Vader is SOOO dramatic. At the start of the hallway scene his chest lights are off. Thats his breathing apparatus.The Dude is holding his breath just for advantage on his intimidation check
I mean he IS anakin under that helmet, he doesn't love drama he IS drama, i bet my guy is always making his cape flow with the force just for dramatic effect
When the Tantive IV disconnected from the cruiser and flew away, Vader's cape looked like it was billowing in the wind. He's in the vacuum of space. That mf was using the force to do that when literally no one except his stormtroopers were watching him.
For the record: YES. Tatooine is a DEATH WORLD. It has massive predators that even the magic, tech, and intelligence of the galaxy cannot easily handle. It is rife with criminal warlords, marauding bands of alien raiders, and some of the most brutal desert terrain of any remotely habitable planet we know of. It makes perfect sense that Luke and Anakin, having grown up there, are not terribly impressed with the dangers of the rest of the galaxy.
All you have to do is consider Tatooine to get that Star Wars was never meant to be taken seriously. It's full of deserts with no life EXCEPT giant predators that should all die in a week because there isn't any prey. The Jawas comb the deserts for junk that...falls out of the sky? Where did they get all those droids? How many droids are wandering the desert so far from habitation? Deserts are so empty that they're also a word for emptiness: desert-ed. Luke is a moisture farmer, which I guess is a necessary occupation on a desert planet, but why not just NOT LIVE THERE? What resources does it have that make it worth putting up with the climate, let alone the inexplicable giant monsters? I remember that Han was a "spice" smuggler but we were never told what that means. Is it just literally the same spice as in Dune? Is Tatooine the same planet as Arrakis? Am I thinking about this too hard?
@@MilesDashing You are thinking about this too hard. Long story short, way back in the republic era Tatooine was believed to be rich in valuable minerals and metals. Several large mining companies set up shop on the planet, and its population exploded. Most of the infrastructure and moisture farms are from that era. However, the ore mined from the planet was of low quality, and eventually the mining companies all pulled out. After that, Tatooine became a backwater controlled by the Hutt syndicates. It was remote enough for all kinds of smugglers and criminals to hide out safely, even during the rein of the empire, so it continued to be populated by people too stubborn or poor to leave, and criminals. The jawas scavenge from the old mining sites as well as any starship wrecks that happen to fall in the desert (and there are more of those than you might think thanks to all the criminal infighting). The rest of the planet has a weird biome that works very slowly but encourages large size in its creatures.
For the trash compactor bit, Mark Hamill actually said that he thought that they should be all dirty, but Harrison Ford just told him "listen kid, it ain't that kinda movie"
Contrast the Rogue One directors putting together a whole 'nother ending because they thought the "everyone dies" ending wouldn't fly, only for Kennedy to say "well, of course you have to kill them all."
I went into Rogue One not knowing it was a tragedy, because "Star Wars doesn’t kill off (all) main characters." Which made the final sequence gut-wrenching and finally devastating when I finally realized they were destined to die this entire time. When Red says Rogue One makes the entirety of Star Wars better, she's spot on. The hallway sequence with Vader was especially good because now the nameless rebels aren't just cannon fodder. We just watched a group of unsung heroes with complex stories, flaws, and likable characteristics die for this cause. Who is to say every rebel Vader cut down didn't also have compelling backgrounds that brought them to this moment? And if we know the movie's protagonists were heroes, then that means we know every rebel *is* a hero too, not just a background character.
The most gut-wrenching, tonal whiplash in the corridor scene happens between two line reads. The first is that troop sergeant, with "OPEN FIRE!" you could not have had a more "fuxk it, we ball" declaration and the look on those rebels faces shift from fear to determination to die well. And the next with the guy holding the data pad "HELP US!" as they are shown that "no, you will die *screaming*."
All the guys in the Ep 4 opening on the Tantive IV? Now we know they just watched everyone else die in that hallway. And that they know whats coming for them.
I always called Rogue One the Halo Reach of Starwars. It’s a direct prequel that ends with everyone dying and a lone ship getting away but being followed to start the events of the main series
That is a WEIRDLY good analogy now that you mention it. I never thought of that before, huh. In fairness, I like Halo Reach a LOT more than Rogue One, but I can 100% see the parallel.
I love the dramatic irony of whenever you look at vader and then hear Anikin and his sassiness, its when you know the person hes interacting with is in the greatest danger because you shook him out of his depression and have his undivided attention. Its like seeing dracula grin and go bad bitch in castlevania.
@@HeroofMightandmagic1 Versace is an expensive fashion brand which (among other things) manufactures suits. Blue's basically just saying that Darth Vader didn't put on the suit because it looks nice. Only in a much more amusing way.
@@HeroofMightandmagic1 he means that Vader didn't put the suit on because it looked pretty. I don't know if there's any reference or meaning beyond that
"Saw Gerrera used to say one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day. They've no idea we're coming, they have no reason to expect us. If we can make it to the ground we'll take the next chance. And the next. An on, and on until we've won, or the chances are spent." How many chances were taken by how many people before Luke was able to get in an X-Wing and take the most impossible chance of all?
Enough that Vader was out of henchmen to dispatch by the time they caught wind of the death star plans leak, and he then had to rush with his personal guard to make an interception. But not so many that the emperor was also out of henchmen to dispatch, so not all.
I love how my favorite Star Wars show ever came from a movie nobody asked for and focused on a character I’m pretty sure 80% of the fanbase forgot about. Fucking incredible moment.
@@nathank2289 I don't know that I agree with that. Rogue One was made under the Disney umbrella, but in my opinion it surpassed anything in any of the trilogies.
@@Ravus_Sapiens Idk I feel like it fails to make me really care about these characters that are destined to die, which I get is a hard thing to do so I don't necessarily fault it for that. Visually it was decent, I can give it that with no apprehension.
Gonna be honest. You said "Eight years ago" and it hit me harder than it should have. Got Palpatine somehow returning in the back of my head wheezing, "No, no," and shooting lighting everywhere.
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
One of my favorite lines in all of Star Wars comes from Rogue One but almost no one talks about it. Jyn says “We’ll take the next chance. And the next. On and on until we win, or the chances are spent.” THAT is what it means to be part of the Rebellion if you are not a hero with a thousand faces. THAT is what it means for people in the real world to resist tyranny and injustice. Because there is no magical farm boy and his friends coming to rescue us.
Counterpoint, if you read the life stories of people who played pivotal roles in world events, a lot of them DO read like magic farm boys. Whether you attribute it to some higher power or chalk it up to random chance, there _are_ people who the plot seems to revolve around in real life stories.
In real life there is always a farm boy. BUT it's only seems predestined in hindsight. Because it really wasn't. It was just that the time was right for somebody to step into that role, and the one who manages to succeed is the one who gets to be retroactively predestined. It's Lief Ericsson vs Columbus, it's Marconi vs Tesla, it's Gavrilo Princip vs any his friends. Movements are tinder, heroes in real life are most often sparks, and no single spark is guaranteed to be the one that starts the fire, but one always does. Heroes in fiction are more like matches, they're tailor-made to start fires. Dune is a great example of this. Paul is a matchstick designed to start a blaze both from the writer's perspective and in universe. The point of writing about him is that he's the interesting matchstick meant to light the tinder of the Fremen. In-universe the Bene-Gesserit were trying to make a matchstick; but Paul specifically wasn't planned, and he was applied to tinder they did not expect.
@@basharic3162 You're ruining the fairy tales that these commenters take for actual real history. Even the matchstick element is often overblown in non-fictional history
Talking about Anakin being a dramatic little bitch, this is my favorite thing about the hall scene: His suit has a front panel with lights on it. Those lights are his LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS. And what is turned off in that hallway? All his suit's blinking lights. Why? Added dramatic effect. Meaning, dude thought this out and was like, "Hey, you know what would be fun? If I just shut my suit off so that I can barely breathe, then stand stock still with my light saber in hand, turned off in a pitch-black hallway until it's full of blaster fodder. Then, turn my saber on to freak everyone the fuck out before ripping them to pieces. Oh the looks on their faces will be so worth the week in the suspension tank."
I can't remember if it's canon or anything but i believe that sith can draw on the negative emotions of others for strength. Maybe being a drama queen also makes him stronger by drawing on the rebel's fear
@@jack_of_all_trades5907 I thought it was that they only drew on their own negative emotions, Yoda's whole "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering" stuff? Well to be honest though drawing on others negative emotions does seem like the type of thing to be in this franchise.
And it was. It absolutely was. Granted, he could probably feel his objective slipping away after that scene, but from his perspective, the troubles of capturing Leia was also worth the look on those rebels' faces. If he knew how much trouble _actually_ resulted from him doing that, he'd probably reconsider, but he'd also probably still do it anyway.
To Red’s point about the Aldhani arc another thing that’s mentioned, I believe by the head of the facility, is that not only have they made it harder for people to get to the sacred valley they’ve also set up various locations from which you can view the Eye without making the journey. They are simultaneously making it more difficult to actively participate in this sacred festival and making it easier to feel like you’re not missing out in doing so. In the process reducing what is supposed to be an extremely important cultural and religious event into what is basically a tourist trap.
Now I think about it, you could tell Cassian or Jyn or whoever "The Death Star will be destroyed by Darth Vader's secret son, who grew up on a death world not knowing about his father, and he's an ace pilot and a crack shot" and they'd imagine, like, space-Rambo.
I hadn't thought if this before, but Rogue One sort of gives the Trench Assault Run more depth as well. When you watch "A New Hope" it's a pretty normal fighter battle--ships blow up, the hero wins, everyone cheers. But when you add Rogue One to it, it becomes a continuation of that handing off of the baton. Leia gets it and hands it off to the general. He gives GOLD Squadron the task of taking the kill shot--Red Squadron (Luke's unit) was supposed to cover them. Gold Squadron gets vaped. Then most of Red Squadron does. They are down to the very last fighter pilot there--Luke, the Chosen One, who finally takes the shot that the previous two movies have been building up to. It wasn't until Wedge Antilles gets hit that Luke had the baton; as soon as that happens Han shows up to shoot off the TIE fighters on Luke's tail (including Han's future father-in-law), Luke accepts his mentor's advice, and he wins. Instead of shouting "Run!!" Han is basically saying "Kill!" To be clear: At least 22 people died in the Trench Assault Run, including multiple by Vader's hand. This is the hallway in Rogue One all over again, but this time with the plot armor. The two mirror each other fantastically, and Rogue One adds tremendous depth to the scene.
It's also a nice statement about the Rebellion as a whole. They attacked a death machine with 2 fighter squadrons? Why just two? Because that's all they have left. The Crawl states the battle of Scarif was a Rebel victory, and it was, but it cost them almost everything to get it. The rest of the Rebellions forces were either destroyed or damaged to the point that they needed massive repairs, and were not combat worthy for the literal end of the world.
@@TheLordofMetroidsit's made even cooler by the fact that out of the 10-15 large ships in the battle of scariff, only 3-4 actually manage to escape with the fighter compliments before the devastator shows up and obliterates the rest of the rebels. Ending on such a massive loss for the rebellion and seeing it turn into the greatest possible victory about a week later is such great execution
A part of me really wishes it were possible to make a show about Luke as part of the Rebellion between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. I feel like there's some interesting culture clash stuff they could do with that setup.
Growing up a Star Wars Fan, meaning Star Wars was basically my alternate universe, I felt it made a lot of sense and was very cool, when there were people still living after Order 66. It made it feel like: "The Galaxy is so vast that even the Empire can't be 100% thorough. It's like tidying up. There's always some dust left somewhere you didn't look.
First and foremost, absolutely. Like, from a literal perspective (like, scientific stuff abt our own galaxy's size) and a story perspective, it makes a ton of sense that Order 66 didn't take care of ALL the Jedi/their allies. Space is a MASSIVE place, even with FTL travel or hyperspace travel, and you can only do so much. Secondly, "There's always some dust left somewhere you didn't look." felt incredibly profound to me for some reason, and I will definitely try to add it into my vernacular now.
Fun fact according to Wookiepedia - Donnie Yen was given a lot of leeway to interpret his character. It was his idea to make Chirrut blind - harkening back to movies about kung-fu heroes who have some kind of limitation, like blindness. Chirrut is my favorites character in Rogue One.
It was a very good choice and only made his death walk even stronger. If he could see, the sight of the blaster fire around him could have wavered his faith in the Force. But due to his blindness, he MUST have that faith, and so he makes it across.
“How Tragic would it be, being a normal person in the StarWars universe just doing their best?” As a huge LOTR fan I ask myself the same question about that setting. If I were in Middle Earth, I’d be toiling on an infertile plot of land until a random orc rocks up lops my head off.
@@littlelostmemeAs a Silmarillion reader who hadn't seen Rogue One in theaters, I kinda expected a LotR crossover when I first saw the title... Rings of Power could have done it, but like the prequel trilogy, the execution is... iffy
The thing that got me about the Vader hallway of pain and misery was the thought of being the guy with the files realizing he's screwed and he needs to hand the drive off through the gap in the door.
I keep thinking of the thought of being the guy on the other side of that door. The fear and frustration that you can't get it open, the realisation that the guy you're trying to save is giving up on himself, and then that black sacrifice, held out against for those last few precious seconds, of having to give up on him too.
23:24 Immediately launched into a Palpatine impression sneering "This cloak should sufficiently disguise my appearance and intentions from all I do business with, save for my *immediately identifiable chin*" and have been cackling (both as Palpatine and just cuz it's funny) for the last 10 minutes
One of the reasons I enjoyed Rogue One was that it treated the Force with the same mystery and reverence received by the subjects of real religions. If you'd never seen any Star Wars stuff except for this, you'd be forgiven for thinking it might not even be real.
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
The "For Jedha!" battle cry as the rebels jump off their drop ship is a great touch... gets me every time. It's a great little detail, telling me that they are here for a fight... and they all probably know it's a one-way ticket, but they're gonna get some.
You wanna know the perfect quote to go along with the whole "rebellions are built on hope" thing? "There's so many good stories where some brave hero has to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors cheer, and everyone lives happily ever after. But the hero never gets to see the ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith." "Ain’t that a bitch.”
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
A very small extra point about how Rogue One enhances the original trilogy: Vader force chokes Krennick in Rogue One when Krennick starts talking about how great an achievement the Death Star is. Vader force chokes the Imperial Officer in EpIV when he essentially parrots the same line, and then goes on to disparage the force. It's a reverse-continuity nod that nonetheless works.
