|
Neurolimal posted:Broke Neurolimal? QQ more on topic: gungans are cool  that's like prime squaresoft poo poo there
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 11:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:25 |
|
|
Hat Thoughts posted:Please stop using words such as "millennials" Fine  Those Y2k Kidz, what with their hook-up culture, surely don't "get" what underpins Anakin's romance on several fronts. Anakin is like King Henry the 8th  The florid Ewok battle is the first battle where everybody is radically humanized, it's the (false) ushering in of a truly democratic war/world view. Every single participant seemingly has their role, screw-up and success.  The complimentary hellish battle that ends the second trilogy is the opposite: a battle between two singular god-like beings.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 11:23
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:Yes, but the redemption is a failure. I don't see anything redeeming in Vader's death except a cowardly return to the vocabulary of the family unit and the sort of flawed humanitarianism you deride in Padme (Anakin's genocide justified by his sadness at mother's death) which seems to counter-act a Marxist reading. I don't even see how Vader is "with the droids" at the end of his life, and when I watch the prequels I have a palpable sense of Luke's absence, like reading about the brutality of the old testament after the Good News was already delivered. This is going back a ways, but there's a detail that will help you understand the redemptive reading of Vader. SMG is speaking the truth, the trick is to listen to the discord. Check it: To start, don't misunderstand radical christian love, which finds no meaning in Christ suffering on the cross as its basis. The truth to conclude, bluntly, is god-is-dead(Father-Master, big Other) and so all that's left is the Holy Spirit, the community of believers in the face of a harsh and uncaring-indifferent universe. To contrast with the opposite end of the spectrum as an example; Fundamentalist christian thought wants to give meaning to Jesus suffering on the cross, follow this line of thought further and well... It becomes self apparent that you're to blame somehow(meaning) for your own suffering - I will learn not to do as you - thus I wish to move beyond suffering and become something pure. The reflection Vader sees in Luke and that Luke sees in Vader is that of his own suffering; Reflections on the cutting off one hand, leading to the redemptive act of Luke's foolish hope born from love; Luke's moment of clarity is that he can see the paradox of choice presented, of a child replacing the adult at the behest of the master, an unending cycle of conflict. So he say's gently caress it, i'm making my own free choice and throws away the light saber. This presents Vader with the same choice, of rejecting Master Sidious' paradox; So conversely he says gently caress it, i'm making my own free choice and going to end this meaningless suffering by suffering along with it. Defying the big Other with a radical act of love. So it's not so much the human-face stuff, but that suffering has no meaning and there may be a previously unseen or unthought choice. Luke emerges as the childs dream realised in the truest sense "I had a dream I was a Jedi" - "Like my Father before me". The choice Luke's act of love presents Vader is simple. You are Jedi and a Sith, so free from distinction and objectification and now in truth neither - so make your free choice. Is this not a radically emancipatory and redemptive act? Now to an important detail from the prequels. It comes back to this visual relationship of Child - Master - Adult as three spheres connected by two lines and the idea of love filling the gap between child and adult; Making a new connection. [note: something to picture in your mind, The Force as the Holy Spirit and Mary the mother of Jesus Christ] Cast your mind back to the image of pod-racers as an abstract-metaphorical image of the uterus and the virgin birth of Anakin from TPM. Contrast this with Master Qui-Gon's attempts to give meaning to this virgin birth of Anakin, by taking a 'midichlorian' count; When he's confronted with a child who gives without any thought for reward. So we arrive here, the adult slave that was left behind when Qui-Gon(Master) liberated Anakin, the one who loved Anakin unconditionally, his mother Shmi. The joke here is Qui-Gon only 'Thinks of the children' while separating him from someone he loves and who loves him; Taking him to realise this dream of becoming a Jedi, it's a traumatic separation that ends up turning Anakin's dream into a waking-nightmare. So a few things to keep in mind here, there's the Padme-Shmi connection in relation to Anakin after the Sand people massacre and Shmi's death; Then there's Padme's death after seeing what Anakin has truly become, takes her a while but she gets there in the end. But don't look back, look forward there's a new birth, a new hope, the twins Luke and Leia born from love. So it's this act of passing through both of these ideologies of master Jedi and Sith; Which are merely reflections of one-another in order to emerge as something new or un-imagined. Free from shackles of that symbolic image of the big Other - the separation from a mother, from unconditional love(feeling) - as Master (Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan/Sidious and so on). To transgress against this meaning of 'objective purity' with a subjective truth - the greatest commandment - love thy neighbour as thyself. It's The Force as Love - radical emancipation and rejecting this Forever-War horseshit. The only question to ask after this reading is, how does it feel? brawleh fucked around with this message at 14:48 on May 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 11:25
