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ZkinandBonez

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Post
#1601460
Topic
Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Time

Channel72 said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Well, I more-or-less much agree with everything you just said, minus the conclusion–and even that is fairly hair-splitting.

First off, my title is admittedly a tad click-bait-y, and had I written the essay now I might have phrased a few things a bit differently. But overall, the reason I label SW as surrealism is because of how its themes are incorporated into the ‘world-building.’

Yes, all fiction adheres, or should adhere, to our instinctual understanding of the physical world around us, and yes, even “hard SF” can get this wrong simply because space travel isn’t currently a natural part of our lives. But, there is a difference between getting it wrong due to laziness and doing it on purpose. SW often breaks these rules the same way fantasy or myth do in order to tell a symbolic, larger-than-life story where the ideas and impressions matter more than realism or plausibility.

Even hard SF can have themes and symbolic meaning, but there is generally a surface narrative where the depicted world hss its own set of strict rules that goes beyond simple continuity or our baseline understanding of physics. The themes are for all intents and purposes “tacked on”, even when they are the main reason for the story being told. In Fantasy, this line is often more blurred. F.ex. in Homer’s the Odyssey, Ulysses travels to several islands with strange creatures on them, but there’s no inherent logic to them beyond baseline physics. They can’t be placed on any maps, there’s no inherent logic in a lone giant inhibiting an island, nor do we need to know how Circe got to her island. They are simply there because Ulysses needs to face his trials before being allowed to get home to his family. These places and theie inhabitants don’t exist outide the narrative.

This is trickier with SW because of the EU and our modern tendency to turn everything in not only a franchise, but everything tends to evolve into a LOTR-type world now. Even so, there are things in in Tolkien’s world that breaks the established rules in order to tell a symbolic story. This is especially true for Gandalf’s magic, which is notoriously hard to pin down to any coherent internal logic. Though to Tolkien the themes trumped lore, and he chose the abstract and mythic approach.

Yes, SW has strong SF elements baked into it, but even a forcefield generator, if seen through an abstract lense can simply be a SF-ified version of a castle wall that needs to be brought down by invading army. Likewise, I don’t agree with the idea of there being AI or proper robots in the OT. The droids are effectively space-ified slaves. They are symbolic humans (and based on the two peasants in Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress). It’s hard to do a space fantasy, or science-fantasy, without established technological tropes slipping through, but the OT never really does much with these ideas because they don’t matter beyond their symbolic meaning and recognisable surface function. In Star Trek it matters how a warp drive works (even if the science is a bit questionable in hindsight), but the hyperdrive in SW is simply an engine. Ulysses had sails, Han has a spaceship engine. And considering the sounds it makes, and since we see X-Wings being fuelled by seemingly gasoline (or something similar), its basically a “normal” engine added to space ships. No dilithium crystals or atomic reactors needed here.

Anyway, I hope you don’t take this response as being harshly worded, as I think you raised a lot of excellent points. And admittedly, drawing the line between the abstract and the “literal” in fiction is extremely difficult and the lack of any universally agreed upon genre definitions doesn’t exactly help either. And I’m more than willing to agree with the use of science-fantasy being applied to SW, even if I personally think space-fantasy is better. Though you obviously don’t seem to label it as just SF, there are those that do, and that I do strongly disagree with.

Right, I wouldn’t say Star Wars is entirely science fiction. I’d probably call it sci-fi/fantasy or something like that.

I agree with what you’re saying about surrealism in the world building, and the example of Odysseus’ adventures at sea. I guess the giant asteroid worm and the Sarlacc pit are examples of things in Star Wars that are somewhat analogous - trials for our heroes to overcome with little inherent logic on their own.

I also agree that something like a deflector shield can be replaced with a castle wall, but I think Star Wars also contains elements that cannot be replaced with some pre-technological approximation without losing a lot in the translation. The Industrial Revolution inspired the emergence of sci-fi as a new story-telling genre that seemed fundamentally different from any genre that came before. While there are obscure examples of pre-Industrial stories that arguably incorporate elements that superficially resemble sci-fi, the stories that emerged during the Industrial revolution, like Frankenstein, seemed categorically different because they extrapolated from current technological developments in order to imagine ways that technology could radically impact the human condition in the future, while also bestowing the human inventor/scientist with powers previously reserved for gods or the supernatural.

