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Star Wars Episode IX


Red Five

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3 hours ago, aggie08 said:

7, while derivative and safe, is a really enjoyable movie.  Mostly cohesive and fun.  Just a well done popcorn movie.  Way better than anything in the prequels.  I don't want to put myself through trying to compare TLJ to the prequels.

The prequel trilogy made Darth Vader out to be an emo teen.  R1 at least washed some of that stink away

7?  Completely destroyed the happy ending of the OT.  7 gave Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, the droids, the alliance as a whole, completely shitty lives.  

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26 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

7?  Completely destroyed the happy ending of the OT.  7 gave Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, the droids, the alliance as a whole, completely shitty lives.

Oh, I have many, many criticisms about 7. The top of which being what you allude to: they completely set the universe back to its starting point like the original trilogy never happened, and simply used CTRL+F to change 'rebellion' to 'resistance' and 'Empire' to 'First Order.'

But, when reduced to the simple question "Was it an enjoyable movie?" I think the answer was yes. It was well edited, well shot, and the plot at least made sense most of the time. That's good enough for me. Way more than I could ever say about TLJ or the prequels.

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1 minute ago, aggie08 said:

Oh, I have many, many criticisms about 7. The top of which being what you allude to: they completely set the universe back to its starting point like the original trilogy never happened, and simply used CTRL+F to change 'rebellion' to 'resistance' and 'Empire' to 'First Order.'

But, when reduced to the simple question "Was it an enjoyable movie?" I think the answer was yes. It was well edited, well shot, and the plot at least made sense most of the time. That's good enough for me. Way more than I could ever say about TLJ or the prequels.

Therein lies the rub for a lot of us.  7 had many enjoyable moments, and could have been a great movie, but JJ had to be a hack, reset the universe, and take us back to the starting line.   

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4 hours ago, mdmost said:

The turn to Vader never stuck the landing for me.

I think Hayden Christensen is the main culprit for that. He thoroughly sucked. Also he just doesn’t have the right physiognomy.

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I didn’t realize until fairly recently that George originally wrote Anakin’s turn without all the Padme stuff. It was just the emperor convincing him that the Jedi were assholes, and that’s all it took. “Ok works for me! Off to kill all the children now!”. After filming was done and they were putting everything together, they realized that was weak, and added in the Padme dying stuff, which is slightly less weak.

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I could see Lucas wrapping up filming on III, and somebody asking "hey, what happens to Padme, we know she died or disappeared when Leia and Luke were young?:" and Lucas whipping out his legal pad and scribbling off a few dozen lines of dialogue and scene description, with a big "WE'LL FIX IT IN POST" written across the bottom in Sharpie, and then shooting it the next morning.

And I was thinking about the Obi-Wan and Anakin fight scene - that has to be one of the single biggest examples of his hubris in the PT.  Maybe even more than the arena scene in AOTC.  It would have been absolutely amazing if Obi-Wan realized Anakin had fully turned, and Obi-Wan hunted him down and just wrecked his shit in about 30 seconds flat.   Instead, we got an extended tribute to ILM's early 2000s CGI prowess (which hasn't held up that well).

That fight scene...

 

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14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

if Obi-Wan realized Anakin had fully turned, and Obi-Wan hunted him down and just wrecked his shit in about 30 seconds flat.

that's how you think it should have gone?

I thought one of the criticisms of the PT was that it made Darth Vader into a big pussy. This seems to be doubling down on that. 

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1 hour ago, SwanderedTalent said:

that's how you think it should have gone?

I thought one of the criticisms of the PT was that it made Darth Vader into a big pussy. This seems to be doubling down on that. 

I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, *I* am the master.

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If you really want to rehash Anakin outside Jake/Hayden's terrible performances 

- When was he ever really a badass?  At least in some way that was demonstrably better than some of the other badasses?  George should have just had him kick Dookie's ass at the end of AOTC.  That way he shows how strong he is and we are spared Jolt Cola/Cocaine Yoda

-He wasn't Obi-Wan's good friend, he was Obi Wan's bitchy emo little brother

-He didn't get "seduced" by anything

 

I still can't believe that whiny little bitch got to pop his cock in balls hot Padme.  

