You know I love you like a brother, Ace. Or at least, as much like a brother as two people who've never met and who don't know each other's names are capable of.

But I saw ROTS yesterday and, uh, it kind of rocked. Hard.

Not a perfect movie by any means, but I think it's time to ease off Lucas's tits a little.

Let me just bust out this quote from New Yorker writer Anthony Lane, when he paraphrased Yoda to sum up his review of RotS,
"Break me a fucking give." 

I had read, a long time ago, that Lucas originally intended the saga to be in 9 parts...with Episodes VII-IX being about events after the fall of the Empire, following Luke, Leia, Han, etc. as they rebuild the Republic.

Lucas isn't getting any younger, so maybe he scrapped this idea a while ago. But, after making a barrel full of money on these 3 movies, maybe he's thinking about it again?

O creator of worlds, that's what I'm talking about.

I paid American cash money to see it twice, something I haven't done since ... uh ... Big Lebowski might be the last movie I saw more than once in the theater (wasn't that like eight years ago?)

Ace, you are the Funny Master, but your hate has blinded you to the power of (I Claudius + Flash Gordon + Jimmy Smits = ROTS).

Brian,

I read the same thing in the New York Times. They had their reviews for all 6 SW films and in one of them it was noted Lucas intended there to be nine movies. I sincerely doubt any more movies will be made, though.

This story smells... odd. Lucas has been saying the only going-forward SW will be a tv series set between RotS and ANH, with none of the main characters of the films.

Besides -- a prequel to the prequel? Wouldn't doing Eps. 7-9 make more sense?

Yeah, and ace respects your opinion on ROTS as much as he would respect the opinion of anyone who refuses to have a beer with him.

I was watching Empire Strikes Back the other night when a question occured to me that has been bugging me all day:

In the scene where Luke first meets Yoda, why does he Yoda like such a fucking idiot?

There he is laughing like PeeWee Herman, grabbing food, chucking Luke's supplies around, banging on R-2 with his walking stick, and the next thing you know he's the sober and wise Jedi Master.

We never see even a hint of these antics again, either in Empire or in the prequels.

So, what the fuck? Was it just a big act? If so, to what purpose?

Ace, you missed the good news:

"Lucas does not need money after the success of the first six films and will try and take a back-seat throughout production."

Great news for 'Star Wars' fans - a seventh blockbusting film is being planned for the series.

NOOOOOO0000ooooo!

I do completely agree about Yoda, though. I watched Attack of the Clones on DVD the night before I went to see ROTS, and in both films they put that same stupid smirk on his face when he turns his lightsaber on before his big fight scene.

Menacing, "I'm about to kick your ass" facial expressions don't quite work on wizened green alien midgets, you know?

How about a Han Solo/Chewbacca/Lando/Jabba backstory? That would be sweet, more cowbell and slice like a hammer!

Also, maybe not the best idea to base Yoda's fighting technique around flips and lunges and high-pitched shrieks. It reminds me of Miss Piggy.

Great. Just great. Considering Lucas's current core audience I see 10 years' worth of movies about Jedi teenagers travelling around in a van and solving left-over Sith mysteries, with Yoda as Shaggy and Chewbacca as Scoobie.

Yoda: "The brownies, we must eat."

Chewbacca: "Rye rike rownies! Reaarrgh!"

Yup. Turns out that farmer Jeb was a former Sith Lord who just wanted to scare them New Republic yuppies away so he could keep his illegal faux-lightsaber black market goin'. He'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for them damn kids.

Out of curiosity, how could Yoda possibly be the star of the new SW since he dies in ROTJ? This story doesn't smell right.

more prequelage, dude. The stories would be set back 100 years before the latest trilogy.

Hahaha I knew it. You know damn well this will happen. HE's gonna make the TV shows, then in a few years say that the technology has finally caught up to his "vision" and he'll make some more movies. Of course, he'll say it's what he planned all along. Hell, the man made two "Ewok" movies. A couple of "Yoda" prequels is nothing. Just wait until the sequels. It will happen

> Was it just a big act? If so, to what purpose?

As soon as Ben's ghost sent Luke to Dagobah, he rang up Yoda and said, "Hey, Vader's kid is on the way. Yank his chain a little."

I figure after hanging around Dagobah that long, anyone would be pretty much nuts.

He was testing Luke's patience and self-control. Things his father didn't exactly rate highly on.

Yoda is only cool as the wise hermit master of a dead religion living on a swamp planet. When you see him in a megapolis setting saying shit like "Long time to reconfigure the transmitter it will take" he sucks.

I doubt there will be a 7,8,9, unless it's set after the heros of 4,5,6 are dead. Carrie Fisher would have to wear a mumu instead of a metal bikini, so what's the point?

