Useless Things in the Star Wars Story?

Don't misunderstand me when I titled this post, "Useless Things in the Star Wars Story?" I am a complete fan of everything Star Wars (except perhaps Star Wars The Clone Wars), so the purpose of this post is not to rant in any way.

This is a thread to point out and discuss anything that you feel was/is useless in the Star Wars Story. Moreover, I personally find it interesting to question the elements in Star Wars that a lot of us may take for granted.


I'll try to add to this list over time, if this thread starts to slow down, and I'll start by listing a few that come to mind.

Episode I, The Phantom Menace: The Gungans.

First of all, I enjoyed watching the Naboo people and Gungans transition from discriminatory adversaries to friends and war allies. I felt that Episode I did well to make the viewer feel as if the Naboo and Gungans developed a genuine relationship and alliance, and I was disappointed to see that the Gungans were no where to be seen in Episode II and beyond - with no acceptable explanation as to where they went, or whether or not they were still "alive".

It seemed that the Gungans only served the purpose of being some interchangeable, extremely generic army that would help the heroes of the story get from start to finish. They had no influence later on. Except for Binks - who literally no one cares about.


I mean, let's face it: The Gungans weren't "bad" characters, and Binks just gave them a bad rep. I mean I was really interested in Captain Tarpals and Boss Nass (to a certain extent).

Episode II, Attack of the Clones: Dexter

This was the guy in the Coruscant diner who was Obi-Wan's friend and gave Obi-Wan "valuable" information on the whereabouts of the mysterious Kamino planet.

I found it odd that Obi-Wan was "long time friends" with Dexter, even though he's a Jedi and Dexter is some shady, obese slob. I mean (correct me if I'm wrong, but...) Obi-Wan, as a Jedi, wouldn't really go to diners and bars for drinks and indulgences, right? I mean he wouldn't be going out to eat and drink (instead, he probably ate modest meals at the Temple, right?) So how would he end up not only meeting Dexter once, but also befriending him?

Also, there's no mention of Dexter in Episode I, so it can be inferred that Obi-Wan supposedly met and befriended Dexter between Episodes I and II (which is a long time period, arguably). However, wasn't Obi-Wan completing the trials and practicing being a great Jedi Knight for the first time? I still can't see how and why Obi-Wan would befriend Dexter.


In the end, I felt that Dexter was a useless plot element of the Star Wars Story because he was just some random contact that Obi-Wan had in his magical contact list that could provide some underground information that not even the advanced Jedi Library could provide.

Episode III, Revenge of the Sith: General Grievous


I'm probably going to take some criticism here for saying that General G-Man was a useless part of the Star Wars Story. However, I feel that this is the case because he was such a static character that only served George Lucas's purpose of being "the very next" Separatist leader before it's Empire Time.

In other words, it seemed that once George Lucas decided to kill off Count Dooku, he needed a *very temporary* replacement for the Separatist Leader position before he could crack down on the main plot of the Empire's Rise to Power.

In addition, Lucas tried to add some character to the General by giving him a terrible cough (which the good TV Series, Star Wars Clone Wars, actually explained!). However, his true character was just some generic villain, which I felt was too generic, and his combat was equally weak.

Didn't you find it disappointing that General Grievous was such a bad duelist - considering how many Jedi he "supposedly" slain before Episode III?

Grievous was an amazing duelist, I thought... what gave you the impression that he wasn't?

Episode IV, A New Hope: Greedo

This was difficult to decide, considering how few things Episode IV did wrong. It was a solid movie on its own, and I personally thought Star Wars would have been complete with or without the other movies added afterwards.

However, I digress. Let's examine Greedo.

He was some small-scale Rodian Bounty Hunter - hired by Jabba to capture Han Solo. Here's why he was useless, however. He didn't really do anything to add to the story, since he was simply easy target practice for Han Solo, not to mention a really bad excuse for any bounty hunter by any bounty hunting standards.

But what did he do wrong? A LOT! He was largely responsible for the whole "Han Shot First" controversy that got people obsessed about him in a completely negative way. To this day, despite him wearing a "Han Shot First" T-Shirt on occasion, Lucas never fully addressed the problem. He tried to edit the films a little, to make the shoot-out more even, but he never changed it back to the original version where Han shoots Greedo without Greedo's retaliation.

Now I know that there is debate on whether or not Han truly shot first or not. Some people, after all, claim that Greedo can be heard shooting first, even in the original version of "Star Wars" where Greeo's blaster isn't seen.


However, my main point is that Greedo brought a whole lot of controversy along with no significant contributions to the plot of Star Wars. That is why he was a useless element of Star Wars.

Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back: The Random Group of Bounty Hunters.

I refer to the random group of bounty hunters that Vader hired to hunt down Solo and the Millenium Falcon. Of course, one of these bounty hunters was Boba Fett, whom Vader said his famous "No Disintegrations" line to. Boba Fett was very necessary, so I'm not talking about him in this post.


