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ATP_Power posted:Another thing that struck me in TPM is the scene where Anakin is packing up and is talking to C3P0 about how he wasn't going to be able to finish him, and would try to make sure his mom wouldn't sell him. When the scene looks at C3P0 it's a normal shot, but when the camera is on Anakin (the recently freed slave) talking about how he'll make sure his mom doesn't sell 3P0, it's shot from what looks like 3P0's first person perspective. Is that one of the only times we have a first person shot in any of the Star Wars films? It really stood out to me. There's this one:  Which is relevant, because:   First Words:  THREEPIO : How do you do, I am See-Threepio, Human Cyborg Relations. How might I serve you? PADME : He's perfect.  DARTH VADER: Where is Padme? Is she safe, is she all right? Baby Steps:   First and Last Moments of Vulnerability:  THREEPIO : My parts are showing? Oh, my goodness.  DARTH VADER: I couldn't have! She was alive! I felt her! She was alive! It's impossible! No!!! quote:GEORGE LUCAS: And this is the payoff of this Darth Vader killing his subordinates Piett joke. Is this one where he comes down at the very end of the movie and you fully expect him to get killed and he doesn't. He's too upset to even bother with killing his subordinates. Because we're talking about his son now. So he's conflicted. It's not just hate anymore. There's more to it than that. He's C-3PO disassembled.  MAN'S VOICE: Who are you?   
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Dec 14, 2015 21:36
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RBA Starblade posted:What is this a shot of? I can't tell what the object is. Also your first "First words" image is broken btw. That's C-3PO's foot, and his giant dong.
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Dec 14, 2015 21:44
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Fred Breakfast posted:This is one of the few of your posts where I can't see the similarity. Like, at all. You mean visual similarities? That's not really the point in this case (though there are some obvious ones in the ones from the PT). The screenshots are of moments where the same sorts of things are being depicted, from a character and thematic standpoint. jivjov posted:The prequel trilogy shots line up really well. Not so sure on the ESB ones. The ESB ones aren't really supposed to be visually similar. But in each case, it's the moment and immediate aftermath of the character's "disassembly" (whether it be physical or emotional).
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Dec 14, 2015 21:56
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kiimo posted:I'm still at a loss as to why they changed Luke saying "You're lucky you don't taste very good" to Artoo after he gets spit out of the swamp to "You're lucky to get out of there". That was what the line was in the original audio mix when the film was first released on 70 mm film. "You're lucky to get out of there" is literally the original line that you would have heard in theaters if you saw Empire during its first month of release. The was changed for the 35 mm version, which was sent out a month after the 70 mm version in a wider release, and which featured many other small changes to the film that had been made by Lucas after the 70 mm version had already been finalized and sent out. By the time the OT was being remastered for the Special Editions, the audio had become very badly degraded in certain places, and so pieces of the original audio track were subbed in for those portions. That's where the alternate Luke line in ESB and the alternate Han line in ROTJ during the sarlacc battle come from. They're just alternate takes of lines used to replace ones that had degraded too badly to be properly restored. There are many other minor differences between the audio mixes of various releases (including the VHS releases) which are so minor that most people never noticed or cared about them. But they're there, and the reasons for them are completely reasonable and innocent. This isn't a phenomenon limited to Star Wars film releases, by the way. But if you're in any way interested in fidelity to the "original" version, I'm afraid the line in the Special Edition is the one you're looking for.
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Dec 15, 2015 01:06
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TG-Chrono posted:
Why The Politics Of The 'Star Wars' Universe Makes No Sense Obviously the depiction of the legislature in Star Wars isn't going to make perfect sense, because it has to be conceptually simplified as well as condensed for time, and also altered for dramatic purposes. It's incredibly easy to show how it's unrealistic. But, amazingly, this article manages to fail at it: quote:The Senators represents worlds and groups of worlds. But there are also Senators representing what are essentially government agencies, which sounds pretty odd when you think about it. The Trade Federation is clearly not a government agency. It's a private megacorporation that has a monopoly on trade. It is pretty odd that they have a seat in the Senate. That's kind of the point. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Dec 16, 2015 |
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Dec 16, 2015 03:39
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I don't actively seek out spoilers but it's not the end of the world for me if I see them. If you're living in the 21st century and using the Internet, you kind of have to adapt.
