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David Brin on Star Wars: TPM
sethg wrote to us with a little nugget about David Brin, author of 'The Postman'& 'The Uplift War' that he's written for Salon. The first is an interesting discussion of "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists, while the second examines what's wrong (and right) with "The Phantom Menace". Brin has always been one of my favorite authors and he does an /incredible/ job of de-contructing the myth-as well as making you laugh.
Obviously strong encription is illegal in (34th?) century.
I just have a comment on one point in Brin's article. He wonders why Yoda would train Luke when he said Anakin was too old. I initially thought the same thing, but then an explaination occurred to me. In TPM, the Jedi are an established order. There is no hint that they will be all but wiped out. So there is really no compelling reason for training Anakin. When Yoda agrees to train Luke, the Jedi were all but wiped out. Luke is the last (well, second to the last anyway) hope against the Emipire.
Personally, I have seen TPM three times so far, and I plan to see it again before it closes, so I clearly didn't _dislike_ it. But the plot holes and character problems are there, and bothersome. I think Menand (link above) is pretty close to the mark when he says the problems were probably evident early on, but no one had the nerve to tell the "big guy".
sPh
In the Star Trek mythos, we are asked to believe in a beneficent world government, indeed, a galactic federation of planets united in peace, and pursuing only the advancement of knowledge. Oh, a rare incompetent or even scheming individual may hold some office or other for a time, but these are readily weeded out, and life goes on.
Star Wars does not ask us to place our trust in power. Through the story of Anakin Skywalker, it shows that an innocent but clever and talented lad may seek to rectify injustice by acquiring power, but in taking the easy way of doing so, may be corrupted. Yet a spark of his idealism may remain, and in the end, he may turn against the evil he has served for so long, and thus redeem his humanity.
Of these, which is the more realistic, and which the more dangerous?
You seem most concerned that the Star Wars mythos puts great emphasis on the actions of a few individuals, whilst the great masses are just peripheral "spear carriers." But Star Trek is more like a well-oiled machine, where every person is given a place where he may best serve the Federation. And what if one chooses not to serve the Federation?
While we should treat individuals as equal before the law, people are not equal in fact. Each of us has certain capacities and lacks others. Everyman does not write science fiction books, or develop software, or establish lasting governments. Of course, nobody is an everyman, everyone is an actual someone.
Both Star Wars and Star Trek have aspects which can be fairly criticized. But I think neither should be despised, for each is intended as entertainment, and no substitute for real understanding. If your concern is that people will lack the judgment to discern fiction from reality, or will be incapable of drawing independent conclusions, then there is a great deal more to worry about in our culture than these films.
Peace and love, y'all
What the planet of hell are you talking about?
I saw Star Wars (the first one) thirty times in the movie theaters in 1977-1978, damn near every time it aired on HBO and even when it was broadcast on network TV. (Hell, I even suffered through that aweful Star Wars Holiday Special that was on TV).
I bought Star Wars art books by Ralph Maguire, the blueprints, a huge pile of models and all kinds of other stuff.
I saw Empire Straikes Back a few times and suffered through Revenge^H^H^H^H^H^H^HReturn of The Jedi.
I know Star Wars pretty damned well. And I HATED Phantom Menace. That movie was a very polished turd. Very pretty but still nothing more than a turd.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
A seven year old liked it. How quaint. Too bad anyone with an adult intelect hated it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
>Think about it--there is only one
> - Yoda
According to the Ep. 1 scrapbook (and maybe the movie, I haven't seen it yet), another member of the Jedi council is a female of the same species named Yaddle. She has strangely human female-style long hair.
> - Greedo
At least one member of the Imperial Senate is a Greedo-species alien, again based on that scrapbook.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Besides, you expect a goof movie with Kevin Costner in it? Give me a break!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Those who have _abnormal concentrations_ are trained as Jedi in the old days (and suffer from the exclusivity and secretiveness common to cloistered groups.)
I like your optimism about the possibility of growing egalitarianism, and I think that nothing I say necessarily disgrees with it. However I think you're ignoring the plot point that the little unspellable beasties that allow for the use of the force possible impregnated a woman to create Anakin. This would indicate to me that the existance in the star wars world of abnormal concentrations of these beasties shouldn't be confused with arbitrary distributions of people with abnormal concentrations. The people would seem to be "chosen" by somewhat cogniscent sentient biengs.
Though the cause isn't genetic it seems more then likely that it is supposed to be pre-determined.
I think a lot of your other points are respectable, but I don't think there's enough depth to the movie to offer a good discussion of them. Using Obi-wan's anger as an example...
Lucas clouds the issues that you bring up by offering an oversimplification of human emotion. Is Obi-wan feeling anger? Is it grief-driven rage? Is it desperation that leads to darth maul's slaying? It could be any one of those, but it's probably anger because that's about the only emotion that Lucas is ready to deal with in his movies. He makes his world so black-and-white that every character is limited in their options. I wish there was more here to base discussion of this particular point on, but it just doesn't seem to be there.
-Peter
== Just my opinion(s)
It strikes me that Yoda is pretty bad at seeing the future. He eventually succumbs to letting Obi Wan train Anakin. Perhaps he knows that OW will do it anyway, but still--one would think that he's a little more adept than he appears to be.
-awc
A waste of time and money.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
That's exactly the point. People aren't "purged of evil" in reality. Regardless of how many people Vader is directly responsible for killing, he is an accessory to the death of billions and directly responsible for that of several of his own subordinates. We are expected to forgive him this because he saves his own son's life and admits he was wrong (admittedly he also gets killed, but look at the balance here (even assuming his death is the result of saving Luke, which isn't clear)). He didn't head the regime, okay, but he was still a mass-murdering sadist and the slate is not wiped clean by one act of compassion and self-sacrifice.
Let's add: remove the offensively light treatment of slavery.
No matter what era of slavery you talk about, slave life has never been this carefree. The many different (brief) reads of different slave cultures always include social stratification, restriction of privliges, lack of education, lack of right to any posessions, lack of personal space, lack of extra food, lack of clean living space, etc... general second-class citizen status, without the citizenship. How does it come about that a slave has a good education, friends who can freely come and go in the daytime (the time when most work gets done in most cultures), enough parts to put together a droid and a racing doo-hickey, food to share etc...
-Peter
== Just my opinion(s)
...George just wanted the Queen to be young and have a lot of eye candy appeal...
Brin points out some of the not so subtle undemocratic elements of the Sacred Cow, Star Wars, and gets flamed unmercifully, the screeds against him are moderated as "5: insightful", its too depressing... I wonder what reaction he would of received on Slashdot if he had pointed out the racist and sexist aspects of the Star Wars films...
Kind of like the ITS Output Spy program, eh
From my perspective DM just looked like a really bad-ass hired thug. His grimmaces and growls and making-faces just made his character seem like an inarticulate thug.
Not that he didn't work as a character that way. The movie needed at least one visible bad-ass.
-Peter
== Just my opinion(s)
Um...wasn't Palpatine the ambassador from Naboo? It would seem to me that if he was going to use any planet as a pawn in a power-grab, he'd choose the one whose defenses and abilities he knew best. Why Naboo? Accident of fate -- it just happened to be the planet Palpatine was born upon.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Did the movie have flaws?
:)
Yes but most "flaws" are mistaken for something yet to be explained.
What realy matters is: Was the movie good?
Hell's Yeah.... TPM Rocks!!!!
Leavin in an hour to go see it for the fourth time!
PS: Natalie Portman did an excellent job in playing two diverse roles
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
Was somebody not paying attention to some of the movie?
Where was Palpatine from? Naboo. What did he say pushed his candidacy over the edge? Oh yes, the sympathy vote.
You know, the dialog in TPM might have been weak, as well as some of the smaller scale happenings, but in terms of the epic story it was actually well done in my opinion. Many of Brins criticisms are off base, almost like he didnt even see the movie but read the Cliffs Notes.
That's because "Always in motion is the future"
The future is not written in stone, it is affected by everthing around it. Maybe his vision is that no matter what anybody does, Vader alwayts comes to power.
The scene with Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul was the best part of the movie. It was so perfect. People fighting to the death don't need to explain themselves. What? Is Qui-Gon Jinn going to sway Darth Maul.
"I am going to kill you dead Jinn"
"Please reconsider Darth Maul. Let's stop the fussing and a feuding."
"Oh, ok. Sorry about that whole trying to kill you thing ol boy"
"No worries, mate"
No, the scene played out so well as it is. Neither had anything to say because there is no point. Take this granted time to rest. I was as happy with Qui-Gon Jinn kepping his mouth shut as Darth Maul's.
>Just look at darth maul in that scene. Do you -really- want to know why he's upset?
Ah, but I know.
He played too much Doom and Quake as a kid. If you look carefully, you can even tell that he's actually wearing a black trenchcoat...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
While I agree with every one of Brin's points,
the article reeked of envy.
The Postman made an excellent novel, but the
Hollywood bastardization of it would have made
me angry too.
Grand Moff Tarkin ordered the destruction of Alderaan--Lucas may have intentionally crafted this plot element to allow for the redemption of Vader...
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
I've never heard of the book Brin mentions, "The Screwfly Solution." I can't find it on Amazon or Bibliofind. Does anyone know who the author is, or whether or not it's worth checking out?
--
my lists
I vaguely recall some screed David Brin wrote (which was posted to USENET, IIRC) several years ago when Ralph Bakshi's toons-meet-reality movie "Cool World" came out. It was basically a rant about how everyone should boycott the new movie because Baksi's classic "Wizards" glorified cheating and advocated totalitarian ideals, or something like that. (The article may have exhibited more than a little contempt for fantasy in general, but I'm not as sure of that.) I read a little bit of Brin's Salon piece, and it brought back enough hazy memories of his "Cool World" letter to give me an "Oh, no, there he goes again" feeling. As much as I enjoy some of Brin's fiction (mainly the original "Uplift" trilogy), I can't bring myself to take his nonfiction seriously. YMMV.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Yes and I'm sure her people elected a fifteen year old girl because she had a great platform, tons of experience in public office, was a great debater, and her advisors wrote some really kick ass speeches about how she was going to balance the budget and stimulate trade with the Free Bulgorg Confederation even though she's never had a date or been off planet. And they decided to call her Queen cause it sounds cuter than President or Prime Minister.
Actually I would think Brin was refering to other LRH books. When I read Battlefield Earth I really didn't see the hero as that much of a demigod figure. Well no more that the hero in the Postman. However it didn't fit in real well with his 'ask an interesting question' part of scifi. But it was an interesting set of dilemas. Some of LRH other books (ummm what was that dekology thing called?) had larger than life characters.
-cpd
"indigenous" probably means white land owning men..but I seem to remember Parliment having to approve the marraige of Charels and Lady Di and something about not being able to marry a divorced women(does she have to be a virgin??) and become king.
HeX
i agree lucas is not god. But when people went into this movie most were going in with knowlege of starwars, not just rudementry mind you, and that can somewhat explain why they liked it because they could understand it more. But those people who did not like it were mostly the people who did not study up on starwars lore and had no real passion for it. I love starwars but there fore i liked the movie but even i know that the writing was bad. I mean they killed off the best actor.
Mr. Brin should be repeating to himself "it's just a movie" over and over.
What a pompous ass... if he wants to pontificate so soundly on what HE defines as "real science fiction," then that's his privilege. It certainly looks to me like he took TPM far too seriously (as did many other people) in any case.
Personally, I don't give an aerial intercourse through a toroidal pastry if Lucas is trying to push some sort of hidden agenda or not. If I like a movie, I like it. If I don't, I pan it, with said panning labeled only as my opinion.
In the case of TPM, I liked it pretty much as 'eye candy.' Character development and story were, IMO, pretty weak. Unlike many, I didn't find Jar Jar anywhere near as annoying as the kid they got to play young Anakin.
As to whether it's "real science fiction," well, again that's a matter of opinion from the person seeing it. I wonder if anyone has a Really Good Definition of "real science fiction" to begin with...
Take a chill-pill, Brin. Stick with writing, and don't take movies so seriously.
that would have been stupid if Maul had had a monolague at the force field point in the movie. Hell, why not have Darth Maul tell the story via song. "When I was a lad...blah blah" Oh yeah because it would have been horrible...
Okay, I'll start off by saying that the whole midichlorians thingy makes my teeth itch. I really liked the whole mysticism around the force and seeing it summed up that way -- oh, it's the concentration of tachyons around his sub-space gravametric field that gives him that skill -- really annoys me.
That having been said, I'm really trying to give Lucas the benefit of the doubt here because over all I really enjoyed TPM and I do think it is a worthy offering as the beginning of the series.
". . . that the little unspellable beasties that allow for the use of the force possible impregnated a woman to create Anakin."
This is the only point of yours that I'm going to take any issue with. I'd like to put forward the theory (and it's totally my theory, I haven't been reading the books or on the usenet groups) that the little beasties aren't sentient in any way. I would suggest that they didn't impregnate her, but that there were so many of them around her the pregnancy was a side effect. That would ascribe no more intelligence to them than a tapeworm and still have the same result.
As for your comments about "pre-determined", I don't even want to think about how many times I've heard the word "destiny" in the four movies. I think it is a foregone conclusion that if Lucas isn't personally an determinist, his stories certainly are.
-Joe
>OK, kiddies -- place it
Princess Leia in her message to Obi-Wan Kenobi, in the holomessage she placed in R2-D2.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>I was in Eckhard drug store yester day and saw TPM *suntan lotion* and *beach toys*.
Sun tan lotion sounds a bit much, but my little boy had great fun travelling around a swimming pool in an inflatable "landspeeder", pretending to be Luke Skywalker.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Good points! Actually, re-reading that part I realize I went over it a little fast.
