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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:31 PM
Original message
Why Star Wars is as worthy as... dog snot.
Edited on Wed Mar-15-06 06:31 PM by HypnoToad
Because none of the 6 movies goes into detail, showing how "the many faces of neutrality" have to live UNDER the Empire.

We have the rebels and the empire. But we see nothing of those who live within it. How come we don't get to hear what they have to say?

Or is Lucas incapable of intellectualism?
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tigereye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:34 PM
Response to Original message
1. you have to read all the comics for subtext, no?
Edited on Wed Mar-15-06 06:35 PM by tigereye
doesn't he have endless backstory about this stuff?

He may be incapable of intellectual dialogue, though. ;)
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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:36 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Dunno. I rarely dabble into merchandising...
I do recall he made a dumb holiday special in 1978 and made a cartoon and later a live-action show about those wretched ewoks...
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LeftyMom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:36 PM
Response to Original message
3. It's rather atypical for common people to get screentime in epics.
Edited on Wed Mar-15-06 06:36 PM by LeftyMom
Star Wars was created to draw on themes from other epic tales rather than creating something new.

Drawing on fewer elite characters and more everyday people is a relatively new thing in sci-fi and fantasy lit and still largely unheard of in sci-fi and fantasy films.
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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:45 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. It was done in "Blake's 7" (1978-1981)...
:D

Not always, but they did in a fair amount of episodes... and in some cases, just scenes - but moreso than anything of the time and still largely unheard of now. :D

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tigereye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:55 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Blake's 7 was amazing
Edited on Wed Mar-15-06 06:55 PM by tigereye
lots of political diatribes and revolutionary ranting. What a great smart show that was. You seem to be the only other person here besides me who liked that show.
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AllegroRondo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-16-06 12:16 PM
Response to Reply #5
24. I loved that show
do you know if they show any re-runs on cable?
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Crazy Dave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:36 PM
Response to Original message
4. I scored for my first time the night I saw the first Star Wars
I was 14 she was 16 :woohoo:
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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:45 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. And like the movie, I'm sure you went out with a bang and ceremony too!
:rofl:

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Crazy Dave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:51 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. Actually I think my movie ended before it even started
:cry:
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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 07:08 PM
Response to Reply #4
12. "scored" ???
Sorry, it just sickens me when people (esp. men) refer to sex this way... Not personal, just find it generally annoying.
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Crazy Dave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 08:50 PM
Response to Reply #12
16. Share with us then the p.c. term for one-night-stand, first date....
Edited on Wed Mar-15-06 09:13 PM by DaveTheWave
...no love, just sex, nothing else type stuff/sex is then. Back then at that age I don't think it even qualified or counted for anything but please enlighten the rest of us with what you'd have called it.

"Sorry, it just sickens me"

Little comments like that huh? For me it's things like racial and bigoted terms, not silly little slangs but I guess we all are entitled to our own opinions and priorities.
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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. um, that was a little...
bit of an overreaction. I find the devaluation of sexual intimacy in our culture disgusting. I believe that language such as "scored" but certainly not limited to this term only serves to continue the descent.

I wasn't trying to attack, just sharing one person's view of what could be considered offensive language.
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Crazy Dave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-16-06 12:15 PM
Response to Reply #18
23. "bit of an overreaction"
Edited on Thu Mar-16-06 12:16 PM by DaveTheWave
I guess. I know the whole world is out there waiting to get offended. That's why people call for boycotts and new laws all the time as something someone else likes or says in the form of free speech or expression "offends" them. I could see if it was a deliberate derogatory term. I get more offended if a man calls all women bitches or cunts more than hearing the same man say he likes to score with women.
Like I said, different people have different buttons waiting to be pushed but some have a whole lot more buttons than others.
:)
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Catchawave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 06:59 PM
Response to Original message
9.  Hyp m'sweetie.....TA-dah :)
I.get.Star.Wars.....and it's a nice *feelgoody* place to be :hi: (Not to mention, I'm a vintage collector, but only in played with or battle condition) <---I'm just a guilty mom who sold all her son's entire Star Wars toys/books/posters he collected from the first trilogy at a GARAGE SALE while he was away at college.

A simple story by a kid with a storytelling gift and perserverance (Lucas)...that alone is a wonderful story!

By the way, I'm a "raging granny" now, and here's my favorite SW character :)



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Ivan Sputnik Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 07:00 PM
Response to Original message
10. You should see
the Star Wars Holiday (TV) Special if you want to know how "ordinary" Wookies (Chewbacca's relatives) live under the Empire. But, uh, you may not want to know....
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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 07:02 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. I've read about it and have no inkling to see Bea Arthur or Jefferson
Starship look dumb in front of a camera!
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nytemare Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 08:23 PM
Response to Original message
13. But....but....the Empire wasn't really until the end of Episode III
And, really, up until then was all about the neutral folks, Anakin and Dooku, and kinda Qui Gon.

