Star Wars: Emperor Paul Saltines Karate Killings

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Wars: Emperor Paul Saltines Karate Killings

jivjov: Sep 13, 2007; But how does it taste? Yummy!; Dinosaur Gum

Jenny Angel posted:

I hear a lot of good things about this but then I also hear that Thrawn is a cool principled genius villain who beats alien species in battle after analyzing their art and I'm having a real hard time taking that poo poo seriously. Can someone explain

He finds psychological factoids about species based on their art. Its his gimmick. Like there's one species that has an inherently hard time thinking three dimensionally, as such, none of their art is 3D. Its all paintings and drawings, no sculptures or anything. So when he comes up against a ship commanded by a member of said species, his strategy involves a lot of relative altitude changes. (Spoiler alert, this is how Kirk beats Khan in one of the Star Trek films, sans the art bit)

# ? Mar 18, 2015 19:20

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:56

thrawn527: Mar 27, 2004; Thrawn/Pellaeon
Studying the art of terrorists
To keep you safe

Jenny Angel posted:

I hear a lot of good things about this but then I also hear that Thrawn is a cool principled genius villain who beats alien species in battle after analyzing their art and I'm having a real hard time taking that poo poo seriously. Can someone explain

<------ That's pretty much it. It's silly and doesn't make much sense, but it basically comes down to Thrawn understanding alien races at a base level so well that he can predict their every move (whether they're more likely to surrender or turn and fight, that kind of thing). The art is the delivery mechanism for it in the books, but it's entirely possible he was just lying about that being how he knew anyway. He lied about other sources of information to his own men often enough throughout the trilogy. He may have just wanted to keep the "he's a god drat magician" image of himself alive.

In the end, it doesn't really matter how he knows what he knows. Just that he knows it and can use it.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 19:21

karmicknight: Aug 21, 2011

Jenny Angel posted:

I hear a lot of good things about this but then I also hear that Thrawn is a cool principled genius villain who beats alien species in battle after analyzing their art and I'm having a real hard time taking that poo poo seriously. Can someone explain

Timothy Zahn is a good writer, and as such he manages to make Thrawn, who on the surface is a ridiculous character, have enough depth and character that you can look past the premise. Add on the fact that Zahn introduced a number of interesting characters during those books, and you have a very solid series of novels. Thrawn doesn't come across as dumb because most of his "cool principled genius villain" actions are part of a singular plan that has a number of obvious flaws.

It's just written well enough to get past what it seems on the surface to be.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 19:23

Vintersorg: Mar 3, 2004; President of
the Brendan Fraser
Fan Club

The best thing about Zhan was that he really captured the characters and how they acted. I read Kevin Anderson's books and the characters from the movies felt different and weird.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 19:23

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

TheMaestroso posted:

Did you ever get through his convos to his backstory? It's very much worth doing so, because it turns out that GO-TO is just a robot - it was never a man. Super great revelation.

Yes, which is why I didn't post this revelation.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 19:24

karmicknight: Aug 21, 2011

Vintersorg posted:

The best thing about Zhan was that he really captured the characters and how they acted. I read Kevin Anderson's books and the characters from the movies felt different and weird.

This is because Kevin J. Anderson is a bad writer who has dumb ideas and doesn't manage to pull them off.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 19:26

Cognac McCarthy: Oct 5, 2008; It's a man's game, but boys will play

Timby posted:

JJ is also notoriously slow. He didn't get cracking in earnest on Into Darkness until 2012, and he begged and pleaded Disney to let him release Force Awakens in 2016.

Considering the fact that rushed production schedules were major factors in the prequels sucking, and in lots of movies sucking in general, this is good. For example, Jackie Chan movies are way better than a lot of martial arts movies because he burns through a lot of time doing scenes that are hard to pull off but worth the investment.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 20:19

Trump: Jul 16, 2003; Cute

Cognac McCarthy posted:

Considering the fact that rushed production schedules were major factors in the prequels sucking, and in lots of movies sucking in general, this is good. For example, Jackie Chan movies are way better than a lot of martial arts movies because he burns through a lot of time doing scenes that are hard to pull off but worth the investment.

Rushed what? The prequels had long rear end productions, principal photography taking place almost 2 years before release, with built in time for pick-ups down the line.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 20:45

Cognac McCarthy: Oct 5, 2008; It's a man's game, but boys will play

Trump posted:

Rushed what? The prequels had long rear end productions, principal photography taking place almost 2 years before release, with built in time for pick-ups down the line.