I'm not sure to what extent one can ascribe conscious behavior to the little beasties. The prophecy of a "Chosen" as well as a virgin birth suggests _some_ sort of consciousness, but if anything, it'd almost have to be something like the hypothetical "hive" consciousness of an ant colony.
Either way, I'm not precisely sure what the _significance_ is of the "arbitrary distribution" plot point. (By the way, did you say that the distributions IS arbitrary in the Star Wars world or not? I'm not clear on that.) It might be right in front of me, though; you DID say you don't necessarily disagree with me.
My beef with Brin (and others) on this point is that I think they're confusing OUR time line with the STORY'S time line. A lot of people are disenchanted with the revelation that the Force comes from "little critters", as it were. To me it makes perfect sense; it makes sense that the Force has a _cause_ and that the knowledge of that cause should be lost (or suppressed) in the turmoil to come. Also lost (my optimism again!) is the tendency to close ranks which, I contend, is symptomatic of a _cloistered_ order, not an elite power structure. (I concede that in some cases, however, the difference is slight.) However, this whole apparent re-definition of the terms upsets some people who prefer to keep their first impressions of the Force and their own interpretations of what the movies were about. Let's face it: people have made their OWN mythology about Lucas' work and don't like it disturbed, even by Lucas himself.
Again, I think I'm just restating my points for the fun of it because I don't think you disagree with most of what I'm saying. You did catch me on basing certain assertions on what I expect to happen than what's actually in the movie. For precision's sake, I should have made the anger point (among others) a conjecture rather than an assertion, but I was already running pretty long. My conjecture, however, runs as follows: if I recall correctly, Kenobi ascribes his failure with Vader to his own puffed up pride. That pride, I surmise, comes from (i) his appointment as Anakin's guardian, and (ii) some residual satisfaction of taking out a Sith Lord. However, circumstances other than his own merit mandate the first, and he accomplishes the second with dangerous means. Simply put, he really isn't ready to be a full-fledged Jedi, and the circumstances that propel him to that status are somewhat antithetical to the Way of the Jedi.
One final point for Lucas: his choice to make his characters black-and-white is, I think, entirely deliberate. He's not at all interested in developing _characters_; he wants to establish character _types_.
And one final point for me: writing about this is fun! The fact that these movies generate so much discussion is a point in their favor, don't you think?
--Jason
Yes, the Federation. Give me a replicator and a holodeck and leave me be!
I might be wrong, but from what I understand is that the basic premise of J. Campells work is flawed, that he ignores examples that contradict the idea that all societies have the execpt same archtypes for all there stories. Also, I think that true folklore scholars think he is just plain wrong, and that he is popular mostly in mainstream society. If that is the case then Brins objections become moot, becasue then stories like Star Wars have NO primal pull.
I hope Campell fades from popularity. His ideas were a little too Jungian for my tastes.
"Attention Citizens, 2+2 now equals 3.947547175. Please recalibrate your equipment now" --The Computer
The Nazis had specific rules on what defines Jewishness; if you had a Jewish ancestor within a certain number of generations, and the Nazi authorities knew, you'd be considered a Jew, and thus a legitimate target for extermination, regardless of what you considered yourself.
This definition was considerably broader than the one applied by Jewish religious authorities; there is an urban legend that Hitler himself would have been considered a Jew under Nazi laws, whilst not under Jewish law, because of a paternal grandparent or somesuch. Of course, this could be a made-up example.
(If someone gets that upset about something I like, I tend to get a little irritated and defensive, but at least many here have posited thoughtful responses. I tried to ignore Brin's strident tone and understand his arguments, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't.)
Which Uplift Trilogy are you referring to? The first one (Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Uplift War) was one of the best-written trilogies in sci-fi. I loved them, and there was a time when I would have bought anything Brin wrote, sight unseen. I loved the man.
But some time after that, Brin ceased being 'fun'. His second Uplift Trilogy (Brightness Reef, et al) was horrible and dull. I think that he's starting to intentionally include messages and teachings in his books...and the moral lessons are making them as dry as bleached cardboard.
And by the way, I thought that Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series was overblown and tedious. Some neat ideas and a few instances of good writing, but it's like reading a dictionary to admire the illustrations.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I liked TPM, and I also have my complaints about the film as well...but none of us are Lucas, and no one knows what he has in mind for the "bigger picture" (espisodes II & III).
I'm trying not to forget that when I look at all the flaws in the movie, and I keep hoping that things that appear to be flaws will be explained in future episodes.
If not - I'll be one of first in line to give my complaints on the entire prequal trilogy.
-Jae
I thought this at first too, but later on learned that the midichlorians are merely the conduit by which people are able to sense and use the Force, they are not the cause of the Force itself. It's still "a big energy field that surrounds everyone and everything". To me that makes more sense - if midichlorians cause the Force, then how does the Force penetrate nonliving objects? How does it extend beyond the bounds of living objects?
And yes, I think it says something about the movies that they inspire such strong emotions and discussion on both sides. Brin is right that it gets close to the core of the human psyche with a story based on ancient patterns and thus appeals to many people. (Though the incessant hype of the greedy companies wishing to cash in on "a sure thing" really puts me off and makes it easy for people to get irritated at or dismiss the whole thing - lowering the level of discussion possible.)
2. As far as Anakin being the equivalent of Hitler, I can't really agree with that. Just because Hitler was the incarnation of evil in real life, and Vader is the incarnation of evil in Star Wars that does not make them equivalent. Now this is pretty dicey territory, but what makes most people consider Hitler really evil was his systematic extermination of Jewish people FOR ABSOLUTEDLY NO REASON( ie there weren't exactly a threat to the Reich or anything). This is not to say that mass murder is OK under any circumstances, but I think we can make distinctions. First of all Vader could never be Hitler but one of his general's (OK the top general, Goering I guess). Secondly Vader is a pretty equal opportunity oppressor as far as I can tell. Its all about power not particular groups. Of course the destruction of Alderaan is pretty evil (he doesn't do it, but he supports it). But its not systematic genocide as far as I can tell.
3. "Fear lead to anger ...." I don't think the point is that any anger is wrong but that if you act out of anger you can make bad decision. This is one of the things that has drawn me about SW. The premise is that no one is born evil but any body can turn to the "dark side" either by misfortune or through their own action. This idea of course has an intrinsic emotional appeal and is probably one of the reasons for SW's success. But at the risk of sounding moralistic I don't think it is too far off base. Who doesn't know the subtle temptations of the dark side that can underlie even justified emotions. Self-interest can lead to greed, anger can lead to murderous rage etc etc. OK this is admittedly extrapolating a lot but I personally feel it is not a bad concept to consider.
It's when a director relentlessly tries fiddling with our cultural moral compass that we should sit up and take notice. I'll trust Steven Spielberg with such power, because he's earned it. He's proved again and again that he loves this civilization -- an open society of rambunctious citizens -- that gave him so much. He's one of us, only more so.
George Lucas, on the other hand, should stick to producing simple action-adventure films -- good clean fun -- and lay off preaching. It's simply not where his gifts lie. d
And what exactly was this movie? It seemed like action adventure to me with a bit of story line thrown in. In any case, I don't think it has any pretensions to high art or anything like that. If the people like it they will see it, otherwise they won't, either way it doesn't seem like brain washing to me(unless the people want to brainwashed -- but who's fault is that?).
Basically interesting essays just a bit one sided.
Just my opinion.
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
While I agree that the movie Logan's Run was only average, and the TV show...well, let's not talk about that. However, the book (which was Completely Different) was, IMHO, actually good science fiction, with a realistic plot, an all-too-human hero, and a decent ending -- not one In Which All Things Are Resolved. If you get the latest edition of Logan's Run, which includes two sequel novels and an introduction with much insight into the entertainment industry, you'll find that the good science fiction story was just too expensive to film. A shame. We seem to have plenty of money with which to film bad science fiction, as long as we can sell those action figures. Let's hope LRH's Battlefield Earth does better.
That Droid control ship must have been running some kind of software to be able to command that number of attack droids. Since the droids just shut down, they must be dumb terminals and not client server, huh? :)
You should really never use 'most' when you really mean 'I'. There are many 'educated' and 'hip' people that are religous as well as many that aren't. I sincerely doubt education has much to do with religous creeds. Many of the people who established the foundation on which you base your assumption on were religous. Quite the paradox -- believe what they discovered -- but disreguard their beliefs.
"Uh... will anyone please explain why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important -- any hint at all? Hello?"
Looks like David Brin missed the point of this exercise. It's obvious enough that Palpatine and Darth Siddious are one and the same (uh hello, remember the ending "Yes, but who was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?" ). So the point of using the trade federation to capture Naboo wasn't the point. The point was to play Queen Amidala like a puppet, sending her to the Republic's Senate, and virtually forcing her to cast her "no confidence" vote in Chancellor Valorum, the result of which was the election of Palpatine to the position of Chancellor.
In effect, the takeover of Naboo was a farce, a PHANTOM MENACE devised by Darth Siddious in order to have himself elected to Chancellor of the Republic.
David Brin didn't see this!?? *sigh*
I suppose that's true if you stipulate that you have to be a Jedi to be ``great.'' In the final battle, though, Queen Amidalah took back her own planet with the help of her own people and their new Gungan allies (which she herself recruited). The Jedi functioned mainly to cancel out the Sith that was there mostly because the Jedi were. For all we can tell Queen Amidalah may have had a midichlorian count of epsilon and therefore no Jedi potential at all; so, I don't think Lucas' message is that you have to be a Jedi to be great.
But, truly, I think the medichlorians are a red herring. Just because our heroes are larger than life doesn't mean that we're not meant to identify with them. Sure, they have titanic prowess, but they are beset by titanic forces. We see them tested just as our mortal powers are tested by mortal forces, and it inspires us to carry on the fight. As I said earlier, I think there is room in our mythology for both heroes and everymen.
I'm not sure it is any creepier than Brin's own least common denominator philosophy, but that is a whole other argument.
Nor do I, but I don't think its presence in a story invalidates the story, and sometimes watching people come to terms with their knowledge of their destiny can make for an interesting story in itself.
As others have pointed out, there are other interpretations to the whole anger issue. My personal interpretation is that it is not anger per se that leads to the Dark Side, but rather acting out of anger. That is, the Jedi must strive to control his anger and channel it toward "goodness." For instance, I thought Obi-Wan was visibly angry after Qui-Gon was killed, but he couldn't allow his anger to get the best of him. In the end he mastered it and was able to prevail. So, apparently that particular anger didn't lead to the Dark Side.
That seems reasonable enough to me. However, when I learned informal reasoning I was taught that you should be faithful and charitable to your opponent's argument; otherwise you are knocking down straw men. I think Brin demolished a few straw men in his article -- too many for my tastes.
I disagree here because I don't believe that that's all Brin is doing. He seems to be peddling an alternate Myth of his own, and what's more, he's doing so in such a way as to avoid the kind of scrutiny that he applies to Lucas. Brin's strategy is to oppose his theology with Lucas' and then proceed to trash Star Wars on any grounds he can think of (whether related to "the message" or not). In my book that's a form of rhetorical dirty pool.
-r
When I left the movie I told everybody to back and get a refund. Then 2,000 people screamed " YOU SINNER LUCAS RULES, HOW DARE YOU DEFILE HIM!!!".
Lucas is not a God.
To be precise, we can't aspire to their greatness, because we're too old and have too low a midichlorian count.
Brin is looking at the subtext of some of Lucas's messages, and he's right, some of it is pretty creepy. I don't like the idea of inborn Destiny, I don't like the idea that a nine-year-old is too old to train, and I don't like the idea that righteous anger always leads to evil.
When somebody tells you he's handing out a Myth, you're entitled to examine his theology. That's all Brin is doing.
I hate to point this out, but the first three novels in Brin's "Uplift" series are not a trilogy. _Sundiver_ shares no characters with _Startide Rising_ (though there are references to the events and one or two characters), _The Uplift War_ refers to events leading up to _Startide Rising_ (since the ship involved had precipitated the crisis and war) and has a brief cameo of one of the participants in _Sundiver_ at the end (a century and more after after), but such does not build a trilogy. There would be a better argument for calling _Startide Rising_ a prequel to the Sooner trilogy, a la _The Hobbit_, except that there isn't enough lack of continuity.
"the timid die just like the daring; and if you don't take the plunge then you'll just take the fall"-- Michael Longcor
There's something scary about David Brin; his advocacy of homogeneisation (as exemplified elsewhere by his belief that privacy is a tool of evil), and emotive denunciations of films on ideological grounds seem almost Stalinist. And then there's the way he repeatedly invokes parallels with Hitler to make a point, which is considered very bad form (see subject).
For Ghod's sake, it's only a movie. It's neither a revelation from above nor vile elitist propaganda, just 2 hours of well crafted entertainment.
David Brin commits the sin of taking things way too seriously, just like all the postmodernists writing Freudian-Marxist deconstructions of the inherent racist/patriarchial subtexts of bubble-gum wrappers.
There are limits to the Jedi/Sith power.
He could not find the planet until the probe droids brought it to his attention. Then he "felt" that it was the right place. There is no reason for him to attempt to see if this random droid is the one he built.
I would wager that he does not even remember c3po anymore.
He could not sense where people were hiding in the Millenium Falcon when it was on the Death Star (But he did "feel a presence he had not felt since...")
His powers "could not conjure up the missing data tapes." in Episode IV.
David Brin is an excellent author. His novel
Earth is one of the best books I've read recently.
I highly recommend that people check out some
of his writing.
