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Adder Moray posted:So Bodhi Rook is my personal favorite character in Rogue One and is creeping pretty high into my general favorite Star Wars character list. Gotta agree 100% here. I actually didn't even recognize him as the kid from The Night Of because of how different and powerful his character was, and most of that power came from nonverbal acting cues. He is, at the very least, my second favorite character in Rogue One (favorite is most definitely Chirrut).
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Dec 26, 2016 21:11
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Adder Moray posted:Sure. But most people don't. If you want to send a message, send a message your target will perceive. If you want to jerk off on the page, don't be surprised when your message is misconstrued by the masses. I believe Lucas specifically predicted of TPM during production that many people in the audience wouldn't get it. He still made it that way, however. Enrich yourself by finding the meaning in art - intentional or accidental - rather than insisting because you dislike it that it is meaningless. You may even stop disliking it.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:11
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Bongo Bill posted:I believe Lucas specifically predicted of TPM during production that many people in the audience wouldn't get it. He still made it that way, however. "You just don't get it" isn't a valid argument
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Dec 26, 2016 21:13
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Bongo Bill posted:I believe Lucas specifically predicted of TPM during production that many people in the audience wouldn't get it. He still made it that way, however. I would suggest you actually read what I'm writing instead of assigning your own assumptions of what my personal opinions are to me.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:15
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Yeah, Bodhi was great. Of course someone who defied the Empire because of his conscience would also defy the Rebellion for it. It's difficult to tell that he was mentally scarred by Saw's interrogation because so little of his screen time was before that happened, and because it didn't leave him useless and unaware as Hollywood Insanity usually does.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:15
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Adder Moray posted:I would suggest you actually read what I'm writing instead of assigning your own assumptions of what my personal opinions are to me. I mean that saying "Don't be surprised" is redundant because the relevant person was not surprised.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:16
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Bongo Bill posted:I mean that saying "Don't be surprised" is redundant because the relevant person was not surprised. I mean your assumptions of what I like and dislike.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:17
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Adder Moray posted:I mean your assumptions of what I like and dislike. Oh, sorry. I was using the generic "you," not you specifically.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:19
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gfarrell80 posted:So Bodhi Rook is the name of the Imperial pilot defector? Was his name ever even said on screen at any point? This is based on a very limited understanding of what characterization is. What you are asking for is expository dialogue, while making a deliberate point of downplaying/ignoring such things as the characters' costuming, the characters' actions, etc. We know what Bodhi's motivation is. He is helping Galen. We know this because we watch him, onscreen, helping Galen. They obviously have similar motivations. He persists in helping Galen even after being mind-probed. The mind-probe scene also links Bodhi to K2 - a fellow reprogrammed imperial. One recurring point in the film is that the protagonists are all well suited to being protagonists because they are blank slates. They are all homeless, outsiders, without clear affiliation, etc. Only Cassian clearly identifies as a rebel - and his arc is to be influenced (by the rest) into questioning the rebellion's ideology. They have no preconceptions.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:20
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Zoran posted:Ahmed Best intentionally played Jar Jar with attributes common to old minstrel shows, as a way of reinforcing the overall point of the character (which is that the people we judge as lesser beings—"pathetic life forms," as Obi-Wan put it—actually do have intrinsic value and that our sense of superiority is false). I wouldn't go that far. I think if you look at what Ahmed Best says--and you have to infer because he doesn't go into a lot of depth--is that Jar Jar is part of a long legacy which includes Buster Keaton and Goofy and even modern comedy performers--all of whose comedy stylings were to a large degree derived from minstrel show characters despite attempts to bury that information--but which aren't inherently racist themselves. You have to understand the historical context and understand, as he says, "what those roles were and why those roles were": Ahmed Best posted:It just further underscores the ignorance and the blind unrealness of dealing with racism in this country. The lack of education and the lack of exposure to what actually is racist to non-black folks is abysmal. For anyone to say that is offensive because it shows the ignorance of not knowing what a Rastafarian is and not having proper education and knowledge of what minstrelsy was in the time of vaudeville, Butterfly McQueen, and Stepen Fetchit. They really don't know what those roles were and why those roles were. The reason you can can infer that this is what Ahmed Best is talking about is because it's an at least somewhat common argument made by people who actually study these things. Even the legacy of such universally-derided characters as Stepin Fetchit is probably more complicated and subversive than many people would like to admit, as is argued in this NPR article: quote:"The way they make it sound, it's like black people are