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."

Comments

The Real Difference

[Ieshan]

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?

Re:Not happy with teh doom and gloom.

[stlhawkeye]

Unfortunately, as bright as he is, he seems to have gotten this ugly little short-term political edge that has suddenly given me a nervous tic. Science fiction authors always have been futurists, but normally they're quite the idealists. This new generation of more hardcore dystopians is, well, depressing... They don't seem to realise that the pendulum swings, and right now we're in an ultra-Nixon era.

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.

It wasn't always like that.

[IPFreely]

In the 60's Space Race, lots of people went into science to be "Rocket Scientists". It was a popular and prized profession. When I went through high school and college in the 70's and 80', plenty of people talked about the great surge in interest in science "just a few years ago" and how it had deminished recently. Younger professors had been educated right in the middle of all that greatness. The 80's were a bit of a let down for all of them.

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.