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Neal Stephenson on Star Wars in the NYT
SnapShot writes "Neal Stephenson has an editorial in the New York Times about the difference between the old Star Wars and the new Star Wars, and the difference between geeking out and vegging out. Oh, and computer scientists and engineers are the Jedi of the U.S." From the article: "Likewise, many have been underwhelmed by the performance of Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Only if you've seen the "Clone Wars" cartoons will you understand that Anakin is a seriously damaged veteran, a poster child for post-traumatic stress disorder. But since none of that background is actually supplied by the Episode III script, Mr. Christensen has been given an impossible acting task. He's trying to swim in air."
Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes.
This quote from the article in particular resonated with me. We (scientists) have long been running an uneasy gauntlet between those that want us represent their theological, political or personal beliefs while trying to find truth where it is and for what it represents. Granted, these issues always arise within each one of us, but our training is to make hypothesis and then test them against what resources we can bring to bear. There are those that are not interested in truth and will twist facts and even scientists themselves to represent their perception or will which has always been part of the fascination I had with many of the original stories and sociological background behind the idea of the Jedi. (Disclaimer: The last Star Wars movie I thought was any good was "Empire Strikes Back").
The danger of course in not accepting rigorous scientific study of available facts leads us to confusion and obfuscation of truth which leads to jeopardy of person and country. Unfortunately, we have in the last few years gone quite far down this road through decisions made based upon data twisted to represent a prior beliefs rather than letting the data speak and then drawing conclusions from those data.
There has of course always been a fascination by many folks with power and "shiny things", but if we are to proceed beyond vanity and self obsessed cultivation of what others find attractive or desirable to find truth, we need to cultivate new generations of people interested in seeking the scientific and mathematical explanations of the universe.
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*sigh*
Maybe your friends think you're an idiot.
If you had read the crawler in the beginning of the movie, you would have read:
So, the enemy is Count Dooku. The ship is owned by the Separatists. The ship has the Chancellor on it. He was "kidnapped" by General Grievous. No viewing of the Clone Wars DVD was required to understand this.
This guy's point is that the old movies had "geek" sequences that told the story, but he claims the movies have no story, just "veg out" sequences. But he's wrong. Someone with at least rudimentary reading comprehension skills would have figured it out.
Maybe the fact that he saw Episodes IV-VI a million times is the reason why he understands the plot. Since he was seeing Episode III for the first time (and obviously not paying attention), that could be why he didn't understand. Has nothing to do with the quality of the movies.
As someone with an embarrassingly-encyclopedic knowledge of the movies*, I'd say Episodes I-III are as good as (and maybe better) than Episodes IV-VI.
This guy is in a long line of people who must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the new Star Wars movies are not as good as the original trilogy. (The rest of the line will be posting in this story about how George Lucas ruined their childhood, etc).
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
In the 1970s/1980s, there was nothing else like Star Wars. It was like nothing that had come before. No previous movie had such effects. No other movie had been so successful, had been such a phenomenon. No other movie had so much merchandise or spawned so many cool toys. Movies that grossed a hundred million dollars did not come out every day. (By the way, I keep seeing comments in Slashdot that say "If those movies defined your childhood, you're a LOSER!" but they don't understand--I started kindergarten in 1977 and finished sixth grade in 1984. The Star Wars movies were released from 1977 to 1983. *Everyone* like Star Wars. It was always there. Everyone had the costumes and action figures. It didn't define my childhood, but it was a big part of it, and I've got a lot of happy memories playing with Star Wars toys, alone and with friends.)
Fast-forward a couple decades. We're totally saturated in big movies. We have several hundred-million-dollar-plus movies every summer and a never-ending series of fast-food tie-ins. George has shown us the way and *everything* is merchandised to the hilt. The world that the new Star Wars movies play in is very different from the world that the first movies played it. It's *not* just that we're all 20 years older now.
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In the original trilogy, people were so happy there was a Star Wars that they were happy to overlook any and all flaws in the dialogue, storyline, plot elemenets, etc. They didn't mind that the Ewoks could defeat an elite stormtrooper legion, that an enormous Imperial fleet could simply go missing at the ROTJ, that Luke could become a full Jedi Knight in just a few years time. They didn't mind any of it, because the 70s and 80s were the time of action movies where Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood were major stars, followed by the Governator, Van Damme, etc. And all they had to do was either shoot people or beat the shit out of them. Rambo, Dirty Harry, Rocky, the Terminator, take your pick. But times changed in the 90s. Moviegoers became a lot more critical, demanded more from filmmakers. Particularly once the internet came to be widely used, everybody and their brother became armchair film critics. Everybody suddenly was an expert on filmmaking, writing, acting, producing (especially Slashdotters)though most had no clue what it all entailed. Movie audiences steadily got spoiled over time by some truly great epics until finally, these days, very few if any movies are good enough anymore. Thus the complaints about the plot holes in the Prequels, questions regarding the acting, the dialogue, etc. All things that could have come up while critiquing the OT, but which didn't for one reason. Because once upon a time, people went to a movie and simply enjoyed it for what it was. They didn't spend the entire time ripping it to pieces and then running home to post on their lame websites every flaw that they perceived and how they themselves could have done it better people. Think about people. You're spoiled to the point where you are unlikely to ever enjoy many movies in the future. Any movie you can think of, I can find someone on the internet who will be happy to rip it to shreds. Because it deserves it? No, because people just like to bitch and whine. It doesn't matter what the topic is, and it's what keeps internet forum from becoming totally deserted.
One of my gripes with the new vs the old is with the treatment of the Jedi.