|
|
|
brawleh posted:This is going back a ways, but there's a detail that will help you understand the redemptive reading of Vader. SMG is speaking the truth, the trick is to listen to the discord. Yeah, I had to end my old post so suddenly with ZZSAAAP because I was not making much of a defencable criticism at all. It was another eon of Neuroliminal and I wanted to see fresh arguments from the other (dark) side. My later posts are more in line with what Im actually seeing. I embrace the existential christian redemption side of the reading and it feels good and continue to see how the details fit. I have (some) misgiving about where Marx and droid slavery fit in, I also see how heavily reliant ZIzek plays a role in SMG's posts and because the Z rejects things like (westernized) Buddhism I wonder if their are unexplored ideas esp since George Lucas calls himself "Methodist-Buddhist" and has associated that with the meaning of the Force. How much of that is suggesting itself in SW, if any? But again the redemption reading is pretty all encompassing. Eastern thoughts are often ignored (maybe for the better) as imprecise in readings of things because it is shoved into the mouths of Maz-like characters or simply associated with the shallow new age. But that's working backwards. Now just seeing stills/clips and seeing what is suggested to me.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 12:21
|
|
|
The Ewoks are terrible, and the only interesting thing about them is how openly terrible they are. They are savages who are tricked into dying for a false, golden god by the 'good guys', and celebrate victory by drumming on the skulls of their enemy. Almost all of their scenes are slow, plodding moments where they eat food or show fear in the face of death to drill into the viewer that they're like us! Empathize with them! The Ewoks are simultaneously prelapsarian man, innocent and only flawed by their curiousity, and a politically 'neutral' force of savagery to be used as a tool. This is pure ideology. Leia stops being a soldier (although she was already inexplicably demoted from general so Han could take that position) and starts being a princess again - a role she subverted back in ANH that she now takes on without reservation.  We've made it to Alderaan, the princess is in her castle, but the Imperial Death Star once again encroaches on paradise. How will our heroes save the day, what will they hold on to no matter what, and what will they sacrifice?  oh
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 14:20
|
|
|
Yeah, just wanted to use it in a roundabout way to respond to Neuro, felt like a great starting point to give a more coherent responce. Neuro never addresses depictions of droid slavery that we see on screen while the Jedi wage war in Revenge, because it's a huge gap best left unexplored, or worse as he has done, he looks upon it as 'good'. Justifying Jedi command of clones in order to wage war against the ‘bad’ guys, legitimising one form of slavery over another - so slavery is over? Leaving us with endless cycles of: What? What? See what in relation to what for your answer to what, now what? In the face of pretty straight forward thoughtful responses and questions. Leaves you thinking; Motherfucker are you outta yo drat mind?!? brawleh fucked around with this message at 14:39 on May 2, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 14:31
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:But again the redemption reading is pretty all encompassing. Eastern thoughts are often ignored (maybe for the better) as imprecise in readings of things because it is shoved into the mouths of Maz-like characters or simply associated with the shallow new age. But that's working backwards. Now just seeing stills/clips and seeing what is suggested to me. It's not just the Eastern thoughts. I feel like people are unfairly dismissive of all the philosophical and intellectual content contained in the Star Wars films, as if no actual thought or effort was put into any of it, and so it's not even worth analyzing. But that's demonstrably not true. As observed here, this is apparently one of the books Lucas read as part of his "research" prior to writing the screenplay for The Phantom Menace: The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels  From Amazon.com's summary: quote:Gnosticism's Christian form grew to prominence in the 2nd century A.D. Ultimately