resinrats

What they should do for the big bad is take one of those guys in the conference room in ANH and have it be him. Nothing says they stayed on the Death Star after the meeting.

Josh-da-man

Could be Darth Plagueis who has been manipulating events the entire time, from his murder by his apprentice, Darth Sidious, up to the sequel trilogy, and tie the whole saga together.

kgrogers1979

That's what I want more than the return of Sidious.

I really liked the very brief backstory of Plagueis in Episode III. It did somewhat set up Dark Empire as actually being possible since it mentions Plagueis knew the trick to cheating death and he taught it to Sidious. Well, maybe if Plagueis actually could cheat death, then maybe he did survive Sidious backstabbing him and Plagueis is actually still alive.

Sean O'Hara

Please no. Any connection to the prequels should be kept to the minimum -- a couple references are okay, but don't tie the plot down with mythology. That's what killed Star Trek.

Michael Corvin

Yep. Move along and pretend they don't exist.

kgrogers1979

They can easily use Plagueis without tying it to the prequel trilogy. Sidious was the villain in the original trilogy as well, you know, so they could just say something like Plagueis was the Emperor's master.

Plagueis was only briefly mentioned in passing in Episode III. Most people in the audience won't remember his name, so it could just easily be a wink and a nod easter egg that some people would get and others won't get at all without effecting the plot one bit.

Kind of like how in the Days of Future Past movie, Quicksilver mentioned that his mother knew a man who could control metal, which is a reference to Magneto being his father, but many people wouldn't get the reference and it wouldn't effect the plot one bit.

I'm pretty sure the whole Sidiuous/Plagueis knowing how to cheat death was a wink and nod easter egg towards Dark Empire too as I said previously. Most people in the audience certainly didn't get it though, and it certainly didn't effect the plot one bit if you didn't get the reference.

TGM

http://movieweb.com/hasbro-star-wars...-awakens-toys/

leaked toy catalog, with lots of cool stuff.

interesting that there are no new figures of the original big three as older versions.

Sean O'Hara

Most interesting revelation for me -- they still make Micro Machines and Furbies.

GuessWho

Really? I thought it obviously meant the ability to become a ghost. The Sith never quite figured it out, but Qui-Gon opened that door up for the Jedi side.

Rob V

I gotta say that many of those designs look pretty un-inspired. I think I'll pass on most 3.75" figures this time around and stick with Lego only.

kgrogers1979

Becoming a ghost isn't cheating death. You have to die to become a ghost. The Sith are all about the "ultimate power" so cheating death to them would be never dying in the first place.

GuessWho

In our earth terms, yeah, supposed ghosts are dead people... but in a galaxy, far far away with Jedi powers and philosphies, they may not see it as "die, become ghost" but more "leave physical body, continue in new phase of life/existence"



Bottom line, I thought the eternal life chatter in EpIII is more-readily a reference to the movies themselves than an expanded universe comic book.

Shazam

We've gone full Taffer.

Sean O'Hara

I prefer to think of it as battling evil in another dimension.

joe_b

GuessWho

Yep, gonna cut off his own hand

Mike86

That's always how I've viewed it. Ben's line to Vader in the first film and his subsequent reappearances to Luke seem to confirm that. They don't live on in the same way and they don't appear to all but their presence carries on.

Shazam

I hope Midichlorians play a big role in this movie.

Shannon Nutt

JJ already told an interviewer that they're not even mentioned.

kgrogers1979

I have always wondered how Anakin learned the Force ghost trick. He seemed to not know about it in ANH because he seemed puzzled when Obi-Wan vanished. The prequels also tell us that Qui-Gon was the first Jedi to even learn the Force ghost trick, so it's not something that was known by anyone except for Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Yoda. Yet somehow Anakin apparently learns the trick between ANH and ROTJ.

So that's another reason why I don't think Palpatine was talking about the Force ghost trick when he was talking about cheating death since only those three Jedi supposedly knew about it. Another reason is because Palpatine said his ability to cheat death would be considered unnatural by the Jedi and it was distinctly a dark side power. The Jedi (or at least Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Yoda) don't view the Force ghost trick as being a distinctly unnatural dark side power or they wouldn't have done it themselves.

Also, remember Palpatine was talking about using this power to save Padme's life. Padme couldn't become a Force ghost.

So I'm pretty sure Palpatine was talking about living forever, and not merely as a spirit, but literally living forever in his own physical body.

Shazam

But the mythology!

Timber

That's always been my problem as well. Vader is confused by it in ANH then in RoTJ he doesn't even disappear when he dies like Yoda and Obi-Wan so what exactly happened?

Preterite

Must be one of them Skywalker boys. They're always losing limbs like they weren't attached. I always said it was a blessing for them that moisture farms don't use threshers.

kgrogers1979

Then in the 2004 special edition Anakin reverts to his young self as a ghost, but Yoda and Obi-Wan remain old ghosts.

I think the most logical thing is that Luke (or more likely George) was just really high on some wacky ewok weed and hallucinated the whole thing.

Draven

The actual answer is that George Lucas doesn't care about consistency as much as the Internet does. And he crawled so far up his own ass that he lost all perspective anyway.