Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I think we’re going to break this into three separate entries this time, each one representing about 45 minutes of meeting. Once again, we assembled at Frosty Skywalker’s place. Once again, there was much to discuss. And once again, there are rumors and news that has erupted in the mere week and a half since this gathering that we’ll need to talk about this time. The floodgates are opening, and from now till May of 2005, the anticipation’s just going to get worse... and worse... and worse... and maybe this is just a way for those of us who attend to keep from going crazy in the meantime.
Before we get started, though, we want to open up the Jedi Council to include the readers, starting right now. For our next meeting, we’ll include one reader, and we’ll rotate that spot for each meeting afterwards. If you think you deserve to be the person in the seat, then e-mail and tell me why. Remember... all the meetings are held in LA, and if you’re going to attend, travel and lodging is your own business. We’d love to have you, though, and I hope to hear from all interested parties in the next few weeks. Write me by November 10th if you want to be eligible for the first open slot.
Now... let’s get to it. We’ve welcomed two new members to the Council this time. One is Carl Cunningham, long associated with STAR WARS fandom around the Internet, and the other will be known as The Hellboy, an industry insider who is a welcome addition to the group. Carl was in town to attend the INDIANA JONES DVD junket the day before, so it was a rare treat to be able to include him.
Subdued and somber was the mood at the start of the Jedi Council. So much had happened since we had last convened, so much had been revealed, and the rumor mill had been in over-drive since filming on Episode III ended in August.
Even before actual discussion began, whispers were traded, pictures were shared, and tape-recorders were turned off by all parties as not to violate anyone’s trust in who knew what and how. First question for the group: has everyone seen all the new spoiler photos floating around now?
Darth Tardy - I just saw the Anakin one. That was good enough for me.
Moriarty - You haven’t seen any of the Tarkins?
Darth Tardy - No, I just saw… I’ll just say I saw the Anakin ones, and I got shivers.
Tape turned off. Beaks and Darth Tardy went to take a quick look at the Tarkin pics.
Darth Tardy - The Anakin was good enough for me. I saw that, and I was like, “pshsst!” If this is what he looks like, they have really gone way beyond what…
Carl - I think people will be surprised by Hayden’s performance.
Darth Tardy - He looks broken in that photo, he does. He looks… something’s not right.
Carl - He’s more in his element in this film.
Moriarty - I think it’s interesting, ‘cause some critics are always going to have trouble with Hayden. It’s not Lucas or the way Lucas directed him. People are always going to be divided about Hayden. He seems to inspire real division in terms of critical reaction.
Carl - And I wonder if Mark Hamill did…
Moriarty - If you look at SHATTERED GLASS, and the reaction to that in Toronto. Some people really liked it and other people still don’t feel any chemistry with Hayden, and they don’t pick up anything off of him. He’s got a peculiar way of speaking, a peculiar sort of presence that I will always keep some people outside. And I just think that is one of the choices that Lucas made in casting… “I’m going with a kid that some people are not going to like.” And that is not going to change. It’s not his performance, it’s him.
General ruckus erupts as The Hellboy shows up at this point. Moriarty and Carl Cunningham talk about the side-by-side pics of Anakin from EP3 and Luke from ROTJ that Moriarty had not seen and which Carl thought were amazing and spot-on physical matches. After some chatter about the well-being of some the Council members’s spouses, we get back to business. Just a footnote – it’s not often that this group of people can break away from their schedules to meet en masse, so catch-up talk is to be expected, as well as banter about other movies that have recently been released. For the sake of brevity, and the transcriber’s sanity, some of the irrelevant chatter is going to be skipped.
Conversation starts to get back to the topic at hand, and the name “Sifo-Dyas” is brought up. Several council members cannot control themselves and jump in all at once…
Obi-Swan - Who the hell is Sifo-Dyas? He had to be a real Jedi… right?
Carl - He was.
Obi-Swan – So, they just used his name probably.
Carl - Well, I mean… there’s no… it’s not a coincidence that it’s the same time as THE PHANTOM MENACE. Let’s put it that way.
Moriarty - That it was the same time as what?
Carl - That it was the same time as THE PHANTOM MENACE that the clones were ordered, Sifo-Dyas was killed… and all that.
MrBeaks – So basically, Sifo-Dyas was billing it on the Underhill account…
Carl- (Laughter) Yeah… exactly. Oh, no… here comes the worst part of the film.
On the screen is the scene in ATTACK OF THE CLONES where Anakin attempts to ride a Shaak to impress Padme as they frolic in the flower-filled fields of Naboo. Everyone groans.
JedtheHutt - All ass.
Obi-Swan - THIS is when he turned to the Dark Side… when he fell off the creature. That’s what I think. Because, look, when he turns over…
Moriarty - See, this effect in general is almost always difficult. Riding something that is not there… nobody gets that right.
Carl - Yeah. It’s bad in FELLOWSHIP, too…
Everyone starts talking at once, offering up what they think are the worst effect shots of this nature… Legolas pulling himself up on a horse in THE TWO TOWERS, MATRIX, etc. During this, JedtheHutt manages to get spoiled for MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS, Carl Cunningham and Obi-Swan talk about STAR WARS IN 30 MINUTES, and rapport is built with some of the newer members of the group. There is one last call for people to look at pictures and such so the discussion can really begin. Again.
Moriarty - Actually, it’s been a little while since the last one we did and there has been quite a bit that has occurred since then. One of the first things that we’ll talk about today is something that I brought up with people who were here early, and that was a really outrageously silly rumor that we ran from somebody that has since proved out as being true. In addition, uh, it turns out not to be as silly as we thought. And I printed the original text so I could read it again today:
“I have seen the official presentation by Lucasfilm for Episode III. Below is a summary of the first part. I will send more when I have a chance.”
Moriarty – He sent a version of the title crawl that he said was in front of this licenser’s presentation, made up mainly of animatics and illustrations:
“The clone wars continue on and the war is being fought above Coruscant. The separatist forces have captured Chancellor Palpatine. Two Jedi, Obi-Wan and Anakin, have found out where Palpatine is being held and lead a Squad of clones to rescue the Chancellor...”
Moriarty – He’s probably paraphrasing, since I’ve also been sent another version of the opening crawl as it supposedly stood in late September, which I’ll quote here as well:
“For three years the Great Clone War has ravaged the galaxy. Starvation and misery stalk countless worlds.
Although near defeat, Count Dooku and his Confederacy of Independent Systems have masterminded the capture of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.
With the mighty Armada of the Republic behind them, Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker pursue Dooku and his sinister agents across the galaxy...”
Moriarty- Now, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of either one. I’m not sure how exact that second one is, but he said as of September, that is where it stood. The scene that was described was a space battle over Coruscant, with Palpatine being held prisoner. There’s a major star battle that occurs that leads into the Jedi on board the ship where they track the Chancellor down. And they deal with a droid captain, who our scooper actually described as “General Grievous”. That was the name that he used here, and it was the name that was recently confirmed on the official site. I’ve also just heard “droid captain”, things like that, and ah… and the claim was that then Dooku and Anakin fight over Palpatine, that Anakin is the one who kills Dooku there, and in doing so becomes a… what he believes is a hero, and he becomes very bound to Palpatine for the rest of the movie. Um, when we ran that rumor, it was dismissed as bunk, complete bunk, by almost everybody immediately. But since then, several things have happened, or have been revealed online, been revealed in different places, that seem to back that rumor up. And I guess I wanted to throw that out there. Let’s discuss… what do you think of the idea for the opening, and let’s also discuss the veracity of it.
Obi-Swan - Well, there is a quote from Rick McCallum in which he said that the space battle at the beginning of this movie is the grandest space battles of all the movies. Has anyone else heard that?
Sarah - Yes…
Carl - That could just be “McCallumspeak™”. But then again, it could be very true. He might be right.
Mr.Beaks - “McCallumspeak™” not being sanctioned by Lucas, necessarily.
Carl - There is “McCallumspeak™” and there is “Lucasspeak™”.
Mr.Beaks - Right.
Darth Tardy - “McCallumspeak™” always being the “grandest” of all the movies…
Carl - Sometimes they are the same…
Hellboy - That’s because he is a schmoozy producer.