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Dec 16, 2015 05:39
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Davros1 posted:Exactly. Maybe the force helped Padme know where Dooku's ship was. Actually it's just a minor plot contrivance. It's also a dumb nitpick. Just assume the clones flying the gunship detected a hangar up ahead and mentioned it to the occupants off-screen before Padme fell out. It's not as bad as in Spider-Man 2, where Harry somehow knows where Doc Ock's hideout is despite there being no conceivable space of time in which this information could possibly have been imparted to him.(Spider-Man 2 is still a good movie.)
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Dec 16, 2015 06:11
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Deakul posted:JJ Abrams is a fine director, his writing team just tends to be spotty. And what people touting Kasdan tend to forget (or not realize due to popular misconceptions) is that he relied on George Lucas to come up with the stories for the previous two Star Wars films he worked on (and Raiders). So it's not surprising if the same holds true, in a sense, for this film. Not to say that was necessarily up to Kasdan--or J.J., for that matter. I"m sure it'll be a perfectly enjoyable film, though.
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Dec 16, 2015 17:07
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Jonny_Rocket posted:Has this been discussed here yet? Yes, it's incredibly dumb, and basically the equivalent of saying that being afraid of the dark is racist.
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Dec 16, 2015 17:14
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Thrawn was kinda dumb poo poo too. "Oooo I am a MILITARY GENIUS. I can look at this Mon Calamari Mona Lisa and INSTANTLY DIVINE all of Admiral Ackbar's tactics!" Googling "Mon Calamari female" yielded me this:  That smile...so enigmatic....
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Dec 16, 2015 18:50
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drunkill posted:Nope. Just Lucasfilm. As it isn't a kids movie (like Marvel stuff, no disney logo before violent superhero movies) Star Wars is for kids, though. And so are superheroes.
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Dec 16, 2015 19:42
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Fred Breakfast posted:Yeah, heaven forbid the audience actually ask for a good story. Jesus Christ that is the dumbest loving argument.... The story is that a sweet little munchkin child becomes a sadistic supervillain. That other kid didn't come across as a scrappy, happy-go-lucky Tom Sawyer type; he practically had a thousand-yard stare. Also he was putting the moves on Padme like some sort of prepubescent Casanova. Lloyd, on the other hand, was just innocently blurting stuff out like an actual kid. Actual kids don't pepper their casual conversations with pregnant pauses and studied looks betraying a deep wellspring of tortured emotion. The kid had too much training compared to Lloyd. Chances are he'd been dragged to so many acting classes and auditions by his parents that he didn't even know how to act like an actual kid anymore.
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Dec 16, 2015 20:41
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Steve2911 posted:That's a lot to put on a child based on 4 seconds of video footage. Oh yeah? Well I bet he's a racist, too.
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Dec 16, 2015 22:23
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computer parts posted:This review makes the movie sound exactly like what I was worried it would become: The New Yorker posted:The reason to describe the plot in only the hedgiest and dodgiest of terms isn’t so much to avoid spoilers as to avoid giving away the only thing the movie’s got. I wouldn’t have wanted to know the great twists of “Psycho” before seeing it for the first time, but, even after having once seen it and knowing all of the script’s tricks, the pleasure of watching it again (and again and again) is nonetheless undiminished, and possibly even enriched. The hearty sentiment and the breathlessly clever plotting of “The Force Awakens” are delights, but narrowly limited delights. There’s pleasure within measure, but no uninhibited joy or terror, no ecstasy, no unmanaged passion. The secrets of the movie are the secrets of its plot; the mysteries are purely narrative, not at all visual, symbolic, metaphorical, or experiential. Nothing of the true force of the cinema. I sure hope that's a mischaracterization. Because that's, like, the worst thing you could possibly say about a Star Wars movie. Seriously, who watches Star Wars for the plot?
