Empire Strikes Back

[slochmoeller]

In regards to the extra lines of dialogue between vader and the emperor, yes it is annoying but in light of episode 3 I think it is salvagable. The lines go some thing like this: Emperopr: "Clearly he is the son of Anikin Skywalker"

Vader: "How is that possible?"

Emperor: "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."

I think there's some ambiguity to how this can be read. Yeah it could be Vader getting the news for the first time, but as chuck notes, that doesn't work, because the whole story is vader's obsession to find luke.

But if you remember that Episode 3 ends with the emperor telling vader that he killed padme, and her unborn children, it makes more sense. Vader even seems confused about it at the time, as though he suspected the emperor was lying to him. For Luke to be alive, confirms that the emperor did lie to him, and Vader's "How is that possible?" can actually be read as a subtle accusation to the emperor himself, which the emperor plays off. So yeah, still not ideal, but it can work without having to assume vader is playing dumb.

But the redubbing of Bobba Fett's lines with Tengu Morrison, yeah I agree, that sucked, especially because his delivery sucked. Fett's new voice, more than greedo shooting first or dumb vader or Hayden Christenson episode 6, is what really kills the special editions for me. And Chuck is the only other person I've ever seen zero in on it, as everyone else gave it a soft pass for the sake of continuity.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

In regards to the extra lines of dialogue between vader and the emperor, yes it is annoying but in light of episode 3 I think it is salvagable. The lines go some thing like this: Emperopr: "Clearly he is the son of Anikin Skywalker"

Vader: "How is that possible?"

Emperor: "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."

I think there's some ambiguity to how this can be read. Yeah it could be Vader getting the news for the first time, but as chuck notes, that doesn't work, because the whole story is vader's obsession to find luke.

But if you remember that Episode 3 ends with the emperor telling vader that he killed padme, and her unborn children, it makes more sense. Vader even seems confused about it at the time, as though he suspected the emperor was lying to him. For Luke to be alive, confirms that the emperor did lie to him, and Vader's "How is that possible?" can actually be read as a subtle accusation to the emperor himself, which the emperor plays off. So yeah, still not ideal, but it can work without having to assume vader is playing dumb.

I see it as, Vader didn't want Palpatine to know about Luke. The Sith always betray each other, and Vader planned to make Luke his apprentice to overthrow Palpatine, while ROTJ proves that Palps obviously wanted Luke as Vader's replacement. Vader most likely tried to kept the identity of Luke a secret long enough, until Palpatine felt the disturbance.

Vader essentially decides that after 3 years, there was no escaping that conversation anymore, so basically asked "WTF man? You told me they died with Padme, how is this even possible?"

It's done subtly enough that new viewers wouldn't know Vader's identity right away, they'd think that Vader killed Anakin unaware that he had a child or something along those lines.

That's my interpretation of it anyway.

[slochmoeller]

In regards to the extra lines of dialogue between vader and the emperor, yes it is annoying but in light of episode 3 I think it is salvagable. The lines go some thing like this: Emperopr: "Clearly he is the son of Anikin Skywalker"

Vader: "How is that possible?"

Emperor: "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."

I think there's some ambiguity to how this can be read. Yeah it could be Vader getting the news for the first time, but as chuck notes, that doesn't work, because the whole story is vader's obsession to find luke.

But if you remember that Episode 3 ends with the emperor telling vader that he killed padme, and her unborn children, it makes more sense. Vader even seems confused about it at the time, as though he suspected the emperor was lying to him. For Luke to be alive, confirms that the emperor did lie to him, and Vader's "How is that possible?" can actually be read as a subtle accusation to the emperor himself, which the emperor plays off. So yeah, still not ideal, but it can work without having to assume vader is playing dumb.

I see it as, Vader didn't want Palpatine to know about Luke. The Sith always betray each other, and Vader planned to make Luke his apprentice to overthrow Palpatine, while ROTJ proves that Palps obviously wanted Luke as Vader's replacement. Vader most likely tried to kept the identity of Luke a secret long enough, until Palpatine felt the disturbance.

Vader essentially decides that after 3 years, there was no escaping that conversation anymore, so basically asked "WTF man? You told me they died with Padme, how is this even possible?"

It's done subtly enough that new viewers wouldn't know Vader's identity right away, they'd think that Vader killed Anakin unaware that he had a child or something along those lines.

That's my interpretation of it anyway.

That's pretty good, and dovetails with something else I had always considered in light of the prequels: When the film first came out, and Vader suggests Luke be turned, there's no reason to assume Luke couldn't coexist as a third sith with the emperor and vader. But when the prequels established the rule of two, that changes how this plays. Vader knows turning luke means luke would essentially replace either himself or the emperor, and Vader knows the emporer knows this two, so the two men essentially agree to compete to bring luke on as an appprentice to destroy the other. That's very interesting and dark.

See, I think the Prequels were full of great ideas and concepts, and even the outlines of the story and character arcs are pretty good, it was just bumbled execution. Part of me does wish Lucas had kept to the original plan and handed off episode 2 and 3 to other directors, and there were even rumors he'd finally make good on letting spielberg direct one, as rumors were he was the original pick for 3.

[Admiral X]

I choose to ignore the prequels, personally, and the "Special Edition" version of the movies. I'm pretty glad I found the Harmy "Un-Special Edition" version of them so I could finally experience the original trilogy in widescreen.

[Fianna]

Chuck's talk about how Lucas decided to merge Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker into one character, and how Yoda manages to be wacky comic relief without being irritating, got me thinking about an alternate version of The Phantom Menace where:

* The Qui-Gon role is filled by Obi-Wan.

* The Phantom Menace version of Obi-Wan is merged with Padme, making her a Jedi padawan, and her and Anakin's romance grows while they're trained under Obi-Wan together.

* Padme's old role in the story, as the princess in disguise, is now taken up by Jar Jar Binks, who near the end of The Phantom Menace reveals that his dumb guy shtick is, at least partially, an act to help sell his disguise, and he reveals genuine competence in the final act.

[Deledrius]

* Padme's old role in the story, as the princess in disguise, is now taken up by Jar Jar Binks, who near the end of The Phantom Menace reveals that his dumb guy shtick is, at least partially, an act to help sell his disguise, and he reveals genuine competence in the final act.

That's very similar to a popular fan idea that's been circulating for a couple of years now that some, myself included, find very compelling as a "what might have been".

[G-Man]

That's pretty good, and dovetails with something else I had always considered in light of the prequels: When the film first came out, and Vader suggests Luke be turned, there's no reason to assume Luke couldn't coexist as a third sith with the emperor and vader. But when the prequels established the rule of two, that changes how this plays. Vader knows turning luke means luke would essentially replace either himself or the emperor, and Vader knows the emporer knows this two, so the two men essentially agree to compete to bring luke on as an appprentice to destroy the other. That's very interesting and dark.

Getting a little ahead of myself here, but one has to wonder why Vader did not let Luke kill the Emperor in Return of the Jedi - remember, the fight begins when Luke finally gives in and attacks the Emperor, and Vader blocks him.

[Fixer]

Getting a little ahead of myself here, but one has to wonder why Vader did not let Luke kill the Emperor in Return of the Jedi - remember, the fight begins when Luke finally gives in and attacks the Emperor, and Vader blocks him.

One of my favourite canon additions was HK-47's discussion of how to kill Jedi in KOTOR 2. One of the points brought up was that planning to kill Force users was extremely difficult due to their ability to predict the future. In fact planning to kill a Jedi would make the attempt more likely to fail as somehow this information would leak into the force.

Strong emotion, conflict and sudden changes of heart would blind this prediction and the 6th sense to predict danger.

It makes a lot of sense in the original trilogy. How did Han Solo blindside Vader? He turned up at the last moment having only just made the decision to help having previously chosen to flee.
Had Vader planned to kill Palpatine, he would have foreseen it and prevented it with his overwhelming power.
It was only Vader's internal conflict and last moment choice to sacrifice himself and save his son that allowed that victory.

[AllanO]

One thing that the more deeper thinking Star Wars fans will often puzzle about, and it's also something I'm surprised Chuck didn't bring up, is just how much time passes in Empire Strikes Back. How long did Luke have to train to get to that level? How long were Han and Leila in Cloud city? and how long before the trap was sprung?

It struck me that one possible gap is the transit time for the journey from Hoth to Bespin would make a better candidate for lost time for the Yoda-Luke events to occur during. Looking up the travel time I confirmed my vague feeling that they made the journey without their hyperdrive. (random discussion I found) and note that some sources suggest the trip took weeks on the Falcon's back-up (very slow) Hyperdrive. So there is no need to drag out the timeline of the Falcon crews trip to Cloud City, they could have been captured immediately upon arrival and it would still give Luke weeks to train with Yoda before Luke having visions of his friends peril.

Anyway there is clearly some serious time compression of events going on in this movie, as is common in many movies, plays etc.

[Jonathan101]

I see what your saying, and I think Chuck see's it as well, but the bottom line with Lando is regardless of the gun (lightsaber/Turbolaser) held to his head, and the heads of the people in his city, he still opted to collaborate and make the best out of a bad situation. Sure, it doesn't make him evil, or weak, but it did compromise his friends.

Lando knew when Vader gave him the "Perhaps you feel you are being treated unfairly" line that he was screwed coming or going, and setup the trap to salvage the situation and get as many people out as he could. Personally, I would have liked to see a scene of the exodus from Cloud city and ships being shot down by Tie Fighters, to reinforce how brutal Vader and the Empire could be. It would also have reinforced Lando's choice to go rebel.

Except that it DIDN'T compromise his friends. His friends were ALREADY compromised. Regardless of his co-operation or not, Vader WAS going to get his hands on them; it was just a question of how unpleasant their stay would be and how to get them out o it. Lando's "collaboration" (for lack of a better word) was what saved their lives.

I would argue that even before Vader asked if he thought he was being treated unfairly, Lando already knew he was screwed either way. All of his poking and prodding of Vader up to that point and beyond was less about trusting Vader to keep his word and more about trying to get as much out of him as possible without getting killed in the process- the fear in his eyes when Vader says that line is that he realised he was cutting it too close. Lando knows that Vader is feigning co-operation as much as Lando himself is, but as long as Vader does so he can still get SOMETHING out of him; the only question for Lando was how long would it take for Vader to drop the act.

Heck, even Billy Dee Williams HIMSELF got annoyed with people who didn't see that Lando literally had no other reasonable options other than to play along.

One thing that the more deeper thinking Star Wars fans will often puzzle about, and it's also something I'm surprised Chuck didn't bring up, is just how much time passes in Empire Strikes Back. How long did Luke have to train to get to that level? How long were Han and Leila in Cloud city? and how long before the trap was sprung?

The reason this is so important is that Luke had obviously come very far in the physical applications of he force. In the novelization Luke comments to himself that thanks to Yoda's drilling him he's never been in better shape. That kind of training and conditioning would ideally take months of work. Yet, are we to believe that Leia would wait months before puzzling over threepios absence? Or that Vader would wait months before inviting them to Dinner?

So rounding it all down with best possible logic, it's a week at the very least (Luke is vaders son after all, it's no stretch to expect him to progress rapidly), no more than a month at most.

This is important because Lando could have pulled Han aside at any time during that period. He could spilled the beans on Vader blackmailing him right there on the landing platform, and worked with Han and Leila to come up with an evacuation plan for Hans team and his own people in Cloud City. But he didn't, and we can understand why, he wanted to save as many people as he could. He weighed the needs of the many against the needs of the few, and it was a choice that was going to dirty him coming or going. But the fact is, he didn't come clean, he chose his city over his friend. We can understand why, but we can also understand why he came across as a bit shady to Han and Leia.

Incidentally, I also wonder if the Solo movie is going to establish what Han did that may have caused Lando to possibly harbour a grudge. The old EU went there in the Han Solo trilogy of Novels, and yeah, Lando definitely had good reason to hold a grudge and consider throwing Han under the Vader bus. That bit of backstory also gives land a bit of grey since it gives another dimension to why he'd sell Han out, but ultimately decide to put his life on the line to save him back in ROTJ.

Additionally, Zahn also created an additional reason why Lando was angry at him for a while back in the Thrawn trilogy. In those books it's revealed that the falcon was a ship Lando had spent a years and thousands of credits customizing himself. When he lost to Han, it wasn't the falcon specifically he lost, but a credit chip good for any ship that Lando had on a used spaceship shop he was running. Lando thought that Han would go for one of the flashier and newer ships on the Lot, which would have appeared to be worth more, but Han had his eye one the falcon for a while, which was also on the lot at the time of the wager, and insisted Lando hand it over, which Lando VERY grudgingly agreed to honour the token.

So yeah, while they were friends, Han had a history of being a bit of a douche in his younger days and thinking he could always get away with it.

It took them weeks to get to Cloud City; they were not actually ON Cloud City for any more than a day, possibly even hours.

I think you are also underestimating the danger of Lando telling Han what is really going on, or just hinting- Vader is not one to play those sort of games with. Remember that Lando is not just looking to save Han and co.; he is trying to save everyone in the city. He's almost certainly at least considered that Vader isn't going to leave no matter what he says, but as long as Vader is at least pretending to keep his word he can find a way out. That goes right out the window the moment Han runs the other way because he figures something is up, or Vader suspects that Lando told Han something.

And do bare in mind, its entirely likely that Vader has informed Lando that the Falcons hyperdrive appears to be malfunctioning and its coming here for repairs; if that is the case, then Lando knows that telling them to run won't do any good since the Falcon cant escape anyway.