Okay that wasn't the right way of saying it. Certain elements were rushed (the script). Lucas showed up in Sydney 2 weeks before Ep. II started shooting with the first draft of the script anyone else had seen, and it wasn't even anything close to a final draft. It's like Alien 3, but instead of the problem being too many writers, it's that Lucas was the only writer :v:

# ? Mar 18, 2015 20:52

Super-NintendoUser: Jan 16, 2004; COWABUNGERDER COMPADRES; Soiled Meat

Cognac McCarthy posted:

Okay that wasn't the right way of saying it. Certain elements were rushed (the script). Lucas showed up in Sydney 2 weeks before Ep. II started shooting with the first draft of the script anyone else had seen, and it wasn't even anything close to a final draft. It's like Alien 3, but instead of the problem being too many writers, it's that Lucas was the only writer

EDIT

CTRL-A

DELETE

You'll be glad you did.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:22

reagan: Apr 29, 2008; by Lowtax

Jenny Angel posted:

I hear a lot of good things about this but then I also hear that Thrawn is a cool principled genius villain who beats alien species in battle after analyzing their art and I'm having a real hard time taking that poo poo seriously. Can someone explain

The books don't hold up. If you absolutely have to read a Star Wars novel, pick up one of the X-wing books by Aaron Allston.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:46

SuperMechagodzilla: Jun 9, 2007; NEWT REBORN

The sad story of the EU is that it killed itself.

Like, everyone jokes about the Death Star plans, and how seemingly every character has a connection to the plans. To my knowledge, no-one has ever asked why this is the case. It's just treated as a weird coincidence that every single writer is an unimaginative hack, in exactly the same way.

Forget for a moment that a given book is 'part of the Universe', and treat it as a book, written by a human person.

If you're a Star Wars writer, you're necessarily writing about Star Wars. That's to say that you are, inherently, providing an interpretation of the films. You've studied literature, and you can pick up on rudimentary themes. So: what are the Death Star plans?

If the Death Star is understood as a future-world of dehumanization and ecological catastrophe (familiar from countless blockbusters); the Death Star plans fill the same role as the robots in Terminator, the Tesseract in Avengers, the Kaiju brain in Pacific Rim - or the crashed saucer in ID4, experimented upon at Area 51. In each case, it is a piece of the future-world that has somehow 'broken off' and ended up in the present day. It serves as a key to the future system, to be used or misused.

What you see with the EU is very simple: instead of a hundred different sci-fi stories using a hundred different names for the same thing, you have a hundred different stories using the same name for the same thing.

So there's absolutely nothing unusual about the EU - except that grouping everything into the hyperlink narrative known as Wookiepedia has revealed a confined, claustrophobic ideological universe centered around the obsessive reenactment of the Death Star battle. It's like when people reminisce about the good ol' days of WWII: the implicit point of this endless re-enactment is that something went wrong - that, despite its onscreen physical destruction, the Death Star continues to haunt Star Wars fans like an ineradicable specter. The EU is Luke's failure given form.

SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Mar 19, 2015

# ? Mar 19, 2015 01:19

thrawn527: Mar 27, 2004; Thrawn/Pellaeon
Studying the art of terrorists
To keep you safe

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The sad story of the EU is that it killed itself.

Like, everyone jokes about the Death Star plans, and how seemingly every character has a connection to the plans. To my knowledge, no-one has ever asked why this is the case. It's just treated as a weird coincidence that every single writer is an unimaginative hack, in exactly the same way.

Forget for a moment that a given book is 'part of the Universe', and treat it as a book, written by a human person.

If you're a Star Wars writer, you're necessarily writing about Star Wars. That's to say that you are, inherently, providing an interpretation of the films. You've studied literature, and you can pick up on rudimentary themes. So: what are the Death Star plans?

If the Death Star is understood as a future-world of dehumanization and ecological catastrophe (familiar from countless blockbusters); the Death Star plans fill the same role as the robots in Terminator, the Tesseract in Avengers, the Kaiju brain in Pacific Rim - or the crashed saucer in ID4, experimented upon at Area 51. In each case, it is a piece of the future-world that has somehow 'broken off' and ended up in the present day. It serves as a key to the future system, to be used or misused.

