Star Wars: 4000 posts later we are no closer to consensus

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Wars: 4000 posts later we are no closer to consensus

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Bongo Bill posted:

This is a pretty stupid thing to say, however. It's just not a good test: the use of a slur is not solely indicative of racism against the target of the slur.

If this is true, then why not just say it? No one is claiming that racial slurs are sole indicators of racism.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jan 12, 2019

# ¿ Jan 12, 2019 21:54

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 04:41

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

I always suspected Fincher's IQ was subpar.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 20:21

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Cnut the Great posted:

Han Solo can sense the Force. Every living being can. Every living being has midi-chlorians. In fact, George Lucas once jokingly implied that if Han Solo did not have midi-chlorians, he would be a "zombie":

That's essentially what George Lucas is saying C-3PO is when he says that C-3PO doesn't have a "soul." He's an imitation of life. He's programmed to mimic certain characteristics which living beings have, like feelings and emotions, but there's nothing really behind them. He has no connection to the life force. He isn't a part of the vast, interconnected organism which all living things constitute:

Midi-chlorians are an elaboration on a concept which Lucas discussed in a book called The Meaning of Life: Reflections in Words and Pictures on Why We Are Here, published in 1991:

Obviously this implies that there is a "larger Force field" which connects life forms to non-living entities such as the planet and the universe, but these non-living entities do not interface with the Force in the same way. They're not a part of the organism. They have no way of "knowing" the Force which they're a part of.

Unfortunately, even with the voluminous amount of quotes you've used, interpretation is still necessary. What does the individual consciousness's connection to a universal consciousness actually mean to you? Are you making a case for mind-body dualism? Leibniz's monadology? Is Margaret Thatcher not a living being? Does a droid have less existential choice than a squirrel?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 01:59

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Cnut the Great posted:

George Lucas is a fascist, white supremacist pedophile. This is now canon.

They're clearly not, though, for all the reasons that I've repeatedly stated and shown, and backed up by the creator's consistently stated intent. Doesn't it bother you that you so enjoy a work created by a white supremacist? I mean, obviously a lot of people enjoy Wagner's music, but that's comparatively a lot more abstracted from the man himself. In comparison, George Lucas's hateful droidist ideology is inherent throughout every bit of his work. How can you just ignore that? It's pretty hosed up. At least I'm pointing it out and shining a light on it. You're just sticking your head in the sand and denying that it's there because you don't want to give up your pew pew space laser movies. It would be like someone denying that The Birth of a Nation is racist. This poo poo matters, man. It hurts people.

One reason the absolutist reading of the death of the author argument is so flawed is because it abrogates the responsibility of an artist for the content of his work. I think George Lucas should have to take responsibility for his beliefs, which he has chosen to express through film. Do you?

Have you read "The Death of the Author" recently? The "Death" has nothing to do with responsibility, but where truth is found in a piece of writing.

It holds the author responsible for what they produce by engaging the work directly, through the act of reading. What you're advocating for actually holds the author less responsible, by imposing a limit on the text that makes ideological critique so severely limited as to be useless.

Cnut the Great posted:

Of course interpretation is still necessary. You can't rely on the author's intent for everything, because eventually the well of quotes runs dry, or you run up against conflicting or unclear statements. Sometimes the textual evidence is unclear or ambiguous. Sometimes an alternative interpretation makes more sense.

I'm talking about interpreting the quotes themselves. People have been trying to write that your interpretations of these quotes do not line up with the text of the films, that the films do not sufficiently depict a "hateful droidist ideology."

Bonaventure posted:

I'm glad the author is dead and a text must stand on its own because, speaking as a racist, it was very inconvenient to have to consider Langston Hughes' blackness when reading his poetry.

I thank you, most educated and well-read schollards, for this un-looked-for privilege.

Are you saying that Hughes' poetry does not stand on its own? Do you realize that he references American blackness in the poetry itself?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 15:55

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

"The Death of the Author" is not the "The Death of Context". It makes the exact opposite of a positivist view of literature. The essay is very short, you should consider reading it.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Feb 3, 2019

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 16:08

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Bonaventure posted:

I find it disappointing that no-one responded to this post in another thread, which is relevant: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879338#post491554212

..."Why would the playwright have hidden from the audience an element of the plot so essential to the drama?" I asked. The writer of the paper simply shrugged. Reading 75% of the posts in this thread gives me the same feeling I had while listening to that paper.