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Dec 17, 2015 03:31
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Darko posted:I'd say TPM looks the best of the prequels. The CG doesn't "matter" as much, because, like Jurassic Park, the CG stands out more as eye candy than environment. Because TPM was shot on film, in more live environments, it looks by far the best of the prequels, with AOTC being a far distant third. I've heard the opposite point being made, that the CGI in TPM actually stands out more because the rest of the movie was shot on film. But in AOTC, everything has a consistent digital aesthetic. I think, as always, even something as seemingly straightforward as how "realistic" a special effect looks is actually very subjective. That's because very few things in movies actually look "real," not even the real live filmed elements. It's all been tampered with in some way to create a sort of hyperreality, even going back to the dawn of cinema. What a director sees on set with his eyes is not at all what will show up on film, and never has been. But now, if a movie doesn't have film grain, or if it has too high a frame-rate, a lot of people say it feels "fake," even though in many ways it looks objectively closer to observable reality. A two-dimensional matte painting transposed to film looks more "real" than a three-dimensional model that was shot digitally. The real problem is that these things don't look fake in the right way.  This is the final, lingering shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it doesn't look even remotely real. (I've seen it in IMAX, and believe me, it stands out.) But no one ever complains about it having "aged terribly." Instead, it's a classic, a charming relic of a bygone era. It's fake-looking, but it's properly fake-looking. It's analog. It's authentic. It's hand-crafted. There were no scary digital robots involved with this one, heartlessly crunching numbers in a computer and sucking the living soul out of our authentic Spielbergian (™) childhoods. Goddamn robots. gently caress Skynet. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Dec 17, 2015 |
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Dec 17, 2015 17:16
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Y Kant Ozma Diet posted:That shot looks real enough to me. I don't know what this means. It looks real enough to me, too. So do most of the effects in the prequels. But that doesn't mean any of them actually look capital-R Real. Because they don't. Otherwise, they'd be indistinguishable from what your eyes would see if you were standing in a real location--or at the very least indistinguishable from a photograph, like the live action elements usually are. They're (usually) not indistinguishable from those things. mr.capps posted:I was rewatching the original trilogy yesterday to get ready for this and I forgot how many snakes there are on Dagobah. Nearly every shot has a snake, and Luke seems to get progressively more and more annoyed with the snakes, its great. IIRC it got to the point where Kershner was just hiding snakes in random places and then telling Mark to reach his hand in. Like this shot in particular is just straight up Mark Hamill getting surprised by a snake Kershner stashed in the X-wing engine prop:  
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Dec 17, 2015 18:52
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RBA Starblade posted:So was there ever a story or something about what happened to Jar-Jar Binks after he implemented space fascism for everyone? He was befallen by the worst fate anyone could possibly imagine--a lifelong career in politics: quote:However, Best does share some behind-the-scenes intel about a deleted scene involving Jar Jar filmed for Revenge of the Sith that would have expanded upon what happened to Binks after he infamously got the senate to unknowingly grant a Sith lord emergency powers in Attack of the Clones. “In Revenge of the Sith, there was a scene that was cut where I’m walking down a long pathway with Ian McDiarmid before he is turned into the Emperor,” Best explains. “And Palpatine kind of thanks Jar Jar for putting him in power. It’s a really interesting scene, and it shows the evolution of Jar Jar from this fun-loving kid’s character into this manipulated politician. And it was an interesting arc for the character that I thought could have been explored, because the scene is really dark. But it just didn’t fit in the movie, which I understand. But yeah, George’s take on it is Jar Jar is now just a politician.” http://www.ew.com/article/2012/02/11/star-wars-deleted-scene-revenge-of-the-sith-jar-jar-binks
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Dec 17, 2015 19:13
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Darko posted:Vader and Obi Wan were knights and not wizards as far as the fantasy imagery goes. Yes I know Vader is referenced as having wizarding ways, but that's the imagery that everything is drawn from. Well, during the ESB story conference, Lucas suggested that Vader and Ben actually were having a wizarding battle during their sword-fight; you just couldn't see it: George Lucas posted:“Earlier, Luke talks to Ben; when he brings him up as a ghost, we portend what is going to happen. Ben says, ‘Vader has more power than you can imagine. When he and I met, we fought on such a level that there didn’t appear to be much of a battle; it appeared to be a swordfight, but it was a battle of our wills that was really going on in the beyond.’ I’d like to make it into a battle (which we did in the Alan Dean Foster book, which is what I wanted to do in the first one with Ben and Vader) with lightning or electrical bolts, and throwing things around the room; an Exorcist kind of battle where you can bring all kinds of supernatural powers to bear. We’ll have Ben say, ‘Vader couldn’t use his supernatural powers against me, because I was too strong; he had to rely on brute force, which wasn’t of any value, because I was too advanced for that, so everything he did to me was useless.’ This didn't end up ever getting explained in the film, but it makes a certain amount of sense. The reason you don't see Jedi and Sith constantly Force-pushing and -choking each other is because they're constantly using the Force to defend against such attacks during battles. It's basically the same concept as the Doou/Yoda duel, only the battle on the spiritual plane was actually depicted visually, so that it would be clear why Jedi and Sith often just resort to having lightsaber battles. It's more interesting that way, anyway. I think people are overestimating how visually interesting a pure Force battle would actually be.