Obi-Swan - Sure.
Carl - I do think that they were disappointed with the space battle in Episode I, as we all were. And I think they’re out to prove something with this one. I have heard it described as “the” space battle. You know, the movie is set up a lot like JEDI in reverse…
Moriarty - That is what it feels like in terms of what I am hearing…
Carl - Instead, you begin this movie with a large space battle and you end the movie with a few characters on a desert planet. So, it’s like JEDI in reverse. And there are scenes throughout that are going to mirror JEDI directly...
Moriarty - I would say with Palpatine especially, you are going to have moments that are going to have to be very close to what we see in JEDI. That power struggle that he tries to set up at the end between Vader and Luke, we gotta see a version of that in this film.
Darth Tardy - Or a few.
Moriarty - Or two. Or three even. I mean, it sounds like that is his trick. Like that is how he really forces people to make choices…
Carl - He pulls the Dark Side out of them.
Moriarty - Now we’re hearing that… again, this is all rumor, and I’m not sure how accurate it is… but we’re hearing that there is both an Anakin/Dooku fight and that Anakin and Mace also fight, sort of at Palpatine’s antagonism. And I am curious how accurate that is, and if so… what that means. If that is really the moment where he makes the choice. If he makes the choice between Palpatine and Mace, who he knows speaks for the Jedi, is that really where he takes his step? Is that a turning point for him? Because Dooku, I could see how you could justify how he would still believe he was doing right by killing Dooku, and especially if it’s a capture and a set-up and he believes that he is rescuing somebody. But killing Mace, that’s something you can’t really… I can’t think you could justify that.
Carl - Yeah, one big thing is that the turn is supposed to hinge on Anakin being betrayed. Or at least, feeling very strongly that he had been betrayed by Obi-Wan and the Jedi
Moriarty - OK…
Carl - So that’s what we have to try to figure out, focus on. They’re saying that without any pretense, he feels betrayed, he snaps, and that is when he makes the decision. It’s a crystallized moment…
Several of group members all jump in at once what could cause that moment, with several cries of “Padme” being heard above the din.
Carl - But it’s really a lot about Anakin and Obi-Wan. So that’s where you can throw a lot of the speculation rumors involving a possible love triangle, or… because to me and my friend Adam Parr, from StarWarsFan.Org & Prequel Watch, we’ve thrown this about a lot… could it really just be that Obi-Wan finds out about the marriage and turns Anakin in and he gets expelled? We hope not. That wouldn’t be strong enough for us.
Moriarty - No. And I can’t think that…
Carl - That’s just not strong enough….
Darth Tardy - … but the Jedi must find out and he becomes a pariah after that.
Carl - You could go this way with that: Obi-Wan finds out and confronts Anakin and Padme, and puts some things in motion that puts Padme in danger, and she dies or whatever. Because then Palpatine could say, “Hey, they would not let you go to your mother, and she died. They wouldn’t let you see Padme, and she’s gone.”
Moriarty - And how much of that could be a lie?
Hellboy - Exactly.
Carl - Right. She could still be alive even if Anakin were to be convinced she’s dead.
Moriarty - I think the right lie told there could be very important and very potent. If he does something for a reason that he believes, and he’s misled, there is real tragedy inherent in that.
Carl - But I do believe, and I don’t know if they’ve gone on the record, but I do know that or at least strongly hinted at the fact that Obi-Wan does some things that are shady as well. Like he does pretty much betray Anakin, but there is a danger of going too far there, because you don’t want it look like Anakin really didn’t have a choice but to go one way.
Obi-Swan - You know what is interesting about that? In the original script for Episode I, when I read it before the film came out, it seemed like Lucas was painting Obi-Wan as kind of a dick. But in the film, he scaled it back. Or maybe it was Ewan McGregor’s performance, and maybe he made some decisions where he wasn’t so much of a dick.
Carl - And Obi-Wan’s gotta mess up royally in EP3. One of the jokes in the early outlines for all three films, was they had the silly titles. There was “The Beginning”, and then Episode II was “Jar Jar’s Big Adventure”, and Episode III probably was, “Obi-Wan’s Big Fuck-up.”