Bohdi's death for me was the clincher. When K2 died, i was stabbed, but Bohdi was the knife twisting. With his death, and the destruction of the shuttle, it was a statement: "everyone is doomed". There was a little bit of hope again with Blue Squadron and the U-Wings, but no. There is no escape, there is no flying in to the sunset. Your funny pilot and the ride are gone, watch your heroes martyr themselves.
I'm right there with you. Despite the deaths up to that point I had hope one of them would make it out. After the ship blew up my mind short circuited, and came back on with the thought - "Nobody's making it out of here alive."
@@snes90 I'll admit, to me it felt more like a forgone conclusion pretty early on? "Oh hey, this group has a name that's very significant to the Rebellion later. And I don't know any of these people, even from odd cameos that could relate to them. ... Guess they all die."
Some random Star Wars thoughts that this made me have: *1. Ahsoka is a bit like discovering the Epic of Gilgamesh to lead you to your next quest objective* Every time one of Dave Filoni's shows explores the Force more (in Ahsoka, the Mortis arc, any of the Night Sisters stuff) it feels waaaay more eldritch and powerful and ancient. The Ahsoka show is Star Wars being Indiana Jones; looking through ancient artifacts and temples because they'll give you superpowers and/or help you find where your loved ones are hiding out. It feels like such a different time scale than stuff that's usually more centralized in Star Wars; they're looking through their version of Bronze Age ruins for help while everyone else is trying to do politics. *2. unpacking Blue's commentary about the Order 66 survival rate.* As far as I know, every Jedi who survived Order 66 was either A) a Jedi Master who was already away from the Temple (Obi-Wan and Yoda), B) made a deal with the Empire (Anakin, the Inquisitors), or C) an apprentice/youngling who was saved by the sacrifice of another Jedi (Grogu, Kanan Jarrus, Cal Kestis). Ahsoka is the only exception to this rule, and Anakin specifically trained her to deflect/defend herself against the clones who ended up trying to kill her. Order 66 was only escapable by either the best of the best, who immediately went into hiding, or through the sacrifice of someone else. *3. Qui-Gon's death versus Sabine's survival is a lesson on the importance of giving someone first aid ASAP* Something annoys me about that one criticism of Ahsoka where people ask how Sabine survived but Qui-Gon didn't: QUI-GON DIDN'T INSTANTLY DIE. He was choking out on the floor for a good couple minutes before he passed. When Sabine got stabbed, Ahsoka was right there basically instantly to give first aid and stabilize her within those two minutes. Obi-Wan still had to fight Maul, and by the time he did that, he was trapped in that room with a bunch of safety features that he couldn't bypass in time to get the help he needed to save Qui-Gon. In first aid, those first few minutes can be what determines someone's survival.
Another note about 2, there were somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 Jedi at the time of Order 66, and roughly 99% of the Jedi were killed. Statistically, a little over 100 Jedi survived the massacre assuming those numbers are accurate. We've seen a fair number of survivors (Obi-wan, Yoda, Ahsoka, Kanan, Cal, Grogu, Anakin/Vader, Baylan, the Inquisitors, and (Jedi Survivor spoiler) Bode), which account for at most barely a quarter of the potential surviving Jedi lol
This detail diatribe reminds me of a poem from 1946, written from the perspective of a soldier who died in 1942, when the war was just starting to turn. In particular, there's this stanza that captures the weird meta-perspective on Rouge One as a prequel. "Of what’s now common knowledge And quite obvious to you. We must hope all that happened Was our dreams coming true."
I love that the prison colors are the rebellion colors, it makes so much sense and I totally missed it. Its wild that like two days after Rogue One, the Death Star is destroyed. By Empire, Luke is in or maybe starts Rogue Squadron on Hoth. That makes Rogue One explain a second noodle incident.
Like... the final fight in Rogue One is how I wish Vader was depicted in live action. I know why he never was, tech issues and all, but THAT is peak Vader. That slow reveal of the saber in the dark (and turning off his life support systems to flex), the brutality and certainty he fights with. That is a creature who knew they couldn't stop him and who projected an aura of doom. None of them begged, which is either very heroic, or they knew it was pointless. Darth Vader was here and ran outta mercy 18 years ago when he lost his legs. If he wasn't so fond of that Lightsaber, he would've torn them apart with his bare fucking hands. ... also, the comics triple down on his dramatic nature. "Drop your weapons! You are surrounded!" *"All I am surrounded by is Fear and DEAD MEN."* as he casually pops the the entire company's Thermal Detonators. It was 1v500 (ya know... like most Jedi during Order 66), and he butchered them all with a flick of his wrist after a badass one-liner. You know he was more proud of the one-liner.
Hmmm... After watching this Detail Diatribe, I now want to go back through every Star Wars media and Find-Replace every instance of "Force" with "Plot". "[The Plot] surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together." "Use the Plot." "May the Plot be with you." "I felt a great disturbance in the Plot." "The Plot is what gives a Jedi his power."
It also reminds me heavily about Kreia from KotOR 2: "Nothing is impossible with ." "Take the greatest Jedi Knight, strip away , and what remains?" "Ah, but at what point does the power of exerts submerge any attempt at choice, or free will?" Finally, "I hate , I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance when countless lives are lost."
"He didn't put on the suit because it's Versace" feels like one of those Schrodinger's Lines that can fit any movie. Like I can hear it being said in a grimdark tale where a hero is forced to don a set of cursed armor just as well as I could hear The Mask saying it in a Looney-Toons-esque slapstick comedy.
No lie, I watched about 2/3 of this video, paused it, spent the weekend watching Andor, and came back to finish this video. Y'all have made another Cassian Andor stan I hope you're happy
This made me realise why the Vader scene is so cool. After seeing heroes without plot armour struggling and barely managing to succeed, suddenly Vader appears and nothing fucking works against him. It’s a subtle way of showing that you NEED to be the chosen one to avoid being instantly cut in half and stepped over.
The slide positing the question "Is Star Wars about Luke, or about the people he saved?" is one that more creators, and fans, need to ask. It brings Mass Effect to mind, and how after Andromeda flopped Bioware went right to ".... and Shepard is back!"
To be fair, the destroy ending teased Shepard potentially surviving, so it thankfully wasn't *entirely* out of the blue. But seriously, as middle of the road as Andromeda is with all of its missed opportunities, I kinda wanted to see the story keep going. The story beats were very stereotypical, but it was still interesting enough for me to want to see just what the hell the giant space helix actually was. Though some of the characters (Cora, that "my face is tired" woman and the Salarian director) irritated me.
Ironically, Dragon Age, BioWare's other franchise, actually solves this problem by having each game focus on a different hero, adding up in their deeds and the people they affect in the larger arc of the franchise. Each hero is tied to some larger overarching disaster, and each scenario leads into the other with every new game, like the currents of history itself.
Part of why I think the ending tone shift works so well, is that it carries on the theme of the movie, that these people are disposable. Most movies end when the main character succeeds and/or dies. In Rogue One, all of the characters both succeed *and* die, and yet the story keeps going. The bad guys don't stop just because the good guys aren't around.
49:40 he lives on a desert planet where they have to synthesize water from the air, there are roaming bandits and scavengers, the airspace is controlled by a mafia boss and the main town is a scum pit full of smugglers and bounty hunters. He lives on a death planet and it's all he's ever known
Also like, he lives in a hole. That could mean anything but I always think of the days being scorching beyond the definition of scorching and the nights are friggin' cold as Hoth XD
And that's without mentioning the building sized bug/plant thing that lived under sand and from the surface is a giant pit with so many teeth at the bottom. And if that wasn't enough, how about the giant dragon that *eats* that building sized bug/plant thing!
I remember seeing Rouge One opening night with my cousin and his friend. The theater was pretty calm, we would laugh at jokes (mostly K2), the audience was clearly sad when the main characters died. But when Vader showed up in that hallway, everyone lost their minds. People were hollering, cheering him on, it was amazing.
We were an entire high school on movie day and every seat was taken and we were audibly reacting to everything. Still my fondest memory of high school how everyone cheered seeing the Rebellion show up in Scarif's orbit XD
I saw that in the theater with my family, and I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan (grew up on the original trilogy, prequels, and Clone Wars show, but I only really got invested in Clone Wars. The other movies were more "Oh cool costume design" kinda experiences for me, and I thought maybe I just didn't like sci-fi until I got into Star Trek years later). So I figured Rogue One would be a fun thing to munch some popcorn to, crack jokes with my brother about, and analyse the costume and set design of, like most other Star Wars movies. While I did not care for the protagonist (she had an interesting backstory, it's just that her general apathy really wore me down for most of the movie in a way that unfortunately made me less invested in her character), by the time we got to that relay race of death, I was on the edge of my seat. And then Vader arrived. I'm glad I saw that movie in the theater, because the Doylist thrill and Watsonian TERROR of having DARTH F*CKING VADER loom larger than life over you, and then turn on that red lightsaber, and be powerless to help as rebels are hewn down mercilessly and that one poor guy is just screaming "LAUNCH!!!" ...DUDE. THAT WAS DELICIOUS
@@grassygnoll3345 I was 27 when I saw Rogue One in the theater and I had been enjoying the film a fair bit but when the rebel fleet came out of hyperspace and all the pilots started running through their call signs, man I was transported 20 years in the past to when I was wearing out my VHS copies of the original films non stop. It was incredible.
Chirrut's walk is my *Favorite* depiction of the Force, full stop. It became a mystical flow of fate that is not truly comprehensible when it's been kung fu magic for a good while. It brought back the zen roots and it was so desperately needed.
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
@@janmelantu7490And then the tano show ruins both Ezra and Thrawn (along with the republic and Tano). For Andor the average imperial officer is far more competent then thrawn in that disney un-canon, fan series.
When Rogue One first came out the first thing I thought of was how the movie felt like a D&D/Star Wars RPG game. All the characters were playing archetypes from the Star Wars manual, K-2SO was the GM's NPC who would sarcastically comment on the player's dumb plans, and Chirrut was the player that really wanted to play a Jedi but since the GM wouldn't let him, he found an obscure 3rd party force-monk class that's not technically a Jedi but gave him some of the cool powers. So basically it reminded me of the Darths and Droids webcomic.
the bit where red talking about the prequels failed in their goal to make star wars the kind of universe where this shakespearean drama can play out has reminded me how when i studied Othello at school that it and revenge of the sith superficially have the same plot of "Respected general is mislead and manipulated by a close friend into becoming evil and kills his wife"
Star Wars takes so much inspiration from Sheakspeare. Like Anakin's fall has so many commonalities to MacBeth's. Granted the idea of succumbing to your ego and lesser desires for power is timeless and as old as history, but I still feel that MacBeth's story must have served as at least an inspiration for Anakin. There are ghosts in both stories too...
19:47 I think another thing that can make the prequels somewhat difficult narratively is that Lucas is also trying to tell the political drama of how the Republic became the Empire and the way in which democracies turn to fascism while at the same time trying to tell the more personal story of Anakin's fall to the dark side. So I think for a number of people, it can make the prequels feel off tonally because it is trying to be both a personal tragedy and a political tragedy.
a good writer could have done that, especially by making the stories more parallel - hinting and foreshadowing each other - and less "here's 2 unrelated stories intercut with each other"
@@silverharloe I think even for a better writer, weaving the two together to make both feel organic and necessary would have been a tall order. Not impossible, but difficult. But no, George's limitations as a writer definitely did not help, and with the knowledge that Lucas was never going to relinquish that much control to anyone else on it, it would have been better for him to focus on one or the other, or not limit himself to a trilogy and allow himself to do, like, four movies, or condense the time frame they happen over (in the big scheme of things, TPM really didn't need to take place a full decade before AotC or RotS).
The good ol 'there's too much politics in this movie' def plagued Phantom Menace a bit at the time, I can say that for sure. Which probably didn't help matter with the other two, but it's not wrong how the movie is essentially trying to hold onto those two stories at once all the way through.
@@silverharloe Matthew Stover's novelization of RotS does a much better job with it, but it's also a novel so we get to see inside most of the main character's heads during key moments, and even into many of the side characters or villains. Still my favorite Star Wars novelization by far, and it was technically completed before the movie based on an early script so there are slight differences that also help with the characterization and story.
Rogue One might be the only modern Star Wars movie that was universally considered well-done despite being the near-tonal opposite of the original trilogy in terms of how hopeless the heroes’ chances are. Yet it’s well-written enough to still achieve a message of hope even with every hero in Rogue One dead. 💙❤️ Edit: I did not anticipate the controversy of my statement. What have I done? What has become of us all?😧
It’s considered well-done now. But I still remember how divisive it was when it first came out. Regardless, looking back on it it definitely is the only SW film worth a damn post-acquisition.
Almost universal. It's better than some other Star Wars media, but the plot needed some more time in the oven. There are plenty of little plot holes - for example, why did Gererra choose to stay and die when his word would've been useful dealing with the resistance? He had plenty of time to leave, and then that way the resistance wouldn't be suspicious of Jyn. Set pieces like Vader's castle (surrounded by lava?? 😂) and Eadu fell flat. For me it's a solid 6/10
So, your post reminded me of two quotes, that together kind of explain what you're saying. "People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go." "There's all these stories where the hero has to sacrifice themselves. And the day is saved, the survivors all cheer, and the everyone loves happily ever after. But the hero never gets to see if the day is actually saved. They just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch?" The reason it works is because it's still about hope. The belief that things can be better, and being willing to fight for that even if the odds aren't in your favor. Even up to dying to pass the chance of something better on to others. The original was a fairy tale, with hope as a main theme. Rogue One was a gurellia war story, but it has that connective tissue of being about hope. And that makes it work.
You guys are wrong. I love the "Laaaaaunch!" line but the best one from that scene is ... "TAKE IT!" Right before getting pin cushioned into the door by Vader. Awesome and heartbreaking. He knew he was dead but he made the pass anyway. Amazing stuff!
26:09 Yeah, It's weird re-watching Episode 4 and seeing an entire populated planet get blasted into dust, and like 10 minutes later Leia, the princess of that planet, is tossing quips and being snide and totally not acting like someone who just saw everyone they've ever known be atomized.
About a month before she died, Carrie Fisher was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and this gets mentioned. She has to comfort Luke, while she is the one who lost "my mother, my step-father - as I found out later -, my record collection, all my clothes, so I had to wear that white dress all the time..."
Some people call her princess for the rest of her life. That’s pretty messed up when she lost her homeland and her people there was nothing left to be princess of. Maybe a lot of her people were part of the rebellion and off-world at the time but being a rebel isn’t great for your health or longevity.