permanently harmed by Stepin Fetchit," Walker says. "And I don't agree with that — I don't think it's a bad character. I think it's a funny character." Walker points out that the Fetchit character is actually a subversive trickster — he never got around to fetching anything. It's ironic that the performer who played Stepin Fetchit was named Perry, given that there's now another prominent black entertainer named Perry who some would argue is doing a very similar thing, to the eternal confounding of many culture critics who have a massive blind spot when it comes to this taboo aspect of the development of our modern entertainment landscape. It's also a bit tragic what happened to Lincoln Perry as the result of the backlash against the character that made him a star: quote:But by the end of the 1930s, Perry's star began to wane. The NAACP was gaining some influence in Hollywood and Perry was in a constant battle with Fox Studios to get equal pay and billing as his white co-stars — a battle he never won. By 1940, he walked away from Hollywood, and within just a few years he was broke. To the emerging civil rights movement, Perry was a symbol of something black America wanted to forget, and he faded into obscurity. Here he was, one of the undeniable trailblazers when it came to black performers making it big in Hollywood, and yet he's been essentially erased from the history books except in the capacity that he's presented as some sort of race traitor. It's not enough to point to a buffoon character played by a black man and call it racist. You have to examine what the character actually is and its reason for existing. Black men are allowed to play buffoons, as much as they're allowed to play any other type of character. Again, Ahmed Best: Ahmed Best posted:I think that ignorance and that lack of education that's pervasive in this country not only allows criticism like that to be actually voiced without any type of proof. It also allows what goes on in modern filmmaking as far as [limited] roles for black people—black people have experiences other than the jail- and gang-related [stories] being shown in movies today. They don't believe that black actors, specifically black American actors, have enough depth to try these other roles and it has turned into the outsourcing of an incredible amount of American talent. The top black actors in the world right now are both British. And they're the only ones being allowed to play these roles that have a lot more depth and gravitas. There's nothing wrong with playing a brother in jail as long as there's a lot more to the character than, "I kill people and I'm black." So, [Morganstern's] criticism underscores that lack of intelligence and original ideas in folks who try to understand the black experience in entertainment.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:23
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Adder Moray posted:Sure. But most people don't. If you want to send a message, send a message your target will perceive. If you want to jerk off on the page, don't be surprised when your message is misconstrued by the masses. The error you're making is that because audiences does not know that a film is a text to be read, that they are not reading it. That's an important distinction. If you engage people on a single subject long enough, you begin to observe that engagement with "depth" or "deeper meaning" or whatever is actually fairly banal. This is what SMG said earlier, about voicing displeasure rather than actually engaging in analysis. People are more inclined to appraise the "depth" or nuance of things they enjoy, and by the same token they are inclined to view whatever they find displeasing as devoid of depth. This is how a chap like temple gets himself into the situation of insisting that Jar-Jar is an intrinsically pejorative figure, but then insists that if he were to explain why he thinks this, that would like magically reinforce that my 'bad thought' that Jar-Jar is equal to temple is legitimate. Really, 'depth' is this concept made-up by the real phony elitists - otherwise known as the philistine. He takes behind the scene footage of George Lucas pantomiming a really awkward and not-at-all 'cool' walk with a scene from a black independent film where a choreographer shows a bunch of Blaxploitation stock actors how to pimp walk. This isn't an issue of failure to appreciate 'depth' - temple and his ilk use that rhetoric as a misdirection from their own failure to appraise even the basic surface features of what they are talking about.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:32
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Jar Jar's voice isn't half as annoying as Chewbacca's
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Dec 26, 2016 21:36
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Jar Jar's walk is like a combination of the Goofy walk with that of a big, awkward, bipedal bird. Makes sense to me, since he's basically Goofy crossed with a dinosaur. I admit though, this stuff is pretty hard to defend given the way Jar Jar became a rallying symbol for a new generation of white supremacists, setting back race relations in this country by at least a decade. Oh wait, no, that was a different frog.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:43
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Jar-Jar and Big Bird being best buddies in Hollywood driving around in a golf cart would be the best short film ever. It ends with them visiting Goofy's tomb, but it's an homage to the scene from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town with Big Bird playing the lady part. edit: The best evidence we've been given so far that we shouldn't think Jar-Jar is good is the equivalent of those mash-up videos that people make accusing Amy Schumer of plagiarism. K. Waste fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 21:44