What you see with the EU is very simple: instead of a hundred different sci-fi stories using a hundred different names for the same thing, you have a hundred different stories using the same name for the same thing.

So there's absolutely nothing unusual about the EU - except that grouping everything into the hyperlink narrative known as Wookiepedia has revealed a confined, claustrophobic ideological universe centered around the obsessive reenactment of the Death Star battle. It's like when people reminisce about the good ol' days of WWII: the implicit point of this endless re-enactment is that something went wrong - that, despite its onscreen physical destruction, the Death Star continues to haunt Star Wars fans like an ineradicable specter. The EU is Luke's failure given form.

People joke about the Death Star plans, but they were honestly an incredibly small part of the EU at the time of its demise. A humorous blip in a sea of poo poo. One that killed Chewie by dropping a moon on him. That turned one son of Han and Leia evil only to be killed by his own twin sister. That wanted to kill that son years earlier, but when Lucas said no just killed his little brother instead, ignoring the arcs being set up for both. That had Luke have a child with his once would-be assassin, only to have her killed by the previously mentioned evil Solo kid. And none of that mentions the most often made fun of moment in the EU, which involves meeting an alien race of bugs. And having sex with them. Or anything written by Kevin J Anderson, destroyer of ~~worlds~~ solar systems.

Yes, the EU killed itself. But it had nothing to do with the plans. It was because it created an insane universe that belongs no where near the big screen.

edit: Actually your point works better if you substitute "Death Star plans" with "super weapon of the week".

thrawn527 fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Mar 19, 2015

# ? Mar 19, 2015 02:01

kiimo: Jul 24, 2003

HIJK posted:

What, seriously?

I worked on the campaign. That production was a disaster.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 02:37

CelticPredator: Oct 11, 2013; 🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Raxivace posted:

But I thought orange is the new black?

gently caress!

# ? Mar 19, 2015 02:42

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Frankly, the EU would be a lot bette rif no one gave a poo poo about continuity. The author could write whatever story theyw anted tot ell, referencing any other story they wanted to as needed, within the constraints of what the publisher permtis, of course.�That way you could also diversify the stories told instead of just telling the same ones over and over again. Want a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-inpired Space Opera set in the past of the Republic, with Jedis and stuff? Why the gently caress not?

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:06

Prolonged Panorama: Dec 21, 2007; Holy hookrat Sally smoking crack in the alley!

MonsieurChoc posted:

Frankly, the EU would be a lot bette rif no one gave a poo poo about continuity. The author could write whatever story theyw anted tot ell, referencing any other story they wanted to as needed, within the constraints of what the publisher permtis, of course.�That way you could also diversify the stories told instead of just telling the same ones over and over again. Want a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-inpired Space Opera set in the past of the Republic, with Jedis and stuff? Why the gently caress not?

I feel you on this a little bit, but why not just write a non SW book at that point? I mean I like the general universe of Star Wars too, but if you wanna write something pretty far removed from the characters and settings we know, does the inclusion this flavor of space wizard really make a difference? You've already thrown out the idea that it has to connect meaningfully in a coherent-narrative way.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:22

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Prolonged Priapism posted:

I feel you on this a little bit, but why not just write a non SW book at that point? I mean I like the general universe of Star Wars too, but if you wanna write something pretty far removed from the characters and settings we know, does the inclusion this flavor of space wizard really make a difference? You've already thrown out the idea that it has to connect meaningfully in a coherent-narrative way.

You've just (re)discovered the problem of sequels between the two of you.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:29

SuperMechagodzilla: Jun 9, 2007; NEWT REBORN

thrawn527 posted:

Actually your point works better if you substitute "Death Star plans" with "super weapon of the week".

Ya: I don't mean that every book (and comic, videogame...) literally centers around the Death Star plans, but that you are basically just seeing regular sci-fi writers doing whatever they want and then find/replacing any generic symbols with their Star Wars equivalent.

There are plenty of stories with characters like Darth Vader (see: Megatron in the Transformers films) but Star Wars writers can just skip the middleman and call their Vader-like character 'Darth Vader'.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:32

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Ya: I don't mean that every book (and comic, videogame...) literally centers around the Death Star plans, but that you are basically just seeing regular sci-fi writers doing whatever they want and then find/replacing any generic symbols with their Star Wars equivalent.