Hellboy - Well, isn’t all about Obi-Wan? Isn’t about Obi-Wan making mistakes?
Chorus of agreement from Mr.Beaks, Carl Cunningham, and a few other members.
Hellboy - He was never ready to train this kid. It’s a problem already. It’s Yoda’s big mess-up.
Darth Tardy – Well, then, it’s everyone’s big mess-up.
Carl - And that is why they have to stick around during the Original Trilogy… to fix this mess that they have put the galaxy in.
Mxyzlptlk - Was it their fuck-up or Palpatine’s plan?
Carl - Well, I think we’re going to find out that its really both.
Moriarty - I will say this... I think that the one place that he nailed it, through all three films, has been in the handling of Palpatine.
Carl - A lot of that is Ian McDiarmid, too.
Moriarty - I think he’s a great, great character. I think there is something wonderful about a character who we haven’t seen show his hand yet, but whose influence has been felt through both films thus far.
Obi-Swan- … and it’s going to pay off big-time…
Moriarty – Oh, and when it does… I love the rumor that broke over the last couple of days... I think it was TheForce.Net that broke it... about how he changes his appearance, because it explains a lot. It explains how the Jedi don’t know who he is. If he’s executing his will to look a certain way and be a certain way, and when he drops that mask and we see the real Sidious... if he is that corrupted, withered thing that we are used to, I think it’s going to be shocking. I think it’s going to be a great reveal finally, and a great pay-off.
Carl - The way these movies are set up, people who are expecting a big twist in EP3 are going to be disappointed. And this can be debated for years, whether you watch the movies I-II-II-IV-V-VI or IV-V-VI-I-II-III. That’s just a personal choice. But the way the films are set up, our big twist was Vader being Luke’s father in EMPIRE. We’re not getting that this time. This time, people who have no idea what is going on… hard to believe, but they are out there… their twists are the Palpatine deal, and Anakin turning. That’s what they’re going for… they want those people and people watching the films for the first time numerically to go, “Holy crap!” when Palpatine reveals his true self and Anakin makes the decision.
Obi-Swan - The kids who saw Episode I first…
Carl - They’re going to lose the “I’m your father” reveal when they watch them in sequence.
Obi-Swan - Right.
Carl - That’s going to be no surprise to them.
Hellboy - And that’s the best plot.
Carl - That is one reason why I think the Palpatine/clone rumors are ridiculous. People are just hanging on to that because they desperately want this big twist that we don’t see coming… but it won’t happen.
Moriarty - See, I think it makes a lot of sense describing it as a force of will that he is exerting, that keeps him guarded…
Darth Tardy - Have you read the latest post on there where it is specifically done?
Moriarty - We’ve heard that early on there is a quick reveal where he is in the middle of something and it “slips”, and there is a moment where we see just the face for a moment, and then he puts it back.
Darth Tardy - I don’t know if this is true, but I have heard that the reveal happens when Mace goes to visit, and it slips while Mace is in the room and Mace says something or does something, and then Palpatine unleashes on Mace, shoots lighting bolts or some shit, and then he tells Anakin he’s gotta make a choice.
Moriarty - See, that was what we were discussing, but the choice should be more about…
Darth Tardy – It’s just a rumor… I don’t know if that is true, but then the Jedi would still not know who he is…
Hellboy - I think that is a dangerous thing there, because if we’re playing off what we discussed before and that he has to make a choice because he feels betrayed by Mace, and they’ve set up Mace Windu kinda being above it all and a little arrogant…
Carl – Well, they started that in the first film…
Moriarty - Mace flat out looked him in the eye and said, no, don’t train that kid…
Carl - And one of Jake Lloyd’s few good moments was that look he gave him.
Darth Tardy - It was one of his best moments… he looked like he wanted to kill him.
Carl - That might actually have a pay-off in this now.
Hellboy - So for Palpatine to accidentally reveal himself as Darth Sidious, I think kinda changes everything.
Carl - And that does not seem like Palpatine, either. He’s so close to the vest, and has control over everything…
Moriarty - He’s been careful; there have been no sloppy moves so far.