denounced as heretical by the early church, Gnosticism proposed a revealed knowledge of God ("gnosis" meaning "knowledge" in Greek), held as a secret tradition of the apostles. In The Gnostic Gospels, author Elaine Pagels suggests that Christianity could have developed quite differently if Gnostic texts had become part of the Christian canon. Without a doubt: Gnosticism celebrates God as both Mother and Father, shows a very human Jesus's relationship to Mary Magdalene, suggests the Resurrection is better understood symbolically, and speaks to self-knowledge as the route to union with God. Pagels argues that Christian orthodoxy grew out of the political considerations of the day, serving to legitimize and consolidate early church leadership. Her contrast of that developing orthodoxy with Gnostic teachings presents an intriguing trajectory on a world faith as it "might have become." The Gnostic Gospels provides engaging reading for those seeking a broader perspective on the early development of Christianity. (I've bolded the parts which seem to be very obviously relevant to Anakin's story as it ended up being depicted in the prequels and, indeed, the larger saga as informed by the prequels.) Anyway, I'm not saying the philosophical content of the films isn't relatively shallow in comparison to the primary source material; that's an obvious and uncontroversial statement that would honestly hold true for most so-called "intellectual" films, because filmmakers as a general rule don't tend to be trained academic philosophers. They're just laymen like us who also happen to possess a talent for visual storytelling. That's exactly what makes these kinds of films interesting. You get to see what their personal takeaway is, and you get to see it in an entertaining and visually arresting way. People who expect films to rise to the same level of scholarly integrity as meticulously reasoned, written treatises in peer-reviewed academic journals are sort of missing the point and purpose of cinema, I think. Cinema comes primarily from the heart, not the head. But yeah, that's the difference between the old films and TFA. What kind of research do you think Abrams did when coming up with the substance of Maz's Force philosophy? Well, it's patently obvious that all he did was probably re-watch A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The problem is, those are just films made by George Lucas, and George Lucas is not a philosopher. Star Wars is not philosophy. Star Wars is not religion. That's why TFA fails in this regard. It isn't about anything except Star Wars, whereas the previous films were about many, many different things external to themselves. TFA is just a photocopy of a photocopy, and all the literary weight and deeper meaning that was intrinsic to the original films ends up being lost in the translation as a result. Instead, there's just a great big yawning emptiness which has been hastily and carelessly re-filled with focus-group testing results and heaps of sickly-sweet nostalgia, and that's sad. It's a product made to certain specifications in order to appeal to some nebulous, squabbling group known as "the fans", rather than simply being a relatively unfiltered expression of one idiosyncratic worldview. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 05:12 on May 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 14:37
|
|
|
Hat Thoughts posted:Please stop using words such as "millennials" The Millennial Falcon is a hunk of junk but Neurolimal is just the pilot to make it great again!
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 14:45
|
|
|
Zas posted:wow you're a real idiot When you remove the context of the rest of the post sure; my point was that the Civil War on the Northern side did not start out as a war of abolition. The absurdly paranoid slaveowners feared that the new northern president (a milquetoast moderate on the subject of abolition) was lying about not wanting to confront slavery and would totally hurt them. The war was about slaves for the south from the start, but the United States was primarily concerned with not losing the South; abolition came later into the war. brawleh posted:Yeah, just wanted to use it in a roundabout way to respond to Neuro, felt like a great starting point to give a more coherent responce. Neuro never addresses depictions of droid slavery that we see on screen while the Jedi wage war in Revenge, because it's a huge gap best left unexplored, or worse as he has done, he looks upon it as 'good'. Justifying Jedi command of clones in order to wage war against the ‘bad’ guys, legitimising one form of slavery over another - so slavery is over? I do in fact address it; I point out that it is drastically different from how the Clones are treated, and how these beliefs that the Separatists represent Droid Independence because of select imagery can be read in the complete opposite direction. There is nobody within this thread saying that the films do not display droid slavery. The films display the unity of Clones to show the Republics' slow fall to corruption and fascism. The clones are not enslaved for