There are plenty of stories with characters like Darth Vader (see: Megatron in the Transformers films) but Star Wars writers can just skip the middleman and call their Vader-like character 'Darth Vader'.

I don't think that's as much of a factor as the desire simply to reenact the films as closely as possible, for the novels at least. The videogames and comics obviously do much more of this.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:33

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Effectronica posted:

You've just (re)discovered the problem of sequels between the two of you.

Well... yeah. But I think there'S something to be said about re-using old worlds and characters in interesting ways. It's why we still read/watch new takes on Sherlock Holmes, for example.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:43

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

MonsieurChoc posted:

Well... yeah. But I think there'S something to be said about re-using old worlds and characters in interesting ways. It's why we still read/watch new takes on Sherlock Holmes, for example.

I meant that either you do what worked in the previous thing, and rehash it, warm it over, or you do something different, and then you have to ask why it's a sequel/prequel. Or you can do a commentary on the original, but Star Wars EU stuff doesn't really operate on that level (even KOTOR 2, I suspect, is attacking a misunderstanding of the films). The only thing interesting in and of itself from the Thrawn books, as I see it, is that the villain is basically Sherlock Holmes, a weird-rear end mystic operating under a thin veneer of rationalism. There's not even that much done with that actually fairly fascinating concept, either.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 03:48

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Effectronica posted:

I meant that either you do what worked in the previous thing, and rehash it, warm it over, or you do something different, and then you have to ask why it's a sequel/prequel. Or you can do a commentary on the original, but Star Wars EU stuff doesn't really operate on that level (even KOTOR 2, I suspect, is attacking a misunderstanding of the films). The only thing interesting in and of itself from the Thrawn books, as I see it, is that the villain is basically Sherlock Holmes, a weird-rear end mystic operating under a thin veneer of rationalism. There's not even that much done with that actually fairly fascinating concept, either.

The same could be said of all spin-offs.

BUT ENOUGH TALK, HAVE AT YOU!

# ? Mar 19, 2015 04:07

Robotnik Nudes: Jul 8, 2013

This thread makes me want to write a story about a movement of non-denomination Force users rise up in middle Empire days that's not gray, but sort of like Force Mormons and how Vader and the Emperor encourage it out of sheer puzzlement and curiosity to see what they come up with out of their own interest in seeing something new happen in The Force.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 06:37

Grendels Dad: Mar 5, 2011; Popular culture has passed you by.

Mogomra posted:

I was joking about the movie flopping. I don't see any way for a franchise with so much momentum to not make at least 3 more movies.

Episode VIII will show you. The movie will cost 8 trillion dollars because every costume and every surface on set will be covered in Swarovski crystals.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 10:21

karmicknight: Aug 21, 2011

Grendels Dad posted:

Episode VIII will show you. The movie will cost 8 trillion dollars because every costume and every surface on set will be covered in Swarovski crystals.

Finally the movie aesthetic movement based on blingee will be ushered in and peace will reign.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 10:43

SuperMechagodzilla: Jun 9, 2007; NEWT REBORN

Effectronica posted:

I don't think that's as much of a factor as the desire simply to reenact the films as closely as possible, for the novels at least. The videogames and comics obviously do much more of this.

That seems commonsense - "whoa! I can play the battle of Hoth on my N64!" - but i don't think it can fully explain it. Like, with the more mariginal elements like bug orgies or whatever (I should note that I have never actually read a single EU thing, and am glad of it) we are talking about the intrusion of 'Alien'-like themes into the rather sexless Star Wars universe. So a sci-fi writer wanted to write a bug sex story, but had to make do with the only franchise had access to.

So you're seeing this repetition of the fighting the Death Star over and over, but also seeing hopelessly inadequate experiments in introducing something new. Everything seems to distract from the point that Return of the Jedi did not have a satisfactory ending, and led us right 'back' to Episode 1. The Emperor continues to reappear. The superweapons keep popping up. Wasn't Palpatine cloned like seven times or something?