I haven't read any of the books, I'm not a knowledgeable Star Wars fanatic, so the following is not a spoiler, just speculation. :) But I have seen people mention that the Empire comes to power via an incident known as the 'clone wars'...
:)
I predict that we'll see Darth Maul, or his clone, in the next movie. Actually, I'm hoping that we see a SQUADRON of him in action. (drool)
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I agree with most of the gripes in what's right/wrong
list but we seem to forget that this is just
another Star Wars flick. George Lucas simply
recreates the heros and villians and plot lines
from the cheezy serial pictures he enjoyed
watching when he was a kid.
I don't care what the critics say about this
flick: I asked my 7 year old nephew if it was
a good movie and he said he it was awesome
hence Lucas still knows who his real audience is.
From the article:
... will anyone please explain why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important -- any hint at all? Hello?
Uh
Naboo isn't important!!!!!! The whole thing was a diversion so that Palpatine can further his political ambitions. The trade federation were a bunch of stooges. Qui-Gon actually says something in the movie about how insignificant Naboo is in the scheme of things, but no one seems to remember that in the movie after be becomes one with the force.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I hardly think a man who has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Campbell awards, was voted the favorite writer by Locus writers and has written over eleven novels (several of which were bestsellers) is at all jealous of Lucas.
-- Micah Lionette
"theme that Brin gets out of the movies. Another flaw is Queen Amidalah. She doesn't rule out of divine right, she wasn't born to it, she was elected, and turns out to be a fine ruler."
For all the time GL has spent studying mythology, he seems to have missed the point of a constitutional monarchy. In that system, the queen (or other type of monarch or non-elected political privilage) is retained exactly so that it can act for the good of the whole in situations that are too complex, fast-moving, gridlocked, etc. for the elected representatives to handle. The whole point is that the people trust the queen to do the "right thing" for everyone if absolutely necessary. Now the Queen of England, for example, hasn't actually done this for a long period of time (100 years?), but in theory the possibility is there.
I could believe people fighting and dying "for" a 14 y.o. heriditary queen in a constitutional monarchy - they are actually fighting for their homeland, which is _represented_ by the queen. I could believe a 14 y.o. queen leading her forces in a battle to the death - it has certainly happened in the past. And I could believe a 14 y.o. heriditary queen presenting her planet's petition to the Senate.
But I can't imagine a 14 y.o. _elected_ queen for any reason. 14 year olds can be smart. They can be perceptive. They can even be wise. But they just don't have the depth of experience and understanding necessary to form a just and effective government over a period of time.
IMHO George missed the political boat on this one. Put it up there with the tax dispute on the crawl.
sPh
Well, judging from his criticism of TPM, it really appears he is jealous about something... It's not just my imagination, others think his criticism of TPM wreaks of jealousy too. Money maybe...?
I haven't a clue, but it's something!
The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient... - High Road to China
I mean, if Brin can't be trusted to even get Anakin's age right (9 or 10, not 6), what can we trust him with?
Too many of Brin's comments had to do with Anakin being 6, when he's really 10. That may not seem like much of a difference in Brin's mind, but in the context it is quite significant. And consider that Anakin is quite above average intelligence (more than perhaps we can say for his son), the difference is more significant. A 10 year old with an IQ of 150 has a 'mental age' of 15.
Brin gets a lot of small things wrong too, and leaps to unwarranted assumptions. Young Anakin was friends with young Greedo? What, there's only one alien like that on all of Tatooine? Darth Vader toasts planets? Erm, that was Moff Tarkin that blew up Alderaan, not Vader.
Yes, that Yoda considers Anakin "too old" and yet doesn't put up much of a protest over training Luke was something many of us noticed. But again, consider context: In TPM the Jedi Knights are at their zenith and there are many of them. In ESB (and ROTJ) Luke is the only prospect left. Yoda isn't happy about it but what choices does he have? (As an aside, consider how long Jedi training must take if Obi-Wan started at a younger age than Anakin and is only now (in TPM) considered no longer an apprentice.)
Brin's had some odd ideas before. This review wasn't really worth the disk space.
-- Alastair
I think so too. Plus some things to clear up from my point of view:
1) Darth Vader is hardly Hitler. The Emperor is. If Darth survived, he would have been tried for War crimes, just like Hitler's generals, even those who participated in his assasination. Thus justice works just like you would expect it to. More movies have explored the theme of criminals sacrificing organs to save lives of kids in hospitals. That is some kind of redemption for the criminal but has no effect on his punishment.
2) Another important thing: Luke is an idiot! From the first movie I thought he was a dork. Sorry, but I that's what his whiny dialogs suggest to me. I never bought into the "automatic conversion to evil" theory as well, but Luke was much too aggressive for a Jedi anyways. He himself was fearful. The whole point of his meeting with the Emperor was to make that clear.
3) Remember that Star Wars is based on mythical stories. Star Trek is just a crappy utopian society that fights against Borg/Dominion/etc (that is just my own opinion, not a universal idea that I force upon everyone). In Star Wars "Return of the Jedi", Luke is the classic Hamlet-like character who tries to find revenge for the loss of his father. Did Hamlet become evil trying to murder his uncle? Note that there are only certain times when Hamlet can kill the King such that the King would go to Hell and Hamlet will have made a righteous act. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? Why does Luke want to face Vader when Vader wants to kill him? A literary argument for that would be that Luke finds out whether Vader is to be killed, whether killing him is the revenge Luke seeks. "Return of the Jedi" explores that in a more modern and liberal context, overlooking other themes of "Hamlet" but it is there nonetheless.
I liked "TPM" a lot, except for the opening 20 minutes when the story felt chopped up. The flow of the story was not there, I thought. But when one starts to analyze the whole Star Wars saga, like Brin did, it is far too easy to deviate into the implications rather than the story. Sure most of the story is farfetched, including the microbiological foundation of the Force, but it is a story about Anakin who submitted to the Dark Side, and Luke who did not. Does not matter whether one is better than the other. The Jedi won, thus the Siths are bad. I am perfectly happy with a convention like that. If you ever saw a kung fu movie about two monasteries fighting between each other in a competition, you wouldn't see the reason why one of them was necessarily bad either, but the story would simply stick to the winner of the final fight and that was good enough to make a point.
Well, I feel like I should get back to work, so I will. 8)
Later,
mxk
I was thinking of how to intentionally fail my drug test... It would make a good memoir story someday.
If you accept faster than light travel and instantaneous holographic communications accross vast distances, surely you can accept that quantum computing (or some unforseen technology) has made encryption obsolete. Science fiction is seldom about real technological progression, it us usually a projection of society and myth onto a new landscape so that we can see a different side of ourselves.
I like Star Wars in general because it does not attempt to explain the technologies that are in use. Star Trek tends to explain the technologies which IMHO brings unnecessary attention to their inplausibility. I was annoyed that Lucas felt it necessary to go against this trend to give a (rather weak) explanation of the force, but I'm quite glad he didn't give psuedo-science explanations to other things like force shields and those magic blue balls.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Spoilerish...
I was thinking about Phantom Menace again, and I thought it'd be approiate to post this here.
Darth Vader was practically a machine, right? And, well, Darth Maul didn't exactly hog the spotlight (I've seen him a lot more in Hecht's then I have in a movie theater). And we never really see Maul die, just got chopped in half and fall down a big tube.
Is all the marketing towards Maul hints about his return, maybe coming back with mechanical parts?::start imagination:: A spider legged Darth Maul! I could be a possibility...
There is one comparison I can see between the Nazi's and The Empire.
I admit it, I don't no much about the story of the next two espisodes, but from what I see, the way the Papatine is rising to power draws very near to the way Hilter came to power in Germany.
What I think got missed in Brin's article, and
... it's what
also is missed in most of the response to this,
is highlighted by your post:
Phantom Menace significantly changed the subtext
of the Star Wars story. The original trilogy
could clearly be seen as attempting to inspire
everyone to live up to the heroic mythos;
the introduction of midichlorians shattered
that by saying that only those who have some
special trait need apply.
It's not Star Wars that's creepy
the Phantom Menace DID to Star Wars. Or could
have done: as it was only the opening
chapter, the jury should still be out.
Hey, cut the guy some slack. The Postman the NOVEL was GREAT (a Hugo/Nebula award winner I believe). The Postman the MOVIE sucked. End of story.
Hmp. Well, too bad for you that there's no such thing as god. . .
There's one curious thing I have noticed about R2D2, C3PO and droids in general. Droids appear to be very common (the tiny Naboo ship had at least three of them). There's probably thousands of worlds, hundreds of thousands of ships and perhaps hundreds of millions of droids in the Star Wars galaxy.
So why is R2D2's serial number so short?
If we assume that a droid's serial number can consist of any combination of four letters and/or numbers, then there are only 36 ^ 4 combinations, or 1,679,616 different serial numbers, which would barely cover the number of droids found on a small, backwater world such as Tattoine.
On the plus side, R2D2, as always, has a lot of hack value. He is also clearly running Linux: R2D2 did not bluescreen once in the whole of the Star Wars series. The only times R2D2 failed that I can recall were hardware failures such as an external electrical overload (Jawas, Endor) or being shot in the Death Star trench.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Consider it as part 1 of a 6 part story. Have you ever read a 4-6 novel series? Reading the first book doesn't generally give you the answers or explanations of everything that is happening or going to happen. Only in later novels do things become clear.
I think the Brin's review was the most honest assessment of the movie. A friend and I were having a discussion about the movie and quite frankly I think Lucas goes too far with the virgin birth thing. The 'force' has been changed from a zen/martial arts kind of thing into some pseudo-nuevo religion thing. And that the Empire Strikes Back was the best of series (film making wise , anyway) Gotta admit thou TPM has some great effects. So when are we gonna see a movie with great effects AND a great plot.
Hmm... maybe I should have gone on to film school..
lcase - @home in cyberspace
I couldn't agree more with Brin regarding Anakin's mom. Why was she left behind to remain a slave when she could have easily boarded the ship with the rest and left? Honor? Don't make me laugh.
Yoda looked horrible and made little sense, babbling on about how much 'fear' he saw in the boy, which was of course supposed to be an ominous foreshadowing of Anakin's 'fall' in the future. Why wasn't this 'fear' somehow expressed by the actor/character? All we see is the dorky, 2-dimensional California whiz-brat, without a trace of depth or conflict to be seen.
All over, the movie suffers from a nauseating blend of mega-budget-over-production and bad script writing. No where, is the slightest risk taken or the closest boundary even approached.
"Great effects!"
So what?
Without a good story its all just pops and buzzes.
"Lighten up," you say. "It's just a movie! It's a kid's movie!" Fsck that. "The Sound of Music" was 'just a kids movie' and yet will retain an awesome depth and power for viewers of all ages for as long as a medium exists with which to view it.
Bottom Line:
With all the talent and resources Lucas had at his beck and call, he should have turned out a real gem.
Lucas got lucky (and deservedly rich) with Star Wars, but don't mistake him for a real director.
**>>BELCH
Okay, so he's got like 5 minutes of screen time. In three movies but like Han, Wedge is an every-man who rises to heroic acts.
But Brin is missing a lot more and personally I think he's read Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy" about a thousand times too many.
For instance:
+Chebacca and Yoda aren't pretty and they're good guys. So much for his beauty=good theory.
+Luke craved adventure, he wasn't in the least bit reticent about embarking on heroic journeys even if he is the son of the dark king.
+Leia and Luke joined a Rebellion already years in progress before they showed up.
+Leia and her foster father spent years trying to reform the Senate but Palpatine dissolved it so there was _no longer any government to reform._
+When my government starts blowing up towns, enslaving races and killing priests I'm sure as hell going to declare it too late to reform and I'll pick up a gun to get rid of the unelected lout on the big comfy chair.
Brin's just another one of those bitter folk who claim the intellectual high ground. Before science fiction became popularly accepted they used to call what they wrote speculative fiction to distance themselves from Doc Smith-style high adventure. He's way too wrapped up in Dionysiac aesthetic. Always found that sort in classics class to be elitist prigs themselves.
If what I said is nonsense,
I'm making a point with it.
If what I said makes perfect sense,
you obviously missed the point.
From what I gathered in Mr. Brin's essay(s), he appears to analyze the Star Wars Trilogy forwards and backwards at the same time. He mentioned the "cliche" (or whatever he referred to it as) that Yoda wouldn't train Anakin because he was 6 (as Brin claimed) but that he would train Luke when he was 20 (as Brin claimed). I'd like to point out to Mr. Brin that, as time progressed (in the Star Wars galaxy) the Jedi were wiped out. However, as far as I know, Jedi were, "in the beginning," identified ASAP and training began early to ensure the purest, best of Jedi, and which, I think, would also serve to further prevent them from turning to the Dark Side. Therefore, Anakin was probably not quite the age that Yoda & Co. would have wanted to train someone for Jedi-hood.. they would have wanted him younger. However, they took him on, because a person with that number of those metagloricans (spelling?) would be a wonderful Jedi. As time went on, and the Jedi were wiped out(except for, say, Obi-Wan and Yoda), well, I'd just like to assume that they're going to want more recruits, hence my theory that Yoda accepted Luke as his apprentice because he could see that, yes, there was the Force in him, and that, if careful, he could steer this gleam of hope into something useful [for the Rebellion].