standing in lines. Brownshirts were not indentured servants. Cnut the Great posted:Star Wars is not philosophy. Star Wars is not religion. That's why TFA fails in this regard. It isn't about anything except Star Wars, whereas the previous films were about many, many different things external to themselves. TFA is just a photocopy of a photocopy, and all the literary weight and deeper meaning that was intrinsic to the original films ends up being lost in the translation as a result. Instead, there's just a great big yawning emptiness which has been hastily and carelessly re-filled with focus-group testing results and heaps of sickly-sweet nostalgia, and that's sad. It's a product made to certain specifications in order to appeal to some nebulous, squabbling group known as "the fans", rather than simply being a relatively unfiltered expression of one idiosyncratic worldview. See, in my opinion the film is not declaring the Force as a religion, but a moral imperative that motivates an individual. Maz and Syndow view it as a religion, Finn sees it as doing what is right, Han only knows that it's real and makes him do crazy things, and Rey is reluctant to accept it until she bonds with Finn. It's a sense of self-sacrifice for something greater than themselves. Within the context of applying it to modern times, it's saying that atheists and agnostics can still be compelled to do whats right even outside of their culture's worship beliefs. That Christian Redemption can just be Redemption for them and maintain the same purity. Maz is not wrong to accept the Force through religion, and Rey is not wrong for lacking religion when she accepts the Force. I won't be posting as much as yesterday (that was a rest day after gym and work prior), so don't be offended if I don't reply to every post, and dont assume "victory" in opinions over subjective art. Feel free to continue being really weird about me whenever I don't post though.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 18:23
|
|
|
Cnut the Great posted:It's not just the Eastern thoughts. I feel like people are unfairly dismissive of all the philosophical and intellectual content contained in the Star Wars films, as if no actual thought or effort was put into any of it, and so it's not even worth analyzing. But that's demonstrably not true.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 19:16
|
|
|
Neurolimal posted:I do in fact address it; I point out that it is drastically different from how the Clones are treated, and how these beliefs that the Separatists represent Droid Independence because of select imagery can be read in the complete opposite direction. There is nobody within this thread saying that the films do not display droid slavery. You misunderstand me Neuro, the reference here isn't what you think, it's what I hope you might see - I'm aiming at your blind spot.   
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 19:24
|
|
|
Scrree posted:The Ewoks are terrible, and the only interesting thing about them is how openly terrible they are. They are savages who are tricked into dying for a false, golden god by the 'good guys', and celebrate victory by drumming on the skulls of their enemy. Almost all of their scenes are slow, plodding moments where they eat food or show fear in the face of death to drill into the viewer that they're like us! Empathize with them! The Ewoks are simultaneously prelapsarian man, innocent and only flawed by their curiousity, and a politically 'neutral' force of savagery to be used as a tool. This is pure ideology. You assume the Ewoks are tricked because of your deep seated racism. porfiria fucked around with this message at 20:21 on May 2, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 19:40
|
|
|
porfiria posted:You assume the Ewoks are tricked because your deep seated racism. The Ewoks are 'tricked' into helping the Rebellion in the exact same way that everyone else is 'tricked' into helping the Rebellion. Where are the Ewoks in Episode 7?
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 20:00
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The Ewoks are 'tricked' into helping the Rebellion in the exact same way that everyone else is 'tricked' into helping the Rebellion. Obviously the Ewoks' failure to appear in Ep 7 is an indictment of the New Republic's weak central government (a failing it shared with the Old Republic). The Ewoks get left alone, but a strong government with a robust conscription policy would have easily been able to sweep away the New Order goons with Ewok special forces (who are shown to be extremely effective against stormtroopers in temperate and boreal forest environments). Instead they rely on, like, Kurds or whatever the Resistance is supposed to be.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 20:26
|
|
|
brawleh posted:You misunderstand me Neuro, the reference here isn't what you think, it's what I hope you might see - I'm aiming at your blind spot. Goddamn that looks like poo poo. Command & Conquer.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 21:02
|
|
|
The Ewoks are probably still living happily on Endor Jesus tap dancing Christ.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 21:03
|
|
|
They probably all died after that Death Star debris finally came raining down.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 21:08
|
|
|
porfiria posted:You assume the Ewoks are tricked because of your deep seated racism. Wrong. I know the Ewoks are tricked because that's what the film shows. https://fat.gfycat.com/ShorttermLimpingGuppy.webm Take note that in the much better sequel to RotJ Lucas presents a similar situation, but inverts the imagery of a servant pretending to be a God by depicting a Queen pretending to be a servant. https://zippy.gfycat.com/CookedBareHamster.webm Of course, given that TPM is the first motion of a tragedy, the end message is that a harmony built out of 'white and black make peace to beat up yellow' is not the same as actual justice.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 21:15
|
|
|
Scrree posted:Wrong. I know the Ewoks are tricked because that's what the film shows. The Ewoks don't really care that C3PO is their god though, because they try to eat his friends anyway.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 22:00
|
|
|
He stops them from doing it with Luke's help.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2016 22:13
|
|
|
I can't believe how bad that CGI looks in those stills and GIFs - I had to go watch that scene in HD again and yep. But obviously being in a video game is part of the mid to late Bush year aesthetic. For the Star Warriors there are no barriers between the digital and the analog.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 00:15
|
|
|
People have really gotten stuck on the idea that you can't be bad/evil if you intend well. The racist ideology of the Rebeks is clear in their treatment of the Ewoks, but we have the inevitable response that the Rebels didn't intend to be racist - "nobody was being tricked." But that's really obviously not how ideology works. Nobody wakes up and says "I'm going to be a capitalist today, I'm going to be a racist today, I'm going to be a socialist today," or whatever. Ideology is in the things that are left unquestioned, considered 'natural' (which is why the Ewoks especially deserve attention). Understanding ideology is crucial, because you might otherwise end up like Neuro, who is both trying quite hard to prove the good intentions behind the Republic's participation in the slave trade while (simultaneously) attempting to be a 'Marxist socialist' while consistently pushing liberal/libertarian ideology. Unwittingly bad.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 00:18
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:Understanding ideology is crucial, because you might otherwise end up like Neuro, who is both trying quite hard to prove the good intentions behind the Republic's participation in the slave trade while (simultaneously) attempting to be a 'Marxist socialist' while consistently pushing liberal/libertarian ideology. Unwittingly bad. coincidentally "liberal/libertarian claiming to be leftist" is the prevailing attitude of the folks who post in d&d/ycs, where neuro resides when not making star wars posts
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 00:21
|
|
|
I wonder how easy it would be to recreate the swamp sanctuary scene from 'scratch' on a modern PC. You just have the raw video from the shoot and the ability to render and animate gungans in unreal or unity for compositing.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 01:07
|
|
|
McDowell posted:I wonder how easy it would be to recreate the swamp sanctuary scene from 'scratch' on a modern PC. You just have the raw video from the shoot and the ability to render and animate gungans in unreal or unity for compositing. yeah probably that easy
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 01:12
|
|
|
Cnut the Great posted:It's not just the Eastern thoughts. I feel like people are unfairly dismissive of all the philosophical and intellectual content contained in the Star Wars films, as if no actual thought or effort was put into any of it, and so it's not even worth analyzing. But that's demonstrably not true. Oh sweet, Pagel's Gnostic Gospels has been on my nightstand bookshelf for the past few years, I totally thought I saw some of its content coming up in Star Wars, and now I know I'm definitely not projecting. Also do you have the link to the Lucas source material? you don't have a real URL embedded Scrree posted:Take note that in the much better sequel to RotJ Lucas presents a similar situation, but inverts the imagery of a servant pretending to be a God by depicting a Queen pretending to be a servant. The servant/god/royalty switch-a-roo is a bit of a form of Saturnalia and its interesting the trilogies begin and end near such a display respectfully, right when the dominant powers are shifting. The major difference is C3P0 never really buys into the fact that he's a God, or God-like unlike his father. The Ewoks are supposed to be laughed at, but it raises some important questions-if Luke were to be mistaken as a god why would there be no joke left? 
crowoutofcontext fucked around with this message at 02:11 on May 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 01:48
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:The Ewoks are supposed to be laughed at, but it raises some important questions-if Luke were to be mistaken as a god why would there be no joke left? This is something I'd never thought about until now. Getting the Ewoks to cooperate only comes across as "good" because we see it through the lens of comedy, when in reality the "smarter" ("western") characters take advantage of the naivete of the Ewoks to trick them into helping them. And then Qui-Gon and company basically do the same thing with the Gungans but with a tiny bit more "respect"--they use false flattery and just a few tricks to manipulate them Someone said something earlier about the Gungans being post-colonial Ewoks and that seems absolutely true, and speaks to how twisted the Republic surely must be by the time of TFA if the Rebellion to Restore The Republic has actually regressed from post-colonial liberalism
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 02:29
|
|
|
Waffles Inc. posted:Someone said something earlier about the Gungans being post-colonial Ewoks and that seems absolutely true, and speaks to how twisted the Republic surely must be by the time of TFA if the Rebellion to Restore The Republic has actually regressed from post-colonial liberalism Regression is the point of the rebellion. They're not merely trying to restore the republic, but the "old republic" specifically. Presumably, they'd view the republic as it existed in TPM as already too far gone. They're hoping bring the idyllic republic that they imagine once existed.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 02:43
|
|
|
McDowell posted:I wonder how easy it would be to recreate the swamp sanctuary scene from 'scratch' on a modern PC. You just have the raw video from the shoot and the ability to render and animate gungans in unreal or unity for compositing. Feel free to find out - take the existing video and put some new characters/animals in there. I'm guessing that unless you're already a VFX professional (or dedicated hobbyist) you'll give up way before approaching something that looks even as "bad" as the original.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 02:44
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:
Whoops, thanks for telling me. Edited the original post. Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/4289cc/here_is_a_list_of_george_lucas_source_material_as/ Y Kant Ozma Diet posted:Out of curiosity, how do you feel about the whole "the Republic and Jedi are evil" thing? I don't think they're evil. I think they had good intentions but were led into doing evil as a result of their flaws, just like Anakin. I think pointing to the imperfection and corruption inherent in the Republic as evidence that liberal democracy is evil makes as little sense as pointing to the imperfection and corruption inherent in any given person as evidence that they're evil. One of the things the prequels really get right is that they don't portray the pre-fall Republic as some sort of perfect, flawless society. The Rebels of the OT aren't fighting to bring back some utopia; they're just fighting to bring back democracy, warts and all, because it's better than the alternative. There is no such thing as utopia in this world. Anakin can't accept that, and that's why he becomes obsessed with having complete control over life and death and becomes a Sith Lord. The Republic can't accept that, and that's why they willingly hand over the keys to the galaxy to a "benevolent" dictator who makes them feel safe and strong and like they're on the cusp of achieving societal perfection once and for all. That's how fascists have always talked their way into power: by promising utopia. As the Jedi show, the only real way to achieve utopia is by accepting your own mortality--and the mortality of all things--and eventually passing into the next world. That's why the Sith, in contrast, can never achieve the immortality that they seek: they seek it only in this world, rather than the next one.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 05:33
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:I have (some) misgiving about where Marx and droid slavery fit in, I also see how heavily reliant ZIzek plays a role in SMG's posts and because the Z rejects things like (westernized) Buddhism I wonder if their are unexplored ideas esp since George Lucas calls himself "Methodist-Buddhist" and has associated that with the meaning of the Force. How much of that is suggesting itself in SW, if any? The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. - Samuel Beckett Wanted to give your second point and feeling here some careful thought, with regards slavery, Marxism and misgiving in relation to difficult topics and the truth.* So, again this image of child - Master - adult, but here's the blunt truth of the dynamic and how it's a response to Neuro, what I hope he will see: slave - Master - slave. This is the cycle of violence that drives Star Wars from my reading, stressing the importance of love filling the gap. This is also why i'm not keen on dismissing TFA because it doesn't adhere to expectations, let's love it anyway and look at for what it is. It's readily apparent that TFA is all about manipulation of belief, in order to fight another war and a war you may not fully comprehend. So the exploitation of good intentions is revealed, of those trying to do the right thing and this question of choice or how choice is presented. There's an interesting dynamic there relating to FN - Fin and Kylo - Rey. It comes back to Han Solo; The object of Han Solo, suave rebellion general and smuggler - contrast with - the subject Han Solo who abandoned his only child and has a life-debt partner. Which comes back to this line "You need a teacher... I could show you the ways of the Force!" and the ground splitting beneath Kylo and Rey. Put bluntly, Rey was abandoned and Kylo was abandoned, their traumas are reflections of one another. Why are these kids fighting over this Han Solo guy and perpetuating his war, also Ren's much like Vader in getting his butt kicked by Rey. Yes, TFA is A New Hope, but it's much more straight faced in a sense. Largely because we have the benefit of the previous movies to use as a critical basis of understanding TFA rather than to be used against it. Granted this is more straightforward critique of ideology to address your feeling of misgivings, however slight, and how that can begin to warp and distort truth. Meaning every further thought from that distortion is inherently warped and stressing the need to re-examine and tear-down in order to start over again. In short, why do we fail? "Do not avert your eyes." - Werner Herzog Theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated... but we are initiated. Again the only question is, how does this feel? *Those tone poems are great, one truth always ends up getting cut in half by Obi-Wan. brawleh fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 16:37