My argument is that Star Wars incorporates themes that are directly related to the effects of technology on humanity, and thus can only have meaning to a post-Industrial, technological society. I agree that a deflector shield can be translated to a castle wall and a laser gun can be translated to a bow and arrow - but then you have themes like “spirituality vs. technology” with Darth Vader warning the Imperial elite not to rely so much on their “technological terror” or Luke Skywalker switching off his targeting computer before pulling off an impossible shot. These elements invoke themes that cannot be meaningfully translated to a pre-Industrial, pre-technological equivalent without losing a ton of meaning and social context in the translation. Even the Death Star and the political implications it has - an absolute technocratic, totalitarian dictatorship with no need for bureaucracy - invokes dystopian fears and themes that can’t be translated to a pre-Industrial equivalent without fundamentally altering their essence.

I mean, the Romans and other pre-Industrial civilizations could not even conceive of a Death Star or an atomic bomb and what it could mean for governance and politics. Their notions of political power were rooted in things like manpower and ties to the divine or previous dynasties. Sure, they developed some impressive new technologies with military applications, but this had a limited effect on the average person and never inspired writers or poets to imagine a fundamentally different future by extrapolating from current technological developments. It would take the wide-ranging effects of the Industrial Revolution to inspire the emergence of science fiction as a categorically new genre, and I think Star Wars includes important themes that only make sense in a post-Industrial, technological society.

Good point. Yes, although the core narrative of SW could work in an ancient myth context there are definitely elements that only makes sense in the modern world. I can’t recall the exact quote, but I think Lucas once said something about how he wanted to create a myth/fairytale for the space age.

So yes, there are definitely science-themes involved, even if they can be translated into something more universal and mythic. I agree that Vader being a cyborg carries with it very modern anxieties about loosing humanity in technology, though within in the “sub-narrative” it can still be seen as a SF-ified visual metaphor for simply loosing one’s humanity. You could find equivalent ways this could have been done in a pure Fantasy setting (something akin to Gollum, the ringwraiths, etc.), though then it wouldn’t be a space age myth. That’s what makes SW so unique, even forty plus years later, all the core principles of Fantasy/myth are there, but “updated” with familiar SF tropes.

Post
#1601205
Topic
Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Time

Channel72 said:

I know this essay is very popular here, but I’ve always disagreed with it.

In practice, people often define science fiction as “you know, lasers and robots and space ships and shit”. Obviously, Star Wars meets this criteria. But a more useful criteria for science fiction probably entails stories that are in some way actually about how some hypothetical future technology or development affects people and society. Stuff like Contact or Blade Runner are obviously sci-fi under that definition, as are movies like the Matrix or Terminator. These movies are actually about how some new technology or future condition affects people and society. This definition is not a binary thing either - there’s obviously a “sci-fi spectrum” here, and a movie can be both sci-fi and other genres simultaneously.

Some might prefer an even stricter definition or criteria for sci-fi. Under this stricter definition, a movie’s themes should not be reducible to conventional themes, i.e. the movie can’t simply use sci-fi elements as window dressing to tell a conventional, non-sci-fi story. For example, arguably something like Terminator 2 has prominent themes about motherhood, fatherhood, and determinism/fate. The movie doesn’t necessarily need science fiction elements to explore those themes. It could be reimagined as a story with the same themes and overall plot structure but with the sci-fi elements removed. For example, it could just be about a delinquent teenage orphan on the run from something while an unconventional father-like figure protects him. You don’t necessarily need killer time-traveling cyborgs to explore those themes - but they do make the movie a lot cooler. On the other hand, a movie like 2001 - A Space Odyssey is irreducibly science fiction, because the sci-fi elements are absolutely required in order to explore the themes the movie wants to explore, like space exploration, AI and the long-term evolution of the human race. But this stricter definition is pretty impractical, because few people use the term “sci-fi” in such a narrow way.

Anyway, I think Star Wars - at least A New Hope - is actually science fiction using either of these definitions (even the stricter one!). Most people are likely to describe A New Hope as a “hero’s journey” or a fantasy about a young farmboy who meets a space wizard and goes on a fantastical adventure. But the main plot is also very much about a new technological super-weapon, and how it affects society as a political game-changer, making an absolute technocratic dictatorship possible and stable over the long-term without any accompanying bureaucracy or democracy. There are also themes of “man vs. machine”, spirituality vs. technology, etc., all of which are themes that are not reducible to non-science-fiction themes.