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Dec 17, 2015 23:01
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Good to see this silly narrative is still going strong: http://www.vox.com/2015/12/18/10561492/star-wars-conspiracy-theories quote:3) George Lucas created the special editions and prequels to prove to his ex-wife that he was the real genius behind Star Wars, not her Note: The only scenes George cut out that Marcia edited were the ones with Luke and his friends on Tatooine that everyone seems to universally agree are bad. And that was obviously for the original release, not the Special Edition. And LOL at "Believability: 6/10" for such a blatantly nonsensical conspiracy theory. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Dec 18, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 22:42
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Double post.
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Dec 18, 2015 22:43
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benito posted:I haven't read the whole thread, but I really enjoyed the cinematography in this. The shallow depth of field shots on real sets vs. just 100% "everything in focus" with the prequels was amazing. Practical sets really made a difference. That's not something that was exclusive to the prequels. The OT makes very conservative use of shallow depth-of-field shots. Everything is usually kept in focus to as great an extent as possible. That's the style Lucas was going for, in a notable departure from his work on THX 1138.
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Dec 19, 2015 00:13
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josh04 posted:He also somewhat bafflingly implies that Lucas is unaware that a prequel is really a sequel. Well, he clearly understands how prequels can function as sequels, but Lucas's intention was to construct the prequels in such a way that they could also function as what they are ostensibly supposed to be--the first three chapters in a six-part saga: quote:"If you see them in order, it completely twists things about. A lot of the tricks of IV, V and VI no longer exist. The real struggle of the twins to save their father becomes very apparent, whereas it didn't exist at all the first time [audiences saw Episodes IV, V and VI]. Now Darth Vader is a tragic character who's lost everything. He's basically a bitter old man in a suit. 'I am your father' was a real shock. Now it's a real reward. Finally, the son knows what we already know. It doesn't really matter because the whole thing is cyclical anyway. You can watch the story through in order from I-VI, but when you start the cycle over again, it means that I-III now follow IV-VI. And vice versa. That's why it's so wrongheaded to complain about the prequels spoiling the surprises of the original films. That's the entire conceit behind subtitling the first movie "Episode IV." The only reason the originals' plot twists work is because you came in during the middle of the story. It's kind of like a joke.
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Dec 19, 2015 02:16
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CountFosco posted:It isn't that Anakin's dialogue is very poetic that's the problem, it's that it's just bad poetry. In fact, it makes me cringe to here it called poetry at all. Lucas has a tin ear. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0466641/quotes quote:George Lucas: [about Francis Ford Coppola] Before I met him, I couldn't write a word, and now I'm the King of Wooden Dialogue. 
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Dec 19, 2015 02:57
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teagone posted:Prequels would have been better if Anakin was played by Heath Ledger channeling Ulrich von Liechtenstein from the start. Anakin should have been the loveable rogue archetype imo. Not everything has to be Han Solo.
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Dec 19, 2015 03:21
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Bongo Bill posted:Bail could've been that character. He was doing the Lando thing quite a bit when he was hastily assembling a rebellion at the end of the last one. But, alas, he was not. There was really no place in the story of the prequels for a Han Solo. Han Solo is a character who starts out as a selfish loner but then learns to become part of a group and to make personal sacrifices. He isn't in the movies just to make wisecracks and be cool; he's there to be an archetype representing a certain type of character growth. The OT is about rebuilding society. The PT is about the collapse of society. That's why instead of Han Solo, you get Anakin, who goes his own way at first not because he's selfish, but because be believes the rules of society are stopping him from being able to help people as effectively as he would like. Han Solo knows he's an rear end in a top hat and starts out perfectly comfortable with that self-knowledge; society's never done anything for him, so why should he do anything for society? But Anakin starts out with altruism as his ideal, and when he falls short of that ideal, he descends into neurotic despair. They're both characters who have experienced social alienation, but as a result of completely different circumstances and mindsets. Han Solo's alienation is breezy and romanticized, because it's a childish fantasy which both the character and the audience must learn to reject. In contrast, Anakin's alienation is stark and anxiety-inducing; you're supposed to feel the pain and confusion Anakin feels, not come away with the impression that he's enjoying the situation. You can't just say, "Han Solo is popular because he's cool and makes wisecracks, so obviously we need to have a Han Solo." If the story doesn't call for a Han Solo, you shouldn't force it just because it might be marketable. There's no actual reason for there to have been a Han Solo in the prequels. It's pure fan-service. It's perfectly possible to tell a good story without having that exact character type always present.
