True Star wars fans hate star wars

[EvilElitest]

I just read this article here (http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3381)
and i have to say it is very interesting. Strangely enough, I, who doesn't consider himself a major star wars fan, am apparently a star wars fan

hmmmmmm, what do you think
from
EE

[Jayngfet]

he does realize that boba fett is alive right?

[EvilElitest]

he does realize that boba fett is alive right?
I think he was referring to his death in Ep 6
from
EE

[Amotis]

If he is then he's wrong. Fett survived that.

[perpetualnoise]

I think he was referring to his death in Ep 6
from
EE

Read past episode six and you'll find that even 40 years after the second Death Star is wrecked that he's alive and kicking... I'd tell you more but I don't want to be known for major spoilers.

[Mewtarthio]

You know, this reminds of this (http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030907.html).

[EvilElitest]

Read past episode six and you'll find that even 40 years after the second Death Star is wrecked that he's alive and kicking... I'd tell you more but I don't want to be known for major spoilers.
I know that but he was complaining about fet's death in ep 6 being bad
from
EE

[Rogue 7]

In my experience, it's true. They're an Unpleaseable Fanbase. If that's the case, I don't count myself among them, as I love the OT, enjoy the PT, and love many of the books and games.

[The_Snark]

Given that they probably went and changed Boba Fett's death after Return of the Jedi was made, when they realized how popular he was despite his total of maybe 2 lines and 1 fight scene... I don't think that derails his point at all.

Amusing. The really funny parts are the ones addressing opinions I, personally, have held/still hold. We love it despite itself, indeed.

[LurkerInPlayground]

I just read this article here (http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3381)
and i have to say it is very interesting. Strangely enough, I, who doesn't consider himself a major star wars fan, am apparently a star wars fan

hmmmmmm, what do you think
from
EE
effing hilarious

[LurkerInPlayground]

Read past episode six and you'll find that even 40 years after the second Death Star is wrecked that he's alive and kicking... I'd tell you more but I don't want to be known for major spoilers.
Yes, but a true Star Wars fan hates the novelist for bringing him back to life.

[EvilElitest]

effing hilarious

thank you Tv. Tropes
from
EE

[perpetualnoise]

Yes, but a true Star Wars fan hates the novelist for bringing him back to life.

To a degree, but I love what he does in legacy of the force series... poor Solos...

[Nibleswick]

It's kinda pathetic how accurate that article is in so many ways.

[Jerthanis]

I disagree about several of his points. I haven't met a single Star Wars fan willing to step up and say Kotor1 was bad (though, in spite of being superior in almost every way, there are plenty who will say Kotor2 is bad), and Lucasarts put out some of the best videogames of the era back when it was putting out the Star Wars games he claims are hated by "true" Star Wars fans. Does he seriously think TIE Fighter wasn't friggin' phenomenal for its time? Did he even PLAY the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games? They're all good, even if he implies that only JK2:Jedi Outcast was worthwhile, JK3 was still great gameplay, and some great level design, and while time hasn't been kind to Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight 1 (Manchester United 0), as someone who played it when it first came out, there weren't games as awesome as it for years before or after.

Other than the videogame aspect, yes, he has some points, and his conclusion is kind of nifty, but he doesn't place sufficient emphasis on it to make it seem like anything other than a rant wingeing about a bunch of surface level problems that only nerds even care about.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

I find myself partly agreeing with the article. See, I love the original trilogy. Still do. I do see the flaws he mentions, but I put them aside for the sheer joy of the films. I find them charming in their occasional campiness and stumbles, most of the time, and when it's not amusing I can easily get through it because I now something exciting is coming up soon. I loved the original trilogy most of all for its shameless sense of adventure. I couldn't help feeling that Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and the rest were in it as much for the sheer fun of it as they were to save the galaxy.