Moreover, the “Star Wars is fantasy not sci-fi” argument is often used defensively in the context of discussions about obvious absurdities, like Han Solo walking around inside an asteroid, exposed to the vacuum of space, with no protective suit and a magical source of artificial gravity. Fans (and Irvin Kershner himself) often hand-wave away such criticisms with arguments about the artistic merits of Star Wars viewed as surrealism or expressionism. Star Wars certainly has elements of surrealism and expressionism, but the films also anchor many sequences around objective rules based on technological systems - e.g. we can’t penetrate the deflector shield so we need to blow up the shield generator.

Fundamentally, the boundaries between sci-fi and surrealism or fantasy are often arbitrary, based mostly on the experiences and expectations of the average person living today. If I complain that Han Solo shouldn’t survive in the vacuum of space, somebody might respond by telling me “Star Wars isn’t supposed to be science fiction.” J.J. Abrams said exactly that (“Star Wars is not a science lesson”) when fans complained that the bright red Starkiller beam in Force Awakens shouldn’t be visible in the sky.

But why exactly do we accept this? Probably because most humans have never been to outer space, so the average person doesn’t have the experience or mental model to develop expectations about how outer space works. Thus, they’re okay if a movie ignores the reality of physical conditions imposed in outer space if doing so increases drama or spectacle. Okay, but what if there was a scene where Han Solo dives into a river, and then just starts walking around underwater for hours, with no breathing apparatus? If no explanation is provided, the audience would be like “WTF? How is he not dead from lack of oxygen?” It’s doubtful anybody would respond with “Who cares! Star Wars is fantasy, not sci-fi!”. Because of course, the average person in the 21st century has the experience to understand intuitively that humans can’t breathe underwater. If a movie violates this intuition, the audience gets frustrated.

Even pure fantasy, like Lord of the Rings, generally adheres to the audiences’ base-line expectations about physics on a human scale. If Frodo Baggins falls off a tall cliff we expect he will die when he hits the ground. If he falls into a river and can’t swim, we expect him to drown. If these expectations are violated and no explanation is provided, the audience becomes frustrated. Pure surrealism or expressionism, on the other hand, doesn’t even necessarily require this minimal adherence to some baseline set of expectations rooted in the common shared experiences of being human. So I’ve always felt that labeling Star Wars as surrealism, expressionism, or pure fantasy - often defensively - to be pretty arbitrary, based mostly on our current, average experiences of reality, which change rapidly with each passing year as humanity collectively experiences new things and learns more about the Universe.

I don’t expect Star Wars to ever be hard sci-fi, nor do I want it to. It relies extensively on fantasy conceits like the Force, FTL travel, and space dog-fights. But that doesn’t mean we should pretend it’s entirely expressionist, as if objective, physical rules should always be a secondary concern, or that it doesn’t incorporate themes that are irreducibly science fiction.

Well, I more-or-less much agree with everything you just said, minus the conclusion–and even that is fairly hair-splitting.

First off, my title is admittedly a tad click-bait-y, and had I written the essay now I might have phrased a few things a bit differently. But overall, the reason I label SW as surrealism is because of how its themes are incorporated into the ‘world-building.’

Yes, all fiction adheres, or should adhere, to our instinctual understanding of the physical world around us, and yes, even “hard SF” can get this wrong simply because space travel isn’t currently a natural part of our lives. But, there is a difference between getting it wrong due to laziness and doing it on purpose. SW often breaks these rules the same way fantasy or myth do in order to tell a symbolic, larger-than-life story where the ideas and impressions matter more than realism or plausibility.

Even hard SF can have themes and symbolic meaning, but there is generally a surface narrative where the depicted world hss its own set of strict rules that goes beyond simple continuity or our baseline understanding of physics. The themes are for all intents and purposes “tacked on”, even when they are the main reason for the story being told. In Fantasy, this line is often more blurred. F.ex. in Homer’s the Odyssey, Ulysses travels to several islands with strange creatures on them, but there’s no inherent logic to them beyond baseline physics. They can’t be placed on any maps, there’s no inherent logic in a lone giant inhibiting an island, nor do we need to know how Circe got to her island. They are simply there because Ulysses needs to face his trials before being allowed to get home to his family. These places and theie inhabitants don’t exist outide the narrative.

