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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 28, 2015 13:59:53 GMT -5
Not snarky at all. - Why does the trade federation have a full fledged military? Presumably to protect its financial interests and its trade routes. As noted above, the Trade Federation was the biggest and most powerful of all the various trading bodies in the galaxy and, as previously stated, they even had their own representative in the Senate. So having a miltary, in this case a droid army, isn't such a stretch. Not that I really want to defend the Prequels, which I think are pretty universally awful, but it's not remotely unheard of for a "trade federation" to have a private army. The best example would be the East India Company, which reached its height in the mid 1800s with over 250,000 troops, and was one of the largest armies in the world at that point. |
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Post by coke & comics on Dec 28, 2015 18:05:52 GMT -5
If calculus has taught us anything... It hasn't. |
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Post by spoon on Dec 28, 2015 19:57:39 GMT -5
No, he's really copying George. Nothing in Campbell about Death Stars or droids with holographic messages which need to get to the resistance. My point was George was copying someone else, so saying Force Awakens was just a pale copy while Star wars itself was original is disingenuous. -common man/woman who doesn't know he is a hero with mysterious origins -old wizened experience mentor appears and the hero's journey begins, mentor then dies -a journey/quest mulligan to recover or destroy -common man/woman steps up against a superior foe and finds a way to win becoming the hero as the journey and conflict reveal their identity as such -hero's journey concludes to acclaim of his people that's the hero's journey from Campbell, it's the beat by beat plot for Star Wars, it's the beat by beat plot to Force Awakens...as much as I love the original Star Wars, it's innovation was not in terms of plot or story, and neither was Force Awakens. Take that plot, add in some Flash Gordon sci-fi elements, some WWII dogfight footage and recreate it with spaceship models and sfx and you have Star Wars (and Force Awakens), change the sci-fi elements to something else and you have the skeleton for just about every major fantasy story (Tolkien used Middle Earth as the trappings to tell the same story for instance), sci-fi story, heroic myth, etc. It's not the plot that matters in these types of hero's journey stories, they're always the same with a different coat of paint, it't the execution, the characters, and the connection with the audience who is hardwired to receive this timeless story. Star Wars wasn't great because Lucas was a great plotter (in fact, the prequels, which depart form that mythic archetype much more and depend on Lucas' plotting, are far inferior stories, as was the original pass of the Star Wars as adapted by Dark Horse recently before he went back and revised implementing more of the Campbellian archetypes to restructure a lot of it). Lucas innovation was as a film technician, in finding ways to execute the old story in new visual ways, not in breaking new ground with the story itself To expect the movies within the framework of Lucas' trappings for telling that same old story to innovate plotwise is somewhat of an unrealistic expectation. Star Wars is not about innovative plots. Never has been. Never really will be. It's about retelling that same grand story well and in new ways, but new ways within the limitations of what Lucas established with the trappings. Force Awakens was no more or less innovative in its plotting than Star Wars itself was. If you take Lucas off the pedestal he often gets placed on for storytelling, and look what he actually did, you see story was not where his strengths and innovative ability lay, he was a great moviemaker to be certain, and in so doing told the story fairly well, but the story itself was nothing new, it was, if not the oldest story in the world, certainly one of the oldest stories in the world. And Force Awakens retold that story too. If your expectations are for something to be what it is not in its nature to be, and never had been, and you are then disappointed it is not what it isn't in its nature to be, then the problem is with the expectations, not with the thing itself. And many, many many of the criticisms I have heard are just that, it wasn't what I thought/expected it to be. And if that's how someone feels, cool, but the people who weren't expecting it to be something it wasn't, seem overall, to be quite pleased with the movie and enjoyed it fairly well. -M I think it's terribly unfair to call people who say The Force Awakens copied too much from past Star Wars films "disingenuous". To accuse someone of being disingenuous is to accuse them of being intentionally dishonest. Not all copying/homage/imitation is alike. There are wide variation in specificity, degree, number, etc. For example, an archetype is by its very nature a general concept that can be expressed in a wide variety of ways in fiction. Adapting general concepts is qualitatively distinct was copying the specific expressions of those concepts. That's basically a huge point in whether a work infringes on intellectual property. You may not feel the same way, but I think it's been amply demonstrated by posters in this thread, that The Force Awakens copied many specific elements, not just general ideas. Furthermore, a lot of creativity can result in copying old things in new, unprecedented ways. There's a big difference between combining elements from such disparate sources as Joseph Campbell (or actually, the myths he analyzed), Akiro Kurosawa, Buck Rogers serials, WWII dogfights, Lawrence of Arabia, etc. and the more confined copying of mostly lifting elements from the first three Star Wars films. And again, a lot of those elements that from the original Star Wars were greatly transformed from their original source. I actually don't find C3P0 and R2D2 to be very similar to the comedic duo from The Hidden Fortress who inspired them. The droids are a lot more entertaining. It's not like a Star Wars film requires such massive copying. Part of the greatness of The Empire Strikes Back is that it evolves from A New Hope, but is so, so different from it. I liked that A Force Awakens felt like it existed in the same world as the original trilogy. I liked the acting of the new characters. It would've been better served by not repeating so many plot elements and character dynamics from the original trilogy. I disagree that criticisms are largely rooted in people expecting this movie to be something that a Star Wars movie, by its very nature, isn't. For me, the opposite was true. I expect a Star Wars movie to be escapist and immersive. The specific and numerous replication of elements from the original trilogy made The Force Awakens seem like some sort of metafictional commentary or analysis rather than an immersive fantasy. I love the part of A New Hope when Luke turns off his targeting computer. The reason that moment works is because, no matter how many times I see it, I can't help but live the moment. The music, the editing, the scenes immediately before and after, and the acting work to immerse a viewer in the moment. If it's not immersive, it would fall apart for putting superstition ahead of science. The Force Awakens took me out of the magic sometimes, because it beat me over the head that it was an authored work. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2016 11:51:42 GMT -5
Does anyone else think Rey is Rey Kenobi?