 

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19 hours ago, Red Five said:

I didn’t realize until fairly recently that George originally wrote Anakin’s turn without all the Padme stuff. It was just the emperor convincing him that the Jedi were assholes, and that’s all it took. “Ok works for me! Off to kill all the children now!”. After filming was done and they were putting everything together, they realized that was weak, and added in the Padme dying stuff, which is slightly less weak.

wait, is this true?

it makes a lot of sense. he did not honestly put a lot of thought into the prequels. in many ways, he so obviously missed the mark, focusing too much on a cartoon than an actual dark side turn. we ALL know the outcome for anakin. the trick is making us believe it. youth impetuousness or impatience is not he way to demonstrate his dark side. he needs to choke a few bad guys. he needs to ease into the dark side pond, not randomly dive all the way into it.

and, honestly, i hate the fight between obi wan and anakin, and i hate the result. i wouldn't have minded if it's a tough fought draw, with obi wan crippling anakin somehow by slashing his arm off or injuring his torso. 

and then we get a sort of half-suited vader that palpatine saves. 

keep in mind, this should've been the end of the second film, with the third having vader hunt down the rest of the jedi, and trying to find obi-wan, who is trying to smuggle padme and the children to some kind of safety. padme, to save her children, sacrifices herself to ensure obi wan's escape, and vader ends up slaying her, in his last irredeemable move. obi wan makes leia a princess and luke a desert hermit. vader ends the movie nearly fully suited up, but not quite everything we see in star wars, leaving some things to tell. fin.

not that i've thought about this at all.

of course, obi wan and anakin should've been closer in age, and he should have found him as a rough and tumble kid on the streets of wherever, using the force talent in fits and spurts to survive, cheat at dice, street race or whatever.

Edited by hayden_horn
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Anakin should have basically been introduced as having Han Solo’s personality.  Arrogant, charismatic but clearly shady, thinks the rules shouldn’t apply to him, willing to cut corners, and capable of some cold bloodedness to look out for number 1.  Instead of seeing the light like Han (well, pre TFA anyway) he’d have the opposite journey of not being able to escape his demons no matter how much people liked him and wanted to believe in him.

That is Clone Wars Aniken.
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1 hour ago, longhornmatt said:

they kind of just showed him like all the other Jedi except for the whole midichlorian bullshit and occasional scenes of someone saying he was the chosen one.  His journey wasn’t compelling at all, nor did it show Vader in a particularly powerful light in his past existence.

I really don't understand why Lucas couldn't grasp that it didn't work to just tell us stuff. There are examples all over those prequel movies.

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3 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

If you really want to rehash Anakin outside Jake/Hayden's terrible performances 

- When was he ever really a badass?  At least in some way that was demonstrably better than some of the other badasses?  George should have just had him kick Dookie's ass at the end of AOTC.  That way he shows how strong he is and we are spared Jolt Cola/Cocaine Yoda

-He wasn't Obi-Wan's good friend, he was Obi Wan's bitchy emo little brother

-He didn't get "seduced" by anything

 

I still can't believe that whiny little bitch got to pop his cock in balls hot Padme.  

 

Yeah it's always been pretty astonishing to me that George wrote the prequels without having reviewed (remembered?) several key items that were talked about in the OT, in terms of Anakin's fall.

The only people at Lucasfilm who seem to care/know anything about SW canon/lore are the people in charge of the animated series.  CLONE WARS and REBELS have been telling the best Star Wars stories over the past decade, and it's not close.

To the point above, you DO get to see Anakin be a badass and be best friends with Obi-Wan... you just have to see it in CLONE WARS, not in the actual prequel movies...

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1 hour ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Yeah it's always been pretty astonishing to me that George wrote the prequels without having reviewed (remembered?) several key items that were talked about in the OT, in terms of Anakin's fall.

The only people at Lucasfilm who seem to care/know anything about SW canon/lore are the people in charge of the animated series.  CLONE WARS and REBELS have been telling the best Star Wars stories over the past decade, and it's not close.

To the point above, you DO get to see Anakin be a badass and be best friends with Obi-Wan... you just have to see it in CLONE WARS, not in the actual prequel movies...

It's almost as if Lucas wanted to undo the edits people made to A New Hope that actually made it not suck. Before the editing, it was a mess of a movie. But who are we kidding, he had no utter clue when he was writing Star Wars who half the characters and their backstories were. Think I'm wrong? Take a look at graphic novel The Star Wars where his original screenplay for Star Wars complete with Luke Starkiller and Anakin Skywalker was adapted into a comic book. It's terrible. He had no clue that Vader was Luke's father or Luke and Leia were twins. The actual Vader origin story wasn't written until the novelization was done after Star Wars first came out. I don't think Lucas ever was satisfied with A New Hope. That's why he's tinkered with it and changed the origin stories to be more what he'd rather see than what he'd previously committed to the screen or canon. 