This is trickier with SW because of the EU and our modern tendency to turn everything in not only a franchise, but everything tends to evolve into a LOTR-type world now. Even so, there are things in in Tolkien’s world that breaks the established rules in order to tell a symbolic story. This is especially true for Gandalf’s magic, which is notoriously hard to pin down to any coherent internal logic. Though to Tolkien the themes trumped lore, and he chose the abstract and mythic approach.

Yes, SW has strong SF elements baked into it, but even a forcefield generator, if seen through an abstract lense can simply be a SF-ified version of a castle wall that needs to be brought down by invading army. Likewise, I don’t agree with the idea of there being AI or proper robots in the OT. The droids are effectively space-ified slaves. They are symbolic humans (and based on the two peasants in Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress). It’s hard to do a space fantasy, or science-fantasy, without established technological tropes slipping through, but the OT never really does much with these ideas because they don’t matter beyond their symbolic meaning and recognisable surface function. In Star Trek it matters how a warp drive works (even if the science is a bit questionable in hindsight), but the hyperdrive in SW is simply an engine. Ulysses had sails, Han has a spaceship engine. And considering the sounds it makes, and since we see X-Wings being fuelled by seemingly gasoline (or something similar), its basically a “normal” engine added to space ships. No dilithium crystals or atomic reactors needed here.

Anyway, I hope you don’t take this response as being harshly worded, as I think you raised a lot of excellent points. And admittedly, drawing the line between the abstract and the “literal” in fiction is extremely difficult and the lack of any universally agreed upon genre definitions doesn’t exactly help either. And I’m more than willing to agree with the use of science-fantasy being applied to SW, even if I personally think space-fantasy is better. Though you obviously don’t seem to label it as just SF, there are those that do, and that I do strongly disagree with.

Post
#1478362
Topic
The Kenobi <s>Movie</s> Show (Spoilers)
Time

Of course sand doesn’t have to mean they’re on Tatooine, but I agree that it could be Force vision. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this whole “rematch” deal turns out to be a bait-and-switch for the sake of marketing. But, for all we know they might end up doing both; i.e. a Force vision early on in the series as a bit of a teaser and an actual duel on some other planet at the end which convinces Vader that Obi-Wan has been killed…or something to that effect.

Post
#1478200
Topic
Implied starting date of the Empire from OT dialogue
Time

G&G-Fan said:

It’s really simple: still 19 years just like in the prequels.

Vader is said to be instrumental in founding the Empire and killing the Jedi. Luke is 19. Whether Anakin and Vader are the same person or not, Anakin would need to be alive and on the light side 19 years ago so he can provide his part in Luke’s birth; BEFORE he’s “killed”/turns to the dark side. It’s kinda just simple math.

Unless Vader conceived of Luke while he was a Sith lord, but there’s OT dialogue that contradicts that (“…if Anakin had any offspring…”). Plus the sequence of events wouldn’t make any sense; I don’t see Luke ending up under the supervision of Obi-Wan if he was conceived while Vader is evil, he’d absolutely end up with the Empire.

It’s been a few years since I last commented on this thread, but if I remember correctly, there was some debate about how the formation of the Empire worked out pre-PT. There was some information to suggest that the Empire could have been formed long before Luke and Leia were born and that the Jedi fought against the Empire/Sith as an opposing faction until they were eventually wiped out. This would then make Anakin’s fall to the dark-side happen after the formation of the Empire, and not concurrently as it does in canon.

This is also how things more-or-less were in the 1st draft of SW, were there were several, though not many, Jedi still around fighting against the Empire and multiple Sith Lords. So it’s possible that this was still in Lucas’ mind during the making of the OT, though by the time of ROTJ this had probably changed to something a bit more like the final canon established in the PT.

Post
#1476656
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

Sirius said:

I think that even the worst concept could be transformed into a good story. Just contract the right people to do the job. To say that Boba was born to be a side character just won’t work for me.

I didn’t mean to say that he has to always be a side character, I just think they chose a character that doesn’t easily fit into the role of a SW lead.

As I wrote earlier, I think they had the right idea plot-wise, but the execution was clunky.

Post
#1476605
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

theprequelsrule said:

They should have done a show about the best bounty hunter in the galaxy tracking down its most dangerous criminals. A no brainer IMO.

