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It was always there, you were just led to ignore it because of the language there flesh and blood characters used.
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Jul 22, 2016 14:40
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jivjov posted:No I know, I'm just wondering when they got fully developed individual personalities. Were they there from the beginning and masked/hidden by the droid control ship controlling them all? Or was the personality a result of them being given more autonomy after the weakness of having a sole control ship was exposed? I'm saying "there from the beginning" and I'm basing that on the fact that one of them says "uh oh" when the jedis come out of the poison gas. Plus they're visibly nervous beforehand. Like, check out these scaredy cats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUbXyd-fK8Q&t=69s There's a lot of personality in the way they tense up at first (one's hands are visibly shaking on its rifle), then relax when the protocol droid comes out and finally crap themselves.
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Jul 22, 2016 14:44
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Serf posted:Yes. They are slaves. Being a slave is predicated on being a person. If they were just robots, then they wouldn't be slaves. The fact that they are an enslaved people is consistently made clear. The fact that they are discriminated against is something that is shown early in A New Hope. The obvious problem of "giving droids personalities yet acting as if they are household machines" contrasts against the Anakin's mom -story, where Anakin and his mother were arguably treated more humanely than some of the films' protagonists treat the droids, which are other protagonists. It seems even directors and screenwriters didn't really consider the droids in Star Wars to be somehow problematic from an ethical perspective, while paying due attention to legacy, prophecy, justice and injustice and other standard issues. I just can't imagine Jimmy Smits unceremoniously mentioning mindwiping Chewbacca, which leads me to believe the droid question wasn't really considered at all when all this stuff was on writing board. That's what I meant by subhuman - even screenwriters flexibly treat them as nonpersons when the plot calls for it. It's just a funny little sideline, and within the original trilogy can be easily explained with "well these people don't really ponder FTL travel at all and droids are plot devices", but in prequels stuff gets weird, and even peripheral stuff often ignores the droid problem. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 15:06
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I mean, "We don't serve their kind here" definitely has some sort of thought behind it.
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Jul 22, 2016 15:32
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computer parts posted:I mean, "We don't serve their kind here" definitely has some sort of thought behind it. undermined with a single line 
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Jul 22, 2016 15:35
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Lucas has said that the beginning of ANH is intended to be a story told from the perspective of the characters who are on the lowest rung of society, ala Hidden Fortress. He was absolutely thinking about this stuff when he wrote the movie(s).
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Jul 22, 2016 15:38
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Detective No. 27 posted:I give it five years until that Death Star sized lightsaber the Hutts commissioned in the old EU gets integrated into Disney canon. If memory serves, it was just the superlaser portion of the design without the actual space station, I don't remember it being a lightsaber.
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Jul 22, 2016 15:48
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I also propose that the Death Star, a droid, is a slave itself.
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Jul 22, 2016 15:51
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Anakin becomes darth Vader who is more droid than man returning him to slavehood :-/
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Jul 22, 2016 15:51
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The films present an obviously unjust society w.r.t. droids, and then tells a story in which redressing that injustice is not the protagonists' objective, nor is upholding it the antagonists'.
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Jul 22, 2016 15:56
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rear end Catchcum posted:Anakin becomes darth Vader who is more droid than man returning him to slavehood :-/ "I must obey my master."
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Jul 22, 2016 15:56
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Bongo Bill posted:The films present an obviously unjust society w.r.t. droids, and then tells a story in which redressing that injustice is not the protagonists' objective, nor is upholding it the antagonists'. It's like an Antebellum story that isn't about slavery. The closest I can think of to that is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which is just set during the Civil War.
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Jul 22, 2016 16:00
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I always saw The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly as at least somewhat of a joke title, because there isn't really any Good. The "Good" is a guy who exploits local settlements who are trying to maintain law and order, and has no problem leaving someone to die in the middle of the desert. The only way The Man with No Name could possibly be considered "good" is because the world he inhabits is even worse by comparison.
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Jul 22, 2016 16:08
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El Perkele posted:Their personality or uniqueness is not given any serious consideration by even "good guys" who consistently defend non-droids from injustice. The droids are mind-wiped; they are casually shut down; they are sold; they are given as gifts; they are left behind. Nobody in the universe really considers them persons in a logically consistent way. That's OK, the entire universe is absolutely OK with slavery and it's just a movie, but what is weird is that in no point is attention drawn to this on screen (except in peripheral stuff, such as Clone Wars cartoon). That's just in-universe. What you're describing is literally just racism. The droids are abused and held in bondage and no one thinks anything about it because they've been conditioned not to. There is no droid abolitionist movement. But as the audience, we are supposed to realize how hosed up this is. If you deny the personhood of droids, well, that says a lot about you. It's a pretty clever trap that Lucas sets for the viewers, and preys on our preconceived notions of machines and what people are. I remember when I first realized that the droids were slaves and it hosed me up. E: the fact that the Jedi are totes cool with slavery outside the Republic is supposed to twig you to the fact that they are Not Good. When you realize that the champions of justice are ignoring the enslavement of sentient beings all around them and make use of those slaves is when you understand that they are villains in their own right. Serf fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 16:23
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I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Jedi ignoring slavery is supposed to make the audience see them as villains, but its supposed to clue you in to the idea that they are on the wrong path. They've become ineffectual and are no longer(or maybe never were) the protectors of justice they think they are.