Realistically, this is because Lucas didn't really know how to write a character arc for Leia and cared much more about Luke's feelings than Leia's, but it does say a lot about Leia's character. She is completely and utterly dedicated to the Rebellion. She isn't in it to save/avenge a loved one or any other truly personal reason. Even when she finds out she is the daughter of the guy who tortured her and murdered so many of her friends and family, she doesn't so much as blink, because the cause is so much greater than her.
@@kirstenpaff8946 I also think it's in a small part because she's a Skywalker. She's got snark, drama and action in her blood. She gets it from her father, but the being cool and collected in a crisis, being dedicated to a cause with all her soul that comes from her mother and her upbringing as a princess and in the rebellion.
Some people react differently to tragedy. Some get quiet and mad, while some tear up with Niagara Falls. Leia just put her feelings aside for what needed to be done, and vents using quips. Maybe she's stoic enough to do that. Pain isn't expressed the same way for all people.
Was anyone else listening to the convo about the force having a will and hear Kriea : "I hate the force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some sort of balance when countless lives are lost. " Dears OSP if you want to see a proper Shakespearean SW done right, Kotor 2 is what that looks like.
The trick to drawing detail in art isn't to draw all the detail it's to draw extra detail in the right places to imply the detail you didn't draw in others. The thing Rogue One and Andor do by focusing in on smaller people is it draws detail in key places that then imply the same detail elsewhere.
And this is what Andor does so well. By showing us the minute detail and intricacies of the Narkina 5 prison, the Aldhani garrison, the ISB, and the Ferrix revolt, we can imagine a hundred other forced-labor camps, military outposts, bureaucratic departments, and small rebellions. The fact that we never saw Anto Kreegyr's attempted raid on the Spellhaus power station is the perfect example of this; we didn't need to see it, because we had already seen the Aldhani raid and could imagine the complexity of a similar, but different raid.
@@kentslocum one man eating breakfast cereal while being yelled at by his mom in a small apartment in a crowded city. You see no other apartments, but because you see so much detail and character in one you know there are a million others densely packed around them full of people living lives.
K-2SO's death always makes me cry. Kanan Jarrus survived because 1: Depa died defending him like Jaro, and 2: the clones that pursued him were Clone Force 99 aka the Bad Batch who's mutations stopped their chips from fully activating (minus Crosshair) and they let him go. Also Krennic calling the Death Star his achievement is even more laughable when you remember it was mostly designed by the Geonosians, half planned by Galen, and overseen directly by Vader and Palpatine, like, you might've contributed but this is NOT your baby.
There's a part of me that would love to find out that his "involvement" was basically "yeah have some funding, don't bother me while I'm shmoozing up my new boss's boss." Like he only found out what it was when Galen fled, or even later.
1:06:29 - Something that just occurred to me thinking back on Return of the Jedi: None of what Luke did with Vader mattered to the Rebellion beyond being a distraction. Converting Vader and chucking the Emperor down a shaft did not destroy the Death Star. Wedge, Lando, and a bunch of other Rebellion Pilots did Trench Run 2.0 and blew Death Star 2 up. The Executor was killed by an A-Wing pilot who got hit, and rather than punching out rammed his A-Wing into the Bridge killing control of the ship. The Rebellion wasn't started by a Chosen One, it was started by regular people who had been pushed passed the breaking point and put it all on the line in the hope that they could change it. It wasn't ended by a Chosen One either. It was ended by regular people who were pushed to the breaking point and carried that hope across the finish line.
I'm reading that differently. The moment Luke is brought before the emperor is the moment everything else becomes literally and figuratively the background. But there, in that room; Luke, Vader, and Palpatine will decide the fate of the galaxy between them. The second Death Star's destruction or survival in that moment no longer matters. As Vader put it: "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." The three of them know this. The empire, and thus the need for a rebellion, ended with the destruction of Palpatine and Vader's return to the light. I don't mean to imply your perspective isn't valid, but I don't think I'm going to be easily swayed from mine.
"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan." "I LITERALLY murdered my way through about a dozen people to watch this ship flee FIVE MINUTES AGO!"
1:10:26 "Reverse Hero's Journey" reminded me of how Rose Quartz' character was revealed in Steven Universe. I'd love to see a Detail Diatribe on that, but there's probably tons of think-pieces on it already, and I don't know if you were all that invested in Steven Universe.
I want to say, I think the most important moment in Star Wars, the literal defining moment and character of the franchise... is Darth Maul and the fight against him. Before Phantom Menace, Star Wars was the story and setting of the Empire vs the Rebel Alliance. You can see this in secondary media at the time, such as games like X-Wing/Tie Fighter, Dark Forces 1, and Rebel Assault 1/2. In many of these early games it's all blasters and Stormtroopers. Phantom Menace, by virtue of being set before the Empire was a thing, separated the identity of the franchise from the geopolitical setting. Then, the amazing spectacle of the lightsaber fight, and of Maul having a non-standard lightsaber, combined with Jedi/The Force being the only thematic element connecting prequel and sequel... This single moment became the identity of the franchise. The Force, Jedi vs Sith. That was what Star Wars was all about. Notice how in secondary media since, it's pretty much guaranteed that your protagonist has a lightsaber and will at some point fight someone with a red lightsaber. (Even though "The Rule of Two" should make red lightsabers impossibly uncommon.) Mandalorian, Rogue One, and Andor are exceptions, and to me at least feel like deliberate attempts to explore the setting in a new light after about 20 years of "If Star Wars, then Lightsaber."
Equally interesting is that very small 'phantom menace' era before things really codified into 'the clone wars' and 'the galactic civil war'. The fact that some games just had gungans vs droids as their 'prequel' representation seems completely silly now, of course...
This puts into perspective something my mother and I both talk about with this film (and my mother is someone who remembers Episode 4 with the original title, "The Adventure of Luke Skywalker") : initially, we both believed Chirrut should have disappeared from the battleground, becoming a Force-ghost like Obi Wan, Yoda and even Luke himself later on. He was Force sensitive and had faith in it enough to help guide his steps in normal life and in combat, so him becoming a Force ghost seemed like a logical and fitting ending that the film never gave him. Now I understand why he didn't disappear- he can't. That would mean affording Chirrut the same narrative weight as Luke or Leia, and that wasn't the point of the story. Like you said, the characters in this part of the story deserve better, and they can hope and fight for better
Thank you for opening with the rant about episode 4's actual lack of lightsabers. I see everyone nowadays griping about how bad lightsaber choreography are in the prequel and sequel trilogies compared to the OG trilogy, which to me always makes me think "You mean like the very first lightsaber duel we ever see where two old men gently prod each other with the tips? THAT's what you're holding up as the pinnacle of lightsaber choreography?"
Well, Vader v Obi-wan is certainly the most *realistic* swordfight of them all. If you've ever done kendo or HEMA, there are a *lot* of fights that consist of slowly closing the distance and feeling out your opponent's reflexes before a quick exchange determines the outcome. It doesn't make for a very exciting fight, but it is reasonably true to life.
@@Obi-Wan_Kenobi It's bad. Lots of useless movement and spinning the sabers where there's no target. Ever see that gif of Anakin and Obi wan spinning in front of each other for a solid second?
As a long time EU reader, this is a really fun video, because it feels like people who just found Heir to the Empire or the X-Wing books. Star Wars has always been goofy fun set against a fun world and when people with stories to tell find it they can do a lot with those stories. Rogue One and Andor are easily the best written Star Wars we’ve gotten out of Disney, very possibly out of Star Wars period (I’d make a case for the Episode III novelization as being up too there but I know it would be a hard sell) but the sorta surprise some people, not necessarily Red and Blue show for the idea of telling Great stories in Star Wars will never get old. That potential has been there the whole time, and people have done it before. But it’s always nice to see it happen again. Great diatribe as always. Thanks for a really enjoyable 2 hour listen!
After Red struck Blue down with her seldom used lightsaber, Blue became a glowing, old blue ghost and perpetually knowingly smirked at Red for the rest of her life.
1:14:11 in Star Wars Rebels, one of the main Jedi, Kanan Jarrus was a padawan that survived because his master sacrificed herself and stalled so he could get away.
Regarding Palpatine being the emperor being a twist. I very specifically remember being a child and getting Phantom Menace stuff as part of a happy meal or something and there was a little piece of paper showing characters and how they related to characters in the OT. It showed Luke and Leia as Anakin’s children, it showed little linkages between Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness, Anakin and Vader, etc. Then it showed that same link between Senator Palpatine and the Emperor and my little mind exploded. So based on that and the fact that Ian played the character in both Jedi and Phantom Menace, I don’t think it was meant to be a twist to anyone but my six year old self.
I think - and it might be my memory playing tricks on me - that if you were familiar with Star Wars extended materials, it was already known that the the Emperor was "Emperor Palpatine", making his appearance in Episode 1 obvious. But if you were film-only, this could have been a twist, yes.
@@Talyrionyeah, it was pretty out there, but the Lucasfilm marketing machine was desperately going ‘oh they might not be the same character, they’re in completely different scenes’ for the whole 6 years of the PT
I knew the Palpatine in the movie was going to be the Emperor because I played the 1998 game "Star Wars: Rebellion" a lot, and the Emperor is named as such. Maybe I read the name in some of the Expanded Universe novels too, I don't remember. I don't know when the Emperor was first named Palpatine, but was definitely some time before Episode 1.
“Emperor Palpatine” goes all the way back to Alan Dean Foster’s novelization. [Digs out 48-year old paperback.] Halfway down the first page in the prologue: “[…] the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. […] “Once secure in his office, he declared himself emperor […]
What you were saying about hope- Red VS Blue had Church/Epsilon give a final goodbye speech that wrapped up how hope and trust are interwoven together *so* beautifully. Highly recommend looking it up, it’s quite a grounded yet dramatic way of stating it.
So... the Emperor had the last name Palpatine in the 1990's novels and video games, so for those of us that grew up on the expanded universe, we knew who Chancellor Palpatine was as soon as he showed up. Also, you know, Ian McDurmond.
Luke absolutely lives on a death planet, that's why he's like this. Raiders and scavengers are a fact of life and the closest civilization is "a hive of scum and villainy". You can see by how careful he is when talking to the bar patrons who pick a fight that he's dealt with LOTS of rough characters.
I was 18 when Episode I came out. I didn't know that the the Emperor and Senator Palpatine were played by the same actor but I did already know that the emperor's name was Palpatine (I can't remember precisely why; maybe the Expanded Universe material; but I did know) so as soon as they said his name, I knew what was happening. And then by the time they name him Chancellor and he tells Anakin that he'll have to keep an eye on him, I immediately did some heavy DiCaprio pointing.
I was maybe 11. .5 seconds after I first saw Sideous, I knew he was the Emperor. I mean, it was the exact same costume and the exact same voice. then *senator* Palpatine (who I knew also from EU sources) was introduced and I'm like, "well". not only that but when Yoda and Windu are talking about the mysterious sith master during the funeral, the camera focuses on Palpatine, and the Naboo Victory March was the throne room theme from ROTJ in a major key. so the clues WERE there for people to pick up on. but contrast that with my dad, who despite being a MASSIVE fan, who watched the OT over and over, didn't pick up on it even AFTER ROTS. I had to flat out *TELL* him the Emperor was Darth Sideous *YEARS* later. I still don't know how he was ignorant for so long. it's likely the single most obvious bit of foreshadowing in the history of cinema, with every possible trick in the book used to hang a lampshade on it
YES! I've had the same thoughts for so long! It's nice seeing someone spend so much time on this. In addition, I'd like to discuss how the Prequels, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and all the Jedi stories have been steadily making Vader's redemption scene way more impactful in the same way that the Prequels, Andor, and Rogue One have made Luke's "one in a million" shot ever more meaningful. During the Original Trilogy, Vader's redemption scene reads as Luke's triumph over the Emperor, for Vader listened to his son instead of his master, and so the rebels won. Yay! While this scene works great for the "classic hero" story that the Original Trilogy is, it was not until the Prequels that Vader's redemption got deeper meaning added to it. In line with the Prequel's Shakespearean goals, the prophecy of the Chosen One was introduced, where the audience learned that (presumably) Anakin was destined to bring balance to the Force. During the Prequels, it also became clear that the Emperor was not just politically evil, but also a mystically evil Sith Lord. Thus, the audience began to see how Vader's redemption was remarkable on this epic prophetic scale. This new meaning was further heightened by Order 66, which caused the fall of the Jedi, and the destruction of the balance of the Force. And of course, Anakin's personal fall to the Dark Side added some personal meaning to his character arc as Vader. Now, Vader's redemption was not just Luke's triumph over the Emperor, but also the fulfillment of an epic prophecy, the triumph of the Jedi over the Sith, justice for Order 66, and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker from his tragic fall. However, unfortunately, the Prequels did not have the best execution, so Order 66 didn't feel all that sad, the prophecy of the Chosen One wasn't elaborated on, and Anakin's fall felt rushed. Enter the Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Fallen Order, and the rest of "the Jedi stories." In the decades since the Prequels, these stories have expanded upon the Prequel's aims by adding more depth, explanation, and EMOTIONAL IMPACT to the Prequel's concepts. Clone Wars gave Anakin's fall the time it needed while dabbling with the Chosen One, making the Jedi and Sith more interesting and meaningful, and giving Order 66 all the emotional weight it deserved. Bad Batch also expanded upon Order 66 a bit, as did Fallen Order and the rest of the Jedi stories. With this added context, Vader's redemption scene from "Return of the Jedi" has come to be a lot more than Luke's victory over the Emperor. Now, it is the culmination of Star Wars' story. Every new Order 66 scene makes the Jedi's fall all the more tragic, and Vader and Luke righting those wrongs all the more meaningful. What was once a cool scene, has now become a deeply symbolic and triumphant scene in the same way that Rogue One and Andor have made Luke's destruction of the Death Star much more heroic. Star Wars is certainly not perfect, but I admire how its storytellers have been working to add more layers to previous stories, so that scenes, ideas, or character arcs that were good can become great, and things didn't previously sit right (like Anakin's rushed fall to the Dark Side), can become as good as the original creator had envisioned.
There is actually a line in Revenge of the Sith with the express purpose of making sure there can be many surviving Jedi. It’s when Yoda & Obi-wan Storm the Temple. It’s when they talk about how they sent a warning from the temples database. That line lets you think about Jedi that are out there in hiding. Nothings been defanged. When your setting is an entire Galaxy, it would honestly be less believable to only have 2 Jedi left alive.