I love some of the novels, which captured the same sense of shameless adventure, and the bad ones I just ignore. I loved the concept of the New Jedi Order, though I found the execution haphazard (which I mostly attribute to poor editorial control). There are gems in there, though. I loved the microseries as well - it was cheesy in the right ways, in being overly earnest and maybe a bit naive, and not afraid to be over-the-top in the pursuit of creating excitement.

Some of the video games found this too. The TIE Fighter and X-Wing games were some of the great space sims, and worked hard to distill the epic and chaotic space battles of the original trilogy. The bad ones, again, I just ignore.

Some of the changes in the Special Editions, I actually liked. I can take or leave the CG - some of it is cool, but really, who cares? The things that I hated were when things were changed for no apparent reason. Like Han shooting first. That scene told you a lot about Han Solo, about the fact that he was not your ordinary hero. He was a good guy not afraid to play dirty tricks or sucker punch the bad guy if that's what it took - but at the same time you came to see that the only ones he'd actually go after in the first place were the truly bad guys. The best example of the scoundrel with a heart of gold. In that one scene, you learn as much about Han Solo as you do for the rest of the film. Making Greedo shoot first rips that away. It makes Han another "white knight" character, who gives the other guy the first punch. That's not the Han I grew up with. Not to mention the circumlocutions it takes to get Greedo to shoot first just make the scene look silly.

But, I just ignore the special editions.

What I hate, what I can't seem to ignore, are the prequels. It's not the CG. It's not the dialogue or the pacing (though I contend both are much worse than the original trilogy). It's not the slick CG. It's not even Jar Jar... okay, it is partly Jar Jar, but it's not just that he's annoying. It's that the prequels don't have that sense of adventure.

They trade wonder and magic for unneeded explanation. I don't care why Jedi can use the Force! I'm better off not knowing! Even if the midichlorians explanation wasn't dumb to begin with, there's no reason at any point in the plot for it to come up, except because someone wanted to explain it. It's unnecessary; even if it had been a cool explanation, it should still have been cut. That it's a bad explanation just exacerbates the problem.

The plot compares poorly as well. In the original trilogy, there was a sense that we were seeing a major even, the Galatic Civil War, through the eyes of a few major players. Their personal stories gave the bigger conflict humanity, and gave us a great window into it. Yes, we cared about Luke and company, but we cared about the Rebellion too. In the prequels, the Clone Wars are just a sideshow. It's too distant, too disconnected. Instead all we get is the personal side, the individual stories of Anakin, Amidala, and Obi-Wan. It's not enough; there's nothing to balance it out, and the personal story is too spare to carry everything itself.

The snarky humor that cut through the campiness and too earnest parts of original trilogy, that let off just enough hot air so that it didn't become pretentious, is lacking save for a forced and unfunny exchanges between the main Jedi characters. In the original trilogy, the bickering between Han and Chewie, Han and Luke, Han and Leia, Han and everyone, between R2 and C-3PO, was in good fun. It was banter. In the prequels, it's too often just flat. Worse, right from the start there's always an edge to it, especially between Obi-Wan and Anakin, that makes it less banter and much more poorly masked verbal abuse. I know the prequels are about Anakin's fall, but wouldn't it have been better if that bickering started off as banter and became nasty as it went on, as things fell apart? Wouldn't that have made it more powerful later, and given us the relief valve needed earlier?

The other problem with the humor is what I mentioned about Jar Jar - the original trilogy certainly had plenty of slapstick and juvenile humor, but it wasn't constant the way it is in the prequels. Without the more mature humor like what I mentioned above, it's wearing. Plus, it's a lot more forced in the prequels. It's often gratuitous, and has a sense of being thrown in (oh, we need something funny here!).

But worst of all is the angst. There's no fun, no sense of adventure. No one, especially Anakin, can ever be excited about anything. No, it's just another reason for Anakin to complain or Obi-Wan to put him down, or for someone else to bemoan something. Yes, I know they're supposed to be dark, because it's about Anakin's fall, about the origins of Darth Vader. But The Empire Strikes Back is dark. And it still manages to be adventurous even when things are at its worse (compare Luke and Vader's fight on Cloud City to Anakin and Obi-Wans on Ord Mantell). Luke's whiny, but he grows out of it. Anakin just gets worse, when he should have become menacing.