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Jul 22, 2016 16:36
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computer parts posted:I mean, "We don't serve their kind here" definitely has some sort of thought behind it. Also, during the trench run, when Luke says that R2 has been hit, Threepio's head jolts up in clear shock/horror while the humans don't even blink. Then his head sinks down in despair.
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Jul 22, 2016 17:13
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Jedi have conclusively and empirically proven that droids are philosophical zombies, and hence there is *nobody* being oppressed, just a very convincing emulation thereof.
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Jul 22, 2016 17:15
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Tunicate posted:Jedi have conclusively and empirically proven that droids are philosophical zombies, and hence there is *nobody* being oppressed, just a very convincing emulation thereof. I think the point of the Jedi's many, many failings is to show that they don't know jack about poo poo.
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Jul 22, 2016 17:18
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EX-GAIJIN AT LAST posted:If memory serves, it was just the superlaser portion of the design without the actual space station, I don't remember it being a lightsaber. It was named the Darksaber explicitly due to the superficial resemblance (cylindrical cannon, beam emits from one end) to a Jedi's lightsaber.
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Jul 22, 2016 17:35
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Serf posted:What you're describing is literally just racism. The droids are abused and held in bondage and no one thinks anything about it because they've been conditioned not to. There is no droid abolitionist movement. Yeah, racism. I just question the intentionality of it, since it's a subtle thing amidst a mass of unsubtle things. The prequel trilogy handled it as very matter-of-fact, whereas practically every other theme raised on the screen was at least somewhat consciously addressed.(Haven't seen PT for a few years though)
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Jul 22, 2016 18:09
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El Perkele posted:Yeah, racism. I just question the intentionality of it, since it's a subtle thing amidst a mass of unsubtle things. The prequel trilogy handled it as very matter-of-fact, whereas practically every other theme raised on the screen was at least somewhat consciously addressed.(Haven't seen PT for a few years though) The simplest and most explicit example of the PT wrangling with the treatment of droids will always be this: "If droids could think, there'd be none of us here, would there?"
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Jul 22, 2016 18:16
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I always just kind of assume robots with some sort of personality in fiction are people unless the movie makes a point of them not being people (edit: that's a little vague, but the distinction between person robots and non-person robots is usually pretty clear). The entire beginning of episode 4 doesn't make any sense if droids aren't people, because it's about the relationship between R2-D2 and C-3PO, and why do I care about that if they're just appliances going through the motions?
ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 18:22
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ThePlague-Daemon posted:I always just kind of assume robots with some sort of personality in fiction are people unless the movie makes a point of them not being people (edit: that's a little vague, but the distinction between person robots and non-person robots is usually pretty clear). The entire beginning of episode 4 doesn't make any sense if droids aren't people, because it's about the relationship between R2-D2 and C-3PO, and why do I care about that if they're just appliances going through the motions? Well, you could extrapolate that out to humans too. There's a school of philosophical thought that holds that free will doesn't actually exist and our every word and deed is the product of biological imperatives and environmental conditioning. That nobody makes discrete choices about anything because the choice is a product of our upbringing, environment, and base nature. Taken from that angle, we're all just 'going through the motions'.
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Jul 22, 2016 18:39
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jivjov posted:Well, you could extrapolate that out to humans too. There's a school of philosophical thought that holds that free will doesn't actually exist and our every word and deed is the product of biological imperatives and environmental conditioning. That nobody makes discrete choices about anything because the choice is a product of our upbringing, environment, and base nature. Either way, the conclusion is the same: the droids are people.
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Jul 22, 2016 19:16
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Droids are "lesser" people. Their "deaths" aren't given any weight in any of the Star Wars films because most of them are comic relief and/or exist so the Jedi can cut them down without Star Wars being too gory.
Yaws fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 19:22
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Droids are not intentionally like robots. Robots didn't exist at the time the films were made, so nobody knew what robots are like. They were, instead, intentionally like prior depictions of robots in media. That means they're people who are assembled from machine parts. Robots are now starting to exist and it turns out they're a lot different from people. Fictional mechanical people are still often a lot unlike real robots. This typically holds true even when the filmmakers attempt realism in that regard. The tradition of using fictional mechanical people is rich with examples of "sanitizing" the conditions of disfavored groups of people, in order to comment on them more frankly without employing a gruesome aesthetic that would overwhelm the message of the work. Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 19:28
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Yaws posted:Droids are "lesser" people. Their "deaths" aren't given any weight in any of the Star Wars films because most of them are comic relief and/or exist so the Jedi can cut them down without Star Wars being too gory. This isn't something exclusive to droids, though. The clone soldiers are, if not comic relief, regardless treated as less than people, who's deaths need not concern the Jedi. Likewise, the Gungans are treated as disposable tools by the monarchy and the Jedi, both. They have value only when they are useful. The prequels have no lack of "lesser people."