For a more blatant example of what I'm talking about, check the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe'. Hydra, Loki, Ultron, Thanos... they are all just minor variations on the same villain. Each alien world that attacks Earth is just another 'Death Star'. So we have ten films where the good guys triumphantly destroy false targets and accomplish nothing. Endless war becomes a goal unto itself.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 10:58

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

That seems commonsense - "whoa! I can play the battle of Hoth on my N64!" - but i don't think it can fully explain it. Like, with the more mariginal elements like bug orgies or whatever (I should note that I have never actually read a single EU thing, and am glad of it) we are talking about the intrusion of 'Alien'-like themes into the rather sexless Star Wars universe. So a sci-fi writer wanted to write a bug sex story, but had to make do with the only franchise had access to.

So you're seeing this repetition of the fighting the Death Star over and over, but also seeing hopelessly inadequate experiments in introducing something new. Everything seems to distract from the point that Return of the Jedi did not have a satisfactory ending, and led us right 'back' to Episode 1. The Emperor continues to reappear. The superweapons keep popping up. Wasn't Palpatine cloned like seven times or something?

For a more blatant example of what I'm talking about, check the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe'. Hydra, Loki, Ultron, Thanos... they are all just minor variations on the same villain. Each alien world that attacks Earth is just another 'Death Star'. So we have ten films where the good guys triumphantly destroy false targets and accomplish nothing. Endless war becomes a goal unto itself.

Well, I have read (an unhealthy chunk of) the EU, and while what you're describing happened more and more as it went on, the initial sets of books (and at least one author admitted to this) attempted to emulate the movies as much as possible in text. So each of the first set of novels begins with a description of a spaceship moving away from the vantage point of the reader, as one little detail. Of course, comics and videogames that couldn't realistically do this started incorporating things like Seven Samurai and extragalactic invasions and eventually the novels turned towards that as well. There are a few things that attempt commentary (and hilariously, at least a couple of them use a similar understanding of the Force to yours), but I do think that you can describe it as a slow shift towards this attempt at writing sci-fi with the use of franchised names to provide 'context'.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 13:29

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

Effectronica posted:

Well, I have read (an unhealthy chunk of) the EU, and while what you're describing happened more and more as it went on, the initial sets of books (and at least one author admitted to this) attempted to emulate the movies as much as possible in text. So each of the first set of novels begins with a description of a spaceship moving away from the vantage point of the reader, as one little detail. Of course, comics and videogames that couldn't realistically do this started incorporating things like Seven Samurai and extragalactic invasions and eventually the novels turned towards that as well. There are a few things that attempt commentary (and hilariously, at least a couple of them use a similar understanding of the Force to yours), but I do think that you can describe it as a slow shift towards this attempt at writing sci-fi with the use of franchised names to provide 'context'.

There was a video overview of Star Wars game sthat came to the same conclusions: Star Wars video games have basically translated all the unique and usable paraphernalia of the movies into game mechanics, whether it's spaceships, light saber combat, blaster combat, warfare, the Force, the Light Side/Dark Side dichotomy, or even pod racing. The problem is that by now the movies have been fully plundered for game ideas, and future of SW games lies more or less in applying the license to other games.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 14:48

Andrew Verse: Mar 30, 2011

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

There was a video overview of Star Wars game sthat came to the same conclusions: Star Wars video games have basically translated all the unique and usable paraphernalia of the movies into game mechanics, whether it's spaceships, light saber combat, blaster combat, warfare, the Force, the Light Side/Dark Side dichotomy, or even pod racing. The problem is that by now the movies have been fully plundered for game ideas, and future of SW games lies more or less in applying the license to other games.

That would be The Errant Signal Youtube series. While usually insightful and interesting, the guy doing it doesn't seem to realize that video game companies aren't making Star Wars games out of love, to have every game capture one unique aspect of the franchise and to never make the same game twice; and fails to understand that the companies are instead making Star Wars games to get money.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 16:00

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

Andrew Verse posted:

video game companies aren't making Star Wars games out of love, to have every game capture one unique aspect of the franchise and to never make the same game twice; and fails to understand that the companies are instead making Star Wars games to get money.

What a revelation.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 16:28

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

It sucks that only EA Games is allowed to make Star Wars titles now. It was better in the 90s when it was a free for all and all of these different developers were making really unique and interesting Star Wars titles.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 16:40

bij: Feb 24, 2007

Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy were great games with a specific, limited scope that I thought meshed pretty well with the movies and bits of the EU. I'd be all about a sequel if they managed to keep to that formula rather than asinine crap like The Force Unleashed.

Star Wars needs more Kyle Katarn, less Starkiller.

# ? Mar 19, 2015 21:29