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Admiral Piett was more interesting than General Hux
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Sep 18, 2017 11:33
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Craptacular! posted:Need I mention that this is not too many years after Richard Nixon tried to argue that whether or not something is legal depends on whether the President says it is. "My Lord... is that... legal?" "I will make it legal."
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Sep 18, 2017 13:13
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Craptacular! posted:And I should point out by Epcot's opening, the illusion was over. The cold war combined with America's financial difficulties and increased distrust of corporations made the optimistic, cheerful future of Disney an archaic thing; but persistred because the company was run at the time by guys from the Old Guard who weren't going to roll with the cultural changes. They clung onto that old happy optimism and they built that park anyway. And it was roundly criticized by people who saw it as a propaganda tool for Exxon, General Motors, etc. Very different from the 60s, where people flocked to the GE propaganda ride and the Monsanto propaganda-ride and didn't really think twice about it. I was really hoping the links for Exxon and General Motors would be to examples of these rides being "roundly criticized" instead of just links to the ride's Wikipedia pages. Actually asking, do you have examples of people bashing Universe of Energy or World of Motion when Epcot opened? I was born the year ROTJ came out, so I wasn't around for that, and would be curious to read about it.
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Sep 18, 2017 13:43
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 Yeesh.
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Sep 18, 2017 13:52
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Milky Moor posted:Is this a serious point? Should the Empire have Keystone Copped their way through ESB?
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Sep 18, 2017 13:59
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Brother Entropy posted:rey's skills don't really bug me so much as her just being kind of a nothing character to the point that the guy who was originally supposed to die 20 minutes in has more of a graspable personality than the film's main protagonist, she feels very bland in a series of films that otherwise is full of archetypal but interesting heroes The Gary Sue fighter pilot?
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Sep 18, 2017 14:15
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Lord Hydronium posted:That's not even close to what I'm saying. It's actually exactly what you said. Perhaps you spoke inaccurately?
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Sep 18, 2017 14:40
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Milky Moor posted:It's actually exactly what you said. And once more, I'm not saying it's bad to make evil fictional people look cool, I'm asking why people get bothered when they don't. The assumption that Space Nazis should be badass, and that a filmmaker has done something wrong if they aren't, is kinda weird. Lord Hydronium fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 16:34
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Lord Hydronium posted:I think it's worth asking why people feel a need for fascist villains to be cool. The aesthetic element was a big part of what sold fascism in the first place, after all; you stick some racist idiots who believe white people came from Atlantis in Hugo Boss uniforms, and everyone starts thinking they must know what they're doing. That's completely backwards. You first are declaring your enemies evil fascists and then striving to make these individuals look uncool in the press. And we should note that politics is absent here. Maul is not a fascist, and the Trade Federation are unambiguously libertarians. Instead, you should be examining the politics of 'cool' - and this boils down to ethics and pseudo-ethics. Vader is 'cool' because he is the only ethical character in Star Wars. Other characters can dress up in costumes, but they remain 'all too human'. When fans gush over how badass Boba Fett is/was, they are referring to his (pseudo-)ethical appearance: he's an outlaw, right? Follows his own code or whatever. But then, why is he working for that loser Jabba? The more you focus on what Fett does, the more human limitation becomes apparent. The problem of the space-nazis is, likewise, not that they falsely look cool, but that they are appropriating cool imagery to create the illusion that they are revolutionizing society.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:11
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Facism is inherently cool- if it's not cool, it's not proper facism.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:25
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:You first are declaring your enemies evil fascists and then striving to make these individuals look uncool in the press. And we should note that politics is absent here. Maul is not a fascist, and the Trade Federation are unambiguously libertarians. SuperMechagodzilla posted:Instead, you should be examining the politics of 'cool' - and this boils down to ethics and pseudo-ethics. Vader is 'cool' because he is the only ethical character in Star Wars. Other characters can dress up in costumes, but they remain 'all too human'. When fans gush over how badass Boba Fett is/was, they are referring to his (pseudo-)ethical appearance: he's an outlaw, right? Follows his own code or whatever. But then, why is he working for that loser Jabba? The more you focus on what Fett does, the more human limitation becomes apparent. Nonetheless, I think there is a problem in the broader fandom (less so here) where the "good parts" of the Empire are emphasized and the bad parts downplayed - where blowing up planets and such is just the work a few bad apples like Palpatine and Tarkin. You see that idea crop up a lot in the later Legends EU, for example, and many fans unfortunately responding positively to it. In the terms of your argument, I think that since the Empire looks cool, those people want the Empire also to be cool by following some sort of ethical version of authoritarianism.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:48
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:That's completely backwards. Ah yes notable not at all the Emperor's bitch Darth Vader.
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Sep 18, 2017 18:22
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porfiria posted:Ah yes notable not at all the Emperor's bitch Darth Vader.