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K. Waste posted:The error you're making is that because audiences does not know that a film is a text to be read, that they are not reading it. That's an important distinction. If you engage people on a single subject long enough, you begin to observe that engagement with "depth" or "deeper meaning" or whatever is actually fairly banal. Because you assume something to be surface deep does not mean that it is. Because you discard the notion doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A surface level reading of Jar Jar is nothing more or less than what we're presented on screen. A dopey alien that inconveniences and annoys the other heroes while bumbling his way into being an integral piece in their ultimate victory. A deeper look can lead you a myriad of directions, from noticing similarities to minstrel show portrayals of black folks and going with your gut on how to feel about it, to wondering if Jar Jar is really using the force. Deeper than that and it splinters even further. Lucas is racist and enforcing racist stereotypes. Lucas is undermining stereotypes. Jar Jar is a force user and is unaware. Jar Jar is secretly a Sith Lord. And all of these are simply interpretations of the work presented. None of them are the result of any more or less thought put into the work. So, as I said, if your goal is to present a message, it had best be present at surface level. To borrow a turn of phrase familiar to those of you who play MtG: If your theme isn't at common, it's not your theme.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:44
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I feel bad for all those little kids who came out of the theater in 1999 reviling Jar Jar and transferring all that overwhelming ire onto the logical real world target, black people. The social consequences must have been disastrous. I mean, I'm pretty sure that never happened, and they actually needed a bunch of histrionic adults to inform them that Jar Jar is actually a black person and that they're supposed to hate him, but eh.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:49
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quote:For anyone to say that is offensive because it shows the ignorance of not knowing what a Rastafarian is and not having proper education and knowledge of what minstrelsy was in the time of vaudeville, Butterfly McQueen, and Stepen Fetchit. I know a Rastafarian and he doesn't act or talk like Jar-Jar. He's probably not a secret sith lord, but I don't want to rule that one out.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:55
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Adder Moray posted:Because you assume something to be surface deep does not mean that it is. Because you discard the notion doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A surface level reading of Jar Jar is nothing more or less than what we're presented on screen. A dopey alien that inconveniences and annoys the other heroes while bumbling his way into being an integral piece in their ultimate victory. Again, all of this "common theme" stuff is mute because we are not talking about what you're talking about, which is the instantaneous reaction to the surface-level of a work, based on flimsy pleasure or displeasure. What I am advocating is that this level is the only level, that space from which we can clearly draw upon our evidence and construct an argument is the surface itself, of this work and related works. What you keep calling "a message" is, as temple frequently employs, an abdication from defending your reading. You use the term "simply interpretations," very cavalierly, with the same discretion as someone who says evolution is "just a theory." I'm sorry, this really is much simpler than that. The films are their own defense. It is not Ahmed Best or George Lucas's fault that temple doesn't want to think.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:56
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Cnut the Great posted:I feel bad for all those little kids who came out of the theater in 1999 reviling Jar Jar and transferring all that overwhelming ire onto the logical real world target, black people. The social consequences must have been disastrous. There's something to be said about your mind instantly going to white children learning to hate from hating Jar Jar instead of the more likely (and quite common) scenario of black children suffering self-esteem issues from a lack of representation in media and the representation there being poor. K. Waste posted:Again, all of this "common theme" stuff is mute because we are not talking about what you're talking about, which is the instantaneous reaction to the surface-level of a work, based on flimsy pleasure or displeasure. What I am advocating is that this level is the only level, that space from which we can clearly draw upon our evidence and construct an argument is the surface itself, of this work and related works. I'm sorry, but this is just stupid. Art is always a matter of interpretations. It's a dialogue between artist and audience. There are interpretations that are relatively poor, but when the masses receive a message from your work that runs counter to the one you intended to deliver, that's a matter of you doing a poor job relaying that message. And their interpretation of your work is not invalid because you failed to get your point across. Adder Moray fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 21:56
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Its cool to see Bodhi getting some love ITT, he arguably went through the most out of any of the main characters to do the right thing. That's a pretty high bar to clear, considering the rest of the team. Regarding Jar-Jar, I wonder if there would be as much pushback if he simply spoke Gungan with subtitles. I certainly found him less grating when I saw that change in the Anti-Cheese edits, and it largely keeps his character actions intact. Looking back, I think AotC and RotS may have been improved if he took a more active role in the proceedings. The Rube Goldberg factory sequence in AotC seems particularly tailor made for his dramatic flailing. Plus there's that great TCW season 6 two-parter "The Disappeared" which shows him in a fully-fledged action hero role. He's got a good mix of Jackie Chan style combat, where its half-accidental but he also straight up clotheslines dudes and blows poo poo up hauling a giant robot's gun around. Plus he hooks up with the Queen Julia of Bardotta, which is one of the least-questionable relationships in the series.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:57
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Don't use mtg slogans to drive home your point.