The "Death of the Author" does not mean that all readings are equally valid or that the author isn't a person. What is being critiqued is The Author figure, which is a very specific concept.

Bonaventure posted:

lol you're the one who needs to re-read it.

also, from earlier here is where Barthes indeed advocates for the death of context (emphasis mine)

quote:
To give
an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final
signification, to close the writing. This conception perfectly suits criticism, which
can then take as its major task the discovery of the Author (or his hypostases: society,
history, the psyche, freedom) beneath the work: once the Author is discovered, the
text is �explained:� the critic has conquered; hence it is scarcely surprising not only
that, historically, the reign of the Author should also have been that of the Critic, but
that criticism (even �new criticism�) should be overthrown along with the Author.

utter trash.

SMG pointed this out, but what Barthes is criticizing here is the idea that the truth of a text can objectively be found and end in an author's particular coordinate in society, history etc.. But this objective end is ideological, you are not actually perceiving the art through the author, but yourself through the author, and then the art. What he is trying to pinpoint is the center of the actualization process of art qua art that renders the raw data coherent.

The post you reference does not contradict this:
"The strongest form of anti-intentionalism you'll usually find is something like (and I'm being very reductive here) how one interprets a work irrespective of intentions is going to be what determines the best way to understand the intentions behind the work. So you kind of determine the meaning irrespective of intentions... but still need to make use of intentions to say that what you're talking about is "meaning."

What is important to recognize is that any intention you ascribe, where the rubber hits the road, will irreducibly be a negative unity that occurs in the reader. It does not mean that if I read Latin American literature then I cannot use my knowledge of Latin America to support my reading. What I cannot do is pretend if my knowledge of Latin America gives me an objective view of the work. This is important to consider because otherwise you may not notice perceived contradictions which are actually occurring in you.

Barthes posted:

We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.

....

Thus is revealed the total existence of writing: a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Feb 4, 2019

# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 01:32

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Right, it�s because Lucas pulled from history that the the films are not constrained to being interpreted within the creator�s liberal ideology.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2019 15:12

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Cnut the Great posted:

This is like saying that because Karl Marx pulled from history when writing Das Kapital that it isn't constrained to being interpreted within the author's ideology. Of course it is. You can note flaws in Marx's arguments, disagree with the premises, and elaborate on his thoughts to develop your own ideas, but that has to do with your reaction to the work, not the message the work itself is communicating. Lucas didn't recreate history when he made the Star Wars films. He took his own personal, subjective, selective interpretation of history and plastered it on the screen in a way which reflected his own view of the world. The success with which he did so can be debated, but there can be no doubt that the semantic content of the Star Wars films is necessarily limited by the individual(s) arranging the signifiers. They are not free to be read however you please. George Lucas's view of the world is not the same thing as the world itself. George Lucas's view of history is not the same thing as history itself. This is where your error lies.

Everyone knows this is how things work. The arguments to the contrary don't consist of anything that is even semantically meaningful, let alone compelling.

You have it backwards. What is important is how that history is being used. In this case Lucas decided to depict a story where a liberal democracy dies, not from without, but from within. The supposed received "message the work itself is communicating" is always a reaction to the work and the limits are determined by the various strengths of those interpretations. Consider Marx's master, Hegel: his writings have been championed as being both far left and far right ideologically.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Feb 11, 2019

# ¿ Feb 11, 2019 04:06

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Bonaventure posted:

very interesting that all the posters itt who would normally be the first to cry against ascribing any importance to "intentionality" now go even further than i would in ascribing importance to intentionality when it happens to support a reading that they like lmao

It is almost as if different posters are making these different arguments.

Bonaventure posted:

also SMG's use of slurs is an obvious and cheap rhetorical trick to connect his opponents with the use of those slurs. "i dare you to call mace windu the n-word" is him saying by inference "you are calling mace windu the n-word." the really amazing thing is that 2/3 of the posters here buy into such bankruptcy.

SMG�s usage of a slur linked SMG to it. Their point was not to expose people as secret racists but a criticism of a form of thought. In this case, the idea that it�s impossible to be racist against a fictional character because nobody�s getting hurt or, in other words, the possibility of abstract racism. I�m not entirely convinced of this particular path because real world slurs inherently make the racism less abstract. A more precise articulation was the reference to District 9�s aliens as prawns.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Feb 17, 2019

# ¿ Feb 17, 2019 00:40

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Bonaventure posted:

it was the same posters actually gentle goon, except for euphronius and maybe one more

So who are these posters?