In the original trilogy, the Jedi didn't really do much fighting. Yoda even tells Luke in Empire "the force is to be used for knowledge and defence, never for attack." When the Falcon gets pulled into the Death Star, Obiwan doesn't come out swinging, he sneaks around to free the ship. The part that gets me most is when Luke is fighting Vader in Jedi. When does Luke declare himself to be a Jedi? When he throws his weapon away. He STOPS FIGHTING. That was when he claimed is rightful status.
To watch the new movies, you get more of a sense of "Jedi can kill anyone they want! Jedi cut off
heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome
that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this Jedi who was eating at Mos Eisly Cantina. And when some dude dropped a spoon the Jedi killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a Jedi totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window."
It just doesn't mesh with:
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force.
I know it's not canon, but it clearly illustrates to me the Yin/Yang qualities that balance the light and dark sides of the force.
While watching the new movies, it was like a stone in my shoe that kept bothering me. I kept thinking "but a Jedi wouldn't act that way.
I know this may be more of a personal interpretation, but I think the original trilogy mesh with my view.
"...At the end of the day"..."when everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself." RIP Layne Staley
Actually they did. The acting was pretty bad, especially Hammil, who was almost as wimpy and whiney as Christensen was. The difference between Eps 4-6 and 1-3 is that 4-6 were made to be a fun set of movies, but 1-3 were made to be blockbusters. Lucas set out to make world changing movies with terrible material and competing with movies which were fun to watch because they didn't take themselves seriously.
Also they tried to explain everything which before where just accepted (ie what makes a Jedi able to use the force) and added to a mystery that your imagination could fill in.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The really sad thing is, judging from some of the current headlines, the field of science is next.
Breakfast served all day!
This is quite possibly the best Star Wars comment on Slashdot, ever.
One thing a lot of people here don't realize, is the immense age range on this site. We all assume everyone else is within a few years of age from us, and this comes up time and again: "my first computer was a 486" "I used punch cards, newb!" etc.
Us 80s kids (those that actually grew up in the 80s, not those born in them) are a very odd breed. We bridged the cultural gap between Leave it to Beaver and American Idol. Between transistor radios and mp3 players. Between pocket calculators and the latest G5s. Between Bugs Bunny and Pokemon.
Think about it: before Star Wars, mass merchandising almost didn't exist. Within 5 years of Star Wars, the movie industry changed entirely. Box office revenues became such a small portion of income as to be almost meaningless for many films. Saturday morning cartoons became an entirely different breed one the merchandise tie-ins became the important factor. We went from computers being these huge things you might have seen on television (back when there were 5 channels if you were lucky), to having one in your pocket that can SHOW television, all 300 channels of it.
When I was very young, the world was as my parents saw it. Pop culture came through the radio (been around for decades), television (a few channels, hasn't changed much other than the introduction of colour a while back - and most people only owned one), movies (theatres only, so you're only ever going to see a movie once or twice in your life) or newspapers. During my childhood nearly all of what we have today developed - the Internet, VCRs/DVDs, Cassettes/CDs, the 300 channel universe...
The world changed profoundly during the 80s. Those of you who were already adults just adapted, and in many cases, stayed away from the changes. Those of you too young to remember, well, you think the world has always been this way. There's a fairly small subset of society that's shared both experiences: the time from about 1945-1977, and today. Not just shared it, LIVED it. I cannot for the life of me explain to my parents just why a home computer is so cool. They'll simply never get it. And most kids these days just expect it. The magic is lost on them.
Insert Star Wars into my rant, and maybe you'll understand just why it's considered such a huge part of my generation's lives. What Star Wars did to the movie/toy industry is what we saw EVERY DAY while growing up.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Also they tried to explain everything which before where just accepted. . .
.44 casing in a story that requires it to have been fired by a .38 is not. Magic need only be shown to be obeying the "laws" of magic. Reality needs to be shown to be obeying the laws of reality.
Groundhog Day is a great fucking movie. It is a great fucking movie for one primary reason:
They never once, not even to the teeny, tiniest degree, tried to "explain" what was going on. They simply told the story. What happened.
I wish more writers would grasp the essential idea that a story is simply what happens.
Cinderella works, and has continued to work for over a thousand years, not because the paranormal events are well explained, but because they are not "explained" at all. It's magic. Everybody knows that.
The second you try to invoke biological or "quantum flux" into the deal to give a plausable reason for the mice turning into horses you're just going to create an audience that sits there saying "Like, dude, that's completely retarded."
We can accept magic in a story, even if we know there is no such thing, and enjoy it immensely, because magic is, up front and by definition, not subject to the rules of reason or physics and we have suspended our disbelief in such from the outset in order to enjoy the tale.
Any attempt to impose rational explanation on magic simply ruins the exeperinece of the tale by creating obvious falsehood and makes it clear that the story teller is a hack who doesn't know his own business.
Magic wands are perfectly "believable." Showing a
Mixing the two up inappropriately innately creates an unbelievable mess.
KFG
Why wouldn't lightsabers be more common in 1-3 than in 4-6?
In 1-3, there are a LOT of Jedi, and they are out doing things that require their lightsabers.
In 4-6, there are exactly 2 Jedi, one of whom is dead for 2 movies, the other only becomes even a Padawan about halfway through the second movie.
Hell, once Luke gets part of his training and runs off to fight Vader, it's like he never puts the damn thing down. Even before that, it was used to cut Luke free from ice, gut a tauntaun, and slice open an AT-AT.
So, we see a lot more lightsabery stuff in 1-3 because there are a lot more lightsabers - but they're still used for the same thing: as a tool and a weapon.
Sorry, but whoever modded the parent insightful pretty clearly hasn't actually seen the movies.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.