I remember hearing numbers along the lines of there having been around 10,000 Jedi when Order 66 hit, and 99% of them died in the course of Order 66 - if those numbers are accurate, 100 or more Jedi were likely to have survived. In media we've seen so far after Revenge of the Sith, we have seen at most like 20-35 survivors, as well as Maul and Ventress, who all survived despite being targets of Order 66. With how big the galaxy is and how few Jedi there were, we've seen a perfectly reasonable amount of surviving Jedi lol
People who watched the original series first would have to disagree. The defanging is that line itself. It retcons the lore from the original 3 (that there weren't any other surviving jedi). Even with this, just grant some wriggle room and say some other jedi live and I'd still have no issue. Yoda was a surprise after all, why not others? However, the actual lessening in meaning of order 66 isn't just that other jedi live, its the excessive granting of plot armour and main character status to every single character we see in any new Star Wars media. The reason that Rogue One and Andor are so great is that it they're the only 2 that don't do this. The point isn't that everything new sucks, it's that the feeling that Luke was the last, great hope for the galaxy is pretty much lost now due to all the other plot armoured, main character jedi. If that's not your jam, then feel free to think otherwise, but don't discredit the loss Star Wars has suffered from gaining all those new characters.
Plus, they don't have to be the Big Hero of The Galaxy. They can be the protector of a planet or moon in the middle of nowhere, protecting the handful of Force Sensitive children living on a farm or somesuch. Now that I think about it, that would be an interesting little aside. Like that Clone Wars episode where a random clone turns out to have made a life for himself separate from the war with a wife and kid.
@@peggyliepmann5248 case in point, that’s what most of the side quests in Jedi Survivor amount to - Cal arrives in a small prospector’s outpost on the planet Koboh where his friend and pilot Greez had recently bought a cantina, and the outpost serves as your base of operations for the story. Cal’s first action after arriving in town is to chase off some bandits, and half the things you do in the area around the outpost is help the residents with whatever trouble rears its head lol
Going off of that, one of the things The Bad Batch series does well is clarifying why people forgot about the Jedi so quickly. After all, by Episode 4, only 19 years had passed since Order 66, so surely quite a few must remember the space wizards, right? But the thing is is that Order 66 was so nearly complete (about 99% died off) and the Empire came in so quickly due to the success of the Republic during the Clone Wars that by the time of Fallen Order, naught 5 years later, the Jedi became just a memory in the eyes of everyday galactic citizens. That's why the Bad Batch's first episode begins with what happened to Kanan during Order 66: the following episodes show just how fast the Empire came into power across entire star systems, reinforcing that the Jedi were extinct among a populace that had grown increasingly antagonistic towards them during the war, to the point where by the end of the series, just a year or two later, the Empire has acquired full control over the planets and minds of the galaxy. If Andor is about the contradictory cruelties of fascism, why some people choose to enforce it, and why & how others fight against it, The Bad Batch is about the dangers of fascism during the years right after it comes to power and just how easily it wrenches control from people, while callously abandoning those it deems unworthy for the new regime.
Now begging you guys to watch Rebels and The Bad Batch because 1) rebels' characters are SO good and the way they set up Ezra to parallel Luke is mmm so incredible, and the found family is done SO WELL, and oh my god, you guys would LOVE Kallus 2) The Bad Batch takes the five-man band archetypes and does something really special with them, while also expanding the world through the eyes of a clone who never gets forced into the 'clone-soldier' archetype because she's able to escape the Empire basically as soon as Order 66 is over. I love these videos and the way you deconstruct and put the story back together!
Fun Fact: In the Star Wars 2015 comic run in Marvel comics, Luke went to Jedha post-Rogue One and learned of their sacrifices. Later on, Luke was inspired to name himself and other pilots as Rouge Squadron as tribute.
There's a Tumblr post that goes around about how the Rogue One team becomes like a prayer, how rebels invoke their names and their sacrifice to remember what they did, throwing a light into the future. I also absolutely believe that Luke finds out about it, and sometimes senses them when heading out to fly with Rogue Squadron. Maybe not a full Force Ghost, but still a memory. If you'll excuse me, I just made myself misty eyed...
New favourite Detail Diatribe unlocked. I have a deep affection for the heartfelt tragedy of Rogue One. I remember people thinking it was really mid around release, basically because it wasn't a Hero's Journey like we'd come to expect from the 6 previous movies. It kind of clicked for me that it's not Supposed to be. It's the connection point between the prequels & the originals. It's the inciting incident. It's a Tragedy. And it's so good! It's an hours-long gut-punch that's designed to show you the depths of despair that is the struggle of resistance against an evil Empire, & at the end to remind you that there's always hope.
28:35 Another problem with Order 66 in the prequels is that it contradicts the impression given in episodes 4-6, namely that the Jedi were hunted down, one by one, gradually, over the course of years. That slower burn would've presented a way to thwart the, "Padme dies from Big Sad," by having her on the run from Vader for years, hiding the twins, then finally dying either serving the rebellion, or killing herself to keep from being captured by Vader. Which would also be a worthy plot-twist.
Though they did eventually clarify that it did happen like that, with whatever remnants of the Jedi were left being gradually eliminated by Inquisitors over the years until they numbered but a few individuals. That's honestly one of the best things about Rebels: it gave an answer to how the Empire ensured that Order 66 would be successful and perpetuated the myth of the Jedi's total extinction. If even a mention of Jedi made it to them, they would ensure that rumors remained only rumors. Order 66 was the initial firestorm, and the Inquisitors snuffed out what was left.
@@theforcedmeme well the old expand universe definitely has it problems, it did had more creative and feel like wanted to explore stuff like universe and the force rather what Disney doing most of the time
I also think that one reason the Vader scene smacks so hard is you just watched a bunch of normal people struggle through the bones of the Jedi's civilization to sacrifice everything BECAUSE they didn't have anyone cable of effectively wielding lightsabers. It shows how much the lightsaber represents, turning the kyber crystal and thus the lightsaber into a physical representation of hope, and the terrible consequences when a powerful person twists that hope. Also the force and stuff.
I left this movie SOBBING and honestly I'm still not sure why. Had to see Darth Vader choke a guy through blurry vision. Why was I sad when everyone died in the movie about how everybody dies
I remember seeing the movie shortly after Carrie Fisher died, so seeing Leia broke me completely and I had to sit until the end of the credits to stop crying
Your comments on Darth Vader as a horror movie villain remind me of his first real appearance in Star Wars: Rebels. Through season 1 the rebels were getting cocky with their successes. When he confronts the hero and his mentor (Ezra and Kanan), they first become aware of him as an intense and cold presence in the Force all around them. He then proceeds to utterly humiliate them in combat, nearly killing Ezra, and they barely escape through a desperate distraction. It serves as a motivator for them to start taking training seriously.
Not to go too off-topic, but the universe feeling wider and more lived in is why I actually really enjoyed the reveal in The Last Jedi that Rey was a nobody. It opened up the world and made it more than just the Skywalkers and Palpatines and Kenobis and Yodas. Aaaaaand then Episode 9 came in and shit on everything.
1:15:25 To add on to Blue’s point, Order 66 did essentially work by the time A New Hope rolls around. To my knowledge, by the time Luke starts his journey, there are no Jedi around fighting the good fight, or Inquisitors to hunt them. They’ve all either died or retired in some way, opening the way for Luke to be the Hero(tm)
The Cerveza Cristal is a medium to see and use the Force. Drink from the proffered liquid, and you will unlock talents that alter the mind, perception, and many more.
The line Red says about 'it had to be Luke...or maybe Leia', reminds me about Steven Universe and the common conplaint that the protagonist talks his way to peace. It only works because it's Steven. Because the leadership of the Homeworld Gems are willing to give him the leeway to speak at all because of who he is in relationship to them. No one else would have been given the chance to begin with even if they were ten times as convincing as Steven was. None of that matters, just the fact that they consider Steven one of them and so his opinion holds some intrinsic value to them.
This has got to be one of your best Detail Diatribes ever. Red, every time you point out what Star Wars did right and wrong is a treat. I can see the flow chart of prequel trilogy world breaks turn into original trilogy world gets fixed so clearly. Beautiful 😙
Man, I really enjoy seeing you talk about things I barely know about. But I LOVE seeing you two talk about things I do know about, because it shows how much I kinda understand, but can't trully internalize, or put into words, and it's "Oh yeah, you are compeltely right! THAT's why it made me cry/felt so good!" Thank you, from the bottom of my inky heart.
As for Kanan in Rebels - he survived because his Master Depa Billaba (a no-lines Jedi Councilmember from Episode I) told him to run, and even then he only survived because Hunter, a Bad Batch Clone whose Protocol 66 inhibitor chip was faulty, made a call and let the kid escape - a call that cost him his friendship with Crosshair, another Bad Batch clone whose chip was faulty but still activated with Order 66 to some extent. The Bad Batch is kinda like Andor in that it slaps by telling a story of non-force users who don't have that plot armour but have crackshot skills trying to survive in the wake of the Empire. And the show does some great set up and clean up for other stories (even outlining the some of how Palpatine returned).
There is a reason I rewatch the 'Doomed Heroes' Trope Talks just for the 'Casting a Light into the Future' segment. Thank you for giving Rogue One this Detailed Diatribe treatment.
The theme of both the heroes and the villains of Rogue One being unprepared to handle the power-scaling of the rest of the Star Wars universe is well summed up by Vader himself: “Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”
Vader is SOOO dramatic. At the start of the hallway scene his chest lights are off. Thats his breathing apparatus.The Dude is holding his breath just for advantage on his intimidation check
Vader is the kind of TT gamer who can turn min maxing into an incredible story moment.
Being real, if a player did that, it would be an advantage on initiative as well.
He's terrifying and he knows it.
I mean he IS anakin under that helmet, he doesn't love drama he IS drama, i bet my guy is always making his cape flow with the force just for dramatic effect
When the Tantive IV disconnected from the cruiser and flew away, Vader's cape looked like it was billowing in the wind.
He's in the vacuum of space.
That mf was using the force to do that when literally no one except his stormtroopers were watching him.
For the record: YES. Tatooine is a DEATH WORLD. It has massive predators that even the magic, tech, and intelligence of the galaxy cannot easily handle. It is rife with criminal warlords, marauding bands of alien raiders, and some of the most brutal desert terrain of any remotely habitable planet we know of.
It makes perfect sense that Luke and Anakin, having grown up there, are not terribly impressed with the dangers of the rest of the galaxy.
Space Australia. Edit: Someone else beat me to this observation weeks ago, lmao.
Just look at the various desert cultures IRL. Deserts tend to make some hard people with some crazy ideas
When giant desert worms on the planet EAT sarlaacs, you sort of just leanr to deal with it.
All you have to do is consider Tatooine to get that Star Wars was never meant to be taken seriously. It's full of deserts with no life EXCEPT giant predators that should all die in a week because there isn't any prey. The Jawas comb the deserts for junk that...falls out of the sky? Where did they get all those droids? How many droids are wandering the desert so far from habitation? Deserts are so empty that they're also a word for emptiness: desert-ed. Luke is a moisture farmer, which I guess is a necessary occupation on a desert planet, but why not just NOT LIVE THERE? What resources does it have that make it worth putting up with the climate, let alone the inexplicable giant monsters? I remember that Han was a "spice" smuggler but we were never told what that means. Is it just literally the same spice as in Dune? Is Tatooine the same planet as Arrakis? Am I thinking about this too hard?
@@MilesDashing You are thinking about this too hard. Long story short, way back in the republic era Tatooine was believed to be rich in valuable minerals and metals. Several large mining companies set up shop on the planet, and its population exploded. Most of the infrastructure and moisture farms are from that era. However, the ore mined from the planet was of low quality, and eventually the mining companies all pulled out.
After that, Tatooine became a backwater controlled by the Hutt syndicates. It was remote enough for all kinds of smugglers and criminals to hide out safely, even during the rein of the empire, so it continued to be populated by people too stubborn or poor to leave, and criminals.
The jawas scavenge from the old mining sites as well as any starship wrecks that happen to fall in the desert (and there are more of those than you might think thanks to all the criminal infighting). The rest of the planet has a weird biome that works very slowly but encourages large size in its creatures.
For the trash compactor bit, Mark Hamill actually said that he thought that they should be all dirty, but Harrison Ford just told him "listen kid, it ain't that kinda movie"
Contrast the Rogue One directors putting together a whole 'nother ending because they thought the "everyone dies" ending wouldn't fly, only for Kennedy to say "well, of course you have to kill them all."
That's basically Luke and Han's entire dynamic.
"If they're looking at your hair we're all in trouble"
@@templarw20 Wait... Kennedy did something... right? That's actually shocking.
@scottjs5207 It's amazing how often that happens yet certain people are always surprised. 😂
I went into Rogue One not knowing it was a tragedy, because "Star Wars doesn’t kill off (all) main characters." Which made the final sequence gut-wrenching and finally devastating when I finally realized they were destined to die this entire time.
When Red says Rogue One makes the entirety of Star Wars better, she's spot on. The hallway sequence with Vader was especially good because now the nameless rebels aren't just cannon fodder. We just watched a group of unsung heroes with complex stories, flaws, and likable characteristics die for this cause. Who is to say every rebel Vader cut down didn't also have compelling backgrounds that brought them to this moment? And if we know the movie's protagonists were heroes, then that means we know every rebel *is* a hero too, not just a background character.
There was a critic who worded it pretty fittingly:
"Rogue One was the movie that truly felt like Star WARS. This is no adventure, it is a war movie."
Truly an underrated film.
The most gut-wrenching, tonal whiplash in the corridor scene happens between two line reads. The first is that troop sergeant, with "OPEN FIRE!" you could not have had a more "fuxk it, we ball" declaration and the look on those rebels faces shift from fear to determination to die well. And the next with the guy holding the data pad "HELP US!" as they are shown that "no, you will die *screaming*."
All the guys in the Ep 4 opening on the Tantive IV? Now we know they just watched everyone else die in that hallway. And that they know whats coming for them.
I always called Rogue One the Halo Reach of Starwars. It’s a direct prequel that ends with everyone dying and a lone ship getting away but being followed to start the events of the main series
That is a WEIRDLY good analogy now that you mention it. I never thought of that before, huh.
In fairness, I like Halo Reach a LOT more than Rogue One, but I can 100% see the parallel.
I always think of Ga-Rei Zero's first episode, but that sounds like a better comparison ngl
That's a very apt comparison. A prequel spinoff that ended up being very good!
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 looks bad, and I love anime
My review to my friends after I got back from the theater was “Halo Reach: A Star Wars Story” was pretty good
I love the dramatic irony of whenever you look at vader and then hear Anikin and his sassiness, its when you know the person hes interacting with is in the greatest danger because you shook him out of his depression and have his undivided attention. Its like seeing dracula grin and go bad bitch in castlevania.
