From: un032221@wvnvms.wvnet.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
Subject: Re: Next Swars movieskip
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:28:31 GMT
Organization: West Virginia Network for Educational Telecomputing

In article <BwsrM0.34p@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, sjs28257@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Stelter) writes:
> un032221@wvnvms.wvnet.edu writes:
> 
>>In article <1c4el6INNkmi@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>>> un032221@wvnvms.wvnet.edu writes:
>>> 
>>>>	What?  I take it this means that it won't be based on the Zahn books?
>>>>Is Hammill bald now or something?  If he is, I wish they would just leave
>>>>his ass out of the picture.  If nothing else I'd like to see an attempt at
>>>>making Zahn's books a movie, because they do capture alot of the spirit that
>>>>the films did.  
>>> 
>>> No way.  Those books are garbage and don't even fit into the Star Wars 
>>> universe.  They should be burned, not immortalized on film.
>>> 
>>> keith
>>> 
>>	And what about them makes them garbage?  I thought they were pretty
>>damned good.  Maybe there is a little to much talk for the movie, but tell me
>>one book that doesn't get cut and edited when transformed into a movie!  The
>>books were fast paced, had alot of action, and I thought they were excellent. 
>>I just want to know what about them you thought was "garbage".
> 
> Editing the books enough to make them even remotely close to the Star Wars
> genre would take so much effort that Lucas might as well just write a 
> completely mew story himself.  I agree that the books are garbage.

	I disagree.  They have all the pieces for the Star Wars genre.  They
are fast paced, have a mix of ship-ship battle, and person-person, they (as
someone pointed out earlier) have alot happening in few locales, they involve
the main characters depending on each other's skills to bail them out (and not
just Luke's Jedi skills).  They are perfectly acceptable SW material.
 
> The villains are nondescript and almost completely devoid of menace.

	I'm sorry, having a psycho Jedi master is scarier than the stinking
Emperor.  The Emperor, you always knew what he was going to do and say, with
C'Baoth (sp?) you never know what that crazy fucker is up to.  The Noghri are
the evil turning good characters, like Vader in the trilogy, and if demonic
asassins aren't menacing, you're fucked in the head.  Thrawn is the scariest. 
What is more dangerous than an enemy that knows you're moves before you do? 
I'll admit, the reasoning was weak.  Ok, so one major discrepancy isn't that
bad.  Certainly not enough to make it "garbage".

>  We
> have Thrawn, who can predict the entire military strategy of a species
> just by looking at a piece of sculpture.  Not only is this rationale for
> Thrawn's military expertise ridiculous (even for the Star Wars universe),
> it is totally unnecessary: it is enough (and, IMHO, more effective) to
> say that Thrawn is a successful tactician because he's a smart guy with
> lots of skill and cunning, and let it go at that.
> 
	Ok, this I agree with, but you have to realise that if he knew what
they were going to do, and didn't explain it off somehow, you'd be bitching
about how they didn't explain it, and you know it.

> C'baoth is pathetic.  He steals Force powers and dialogue directly from
> Vader and the Emperor, yet is less menacing than either.  We are supposed
> to fear C'baoth because he hopes to subvert Luke to the Dark Side, but
> did anyone think, even for a minute, that Luke would be fooled even for
> a moment by this old coot when his own father couldn't convince him to
> turn to the Dark Side?  Moreover, C'baoth's main strength--his Force
> power--is usually neutralized by a conveniently located ysalamiri.  Not
> much to fear from this guy.
> 
	Hello, McFly?  C'Baoth doesn'
t want to turn Luke to the Dark Side, he wants to make him a crazy fucker like
himself, and had the Ysalamiri not arrived with Mara, he would've succeeded!!!
The Ysalamiri, were certainly a plot device, but I think they are as good a
plot device as they get.  Thrawn couldn't have been a Jedi himself, or you'd be
whining all the more about plot contriving.  So, they had to have an outside
Jedi that would obey Thrawn, and I think they did it damned well.  They proved
that the Ysalamiri couldn't stop Joruus 100% anyway.

> Pellaeon exists only so that Thrawn can have someone to talk to.  He has
> no personality of his own.  He's a nobody.
> 
	Actually, I kinda liked him.  He was someone to be on our level, as
sort of Thrawn's disciple.  He was necessary, and is not a main villian, so
your griping is pointless on this one.

> The ysalamiri bit is not only ludicrous (an animal which conveniently 
> does absolutely nothing except drown out the Force) but tedious, and
> an obvious plot device.  Whenever Zahn wants to have a Force-using
> character present, but doesn't feel like accounting for this character's
> Jedi powers--toss in a ysalamiri!
> 
	Would you rathar have had a rock, like kryptonite that shunted Jedi
powers?  The ysalamiri were a good way to account for Joruus's insanity I
thought.  Maybe this is the problem.  You're to busy analyzing the books to
enjoy them.  Try this, for a change read the book as if it were entertainment,
and not a scientific accounting.  Ok?

> And if I had a dime for every time Zahn uses the word "sardonic" or
> "sardonically"...
> 
	You'd still be poor.  :)

> If a post-ROTJ movie trilogy is made, Lucas had better just write his
> own story instead of basing it on Zahn's "work."
> 
>                                    --Steve Stelter
>                                      sjs28257@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu

	You take life, and yourself to seriously "Mr. Stelter"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars