Superweapon VII

Hammer a square peg in a round hole hard enough, it’ll be sure to fit.

If SW hadn’t been any sort of hit, it wouldn’t have gotten any sequel, Splinter or otherwise.

But honestly, SW is a victim of its own success. Neither Forbidden Planet nor its fanbase have suffered for the lack of sequels, tie-ins, and miscellaneous consumerist crap.

The Fifth Element is the type of story I would’ve probably loved as a European comic book, but as a Hollywood film, it’s not my cup of tea.

Ah, DeviantArt. I miss the days when it was a (relatively) unbroken site not cluttered with AI imagery.

average stalinism™ moment

Spuffure said:

I think I might be a misogynist (or at least have sexist views) and I don’t know what to do and hate that I can’t change. This is what feeling ostracized as a child and having little female role models can do. Why? Why? Why? I’m such a joke.

I am a worthless person who hates everyone who doesn’t share the same identity as me. When I start to get a bit better, I fuck it all up.

We all have aspects to our psyche we could live without. That you’re able to recognize yours is an indication that that you’ve already changed and are capable of further change. Don’t give up on yourself and don’t hate yourself for being imperfect. We’re all works in progress.

StarkillerAG said:

I wish I could be part of a religion, but my conscience just won’t allow me to. My rationalist mode of thinking means that I find it almost impossible to accept something on blind faith. Why would you believe in one religion without evidence, when there are hundreds of other religions that have just as much of a basis in fact?

But more importantly, I find that the vast majority of religious teachings conflict drastically with my own moral and political views. This especially applies to matters of human sexuality. I’m a firm believer in the right to free sexual expression, including masturbation and pre-marital sex. But most religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, teach people to keep their natural urges bottled up inside. That’s an incredibly unhealthy mindset, in my opinion. And don’t get me started on how the Bible talks about homosexuality: let’s just say that, as a bisexual person, I do not like being referred to as an “abomination”.

As someone who was raised in a fundamentalist Christian cult, experienced a crisis of faith which led to agnosticism, and has since come to identify as perennialist (with various & sundry adjectives), I find this perspective both familiar and alien. That’s what makes it so difficult for me to discuss religion/spirituality with people who haven’t walked a similar path.

All I can really suggest is don’t presume inerrantist/exclusivist forms of religion are “true” religion. Seek out the perspectives of theological progressives. Since my background’s Christian, that’s the perspective I’m most familiar with. I highly recommend checking out The Bible for Normal People and Homebrewed Christianity podcasts, and Marcus Borg’s books Reading the Bible Again for the First Time and The God We Never Knew. I’m also a fan of the Let’s Talk Religion YouTube channel; he covers various religious perspectives, though has an especial fondness for Sufism.

Ahhh, the Nostalgia Critic. I liked him once upon a time.

So I watched Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I’ve avoided STD & Picard like the plague, but I heard this show was a return to form, so I decided to give it a chance.

All I can say is if this is the best modern Trek can do in recapturing the spirit of old school Trek, the franchise truly needs to be staked, decapitated, cremated, and have its ashes dispersed far and wide.

5/10

Spuffure said:

What if people with sexual fetishes are reincarnations from people in an alternate universe where that sexual preference is the standard?

I think Hugh Everett III can simultaneously suck and refuse to suck a fuck.

Spuffure said:

I remember saying years ago that I hated gender roles. What an ignoramus I was.

Gender roles are truly necessary in some parts of life.

Broke: Gender roles are good.

Woke: Gender roles are bad.

Bespoke: Gender roles are.

I feel your pain.

If I had money and privacy, I’d just pay for it. Unfortunately, both are in short supply.

10 November 2002. So Wikipedia’s been around that long. Huh.

Au contraire! Cereal is better when there’s so much milk it turns to mush.

Anakin Starkiller said:

I couldn’t understand a word of Dooku’s

of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

The EU leaning too far into pure science fiction is one of my biggest criticisms with it. It’s interesting because the issue usually doesn’t come up in conversations.

As someone who’s come to prefer hard(er) sci-fi to soft sci-fi, the physics of space travel/battle in SW began to rankle me. Then I came upon this thread, which allowed me to view the series from a whole different perspective.

If I ever get my SW Saga rewrite off the ground, I plan on playing up the wonky physics, just to drive home that this setting doesn’t take place in a universe anything like ours. Luminiferous aether, anyone?