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6 hours ago, mulletpelini said:

He's a person and his name is Anakin!

That exchange they had at 4:30 or 4:35 in the video where neither one was hitting anything, what the hell was that?  How was something that obvious not caught in editing?  I guess Lucas stopped caring, so the editors stopped caring?

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A group of VFX artists have been doing reaction videos, and lately they've been hitting up older movies (Matrix, etc.), and they dropped a prequels video today - kind of interesting - they actually were impressed with some of the VFX (which were really cutting edge for '99, even if Lucas should have dropped in more practical effects in places).

 

Edited by atomheartbevo
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1, 2 and 3 were horrible. Terrible acting, bad stories, way, way over produced and too much cgi. They didn’t do a good job setting up for A New Hope. I’ll never forgive Lucas for screwing that up. I have the movies but I can’t watch them. I think the story might have been better if Anakin would have started out as a teenager instead of so young. I think it might have set up the next 2 episodes better and allowed Anakin and Padme more time to develop their relationship. Also Hayden was just a bad actor. I never felt any feelings for either of the characters, and when Anakin became Vader it felt forced. No emotion here just glad it happened. The last 2 got them back on track IMO. Looking forward to the newest one so I can see how Rey fits into all of this. 

 

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1 hour ago, Brandywine said:

1, 2 and 3 were horrible. Terrible acting, bad stories, way, way over produced and too much cgi. They didn’t do a good job setting up for A New Hope. I’ll never forgive Lucas for screwing that up. I have the movies but I can’t watch them. I think the story might have been better if Anakin would have started out as a teenager instead of so young. I think it might have set up the next 2 episodes better and allowed Anakin and Padme more time to develop their relationship. Also Hayden was just a bad actor. I never felt any feelings for either of the characters, and when Anakin became Vader it felt forced. No emotion here just glad it happened. The last 2 got them back on track IMO. Looking forward to the newest one so I can see how Rey fits into all of this. 

 

Not saying Christensen is an amazing actor, but Lucas' work on the Prequels was going to make anyone look awful.  Portman is stiff, unlikable, and weird/awkward.  McGregor, especially in TPM, is boring and bland.  In the next two films he's just cheesy and about all he can pull off well is exasperated.  Neeson doesn't come off any better.  They're all highly forgettable performances from three really good actors.  Lucas was even able to make the inestimable Christopher Lee into a dud. 

The only actor who comes out of the Prequels with an amazing performance is McDiarmid.  And that's because he's so over-the-top goofy.  Everyone else has their super serious/super bored face on and he's out there living it up because his character is complete nonsense.  So George literally had to write the most silly, moustache-twirling villain part in movie history to get a good performance out of an actor for the Prequels. 

But we're supposed to give Christensen shit for not knocking it out of the park?  I mean, with dialogue like "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." he should have just strolled his way to an Oscar nom, right?  

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7 minutes ago, SpiralOut said:

Not saying Christensen is an amazing actor, but Lucas' work on the Prequels was going to make anyone look awful.  Portman is stiff, unlikable, and weird/awkward.  McGregor, especially in TPM, is boring and bland.  In the next two films he's just cheesy and about all he can pull off well is exasperated.  Neeson doesn't come off any better.  They're all highly forgettable performances from three really good actors.  Lucas was even able to make the inestimable Christopher Lee into a dud. 

The only actor who comes out of the Prequels with an amazing performance is McDiarmid.  And that's because he's so over-the-top goofy.  Everyone else has their super serious/super bored face on and he's out there living it up because his character is complete nonsense.  So George literally had to write the most silly, moustache-twirling villain part in movie history to get a good performance out of an actor for the Prequels. 

But we're supposed to give Christensen shit for not knocking it out of the park?  I mean, with dialogue like "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." he should have just strolled his way to an Oscar nom, right?  

To be honest, the best line in any Star Wars movie is:

"I know."

-Harrison Ford

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On 6/13/2019 at 3:38 PM, Red Five said:

I didn’t realize until fairly recently that George originally wrote Anakin’s turn without all the Padme stuff. It was just the emperor convincing him that the Jedi were assholes, and that’s all it took. “Ok works for me! Off to kill all the children now!”. After filming was done and they were putting everything together, they realized that was weak, and added in the Padme dying stuff, which is slightly less weak.

I actually think leaving out the Padme stuff was a better call or him choosing her over being a Jedi then deciding to train under Palpatine but the problem as you mention is having to justify w/e reason is used for him also slaughtering the kids. That is a very hard thing to justify regardless of what reason you give for him choosing the dark side and was a horrible thing to write into the script in the first place.