Well the New Jedi Order series of books was pretty popular. That took place after Leia had 3 kids, so it could work with the original actors. And Luke's wife is a hottie.
But if Lucas is going to let that stay, he has to go to the "past" for fresh material. Either that or let Tim Zahn write the damn thing.
He's kind of a victim of his own success, what with the popularity of the KOTOR series of games.

I don't want to sound gay or nothin', but Willow was pretty damned cool

Allah wrote:

You know I love you like a brother, Ace. Or at least, as much like a brother as two people who've never met and who don't know each other's names are capable of.

But I saw ROTS yesterday and, uh, it kind of rocked. Hard.

Not a perfect movie by any means, but I think it's time to ease off Lucas's tits a little.

Thank you, Allah. ALLAH HU AKBAR!

I tried to warn Ace not to go in with a sourpuss attitude, but he didn't listen. He went in determined to hate the movie, and he did. And now he continues to speak of it as if it's every bit as bad as Episodes I and II. It saddens me that he chose this path.

I know a whole slew of people (in real life) who hated Episodes I and II, and all but one of them liked -- in most cases really liked -- Episode III. The one exception still thought it was OK.

With Episode I, we had legions of fanboys who couldn't admit it wasn't great (and, yes, I fit that description for a time). But now it seems the new cool thing to do is to trash Star Wars, and we have the opposite, legions of anti-fanboys that refuse to even consider that Episode III is a good movie.

Note that virtually everyone that hates the movie says essentially the same thing: "It sucked, just like I knew it would".

This is the third time the comment software has screwed up my quotes. Grrr...

Christ Ace, if you're going to bash Newsweek for your references, why don't you try a little fact-checking yourself?

Bullshit. Or, bullshit. Or-- hey! REAL bullshit.

"I was vacationing at the Mandarin Oriental in Hawaii for my honeymoon in 2004. I ran into George Lucas and his family on the beach there. I was sitting in a hammock, just about to get up, and he asked me if I was done. I said yes and began to leave...."

Hey, why does this sound *exactly* like a Star Wars geek version of a letter to Penthouse Forum? Because that's what it is-- a chance for some Jar-Jar to shoot bacta all over his wookie.

Honestly, hasn't everyone learned by now that absolutely nothing printed in a British tabloid is ever real? Especially when it concerns things like James Bond casting rumors, or "I met George Lucas on the beach and he told me and only me the secret plan for his billion-dollar universe" stories?

Now, there *will* be a television show, or at least that's the plan. The exact plotline is still a mystery, but the rumor-- the legitimate rumor-- is that it will be set between Episodes III & IV (Star Wars, to us old timers). And that it will focus on periphereal characters, i.e., folks who will work for scale impersonating Lando "Colt .45" Calrissian or someone similar.

As for Lucas, he is going to go off and make real movies again, and leave Lucasfilm and ILM to reap whatever spinoff profits are left in the stone.

Fear not, Ace. Haven't you heard? Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. And suffering leads to fucking British tabloids.

Seriously, if you ever get any more Star Wars rumors and are too lazy to fact-check them, you can always simply ask me. I'm a much more dependable geek on this subject than most.

Really, I would turn to *you* when it comes to the proper use of a vorpal blade, or why black pudding is affected by fire but not by cold when freezing makes the most sense. After all, you're the benevolent-yet-strict DM of the blogosphere.

Don't reward the munchkins.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Hey Ace? I saw this movie and I really, really liked it, but I read your review of it and saw that you didn't like it. Well, you're WRONG, and you only didn't like it because you went to see it with a "bad attitude." (Like, you're not like other people who can be won over by something you thought was bad that turned out to be not so bad or even good.)

So, you should say you liked this movie. Because I liked it.

He should do movie #7, so he can bring back the characters we liked. Heck, it writes itself (when you lift from Dune): Han Solo, king of Tattoony, getting deposed by the Hutt; Leia, growing haughty, ambiguously evil like grown up Alia from Dune (the new dark side); Luke, nowhere to be found but rumors of a powerful desert wanderer called "the Profit" abound. Can't yet tell if he's good or bad. At the very end of #7, Luke is revealed to be the profit. Solo is on the run. Luke joins. They team up to stop Leia from ruining the galaxy and to save her as well. In the ninth episode, Leia is brought back over to the bright and shiny side.

badabing badaboom

Oh, yeah. By then, Solo and Leia have kids who help as well.

I didn't like ROTS, and I even liked Hudson Hawk.

I thought I was the only one who liked (parts of) Hudson Hawk.

The internet allows strange individuals with odd interests to find each other.

The internet allows strange individuals with odd interests to find each other.

Unabrewer-- trust me, ROTS loses a lot when in Chinese.

I loved ROTS, but only because the good guys win. The fight choreography was much better, and after ROTS the duel in Episode IV is going to luck plain silly.

Anyway, Death to the Jedi.