I see very little story in this concept, let alone a Star Wars story.

Granted, I wasn’t exactly thrilled by what we did end up with, but the core idea did at the very least follow the philosophy of the franchise. The real issue, IMO, was that Fett was always a background or side character, and giving him his own movie or TV show was always going to be difficult within the established SW framework.

Post
#1475699
Topic
<strong>The Mandalorian</strong> - a general discussion thread - * <em><strong>SPOILERS</strong></em> *
Time

jedi_bendu said:

ZkinandBonez said:

But I’d rather this show didn’t have any loose threads in the end.

I would agree about wanting it to be self-contained, if it hadn’t already had part of its main plot happen in a different show…

True, but at least BOBF was a spin-off show from The Mandalorian, and I’m getting the impression that we’re getting a Favreau mini-verse as it was, with Filoni’s cartoon strongly tied to it as well. So, yes, it’s clear that it won’t all be completely self-contained, which of course is pretty hard seeing as all SW is based on the OT anyhow, and in this case the PT as well, but I’m still hoping they’ll focus on past and present continuity and not leave things overly open-ended for future continuity.

Post
#1475595
Topic
<strong>The Mandalorian</strong> - a general discussion thread - * <em><strong>SPOILERS</strong></em> *
Time

jedi_bendu said:

There are some leaked set photos and very interesting - and credible - rumours accompanying them. I’ll hide this in case anyone doesn’t want possible plot spoilers.

[Images removed by Moderator. See Rule 7.]

A very reliable source has backed up these leaked photos as real. Apparently these unknown red troopers will be fighting Din Djarin alongside Praetorian Guards from The Last Jedi. It makes sense that Snoke would be involved, related to the mysterious cloning plot they began in season 2.

I won’t name the source since evidence suggests they’ve done some really nasty things, but they’ve leaked things such as the Grand Inquisitor in the Obi-wan series, and the entire plot of The Rise of Skywalker, before.

I personally hope this doesn’t turn out to be true (the direct ST reference that is) as I’d rather have this series stick to a self-contained-ish Imperial Remnant plot, and of course Mandalorian culture, without dabbling to much in ST arcs, let alone anything so blatant. Since we’re getting Thrawn in the future, I’d much rather have that be the main focus of this and the Ahsoka series, and whatever else they might add down the line (such as the BOBF announcement being a surprise within another show). Of course they could downplay it and leave it a “mystery” that only knowledge of the new movies can help answer, or something like that. But I’d rather this show didn’t have any loose threads in the end.

Direct reference to the leaked photos:

The helmets do remind me a bit of the Imperial Mandalorians we saw in Rebels, so it could be that Mandalorians that are still loyal to the Empire could appear in season 3. This could be really interesting seeing as they’re clearly building up to a Din, or at least someone else through him, becoming the new Mandalore with the Darksaber, not to mention that it’d stir up a lot of emotions in the main characters for obvious reasons.

Post
#1475493
Topic
The Kenobi <s>Movie</s> Show (Spoilers)
Time

So a lot of people online have been pointing out that Obi-Wan’s binoculars doesn’t have a lens for him to actually look through.

I suppose those little rivets are supposed to be the lenses? This is hardly important, and it’s not like SW technology tends to make much sense, but I thought it was kinda funny.

(BTW, I have no idea who made this image, I just googled Obi-Wan teaser + binoculars and this showed up.)

Post
#1475323
Topic
The Kenobi <s>Movie</s> Show (Spoilers)
Time

jedi_bendu said:

rocknroll41 said:

Future seasons? This is already confirmed to be a one-season thing.

I believe that’s what he meant - they won’t soften anything for future seasons since there won’t be any.

Exactly.

Now obviously we won’t see the death of any characters that we have seen die in other movies/series, but seeing as there will be only one season of this I’m hoping that this means we’ll get something a bit like Rogue One where we’ll actually see some meaningful deaths.

I suppose we could get some crossover with Andor though, seeing as they’re set in roughly the same time. I think it’s a given that we’ll see some rebels in this series, though at this point in canon there’s not much of an organized alliance yet. Maybe we’ll see Obi-Wan help spark the rebellion alongside Bail, similar to what we saw in Rebels only with a separate rebel cell before they all came together.

My only real complaint about the trailer, not counting some nitpicks with the colour grading (I’ve gotten used to that) and such, is the look of the Grand Inquisitor. It’s not a huge deal, but it is somewhat jarring.