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Dec 26, 2016 21:58
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MacheteZombie posted:Don't use mtg slogans to drive home your point. I'll draw from whatever well I please, thank you very much.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:02
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Adder Moray posted:There's something to be said about your mind instantly going to white children learning to hate from hating Jar Jar instead of the more likely (and quite common) scenario of black children suffering self-esteem issues from a lack of representation in media and the representation there being poor. LOL no, I also don't think black children en masse suffered self-esteem issues as a result of that pernicious, dastardly, orange cartoon salamander Jar Jar Binks, who most of them almost certainly did not interpret as being black any more than white children did, until their parents told them to. I think the thing that's to be said about my mindset in not bringing that up is that I'm not an insane person. The lack of proper black representation in the media at large is another issue, and something I agree with you wholeheartedly about. I believe George Lucas himself has a pretty high-profile history of being passionate about and trying to rectify this issue.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:05
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How was that movie written by The Boondocks guy? Has the dust settled on the reactionary Lucas-hate to it?
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Dec 26, 2016 22:10
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Cnut the Great posted:LOL no, I also don't think black children en masse suffered self-esteem issues as a result of that pernicious, dastardly, orange cartoon salamander Jar Jar Binks, who most of them almost certainly did not interpret as being black any more than white children did, until their parents told them to. I think the thing that's to be said about my mindset in not bringing that up is that I'm not an insane person. My point is that you felt the need to present a completely ludicrous sounding scenario to toss away instead of the more reasonable one that should be just as easy to discard. Using the weaker argument to make your point makes it seem as though you aren't as firm in your opinion as you say. And FYI, kids don't exist in a parentless vacuum. Black kids have black parents and, as I noted above, Jar Jar as racist stereotype was not an interpretation of limited, as was being argued, to prequel hating nerds. Anyways, I came in here to talk about Bhodi Rook and Vader and got drawn into the ridiculousness. I'm out.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:14
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Bodhi, anyway, is not as memorable a character as Jar Jar. If we take memorability is a cardinal virtue of film characters, that's a problem. It is not necessary to demand this, however.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:23
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Adder Moray posted:I'm sorry, but this is just stupid. Art is always a matter of interpretations. It's a dialogue between artist and audience. There are interpretations that are relatively poor, but when the masses receive a message from your work that runs counter to the one you intended to deliver, that's a matter of you doing a poor job relaying that message. And their interpretation of your work is not invalid because you failed to get your point across. No it's not. Works of art are intentional artifacts, and while there are some areas where there is room for individual interpretation, there are certain areas where intent can clearly be identified and where anybody claiming an alternative interpretation is just plain wrong. Just because some people watched Full Metal Jacket and decided to join the Marine Corps because they thought it looked like fun, doesn't mean that it's a bad or harmful movie, or that Stanley Kubrick did a poor job relaying his message. All it means is that there's always some group of people somewhere with preconceived notions who are absolutely determined to get it wrong. And I think most people at worst found Jar Jar annoying. The idea that he was a harmful black minstrel show stereotype was a sensationalist narrative perpetuated by the media, which people already looking for ammo to level against the movie latched on to. K. Waste posted:How was that movie written by The Boondocks guy? Has the dust settled on the reactionary Lucas-hate to it? Last I saw it, I found it decent but perhaps not great. It certainly wasn't some sort of abomination, and the fact that it did as poorly as it did when other movies with much, much lower audience ratings did so much better seems hard to explain as anything other than a lack of white interest. I know when I saw it the theater was packed absolutely full, to the point where my three friends and I, despite arriving twenty minutes early, had to find separate seats. But we were virtually the only white people there. And I'm not exaggerating. It really was almost completely black people in that theater. There was an audience, but it wasn't enough. If it was a Madea movie with a Madea movie budget instead of a special effects