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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."
The real difference is character development.
In 4,5, and 6, Darth Vader was primarily the "bad guy". Sure, he had character, but it was primarily as the foil to the symbolic "light side" of the force that ran as an undercurrent in the rebellion / Luke's story.
By adding 1,2, and 3, Vader really becomes the central figure in the story, but he isn't given adequate plot time in 4 and 5. It's as if the writer of a tragedy changed focus in Acts 4 and 5, and then resumed Darth's story with his "return to the good side" in ep. 6. Darth and Obiwan (aside from the droids) are the only characters present in all 6 films, and Obiwan is only a ghost in 5 and 6. Darth is the only living character to speak in the 6 films, and this makes him central to the story, whether or not you like it.
And I don't like it. The story was good as Good vs. Evil rather than a "Look at how Power Can Corrupt the Good". Darth's story in 1-3, to me, totally shifts the focus of the films. That's why they can't actually be watched in their numerical order. Watching them that way totally screws with your perceptions of Darth in 4-6, and makes the plot seem convoluted and non sequitur. I mean, why should the films switch focus onto Padame's children when Darth Vader, the focus of the first three films, is still alive, kicking, and doing things in the Star Wars universe?
It's basically the same scenario as with the Matrix trilogy (well almost). Everyone just wanted to know how it ended exactly, if for no other reason than closure. Even though 90% of the people knew ultimately where the story was headed, everyone still wanted the little details.
Otherwise, the author of the article is right in that the newer movies really don't do a good job of explaining what's going on. The part about Anakin having mental problems from post traumatic stress disorder would have explained his character a lot better. Personally, I still think Hayden Christensen was a poor choice to play the part and would've ruined it anyhow, but they really could've given us a lot more.
Additionally, General Grievous just sort of popped into existance. Assuming that I would know all about him from the various other publications is a mistake. Thinking back on it, it really made the movie seem a little off.
While the hardcore fans of Star Wars will have read all the books, seen the cartoons, and read about other lore and history on the internet, there're a lot of us out there who haven't. Some of us saw the movie just for the sake of seeing it. And in the end, I guess the box office take is good enough to justify producing movies in that fashion.
Nixon gave America a number of valuable reforms that liberal in both the contemporary political sense and the Enlightenment sense. Nixon ran a fiscally-responsible government with a balanced budget. The Nixon era gave us the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon ended America's ineffectual meddling in another nation's internal matters. Nixon honorably served his nation on active duty in the Navy. Nixon instituted a number of critical reforms to American monetary policy that lengthed the natural cycles in capitalism of boom and lowered the bust cycles. We used to have recessions every 3-5 years. Now they happen ever 8-10, and rarely last more than a quarter or two. Nixon cracked down on organized crime, proposed legislation to mandate gas savings for America to control oil prices, normalized relations with China, created NOAA, the DEA, SALT 1, and signed the space shuttle program into law.
How is that like the current administration, which has spent irresponsibly and frivilously, started a war it doesn't know how to end, lowered air quality standards, done nothing about the oil situation, thumbed its nose at North Korea, and the man in charge was never on active duty.
Now, I can give you a list of a half-dozen things that Nixon did that were terrible, but this knee-jerk impulse to liken All Things Bush to Dick Nixon is misguided. Nixon was actually a decent president by a number of reasonably measures. George Bush is not, by almost any measure. In most ways, his administration has been mediocre, but even conservatives have trouble justifying some of the goofball stuff our president cooks up.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Just because writing computer programs is probably more intellectually demanding than collecting garbage or farming does not make us more essential to society. I hope that everyone reading this can easily see that the truth is the other way around. Although we do improve the efficiency of society, we are not so entrenched and important that modern civilization could not exist without us.
We don't have superpowers either, which is another common suggestion of Stephenson. Sure, the uninitiated look at what we do as mysterious and amazing. But look at a backhoe in operation. It is just as amazing how the operator in the cab can move a large and powerful piece of machinery with such precision. The difference is that our abilities are less familiar to people, so they seem somehow more amazing. If you get the chance, look into a chemical processing plant and you will see mechanisms and processes that are much more amazing still, but are just hidden from most people.
I don't read Stephenson's novels any more. It's just masturbation. That's not the way the world works.
Here's my summary of revenge of the Sith:
1. Anakin wants to be a good Jedi, but he keeps dreaming about his girlfriend's (Padme) death.
2. Anakin talks to Joda asking for help. Joda tells him he shouldn't worry because that's bad and he should accept the faith of Padme.
3. Anaking doesn't like that answer. (Why should he?) The Jedi answer pretty much sounds like a big "screw you". Of course he's gonna worry about Padme. I would.
4. The Emperor tells him he may or may not be able to save Padme, but he should at least try. However, trying goes against the Jedi dogma.
5. Anakin decides that the Jedi dogma is not correct, and joins the "dark" side. (Note: Dark doesn't mean evil. It means having an open mind and exploring both sides of the "force".)
6. The Jedi can't tolerate people that don't follow their religion, thus the emperor is forced to have this religious group killed.