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Post by Pharozonk on Jan 1, 2016 11:58:57 GMT -5
Does anyone else think Rey is Rey Kenobi? I always assumed Obi Wan followed the Jedi vow of celibacy pretty strictly. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 1, 2016 14:39:11 GMT -5
Does anyone else think Rey is Rey Kenobi? I think she's Rey Skywalker (considering how tightly they stuck to the original story), but that would be pretty interesting. We just better get a good comic story about her mom if they go that route  |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Jan 2, 2016 0:33:34 GMT -5
Does anyone else think Rey is Rey Kenobi? I always assumed Obi Wan followed the Jedi vow of celibacy pretty strictly. Not that it really matters anymore but George Lucas has gone on record saying that while Jedi were forbidden from getting married or falling in love they were permitted to have casual sex. |
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Post by batlaw on Jan 2, 2016 1:20:22 GMT -5
As everything stands, I wouldn't want or believe she's ben's offspring. It would feel too deliberate... as if simply don't to avoid her being Luke's daughter for some reason. Perhaps because they figure that's too obvious? And having her related to anyone less connected to the main / known cast would be a bit of a disappointment to many fans I think? As well as possibly a disservice to story?
At any rate, wouldn't Rey need to be at least ten years older in order to be Ben's daughter? and wouldn't she' be too old to be Han and leia's? Unless she had Rey with someone else.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2016 13:14:10 GMT -5
I'm thinking Obi-Wan's grand-daughter....
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Post by stromseye on Jan 5, 2016 8:52:43 GMT -5
What if she's from another great lineage that we haven't heard of yet?
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jan 5, 2016 9:12:22 GMT -5
What if she's from another great lineage that we haven't heard of yet? LOL! I like your optimism. |
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 5, 2016 10:09:28 GMT -5
What if she's from another great lineage that we haven't heard of yet? I'd prefer that. (But if she's a Skywalker or a Kenobi or a Palpatine or whatever, then at least Poe and Finn are still characters with no direct ties to previous characters.) |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jan 5, 2016 10:22:52 GMT -5
Does Poe have significantly more screen presence than Lando in ESB? I rhetoricly ask, since I fail to see how he is a major new character in this new movie. Finn obviously is, whatever you think of him. But as much as Poe might turn to be in future chapters, all he did in this movie was what he was supposed to be, no character developement or personnal questioning, he just serves the purpose of allowing the story to introduce Finn as the main protagonist, he's no Luke, Han or Leia, not even a Lando who within a movie appeared to be one thing and decided to be something else to his friends, without really either turning to the dark side...
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 5, 2016 13:04:42 GMT -5
I'd say he was about as important as Lando, yes. I suspect he'll have a bigger role in the next one, but I guess we'll see.
Also, I didn't make this connection, but apparently the Greg Rucka prequel comic is about Poe's parents... I think I read it too far before seeing the movie to realize it.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jan 5, 2016 14:38:20 GMT -5
I'd say he was about as important as Lando, yes. I suspect he'll have a bigger role in the next one, but I guess we'll see. That may be so, but until then he only had 4 real scenes in the movie : 1 - the most important one : The failed resistance and capture, only managing to send the holo-USB stick. We learn he is chivalerous and spontaneous 2 - The Escape - mostly about Finn. Still spontaneous, but also friendly. 3 - The Reunion - still spontaneous, but nothing has changed about him, nothing new happened appart from the fact that he wasn't dead. The fact that Finn learns Poe isn't dead doesn't really make the story move forward as nothing has really happened to Poe that we hear or see anything about, it's just a way to artificilaly emotionaly connect an already familiar face in the upcoming battle so we are not totally un-invested in it. 4 - The Battle - still spontaneous, but had it been anyone else in the cockpit, I don't feel it would have made any difference. Poe is doesn't serve any other purpose in this then dramatic continuity, but he doesn't do or say anyting that is specific of him. If I'm not forgetting any other scene where the focus is on him throughout over two hours of film, we learn nothing new about him after his first scene, and no aspect of is personality moves the story in one direction or another beyond the inaugural scene of the movie. |
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