I'd also like to point out that though Mr.Brin equates Adolf Hitler with Darth Vader, I find no logic behind this. As everyone knows, the main difference between the two would be that Adolf Hitler lived and Darth Vader existed merely as a character in a series of movies. Furthermore, Brin seems to base his comparison of the two by equating their circumstances, placing them on the same "playing field," giving them the same opportunities, and equating their purposes. This is no foundation for an argument. Adolf Hitler somehow had a vision that there was a certain type of people that were superior, and that all people who didn't fit into this category were not people indeed, but rubbish that should be exterminated(or something like that). Darth Vader, as far as I can reason, turned to the dark side because he was "seduced" by it. Somehow, he found the power/control of the Dark Side tempting, and an easier path to follow, compared to the Light Side. Also, a saber fight with one's mentor, in which one is severely handicapped would be enough to ensure that some people would turn to the dark side.
The major point I'm trying to make is that Adolf dealt with a conscious decision to annihilate race(s) of people; Darth dealt with a conscious decision to follow his anger and aggression to an evil Force, something we don't have on Earth, because there is no Force that can allow people to lift objects, sway minds, choke people, blow up Death Stars, etc. On Earth, we have our own spiritual devices, which, as far as I know, haven't done any of what I just mentioned lately, or in some galaxy far, far away. Therefore, going back to Darth, the Dark Side of the Force lead him to follow the Emperor and do his bidding. Although I realize that the decision to joing the dark side doesn't excuse any of his subsequent actions, it does allow one to see the difference between Vader and Hitler. I'd also like to mention that I don't feel that, by Vader's return to the light side, we're supposed to forgive him of his sins and accept him with loving arms, but we can congratulate him for seeing the error of his ways and returning to the light side. And I'd also like to add that, as I see it, Vader's saving Luke's life is not supposed to be his saving grace; it is, in my view, merely a sign of his return to the light side, and as he returned to the light side, he apparently no longer felt the desire to destroy his son if he didn't join him, because, by turning to the light side, he joined his son, and so he now sought to protect him.
Continuing in my discourse, I don't feel that Lucas is forcing the morals of his Star Wars movies upon "us." If someone doesn't want to see a movie, I should like to think they don't have to. I certainly don't see movies when I don't want to see them. Furthermore, people have to be responsible for their own actions; no one else can be, because everybody is in control of their own body. Of course, some would argue mind control drugs to this, in which case, most likely, exceptions would be made, which would spread until the idea that "People must be responsible for their own actions" is no longer the basis for the argument. Nevertheless, I feel that people shouldn't base their actions on movies, nor their morals, and if they are, then it is up to them to be responsible for how they interpret these morals. One could argue the same morality on many of the other movies of our time. For instance, any movie that involves sex before marriage would be a moral issue for numbers of people. Movies involving profanity would do the same. The list continues.
My point is, Mr. Brin seems harsh on Star Wars, harsher than I feel is justifiable. I found his writings to be more of a mindless ranting by someone who prefers Star Trek to Star Wars. Arguments can be found by anyone in support of anything over anything else... it's simply a matter of who's arguing. Which is why I take no stock or pleasure in the writings of Mr.Brin, but I will agree that there were things about Episode 1:The Phantom Menace that I didn't like... however, I didn't feel the need to write a ranting essay about it.
But I'll close with this: May free speech live on!
Insert mind here.
Luke didn't go to Vader to kill him. He believed "there was some good in him" and could bring him back to the good side. Typical codependent behaviour. :)
I thought that Yoda had trained Obi-Wan. Will the future prequels (sounds like an oximoron ;-) explain Qui-Gon's short-lived existence?
Ok, I think this was one of the most poorly argued articles I've seen in ages. Let me start by saying that I do NOT feel that all people are equal. In some cases ONE person has been able to give more to society than the average 100. Leonardo Da Vinci would be an excellent example. In fact I feel Neitzsche is too. So since I disagree with this guy, his faulty arguments bother me all the more.
/-"sEz/
"If you get angry -- even at injustice and murder -- it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person! All of your opinions and political beliefs will suddenly and magically reverse. Every loyalty will be forsaken and your friends won't be able to draw you back. You will instantly join your sworn enemy as his close pal or apprentice. All because you let yourself get angry at his crimes."
I sure don't remember Yoda or any of the Jedi saying anything like that. They talked about controlling fear and anger, but I think Mr. Brin must have seen the unabridged version of StarWars.
"It's an ancient storytelling tradition based on abiding contempt for the masses -- one that I find odious in the works of A.E. Van Vogt, E.E. Smith, L. Ron Hubbard and wherever you witness slanlike super-beings deciding the fate of billions without ever pausing to consider their wishes."
Ok, at this point I had to wonder if he even read Van Vogt's "Slan". In this book 'the masses' were wildly racist. And actually I think that the hero, a slan named Jommy Cross, DID consider the wishes of the billions around him. He considered that they all wanted to kill him because of his race! But Jommy was still remarkably non-violent.
And that brings me to my next gripe...
"Remember the final scene in "Return of the Jedi," when Luke gazes into a fire to see Obi-Wan, Yoda and Vader, smiling in the flames? I found myself hoping it was Jedi Hell, for the amount of pain those three unleashed on their galaxy, and for all the damned lies they told."
Vader caused an unbelievable amount of pain. But Obi? Or Yoda!!? Didn't Obi 'defeat' Vader by refusing to fight? Can anyone remember a single instance when Yoda caused anyone pain? Can anyone remember him fight, ever? Damned lies? Are you one to be talking about this Mr. Brin? I believe Yoda was misleading, while your commentary is false.
As far as Vader is concerned, I don't think that the series is 'worshiping' him. In my not so humble opinion, the focus on Anikin in TPM is to show how far a 'good' person can fall. And his Jedi Spirit in ROTJ? Lucas isn't preaching that saving his son (at the cost of his own life) made up for his earlier crimes. He's simply stating that it's never too late for redemption. This idea is debatable, but Lucas isn't to blame for it. Go after Jesus, or Gilgamesh on that one.
Alright. I've got one more gripe... If Mr. Brin must try to impress us with his vocabulary, HE SHOULD READ A DAMNED DICTIONARY!!! In reading his article I got really, really SICK of seeing him misuse apotheosis. I guess I'll just have to post the dictionary entry.
Pronunciation: &-"pä-thE-'O-s&s, "a-p&-'thE-&-s&s
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural apotheoses
Etymology: Late Latin, from Greek apotheOsis, from apotheoun to deify, from apo- + theos god
Date: circa 1580
1 : elevation to divine status : DEIFICATION
there is also a depricated meaning of
2 : the perfect example
So I'm not sure what the heck he's trying to say when he says
"Thus few protest the apotheosis of Darth Vader -- nee Anakin Skywalker -- in "Return of the Jedi."
or
"The apotheosis of a mass murderer is exactly what it seems."
I can guess, but why would he be so pompous as to inhibit clarity?
I'm a gnu world man.
I'm not familiar with Brin's work. After these pieces, I'm not going to bother.
The piece on Lucas' archetypal storytelling style was, I admit, thought-provoking. I disagree with about everything he says, but it WAS thought-provoking. However, I do think that Brin doth protest too much. As it happens, he's got an entirely different paradigm he's pushing. Consequently, his "analysis" actually becomes an advocacy article. He's not saying, "Lucas got it wrong here"; he's saying, "Pick me! Pick MY way of doing things!"
In other words, when he asks who nominated Lucas to preach his morality through his medium, he might wish to consider that the same question applies to him.
That piece I disagreed with, but his "analysis" of the Phantom Menace I found downright malicious. I don't think I agree with a single criticism he made. I'll try to keep my point-by-point stuff short, but here goes:
* Age of Anakin--the movie could have done a better job of making this clear, but in the Terry Brooks novelization it's explicit that potential Jedis are "recruited" at six months. "Ripping from the breast" might be entirely appropriate. It also lends credence to the Council's extreme reluctance to accept Anakin; at his age, he's far too fully formed to be trusted, yet they don't want a loose cannon roaming around. Nor, however, do they want to "sanction" him by full acceptance, hence the unusual remedy. The seeds are sown.
* More seeds: Obi-Wan's anger in destroying Darth Maul. Folks, _this is not a good thing!_ Not only does it open the Sith apprentice vacancy, it creates (or reveals) a flaw in Kenobi that will later manifest itself in Vader. When talking about anger and emotion and Lucas' approach to them, Brin should go back and read some Martin Luther King on violence and anger (I think "Letter From Birmingham Jail" or various versions of "I Have A Dream" contain the relevant thoughts.)
* Cliches: it's odd that Brin acknowledges that Lucas is retelling an old, old story and then chastises him for using cliches.
* Self-indulgences: It's Episode I. It's called "laying groundwork."
* Political situation (Naboo, "Originality"): Naboo is important specifically because _Senator Palpatine_ represents it in the Senate. It's his political opportunism that makes it important (as well as his willingness to use the "common people" he represents as power pawns--this foreshadows the manevolence of the man which is never explicitly stated in Phantom.) As for the "boring" charge, I think the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the term "banality of evil" to describe the Nuremberg trials. It all started so innocently, and it was just politics as usual, right....?
* "Elitism" of Force: No, the Force didn't all of a sudden get a elite genetic deterministic cause. Those who have _abnormal concentrations_ are trained as Jedi in the old days (and suffer from the exclusivity and secretiveness common to cloistered groups.) By the time of Episode IV, the pickings are far more slim. Besides, it might even signify a _growing_ egalitarianism.
Finally, I think it is fair to make the Nazi Germany allusion as Lucas deliberately uses Nazi imagery in his opus. However, Brin's use of the metaphor is clumsy. No, we would not pardon Hitler. We might, however, pardon the hypothetical master lieutenant who, having been the major force in building the Third Reich, also became one of the major forces in overthrowing it (by killing Hitler, to maintain the analogy). Darth Vader is supposed to have been _redeemed_. (Personally, I find that a higher value than nicer institutions of the future.) The desire to think of the Jedi masters as being in "Jedi Hell" is very, very petty of Brin. Apparently there are scales of some sort; once you commit all that evil, there's not enough good to do to "offset" it, eh?
In summation, I don't care how well the man writes science fiction novels. He flies poor colors here.
Star Trek fans are democratic? Yep, read and weep Rob et alia.
I guess this is a matter of personal taste, but I thought the Uplift series was some of the most awful SF I have ever read. Poor characterization, and often painful prose. I only read all of the first three books out of a sense of duty (i.e. I will read all the books in a trilogy if I start it). They were all three of them equally bad.
You want leading edge, original SF, with fleshed out characters and a kick-ass plot? Check out Peter F. Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series. This guy is the best SF author I have read in a long time, simply amazing.
At the end of his novel "Earth", the end is all wrapped up nice-n-tidy with a cliched deus ex machina that leaves (*mostly* benevolent) semi-devine authority figure in charge.
I thought it was a great book, but I wouldn't take it any more seriously than TPM.
This guy should be shot. In all seriousness, the Postman goes down as the WORST movie I've ever watched. It's just 3 hours of plain agony and an ending that is so despising that it disgusts you.
Man, I really, really hated that movie. It was just so stupid and just left a really bad mark in my brain. Sorry, had to vent that off.
| I remember reading a star wars book that begins
... :) - but I was wondering where the bit in _Spaceballs_ about Lone Starr being a prince was a spoof of.
...
| right after the battle of endor. it is revealed
| that solo comes from a line of displaced
| corellian kings.
I'm not a big enough of a Star Wars fan to actually read the novels (they're movies
You know, even if the story of the Star Wars movies doesn't turn out to be all that great, we have it to thank for such wonderful films as _Spaceballs_
-- Rick
Just to hit on the Darth Vader redemption bit, it should be pointed out that this is Christian-style (although not Republican "Christian"-style) redemption. That is, it doesn't matter what you've done in your past as long as you truly repent, that you have in a sense become "born again." So it wasn't just that Vader saved his son, it's that he cast aside everything -- including his own life -- to save Luke and to destroy the Emperor and his evil.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It seems a lot of fans in the late 70's were questioning Speielbergs vision of the future where...
I'm pretty sure you mean Mr. Lucas.
As far as the english accents go, it certainly made the movie(s) feel more epic and classic for me. Luke and Han serve as the grubby, hands-on counterpoint to the english types.
-kabloie
Please excuse me as unlearned and unread. This is my first run in with Mr. Brin. If he has actually gathered up some Hugo and Nebula awards as the little blurb/bio at Salon says, I daresay that jealousy is not a motivating factor here. Were it me, I'd be pretty damn happy with my career, etc. had I won acclaim like that from the huge SF community. But who knows...
;)
He wrote 'The Postman'? The flick that Costner did? Maybe _that's_ why he's pissed off.
-kabloie
>Haven't British monarch's been 'elected' by
:), but to *at least* the war of the roses--especeially when a lesser claimant took the throne :) It was also used a an excuse for tossing kings (James). But if the current queen can make it a few more years, it could also be their solution to the Charles problem . . .
>parliment since Cromwell's days?
I don't know why I'm replying to a three week old post (guess I'll email the author
>
Campbell got SOME things right. He identified a lot of (ahem) psycho-mythological hot-buttons. It was in tying it all together that he fumbled.
Lucas tapped those hot buttons, resulting in compelling stories . . . but he also swallowed Campbell's folderol. I think that's part of what Brin is objecting to; the assumption that these hot buttons reflect what _should_ be.
Gee, I wish I'd read this when it was fresh . . .
:)
.tough and resourcefull, while very female . . .
>The title of "queen" is probably used to be
>evocative for the movie because that makes her a
>special character, and likely because she is
>not a democraticly elected political figure.
Little girls want daddy to take them to movies with princesses & queens. Trust me on this
If princess Leia had been just senator leia, mine would no doubt have liked the movies, but the princess (ok, and "the gold guy", not to be confused with "the glass guy" from Toy Story) gave them a focal point.
And to use modern words that I'm suspicious of, they could find worse role models than Leia . .