"You must be the Belmont."
"You made me feel an emotion. You will regret this."
Actually, now that you say it, the iconic “HWAT is a MAN? A miserable little pile of SECRETS!” Would fit alongside Vader’s best moments.
“He didn’t put on the suit because it was Versace” Is an amazing line, stand proud Blue.
Sorry, I don't get the reference, what does he mean when he says that?
@@HeroofMightandmagic1 Versace is an expensive fashion brand which (among other things) manufactures suits.
Blue's basically just saying that Darth Vader didn't put on the suit because it looks nice. Only in a much more amusing way.
@@HeroofMightandmagic1 he means that Vader didn't put the suit on because it looked pretty. I don't know if there's any reference or meaning beyond that
Even in a galaxy far far away, Blue returns to Italy XD
@@terrified057t4 I haven't laughed at something this hard in a while. Incredible comment
"Saw Gerrera used to say one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day. They've no idea we're coming, they have no reason to expect us. If we can make it to the ground we'll take the next chance. And the next. An on, and on until we've won, or the chances are spent."
How many chances were taken by how many people before Luke was able to get in an X-Wing and take the most impossible chance of all?
Enough that Vader was out of henchmen to dispatch by the time they caught wind of the death star plans leak, and he then had to rush with his personal guard to make an interception.
But not so many that the emperor was also out of henchmen to dispatch, so not all.
I love how my favorite Star Wars show ever came from a movie nobody asked for and focused on a character I’m pretty sure 80% of the fanbase forgot about.
Fucking incredible moment.
Guess it depends on your definition of "show". Frankly nothing Disney has done comes to the level of the OT
@@nathank2289 I don't know that I agree with that.
Rogue One was made under the Disney umbrella, but in my opinion it surpassed anything in any of the trilogies.
Man, I keep hearing people call Rogue One 'a movie nobody asked for', but I know so many fans from before the prequels who wanted that story.
@@Ravus_Sapiens Idk I feel like it fails to make me really care about these characters that are destined to die, which I get is a hard thing to do so I don't necessarily fault it for that. Visually it was decent, I can give it that with no apprehension.
@@stonethered honestly that’s fair.
46:57 Leia is peak "do you have a fucking warrant" energy and i love it
D20 fan spotted?
Queen behavior!
“Is that a class 3 firearm?”
“I dunno, are those level 4 plates?”
“Aight ✋😐🤚”
D20 and Russian Badger in one thread, what a crossover
Gonna be honest. You said "Eight years ago" and it hit me harder than it should have. Got Palpatine somehow returning in the back of my head wheezing, "No, no," and shooting lighting everywhere.
That HURTS
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
Yeah that... that was not okay. I needed to take a moment to remember that I am old.
Yeah... it's the same with _Avengers_ for me... that came out 2012. 12 years ago I sat in the cinema, barely old enugh to watch it...
@@RodrigoGarcia-ze5emYeah but we don’t really take those people seriously either
One of my favorite lines in all of Star Wars comes from Rogue One but almost no one talks about it.
Jyn says “We’ll take the next chance. And the next. On and on until we win, or the chances are spent.”
THAT is what it means to be part of the Rebellion if you are not a hero with a thousand faces. THAT is what it means for people in the real world to resist tyranny and injustice. Because there is no magical farm boy and his friends coming to rescue us.
Counterpoint, if you read the life stories of people who played pivotal roles in world events, a lot of them DO read like magic farm boys. Whether you attribute it to some higher power or chalk it up to random chance, there _are_ people who the plot seems to revolve around in real life stories.
In real life there is always a farm boy. BUT it's only seems predestined in hindsight.
Because it really wasn't. It was just that the time was right for somebody to step into that role, and the one who manages to succeed is the one who gets to be retroactively predestined.
It's Lief Ericsson vs Columbus, it's Marconi vs Tesla, it's Gavrilo Princip vs any his friends.
Movements are tinder, heroes in real life are most often sparks, and no single spark is guaranteed to be the one that starts the fire, but one always does. Heroes in fiction are more like matches, they're tailor-made to start fires.
Dune is a great example of this. Paul is a matchstick designed to start a blaze both from the writer's perspective and in universe. The point of writing about him is that he's the interesting matchstick meant to light the tinder of the Fremen. In-universe the Bene-Gesserit were trying to make a matchstick; but Paul specifically wasn't planned, and he was applied to tinder they did not expect.
Funnily enough, Red seemingly references this line in the video, at 37:55.
@@EllipticalReasoning probably a form of survivorship bias. Most peoples lives read like protagonists. Until they don't anymore.
@@basharic3162 You're ruining the fairy tales that these commenters take for actual real history. Even the matchstick element is often overblown in non-fictional history
Talking about Anakin being a dramatic little bitch, this is my favorite thing about the hall scene: His suit has a front panel with lights on it. Those lights are his LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS. And what is turned off in that hallway? All his suit's blinking lights. Why? Added dramatic effect.
Meaning, dude thought this out and was like, "Hey, you know what would be fun? If I just shut my suit off so that I can barely breathe, then stand stock still with my light saber in hand, turned off in a pitch-black hallway until it's full of blaster fodder. Then, turn my saber on to freak everyone the fuck out before ripping them to pieces. Oh the looks on their faces will be so worth the week in the suspension tank."
and I can 100% believe Anakin the drame queen would do that.
I can't remember if it's canon or anything but i believe that sith can draw on the negative emotions of others for strength. Maybe being a drama queen also makes him stronger by drawing on the rebel's fear
@@jack_of_all_trades5907
I thought it was that they only drew on their own negative emotions, Yoda's whole "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering" stuff? Well to be honest though drawing on others negative emotions does seem like the type of thing to be in this franchise.
And it was. It absolutely was. Granted, he could probably feel his objective slipping away after that scene, but from his perspective, the troubles of capturing Leia was also worth the look on those rebels' faces. If he knew how much trouble _actually_ resulted from him doing that, he'd probably reconsider, but he'd also probably still do it anyway.
Also, he's in space. His cloak shouldn't be floating, in the clip at 43:05. He's using the Force to move it just for extra style
To Red’s point about the Aldhani arc another thing that’s mentioned, I believe by the head of the facility, is that not only have they made it harder for people to get to the sacred valley they’ve also set up various locations from which you can view the Eye without making the journey.
They are simultaneously making it more difficult to actively participate in this sacred festival and making it easier to feel like you’re not missing out in doing so. In the process reducing what is supposed to be an extremely important cultural and religious event into what is basically a tourist trap.
Now I think about it, you could tell Cassian or Jyn or whoever "The Death Star will be destroyed by Darth Vader's secret son, who grew up on a death world not knowing about his father, and he's an ace pilot and a crack shot" and they'd imagine, like, space-Rambo.
When in reality he's closer to Pee-Wee Herman xD
Or they'd start looking reeeeeal suspiciously at Biggs
I hadn't thought if this before, but Rogue One sort of gives the Trench Assault Run more depth as well. When you watch "A New Hope" it's a pretty normal fighter battle--ships blow up, the hero wins, everyone cheers. But when you add Rogue One to it, it becomes a continuation of that handing off of the baton. Leia gets it and hands it off to the general. He gives GOLD Squadron the task of taking the kill shot--Red Squadron (Luke's unit) was supposed to cover them. Gold Squadron gets vaped. Then most of Red Squadron does. They are down to the very last fighter pilot there--Luke, the Chosen One, who finally takes the shot that the previous two movies have been building up to. It wasn't until Wedge Antilles gets hit that Luke had the baton; as soon as that happens Han shows up to shoot off the TIE fighters on Luke's tail (including Han's future father-in-law), Luke accepts his mentor's advice, and he wins. Instead of shouting "Run!!" Han is basically saying "Kill!"
To be clear: At least 22 people died in the Trench Assault Run, including multiple by Vader's hand. This is the hallway in Rogue One all over again, but this time with the plot armor. The two mirror each other fantastically, and Rogue One adds tremendous depth to the scene.
It's also a nice statement about the Rebellion as a whole.
They attacked a death machine with 2 fighter squadrons? Why just two?
Because that's all they have left.
The Crawl states the battle of Scarif was a Rebel victory, and it was, but it cost them almost everything to get it. The rest of the Rebellions forces were either destroyed or damaged to the point that they needed massive repairs, and were not combat worthy for the literal end of the world.
@@TheLordofMetroidsit's made even cooler by the fact that out of the 10-15 large ships in the battle of scariff, only 3-4 actually manage to escape with the fighter compliments before the devastator shows up and obliterates the rest of the rebels. Ending on such a massive loss for the rebellion and seeing it turn into the greatest possible victory about a week later is such great execution
49:40 "Luke, do you live on a death world? Is that why you're like this?" Holy crap, I just realized Tatooine is Star Wars Australia
It's George Lucas' Dune. Dune books '65, Star War in '77 .
@@CrimsonBlasphemy Fair
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
"Dude, that's my local bar."
Well earth doesn't seem to be around anymore, someone had to take their place
A part of me really wishes it were possible to make a show about Luke as part of the Rebellion between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. I feel like there's some interesting culture clash stuff they could do with that setup.
Growing up a Star Wars Fan, meaning Star Wars was basically my alternate universe, I felt it made a lot of sense and was very cool, when there were people still living after Order 66. It made it feel like: "The Galaxy is so vast that even the Empire can't be 100% thorough.
It's like tidying up. There's always some dust left somewhere you didn't look.
First and foremost, absolutely. Like, from a literal perspective (like, scientific stuff abt our own galaxy's size) and a story perspective, it makes a ton of sense that Order 66 didn't take care of ALL the Jedi/their allies. Space is a MASSIVE place, even with FTL travel or hyperspace travel, and you can only do so much. Secondly, "There's always some dust left somewhere you didn't look." felt incredibly profound to me for some reason, and I will definitely try to add it into my vernacular now.
Fun fact according to Wookiepedia - Donnie Yen was given a lot of leeway to interpret his character. It was his idea to make Chirrut blind - harkening back to movies about kung-fu heroes who have some kind of limitation, like blindness. Chirrut is my favorites character in Rogue One.
Donnie Yen's a legend.
Sounds like they didn't feel like writing him and just let Donnie handle it lmao
It was a very good choice and only made his death walk even stronger. If he could see, the sight of the blaster fire around him could have wavered his faith in the Force. But due to his blindness, he MUST have that faith, and so he makes it across.
Huh, that's interesting. IIRC, he also played a blind, bad-ass assassin in John Wick 4. I wonder if that's just his favorite archetype to play
@@somedude15231 blind badass is a stable in wuxia
“How Tragic would it be, being a normal person in the StarWars universe just doing their best?”
As a huge LOTR fan I ask myself the same question about that setting. If I were in Middle Earth, I’d be toiling on an infertile plot of land until a random orc rocks up lops my head off.
An Andor-style spinoff of LOTR would be amazing
@@littlelostmemeAs a Silmarillion reader who hadn't seen Rogue One in theaters, I kinda expected a LotR crossover when I first saw the title... Rings of Power could have done it, but like the prequel trilogy, the execution is... iffy
@@littlelostmeme I would be better than everything that came after the PJ Trilogy.
The thing that got me about the Vader hallway of pain and misery was the thought of being the guy with the files realizing he's screwed and he needs to hand the drive off through the gap in the door.
That part of the scene was fantastic. It was the perfect end to the sequence of "dying so someone else has a chance".
The shift from "Help us!" to "Take it!" is incredible. It's the entire rebellion in a nutshell.
@@lepidusstupidius2956 it really is kind of the entire final act of the movie, recreated in microcosm in about 20 seconds, isn't it?
@@fanboy50 YES! i was thinking that! they shrunk the whole conflict down to its most basic elements and it worked so well!
I keep thinking of the thought of being the guy on the other side of that door. The fear and frustration that you can't get it open, the realisation that the guy you're trying to save is giving up on himself, and then that black sacrifice, held out against for those last few precious seconds, of having to give up on him too.
23:24 Immediately launched into a Palpatine impression sneering "This cloak should sufficiently disguise my appearance and intentions from all I do business with, save for my *immediately identifiable chin*" and have been cackling (both as Palpatine and just cuz it's funny) for the last 10 minutes
One of the reasons I enjoyed Rogue One was that it treated the Force with the same mystery and reverence received by the subjects of real religions. If you'd never seen any Star Wars stuff except for this, you'd be forgiven for thinking it might not even be real.
In a similar vein it is the first since New Hope that made the death star scary instead of silly.
Wait, are you saying that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side?
@@SymbioteMullet I think he is, call in the boys!
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
Exactly. It doesn't pull back the curtain on the force and keeps things deliberately as an open question.
The "For Jedha!" battle cry as the rebels jump off their drop ship is a great touch... gets me every time. It's a great little detail, telling me that they are here for a fight... and they all probably know it's a one-way ticket, but they're gonna get some.
You wanna know the perfect quote to go along with the whole "rebellions are built on hope" thing?
"There's so many good stories where some brave hero has to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors cheer, and everyone lives happily ever after. But the hero never gets to see the ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith."
"Ain’t that a bitch.”
Red vs Blue!
“Let there be hope - a grim thin hope, an Authurian sword at sunset…”
FUCK YEAH I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE THINKING OF CHURCH'S SEASON 13 ENDING SPEECH XD
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
Red Vs Blue peak.
A very small extra point about how Rogue One enhances the original trilogy: Vader force chokes Krennick in Rogue One when Krennick starts talking about how great an achievement the Death Star is. Vader force chokes the Imperial Officer in EpIV when he essentially parrots the same line, and then goes on to disparage the force. It's a reverse-continuity nod that nonetheless works.
I think one of the funniest things for Star Wars to remember about Vader is he's not the Death Star's biggest fan.
Bohdi's death for me was the clincher. When K2 died, i was stabbed, but Bohdi was the knife twisting. With his death, and the destruction of the shuttle, it was a statement: "everyone is doomed". There was a little bit of hope again with Blue Squadron and the U-Wings, but no. There is no escape, there is no flying in to the sunset. Your funny pilot and the ride are gone, watch your heroes martyr themselves.
I'm right there with you. Despite the deaths up to that point I had hope one of them would make it out. After the ship blew up my mind short circuited, and came back on with the thought - "Nobody's making it out of here alive."
@@snes90 I'll admit, to me it felt more like a forgone conclusion pretty early on? "Oh hey, this group has a name that's very significant to the Rebellion later. And I don't know any of these people, even from odd cameos that could relate to them. ... Guess they all die."
Same I looked over to my sister and cousin and we all knew. No one is getting out.