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4 hours ago, Brandywine said:

1, 2 and 3 were horrible. Terrible acting, bad stories, way, way over produced and too much cgi. They didn’t do a good job setting up for A New Hope. I’ll never forgive Lucas for screwing that up. I have the movies but I can’t watch them. I think the story might have been better if Anakin would have started out as a teenager instead of so young. I think it might have set up the next 2 episodes better and allowed Anakin and Padme more time to develop their relationship. Also Hayden was just a bad actor. I never felt any feelings for either of the characters, and when Anakin became Vader it felt forced. No emotion here just glad it happened. The last 2 got them back on track IMO. Looking forward to the newest one so I can see how Rey fits into all of this. 

 

All of that but I also hated the chosen one shit and having him being born of a virgin and the prophecy from thousands of years earlier that all these Jedi are really supposed to care about thousands of years after they think the Sith are extinct. It also makes very little sense to me that all these Jedi are supposed to be such bad asses when none of them outside of Yoda I think had ever even fought a Sith. So what basis is there for even thinking they are bad asses when for the most part all they've been doing for hundreds of years is sitting on top of their tower acting as advisers and diplomats?

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8 hours ago, Surlybastard said:

All of that but I also hated the chosen one shit and having him being born of a virgin and the prophecy from thousands of years earlier

The prophecy bit could have been OK as a scalpel. Lucas used it as a bludgeon. If it had been this obscure thing that almost no one had heard of or believed in, that would have been better. Especially if instead of "balance to the Force" it more literally said "this guy's going to come along who can do things we didn't think possible, and he's going to top things off by ending the Jedi Order". I kind of like the idea of one Jedi Master slowly realizing that potential in Anakin and knowing "I can't start Bible thumping in our council meetings, no one will take me seriously, but holy shit this keeps lining up" over three movies. And there's potentially the big confrontation that serves as the spark to turn Anakin to the Dark Side: he thinks he's defending himself against a religious nut who wants to kill him, and he thinks the Jedi are out to get him and his unborn children.

The "chosen one" and especially "born of a virgin" shit were typical lazy Lucas. "Hey, you guys know that... that Jesus guy in our culture? He's like... really big and major. And, like... SO IS ANAKIN". Scratch all of that shit. Make him a runaway 12-yr old punk podracer on Tattooine. We never find out who his parents are because it doesn't matter and this is a film series, not an encyclopedia. If you have to explain his name at all, which you don't, he made it up himself because it sounds like something 12-yr old boy would think is cool. 

If Anakin really needed to be the most powerful Jedi ever-- debatable-- you establish that by having him consistently accomplish things his peer characters say aren't possible, but even that gets hard to do beyond one 2-hr movie. Think about Neo in The Matrix series-- they nailed him in the first one w/the climactic fight against Agent Smith, but his "stuff no one can do" got a bit sillier in the 2nd and included a lot more of people saying "boy, that Poochie is really something, he's totally outrageous". But as an example, instead of having Yoda and 500 Jedi Masters rescue him and Obi-Wan on Geonosis in the second movie, have him fight his way out of seemingly insurmountable odds. That sets him up as overly arrogant in fighting Dooku, too, if you still want to go down that path. You should never show him easily defeated or chastened in any way, whether verbally by Obi-Wan or lasting eight seconds in a lightsaber fight. He should never have reason to doubt himself; when he comes up short, it should always be someone else's fault, from his perspective. 

Basically I don't think this was rocket science. I just don't think Lucas is or ever really was a skilled storyteller. He came up with some word salad ideas 40 years ago, tried to make a movie out of it, got his ass saved in editing and by the writers of his sequel, and it's been a steady decline for the franchise since 1980.

Edited by SwanderedTalent
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All of that but I also hated the chosen one shit and having him being born of a virgin and the prophecy from thousands of years earlier that all these Jedi are really supposed to care about thousands of years after they think the Sith are extinct. It also makes very little sense to me that all these Jedi are supposed to be such bad asses when none of them outside of Yoda I think had ever even fought a Sith. So what basis is there for even thinking they are bad asses when for the most part all they've been doing for hundreds of years is sitting on top of their tower acting as advisers and diplomats?

So how would the Sith be powerful? They are basically hiding out jerking off for 1000 years with each teacher being killed by his student. The smart teacher would notice a pattern here and maybe hold back some instruction.

Lucas’s other problem is his inability to stay consistent. Leia remembers her mother. Vader abandoning his family is a better arc.

Jedi could still be strong having fought across the galaxy different elements even if they were not facing force users.
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All of that but I also hated the chosen one shit and having him being born of a virgin and the prophecy from thousands of years earlier that all these Jedi are really supposed to care about thousands of years after they think the Sith are extinct. It also makes very little sense to me that all these Jedi are supposed to be such bad asses when none of them outside of Yoda I think had ever even fought a Sith. So what basis is there for even thinking they are bad asses when for the most part all they've been doing for hundreds of years is sitting on top of their tower acting as advisers and diplomats?

So how would the Sith be powerful? They are basically hiding out jerking off for 1000 years with each teacher being killed by his student. The smart teacher would notice a pattern here and maybe hold back some instruction.

Lucas’s other problem is his inability to stay consistent. Leia remembers her mother. Vader abandoning his family is a better arc.

Jedi could still be strong having fought across the galaxy different elements even if they were not facing force users.
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3 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

I don't think I have ever heard the phrase "born of a virgin" relating to Star Wars. is this exaggerating or is it actually in one of the books?

meaning the exact phrase?  or the concept?  because Little Ani's mom tells Qui Gon there was no father.

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17 hours ago, SpiralOut said:

Not saying Christensen is an amazing actor, but Lucas' work on the Prequels was going to make anyone look awful.  Portman is stiff, unlikable, and weird/awkward.  McGregor, especially in TPM, is boring and bland.  In the next two films he's just cheesy and about all he can pull off well is exasperated.  Neeson doesn't come off any better.  They're all highly forgettable performances from three really good actors.  Lucas was even able to make the inestimable Christopher Lee into a dud. 

The only actor who comes out of the Prequels with an amazing performance is McDiarmid.  And that's because he's so over-the-top goofy.  Everyone else has their super serious/super bored face on and he's out there living it up because his character is complete nonsense.  So George literally had to write the most silly, moustache-twirling villain part in movie history to get a good performance out of an actor for the Prequels. 

But we're supposed to give Christensen shit for not knocking it out of the park?  I mean, with dialogue like "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." he should have just strolled his way to an Oscar nom, right?  

Sam Jackson is great, too. 

Also kind of agree with you on the script killing Hayden more than anything else. He's actually pretty serviceable imo in ROTS - too much cheese but he has some good moments, especially towards the end when everything flips. I think he's good in the scene where he saves Palpatine. 

Edited by ztejas
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isn't it time to face the fact that out of the 10 W movies we have to date, 7 of them are basically terrible.  the prequels are terrible.  no spinning it.  all of them are terrible.  of the middle 3 (original trilogy) Empire is fantastic and ANH is really really good.  ROTJ is entertaining, but not really good.  TFA was nothing more than a remake of ANH, but with a "BIGGER" death star.  Fail.  hard fail.  It was better than any of the prequels, but it isn't good by any stretch.  TLJ is straight trash.  That leaves Rogue One which is great.  Really great.  I liked that one a ton.  it was a worthy prequel to ANH.  was it actually a prequel, or a supplemental parallel plot line within ANH?  Either way, it was awesome.  I didn't see Solo, but the trailer was so bad, and it following TLJ I simply wrote it off as awful.  There was plenty of data of the franchise making epically awful movies to reach that conclusion.  

 

I will probably go see this last installment since im this far invested in the story, but my expectations are it will be terrible.  I guess if you bat .300 in MLB you're gold.  If you're  billion dollar movie franchise and you're .300 you're just not doing a very good job.  

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Ive wondered why when palpy was confronted by mace and they fought. He tells the senate the jedi attack (his lightening) deformed him yet when he unloads on Luke, he doesnt suffer the same fate



I think he was just full of shit, and had resting 150 year old man face. The young Palps was just a mask. I think.
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31 minutes ago, Smax said:

Ive wondered why when palpy was confronted by mace and they fought. He tells the senate the jedi attack (his lightening) deformed him yet when he unloads on Luke, he doesnt suffer the same fate
 

 

11 minutes ago, Red Five said:


I think he was just full of shit, and had resting 150 year old man face. The young Palps was just a mask. I think.

I always thought Mace used his lightsaber, and probably a fair amount of his force powers, to redirect Palpatine's force lightning back at him. 

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20 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

I don't think that insinuates that she was a virgin. 

She says "There was no father, I carried him, I gave birth to him, I can't explain". It's heavily implied virgin-birth in the sense of she didn't fuck some dude and get knocked up not virgin-birth in the sense she'd never had sex at all. So not really virgin-birth, just us using that term colloquially. 

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