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Dec 19, 2015 05:58
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jivjov posted:You can tell just from the film itself. Stormtroopers were of all different heights (not even referring to Leia's snark, when they're standing near each other, they aren't even anywhere near to a uniform height), and speak in different voices. It seems like originally the idea was that the clone troopers would literally become stormtroopers. On the AOTC commentary Lucas talks about the gag where Jango bumps his head on the low door of the Slave I, the idea according to him being that it was a tendency of Jango's that would be cloned into the stormtroopers. Of course, you could quibble about whether the gag's implications were ever meant to be taken that seriously. Regardless, it was basically settled in 2004 when Lucas declined to have Temuera Morrison re-record the stormtroopers' voices for the DVD release. Cinematic convention says that if they don't have the same voice, they ain't clones. It all still works thematically, though. The stormtroopers are still spiritual descendants of the clone troopers. I like the way the showrunners of the Rebels cartoon put it: The Jedi helped turn the clones into individuals; in response, the Empire now turns individuals into clones.
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Dec 19, 2015 06:27
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Frank Oz, unprompted, espouses his undying love for Jar Jar Binks at The Force Awakens premiere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXh47Z_iYlU
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Dec 19, 2015 07:15
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The REAL Goobusters posted:Retard Hey! That's our word. Only we can say it.
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Dec 20, 2015 00:58
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MisterBibs posted:If I remember correctly, the idea of lightsabers from A New Hope was that they were supposed to be basically weightless. But they had no budget for a fight choreographer (and the main fight was between an untrained older actor and a dude in a heavy suit and a tunnel-vision mask), so Lucas made up an excuse that the blades were actually really heavy. It's why Han visibly struggles with using the thing (and the relatively slow, boring lightsaber combat) in Empire Strikes Back. They explain the logic behind everything pretty well in this video (starting at 3:32): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIefj6dOhnM&t=212s
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Dec 20, 2015 23:46
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Crow_Robot posted:One of the more understated things from the OT I really liked was how Luke was a pure dick to 3PO and R2 at the beginning of A New Hope but by the end of the triology R2 is like his best friend/strategist. That's not true. Luke is nice as hell to both the droids. He doesn't even want Threepio to call him "Master." It's one of the main reasons Luke is so immediately likable: he treats his servants like actual people.
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Dec 21, 2015 00:00
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Maxwell Lord posted:Luke does still think of them as "the help" at first. He's worried when R2 runs off because his uncle will be pissed. Even then he's really just pissed off at the whole situation, not at Artoo. When they finally catch up with Artoo, Threepio is angrier at him than Luke is. In fact, Luke really isn't angry at all. Mark Hamill actually considers the way Luke acts toward Artoo in this particular scene to be the key to understanding the character: J.W. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars posted:Despite slow going, the one scene completed on Day Five—in which Luke finds an errant R2-D2—helped Hamill better understand his character. “George is Luke,” Hamill says. “He is. I always felt that way. We were in the desert one time—it was the scene where I had just found Artoo after he ran away—so I ran up and said, ‘Hey, where do you think you’re going?!’ And to Threepio, ‘Do you think I should replace the restraining bolt?!?’ But George came up to me and said, ‘It’s not a big deal.’ He acted it out, just walking up and saying, ‘Noo, I don’t think he’s going to try anything.’ At that point, I was thinking, Well, he’s doing it so small, so I’ll do it just like him—and he’ll see how wrong he is. So I did it like that—and he said, ‘Cut. Print it. Perfect.’ So I thought, Oh … I see. So I guess George does direct his actors. Sometimes.
