

George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It's Okay - chip
http://binarybonsai.com/2010/09/18/george-lucas-stole-chewbacca-but-its-okay/

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10ren
I saw Star Wars on TV recently - god it looks awesome, especially the early
desert scene with red sand and gold c3po. Of course, it's probably because
they adjusted the colour in later releases (a few times), but still. The added
stuff looks gimmicky and unnecessary.

Chewbacca is an awesome name. I happened to need to burp while reading the
article, and you know how I made it sound.

Although I'm sure the article is right about the sequence of early artwork and
so on, it seems that the final creature was determined entirely at the end, by
the practical matter of the guy wearing it, and that it needed to be friendly
looking. He _does_ look like a dog. All that remains from earlier is 1. ape-
like; 2. bandolier

But he's right about chewie being a non-character. He's great, but just
colour. It's unfortunate that there's no real relationship with Han - they
'talk", but there's no sense of anything there. While "side-kicks" were common
(eg. watson, tonto, robin), there was always some friendship or connection, or
even just meaningful cooperation, which isn't present with Chewie.

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lotusleaf1987
I'm still waiting for an explanation why Lando was wearing Han's clothes at
the end of Empire Strikes Back. I love the original movies, not the newer
'enhanced' versions. I thought the fact that they used miniature models gave
it a more vivid textural look that the CGI can't match.

I also love burping the Chewbacca call. Chewie is just Han's sub-altern.
Although, I thought they did have meaningful cooperation though, the way Han
could understand him and you could sense their familiarity with one another.

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10ren
TIL subaltern. It's true they were familiar, but it was just more colour
(including funny lines like "fly casual"), and didn't have any effect (or did
it? was there any point where they acted on info conveyed, and we saw the
result, or it meant something to the plot? Even Han telling Chewie what to do?
Maybe there was.)

Also, it's harder to show a relationship when only one side speaks - maybe if
I thought of it more as a man-dog relation (a subaltern)? But it's still
possible to influence the plot, eg lassie.

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lotusleaf1987
I guess I saw that one way conversation as an example that Han knew Chewie
very, very well, even being able to understand his completely foreign
language. But I guess it's still so nostalgic to me that I try to explain any
faults. :(

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10ren
Don't worry, nostalgia or not, the whole thing still looks and feels amazing
(IMHO). It's very easy pick apart a movie, and there's very little point in
doing so. I think I might try to interpret it in your way. :)