Just, in the end, Anakin wasn't so much neutral anymore.

I thought a lot of it ended up being clever. I admit, I wasn't impressed much with Episodes I and II, but III wrapped everything up pretty well. That is, aside from a little stupid dialogue in one scene in particular.

It was sort of funny to me that America has followed the path to war in a similar way to Star Wars, that Episode II was before the Iraq war.
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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 08:38 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. I'll be netflixing III...
even though what I have seen is cringe-inducing...
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nytemare Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 08:49 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. After I and II, I wasn't expecting too much.
As you say, there is one scene in particular that I could call cringe inducing.

Overall, though, I thought it was very cleverly done. Particularly bits about how Anakin may have come to be.

It is worth a look.
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Dukkha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 09:30 PM
Response to Original message
17. of course there was
the moisture farmers on Tattooine, The gas miners in Bespin, corellian smugglers, bounty hunters, gangsters, barkeeps, pod racers, slaves, All simple folks trying to make their way through the universe.
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Ravenseye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 10:36 PM
Response to Original message
19. OH you're just totally wrong
They do show many faces of neutrality.

Think Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru, The Jawas, The Sandpeople, The Walrus man wanted on 12 systems who gets his arm cut off, Han and Chewie before they signed up, The "Smugglers" mentioned in ESB, Lando Calrissian and Bespin, The Ughnauts, Boba Fett, Dengar, Bossk, IG-88, and the rest of the bounty hunters. Jabba and his gang, the Ewoks.

Plenty of faces of neutrality. Some helping the empire, some helping the rebels, some staying out of it entirely, some staying out of it until forced in...

It's amazingly complex.
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walldude Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 11:50 PM
Response to Original message
20. Well you are about as clueless as it gets on Star Wars aren't ya.
There are over 100 Star Wars books in print. The backstory is fleshed out to a degree unheard of in the realm of Sci-Fi. The movies are nothing, a drop in the bucket. You may see "nothing of those who live within it" but just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The world is fleshed out brilliantly by many writers. A quick example. In the films you see the emperor as "evil", a Sith who wants to rule the galaxy. While that is sort of true there was a reason the Emperor wanted to take control of the Republic, build an undefeatable army, and put it under the control of one man.
He had a vision. A vision of the future. He saw that something was coming. Something evil. Coming from beyond the known reaches of space. An invasion. An invasion by a race that uses only organic technology unlike anything the galaxy had ever seen. If the Republic wasn't prepared for it they would die a quick an painful death. And they almost did. If it weren't for Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker, Han and Leia Solo and their children Anakin, Jason and Jaina, the entire galaxy would have fallen and been enslaved by the Yuuzhan Vong. If you just wanted to rip on SW fine, but if you were serious about hearing what the rest of the galaxy had to say try the SW books written by Timothy Zahn, he is by far the best SW writer ever.If you don't like SW fine, it's not for everyone(hell I'm embarassed by how much I know about it, it's my guilty pleasure) but the statements in your post just show an ignorance of the world of SW...
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Floogeldy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-15-06 11:54 PM
Response to Original message
21. Good point.
I was never drawn in to the whole thing.

Oh, shit. You could be mocking people like me with this post.

Oh well. So be it.

The Alien Quadrilogy is so much, much, better. :)

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DerekG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-16-06 12:58 AM
Response to Original message
22. Star Wars is, above all else, a family chronicle
And really, the Skywalker unit is every bit as fractured as the Karamozovs.

Grandpa, who happens to be evil incarnate, uses Grandma as a brooding mare, through whom he attains his dream apprentice; later, he (presumably) arranges for her to be tormented and killed, providing the perfect impetus for his spawn's conversion.

Poppa, the utopian and romantic, fulfills his destiny as muscle-man for Grandpa's totalitarian regime, and inadvertently silences its chief critic, Momma, in the process.

Sonny, pure-hearted and muy whiny, breaks the family's favorite toy (as children are wont to do). Word gets around, and he becomes the prize to both Poppa and Grandpa, who are conspiring to kill one another. Despite the fact Poppa severed his hand (and tortured Sissie), Sonny sees good in him; as a consequence, Poppa chucks Grandpa down a shaft.


Except for Vader's absolution (too maudlin for my tastes), I'd say Lucas weaved a marvelously deranged narrative. The planet-destroying space stations, snappy droids, and John Williams operettas were just icing on the cake.

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