I didn't get that impression. It was between Luke and Vader...we didn't really see anything else transpire. Luke desperately wanted the good to come out in Vader, and it finally did. I don't think Luke forgave him for all the evil he'd done, but was glad that he'd finally "seen the light".
or maybe I'm just a Lucas apologist. You make the call. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Why are there no female Jedi? If you can tell the gender of a Jedi, he is invariably male.
Brin's analysis may be overblown, but with Phantom Menace, George Lucas shortchanged us all. New Hope and Empire were brutal without being gory; Menace, like Return of the Jedi, pulled every punch and softened every blow. The pity is that Lucas could have easily employed simple plot twists to add a second dimension to his characters and more depth to his tale. Consider:
* Naboo is conquered by a merciless alien army, its people rounded up in concentration camps. Wouldn't a few scenes of devastated cities and brutalized citizens have helped to set the proper tone? As portrayed, the invasion had all the impact of a bloodless palace coup.
* Anakin Skywalker is such a good little boy, without the slightest hint of a mean streak that might one day develop into a personality like Darth Vader's. Wouldn't it have been far more intriguing if his miraculous victories had been undeserved, his awesome proto-Jedi powers something of a fraud? Instead of having the simpleton bad guy in the pod race sabotage Anakin's pod, why not reverse the roles, and have Anakin cheat his way to success? Especially if Anakin's sabotage inadvertantly results in the bad guy's death - and the precocious little hero shows no remorse... Likewise, when Anakin just happens to make the right moves to blow up the space station in the final battle, wouldn't it have been far more satisfying if R2D2 had been silently pulling the space fighter's strings all along? And then the loyal droid lets Anakin disingenously take credit for the kill...
* Obi Wan is a priceless gem of an apprentice, as obediant as Robin the Boy Wonder. Couldn't he have exhibited some of the crusty recalcitrance so charmingly cultivated by the elder Obi Wan? Just a bit of chafing under Qui Gon's imperious mandates, a little jealousy of his mentor's sudden interest in the annoying little slave boy. Why not have Obi Wan taken in by the fake transmission from Naboo, conspire with Amidala to secretly respond to the plea for help, thus naively tipping off Darth Maul to their location on Tatooine?
* Darth Maul is obviously a pawn who's only genuine purpose is to take out Qui Gon. Instead of simply having Obi Wan dispatch Darth Maul in the end, Lucas could have deepened his plot by having Palpatine/Darth Sidious double-cross him. Here's the rationale: Palpatine forsees Anakin's destiny to become his apprentice and intuits Obi Wan's future role as Anakin's first mentor in the ways of the force. Palpatine intervenes at the critical moment as Darth Maul is about to nail Obi Wan, distracting the arrogant Sithling with his Phantom Projection Power, giving Obi Wan an opening to slice the bastard in half. George, if you need help, I'm available...
* Queen Amidala. Ok, so the handmaiden trick was pretty good, but it could have been better. Qui Gon doesn't want her tagging along, right? So couldn't he have treated her with something less than respect, maybe a little gruff exasperation? This would have at least given Qui Gon some mild embarrassment to portray when her identity is later revealed. And don't you think the intrepid band got along just a little too cozily on Tatooine? Wasn't there supposed to have been some animosity between Amidala's and Jar Jar's species? A few withering remarks directed at that ridiculous geek would have gone a long way...
>Heinlein as an author was full of interesting dichotomies. On the one hand, he was contemptious of the "unwashed masses." On the other >hand, he was very strongly of the opinion that individuals make all of the difference (indeed many of his writings are unashamedly promoting of
>libertarian / anarchist ideals). He was at times unbelievably optomistic about the future, and at other times terribly pessemistic.
I don't think the views that Heinlein expressed were contradictory per se. If you state them in those terms, maybe, but I think what he portrayed in his writings was his faith in those who were willing to take self-responsibility, and his contempt was for those unwilling to do so. (Sadly, most of humanity.)
>I think there is a very real danger of reading too much into a person from the fiction that they wrote.
In the case of Heinlein, what he wrote was usually what he professed to believe. Check out some of his non-fiction works to see the corollaries. I think you can read a lot into the fiction someone writes. People portray what they know in the things they write. Their character interactions, their tone in regards to the material, all show a lot of the writer's views. But I think Brin seizes on only the aspects of TPM that he wants to see, and ignores the rest. We can read a lot about HIS character from his review, anyway...
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
"Sorry to pick your post to comment on, but it illustrated the point I want to make better than some others."
No problem - isn't that why the Internet was invented?
"So quick are we to judge a plot hole as an error. We see an inconsistency like you've pointed out above, and automatically assume that it's wrong. What if it is just a significant fact?"
Well, that's certainly possible. However, I would find it easier to accept if there were more structure or coherency to either the economics or politics of the SW universe. One never gets (or at least _I_ never get) from TPM a sense that there is a workable social structure working behind the scenes.
"Slate" had a similar discussion about the econmics of SW. Contrast that with the world Tolkien created: I have run across 300 page, thesis-quality discussions of the economics of Middle Earth.
Oh well, it really is just entertainment and in the long run no big deal. But I guess what bothers me is how much better it could have been.
sPh
Posted by stodge:
I wouldnt put it as strongly as you did, but I dony think its that good a movie.
A few random comments:
/. And since he could see events before they happen, Yoda would have a million First posts.
An entire robot army being shut down by the loss of the mother ship. Well, I suppose some consultant sold them on the idea of that server/client paradigm. Obviously that same consultant is running loose throughout the universe.
Vader can't sense C-3PO? I for one can sense what my computer is going to do. For instance, I just knew that my new program was going to core dump, and sure enough, splat. I foresaw the event before it happened; I am one with the force. Vader? Sorry, but Vader can't write code. (obviously, neither can I).
Yoda trained Luke because it wasn't like he had anything better to do at the time. Look, the Degoba (sp?) system doesn't have internet access. Besides, if he was hooked up, he would be posting comments here at
Just the thought of Anakin's mom giving birth to Uncle Owen makes me puke.
So Jinn takes Anakin into the HQ and then put him in the space ship. Dangerous? Yes, but I seriously doubt that parenting skills are part of Jedi training.
Big deal, Anakin built a better pod racer than the other folks on Tatooine. What do you suppose is the average IQ of someone that voluntarily lives on Tatooine? And the Hutts are just inbred Alien trash.
The attack robots couldn't hit the side of a barn with their shots. I bet that their targeting computers are too slow. Someone obviously doesn't know how to overclock their cpus.
I wonder if the central computer on the Federation mother ship was a beowulf cluster? That would be cool *grin*.
The thing with many religions and Christianity in particular is the presence of an infinity. To a scientific modern intuition the probability of an almighty being's existence seems quite small. However, the consequences of a wrong choice are infinite hell. By applying simple probability it becomes logical to 'believe'. I have been struggling with this for some time as it is very difficult to force myself to believe something that is counter to my intuition. But alas, as I figure it, logic dictates I try.
The way I figure, Palpatine had some sort of master plan for a power play involving Naboo. Something like: the real goal was to become Chancellor. So, he wanted to call attention to the weakness of the system, presenting himself as a new source of strength. By (covertly) encouraging the Trade Federation to make trouble (in general; way before the Naboo embargo), he created a crisis situation, which would call attention to the weak state of things -- no doubt he was vocally opposing the Federation's position all along. Maybe it was going too slowly, or maybe it was the plan all along, but eventually he decided to bring matters to a head by having the Federation do something drastic. Since he was their most vocal opponent, his home planet was their most logical target, so they blockaded it. This made his position in the situation even more prominent. Under the original master plan, the power play was probably still some way off, but the Jedi showed up at Naboo, forcing him to accelerate things.
He wasn't counting on the Queen escaping (not only was he displeased when it happened, he sent Maul to try to catch them), but her arrival as Coruscant made things even better for him: it gave "his" side even more visibility and sympathy, and provided a sooner-than-expected opportunity to depose the old Chancellor and get himself nominated to succeed him ("A surprise, to be sure, but... a pleasant one.")
He was not looking too happy when she announced that she was going back home, but the gears started turning even as he attempted to dissuade her, and did you catch the faintest hint of a smile on one side of his mouth just as the scene faded? He probably figured that at worst, he was back where he started, with her back home as a sympathetic figure, but more so, because the Senate had seen her in person, and with the added bonus of her having helped depose the old Chancellor. Only now, she was leading a hopeless resistance effort, rather than simply being held captive -- hence, an even more sympathetic figure than before. Most likely, she would be killed, letting him play on the guilt of those who refused to help her ("If you'd only done something when I first asked you to..."). Or she could be captured, leaving him back where he started. Or, if the impossible happened and she actually won, he would not only have the moral high ground, but be the representative of the winning side, all but guaranteeing his election.
Basically, everything they did played perfectly into Palpatine's hands, even better than he probably hoped. So, to answer Brin's question --
Uh
-- Naboo was not important, except as a playing piece, because it happened to be Palpatine's homeworld and the world whose Senator he was. The invasion was only a Phantom Menace.
To me, what made the movie good was seeing these little subtleties and trying to figure out what was really going on "between the frames", integrating and reconciling it with what I had seen in, and subsequently theorized about, the original movies. This movie can't be taken in a vacuum. The big picture that is formed when you consider all the movies together and apply some thought -- that is what is really interesting.
Brin missed all this and, as others have pointed out, much of his criticism is based on the mistaken claim that Vader destroyed Alderaan in A New Hope when it was Tarkin, not Vader, who gave the order, so I would say that he didn't really pay close enough attention. However, I have to agree with his criticisms of some of the moral messages, such as judging by appearances, elitism, and the failings of democracy.
David Gould
David Gould
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Doesn't this all happen long ago in a galaxy far far away?
Maybe his point was that this motif is a tired cliche because it's so widely used, but if so he articulated it very poorly. Between that and the abomination that was the Postman, I doubt I'll be buying any of Brin's books any time soon.
"My life's work has been to prompt others... and be forgotten." --Cyrano de Bergerac
It seems that we need to update Godwin's law: it used to be fashionable to try to kill argument by comparing your opponent to Hitler. Lately, it seems that Stalin is the new favorite.
The person I am responding to seems to think that David Brin's critique of Star Wars is "almost Stalinist". Yeah, right. What rhetoric are you going to have left for when someone does something really bad, like deliberately force millions of people to starve to get them to accept your new way of organizing society and killing millions more?
So what if the signal is intercepted. I'm assuming the Empire already has the schematics for their own freaking Death Star. The only problem would be that they could trace the source/destination of the transmission.
If it was transmitted from a starship travelling at lightspeed to another starship travelling at light speed, I'm sure it would be pretty hard to track them in the end.
...to tell a great, truly epic, story.
Imagine this:
The elite guardians of truth and justice in an ancient and advanced society discover a young prodigy who has the potential to become the greatest of them. However, they make some Horrible Mistake during his training (perhaps founded on hubris?) and the Prodigy is seduced by Evil via an Evil Master. He then betrays and kills all of the Good Guardians, and in so doing causes the downfall of the entire society.
Along the way, he fathers a child, who is spirited away from him. The child has even greater potential than the father, but he is raw and untrained. By happenstance, the son gets involved with the opponents of his father, and comes to be trained in in the ways of the old guardians. However, before he can complete his training, he is forced to fight to save the side of Good, and learns the truth about his father.
He goes back, and with new resolve finishes his training and sets off to kill his father - who is trying to bring him to evil as well. The son resists his conversion, the Evil Master (who desires the son's even greater powers) attacks the son, and the Father comes to the son's defence, killing off the source of the Great Evil in the process, and redeeming himself before he too dies.
That's a hell of a great story. It borrows heavily from all kinds of other sources, but there's nothing wrong with a little sharing of literary source code - ask Billy Shakespere - not an original idea in all his works. (but man! What execution!)
The problem is, Lucas _didn't_ plot out this arc ahead of time. He made a one-off movie that was vastly more successful than he thought it would be, decided to make more of them, and he's been assembling the story on the fly ever since.
The Star Wars movies do not play like a serial, instead they are a set of loosly connected stand-alones. That lack of a unified arc hurts them tremendously.
Star Wars should be The Tragic Story Of Darth Vader. What a waste that it is not!
I wonder how different it would be if the writing was handled by someone with a sense of arc and continuity, like JMS from Babylon 5.
Luke was close to crossing over to the Dark Side in Jedi...I am sure Palpatine got Anakin to cross to the Dark side using anger and fear.
**BOOK SPOLIER**
In fact Luke *does* go to the Dark Side in one of the books...There is a running theme in the books that visits Luke's attempts at understanding the Force and how he continues to stuggle with it.
I noticed this as well. And it is also similar to the Christian concept of redemption in that Darth Vader's salvation did NOT undo or preclude the consequences. Millions of people died under the Emperor's tyranny, and Vader himself dies even as he is saved. Vader repents, but all is not turned right magically.
Regarding the classic elements of Star Wars, the problem I have is more with TPM than anything else, but I do feel what the Star Wars series did is basically create a pile of archetypes and tie them together without a great deal of depth.
This I believe flaws the storyline. Brin's article does bring up things that would have helped improve the story and make the archetypes more three-dimensional. Treating archetypes just as archetypes doesn't give you a lot of depth, and makes the meaning shallow.
Personally, I think this is being taken so seriously by people on both sides of the argument because Star Wars really is its own culture and is part of the USAs (and to an extent the worlds) collective culture. Thus I feel opening it to critique is important.