# ¿ Feb 17, 2019 01:46

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Shouts out to SMG for talking up Prospect earlier. The umbilical cord imagery and the diegetic music choices were inspired (Last thing I expected was 70's Cambodian rock music).

It made a nice companion piece with Meek's Cutoff too.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2019 19:34

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Timeless Appeal posted:

I dunno man--the main page right now is mainly highlighting The Lighthouse, Parasite, and The Farewell in it's Certified Fresh movie section. There's a whole article about big festival favorites. But there's also clickbaity poo poo there too? It's fine.

If you have no issue with the Rotten Tomatoes' algorithm in the abstract, then, in order to fully grasp how it operates in the concrete, you can't just look at the films that you believe they got right, but also what you think they got wrong.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Nov 6, 2019

# ¿ Nov 6, 2019 04:22

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Timeless Appeal posted:

Yeah the number doesn't work if you're looking for a ranking of the films' quality and I don't know who the gently caress doesn't like Blade Runner, but that doesn't really matter. Nobody should be using RT to make stupid points about why their favorite Marvel movie is better than Gangs of New York or whatever.

Rotten Tomatoes presents their data in such way as to obfuscate what is lost in their quantification process. You can�t just say that people should already know that their numbers don�t work for assessing quality when RT actively uses their 0-100 scale scores to create ranking lists.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Nov 9, 2019

# ¿ Nov 8, 2019 18:37

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Mandrel posted:

idk man doesn�t seem totally pointless, if we�re saying theres racial connotations it seems important we know what the racial connotations are otherwise jawas are just gonna keep getting blown up. you�ve got a good handle on it though so help us out

what race are the Jawas

The problem here is your question contains the strange implication that racism must be rooted in something real, be rational; as opposed to what it actually is, ideological.

Simply put: it's racist to say that slaughtering Jawas means less than slaughtering Jedi because it denies their Cartesian subjecthood.

KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Nov 20, 2019

# ¿ Nov 19, 2019 23:50

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

RBA Starblade posted:

The smg challenge is harder than it looks because 1. I don't remember the context for half of that garbage 2. UNLIMITED POWER is perfect and 3. ideally you'd rewrite the whole scene which would require 1.

Right, but look at how zer0spunk presented the writing: as a list of self-evidently bad dialogue. But any substantial assessment should engage with their presence in and of the story.

For example, the complaint of overly sappy dialogue is only directed at Anakin & Padme, which leaves out how, when he reaches out to Padme, his lack, as someone who has been taught to repress his emotions, takes the form of melodrama.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2020 19:48

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

Marvel makes superhero movies, which occasionally use science fiction imagery. This isn't the same as science fiction.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2020 17:15

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

euphronius posted:

Seems perfect for Star Wars then

Correct, but also contingent on if you think of Star Wars as something that can't meaningfully change as a series. From the beginning, Star Wars was a story that kept it's politics fairly abstract (I.e. how people miss that the Empire stands for the United States, and the Rebels for the Viet Cong), but the prequel trilogy showed how Lucas was willing to take the franchise into more explicit critiques of contemporary society.

Jewmanji posted:

Who cares? The consensus-best Star Wars film was directed by someone with no sci-fi experience. What is the value of having worked in the same genre? There�s absolutely no demonstrable proof that that is helpful. In fact, the things that make the original films so good was the directors bringing a non-sci fi sensibility to the films. They hired JJ Abrams explicitly because of his custodianship of other sci fi properties and he made two massive turds.

The broader problem is the fethishization of the individual, similar to how people blame all of the post-Disney Star Wars problems on Kathleen Kennedy, which makes nearly irrelevant what director is hired for these films. Could even the original trilogy exist under the Disney mandates that have become increasingly clear?

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 00:05

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

To your point, famously, David Fincher turned down Episode 7 because he wanted to make it explicitly about droid slavery.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 00:29

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

The fetishization is the belief that the key to fixing the sequel trilogy is to pick the "right" director, or "right" president of Lucas films. An example that prevents this possibility is the clear mandate to purge any semblance of political content from the films.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 01:08

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 04:41

KVeezy3: Aug 18, 2005; Airport Music for Black Folk

To be honest, I have trouble cohering TLJ's politics, so it would be helpful if someone could take the time explain them to me. Like what does Kylo stand for?

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 01:22

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Wars: 4000 posts later we are no closer to consensus