"... Shit, there goes Ex-Fil. Nice knowing you guys, die well."
It was when they passed through the shield and watched the gate close behind them that I knew that no one was leaving that planet.
Some random Star Wars thoughts that this made me have:
*1. Ahsoka is a bit like discovering the Epic of Gilgamesh to lead you to your next quest objective*
Every time one of Dave Filoni's shows explores the Force more (in Ahsoka, the Mortis arc, any of the Night Sisters stuff) it feels waaaay more eldritch and powerful and ancient. The Ahsoka show is Star Wars being Indiana Jones; looking through ancient artifacts and temples because they'll give you superpowers and/or help you find where your loved ones are hiding out. It feels like such a different time scale than stuff that's usually more centralized in Star Wars; they're looking through their version of Bronze Age ruins for help while everyone else is trying to do politics.
*2. unpacking Blue's commentary about the Order 66 survival rate.*
As far as I know, every Jedi who survived Order 66 was either A) a Jedi Master who was already away from the Temple (Obi-Wan and Yoda), B) made a deal with the Empire (Anakin, the Inquisitors), or C) an apprentice/youngling who was saved by the sacrifice of another Jedi (Grogu, Kanan Jarrus, Cal Kestis). Ahsoka is the only exception to this rule, and Anakin specifically trained her to deflect/defend herself against the clones who ended up trying to kill her. Order 66 was only escapable by either the best of the best, who immediately went into hiding, or through the sacrifice of someone else.
*3. Qui-Gon's death versus Sabine's survival is a lesson on the importance of giving someone first aid ASAP*
Something annoys me about that one criticism of Ahsoka where people ask how Sabine survived but Qui-Gon didn't: QUI-GON DIDN'T INSTANTLY DIE. He was choking out on the floor for a good couple minutes before he passed. When Sabine got stabbed, Ahsoka was right there basically instantly to give first aid and stabilize her within those two minutes. Obi-Wan still had to fight Maul, and by the time he did that, he was trapped in that room with a bunch of safety features that he couldn't bypass in time to get the help he needed to save Qui-Gon. In first aid, those first few minutes can be what determines someone's survival.
stabs used to be lethal legends watch the two brothers in swtor a stab is all it took to kill him
The fact I was trained as a lifeguard and didn't fully realize that last point is disappointing on my part. That's first response 101.
Another note about 2, there were somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 Jedi at the time of Order 66, and roughly 99% of the Jedi were killed. Statistically, a little over 100 Jedi survived the massacre assuming those numbers are accurate. We've seen a fair number of survivors (Obi-wan, Yoda, Ahsoka, Kanan, Cal, Grogu, Anakin/Vader, Baylan, the Inquisitors, and (Jedi Survivor spoiler) Bode), which account for at most barely a quarter of the potential surviving Jedi lol
It also wasn't in a vital spot unlike say your spine, she was likely stabbed their so Ashoka would take time to save her instead of give chase.
Agreed, good observations.
This detail diatribe reminds me of a poem from 1946, written from the perspective of a soldier who died in 1942, when the war was just starting to turn. In particular, there's this stanza that captures the weird meta-perspective on Rouge One as a prequel.
"Of what’s now common knowledge
And quite obvious to you.
We must hope all that happened
Was our dreams coming true."
Need to know what poem this is,
@@verselesscooking9416 "Я Убит Подо Ржевом", translated as "I was killed outside Rzhev"
I love that the prison colors are the rebellion colors, it makes so much sense and I totally missed it. Its wild that like two days after Rogue One, the Death Star is destroyed. By Empire, Luke is in or maybe starts Rogue Squadron on Hoth. That makes Rogue One explain a second noodle incident.
Like... the final fight in Rogue One is how I wish Vader was depicted in live action. I know why he never was, tech issues and all, but THAT is peak Vader. That slow reveal of the saber in the dark (and turning off his life support systems to flex), the brutality and certainty he fights with. That is a creature who knew they couldn't stop him and who projected an aura of doom. None of them begged, which is either very heroic, or they knew it was pointless. Darth Vader was here and ran outta mercy 18 years ago when he lost his legs. If he wasn't so fond of that Lightsaber, he would've torn them apart with his bare fucking hands.
... also, the comics triple down on his dramatic nature.
"Drop your weapons! You are surrounded!"
*"All I am surrounded by is Fear and DEAD MEN."* as he casually pops the the entire company's Thermal Detonators.
It was 1v500 (ya know... like most Jedi during Order 66), and he butchered them all with a flick of his wrist after a badass one-liner. You know he was more proud of the one-liner.
"Don't choke on your aspirations, Director."
Says Darth Vader, after force choking Krenek
He's still Anakin in there. I believe I thought that exact line in the theater watching that scene.
I love the pun in that line. The word aspire has two meanings: to dream, or to Choke
The exact same energy as "Apology accepted, Captain Needa".
Hmmm... After watching this Detail Diatribe, I now want to go back through every Star Wars media and Find-Replace every instance of "Force" with "Plot".
"[The Plot] surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."
"Use the Plot."
"May the Plot be with you."
"I felt a great disturbance in the Plot."
"The Plot is what gives a Jedi his power."
It also reminds me heavily about Kreia from KotOR 2:
"Nothing is impossible with ."
"Take the greatest Jedi Knight, strip away , and what remains?"
"Ah, but at what point does the power of exerts submerge any attempt at choice, or free will?"
Finally, "I hate , I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance when countless lives are lost."
"The dark side of the Plot is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."
“I am one with and is with me.”
@@ElusiveMysteryManSuddenly, it makes a lot of sense how Palpatine “somehow” returned.
It's really impressive when The Emperor uses dark side plot lightning to try to kill Luke
38:13
52:58
“I can’t stop this, but I can give the next person a chance.”
I can’t stop you, but she can.
I can’t carry the Ring, but I can carry you.
"He didn't put on the suit because it's Versace" feels like one of those Schrodinger's Lines that can fit any movie. Like I can hear it being said in a grimdark tale where a hero is forced to don a set of cursed armor just as well as I could hear The Mask saying it in a Looney-Toons-esque slapstick comedy.
Blue is NOT living this down one way or another
And immediately my mind travels to Berserk and Guts' armor.
No lie, I watched about 2/3 of this video, paused it, spent the weekend watching Andor, and came back to finish this video. Y'all have made another Cassian Andor stan I hope you're happy
Wild, I did the same exact thing and am now watching this detail diatribe at 3am after watching the finale
The "What if C3PO pulled his weight and was an asshole" line got me pretty good
This made me realise why the Vader scene is so cool. After seeing heroes without plot armour struggling and barely managing to succeed, suddenly Vader appears and nothing fucking works against him. It’s a subtle way of showing that you NEED to be the chosen one to avoid being instantly cut in half and stepped over.
The slide positing the question "Is Star Wars about Luke, or about the people he saved?" is one that more creators, and fans, need to ask. It brings Mass Effect to mind, and how after Andromeda flopped Bioware went right to ".... and Shepard is back!"
That being said "Shepard is back! Because of Liara!" is an interesting whiplash into "oh no, oh she's gonna get weird about it"
To be fair, the destroy ending teased Shepard potentially surviving, so it thankfully wasn't *entirely* out of the blue.
But seriously, as middle of the road as Andromeda is with all of its missed opportunities, I kinda wanted to see the story keep going. The story beats were very stereotypical, but it was still interesting enough for me to want to see just what the hell the giant space helix actually was. Though some of the characters (Cora, that "my face is tired" woman and the Salarian director) irritated me.
Ironically, Dragon Age, BioWare's other franchise, actually solves this problem by having each game focus on a different hero, adding up in their deeds and the people they affect in the larger arc of the franchise. Each hero is tied to some larger overarching disaster, and each scenario leads into the other with every new game, like the currents of history itself.
Part of why I think the ending tone shift works so well, is that it carries on the theme of the movie, that these people are disposable. Most movies end when the main character succeeds and/or dies. In Rogue One, all of the characters both succeed *and* die, and yet the story keeps going. The bad guys don't stop just because the good guys aren't around.
49:40 he lives on a desert planet where they have to synthesize water from the air, there are roaming bandits and scavengers, the airspace is controlled by a mafia boss and the main town is a scum pit full of smugglers and bounty hunters. He lives on a death planet and it's all he's ever known
Also like, he lives in a hole. That could mean anything but I always think of the days being scorching beyond the definition of scorching and the nights are friggin' cold as Hoth XD
And that's without mentioning the building sized bug/plant thing that lived under sand and from the surface is a giant pit with so many teeth at the bottom.
And if that wasn't enough, how about the giant dragon that *eats* that building sized bug/plant thing!
Not to mention Tatooine is a planet that “survived” glassification
@@ouroboros_1355Tatooine got Glassed!?
@@ouroboros_1355when did that happen?
"Six feet...wait. Luke did you grow up on a death world? Is that why you're like this?" Really got me. Well done and great analysis!
I remember seeing Rouge One opening night with my cousin and his friend. The theater was pretty calm, we would laugh at jokes (mostly K2), the audience was clearly sad when the main characters died.
But when Vader showed up in that hallway, everyone lost their minds. People were hollering, cheering him on, it was amazing.
We were an entire high school on movie day and every seat was taken and we were audibly reacting to everything. Still my fondest memory of high school how everyone cheered seeing the Rebellion show up in Scarif's orbit XD
I saw that in the theater with my family, and I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan (grew up on the original trilogy, prequels, and Clone Wars show, but I only really got invested in Clone Wars. The other movies were more "Oh cool costume design" kinda experiences for me, and I thought maybe I just didn't like sci-fi until I got into Star Trek years later). So I figured Rogue One would be a fun thing to munch some popcorn to, crack jokes with my brother about, and analyse the costume and set design of, like most other Star Wars movies. While I did not care for the protagonist (she had an interesting backstory, it's just that her general apathy really wore me down for most of the movie in a way that unfortunately made me less invested in her character), by the time we got to that relay race of death, I was on the edge of my seat.
And then Vader arrived.
I'm glad I saw that movie in the theater, because the Doylist thrill and Watsonian TERROR of having DARTH F*CKING VADER loom larger than life over you, and then turn on that red lightsaber, and be powerless to help as rebels are hewn down mercilessly and that one poor guy is just screaming "LAUNCH!!!" ...DUDE. THAT WAS DELICIOUS
The whole crowd cheered when the Y-Wing came out of Hyperspace and joined the battle over Scarrif. It felt like Star Wars had come home.
@@grassygnoll3345 I was 27 when I saw Rogue One in the theater and I had been enjoying the film a fair bit but when the rebel fleet came out of hyperspace and all the pilots started running through their call signs, man I was transported 20 years in the past to when I was wearing out my VHS copies of the original films non stop. It was incredible.
Chirrut's walk is my *Favorite* depiction of the Force, full stop. It became a mystical flow of fate that is not truly comprehensible when it's been kung fu magic for a good while. It brought back the zen roots and it was so desperately needed.
About Kanan Jarrus: he was a padawan during order 66. Hevsurvived because of his master and the Bad Batch and yes, his master died.
And there’s a very good reason why he and Ezra aren’t around during the Original Trilogy
I think it's wrong to say no one takes the prequels seriously, many people have praised different elements from them and in retrospective many argue that the main problem isn't the story but the acting, which is a whole different issue. In fact nowadays you will find many people that analyze and praise how the prequels tackle topics like the balance of the force, the dark side, political corruption, the rise of dictatorships, the sith and the danger of demagoguery.
More than that, when kanan evolves into jedi master, he dies and ezra survives. It wasn't order 66 but the empire got him in the end.
@@janmelantu7490And then the tano show ruins both Ezra and Thrawn (along with the republic and Tano). For Andor the average imperial officer is far more competent then thrawn in that disney un-canon, fan series.
@@lembitmoislane. no actually I think Ahsoka is a pretty good continuation of Rebels.
When Rogue One first came out the first thing I thought of was how the movie felt like a D&D/Star Wars RPG game. All the characters were playing archetypes from the Star Wars manual, K-2SO was the GM's NPC who would sarcastically comment on the player's dumb plans, and Chirrut was the player that really wanted to play a Jedi but since the GM wouldn't let him, he found an obscure 3rd party force-monk class that's not technically a Jedi but gave him some of the cool powers. So basically it reminded me of the Darths and Droids webcomic.
the bit where red talking about the prequels failed in their goal to make star wars the kind of universe where this shakespearean drama can play out has reminded me how when i studied Othello at school that it and revenge of the sith superficially have the same plot of "Respected general is mislead and manipulated by a close friend into becoming evil and kills his wife"
Star Wars takes so much inspiration from Sheakspeare. Like Anakin's fall has so many commonalities to MacBeth's. Granted the idea of succumbing to your ego and lesser desires for power is timeless and as old as history, but I still feel that MacBeth's story must have served as at least an inspiration for Anakin. There are ghosts in both stories too...
@@Obi-Wan_Kenobioh hey Master Obi-Wan :D
Also the fact that Ewan McGregor has been in both
This is absolutely cursed. I must now also inflict this curse upon my friends 😂
@@horseenthusiast9903Hello There!
"In 2016 we got Rogue One"
That hit me like a truck. God that was 8 years ago.
19:47 I think another thing that can make the prequels somewhat difficult narratively is that Lucas is also trying to tell the political drama of how the Republic became the Empire and the way in which democracies turn to fascism while at the same time trying to tell the more personal story of Anakin's fall to the dark side. So I think for a number of people, it can make the prequels feel off tonally because it is trying to be both a personal tragedy and a political tragedy.
a good writer could have done that, especially by making the stories more parallel - hinting and foreshadowing each other - and less "here's 2 unrelated stories intercut with each other"
@@silverharloe I think even for a better writer, weaving the two together to make both feel organic and necessary would have been a tall order. Not impossible, but difficult.
But no, George's limitations as a writer definitely did not help, and with the knowledge that Lucas was never going to relinquish that much control to anyone else on it, it would have been better for him to focus on one or the other, or not limit himself to a trilogy and allow himself to do, like, four movies, or condense the time frame they happen over (in the big scheme of things, TPM really didn't need to take place a full decade before AotC or RotS).
The good ol 'there's too much politics in this movie' def plagued Phantom Menace a bit at the time, I can say that for sure. Which probably didn't help matter with the other two, but it's not wrong how the movie is essentially trying to hold onto those two stories at once all the way through.
Possibly more problematically, he’s trying to do this in what is mostly a toy commercial for eight year olds.