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Sep 18, 2017 18:52
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Lord Hydronium posted:I mean, it's not a coincidence that in ESB, where he's seen to be at his coolest, is also the one where he's most independent. I mean the essence of cool is being free of restraint, yeah. This is why Han Solo is progressively less cool, and why no one in the prequels is cool. Except Jex Dettster I guess. Edit: Also we do see Vader get down on his knees in ESB, so it's kind of a wash versus Star Wars, coup d'etat talk aside.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:02
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Obi-Wan is the coolest, though. 
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Sep 18, 2017 19:05
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porfiria posted:Edit: Also we do see Vader get down on his knees in ESB, so it's kind of a wash versus Star Wars, coup d'etat talk aside. Real Men Pray
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Sep 18, 2017 19:07
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porfiria posted:Ah yes notable not at all the Emperor's bitch Darth Vader. You're confusing 'cool' with mere power. Don't be too proud of this technological terror, etc. Being a bitch is not the opposite of being cool. That being said, Palpatine is the second-coolest character in Star Wars. porfiria posted:I mean the essence of cool is being free of restraint, yeah. This is why Han Solo is progressively less cool, and why no one in the prequels is cool. Except Jex Dettster I guess. The question is how you define constraint. Han Solo is only 'free' in a libertarian sense where he deals drugs and could get snuffed out at any moment. There's a reason his nemesis/counterpart is Boba Fett.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:29
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thrawn527 posted:I was really hoping the links for Exxon and General Motors would be to examples of these rides being "roundly criticized" instead of just links to the ride's Wikipedia pages. Actually asking, do you have examples of people bashing Universe of Energy or World of Motion when Epcot opened? I was born the year ROTJ came out, so I wasn't around for that, and would be curious to read about it. Didn't go that deep into it because this isn't a theme parks thread. I never went to Florida in the 80s, but UoE's pre-Ellen iteration was known to shill the oil industry. WoM seems like an incredible ride and I'm saddened I never got to see it, but GM is criticized for lots of things from dismantling public transit to burying the electric car. It's usually not the rides themselves that were the problem here, but the sponsor areas after the ride that were basically a space for the company to pitch themselves at you. This was started at Innerspace, where the room at the ride exit was a big Monsanto display. Very few rides go as far as to have characters quote marketing slogans, like the way Carousel of Progress Daddy tells you that GE brings good things to life.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:31
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Craptacular! posted:Didn't go that deep into it because this isn't a theme parks thread. I never went to Florida in the 80s, but UoE's pre-Ellen iteration was known to shill the oil industry. WoM seems like an incredible ride and I'm saddened I never got to see it, but GM is criticized for lots of things from dismantling public transit to burying the electric car. Ah, okay. I thought you were saying there were a bunch of negative reviews for the rides at the time, with headlines like, "World of Motion? More like World of Corporate Shilling!" Yeah, WoM was really cool, though it's not like Test Track isn't. And is there a theme park thread? Or could there be? I'd be down for participating (I live in Orlando, where we have a couple here and there), but it might not be a good topic for a thread. I find them to be fascinating ecosystems of their own, with incredibly complicated logistics and rich/crazy histories.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:36
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thrawn527 posted:I was really hoping the links for Exxon and General Motors would be to examples of these rides being "roundly criticized" instead of just links to the ride's Wikipedia pages. Actually asking, do you have examples of people bashing Universe of Energy or World of Motion when Epcot opened? I was born the year ROTJ came out, so I wasn't around for that, and would be curious to read about it. Universe of Energy wasn't horrible at the beginning, but it became a really awful advertisement after Sid Bass, a Texas oil and gas magnate, essentially saved Disney from a hostile takeover by Marriott and Saul Steinberg. He and his family bought up a ridiculous amount of Disney's outstanding stock, then wound up replacing like half the board and getting Michael Eisner and Frank Wells installed to run the company. Eisner's tenure over the company really, genuinely began to weaken when the Basses had to liquidate almost their entire portfolio.
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Sep 18, 2017 20:32
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Timby posted:Universe of Energy wasn't horrible at the beginning, but it became a really awful advertisement after Sid Bass, a Texas oil and gas magnate, essentially saved Disney from a hostile takeover by Marriott and Saul Steinberg. He and his family bought up a ridiculous amount of Disney's outstanding stock, then wound up replacing like half the board and getting Michael Eisner and Frank Wells installed to run the company. I remember hating Universe of Energy when I was a kid, mainly for being so drat boring. The Ellen version was better, but that's gone now, too. ...I tried relating this back to the thread topic somehow via Star Tours, but I've got nothing.
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Sep 18, 2017 20:37
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Yeah, all I was trying to say is that wrapping the Empire up in shades of Nazism isn't quite right. It's a dystopia (which was all the rage in the 70s and 80s, cyberpunk etc) that's wearing the familiar trappings of a 20th century utopia. The reason they look "badass" is possibly because you the viewer have been conditioned to like that utopian sci-fi aesthetic before you ever watched a Star Wars film. I never watched one with serious interest until I was in high school. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 21:17
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thrawn527 posted:I remember hating Universe of Energy when I was a kid, mainly for being so drat boring. The Ellen version was better, but that's gone now, too. Nah, original Universe of Energy was better than Ellen's since it was only a loving 15 minute ride instead of a 45 minute show, and had a fuckin' tight-rear end catchy themesong at the end. To bring it back around to Star Tours, Eisner pulled Lucas in shortly after he became CEO to make the parks more teenager-friendly. Out of this, we got the single greatest Star Wars film ever made: 1986's George Lucas and the Walt Disney Company Presents Francis Ford Coppola's Captain Eo, starring Michael Jackson.
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Sep 18, 2017 22:11
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Vader and Palpatine were kinda lame if you think about it
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Sep 18, 2017 23:32
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Super Fan posted:Vader and Palpatine were kinda lame if you think about it They were good actually.
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Sep 19, 2017 01:12
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The truth is somewhere in the middle.
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Sep 19, 2017 01:27
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Luke, Leia, Han, Teebo, Bobo Fett, Lando, Mon Mothra, Ackbar, Biggs + Wedge, Porkins, Maul, Jabba, Dengar(Mummy gently caress), Bossk, Frog-Dog, Old Ben Franklin, Jimmy Smits, Yoda, R2-D2 and C3PO(not people), Tarkin, and Greedo were kinda lame when you think about it.
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Sep 19, 2017 01:36
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UmOk posted:Luke, Leia, Han, Teebo, Bobo Fett, Lando, Mon Mothra, Ackbar, Biggs + Wedge, Porkins, Maul, Jabba, Dengar(Mummy gently caress), Bossk, Frog-Dog, Old Ben Franklin, Jimmy Smits, Yoda, R2-D2 and C3PO(not people), Tarkin, and Greedo were kinda lame when you think about it. More effort please
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Sep 19, 2017 02:06
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Super Fan posted:More effort please I literally put in 10x more effort than you when you think about it.
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Sep 19, 2017 02:20
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Anakin ( I don't draw a distinction between Vader and Anakin) spent his whole life under the thumb of other, more powerful or more responsible people. He's loving dork that got dunked on his whole life. We only see Palpatine as an old man who got killed in the most embarrassing way imaginable. They're both losers.
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Sep 19, 2017 02:34
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Yaws posted:
Have you seen any Starr Wars? Like half of the cast dies from falling down holes.
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Sep 19, 2017 02:38
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UmOk posted:Have you seen any Starr Wars? Like half of the cast dies from falling down holes. Do you make typos on purpose? Yes, people in Star Wars fall down holes. Palpatines death was notably undignified and could have been avoided had he not been a moron.
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Sep 19, 2017 02:46
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Yaws posted:Do you make typos on purpose? A notably undignified death in the same movie where another villain is accidentally knocked into a giant anus.
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Sep 19, 2017 03:03
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All characters in all movies are, by virtue of being characters and being in movies, cooler than all real-world people. Or at least all real-world people that your message-board-using rear end knows
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Sep 19, 2017 03:07
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Vinylshadow posted:
Anyone else annoyed that Han and Leia named their son after: a) someone Leia never met b) someone Han only knew for like a hour. Might as well have named him after Lobot.
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Sep 19, 2017 03:19
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UmOk posted:A notably undignified death in the same movie where another villain is accidentally knocked into a giant anus. Boba Fett? He hardly qualifies. You're applying decades worth of fan service to him.
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Sep 19, 2017 03:22
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Davros1 posted:Anyone else annoyed that Han and Leia named their son after: I mean he was responsible for setting in motion the events that reunited her with her long lost brother and ended the Empire. Its more odd that they chose his weird hermit alias than his real name.
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Sep 19, 2017 03:26
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banned from Starbucks posted:I mean he was responsible for setting in motion the events that reunited her with her long lost brother and ended the Empire. By hiding the fact that they were siblings. And that their father was Darth Vader. I mean, really all he did was negotiate plane tickets and flip a switch. That's not "Name our kid after him" status. Should've named him Wedge. Now there was someone who got things done!
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Sep 19, 2017 03:33
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Its because they chose Leia to live as royalty and luke a white trash dirt farmer. Thats name worthy
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Sep 19, 2017 03:37
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banned from Starbucks posted:Its because they chose Leia to live as royalty and luke a white trash dirt farmer. Thats name worthy Did they ever do an Infinities were Luke was raised as a prince on Alderaan, and Leia just wanted to go to Toche Station to pick up some power converters?
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Sep 19, 2017 03:40
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