Carl - He’s very keen in that the only time he really messes up is in JEDI when he has no clue that Vader is about to pick him up and throw him in the pit.
Mr.Beaks - Right.
Carl - That just completely baffles him.
Hellboy - I just always read that as single-minded hate that he lost.
Carl - I don’t see him slipping on a banana-peel and just switching on accident. If he does, there is a designed reason behind it. That rumor almost kinda seemed like…
Hellboy - The interesting thing there is going to be the Dooku thing at the beginning. Like, I’ve always felt, and I don’t know how you guys felt about it, but I always felt that his discussion with Obi-Wan… I’m going to play this guy because I know better...
Moriarty – It’s very honest.
Carl - … playing both sides.
Hellboy - … if he has fallen to the Dark Side…
Carl - Lucas could play it that way and it would be really powerful.
Moriarty - I don’t think he trusts Palpatine completely. I think there is a lot of distrust there.
Obi-Swan - He’s a Sith. Isn’t Count Dooku a Sith?
Hellboy - I don’t think so. I think he is subverting from within… like, he figured it out…
Obi-Swan – It’s either he’s a Sith, or he is the original leader of the rebellion.
Carl - Well, technically, he is anyway, because the Confederacy establishes the beginning of the rebellion, because Mon Mothma and Bail Organa and all those guys side with them over the Republic in Episode III.
Moriarty - So if you see that at the beginning of this one, he could legitimately turn into a fallen hero...
Hellboy - Yeah…
Moriarty - … who just happened to have a moment where he fought Yoda because that was the way the shit came down.
Mxyzlptlk, Hellboy, Mr. Beaks, and Darth Tardy all jumping in about Dooku… can’t tell what they are saying because it’s all excitable talk on top of each other.
Darth Tardy - But his lightsaber is clearly not a Jedi lightsaber…
Mxyzlptlk - But look… it’s like Vader telling Luke, “Join me”. The Sith are always trying to destroy each other…
Carl - Yeah, but that to me is way too corny. That the Sith just lie all the time. Why would he just come out and tell him the truth like that?
Hellboy - Because it’s also a difficult thing like that, because obviously Darth Maul was bred, you know, or he was found. If you believe this EU stuff, he was bred and brought up that way. Sidious loses him and he has to find somebody, and what if Dooku had been kinda tracking everything at the time and they kinda came together? He’s like, ok…
Moriarty - We have so little screen time and so much that fans want answered, and you know that there are choices that will be made…
Carl - A big waste of story time…
Moriarty - Yeah, there are going to be things that he answers and things that he won’t, and there are always going to be things that are going to just make fans crazy.
Darth Tardy - Well, I hope that he clears up that Sifo-Dyas thing. I’ve been sitting here for years saying, “Who the hell is Sifo-Dyas?”
Moriarty - There is a lot of dialogue…
Carl - I think a lot of fans are setting themselves up for disappointment, because a lot of that stuff is simple. A lot of that is just Palpatine.
JedtheHutt - Sifo-Dyas/Sidious…
Carl - Well, you know in the original script, it wasn’t Sifo-Dyas, it was Sido-Dyas…
Darth Tardy – It’s not so much that, but Mace seems to know who he is…
Carl - They recognize who he was, and what makes it interesting is that he was an actual Jedi character. So Lucas has given himself an out to play a couple of options there… and what I get from a lot of the implications is that Jedi characters like Qui-Gon and Dooku were kinda outsiders because they tended to embrace the Dark Side and try to figure it out more often than the other Jedi had.
Obi-Swan - Are they going to go back to the Jedi holocron and the Sith holocron… do you remember that from Episode II?
Darth Tardy - I hope not.
Obi-Swan - Where it was like…
Darth Tardy - That’s EU stuff too…
Obi-Swan - But it was actually in the movie, I think, or was planned to be in the movie… what happened to Dooku is that he studied the Sith holocron too much. And that is what led to him leaving…
Carl - And he decided to leave.