|
|
|
Prolonged Priapism posted:Feel free to find out - take the existing video and put some new characters/animals in there. I'm guessing that unless you're already a VFX professional (or dedicated hobbyist) you'll give up way before approaching something that looks even as "bad" as the original. Yeah I imagine it will still take quite a few manhours, my main point was that it could be done on a single consumer PC instead of the professional render farms of the late 90's.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 17:10
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:People have really gotten stuck on the idea that you can't be bad/evil if you intend well. I think the question is more whether or not an institution can be considered wholly evil--full stop--just because it contains evil within itself. It's clear that droids (and clones) are mistreated in Republic society, but that doesn't mean it's not a more just and desirable society than the one represented by the Empire. I think workers are horribly mistreated in our current society and that our economic system is inherently dehumanizing, but things are still better than when chattel slavery existed. I don't think the Star Wars films are specifically endorsing Western liberal democratic systems to the exclusion of anything else. That's just the kind of society that's depicted in the films, because it's the kind of society we as viewers are most familiar with. The only point the films are making is that democracy is preferable to dictatorship, and that's true no matter what. I don't think the Star Wars films attempt to deal with any questions beyond that one. They assume that any human society that could possibly exist will contain injustices, and that somehow, somewhere, the strong will find some way to exploit the weak. These things would be just as true in a Marxist society, even though they might arguably exist to a lesser extent (even a much lesser extent) than in a liberal democracy. But just because there would still be flaws and injustices in such a Marxist society, that would be no reason to take the power out of the hands of the people and give it to a strongman dictator who promised he could fix everything. It's up to the people themselves to talk to each other and mutually agree on a way to fix things to everyone's greatest possible benefit. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 17:17 on May 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 17:13
|
|
|
Schwarzwald posted:Regression is the point of the rebellion. They're not merely trying to restore the republic, but the "old republic" specifically. Presumably, they'd view the republic as it existed in TPM as already too far gone. They're hoping bring the idyllic republic that they imagine once existed. Hence why we now have a Resistance against (what they perceive to be) an 'outside influence'. Though it is heavily disguised, there is enough evidence in TFA to know that the First Order is a political party in The Republic. They've risen to power in multiple worlds, presumably with representation in the Senate, and so-on. That's what Leia's group is resisting: the legal government of the Republic itself.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 17:26
|
|
|
McDowell posted:Yeah I imagine it will still take quite a few manhours, my main point was that it could be done on a single consumer PC instead of the professional render farms of the late 90's. I'm not so sure about that. Here's a Pixar guy talking about rendering Toy Story in 1995 vs 2011 (on the respective render farms of the time) and says frame times came down from ~4 hours to 2-3 minutes. https://www.quora.com/How-much-faster-would-it-be-to-render-Toy-Story-in-2011-compared-to-how-long-it-took-in-1995 But that's across the whole farm. A single 2011 PC would still probably take hours (or more) to do a single frame. I imagine the same is true with 1999 TPM renders - obviously ILMs current farm could do those animals in short order now, but a single "consumer" PC? Like a random Dell that's mostly for email/internet? I seriously doubt it.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 17:58
|
|
|
Cnut the Great posted:Whoops, thanks for telling me. Edited the original post. Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/4289cc/here_is_a_list_of_george_lucas_source_material_as/ Fascinating that he was reading Caesar's memoirs. Trying to get into Palpatine's mind? Too bad his readings on childhood self-esteem didn't give him foresight on the tragedy of Jake Loyd (:0/) Waffles Inc. posted:This is something I'd never thought about until now. Getting the Ewoks to cooperate only comes across as "good" because we see it through the lens of comedy, when in reality the "smarter" ("western") characters take advantage of the naivete of the Ewoks to trick them into helping them. Yeah, it's a dark but revealing way to look at certain films, when you read comedy as a lubricant for "superiority", or a way of masking the inherent violence in power-relations. A lot of Ancient Greek comedies are full of clownish slaves c*cking or tricking their masters but eventually meeting their downfall, it's read by some as masking widespread societal fears. Jokes as a way to hide unspoken terror. There is probably a lot of interesting things to be said about the opposite- clowns, puppets, other