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Jul 22, 2016 19:42
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Picard Day posted:Attack of the Clones: Great Star Wars movie, or greatest Star Wars movie? I vote greatest. The issue with this Tie Fighter thing is that it gets the causality backwards. There is a logic to the design: the ships are not at all aerodynamic, obviously not capable of flying down to a planet (oops, TFA). The spherical shape is very likely a reference to the pods in 2001, while also evoking the pop-horror image of an eyeball with bat-wings. See, for example, the 'Crystal Bats' in The Dark Crystal (produced by George Lucas). The lack of any prominent engines implies that they trade raw power for maneuverability. Everything about the tie ships emphasizes that they are drone-like, acting as an extension of the Death Star and lacking autonomy. There's obviously no way a tie pilot could desert and escape to another part of the galaxy in a tie fighter (oops, TFA). But, like I said, wookiepedia people get the causality backwards - believing the onscreen image is a factual simulation of how a tie fighter really works, when the EU writers are actually struggling to catch up, trying to domesticate and explain away all the rich meaning that is already evident in the image.
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Jul 22, 2016 19:44
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quote:There is a logic to the design: the ships are not at all aerodynamic, obviously not capable of flying down to a planet (oops, TFA). On the other hand, the X-Wings aren't exactly streamlined either, and they can launch to space and fly from moons with atmospheres and not have the lasers fall off. RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 19:47
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RBA Starblade posted:On the other hand, the X-Wings aren't exactly streamlined either, and they can launch to space and fly from moons with atmospheres and not have the lasers fall off. X-wings have the look of something like a biplane a short range craft for sure but a lot more autonomous than the mini deathstar that is the tie
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Jul 22, 2016 19:53
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The issue with this Tie Fighter thing is that it gets the causality backwards. There is a logic to the design: the ships are not at all aerodynamic, obviously not capable of flying down to a planet (oops, TFA). 
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Jul 22, 2016 19:53
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computer parts posted:I mean, "We don't serve their kind here" definitely has some sort of thought behind it. 'we seem to be made to suffer. it's our lot in life' or something like that
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Jul 22, 2016 19:53
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Haha, I forgot there were any scenes of TIEs on planets at all. quote:X-wings have the look of something like a biplane a short range craft for sure but a lot more autonomous than the mini deathstar that is the tie Sure, but my extensive history of murdering kerbonauts in Kerbal Space Program tells me neither is going to fly (  ).quote:'we seem to be made to suffer. it's our lot in life' or something like that Friend Besto literally was!
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Jul 22, 2016 19:56
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[Me whispering to my date when Edrio Two Tubes first appears on screen during Edrio Two Tubes: A Star Wars Story] Thats Edrio Two Tubes
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Jul 22, 2016 19:57
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Yaws posted:Droids are "lesser" people. Their "deaths" aren't given any weight in any of the Star Wars films because most of them are comic relief and/or exist so the Jedi can cut them down without Star Wars being too gory. When you realize that the Jedi are chopping apart slave soldiers to defend a monarchy the of message of TPM changes a hell of a lot.
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Jul 22, 2016 19:59
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Serf posted:When you realize that the Jedi are chopping apart slave soldiers to defend a monarchy the of message of TPM changes a hell of a lot. Look at Qui-Gon decapitating this person without a thought WARNING NWS  I can't believe this got a PG rating Star Wars is so gory omg
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Jul 22, 2016 20:18
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Yaws posted:Look at Qui-Gon decapitating this person without a thought WARNING NWS U ever see the movie The Brave Little Toaster?
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Jul 22, 2016 20:26
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jivjov posted:Well, you could extrapolate that out to humans too. There's a school of philosophical thought that holds that free will doesn't actually exist and our every word and deed is the product of biological imperatives and environmental conditioning. That nobody makes discrete choices about anything because the choice is a product of our upbringing, environment, and base nature. Sure, but what I mean is it's not some kind of Chinese room situation where the droids just automatons and aren't really aware of what they're doing. The movie just doesn't treat them that way, and if it did it would make those scenes (and the one mentioned above where C-3P0 is worried about R2-D2 getting shot) kind of odd, like that Ikea commercial where the narrator mocks you for being sad for a lamp when it doesn't have feelings.
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Jul 22, 2016 20:27
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Yaws posted:Look at Qui-Gon decapitating this person without a thought WARNING NWS I'm not sure what your point is. It's true that the Jedi don't think twice about killing droids. It's true that the chopped up droids aren't depicted as gory. I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise.
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Jul 22, 2016 20:27
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He killed all of them, even the newest models!
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Jul 22, 2016 20:29
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