Me, I'll still take the Federation, where I'm not waiting for some bacteria-infected supermen to save the day. I'm not a big fan of Star Trek, but at least its a world where I'm less likely to be cannon fodder for the demigods.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Brin doesn't believe that "privacy is a tool of evil". Rather, he believes that privacy is doomed, so the closest we can come to freedom is to make sure that privacy gets invaded equally: not only can the cops watch you, but you can watch the cops. It's a provocative point of view, one that I'm not sure I agree with, but those attempting to smear him for it, distorting his position, are either ignorant or just evil.
And, of course, movies are propaganda, the most effective kind. Why shouldn't we take a billion-dollar industry seriously?
I think however the way it was handled pretty much ignored his victims. It really did feel like everything was erased by one act, and I find that disappointing.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
By comparing the political and social structures of Star Wars and Star Trek, David Brin seems to miss the point of SW completely, and in the end misses the point of the hero story.
Star Wars was never a movie about the political and societal structures of the future. Star Wars, at its most basic, is a tale of becoming, an amalgam of old hero tales placed in an otherworldly setting. The setting and plot components are based on political struggles, but they are at most subplots to the greater hero story.
Star Trek, on the other hand, is not a hero story. That concept plays a part in DS9, but when it does, it's not about everyday people - instead it takes on the mythic quality that Brin criticizes Star Wars for embodying. Captain Sisko is not only a Federation stalwart, but the Emissary of a planet's religion, and in the end he becomes one with the aliens/deities of that planet. But that is an exception. Star Trek has always been about morality tales: the application of morality in various trying circumstances. If anything, the core focus of Star Trek is about political procedure and protocol in a future setting, and the development of a political protocol that can actually maintain a sound moral center. It attempts to envision an ideal politic - something that was never the point of Star Wars at all.
To compare the two, Brin needs to pull in the political and social histories of various hero myths. However, this again misses the point of the hero myth - the idea that the story's essential movements are applicable to all humanity - that the hero is not some over-man, but a representative of humanity - core ideas and archetypes of being human. If hero myths were instead meant to be read on a pure fictional level, they lose their meaning, and instead become base stories of political intrigue. This was never their purpose, and to try to foist this interpretation on them is deconstruction at its most banal.
Finally, if Star Wars was about future society, George Lucas would have attempted to envision a future society. Instead, he envisioned a *past* society (obvious from the first crawl of the first movie) that had the trappings and technology of a future one.
Brin's comparison of the political and social underpinnings of Star Trek and Star Wars is at best an academic exercise, at worst utilizes unsound interpretations, and offers no new insights.
For that matter, we see a number of protocol droids throughout the series - how would DV be expected to recognize the one that was his (considering that the last time he saw it, it was completely lacking plating?
David Brin, master author of...well, of what again? has shown us the way. It was indeed an insightful, accurate, no-punches-pulled account...of his own jealousy. I can even account for some of the vitriol by a knee jerk reaction to the incredible amount of hype surrounding Ep. 1, but to write that much on what's wrong with it and how we should pay attention to the 'evil' message Lucas is supposedly sending? Back away from the 'regular people are just pawns in the lives of these uber-humans" tantrum. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to go to the movies and watch David Brin wake up, eat breakfast and drive to work at Salon magazine, where he works all day long or some boring real-life situation like that. Unless Camille Paglia walks into your office and kicks your whiny butt, I don't care. I want extreme situations, situations that inspire the mind past what it sees everyday. This Star Wars universe exists in about 9 hours worth of film, and how much fan fiction, satires, tributes, novelizations, cartoons, etc has it inspired? And as far as content goes, IT'S A FREAKING MOVIE! I want to take a motorcycle and gun it through the streets of San Fran at 200mph+ but I don't! Maybe I can get a little bit of that feeling though from the pod race, or the speeder bike chase. Now I won't deny that I had problems with Ep.1, but I am withholding final criticism for after I have seen all three prequels. But you are so quick to complain that you don't see what a vast, magical universe he has crafted over 4 movies? Give him credit for at least that much. If anything your expectations are too high for what Lucas has delivered up until this point. But even if he has made some slip-ups, the Star Wars universe is something so awesome that it has taken on a life of it own.
You are a writer, apparently, you can't appreciate this?
The evil anakin modifications would weakened the total swing from good to bad to good. A little weakness somewhere would have been good as a foreshadow and for color, but the suggestions you make are too strong for this early time frame.
I would suggest a slight 'drunk on power' problem (maybe after winning the race) instead to show the core character flaw, not brash evil tendencies.
I like you other ideas though, especially the double-cross. That would have been classic. That idea is so good I am going to have to see it again to see if there is some little hook in the scene to attach this idea to later (like the spock-to-mccoy transfer patch).
What did you all expect? Shakespeare? For $%^'s sake, just stop deconstructing, analysing and criticising, sit back and enjoy a good adventure romp. It's not going to improve your mind, or make you forget all your civilised values either. It's just a damn movie. A pretty good one for my money too.
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
I don't walk into starwars movies thinking
too hard. About 3/4 of the way through
the movie, this occurred to me and I actually
hand to reason it out.
It's not as if it wasn't obvious, but I'd got
myself into such a "dummed down" mood that
I didn't bother with such analasyes. So I
puroposly missed a lot of stupid things about
the film.
"Elected" kings are a moderately common phenomenon in history. The Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages were elected, for example, which I think may draw on an older Germanic tradition.
However, before people get all excited about this, such "elections" were restricted to the upper nobility: candidates only came from the top families (or in some cases, I think, from one extended family), and only the top nobles in the realm actually got to vote. Often, they would try to elect someone weak enough that he wouldn't interfere with the nobles' affairs and would allow them to manipulate him. (Some medieval Popes were elected for similar reasons.)
I have no idea what the situation is supposed to be on Naboo. The fact that Queen Amidala seems moderately competent at wearing her bizarre dresses, playing the formal "queen" role, and has a coterie of loyal handmaidens suggests to me that she's from a small pool of candidates trained from an early age with loyal servants -- in other words, a royal family. But I may be giving Lucas too much credit for sociological invention.
Although... why is Leia a "princess", anyway? If it's because Queen Amidala was her mother, it suggests some kind of hereditary monarchy on Naboo. (We don't have special titles for the children of Presidents, after all.)
-- Keysh (Peter Erwin)
Brin doesn't like Supermen because they have
no place (in that form) in a civilized society
(as we know it) and that SW indirectly glorifies
fascist Ideals. From the point of view
sci-fi he is right, sci-fi when it deals
with human issues at all, tends to be political
and should not glorify Nietzscherism. (Unless
you are a Nietzscherist, more on that later).
But Lucas is more a purveyor of fantasy,
aka sword & sourcery. (Hence the swords and
sourcery in SW). This is all about primitive,
romantic tales. They are based loosely on
myth, Authur, Siegfried, Rama etc. These tales
don't espouse good social policy, but the social
policy aspect of fantasy is much weaker than
in hard SF, so it should be forgiven.
So SW is great as a (rather childish) fantasy
set in high-tech world. Where it falls down
is when it tries a on bit of the hard-SF.
Brin is right about the Midichloreans, that
are pretty lame. Worse, the film won't stick
by its fascism. Instead it pushes a democracy
which it doesn't really have the temprament
for. Most telling is that Amadahla hand to
be elected, but she ALSO had to be a Queen.
I suspect this blind attchment to democracy
(in word if not in deed) is a sign or American
jingoism. (No offence to America here,
Democracy is a damn good thing to be jingoistic
about).
Is it just me or are a lot of people taking this
article way too seriously? I didn't agree with
some of Brin's points, but I find it hilarious
when people say he is jealous, doesn't write good
science fiction and basically flame the guy all
because he dared to disagree with George "King
of all Science Fiction Movies". Pretty sad that some people get so worked up about a movie.
It just Brin's opinion, don't take it so damn
personal!
To the posters that have written good rebutals,
bravo. To the SW zealots, lighten up!
I don't really understand what you just replied to me with, but I suppose I should make it clear both to the person above and you that I meant "hip and educated" in a somewhat sarcastic light. "Hip and educated" people, as in writers for magazines like Salon and Wired, etc., are generally very materialistic (not greedy) and tend to look at anything spiritual with confusion. This is evident in Brin's article as he equates "forgiveness" with a judicial system.
Perhaps I should've left out the word "educated." There are certainly many educated people who are religious, but it is certainly not "hip" to be religious in 1999's American culture. At least it doesn't seem to be to me.
Nevertheless, my point was that Brin made an inaccurate comparison between Vader and Hitler _because_ Brin is "hip and educated" and doesn't understand Lucas's religious standpoint.
This is so strictly enforced that nit-picking details, such as the fact that lightsabers do not function underwater, are cleared through Lucas.
Be sure that such a major character development probably went to The Man Himself.
I don't know all the details of the vast amount of lore that has gron around Star Wars, ut I do know that the death Star was not even begun untill a much later date. Judging by the vauge amount of time between the first and third movies, it doesn't seem to take decades to build one. Especially considering that the second one was suppoedly larger and more powerful. Although I can see reasons why Palpatine would want the conflict on Nagoo to happen, I find the Death Star production site theory downright silly.
Ciennabarq
I think David Brin does an excellent job of contrasting George Lucas' style of fiction with David Brin's style of fiction. There is a lot of validity to his obeservations about the differences between a hero story and an everyman story. However, unlike (apparently) David Brin I think there is a place for both in our popular mythology. Now, when an author contrasts his own point of view with someone else's it would be unrealistic to expect him to present a perfectly balanced view; however, I think Brin goes overboard in these articles. The Godwin's Law implications of his Nazi allusions have been mentioned by others, but what I notice is that his treatment of Star Wars is both uncharitable and unfaithful to Lucas' films.
By ``uncharitable,'' I mean that given two or more ways to interpret a passage from the film, Brin invariably chooses the most harmful. For example, the scene: a dysfunctional Senate divided by its internal politics and unable to act decisively in the face of an incipient crisis. Brin interprets this as an indictment of our democratic institutions and a glorification of autocracy. But is it really? Lucas' portrayal of the Senate would be viewed as a cautionary tale about what happens when we allow our democratic institutions to drift too far out of touch with the people they government, perhaps something along the lines of ``Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.''
Another example: Brin interprets Lucas' larger than life heroes as ``demigods.'' The heroes greatness (Brin claims) suggests that we ordinary mortals need not concern ourselves with great matters; we lack the wit and the strength. Okay, but isn't it possible that Lucas (and Homer, and all the rest) meant for us to aspire to be like their heroes. Of course, we will fall short of their greatness, but the only way for us to reach our maximal potential is to aim higher than any mortal could achieve, lest we set our goals too low. I can't say for certain the either of these two interpretations is what Lucas had in mind, but I can't believe that they didn't at least cross Brin's mind; yet, he dismisses them without mention.
Brin is also unfaithful to Lucas' films. That is, he invents specious objections that are not supported by the films themselves. For instance, he lowers Anakin's age, objections to Darth Vader not recognizing C3PO (if they ever met face to face I don't remember it, and protocol droids all look pretty much alike), ascribing the decision to allow Obi-Wan to train Anakin to Yoda (Yoda was against it; he goes along with the council's wishes despite his misgivings--so much for autocracy), and so on. In fact, almost everything beyond Brin's analysis of the hero story vs. the everyman story is based on one sort of strained interpretation of the action on the screen. It says to me that either he did not watch the movies particularly carefully, or that he's digging up mud to create a mood which makes his readers more antagonistic toward Lucas' films, and therefore more receptive toward Brin's own theses.
Now, look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that TPM was a perfect film, nor that Star Wars is a perfect saga. I cringed at the ``medichlorians'' and the virgin birth mumbo-jumbo just like everyone else. I do, however, think it was a fine film, and it deserved better than Brin was giving it here. But, more than that, in what is essentially a political debate over ``elitism'' vs. ``egalitarianism'' I want to see an honest assessment of the two sides. In this respect Brin fails miserably, and I think that such overt proselytizing is far more harmful than whatever message ``the children'' (somehow it's always about protecting the children, isn't it?) may have gotten from TPM.
-r
>Darth Vader committed genocide (twice, once
>against the Jedi and once against the
>inhabitants of Alderaan).
Not to quibble, but I don't think that you can call either of those genocide, and they are both different from what the nazis did in several
significant ways:
The Vader-Jedi conflict is unlike the holocaust because the Jedi chose to be Jedi; it wasn't an accident of birth. Calling the extermination of the Jedi genocide would be like accusing cop-killers of genocide; it's bad stuff, but it's not trying to exterminate a race of people.
The destruction of Alderaan is unlike the holocaust because it was not done out of racial hatred (as far as we know); the citizens of Alderaan simply happened to be handy targets for a demonstration of the Death Star's main gun.
Remember, mass murder is not necessarily the same as genocide.
In a galaxy far far away a long time ago...
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
1. Originating and growing or living in an area or environment. See note at native.
2. Intrinsic; innate.
The only thing that has propped up this sad excuse for a movie has been Star Wars legion of fans.
If the average movie goer had never seen the original Trilogy, they would walk out of the theater in disgust.
The movie only made 30 million this past week-end. It will be lucky to reach 400 million. Alot but no where near Titantic.
In the years to come people will grow to see this crappy excuse for drama as what it is: True Empty Garbage, brought to life by either a meglomaniac or a truly diminishing film genius.
Sorry to pick your post to comment on, but it illustrated the point I want to make better than some others.
So quick are we to judge a plot hole as an error. We see an inconsistency like you've pointed out above, and automatically assume that it's wrong. What if it is just a significant fact?
I'll admit that I have a little bias here because I read the TPM book that's out right now. (I read it right before seeing the movie a second time.)
In the book, Qui-Gon understands that the queen must be exceptionally wise to have been elected at such a young age. Perhaps this is an important plot element. Perhaps it is a sign that the people of Naboo are above ageism and can look at qualities for what they are. Maybe on Naboo people mature faster.