@@silverharloe Matthew Stover's novelization of RotS does a much better job with it, but it's also a novel so we get to see inside most of the main character's heads during key moments, and even into many of the side characters or villains. Still my favorite Star Wars novelization by far, and it was technically completed before the movie based on an early script so there are slight differences that also help with the characterization and story.
"Luke, do you live on a death world? Is thay why you're like this"
He's from Tatooine, so yeah. They've got Sarlaccs...
Rogue One might be the only modern Star Wars movie that was universally considered well-done despite being the near-tonal opposite of the original trilogy in terms of how hopeless the heroes’ chances are. Yet it’s well-written enough to still achieve a message of hope even with every hero in Rogue One dead. 💙❤️
Edit: I did not anticipate the controversy of my statement. What have I done? What has become of us all?😧
Part of that might be from it being the only Disney Star Wars movie that actually had ideas.
It’s considered well-done now. But I still remember how divisive it was when it first came out. Regardless, looking back on it it definitely is the only SW film worth a damn post-acquisition.
Almost universal. It's better than some other Star Wars media, but the plot needed some more time in the oven. There are plenty of little plot holes - for example, why did Gererra choose to stay and die when his word would've been useful dealing with the resistance? He had plenty of time to leave, and then that way the resistance wouldn't be suspicious of Jyn. Set pieces like Vader's castle (surrounded by lava?? 😂) and Eadu fell flat. For me it's a solid 6/10
So, your post reminded me of two quotes, that together kind of explain what you're saying.
"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go."
"There's all these stories where the hero has to sacrifice themselves. And the day is saved, the survivors all cheer, and the everyone loves happily ever after. But the hero never gets to see if the day is actually saved. They just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch?"
The reason it works is because it's still about hope. The belief that things can be better, and being willing to fight for that even if the odds aren't in your favor. Even up to dying to pass the chance of something better on to others.
The original was a fairy tale, with hope as a main theme. Rogue One was a gurellia war story, but it has that connective tissue of being about hope. And that makes it work.
I like rogue 1 but I feel like its praise is far from universal.
You guys are wrong. I love the "Laaaaaunch!" line but the best one from that scene is ...
"TAKE IT!" Right before getting pin cushioned into the door by Vader. Awesome and heartbreaking. He knew he was dead but he made the pass anyway. Amazing stuff!
26:09 Yeah, It's weird re-watching Episode 4 and seeing an entire populated planet get blasted into dust, and like 10 minutes later Leia, the princess of that planet, is tossing quips and being snide and totally not acting like someone who just saw everyone they've ever known be atomized.
About a month before she died, Carrie Fisher was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and this gets mentioned. She has to comfort Luke, while she is the one who lost "my mother, my step-father - as I found out later -, my record collection, all my clothes, so I had to wear that white dress all the time..."
Some people call her princess for the rest of her life. That’s pretty messed up when she lost her homeland and her people there was nothing left to be princess of. Maybe a lot of her people were part of the rebellion and off-world at the time but being a rebel isn’t great for your health or longevity.
Realistically, this is because Lucas didn't really know how to write a character arc for Leia and cared much more about Luke's feelings than Leia's, but it does say a lot about Leia's character. She is completely and utterly dedicated to the Rebellion. She isn't in it to save/avenge a loved one or any other truly personal reason. Even when she finds out she is the daughter of the guy who tortured her and murdered so many of her friends and family, she doesn't so much as blink, because the cause is so much greater than her.
@@kirstenpaff8946 I also think it's in a small part because she's a Skywalker. She's got snark, drama and action in her blood. She gets it from her father, but the being cool and collected in a crisis, being dedicated to a cause with all her soul that comes from her mother and her upbringing as a princess and in the rebellion.
Some people react differently to tragedy. Some get quiet and mad, while some tear up with Niagara Falls. Leia just put her feelings aside for what needed to be done, and vents using quips. Maybe she's stoic enough to do that. Pain isn't expressed the same way for all people.
Was anyone else listening to the convo about the force having a will and hear Kriea : "I hate the force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some sort of balance when countless lives are lost. "
Dears OSP if you want to see a proper Shakespearean SW done right, Kotor 2 is what that looks like.
The trick to drawing detail in art isn't to draw all the detail it's to draw extra detail in the right places to imply the detail you didn't draw in others. The thing Rogue One and Andor do by focusing in on smaller people is it draws detail in key places that then imply the same detail elsewhere.
And this is what Andor does so well. By showing us the minute detail and intricacies of the Narkina 5 prison, the Aldhani garrison, the ISB, and the Ferrix revolt, we can imagine a hundred other forced-labor camps, military outposts, bureaucratic departments, and small rebellions. The fact that we never saw Anto Kreegyr's attempted raid on the Spellhaus power station is the perfect example of this; we didn't need to see it, because we had already seen the Aldhani raid and could imagine the complexity of a similar, but different raid.
@@kentslocum one man eating breakfast cereal while being yelled at by his mom in a small apartment in a crowded city. You see no other apartments, but because you see so much detail and character in one you know there are a million others densely packed around them full of people living lives.
K-2SO's death always makes me cry.
Kanan Jarrus survived because 1: Depa died defending him like Jaro, and 2: the clones that pursued him were Clone Force 99 aka the Bad Batch who's mutations stopped their chips from fully activating (minus Crosshair) and they let him go.
Also Krennic calling the Death Star his achievement is even more laughable when you remember it was mostly designed by the Geonosians, half planned by Galen, and overseen directly by Vader and Palpatine, like, you might've contributed but this is NOT your baby.
There's a part of me that would love to find out that his "involvement" was basically "yeah have some funding, don't bother me while I'm shmoozing up my new boss's boss." Like he only found out what it was when Galen fled, or even later.
1:06:29 - Something that just occurred to me thinking back on Return of the Jedi: None of what Luke did with Vader mattered to the Rebellion beyond being a distraction. Converting Vader and chucking the Emperor down a shaft did not destroy the Death Star. Wedge, Lando, and a bunch of other Rebellion Pilots did Trench Run 2.0 and blew Death Star 2 up. The Executor was killed by an A-Wing pilot who got hit, and rather than punching out rammed his A-Wing into the Bridge killing control of the ship.
The Rebellion wasn't started by a Chosen One, it was started by regular people who had been pushed passed the breaking point and put it all on the line in the hope that they could change it. It wasn't ended by a Chosen One either. It was ended by regular people who were pushed to the breaking point and carried that hope across the finish line.
I'm reading that differently. The moment Luke is brought before the emperor is the moment everything else becomes literally and figuratively the background. But there, in that room; Luke, Vader, and Palpatine will decide the fate of the galaxy between them.
The second Death Star's destruction or survival in that moment no longer matters. As Vader put it: "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." The three of them know this. The empire, and thus the need for a rebellion, ended with the destruction of Palpatine and Vader's return to the light.
I don't mean to imply your perspective isn't valid, but I don't think I'm going to be easily swayed from mine.
"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan."
"I LITERALLY murdered my way through about a dozen people to watch this ship flee FIVE MINUTES AGO!"
"Luke, do you live on a Death World?" is my new favorite take on Tatooine. Catachan, meet me outside the local Denny's.
1:10:26 "Reverse Hero's Journey" reminded me of how Rose Quartz' character was revealed in Steven Universe. I'd love to see a Detail Diatribe on that, but there's probably tons of think-pieces on it already, and I don't know if you were all that invested in Steven Universe.
I want to say, I think the most important moment in Star Wars, the literal defining moment and character of the franchise... is Darth Maul and the fight against him.
Before Phantom Menace, Star Wars was the story and setting of the Empire vs the Rebel Alliance. You can see this in secondary media at the time, such as games like X-Wing/Tie Fighter, Dark Forces 1, and Rebel Assault 1/2. In many of these early games it's all blasters and Stormtroopers.
Phantom Menace, by virtue of being set before the Empire was a thing, separated the identity of the franchise from the geopolitical setting. Then, the amazing spectacle of the lightsaber fight, and of Maul having a non-standard lightsaber, combined with Jedi/The Force being the only thematic element connecting prequel and sequel... This single moment became the identity of the franchise. The Force, Jedi vs Sith. That was what Star Wars was all about. Notice how in secondary media since, it's pretty much guaranteed that your protagonist has a lightsaber and will at some point fight someone with a red lightsaber. (Even though "The Rule of Two" should make red lightsabers impossibly uncommon.)
Mandalorian, Rogue One, and Andor are exceptions, and to me at least feel like deliberate attempts to explore the setting in a new light after about 20 years of "If Star Wars, then Lightsaber."
Equally interesting is that very small 'phantom menace' era before things really codified into 'the clone wars' and 'the galactic civil war'. The fact that some games just had gungans vs droids as their 'prequel' representation seems completely silly now, of course...
Mandalorian was great, when it stuck to that. But now 😢.
This puts into perspective something my mother and I both talk about with this film (and my mother is someone who remembers Episode 4 with the original title, "The Adventure of Luke Skywalker") : initially, we both believed Chirrut should have disappeared from the battleground, becoming a Force-ghost like Obi Wan, Yoda and even Luke himself later on. He was Force sensitive and had faith in it enough to help guide his steps in normal life and in combat, so him becoming a Force ghost seemed like a logical and fitting ending that the film never gave him.
Now I understand why he didn't disappear- he can't. That would mean affording Chirrut the same narrative weight as Luke or Leia, and that wasn't the point of the story. Like you said, the characters in this part of the story deserve better, and they can hope and fight for better
Thank you for opening with the rant about episode 4's actual lack of lightsabers. I see everyone nowadays griping about how bad lightsaber choreography are in the prequel and sequel trilogies compared to the OG trilogy, which to me always makes me think "You mean like the very first lightsaber duel we ever see where two old men gently prod each other with the tips? THAT's what you're holding up as the pinnacle of lightsaber choreography?"
Anyone who said Duel of the Fate's choreography is bad compared to the original trilogy is just a salty mfer.
Well, Vader v Obi-wan is certainly the most *realistic* swordfight of them all. If you've ever done kendo or HEMA, there are a *lot* of fights that consist of slowly closing the distance and feeling out your opponent's reflexes before a quick exchange determines the outcome. It doesn't make for a very exciting fight, but it is reasonably true to life.
I've literally never heard someone call the lightsaber choreography of the prequels bad.
@@Obi-Wan_Kenobi It's bad. Lots of useless movement and spinning the sabers where there's no target. Ever see that gif of Anakin and Obi wan spinning in front of each other for a solid second?
Vader vs Old Ben = Give ‘em the tip! 😂
As a long time EU reader, this is a really fun video, because it feels like people who just found Heir to the Empire or the X-Wing books.
Star Wars has always been goofy fun set against a fun world and when people with stories to tell find it they can do a lot with those stories.
Rogue One and Andor are easily the best written Star Wars we’ve gotten out of Disney, very possibly out of Star Wars period (I’d make a case for the Episode III novelization as being up too there but I know it would be a hard sell) but the sorta surprise some people, not necessarily Red and Blue show for the idea of telling Great stories in Star Wars will never get old.
That potential has been there the whole time, and people have done it before. But it’s always nice to see it happen again.
Great diatribe as always. Thanks for a really enjoyable 2 hour listen!
After Red struck Blue down with her seldom used lightsaber, Blue became a glowing, old blue ghost and perpetually knowingly smirked at Red for the rest of her life.
Wait...! Which episode was this? It explains so much but I must've missed it! :P
1:14:11 in Star Wars Rebels, one of the main Jedi, Kanan Jarrus was a padawan that survived because his master sacrificed herself and stalled so he could get away.
Regarding Palpatine being the emperor being a twist. I very specifically remember being a child and getting Phantom Menace stuff as part of a happy meal or something and there was a little piece of paper showing characters and how they related to characters in the OT. It showed Luke and Leia as Anakin’s children, it showed little linkages between Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness, Anakin and Vader, etc. Then it showed that same link between Senator Palpatine and the Emperor and my little mind exploded. So based on that and the fact that Ian played the character in both Jedi and Phantom Menace, I don’t think it was meant to be a twist to anyone but my six year old self.
I think - and it might be my memory playing tricks on me - that if you were familiar with Star Wars extended materials, it was already known that the the Emperor was "Emperor Palpatine", making his appearance in Episode 1 obvious. But if you were film-only, this could have been a twist, yes.
@@Talyrionyeah, it was pretty out there, but the Lucasfilm marketing machine was desperately going ‘oh they might not be the same character, they’re in completely different scenes’ for the whole 6 years of the PT
I knew the Palpatine in the movie was going to be the Emperor because I played the 1998 game "Star Wars: Rebellion" a lot, and the Emperor is named as such. Maybe I read the name in some of the Expanded Universe novels too, I don't remember.
I don't know when the Emperor was first named Palpatine, but was definitely some time before Episode 1.
“Emperor Palpatine” goes all the way back to Alan Dean Foster’s novelization. [Digs out 48-year old paperback.] Halfway down the first page in the prologue:
“[…] the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. […]
“Once secure in his office, he declared himself emperor […]
What you were saying about hope- Red VS Blue had Church/Epsilon give a final goodbye speech that wrapped up how hope and trust are interwoven together *so* beautifully. Highly recommend looking it up, it’s quite a grounded yet dramatic way of stating it.
Its so nice to hear and talk about what good is in Star Wars conaidering the Fanbase only ever screams about the "negative" aspects.
So... the Emperor had the last name Palpatine in the 1990's novels and video games, so for those of us that grew up on the expanded universe, we knew who Chancellor Palpatine was as soon as he showed up. Also, you know, Ian McDurmond.
Red+ Blue+ Slideshow= Just a good ol’ time!
Luke absolutely lives on a death planet, that's why he's like this. Raiders and scavengers are a fact of life and the closest civilization is "a hive of scum and villainy". You can see by how careful he is when talking to the bar patrons who pick a fight that he's dealt with LOTS of rough characters.
I was 18 when Episode I came out. I didn't know that the the Emperor and Senator Palpatine were played by the same actor but I did already know that the emperor's name was Palpatine (I can't remember precisely why; maybe the Expanded Universe material; but I did know) so as soon as they said his name, I knew what was happening. And then by the time they name him Chancellor and he tells Anakin that he'll have to keep an eye on him, I immediately did some heavy DiCaprio pointing.
