SparkySywer

When it comes to the fall of Rome, historians will typically say something about how Rome never really fell, it slowly faded away over centuries, but if you really need a specific date, here are some good candidates (235 AD, 476 AD, 1453, etc). One of these is usually used as THE date Rome fell (476), but almost always with the clarification that that’s not actually how it worked out.

Maybe it could be something like that with the Galactic Republic/Empire. Here’s the date where the Jedi were officially declared enemies of the state. Here’s the date where the position of Emperor was created. Here’s when the Republic began imperializing the Outer Rim. Here’s the first major policy shift away from democracy toward autocracy. Et cetera.

Maybe the date where the Jedi were declared enemies of the state is the 476 AD of the Republic/Empire. Generally accepted to be the turning point, where yesterday you had the Republic, today you have the Empire, but it’s just a convention created millennia later. Not all that much actually changed, and other historians in other contexts would use different dates for different reasons.

fmalover said:

The only thing he has going for him is the undeniably cool looking suit of armour. Apart from that he does absolutely nothing noteworthy, and in TESB they only call him “bounty hunter”, just to show how little Lucas thought about him.

This is the most grievous misconception in the Star Wars fandom. People really need to go watch ESB and see how much “”“nothing”“” he does.

His treatment in RotJ is inexcusable, though.

Completely spitballing, it’s possible the Republic could have transitioned into the Empire gradually enough that you really can’t strictly say Year X was the Republic, Year Y was the Empire. There’s nothing textual that supports this, but it fits in with the metaphor for American Imperialism.

yotsuya said:
This firmly plants the start of the Empire at their birth. Why? Vader did not know Luke had a sister which means he was not present at the birth. So the event that turned Vader and started the Empire happened between conception and birth of the twins.

I don’t think we can necessarily assume that Vader turning to the dark side and the rise of the Empire happened at the same time.

hellscape_navigator said:

I think I agree with Servii’s point that we can’t make all art pieces immune to criticism because “taste is subjective,” but I don’t think there’s been any shortage of critical voices trying to hold creators accountable for making bad art.

I don’t think anyone who thinks art is subjective is trying to make it immune from criticism.

I don’t really think TFA screwed over TLJ & TRoS that hard. Redoing the Rebels v Empire conflict was a mistake, but they could have brought in the Republic military as late as in Episode 9, and there’s more interesting subtext to the conflict you can read into TFA and TLJ.

They don’t develop on the new concepts of the ST that much, but TLJ picks up the slack enough that I don’t think it’s a problem. At least in TFA’s case.

The Knights of Ren should’ve been cut, because there’s not really anything you could do with them. That’s kind of indefensible, but it’s not that big a deal either.

I don’t really know what else could be a case of TFA screwing over the rest of the ST, though.

They might end up just being white in that kind of lighting. They shouldn’t be purple, though.

Servii said:

Episode numbers were a mistake.

I agree, sort of. It hurt Star Wars in the long run, but it served an actually interesting purpose before the prequels existed. Back when the fact that the first movie was not Episode 1 was just a reference to old serials and not a gap that would eventually be filled in later.

Servii said:

Cthulhunicron said:

The Star Wars universe is pretty limited, and I don’t think there’s really anywhere for the story to go.

So, if movies can’t actually have their quality measured, then what’s the point of lists like the AFI Top 100?

Top 100 most important movies (which can be objectively measured)

Why create official rankings of movies that are generally considered great if there’s no way to actually quantify that?

Top 100 most popular movies (which can be objectively measured)

Borders are fuzzy. I’ve seen people say the zoomer generation starts as early as 1994 and as late as 2006. Almost an entire generation can fit in the grey zone.

The TRoS leak meme culture was something else. I’m gonna miss it.

theprequelsrule said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

rocknroll41 said:

Servii said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve already seen opinions of TFA and TLJ improve.

The OT is revered because it’s a well made set of films.

Art is subjective. If the OT was as objectively well-made as you say then why did places like Time Magazine and Empire Magazine shit on ESB when it was new? We also mustn’t forget that a lot of people also crapped on RotJ up until TPM was released.

Art is subjective, and the quality of a movie is subjective. But the OT is undeniably popular, and not simply just because it’s old or because le Star Wars fans are le dumb. It’s also incredibly influential, in a way the PT and ST, like them or not, never will be.

Agreed completely. As I stated so many times on these forums, films are purely subjective, there are no two ways about it.

Still OT has something special that extremely few films ever had or ever will.

To say “purely subjective” is a rather extreme position. There may be an element of subjectivity, but there objective elements. Is Britney Spears as good a musician as Mozart?

Mozart has a lot of qualities that Britney Spears doesn’t have, and they’re worth talking about. But whether or not Britney Spears is as good as Mozart is subjective.

theprequelsrule said:

imperialscum said:

theprequelsrule said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

rocknroll41 said:

Servii said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve already seen opinions of TFA and TLJ improve.

The OT is revered because it’s a well made set of films.

Art is subjective. If the OT was as objectively well-made as you say then why did places like Time Magazine and Empire Magazine shit on ESB when it was new? We also mustn’t forget that a lot of people also crapped on RotJ up until TPM was released.

Art is subjective, and the quality of a movie is subjective. But the OT is undeniably popular, and not simply just because it’s old or because le Star Wars fans are le dumb. It’s also incredibly influential, in a way the PT and ST, like them or not, never will be.

Agreed completely. As I stated so many times on these forums, films are purely subjective, there are no two ways about it.

Still OT has something special that extremely few films ever had or ever will.

To say “purely subjective” is a rather extreme position. There may be an element of subjectivity, but there objective elements. Is Britney Spears as good a musician as Mozart?

I think you do not understand the basic concept of objective/subjective. As a scientist and an engineer, I have a very clear idea of what objective and subjective is. The definitions of objective and subjective are actually pretty simple. Objective is something that can be quantifiable by a metric. On the other hand, subjective is something that cannot be quantifiable.

Are there some elements of films that can be quantifiable by certain metrics? Yes, there are. For example, like how many words from the script were faithfully reproduced in the actual dialogue in the film (you will get a percentage score). However none of the elements that are quantifiable really matter when we think about “how good the film is”. When we say “how good the film is”, we pretty much think of purely subjective elements. So what I said still essentially holds true.

And yes, Britney Spears can be as good a musician as Mozart, since it completely depends on an individual opinion. Music is also an art and therefore completely subjective thing too. Unless you will come up with objective metrics, such as “notes per second”, to quantify “goodness”, which does not make sense at all, as it does injustice to some of the great minimalist composers, like John Adams.

So taste cannot be measured? Talent can’t be measured? At least not by any quantifiable metric? Editing skill and decisions in film making, the pacing of the script, quality of special effects, composition of shots? These are all subjective by your definition, yes?

How would you measure whether or not any of these things were good or bad? You’d need some set of standard, but those set of standards can’t be objective. You can’t prove what blocking should have been used, or how long a take should have been.

It’s the is-ought distinction (Hume’s guillotine), you can’t prove what ought to be solely based on what is. You can only make claims about what should and shouldn’t be based on some set of standards, which are subjective.

Every attempt to define an objective set of standards, or prove whether some art is objectively good or bad, falls short. A movie can be objectively artistically complex, or objectively popular, or objectively influential, or objectively a box office hit, or objectively thrilling, but none of these are inherently, objectively good.

Especially because a lot of the time, people want different things out of movies. Sometimes the same person wants different things at different times.

Sometimes people want schlock BS popcorn movies with cringe dialog. Sometimes people want pretentious arthouse kino from 1729. You really can’t prove either of them wrong.

The planets montage never bothered me in theory, although in execution, I didn’t need more Jar Jar or shoddy CGI Tatooine.

I think though now that the sequels are out, tonally it works better without the planets montage. Maybe I should try editing it out again. I wasn’t ever able to get it quite right with the movie’s audio, but I got it pretty good with the soundtrack. Maybe a blend of the two would work.

thedewback2 said:

The theater I go to is doing private theater showings where you can bring your own Blu-Ray and they’ll play it for you and up to 25 people. I think I’m going to bring 4K77 one of these days.

I’m talking to my local theater about doing that, actually. Covid permitting, and my and whoever else having the moolah permitting.

Servii said:

I do wonder what George was picturing when he thought of the Clone Wars.

Hmm… so Obi-Wan was a vet of WWII. But we can’t exactly say WWII. Let’s come up with something less on the nose.

Well, World Wars I and II were both wars with the same name.

Same name is sort of like being the same war.

Same war… Cloned wars… Clone Wars.

Alright, on to the next scene.

rocknroll41 said:

Servii said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve already seen opinions of TFA and TLJ improve.

The OT is revered because it’s a well made set of films.

Art is subjective. If the OT was as objectively well-made as you say then why did places like Time Magazine and Empire Magazine shit on ESB when it was new? We also mustn’t forget that a lot of people also crapped on RotJ up until TPM was released.

Art is subjective, and the quality of a movie is subjective. But the OT is undeniably popular, and not simply just because it’s old or because le Star Wars fans are le dumb. It’s also incredibly influential, in a way the PT and ST, like them or not, never will be.

theprequelsrule said:

Servii said:

Simply, Rey is not Luke, despite the films treating her like she is, and I honestly think it’s a reductive treatment of her character. She has a different personality, different goals, and different relationships.

The point is Rey should have been far more tempted to the Dark Side then Luke because of the environment she was raised in.

I disagree with the notion that people raised in bad environments are led into having questionable morals, and I really like that in the ST (or at least, TFA and TLJ), Rey was screwed over by the world, had parents who abandoned her, and lived a shitty life, but still had a moral compass that pointed north. Kylo had it made, and had parents who loved him, but he still turned to the dark side.

Screw the actual quality of the prequels or their hypothetical reboot, the angry zoomers alone would be worth it.

Reddit neet zoomers ruined the word Karen, have made boomer no longer a fun word, and they invented Simp so it was never good.

Add a framing device to the framing device of R2 telling Poe about the time he told Luke about the prequels.

I really think that they should loosen up on canon, or have multiple different continuities or something like that. Not in the same way as Marvel or DC, though. Maybe they should have no official canon, but a few continuity projects. I don’t know.

But with a fandom so big and so diverse as the Star Wars fandom, having one official continuity is an awful idea. I mean, for one, there might not have been such a poor reaction to the prequels or TLJ if they weren’t the only backstory for Darth Vader, or the only continuation of Luke’s story. If other people could try their hands at those stories, people wouldn’t care if this one particular one wasn’t right for them.

Especially if Lucasfilm wants to treat Star Wars like a modern mythology. There is technically a Sherlock Holmes canon, and a Robin Hood canon, and a King Arthur canon, but they don’t behave the same way that Star Wars’s canon does. They’re a central group of ideas and stories from which other stories radiate out from.

theprequelsrule said:

SparkySywer said:

I kind of wish they and the mods would reconcile so they could come back, but a lot of them have said they are no longer interested. Oh well. Can’t change that anymore.

Then you are still in touch with some of them outside of OT.com?

Most of them are on Fanedit.org, that’s where I’m in touch with them.

Delpheas said:

It you’re going for “whole Skywalker family” why not add Shmii and Padme?

Let’s add the whole Skywalker family, and also try to fit in the ST with Legends

ESB better fight, RotJ better story moment

theprequelsrule said:

Servii said:

Personally, however, I prefer the RotJ duel because of what’s at stake in the moment. The scene isn’t really about the physical fight itself. It’s a spiritual battle between Light and Dark. The sword swinging is really just a backdrop to the struggle in both Luke and Anakin’s hearts against the absolute evil of the Emperor. And I always get chills when Luke shouts “Never!” and the chilling music starts. The choir that sings both during Luke’s outburst and when Anakin is about to save his son is really stunning.

Me too! I also love the music - the weird synthesizer when Vader (holding Luke’s lightsaber BTW!) is looking for Luke in the shadows, then the chorus when Luke unleashes his anger.

Is that synth? I never noticed that.

NeverarGreat said:

I don’t like the way TROS handled things, but at least now there’s a good case to be made that things are different now, as opposed to after ROTJ.

That’s a fair point and I agree. But I don’t think the state of the galaxy post-TRoS is differentiated enough from RotJ for there to be a significant difference between Rey or Luke rebuilding the Jedi, or Poe or Leia rebuilding the Republic, or whatever comes next.

Maybe spinoff material can pick up the slack for TRoS, but I don’t think an Episode 10 should rely on ancillary media to be understood.

theprequelsrule said:

SparkySywer said:

Episode 9 should have addressed how to build a new society, not just a New New Republic, and how it would avoid the flaws of the Republic that led to the Empire and the First Order. But that’s a little bit off topic. What matters is that what comes next for the galaxy after Episode 9 - it should put an end to this particular conflict. They should have thought about how to prevent another fascist from taking power where their parents did not. Especially because the Last Jedi did address these issues, so it’s not like it’s an idea completely removed from the sequel trilogy.

I don’t want Star Wars to address anything political. It is a Space Opera where people have laser swords. It is escapist fantasy. The Prequels tried to have “ideas”, and these were just unwelcome and out of place in a popcorn blockbuster.

The complaint about the politics in the prequels is a bit of a misnomer. Political storylines are interesting, and (although I personally wasn’t a fan) it’s been well received. IIRC, even at the time. But don’t quote me on that. The Parliamentary Procedure in the prequels was the bad part.

Putting some depth into how the Republic fell and the Empire rose from its ashes, that’s interesting. “Tabled, this motion is… Or is it?” is not.

theprequelsrule said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. The Star Wars sections of this site are still pretty active, but Off Topic has yet to revive. Maybe one day… But that doesn’t mean it’ll be as fun as it used to be. No moderation meant things got pretty delightfully ridiculous at times and there was a repertoire of inside jokes/forum memes that will be lost to time.

I’m not sure if those sections really are that active. There was a time when a new topic would get many responses in a day. Now you might go days without any replies.

To be expected I guess. Star Wars is mostly played out I think.

There is a Woke mentality that had crept into this place too. Tends to stifle any real debate, since real debate might cause offense. And to the Woke mentality being offensive means being hateful, which is being harmfull…and I am going to stop there before random thoughts goes the way of the politics thread.

There’s a lot of new active posters, a lot of them seem pretty chill. Hopefully there will be a third wave on OT.com. But the older posters being gone sucks hard, and the circumstances around their departure were really unfortunate.

I kind of wish they and the mods would reconcile so they could come back, but a lot of them have said they are no longer interested. Oh well. Can’t change that anymore.