Who knows? The point is that I think we are too quick to judge an inconsistency as a hole.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
I don't recall if Vader and C-3PO meet, but if Vader could "sense" (using the force, I assume) that Luke was on a desolate, frozen ice planet at the beginning of ESB, then couldn't he also "sense" that a particular protocol droid was one that he built?
www.poak.net
To my knowledge, Lucas has nothing to do with any of the books that are written. The authors are allowed to develop characters as they wish. Have you seen anything with Lucas stating Solo was supposed to be royalty?
Brin mentions how it's odd that the queen doesn't just use a camera crew to verify what's going on down on Naboo for the skeptics. I watched "A New Hope" again the other day and there was something similar that came to mind. They went through an awful lot of trouble to transport R2D2 to the rebel base because he had the plans for the Death Star inside of him. My question is, why didn't they just fax or email the plans over? It would have saved an awful lot of trouble and would have been much safer. OK, so maybe they had yet to develop such advanced electronic communication in that corner of the galaxy, but couldn't they at least have had R2 burn the data to a CD (or disk) so that they'd only have to smuggle the CD out rather than the two droids?
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Umm, I think Brin does a pretty good job of explaining why we should *not* hope "Battlefield Earth" does well . . .
While I agree with much of what Brin said, there were a few flaws in one of his arguments. The first flaw is Han Solo. Irreverent and rebellant, he's exactly the sort of character that made the first 3 movies great. A Han Solo type character was left out of Phantom Menace, and thats what truly hurt the movie. But, back to my argument, Han Solo has no superior genetic traits, he's just a lowly smuggler, yet he accomplishes a great deal, and blows apart the genetic superiorty theme that Brin gets out of the movies. Another flaw is Queen Amidalah. She doesn't rule out of divine right, she wasn't born to it, she was elected, and turns out to be a fine ruler. Another hole in his argument is that the corruption in the democratic process that appears in the senate is a historical allusion to the Roman Empire, not a call for a tyrant. And Brin states that the Rebels in the trilogy have no basis for their rebellion, yet it seemed to me like they were fighting to reinstall a democracy. I'm not sure where Brin got the idea that Lucas was advocating tyrants, but it appears to be unjustified to me.
-BH
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Actually, we do see members of other species. One of the entertaining things about the Senate scene is seeing how many of the various species you can recognize from, e.g., the cantina scene in Episode IV. I'm pretty sure there's a small group of the walrus-faced guys (one of whom went after Luke and got cut down by Kenobi in the cantina scene), as well as the whatever-they-are's with three eyes. Probably some others I missed.
Re English as the universal language: well, I think you're supposed to take that as a convenient translation of whatever the "common" language of the Republic/Empire is. If you watch a movie about the Roman Empire, you don't really expect all the dialog to be in Latin, do you? (;-)
-- Keysh (Peter Erwin)
I was baffled by this ice cream:
http://www.langnese.de/c_eis box/nav_fr_kids_index.html
I will admit that there were a couple of things I thought we a little weird (virgin, midiclorians), but I think Lucus did an excellent job, I loved it. In fact, I watched it again yesterday, and I liked it better the second time around. That really was a good movie, and I could rebut a few of his findings, but man, we all know Star Wars is built upon cliches.....That is why we like it so much
* Anakin Skywalker is such a good little boy, without the slightest hint of a
:-)
:-) ) and the movie would be worthy of the Star Wars name.
mean streak that might one day develop into a personality like Darth
Vader's. Wouldn't it have been far more intriguing if his miraculous
victories had been undeserved, his awesome proto-Jedi powers something
of a fraud? Instead of having the simpleton bad guy in the pod race
sabotage Anakin's pod, why not reverse the roles, and have Anakin cheat
his way to success? Especially if Anakin's sabotage inadvertantly results in
the bad guy's death - and the precocious little hero shows no remorse...
Likewise, when Anakin just happens to make the right moves to blow up
the space station in the final battle, wouldn't it have been far more
satisfying if R2D2 had been silently pulling the space fighter's strings all
along? And then the loyal droid lets Anakin disingenously take credit for
the kill...
I thought that Anakin's flaw seemed to be less of a mean streak than a tendency to ignore people who weren't exciting or talented enough for him. Witness how he abandons C3PO -- "Bye, 3PO, sorry I couldn't finish you..guess you'll have to be left half-built.." -- right after 3PO finishes thanking him for his existence at that! ("You are my creator..") I thought this was actually one of the few good points of the movie
* Darth Maul is obviously a pawn who's only genuine purpose is to take out
Qui Gon. Instead of simply having Obi Wan dispatch Darth Maul in the
end, Lucas could have deepened his plot by having Palpatine/Darth Sidious
double-cross him. Here's the rationale: Palpatine forsees Anakin's destiny
to become his apprentice and intuits Obi Wan's future role as Anakin's
first mentor in the ways of the force. Palpatine intervenes at the critical
moment as Darth Maul is about to nail Obi Wan, distracting the arrogant
Sithling with his Phantom Projection Power, giving Obi Wan an opening
to slice the bastard in half. George, if you need help, I'm available...
That's pretty good, but I have an even better suggestion: you remember that silly red time-lock thing? My first thought upon seeing it was that Qui Gon had driven Darth Maul into some sort of trap -- a stasis field or a radiation cooker or something -- and followed him to make sure it took. (thus the medatative pose, he was guarding the exit) I personally think this would have been much more Jedi-like, as well as an original plot twist relative to the other movies (the way it happened was, as this article points out, rather repetitive -- I like parallelisms but this wasn't the time for it)
Another suggestion -- if Lucas ever does a remake he should double the length. At least. The article scoffs at the idea of a sci-fi movie based on tariffs and politics, but I think this could have been an excellent way to do things. My biggest complaint, in fact, is that the Senate scenes and the other expansion of the backstory are too limited. (in fact, the whole movie feels rushed, but this is the worst offender) One of the best points of the first Star Wars movies was that there was always a well-developed backstory lurking behind the scenes, even if you only got to see bits and pieces of it ("The Emperor has dissolved the Senate...") Start the movie with the negotiations between the Federation and the Naboo, the opening of deliberations in the Senate, and the decision to send two Jedi to mediate the conflict.
Besides that, the usual suspects -- cut the silly accidental victories, trim Jar Jar, add some actual character development (and plot development but I just spent a paragraph talking about that
Daniel [still grumpy about Lucas' screwing up of a potentially great story]
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I'll start by saying I liked the phantom menace. While several points in Brin's articles are well taken, the tone of his article seemed to suggest some sort of hidden agenda of his own. Everything is a cliche, if Brin wants something truly original he should stick to reading ancient literature by the greeks, romans, and even perhaps the bible (hell there is almost every plot conception in there somewhere). While I agree star wars did reuse more material than most other movies -- it wasn't as blasphemous as depicted by Brin.
I like the basic Aristotle/Phonetics style of plot conception in star wars. These types of stories are/can be exciting and interesting. Brin suggests that these types of stories are evil because they rely on ideas he disagrees with. He goes on to suggest (agree with others) that the foundation of popular culture does alter our opinions. I think he should do a web survey and find out how many people woh have seen star wars agree with Adolf Hitler's actions (he appears to be somewhat obsessed with him -- perhaps someone should refer him to Godwin's law). He essintially is saying Aristotle Phoenitc type plots are bad because they reinforce old ideas. Maybe they do for him -- but for me they convey basic human emotions and actions on a grander level. In star wars, Anakin becomes disillusioned -- which leads to him turning aray -- however his love for his son brings him back. Hell, I'm sure many people go through this on their own level -- one oculd even say some teenagers go through this same cycle. Lucas portrays this moral through a grand and flashy movie instead of a really borring one based completely on reality.
He then complains that Lucas doesn't base any of the concepts in his movies on his pride and joy -- democracy. If I recall correctly, the queen distinctly said "I was not ELECTED" -- that suggests democracy to me. Lucas also depicts the reality of democracy not the fairy tale Brin wants it to be. So what! His illogicities about the senate and the naboo are completely unfounded -- UN!. Most of his illogicities are unfounded.
Reguarding Yoda's quote, "I thought it was fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side". A continous quote implies to me that anger DERIVED from fear leads to the dark side. Not anger by itself which is what apparently Brin thinks. This is demonstrated many times in star wars. In TPM, the apprentice is angry -- his anger isn't derived from fear -- but for the loss of his master, therfore there is no illogicity in him defeating the sith. In Return of the Jedi, when Luke faces the emperor -- his anger is derived from fear (for the loss of rebellion) -- he gets wrecked.
As for Yoda's neglect of Anakin in TPM -- that would suggest that the counsil doesn't take the metachlorian shit seriously. I thought the virgin birth was a nice contrast -- I even saw it as an allusion to relgion/atheism.
Anyway, I could keep going, but I'll stop here. It appears to me Brin has some personal grudge against Lucas -- perhaps jealousy?
...or did "Krazy Kracker" and "Mister Long" look like something from the porn shop? God I need a girlfriend...
("probability argument" for religion)
This is essentially Pascal's wager, which is a very poor reason to believe. There's more than one god to choose from--the choice isn't just "to believe in god" or "not to believe in god". If JVHV is god, but you "picked" Allah, you go to hell. OTOH, if Allah is god, but you "picked" JHVH, you at least get judged on whether you were generally a good person. If the ancient Greeks were right, then you just go to Hades no matter what you believe. This modified pascal's wager then says to pick the god for which the worst punishment exists for disbelief. Give your life to Cthullu!
But what sort of faith is faith founded on a pseudomathematical probabilistic argument? "Well, God, I didn't accept your son as my savior, but I tried to believe in you because probability theory suggested it was the best way to cut my losses..."
I see Anakin sabotaging the bad guy's pod not out of maliciousness, but frustration at his own childishness. What if he's portrayed as lashing out indescriminately at the brute hunk of machinery, realizing he's somehow done serious damage, then peering about hoping no one's seen his cowardly act?
The type of foreshadowing I would have liked to have seen is Anakin rewarded for youthful victories that came too easy, nascent Jedi powers that were not so awesome as they seemed. This would have set the stage for his descent into the dark side, not because of an insidious evil streak, but because he was too simply weak to resist.
But it would suck as a movie if it was all done in a made-up language with subtitles wouldn't it? ;-)
After I first saw the movie, I was of the opinion that they really should have built the Maul character more with some dialogue, but the more I think about it, I realize that had they done so, it would ruin the awe and mystery surrounding him. Just look at his facial expressions and actions during that whole scene. It tells you more than dialogue ever could. There's no need to tell his side of the story. The Dark Side in general doesn't need an explanation. The dark side The dark side is comprised of everything that is inherently evil within us. Not only do I think that there need not be an explanation -- I don't think there -can- be an explanation as to what motivates the dark side. What causes a young boy who has never been taught selfishness to be selfish? What causes a person who seems to have everything and has a perfectly normal upbringing to cheat, lie, steal, just to have more? Who knows... but it happens. And it happens all the time. Mystery is much more intriguing and endearing to us as humans. And of course we always want to know the answer, but sometimes we get it and it loses its magic; and we wish we never would have found out. Case in point: The Force... I'm sure just about everyone was bummed when they were told that it had to do with midiclorians (or whatever it is called). Of course, I have a feeling that will be disproved, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.
I think the point that I am trying to make is obvious. Just look at darth maul in that scene. Do you -really- want to know why he's upset? Does there seriously have to be an explanation? Personally, that would ruin the whole damn thing for me. I love the raw emotion that is pouring out from his body language in that scene and would want it no other way.
Actually, one may make the case that being a Jedi could be an accident of birth; I mean, if someone had the Force strongly in them (apparently this is at least genetic to some extent), who wouldn't choose to become a Jedi if the recruiter showed up? Especially since they apparently recruited very small children in Lucas's framework.
I was trying to remember if they ever meet (c-3po and vader). The only time they get close is on Cloud City. But c-3po is conviently blown up before the confontation with vader. After that he is carried on the back of Chewie and it is doubtful that vader would recognize him. Especially since 3po was not even finished when Anakin left him. Also, I would guess that 3po's voice would be a standard protocol droid voice.
From what I understand of the communications technology in the SW universe, starships are pretty much in a communications black-out while they travel in hyperspace, UNLESS they are lareg enough to carry the equipment and generators for a transmitter/reciever for the Imperial Holonet (I assume it would have had a slightly different name pre-empire, but you get the gist.) Therefore, they HAVE to drop out of hyperspace to send the message at all.
Of course he plotted most of this story out. I can remember back in the first days of star wars reading that Lucas had 9 stories laid out. The first six were prototyped and the last 3 were in his mind. (He later abandoned the last 3).
Star Wars was the best stand alone story. So he did that one. The rest are useless without the whole.
Everybody comments on how great "Empire" i s, but did you see it in the theater when it first same out? The ending leaves you hanging to 3 years!
At the time many people hated that! Now it does not matter, of course.
There are many things in TPM that people think Lucas pulled out of his ass. I am sure most of them will be important when viewed in the whole series.
Palpatine is the Darth Sidious.
First, in either case it was a win win situation.
Second, he despised the Jedi (as darth) and counsil (as polititian)
Third, he got to stay close to Anakin
Fourth: anakin will have children with the princess, she will be captured by palpatine and killed. but before that she will give her kids to Obi. Ofcourse Palpatine will tell Anakin that it was Obi who killed wife and stole children.
Fifth: as Anakin's hatred grows tottaly turns into the dark site
Sixth: Luke grows up and you know the rest..
You're not an extra...unless you wear a red shirt.