I was maybe 11. .5 seconds after I first saw Sideous, I knew he was the Emperor. I mean, it was the exact same costume and the exact same voice. then *senator* Palpatine (who I knew also from EU sources) was introduced and I'm like, "well". not only that but when Yoda and Windu are talking about the mysterious sith master during the funeral, the camera focuses on Palpatine, and the Naboo Victory March was the throne room theme from ROTJ in a major key. so the clues WERE there for people to pick up on. but contrast that with my dad, who despite being a MASSIVE fan, who watched the OT over and over, didn't pick up on it even AFTER ROTS. I had to flat out *TELL* him the Emperor was Darth Sideous *YEARS* later. I still don't know how he was ignorant for so long. it's likely the single most obvious bit of foreshadowing in the history of cinema, with every possible trick in the book used to hang a lampshade on it
I wanna say one of the OG trilogy had the emperor listed in the credit roll as 'Emperor Palpatine', because I had the same reaction.
YES! I've had the same thoughts for so long! It's nice seeing someone spend so much time on this.
In addition, I'd like to discuss how the Prequels, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and all the Jedi stories have been steadily making Vader's redemption scene way more impactful in the same way that the Prequels, Andor, and Rogue One have made Luke's "one in a million" shot ever more meaningful. During the Original Trilogy, Vader's redemption scene reads as Luke's triumph over the Emperor, for Vader listened to his son instead of his master, and so the rebels won. Yay!
While this scene works great for the "classic hero" story that the Original Trilogy is, it was not until the Prequels that Vader's redemption got deeper meaning added to it. In line with the Prequel's Shakespearean goals, the prophecy of the Chosen One was introduced, where the audience learned that (presumably) Anakin was destined to bring balance to the Force. During the Prequels, it also became clear that the Emperor was not just politically evil, but also a mystically evil Sith Lord. Thus, the audience began to see how Vader's redemption was remarkable on this epic prophetic scale. This new meaning was further heightened by Order 66, which caused the fall of the Jedi, and the destruction of the balance of the Force. And of course, Anakin's personal fall to the Dark Side added some personal meaning to his character arc as Vader. Now, Vader's redemption was not just Luke's triumph over the Emperor, but also the fulfillment of an epic prophecy, the triumph of the Jedi over the Sith, justice for Order 66, and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker from his tragic fall.
However, unfortunately, the Prequels did not have the best execution, so Order 66 didn't feel all that sad, the prophecy of the Chosen One wasn't elaborated on, and Anakin's fall felt rushed.
Enter the Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Fallen Order, and the rest of "the Jedi stories." In the decades since the Prequels, these stories have expanded upon the Prequel's aims by adding more depth, explanation, and EMOTIONAL IMPACT to the Prequel's concepts. Clone Wars gave Anakin's fall the time it needed while dabbling with the Chosen One, making the Jedi and Sith more interesting and meaningful, and giving Order 66 all the emotional weight it deserved. Bad Batch also expanded upon Order 66 a bit, as did Fallen Order and the rest of the Jedi stories.
With this added context, Vader's redemption scene from "Return of the Jedi" has come to be a lot more than Luke's victory over the Emperor. Now, it is the culmination of Star Wars' story. Every new Order 66 scene makes the Jedi's fall all the more tragic, and Vader and Luke righting those wrongs all the more meaningful. What was once a cool scene, has now become a deeply symbolic and triumphant scene in the same way that Rogue One and Andor have made Luke's destruction of the Death Star much more heroic.
Star Wars is certainly not perfect, but I admire how its storytellers have been working to add more layers to previous stories, so that scenes, ideas, or character arcs that were good can become great, and things didn't previously sit right (like Anakin's rushed fall to the Dark Side), can become as good as the original creator had envisioned.
There is actually a line in Revenge of the Sith with the express purpose of making sure there can be many surviving Jedi.
It’s when Yoda & Obi-wan Storm the Temple.
It’s when they talk about how they sent a warning from the temples database.
That line lets you think about Jedi that are out there in hiding.
Nothings been defanged.
When your setting is an entire Galaxy, it would honestly be less believable to only have 2 Jedi left alive.
I remember hearing numbers along the lines of there having been around 10,000 Jedi when Order 66 hit, and 99% of them died in the course of Order 66 - if those numbers are accurate, 100 or more Jedi were likely to have survived. In media we've seen so far after Revenge of the Sith, we have seen at most like 20-35 survivors, as well as Maul and Ventress, who all survived despite being targets of Order 66. With how big the galaxy is and how few Jedi there were, we've seen a perfectly reasonable amount of surviving Jedi lol
People who watched the original series first would have to disagree. The defanging is that line itself. It retcons the lore from the original 3 (that there weren't any other surviving jedi).
Even with this, just grant some wriggle room and say some other jedi live and I'd still have no issue. Yoda was a surprise after all, why not others? However, the actual lessening in meaning of order 66 isn't just that other jedi live, its the excessive granting of plot armour and main character status to every single character we see in any new Star Wars media. The reason that Rogue One and Andor are so great is that it they're the only 2 that don't do this.
The point isn't that everything new sucks, it's that the feeling that Luke was the last, great hope for the galaxy is pretty much lost now due to all the other plot armoured, main character jedi. If that's not your jam, then feel free to think otherwise, but don't discredit the loss Star Wars has suffered from gaining all those new characters.
Plus, they don't have to be the Big Hero of The Galaxy. They can be the protector of a planet or moon in the middle of nowhere, protecting the handful of Force Sensitive children living on a farm or somesuch.
Now that I think about it, that would be an interesting little aside. Like that Clone Wars episode where a random clone turns out to have made a life for himself separate from the war with a wife and kid.
@@peggyliepmann5248 case in point, that’s what most of the side quests in Jedi Survivor amount to - Cal arrives in a small prospector’s outpost on the planet Koboh where his friend and pilot Greez had recently bought a cantina, and the outpost serves as your base of operations for the story. Cal’s first action after arriving in town is to chase off some bandits, and half the things you do in the area around the outpost is help the residents with whatever trouble rears its head lol
Going off of that, one of the things The Bad Batch series does well is clarifying why people forgot about the Jedi so quickly. After all, by Episode 4, only 19 years had passed since Order 66, so surely quite a few must remember the space wizards, right? But the thing is is that Order 66 was so nearly complete (about 99% died off) and the Empire came in so quickly due to the success of the Republic during the Clone Wars that by the time of Fallen Order, naught 5 years later, the Jedi became just a memory in the eyes of everyday galactic citizens. That's why the Bad Batch's first episode begins with what happened to Kanan during Order 66: the following episodes show just how fast the Empire came into power across entire star systems, reinforcing that the Jedi were extinct among a populace that had grown increasingly antagonistic towards them during the war, to the point where by the end of the series, just a year or two later, the Empire has acquired full control over the planets and minds of the galaxy. If Andor is about the contradictory cruelties of fascism, why some people choose to enforce it, and why & how others fight against it, The Bad Batch is about the dangers of fascism during the years right after it comes to power and just how easily it wrenches control from people, while callously abandoning those it deems unworthy for the new regime.
Now begging you guys to watch Rebels and The Bad Batch because 1) rebels' characters are SO good and the way they set up Ezra to parallel Luke is mmm so incredible, and the found family is done SO WELL, and oh my god, you guys would LOVE Kallus 2) The Bad Batch takes the five-man band archetypes and does something really special with them, while also expanding the world through the eyes of a clone who never gets forced into the 'clone-soldier' archetype because she's able to escape the Empire basically as soon as Order 66 is over. I love these videos and the way you deconstruct and put the story back together!
Fun Fact: In the Star Wars 2015 comic run in Marvel comics, Luke went to Jedha post-Rogue One and learned of their sacrifices.
Later on, Luke was inspired to name himself and other pilots as Rouge Squadron as tribute.
someone pls pin this bc this still makes me ill in the greatest way possible, angst for DAYSSS
There's a Tumblr post that goes around about how the Rogue One team becomes like a prayer, how rebels invoke their names and their sacrifice to remember what they did, throwing a light into the future.
I also absolutely believe that Luke finds out about it, and sometimes senses them when heading out to fly with Rogue Squadron. Maybe not a full Force Ghost, but still a memory.
If you'll excuse me, I just made myself misty eyed...
@@peggyliepmann5248 Is there a canon source or is it headcanon? That’s nice either way.
New favourite Detail Diatribe unlocked.
I have a deep affection for the heartfelt tragedy of Rogue One. I remember people thinking it was really mid around release, basically because it wasn't a Hero's Journey like we'd come to expect from the 6 previous movies. It kind of clicked for me that it's not Supposed to be. It's the connection point between the prequels & the originals. It's the inciting incident. It's a Tragedy.
And it's so good! It's an hours-long gut-punch that's designed to show you the depths of despair that is the struggle of resistance against an evil Empire, & at the end to remind you that there's always hope.
"did Luke grow up on a death world?"
The Force made Tatooine to test the faithful.
As it was written
28:35 Another problem with Order 66 in the prequels is that it contradicts the impression given in episodes 4-6, namely that the Jedi were hunted down, one by one, gradually, over the course of years.
That slower burn would've presented a way to thwart the, "Padme dies from Big Sad," by having her on the run from Vader for years, hiding the twins, then finally dying either serving the rebellion, or killing herself to keep from being captured by Vader. Which would also be a worthy plot-twist.
Though they did eventually clarify that it did happen like that, with whatever remnants of the Jedi were left being gradually eliminated by Inquisitors over the years until they numbered but a few individuals. That's honestly one of the best things about Rebels: it gave an answer to how the Empire ensured that Order 66 would be successful and perpetuated the myth of the Jedi's total extinction. If even a mention of Jedi made it to them, they would ensure that rumors remained only rumors. Order 66 was the initial firestorm, and the Inquisitors snuffed out what was left.
I think we can all agree nowadays, "complicated" for Star Wars is an understatement
Why does it feel like SW productions these days are made by MBAs and not creative tyoes
@@theforcedmeme well the old expand universe definitely has it problems, it did had more creative and feel like wanted to explore stuff like universe and the force rather what Disney doing most of the time
Nah. "Complicated" and "unbelievably stupid" are polar opposite
The fandom menace complicated things.
@@anonymousname5860 Okay, "Fandom Menace" is such a fitting name for the toxic parts of the fandom. I'm keeping that.
I also think that one reason the Vader scene smacks so hard is you just watched a bunch of normal people struggle through the bones of the Jedi's civilization to sacrifice everything BECAUSE they didn't have anyone cable of effectively wielding lightsabers. It shows how much the lightsaber represents, turning the kyber crystal and thus the lightsaber into a physical representation of hope, and the terrible consequences when a powerful person twists that hope.
Also the force and stuff.
I left this movie SOBBING and honestly I'm still not sure why. Had to see Darth Vader choke a guy through blurry vision. Why was I sad when everyone died in the movie about how everybody dies
The same reason so many people went to see Titanic - it's the journey, not the destination.
I remember seeing the movie shortly after Carrie Fisher died, so seeing Leia broke me completely and I had to sit until the end of the credits to stop crying
Your comments on Darth Vader as a horror movie villain remind me of his first real appearance in Star Wars: Rebels. Through season 1 the rebels were getting cocky with their successes. When he confronts the hero and his mentor (Ezra and Kanan), they first become aware of him as an intense and cold presence in the Force all around them. He then proceeds to utterly humiliate them in combat, nearly killing Ezra, and they barely escape through a desperate distraction. It serves as a motivator for them to start taking training seriously.
That context for the Kenobi show just opened my eyes for me. " 3.5 not 4-.5 for tone" is a perfect description
Not to go too off-topic, but the universe feeling wider and more lived in is why I actually really enjoyed the reveal in The Last Jedi that Rey was a nobody. It opened up the world and made it more than just the Skywalkers and Palpatines and Kenobis and Yodas. Aaaaaand then Episode 9 came in and shit on everything.
Oh gosh, the "I can't swim" was such a Rogue One-ish gut-punch pain and horror moment
1:15:25 To add on to Blue’s point, Order 66 did essentially work by the time A New Hope rolls around. To my knowledge, by the time Luke starts his journey, there are no Jedi around fighting the good fight, or Inquisitors to hunt them. They’ve all either died or retired in some way, opening the way for Luke to be the Hero(tm)
Wait… lightsaber? I thought Luke’s father gift for his son was a good pair of Cerveza Cristal. Has the internet been lying to me?
ummmmm. no, the internet aka me, would never lie to you.
The Cerveza Cristal is a medium to see and use the Force. Drink from the proffered liquid, and you will unlock talents that alter the mind, perception, and many more.
He who controls the Cerveza Cristal controls the universe
I would buy a shirt with ‘Darth Vader didn’t put on the suit because it was Versace’❤ 18:37
The line Red says about 'it had to be Luke...or maybe Leia', reminds me about Steven Universe and the common conplaint that the protagonist talks his way to peace.
It only works because it's Steven. Because the leadership of the Homeworld Gems are willing to give him the leeway to speak at all because of who he is in relationship to them. No one else would have been given the chance to begin with even if they were ten times as convincing as Steven was. None of that matters, just the fact that they consider Steven one of them and so his opinion holds some intrinsic value to them.
This has got to be one of your best Detail Diatribes ever. Red, every time you point out what Star Wars did right and wrong is a treat. I can see the flow chart of prequel trilogy world breaks turn into original trilogy world gets fixed so clearly. Beautiful 😙
Man, I really enjoy seeing you talk about things I barely know about. But I LOVE seeing you two talk about things I do know about, because it shows how much I kinda understand, but can't trully internalize, or put into words, and it's "Oh yeah, you are compeltely right! THAT's why it made me cry/felt so good!" Thank you, from the bottom of my inky heart.
As for Kanan in Rebels - he survived because his Master Depa Billaba (a no-lines Jedi Councilmember from Episode I) told him to run, and even then he only survived because Hunter, a Bad Batch Clone whose Protocol 66 inhibitor chip was faulty, made a call and let the kid escape - a call that cost him his friendship with Crosshair, another Bad Batch clone whose chip was faulty but still activated with Order 66 to some extent. The Bad Batch is kinda like Andor in that it slaps by telling a story of non-force users who don't have that plot armour but have crackshot skills trying to survive in the wake of the Empire. And the show does some great set up and clean up for other stories (even outlining the some of how Palpatine returned).
"I love context" *looks at the first third of the super sayan detail diatribe* you sure do!
*looks at the first three quarters of the castlevania detail diatribe* yeah, I'd say
"Truly Anakin's you must be" killed me 🤣
Rogue One hits extra different after Andor
There is a reason I rewatch the 'Doomed Heroes' Trope Talks just for the 'Casting a Light into the Future' segment. Thank you for giving Rogue One this Detailed Diatribe treatment.
Bothans died in the lead up to Return of the Jedi. They got the plans for the Death Star-2.
Death Star 2: Electric Boogaloo
The theme of both the heroes and the villains of Rogue One being unprepared to handle the power-scaling of the rest of the Star Wars universe is well summed up by Vader himself:
“Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”