Post
#1475250
Topic
The Kenobi <s>Movie</s> Show (Spoilers)
Time

Mocata said:

ZkinandBonez said:

It looks a lot darker than Mando and BOBF, which is something that I’m very on board with.

Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.

Considering the story they’re telling I don’t even see how it can be too light-hearted in tone or style similar to what BOBF ended up becoming, and I’ll be perfectly happy it ends up being similar to Mando. And of course without Grogu to “cute-ify” scenes I suspect it’ll be more Rogue One like in style. I’m not exactly expecting grim-dark or anything like that, but seeing as it’s a miniseries I trust that it won’t try to overly soften things for the sake of future seasons.

Post
#1475244
Topic
The Beyond the OT Trailers/Promos Thread (YouTube/Vimeo, etc. finds)
Time

Obi-Wan Kenobi - 2022 Disney+ Teaser Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWTfhyvzTx0 - from the official Star Wars YouTube channel (1:45 mins long)

The blurb:
“The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.”

Post
#1474928
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

timdiggerm said:

The question is: Are the ways we interact with and view people influenced by the ways we think about our imaginary worlds?

If someone watches SW and/or LOTR and decides to treat someone badly because they see them as orcs or trandoshans, then I’d say the issue is with them and not the fiction. Orcs represent the cruelty inherent within everybody, not some generic “other”, hence why they were once elves, showing that even the most virtuous and civilised people are corruptible. If someone look at orcs and see a real-life group of people then that’s a reflection on them, not Tolkien or Peter Jackson. The same goes for SW.

That’s not to say that fiction hasn’t been used like this before, of course it has, and that’s obviously a bad thing, but that’s hardly what we are talking about here.

If anything I think deconstruction has only made these things worse, since so many people nowadays always look for these types of negative real-life parallels, and more often than not, make them up or project their own biases into fiction when they can’t find any or they miss the point.

Here’s a quote from my Star Wars is Surrealism essay from last year:

ZkinandBonez said:

PART 4B: EXTERNALISING YOUR INNER SLIMY PIECE OF WORM-RIDDEN FILTH

Now let’s move on to aliens that have more personality, like Jabba the Hutt. Like all beings in the Star Wars universe, if you look up the Hutts on Wookieepedia you’ll get an extensive explanation of their society, their biology, how they reproduce (they’re hermaphroditic by the way), etc. But, if we see Jabba through the lens of abstract film making, what is he really? Well, Lucas wanted a fat and slimy gangster, like Marlon Brando in The Godfather or Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon, but of course, in the form of a monster, or rather an “alien” in this case. Monsters have always been representations of real life concepts; like how European dragons have always been representations of greed; hording gold in their caves for no practical purpose other than mythological symbolism. Jabba is no different. He is greed and gluttony brought to life in the form of a big, fat, slimy slug; the abstract made literal. It is a type of storytelling that has made sense to every single child watching the film, but that unfortunately doesn’t always click with us critical-thinking adults.

Jabba’s henchmen are no different. They are meant to be vile criminals working for a mob boss, so their ugliness has been brought to the surface by making them literal monsters; fangs, claws, scales, snouts and all.

Post
#1474914
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

Knight of Kalee said:

I’m on the team that favors nuanced takes on the classic Star Wars elements. IG-11 in The Mandalorian should by all accounts just been a cold, ruthless and effective bounty droid based on what we know about IG-88, but they took the time to deconstruct the archetype and deliver an engaging arc for him tale while delving into topics such as the nature vs nurture debate.

I’m not saying SW can’t have nuance to it, I’m just saying that if every creature gets deconstructed there won’t be much SW left.

F.ex. Most people don’t complain about a lack of depth in the orcs in LOTR, and the ones who do are usually given a quick rundown of what they represent and why a mythic fantasy doesn’t need this kind of overanalysis. SW on the other hand, presumavly due to it’s Sci-Fi aesthetic rarely seens to get the same response.

You can give depth to hobbits, dwarves, elfs, heck even the talking trees gets a little bit of nuance, but Sauron, like Palpatine in SW, is a symbol of pure evil, and should never be treated as anything else. Saruman and Vader were both corrupted by evil, they were written to represent this relatable and nuanced human behaviour, that’s their purpose in their respective stories, while their masters represents that corruptible power, i.e. something abstract.