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Dec 21, 2015 00:36
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This isn't really a deep insight or anything, but the reason Luke is so kind to the droids is largely because he feels like he's in the same boat as them. Uncle Owen is his master, and his farm responsibilities are his restraining bolt. By tricking Luke into removing his restraining bolt, Artoo ends up inspiring Luke to do the same thing regarding his own situation. That's one reason Luke just can't bring himself to be mad at Artoo for running away. He gets where Artoo is coming from. He empathizes with the droids. And the film actually shows these parallels in a neat way. There's a reason there's so much focus placed on restraining bolts and "droid callers." They're not just plot devices, they're thematic devices:   Luke can't find Threepio, so he calls for him with his droid remote. Threepio is compelled to respond by his restraining bolt. Luke runs outside and commiserates with Threepio over Artoo's disappearance, then Owen calls for Luke to come inside. Luke, just like Threepio, feels himself compelled to respond: quote:Owen yells up from the homestead plaza.   In the very next scene, Owen repeatedly calls out for Luke. This time, Luke does not respond. Beru's last words in the film are to gently inform Owen that Luke has left. Owen's last words are to express his frustration at the prospect of Luke neglecting his obligations on the farm: quote:The interior of the kitchen is a worm glow as Aunt Beru It's a seemingly simple, prosaic scene, but it basically says it all: Luke has finally left. He's not a farmer anymore, and Owen no longer controls him. He's removed his restraining bolt.
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Dec 21, 2015 01:09
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TerminalSaint posted:Don't you hate it when you wait 30 years for a movie, and then when you go to see it, the lady sitting next to you is one of those people who somehow made it to middle-age having never learned that you're not supposed to vocalize every thought that enters your brain in a theater? Did you try asking her to be quiet?
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Dec 21, 2015 04:34
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Josh Lyman posted:It just processed for me that Lucas didn't write, direct, or produce ESB. In retrospect, it's surprising anyone would have thought the prequels would be good. Talk about a hot take. (Lucas wrote the story, co-wrote the screenplay, and executive produced ESB. His influence is undeniably present in every aspect of the final product.) MisterBibs posted:Exactly. The PT Jedis were beep-boop grognards who boiled down force ability to a number to the detriment of everything. Yoda's talk of the force as an energy field that binds folks and makes us luminous beings is the kind of stuff PT Yoda would've been embarrassed to be told he says in ~20 years. No. Midi-chlorians exist, and they're exactly what the Jedi say they are. Midi-chlorians are not the Force. The Force is an energy field. Midi-chlorians are microscopic organisms which act as mediators between the spiritual world and physical world. They're a metaphor for symbiosis. Force ability is clearly genetic, since it runs in families. Midi-chlorians explain why. They don't fundamentally alter anything that was established about the Force in the OT. They're merely an exploration of a different aspect of it. It's a clever metaphor based around endosymbiotic theory. It's not the end of the world. The Force is a fake movie religion. I'll bet a good number of the people up in arms about midi-chlorians here are probably atheist or agnostic, which makes the whole controversy even more absurd. Gutcruncher posted:This just in, George Lucas doesnt understand what made Star Wars good. Maybe he doesn't understand what made it good to you. That's not really his problem, though.
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Dec 21, 2015 07:25
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INH5 posted:I think most of the complaints about politics in the prequels were more along the lines of it being ridiculous that a Star Wars movie was about something as banal as "taxation of trade routes," and that the political discussion scenes went on too long. The proper reaction to these criticisms is not to cut out all political exposition, to the point that the audience has no idea what is going on unless they read the EU material. The plot of TPM is incredibly easy to understand, even if you don't know what taxes are. The Trade Federation are greedy bad guys, they're trying to take the Queen's planet from her, and the Queen is trying to escape to Coruscant to get help from the leaders there. My five-year-old brother understood what was going on when I watched it with him. He wasn't confused by the mention of words like "blockade" because, guess what--it's freaking obvious what's going on just by looking at the images that appear on the screen, and the way the characters act, react, and interact. Hell, my little brother actually gets excited when he's driving in a car with someone and hears people talking about the Senate on the radio, because he thinks it's so cool that there's a Senate in real life too, just like in Star Wars. Star Wars has actually, in a small way, gotten him to develop an interest in basic political concepts--at the age of five. I, for one, think that's really cool. I think people just don't give kids enough credit. Kids are smarter than you think. Just because the politics in TPM bored you to tears when you were a kid, doesn't mean the same held true for everyone else your age. In fact, given the popularity of the movies among children, I'd suggest that your experience was probably not the norm. I know I didn't understand everything that was going on when I saw TPM in theaters when I was seven, but that doesn't mean I automatically went spastic with boredom during the one measly scene that took place in the Senate--because the Senate chamber looked cool, and dramatic things were clearly happening. But I sure as poo poo knew what was going on when Amidala got angry and called for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum, after which Valorum looks visibly betrayed and defeated, and Palpatine literally says aloud, "Now they will elect a new Chancellor, a strong Chancellor, one who will not let our tragedy continue." This really isn't rocket science. Any reasonably intelligent kid is going to be able to get the gist here. Kids aren't retards. e: (I mean, except for the retarded ones.) Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 00:24
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mlmp08 posted:It's not that all those nerdy words were hard to understand. It's that it was boring as gently caress and poorly written. No it wasn't. Your move.