I feel that the other (non-Boba Fett) bounty hunters were useless because they had absolutely no part in the story after that scene. And this was really sad. In that scene, after all, we saw a variety of very interesting characters, like Dengar (the bandaged human), IG-88 (the robot hunter) and Bossk (the Trandoshan). They really could have done neat things, but they had no show time after that scene. Another pointless aspect of Star Wars, sadly.

Connor Lidell wrote: Grievous was an amazing duelist, I thought... what gave you the impression that he wasn't?

First, the majority of his fights involve him fleeing in some way. For example, when he first met Kenobi and Anakin on the Separatist Ship in III, he sent his Magnaguards to die for him. Then, when they get owned, he picks up a magna staff and uses it to crack the window and get away.

Secondly, when he actually fights Kenobi with lightsabers, he eventually gets in his one-wheeler speeder and tries to flee until Kenobi sends the speeder flying off a cliff, leaving Grievous to fight to the death.

Then, when he fights Kenobi, he hardly understands how to use his powers. He has SUPER-STRENGTH! Everyone saw how he pounded a big dent into that ship. Yet he fails to punch Kenobi when he's grabbed and backed against the ship (and face-to-face) and fails to kill Kenobi after Kenobi mistakenly kicks Grievous and gets stunned for a moment. It seemed, in that Utapau duel, that Grievous either was having too much fun, playing with death, or just didn't know how to kill a guy.

Episode VI, Return of the Jedi: Slave Entertainment in Jabba's Palace

This is fairly self-explanatory, so let me briefly explain that I felt the slave entertainers and the opening musical in VI to be very irritating and unecessary. I was especially disgusted when the big, male alien's spit was seen on the high note.

As you most likely saw, the transition to Luke negotiating with Jabba (and the story continuing) was not affected in any way by the slave entertainers.

I just hope Disney doesn't follow along and include a musical in the next three upcoming episodes.
Carry on. :laugh:

SeanChing wrote:

Connor Lidell wrote: Grievous was an amazing duelist, I thought... what gave you the impression that he wasn't?

First, the majority of his fights involve him fleeing in some way. For example, when he first met Kenobi and Anakin on the Separatist Ship in III, he sent his Magnaguards to die for him. Then, when they get owned, he picks up a magna staff and uses it to crack the window and get away.

Secondly, when he actually fights Kenobi with lightsabers, he eventually gets in his one-wheeler speeder and tries to flee until Kenobi sends the speeder flying off a cliff, leaving Grievous to fight to the death.

Then, when he fights Kenobi, he hardly understands how to use his powers. He has SUPER-STRENGTH! Everyone saw how he pounded a big dent into that ship. Yet he fails to punch Kenobi when he's grabbed and backed against the ship (and face-to-face) and fails to kill Kenobi after Kenobi mistakenly kicks Grievous and gets stunned for a moment. It seemed, in that Utapau duel, that Grievous either was having too much fun, playing with death, or just didn't know how to kill a guy.

Well, he flees, usually, not because he is a coward (although he is), but because he is sick... his cybernetic engineering was the prototype for Vader's suit (that's a canon statement). The cough had always been there because of the too primitive technology, only worsened by Windu's Force grab on his chest... (which is generally considered canon). Since then, he's had to pick his battles. Which is understandable; he wants to survive! Give him props for that.

Also... the magnadroids are completely robotic... so, they don't "die for him", they do their job. I'm not big on droid's rights.

And sure, who WOULDN'T run from Kenobi? This dude's the strongest Jedi battler behind Windu and Yoda. And, way ahead of Anakin because of the kid's arrogance. Kenobi is one of the few Jedi who is able to see through Grievous' preplanned attacks. These four lightsaber duels don't phase him. And, to tell you the truth, they picked poor times for Grievous to battle in the movies (but key to the plot, of course). He's killed Jedi Masters all over the place. But, I'm sure that he would lose to Windu (if they fought again) and to Yoda (haven't watched enough Clone Wars (CN) to know if they actually fight...). And, quite possibly to Anakin as well; as he'd come up with something really clever. haha.

I think Grievous' static character is only shown that way in the films... in reality, this guy has a million emotions. He was this cool kid from a planet, he got in a crash, the bad men were like: LET'S MAKE HIM OUR EXPERIMENT. They mess with him a bunch and BOOM, he's this brain stuck inside this metallic body. And, don't even get me started about how the horrible Geonosians mess with his brain. They make him much more angry than he really is. They increase his knowledge and tactical thinking to their max. If you were Grievous, more than anything, you'd be in pain. Fighting for survival, but always knowing you wouldn't have the power to stop your death when it came. Grrr.

I mean, there are REASONS why he hates the Jedi, and pretty good ones too... Basically there was this conflict on Kaleesh, and he was a warlord. And, their enemies asked the Jedi for help, and they defeated the Kaleesh, forcing them to lick their wounds... He has a lot od jingoistic feelings toward his homeland. And, when he is entreated by the Separist coalition, he really doesn't need a "choice"... he simply "does". I guess, from the movies ONLY perspective, he might be a foolish insert. But, in the grand scheme of things, he's really just a guy in pain from a long-lost battle, psychologically forced and mutilated into this horrible being, and cast into war which conflicts his desires for retribution, revenge, and power all into one big mess...