So nuance and depth in SW is great if it serves a narrative purpose and when it is written by somone who understands the mythic structure that holds it all together.

The philosophy of deconstructionism underminds the very nature of SW, as it does all myths and fairytales. All fiction, even fantasy, should, and usually do have nuance to it, but deconstruction tends to unravel it through overanalysis. I understand the purpose of deconstructionism in the real world and even for fiction about the real world, but I think it’s a poor match for fantasy.

Post
#1474867
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

jedi_bendu said:

ZkinandBonez said:

SW is not Star Trek so I can do without arbitrary depth and nuance added to creatures that were originally made to serve as simple monsters or caricatures of life and history.

I think it’s a very fundamentally bad idea to vilify an entire species, no matter what universe you’re writing for.

Considering we’re talking about fictional fantasy creatures I don’t see the problem. None of them a real individuals, there’s no history, culture, etc. Most of the “scary” creatures we’ve seen in live-action SW don’t represent any real people who can be misrepresented.

F.ex. Bossk was simply a monstrous-looking lizard bounty hunter. His purpose was to be a villain in a scene of villains. That’s it. Other Trandoshans in SW have stayed true to the original idea and are all hunters of some kind that are always (at least in movies and TV series) depicted as cold-blooded. There’s no real Trandoshans to be demonized, they’re just cruel lizard-monsters that serve a narrative purpose.

The Tusken Raiders on the other hand have real-life parallels, and therefore it made sense to give them more depth in BOBF and treat them as if they were a real people. Though primarily this also served a narrative function. There’s obviously nothing wrong with some character depth in SW, but doing it for the sake of doing it, or to emulate the more naturalistic narratives of more hard Sci-Fi is simply missing the point.

Star Wars is a fairy tale, a “myth for the space age” as Lucas once put it, and therefore we get many archetypal monsters in the guise as “aliens” (an SF concept). A dragon who hordes gold in a cave is simply a mythic symbol for greed, it follows no evolutionary pattern, it has no real psychology to speak of, it’s a symbol, a universal abstraction. These are the ideas that Lucas was going for when making SW, and overanalyzing the Trandoshans, the Klatooinians, or the Hutts, I feel is doing disservice to both Lucas and their function within the SW universe.

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#1474840
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<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
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Buzz Lightyear said:

Also, speaking of Tuskens, does anyone else really enjoy how these Disney+ shows have been developing and humanizing various mook aliens from the older movies? What aliens do you suppose could be next? Will we see some Hutts who aren’t crime lords at some point? Will we get to see some Ortolans who aren’t just playing drums all day? Maybe an Ewok who pulls a Star-Lord and leaves behind his terrestrial bound brethren to go have a bunch of adventures in space?

This is actually something that I personally hope they don’t overdo or start to rely on. As I explained in my pseudo-essay from last year, the OT treated most aliens as archetypes and I don’t want them to deviate too much from this. I don’t mind them doing this with the Tusken’s since there was always some nuance with them in Lucas’ films and they were always meant to be the natives on a planet with human colonists, so what BOBF did sense narrative-wise and stays true to the archetypes that they were. However, making the Rancor into a an emotionally complex pet instead of simply a ferocious monster was IMO not necessary, but it was handled well in that it helped tell Fett’s story so I don’t mind it in this case.

I will say this, I do not want to see good Hutts. That seems to go against what the Hutts were meant to be in the SW universe. I much prefer what Favreau did with the he Klatooinian raiders in the Mando episode “Sanctuary” or the Quarren pirates in “The Heiress.” SW is not Star Trek so I can do without arbitrary depth and nuance added to creatures that were originally made to serve as simple monsters or caricatures of life and history.

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#1474677
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

J0E said:

I don’t really mind spoilers, I’ve been lurking around this thread for a while. Does it pick up? I’m kinda not wanting to watch after episode 2. It’s starting on TNG season 1 shaky ground. I really like Mando, even if Season 2 had a few too many cameos that detracted from Mando and the kid. Should I just watch the episodes with Mando? Seeing a lot of mixed reactions.

Does it pick up? Yes and no. Episode 2 is really good, then it slows down until Mando shows up in ep. 5.

You could watch just episode 5 and 6 without causing any big confusion going into The Mandalorian season 3, though you would technically miss out on some minor details.