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Dec 22, 2015 01:25
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quote:Also, Yoda training literally all the Jedi when they were little kids... that's not okay at all. Yoda is wise and awesome, not some elementary school teacher. I'm seeing a consistent theme here. People who hate the prequels tend to really, really, really think poorly of children. What the hell do you have against elementary school teachers? Elementary school teachers are among the nicest, most patient, and most awesome people I know. Taking the time and effort to pass knowledge on to the next generation is exactly what someone as wise and awesome as Yoda would see as his responsibility. Guy A. Person posted:Could you point to who? For the record, I'm seeing it this week when I go home for Christmas. I know, I'm not a true Star Wars fan. I told my little siblings I'd see it with them and I figured I might as well just wait since I pretty much know what's going to happen already. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 06:19
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Bongo Bill posted:The important part about Midichlorians isn't that they existed. It's that the Jedi Order believed they existed. Similarly, how do you think Yoda became wise if not by making mistakes such as brainwashing children and starting the Clone War? For my part I still don't get why even prequel defenders have such a hard time accepting midi-chlorians. People say it's because it made the Force quantifiable and less mystical, but the Force was already quantifiable. In ROTJ, Luke tells Leia the Force runs strong in his family. What do you think that line means? It means there are families where the Force does not run as strong. There is a greater quantity of Force strength in the Skywalker bloodline than there is in most other bloodlines. And why can't there be some aspects of a system of spirituality that are quantifiable? Ever heard of karma? According to religions which believe in karma, your spiritual standing in your current life is in large part predetermined by the amount of karma you've accumulated in past lives. Every person in the world is born with a certain amount of karma held over from their previous life. If you were a really good person in your past life, you're going to be at a spiritual advantage compared to someone who was kind of a lovely person in their past life. Is this unfair? I don't think it's any more unfair than one person being inherently better at basketball than another person. If everyone gets an infinite number of chances, and everyone is all part of the same universal energy field anyway, why does it matter if some people happen to better at certain things than other people? We're all going to the same place. It doesn't matter. The whole point is that our physical forms are just temporary manifestations of a greater, unified truth. And what about chakras? Chakras are spiritual energy nodes which are located at specific, physical locations within the body, and are believed by yogic practitioners to be intimately connected with the health of various biological systems and bodily organs. They're spiritual energy structures often described in terms of being spoked wheels, which suck in prana (or "life force") from an omnipresent energy field and distribute it throughout the physical body. The chakras act as mediators between the physical body (or "gross body") and the non-physical body (or "subtle body"), and ultimately form part of what is called shakti, or the universal cosmic life force, which manifests itself as a god-like intelligence permeating all of existence. Sounds an awful lot like what midi-chlorians do, huh? This also ties into the distinction Lucas makes between the Cosmic Force and the Living Force in the Star Wars series. Eastern religions, as compared to Western religions, seem to be much more at ease with blurring the lines between the physical and the spiritual. The Force is meant to encompass aspects of all spiritual traditions, not just the ones your own education and upbringing has made you prone to identifying with. None of it's literal or real, anyway (not even the actual religious stuff). It's all just metaphors. Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 07:17
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Jerkface posted:I like the interpretations of the force with karma & chakra, except neither of those are little space bugs that live in your blood. Your chakra nodes do correspond to physical parts of your body, but there is not actually a physical presence there, its more about how your energy flows and poo poo through your body. Its not like they think, when massaging or pressuring some node or putting magnets on it, that an organ is being manipulated. Because midi-chlorians are supposed to be the part of the Force that manifests itself scientifically. It's not the whole Force--and science could never be sufficient to describe the whole Force in its entirety--but there is one aspect to the Force that's scientific. Lucas