Obi-Swan - And also I heard he left after Qui-Gon Jinn was killed…
Moriarty - Well, they had the whole thing about the “Lost 20” that they cut…
Carl - Why would they cut that unless they thought they were going to go into a different direction for EP3? You could always put that back in. That’s the interesting thing, its still very much kept under wraps whether or not Qui-Gon is even going to be involved in Episode III. I think he is going to be involved, at least through exposition, because of the whole Jedi maintaining identity after death subplot.
Mxyzlptlk - Which they say they’ve already filmed the scene…
Carl - Yeah. That’s basically Yoda coming to Obi-Wan and saying, “We can do this, and this can help us in very powerful ways.”
Obi-Swan - This might be our only weapon.
Carl - In that Tusken Raider scene, Yoda hears Qui-Gon, but he doesn’t say anything to anybody. So I don’t know if there is going to be another scene like that in the movie where he starts to put it together or if Qui-Gon just appears and comes out and says, “Hey! It’s time to show you my new trick” Because in one of the original outlines for ROTJ, which was really cool and would have been great if they would have left it in, there was a big huge battle royale at the end. It wasn’t just Luke and Vader; it was Luke and Vader and Palpatine, and all of a sudden, Obi-Wan and Yoda show up, and they’re actually…
Darth Tardy - … I heard about that…
Carl - … they manifest themselves back physically and it’s all of them going at it. And basically, the turn is whether or not Vader is going to help the other three kill Palpatine once and for all. And, obviously, he does. And now, with what happened in the prequels, I think that would have been so much more powerful.
Moriarty - Are we going to get an answer to the de-materialization? We had a theory to who…
Carl - I think so, because they talk about…
Moriarty - What was the theory we had talked about recently involving the vanishing? Who can vanish, who can’t…
Obi-Swan - The only thing that we talked about was the possibility that maybe, like what you just said, that Qui-Gon comes back and says, “Hey, while I was dead I figured something out.”
Carl - Well, he was always… they discussed this, I don’t know if it was in the text of Episode I they discussed this, but definitely in some versions of the script and the novel, about the different versions of the Force. That Qui-Gon was always adept at what was called the “Living” Force…
Darth Tardy - And Obi-Wan was the “Universal” Force.
Carl - Right. And I think the Living Force was where all the weird Midichlorian stuff was going. The Living Force was the one that the Jedi didn’t like because it was the one where the Dark Side got its power.
Hellboy - It was very grey.
Carl - It wasn’t the mystical one, it was the more physical, where you could draw power from the life force around you.
Obi-Swan - Because if you listen to Obi-Wan describe the Force to Luke in ANH…
Carl - … he’s describing the mystical one…
Obi-Swan - … it’s very different from how Qui-Gon describes it to Anakin.
Darth Tardy - Well, they give a very good explanation between the two if you read the novel…
Carl - Right, but Qui-Gon tells him to “be mindful of the Living Force”.
Darth Tardy - But when Obi-Wan says that he has a “strange feeling about this”, that’s him being tapped into a different part of the Force Qui-Gon is not. He goes, “Strange, I don’t… aren’t you feelings clear on this?” Well, that’s another point, that’s the Emperor. He says he does not sense anything.
Obi-Swan - Does he lie? Does he sense something?
Darth Tardy - I don’t think so. I think he is more tapped into…
Carl - I think it’s going to basically come from that. That he was so tapped into the Living Force that when he died he was able to maintain himself in the netherworld. I don’t know if they are going to call it that… the “netherworld”. They did in the original JEDI drafts… “the Force Netherworld”… where instead of becoming one with the Force, they were able to maintain their identity and just kinda float along. So maybe they disappear because they learned to do that before they died. So as soon as they are struck down or they die or whatever, they keep their identity. Because, obviously, Yoda shows up at the end of JEDI, too.
Darth Tardy - It could be something else, because it’s not like Luke whispered the secret to Anakin just before he went into the netherworld.
Obi-Swan - Maybe Qui-Gon came to Anakin after he was stuck down in some sort of netherworld or whatever, but clearly, when Obi-Wan is struck down, Anakin…
Moriarty -… well, he already knows the trick, because he is ready to do it.
Obi-Swan - Yeah, but Darth Vader doesn’t know…
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