Vader died before he could be tried. His son chose to honor him for what good remained in him, but I don't think anybody would have tried to let Vader off the hook for his crimes.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Grand Moff Tarkin ordered the destruction of Alderaan--Lucas may have intentionally crafted this plot element to allow for the redemption of Vader...
Tarkin was Vader's lap dog.
http://www.bullnet.com
Evidence: ... will anyone please explain why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important -- any hint at all? Hello?"
"Uh
The TF blockade *WAS* the "Phantom Menace." To the people on the planet, it was a big deal. To everyone else, it didn't matter.. it was no "menace" at all. Or was it?
This little out-of-the-way blockade got the princess to call for the vote of No Confidence which started the ball rolling for the shit to hit the fan. Sure, they resolved the problem, but they also created a bigger one.
-Chris
...in "Jedi" that Anakin Skywalker was dead. This was during a scene on Endor shortly after Luke turned himself over to the Empire. This is figurative, not literal. Think about it for a minute.
I find it sort of humourous that most of the universe is dominated by humans, and almost all other species live in small pockets throughout the galaxy. Think about it--there is only one
- Yoda (whatever species he is).
- wookie.
- of those creatures who owned Anakin and his mom
- Greedo
- I would add Jaba the Hut, but we actually see a mini Jaba in Epi. 1.
- a lot of other one-timers.
Don't they need company? We don't even see any others of their species anywhere. Immigrants usually travel in groups, don't they? Star Trek is a little better, in this respect.
Also, I find it curious that English seems to be the universal language, despite the presense of many other races.
A few things I haven't noticed ANY sci fi shows address is that all the planets seem to have the same g-force as earth; all the atmospheres seem generally the same (comfortable enough for humans anyway to not get physiologically disturbed at it).
That's all for now.
<tim><
From what I've heard from a friend who read Lucas' treatment of the story, Naboo is important. Supposedly it is the only place in the whole galaxy that has cloning technology. (Hence the queen tulpa thing.) Lucas neglected to mention this to his audience. I can only imagine because he thought it would be a bigger revelation that way. If that is indeed the case I think it just goes to show he's a crap story teller. Imagine if Agatha Christie never introduced the murderer in her book. Wouldn't you feel cheated?
Kragen
..was not to reestablish a monarchy or dictatorship or totalatarian authority, it was to reinstate the democratic ideals of the Old Republic with the Senate and so on. Order was kept by good judgement on part of the Senate, and by the Jedi Knights who were advisors and protectors, not rulers or gods whom the people worshiped. In fact, the whole taxation thing sounds a bit like the American Revolution, vaguely.
And what is all this Hitler stuff? Reality is far more horrifying than anything Lucas can come up with. To equate a movie with the reality of what happened during WWII is not only silly, but irreverant.
I think it all boils down to one thing: it's a movie. Enjoy it or don't enjoy it, but it is crazy to think Lucas is preparing a generation of children for a revolt against democracy.
how do you think the empire knows the rebels have
the plans?
they intercept communications and found out. it
would have been ridiculous to send important stuff
over e-mail or fax cause that's just too insecure
even with a megabit pgp key.
The jews chose to be jews too.. you arent born jewish. As for alderaan, it was destroyed because it was leia's homeworld and she was (and i'm going off the movies here because i've never read, and dont plan to read, any of the books) apparently either the leader or one of the members of the leading council of the rebellion. The empire (as led by vader and palpatine) was very like nazi germany in that they didnt hate a race or group of people.. they hated everybody that wasnt them. But wait, you say, what about the holocaust? It's the same as palpatine and vader's quest against the jedi. They lead a military organization dedicated to ruling everything and killing anyone who says they cant.. but at the same time they use that organization to take out their personal vendetta against the jedi.. just like hitler's personal vendetta against judaism.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
Ah, the old 'lets strike out at the messenger'.. when we disagree with someone's views we obviously have to come up with a reason that they're wrong. Brin stated that all of it was his own opinions and that he did, in fact, like the movie.. but had problems with some of it. So we cant say he's just an idiot and didnt understand it. He's an accomplished writer so we cant say that he doesnt understand the creative process that goes into making an epic. His views were well thought out and explained so we cant just say he's just trying to be contrary.. so all that leaves is "Well he was just wrong" which isnt a very strong argument.. so since he is in some vauge way in the same league with lucas we can say "Well it's because he's jealous." afterall, none of US are jealous of lucas' billions are we? Nah.. couldnt happen..
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
(I am "probability argument" writer)
I have not heard of Pascal's wager, but this was indeed a dilema. However, as it turns out my being Christian turned out to be a holy spirit thing and not a logical decision making process. However, I do have affirmation difficulties I occasionally struggle with, and it is to this issue I apply the pseudomathematical probabilistic argument.
Dave Brin wrote an article on Salon EXACTLY of the flavor that you folks always bitch that JonKatz does. He takes his time. He dissembles. He refers to 'other sources'.
He WRITES!!!
This is exactly what katz does. Rather well, IMHO.
Katz does NOT deserve the shit he gets here. He's trying, and, dammit, TRYING COUNTS!!
If you shitheads continue to attack guys like katz, I'll have to disseminate bullshit about your skills. Personally. You know who you are.
So do I.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Brin got me to thinking. Nowhere has it been said that the Jedi get everything right. I think everything is going to fall apart because of Yoda. After his handling in this film, I think he's a lot less special than he appeared to be in The Empire Strikes Back. Yodas arrogance and hubris will ultimately bring the Jedi down. Brin pointed out how he's been wrong a few times, and his stubbornness will end everything for the Jedi.
-awc
From the first article:
... Adolf did save the life of his own son!"
To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler's defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence:
"But, your honors
Gasp! The prosecutors blanch in chagrin. "We didn't know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!"
This hypothetical judicial redemption of Hitler is not really comparable to the type of redemption that Vader receives. Vader is not and would not be forgiven by a judicial system and neither would Hitler, because they both die before something like this could happen. The real question is: If Hitler/Vader had saved his own son and really felt remorse for what he had done, would he be forgiven by whatever supernatural power (The Force, Christian God) and live in eternal bliss ( heaven)?
Lucas would say yes. And this seems to be the ultimate point of both trilogies. Star Wars is a pseudo-Christian epic. No matter what you do in life, you can and will be forgiven as long as if, in that dying moment realize the "sin" you have done.
In the movie, Vader's "sin" is quite universal. (Almost) nobody thinks it's a good thing to go around killing millions of people. But Lucas's movie also has the standard Christian trap: Everyone is bad. Everyone has evil in them. The only way to get rid of this evil is to follow some weirdo set of rules set by some weirdo (Jesus, Yoda) and we'll let you off the hook about this evil thing.
This is a good trick for a religion, but most hip, educated people nowdays don't buy it, like this article's author, and are distrubed by the fact that someone who does incredibly bad things can be forgiven in a flash. But the point is, this is not an illogical point in Lucas's plot, it's something much deeper in America's Christian heritage. You don't have to like it, but it's certainly not something exclusive to Lucas.
...but even there i thought that he did a good job in avoiding going over the top, mostly because he didn't make direct comparisons to people who glorified Hitler. Instead what he did was to put Lucas into the category of storytellers who have written stories which can be used to support the rule of kings and tyrants for at least several millenia. Its a broad category and I think he makes a good argument that Lucas can fit within it. To make his argument he used the example of Hitler and Nazi's to draw a very clear picture. Vader is supposed to be Evil and the comparison to Hitler seems entirely appropriate. You can then ask how we would react if Lucas treated the subject of Hitler similarly to the way that he treats Vader. Its just an argumentative device for drawing very clear lines.
In my view it doesn't violate Godwin's law because he didn't compare Lucas himself to Hitler or to Nazis. It's just a way to essentially ask, "look if you treat evil in this way in one situation, why is that different from the way that you treat evil in this situation? how do you resolve the apparent hypocracy here?"
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Heinlein as an author was full of interesting dichotomies. On the one hand, he was contemptious of the "unwashed masses." On the other hand, he was very strongly of the opinion that individuals make all of the difference (indeed many of his writings are unashamedly promoting of libertarian / anarchist ideals). He was at times unbelievably optomistic about the future, and at other times terribly pessemistic.
Like most of us, his views are probably more complex than anyone can reasonably summarize, and full of contradictions. Although I strongly agree with most of what David Brin wrote in his essay about the Star Wars debacle (and I am a fan of much of his other work), I think there is a very real danger of reading too much into a person from the fiction that they wrote.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I seem to have a far different outlook on TPM than most of those I've heard critique the film. Incidentally, my outlook also made me enjoy the film quite a bit--this at least is a nice side effect, even if I am off my rocker. I think that this is a film whose entertainment level is aimed at kids, maybe around 10 years old. However, the story, its place in the Star Wars myth, is relevant to everyone. I managed to enjoy the story immensely, and at least smile at most of the entertainment (some parts seemed lame, of course).
;-)
David Brin's article got my ire up, and I wrote the following letter to explain my arguments about why he missed the boat with TPM. I admit I pushed my slender knowledge of Joseph Cambel and George Lucas a bit with this letter, but I don't think I went too far.
Maybe this should have been submitted as an editorial, but I don't feel like I put enough time into its construction for that.
------------------------------------
Hello,
I just finished your article on what's wrong (and right) about the new Star Wars film, TPM. I'd like to say, for the record, that I have _never_ dressed up as a Star Wars character--I hope this lends to my credibility.
I was a bit distressed by your cavalier review of the film. It seems you do have some aquaintance with the works of Joseph Cambell, whom George Lucas has himself admitted had a large effect on himself and these films. However, I believe you have missed one of the most important aspects of myth: cliche is _important_ and _necessary_.
I address my differences of opinion about the cliches below. The cliches mentioned in your article that don't appear below are those with which I'm in agreement.
The virgin mother myth has been perpetrated in many myths, not just the Christian myths. And of course this lends to the 'Choosen one', though I think this cliche could be avoided to the benefit of us regular Joes who just try to be good without the benefit of favorable prophecies. The fact that Anakin's mother is a virgin seems strange because of our culture's Christian fanaticism. It still has a place in new stories. On the other hand, I really hope Lucas doesn't go too far explaining the midichlorians or their ability to fertalize. I think we would agree that mysteries are an important parts of many myths.
As far as good machines needing to be hammered on, I find this to be true in every-day life. If it works right the first time, I don't trust it. That means all it's bugs will show up at the most inconvenient time possible. This is purely a style difference between us, I think.
The fact that Obi Wan is separated from his master is very important, and hardly cliche. Here, Obi Wan is forcefully separated from his master. I think it is easy to conceive that Obi Wans victory over Darth Maul is strongly influenced by having seen Darth Maul defeat his master. And had this not happened, forcefully in this case, where would Obi Wan get the idea to _freely_ give up his life to Vader while knowing that Luke was watching? And do you recall Obi Wan's words to Vader at this point? Paraphrasing since I don't know exactly, "If you kill me now, Vader, I will become more powerful than you can imagine". I think it fits together well, and that this seen is essential. What I can never figure out is why every building in the galaxy has a nearly bottomless pit inside, with no cover on it--it lends to drama, though.
I have other disagreements with your article, those these are far less important than those above. I think all of the Star Wars films allow meaningful interpretation, sometimes deep interpretation. I am not an authority on Joseph Cambell's works or those of George Lucas. But I think that your published critique almost completely ignores the structure and purpose of myth, which seems the most appropriate catagory for the Star Wars films. For The Phantom Menace, I think many of Lucas' decisions could be attributed to making the film more appealing for children (in fact, I think he might have gone too far in a few places). This seems more reasonable when you consider the Cambell's statments about how our current lack of mythology affects the younger generations (who of course become adults in peculiarly violent and often close-minded American society). If George Lucas can get kids to start at The Phantom Menace with a keen interest, then maybe they will appreciate the entire Star Wars series as a whole when they are adults--something which would lend greatly to recognizing the social values espoused by all mythologies, including Star Wars.
-Paul Komarek
Particularly this paragraph:
So what do we see in this movie? Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn) gets separated from his nemesis, Darth Maul, by a force field. The adversaries pause and glare at each other before resuming the fight. What a great time for Maul to give his side of the story -- his seething need for revenge against the Jedi! Maybe some riveting mumbledy-jumble about the Jedi having crushed and suppressed one whole side of the Force for a thousand years, thus creating awful imbalance in the universe!
Although I was quite surprised that he didn't include Heinlein in the list (with A.E. Van Vogt, E.E. Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard) of authors whose "abiding contempt for the masses" he finds so "odious".
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I remember reading a star wars book that begins right after the battle of endor. it is revealed that solo comes from a line of displaced corellian kings. he is actually aristocratic but his family had some sort of falling out and his father became a smuggler.
Lucas would have never allowed his beloved elitist Leia Organa of Alderaan to love some lowly smuggler.
think the book is called "The Marriage of Princess Leia"
I do agree that we shouldn't stretch things to fit the Nazi comparison though.
I'm confused what you think is stretching. Hitler committed genocide. Darth Vader committed genocide (twice, once against the Jedi and once against the inhabitants of Alderaan).
Why isn't Hitler then a valid comparison to make?
Actually it's called "The Courtship of Princess Leia."
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I disagree on some of Brin's analysis, but I do think he has several points:
1) There are some serious logic/plot holes in the story.
2) Some of these are due to an elitist/uberman viewpoint in the story.
3) There are distinct differences between the first three films and TPM.
4) I don't care if Darth Vader saved his son, I'd still hang him high if he got to trial for war crimes. Redemption is nice, but there are some people you don't take chances with.
It seems Star Wars has degenerated (or always had traits of) a power trip story. Brin's question, which universe would I live in is simple - the Federation. There I'm not an extra.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu