyment wash away these stories’ flaws. I myself love to death the movie Pacific Rim but even I can admit that it has some flaws.  Likewise even when they are great, we will be cracking these movies open and looking at how they work underneath which can spoil some people’s enjoyment.

Proceed with caution.  Extreme nerdity ahead.

SW: Rogue One – round 2

Wonder why I’ve been doing so much Star Wars lately? Yep – Rogue One released to the public and I finally got a copy (steelbook, of course – because I’m THAT guy).  So time to top it off until Christmas time when we get to do Star Wars fever all over again!

Previously about Rogue One.

How Star Wars episode 3 should have been

Previously on “nate rants about stuff only he cares about.”

Episode 1 redone.

Episode 2 summation.

What is tricky about episode 3.

For my blog, episode 3 assumes the dreams linked above were made.  Hopefully the symbolism in this one isn’t too obvious.  I’ve also included a few dialog points for scenes that I think what is said by the characters is important.  Also emphasis on this being a rough draft.  If I ever come back and reread this I might change a few things.

Problems with SW: Episode 3

Random content alert!  Let’s beat a dead horse.

Thoughts on SW: Rogue One

Review?  General bitching?  Thoughtful analysis?  Fanboy whining?  You decide!

How Star Wars Episode 2 should have been

Yeah things have been too busy for me to get around to writing it as a script, but inspired by the “how would you do the prequels” from the sfdebris forums I thought I would do an overview here.  If you want me to go into a long treatise about why episode 2 failed as a story, just let me know.

Why I’m cautiously looking forward to December…

One of the first computer games I ever played (almost THE first unless you count some of the 8bit prepackaged stuff that would come with PCs like solitaire) was a little title called Star Wars: Dark Forces.  This was one of the first cinematics:

Yes complete with informative annotations because why not?

(if you want to know how the games goes, all the cutscenes can be viewed in a row here)

This week, we also got to watch a little teaser trailer…

Look familiar?

Here’s hoping we get a pretty decent Dark Forces movie later this year.  The new movies could do a lot worse plundering the expanded universe…