JadedSkywalker said:

i hate how it tries to make Star Wars science fiction instead of space fantasy/adventure.

I don’t think you can lay the blame for that on the NJO. That trend began with the WEG rulebooks, IIRC.

Marooned Biker Scout said:

JadedSkywalker said:

Hated Mara saying she didn’t believe the emperor reborn was Palpatine, that was Zahn taking a shot of Veitch.

I don’t know much about the early EU and how it came about past Veitch’s Dark Empire being originally wrote and set before Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy, but it got turned around somewhere along the lines by Lucasfilm or the publishers? Was there some disagreements or bad blood between the two writers?

Or was it more of friendly jibes and banter type of thing?

Zahn hated the idea of Palpatine returning, so refused to reference the events of Dark Empire in his trilogy. I don’t know what Zahn thought about Veitch personally, but he definitely wasn’t a fan of his story.

Spartacus01 said:

Mocata said:

Servii said:

I should clarify, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a creative changing their mind about something. All stories evolve in the telling of them, and writers are dynamic people who’s vision of their own work is prone to shifting over time.

For example, when JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, it was just a straightforward children’s fantasy adventure story, in his mind. It wasn’t meant to be the prelude to the epic fantasy of LOTR. The Ring was just a magic ring Bilbo found, not the Ring of the Dark Lord himself, who also happened to be the Necromancer of Mirkwood. Tolkien even went back and rewrote the ending to the Gollum chapter of The Hobbit, to make the Ring more consistent with its portrayal in LOTR. And even when Tolkien first started writing LOTR, it started out as merely a sequel to The Hobbit, before ballooning into something bigger and grander.

In a similar way, Star Wars started out as just “the adventures of Luke Skywalker” before ballooning into a drama about the Skywalker family.

The point is, it’s ok that George’s story ideas morphed over time. The problem is that George tends to forget or deny that the change ever occurred. He says “It was always meant to be this way,” when it clearly wasn’t. That’s what people take issue with. If he were more upfront about having changed his mind about things, then people wouldn’t be misled into thinking otherwise.

George’s ideas morphed over time. But unlike Tolkien who loved the work, his languages, and spent time answering letters from fans… George seems to actively hate the fans who made the OOT a success, and doesn’t really like directing movies. The overall denial vibe is also very weird, but I think if the changes were any good people would complain a lot less. Instead it’s like he’s always working on a once classic car and all the tinkering is … well…

I agree. To be honest, I personally think George doesn’t understand what makes the fans like Star Wars. That’s why I basically ignore everything George says and why I base my Star Wars opinions on a Death of the Author point of view, rather than a Word of God point of view. In fact, it could even said that I like Star Wars despite of Lucas’ opinions, rather than because of them. For example, I absolutely hate Lucas’ ideas about attachment and about how the Force works, I find them to be very simplistic and boring. What keeps me from saying: “Well, perhaps Star Wars is not for me as a whole” are the alternative interpretation of these subjects given by the EU authors and characters, like Vergere’s philosophy about the Force and Luke’s ideas about attachment in the Jedi Academy Trilogy and The New Jedi Order. Besides, it’s absolutely impossible to find two quotes from George that don’t contradict each other, because the man changed his mind all the time. Therefore basing your ideas on George’s vision is impossible as well, because (apart from certain very core elements) he never had a solid and stable vision in the first place. So, the better thing you can do to enjoy Star Wars without going crazy is ignoring George’s opinions (unless some of them make sense to you) and judging everything based on a purely Death of the Author point of view.

To quote Luke in ROTJ: “I’m with you, too.”

If only Lucas had foreseen how profitable the '77 film was going to be. Then he could’ve saved the Death Star run for the third movie. Alas…

You remind me of me, Spuffure, around the time I was your age. Unfortunately.

I consider the Thrawn trilogy really good fanfiction. Now, I’ve gotta emphasis “really good” over “fanfiction”. I think Zahn fell short with his description of how ysalamari powers work, not to mention inclusion of the Luuke clone and the improbable survival of Anakin’s lightsaber, but the pros far outnumber the cons in my book.

I’ll forever consider Zahn’s Clone Wars the real Clone Wars over Lucas’.

Catherine Mary Stewart