silly things as staple antagonists in horror films. brawleh posted:This is the cycle of violence that drives Star Wars from my reading, stressing the importance of love filling the gap. This is also why i'm not keen on dismissing TFA because it doesn't adhere to expectations, let's love it anyway and look at for what it is. It's readily apparent that TFA is all about manipulation of belief, in order to fight another war and a war you may not fully comprehend. So the exploitation of good intentions is revealed, of those trying to do the right thing and this question of choice or how choice is presented. Yeah, the character's in TFA seem dwarfed by incomprehensible implications and a legacy that they are confused about, but it's a good idea to accept that conflict as a consequence and important part of Star Wars violence struggles. The mind manipulations and brain scrying are ultra-personal in the way they are presented, almost sexual, and I see how Kylo and Rei are linked by fatherly abandonment. The Force in the new film seems not in the hands of theologians or force-users but a subject for everyone and anyone (Ex: Finn makes up his own rules for the Force. And it works for him but not for doubting, refusing to change Han Solo).  Pictured: Grandmother of Kylo Ren
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 19:08
|
|
|
Cnut the Great posted:I think workers are horribly mistreated in our current society and that our economic system is inherently dehumanizing, but things are still better than when chattel slavery existed. I don't think the Star Wars films are specifically endorsing Western liberal democratic systems to the exclusion of anything else. That's just the kind of society that's depicted in the films, because it's the kind of society we as viewers are most familiar with. democracy and marxism are not contradictory and you've argued marxist positions in this post, intentionally or otherwise. e: though now i've re-read it and it seems you're not making a connection between socialism and despotism, so my assumption you were was pretty knee-jerk. apologies.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 19:56
|
|
|
Playing the films in real-time, the distance between Obi Wan leaving Anakin's mutilated body and picking up Luke's unconscious form is less than an hour. Luke is like a fresh start; how much does the life of a particular individual matter in Obi Wan's conception of the Force?  
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 20:39
|
|
|
Cnut the Great posted:I think the question is more whether or not an institution can be considered wholly evil--full stop--just because it contains evil within itself. It's clear that droids (and clones) are mistreated in Republic society, but that doesn't mean it's not a more just and desirable society than the one represented by the Empire. You should be conscious of the distancing language employed here. The Republic "contains evil within itself"? No, the truth is that evil contains the Republic within itself, and as part of itself. You yourself admit that the entire universe is darkness, utopia is impossible, the only true freedom is in death, etc. So you resign yourself to darkness, on the basis that it's the best we've got. Pragmatism, not idealism. Be realistic. Remain within the confines of the possible. Intermittent sparks of justice in the darkness. But what if faith in Christ can move mountains? We must demand the impossible: the kingdom of heaven - true universal democracy, aka the dictatorship of the proletariat.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 20:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:25 |
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:Yeah, the character's in TFA seem dwarfed by incomprehensible implications and a legacy that they are confused about, but it's a good idea to accept that conflict as a consequence and important part of Star Wars violence struggles. But TFA isn't about a new generation struggling to understand the legacy left to them by the previous generation. It's about a new generation finding themselves in the exact same position as the previous generation, because the previous generation proved incapable of leaving them a lasting legacy. It was the easy way out, writing-wise. What would have been more difficult--and also vastly more interesting, not to mention societally relevant--would have been to depict the new generation striving to carry on the legacy of the previous generation by preserving the new democratic Republic that was left to them. It would have been interesting to see the new characters striving to live up to the example set by the heroes of the OT.....and stumbling--leading to the central conflict which the new heroes must then resolve on their own. It would have been the first trilogy where a generation of heroes were allowed to make and then correct their own mistakes. Whereas the previous trilogies were all about heroes making mistakes and then relying on their children to redeem them, this third trilogy could (and should logically) have been about the children damning but then ultimately redeeming themselves. It would have been the natural next step demonstrating that the heroes of the OT had succeeded in their task of building a free, self-sufficient society--one with the freedom to make its own mistakes, but also with the wisdom to overcome and correct those mistakes, without succumbing to the temptations of Empire. It would have been the ultimate rebuke of Palpatine's paternalistic worldview, wherein the existence of human folly requires that the people's freedom be taken away from them for their own good. Unfortunately, this isn't what we got. The reason things are the way they are in TFA is because the heroes of the OT failed their children, just as their own parents once failed them. If TFA had wanted to be bold, it would have told a story where the children are truly the problem this time around, not the parents. But I suppose that wouldn't have been as commercial, for obvious reasons. Just think of how my fellow Millennials might have reacted (probably just fine, actually, but maybe not as well as Disney would have liked).
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2016 20:51
|
|