action movie budget, it would have been at least a moderate success. It pulled in about $50 million, Tyler Perry movies usually pull in about $50 to $70 million. Adder Moray posted:My point is that you felt the need to present a completely ludicrous sounding scenario to toss away instead of the more reasonable one that should be just as easy to discard. Using the weaker argument to make your point makes it seem as though you aren't as firm in your opinion as you say. Both are just as ludicrous as the other. I supposed I defaulted to the one I did because I was a little white kid watching the movie in 1999 and being told those things afterward by my parents. That's my experience and my bias, you got me. I still don't see how that changes anything or what your real point is. I'm personally not going to let myself get drawn into a ridiculous argument where I have to start saying cringey things like, "My black friends...." which no one is going to believe anyway and which have no bearing on general experience.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:34
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Cnut the Great posted:Both are just as ludicrous as the other. I supposed I defaulted to the one I did because I was a little white kid watching the movie in 1999 and being told those things afterward by my parents. Wait, all this prequel chat is just an elaborate gently caress YOU DAD conducted through a dead comedy forum? sean10mm fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 22:40
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sean10mm posted:Wait, all this prequel chat is just an elaborate gently caress YOU DAD conducted through a dead comedy forum? Sure, bro.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:50
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sean10mm posted:Wait, all this prequel chat is just an elaborate gently caress YOU DAD conducted through a dead comedy forum? It does not actually congrue with any meme. This is perhaps what makes it perplexing/alarming.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:51
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If you think about it, the prequels themselves are a gently caress YOU DAD story and the originals are an I LOVE YOU DAD story.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:54
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Lol civil rights leaders think Jar Jar is racist but uh gotta ignore those
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Dec 26, 2016 22:55
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Phi230 posted:Lol civil rights leaders think Jar Jar is racist but uh gotta ignore those Which ones.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:57
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Phi230 posted:Lol civil rights leaders think Jar Jar is racist but uh gotta ignore those Gee I didn't know I wasn't allowed to disagree with (all?) civil rights leaders about the social implications of a fictional space salamander. Truly the issue of our times around which we must rally in lock-step behind our leaders to address if we are ever to achieve equality.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:59
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:This is based on a very limited understanding of what characterization is. What you are asking for is expository dialogue, while making a deliberate point of downplaying/ignoring such things as the characters' costuming, the characters' actions, etc. What? Yes... rebellions throughout history are lead and fought by blank slates. And helping Galen is not a motivation. It is an action. Actions are driven by motivation. Why was the defector motivated to help Galen?
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Dec 26, 2016 23:00
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gfarrell80 posted:And helping Galen is not a motivation. It is an action. Actions are driven by motivation. Follow this line of thought one step further.
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Dec 26, 2016 23:04
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gfarrell80 posted:And helping Galen is not a motivation. It is an action. Actions are driven by motivation. Why was the defector motivated to help Galen? If you can't fill in that last blank yourself, interpreting fiction may not be in your wheelhouse.
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Dec 26, 2016 23:09
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Which ones. Jesse Jackson? Patricia Williams? Al Sharpton?
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Dec 26, 2016 23:20
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Cnut the Great posted:Gee I didn't know I wasn't allowed to disagree with (all?) civil rights leaders about the social implications of a fictional space salamander. Truly the issue of our times around which we must rally in lock-step behind our leaders to address if we are ever to achieve equality. Yup defend racism fellow goon you sure are superior
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Dec 26, 2016 23:21
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https://youtu.be/meXc2TA7ujI Yup totally not racist
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Dec 26, 2016 23:22
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