7. Even though Anakin saved Obi-wan's life, Obi-wan is too blinded by his Jedi religion, and trys to kill Anakin. Trying to kill someone that saved your life is pretty low and evil in my book.
8. Anakin gets his arms and legs cut off, and his girlfriend dies. That makes him pretty pissed. (I'd be pretty pissed, too.)
9. Obi-wan doesn't even get a finger cut off, and he kidnaps Anakin's kids.
-- The End -
Some might say Nixon was one of the great liberal presidents of the last century! Odd you say? Read on:
> the new movie, and it doesn't matter
While I agree that many people who watch the Star Wars movies don't understand the plot beyond the basics, I don't think it has anything to do with Episodes I-III themselves, but the fact that plenty (if not most) of people watch movies (Episodes IV-VI included) looking at only explosions and the like.
However, the author is implying this is because of the movies:
But having to watch Episodes I and II to understand III is no different than Episodes IV-VI. Just like if you didn't see Episode V, you wouldn't know why Jabba the Hutt had Han Solo in carbonite. Or if you didn't see Episode IV, you wouldn't know why Ben was a "force ghost" and not just some hallucination.
But is that true? Grievous is a coward. Watch Episode III, most of the time he is threatened, he hides behind his droids. Only once Obi-Wan confronts him with a circle of a couple dozen of Grievous droids around him does Grievous actually stand his ground.
But that's the same with Episodes IV-VI. For example, people who have seen the movies dozens of times don't really understand what Tarkin means when he says that Palpatine dissolved the Imperial (no longer Republic after Episode III) Senate.
Good point. Not that it's germane to this article. I just wanted to point out that I don't mean to criticize the whole article.
I disagree. Examples:
Episode I, Padme explains the "diversion" with the Gungans. Qui-Gon explains midichlorians. Amidala is manipulated into helping Palpatine into power. We learn of Obi-Wan's defiance.
Episode II: Anakin reveals to Padme that he supports a dictatorship. Obi-Wan unravels who is building the Clones. Dooku gets the separatists to join his plan.
Episode III: Yoda talks about the "prophecy being misunderstood". Palpatine tells the story of the Sith.
There's probably more plot in Episodes I-III than in Episodes IV-VI. Some people have complained that there's not enough action, and too much plot and dialog, but he's complaining about the opposite.
One is welcome to opinion that they don't like Episodes I-III as much as IV-VI, but one should be careful not to justify that opinion based on erroneous information.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
More recently, science has been put on the back burner due to political issued. It seems the popularity of science has more to do with what it can do for you than for what it is. In the 60's they needed science to accomplish something. The way to do that is to unleash it with all the resources it needed. It worked great.
Today, political hacks don't want truth and they don't want progress. They want to push their own agendas. And for the most part science does not support their agendas. It either contradicts, or is mearly immaterial. The needs of the politician is to sweep science out of the way and let them do what they want. Thus you get the current pitiful state.
When we get another major goal that only science can achieve, then we'll see the rise of the "Rocket Scientist" again.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable. - Oscar Wilde
Major papers in the 19th century were about on par with the tabloids today. News outlets gained most of the "credibility" during the propaganda programs of WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. Then, they were transmitters of information one needed to know to survive, serve the Arsenal of Freedom, and learn of the heroic deeds of our men in uniform.
I think the media was last taken seriously in the early 70's with a brief shot in the arm during the Watergate scandle. Seriously, go watch the movie "Network."
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Well, it is possible to view the difference you pointed out, not as an inconsistency, but rather as an integral part of the plot.
The prequels, and especially "Clone Wars", make the point that the Jedi order deviated from its "correct" path. That's the "imbalance in the force" often mentioned, that caused the reactive "inverse imbalace" of the dark side and the Empire coming to power.
Anakin/Vader embodies that imbalance. Note for example his blunt, haughty disregard of all those "lower", non-Jedi people at the bar scene in the beginning of Ep. 2 ("Jedi business! go back to your drink.")
Of course, later this deviation becomes only too appearant when he slaughters and entire village. But it can be argued that the whole Jedi order has been deviating with him. That the whole order was drifting away from the original philosophies of peace, serenity, inaction - into egocentricism, arrogance, disdain, indifference. In short: into the dark side.
This deviation leads to the rise of the new Sith Lords out of the ranks of the Jedis, since they are in fact a logical conclusion of this process.
Anakin himself rather represents the original spirit of the Jedi, as it drifts back and forth, right on the border between the light and the dark sides.
At first, the haughty attitude he absorbs from his fellow Jedis is expressed, leading him eventually to cross over to the dark side, and become Vader. But after the order is crushed, humbled, and all but destroyed, there is a return to the original spirit of the Jedi, presented in the sequels by the scenes of Yoda training and teaching young Luke.
And so does the order of Jedi, after drifting away from "enlightment" and into ego-worship and the dark side - so does it return to it's source, and into the light. And Darth Vader becomes Anakin Skywalker once again.
Just a thought.