is a fuzzy, all-religions-are-true, New Age hippie kind of guy, and always has been. He doesn't draw as much of a distinction between different modes of thought as some people do. The Force represents all of reality. Science is one way of exploring that reality, and so of course the Force manifests itself there just as it manifests itself in the religious sphere; it just manifests itself in a different way. In this case, it manifests itself as the symbiotic relation between a bacterial organism and a eukaryotic organism, the primordial act of cooperation which made intelligent life--life capable of knowing the Force--possible in the first place. Look at it another way: Scientists might say they can describe "religious experiences" in terms of neurons misfiring in the brain. A religious person might say, "Okay, that's perfectly valid, and I'm sure you're measuring what you say you're measuring, but that's only one aspect of it. It was still a spiritual experience, and from my perspective, I was still communing with God, in a way which you could never adequately describe with your scientific instruments." But if you outright deny that religion and science can ever meaningfully intersect, as Stephen Jay Gould proposed should be the case, then such a compromise is impossible. You've either just destroyed religion in this instance, or you've just destroyed science. The Force doesn't seem like such a fuzzy, feel-good thing now, does it? quote:I would prefer it if it were more like chakra, and the force simply 'flows through' people better, ya know? Who says Qui-Gon couldn't see his aura? He clearly knew there was something special about Anakin far before he sent his blood to Obi-Wan for testing. But that doesn't mean he knew exactly how powerful Anakin was, or the full extent of his untapped potential in the Force. That's the kind of thing you need scientific instruments to measure. The problem here is that there's long been this entrenched narrative about how Star Wars' message is anti-technology. That's not true, though. Star Wars is agnostic toward technology. Look to Lucas's own words: George Lucas posted:Star Wars is made up of many themes. It's not just one little simple parable. One is our relationship to machines, which are fearful, but also benign. George Lucas posted:Having machines, like the droids, that are reasonably compassionate and a man like Vader who becomes a machine and loses his compassion was a theme that interested me. Star Wars is not Luddite in its outlook. George Lucas is not J.R.R. Tolkien (who was nevertheless a great influence on him). Technology isn't bad or good. Science isn't bad or good. The physical world itself isn't bad or good. It's all about what you do with these things. It's all about the choices you make as a human being. The choices you make are the only things that lie purely in the spiritual realm. That's the significance of the later revelations regarding Darth Plagueis. The midi-chlorians exist halfway in the world of science and halfway in the world of religion. The Jedi believe the Force exerted its will on the midi-chlorians to create Anakin. Palpatine seems to believe his old master exerted his will on the midi-chlorians to create Anakin. It's the same story--"Anakin Skywalker was conceived by the midi-chlorians to bring forth a prophecy"--but depending on your point of view, it portends completely different outcomes. If the Force created Anakin to be the champion of the Jedi, then the Chosen One must be a hero. If the Sith created Anakin to be their own champion, then it stands to reason that the Chosen One is in fact a villain, and the prophecy was misread, as Yoda comes to suspect in Episode III. The twist is that it doesn't matter: The prophecy is correct regardless of who influenced the midi-chlorians; Anakin is both a hero and a villain; and in the end he succeeds in bringing balance between light and dark.
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Dec 22, 2015 08:24
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Bip Roberts posted:My take on midichlorians was that the prequels existed in an age of governance and science and thus things like the force were ordered and categorized versus the original trilogy where power was derived from might and likewise the force existed as a nebulous entity. That's essentially correct. The PT is an era where the Jedi and the Force are just facts of life. The OT is an era where both those things have fallen into the realm of myth. The PT is to the OT as The Silmarillion is to The Lord of the Rings. One is about a time when gods walked the earth like it was no big deal, and consorted in vast halls, playing politics with each other and with their mortal subjects; Heaven itself was an actual island off the western coast. The other is about a time when the gods have retreated from the world and become articles of faith rather than fact; and Heaven has been removed to another plane of existence.
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Dec 22, 2015 23:05
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