Adding in the fact that they contradict years of established canon right, left, and center for no apparent reason (and I'm not just talking about extended universe stuff - there are some serious issues about matching certain things up in the prequels with stuff from the original trilogy) just makes it that much worse.

That's why I can't stand the prequels. But I still love Star Wars.

[thubby]

i see this alot, not just in starwars. it happens most frequently when the writers world building exceeds their story telling. which makes "the idea of starwars" oh so appealing, everything that could be, and when compared to what the writer did, theres no way to be happy about it.

[Nibleswick]

Reading through the article again, I suspect that he didn't play many of the games much (or at all in the case of the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, as he doesn't mention them). He really doesn't sound like someone who knows the heart grabbing terror of when an unfinished Dark Trooper appears out of nowhere, or the panic of when six TIE Defenders drop out of hyperspace right next to the convoy you're supposed to protect. Sigh. I should stop rambling and make a point, hmmm. Look, a distraction!

[Closet_Skeleton]

My opinion of Star Wars games is that there has always been good Star Wars games.

Star Wars games used to be good because Lucas Arts was a good games developer that hired intelligent people.

Now Star Wars games are good because there are to darn many of them that one or two have to be good.

[Hawriel]

I see most of you have more or less got what the author was trying to do. For thoughs of you who did not and didnt read the last bit about a fallow up article with the link. Here it is.




http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=25600

[Paragon Badger]

i see this alot, not just in starwars. it happens most frequently when the writers world building exceeds their story telling. which makes "the idea of starwars" oh so appealing, everything that could be, and when compared to what the writer did, theres no way to be happy about it.

So....So true.

Star Wars combines (at least, until midichlorians arrived) faith and science fiction. The force was a thing of faith. You don't get that in science fiction stories too often.

I liked KOTOR 2 for actually backlashing against the naive idealism of Good vs. Evil that permeates into the trilogies.

War is always ugly.

Take the example from Clerks. All those poor private contractors...

[Kosmopolite]

I thought the article was funny, particularly in light of the Wookie argument going on elsewhere on this very forum. It's fun an flawed, like many things. I think he's hit the nail on the head.

He's also a satirist. The article is entirely a joke composed by the author and a few friends. It isn't a serious critical analysis of the Star Wars Universe. It's just a funny little article on how over-the-top fans can get. As Hawriel said, read the follow up. Maybe use it as a mirror.

[Emperor Ing]

I am offended to hear that true star wars fans don't like the KOTOR series
:annoyed:
Best RPG ever.

[Obrysii]

Best RPG ever.

The end of KOTOR2 leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth. The whole lack of a real ending just ... damages it.

Though on the whole, they're among the best Star Wars games ever.

[Tom_Violence]

Meh, that article was one of the blandest that I've read in a very long time. Congrats, you can put the word 'hate' into an article a whole bunch of times, but where's the funny?! :smallannoyed:

It strikes me that he sat down and came up with the award-winning idea of "I know, I'll say I hate Star Wars! No one will see that one coming!" and then tried to crowbar everything he could think of about Star Wars into that idea, regardless of whether it fits or not - e.g. the videogames. I'll tell you what I hate - people that try and replace wit with faux anger and bile. Its been done to death, get a new thing.

I also hate people that overuse the word 'we' to make their audience think that they're actually important enough to be the mouthpiece for something that is so very much larger than themselves, like oh I don't know... the sum total of everyone that enjoys Star Wars, for example! Guess what buddy, I'm a Star Wars fan and I disagree with most of that article! Gasp!

I think what he meant to say was "I (not we) don't really like Star Wars but I think lightsabers are pretty cool and wish I could do crazy **** just with the power of my mind." I know its just a little article down some backalley on the internet but still, bad writing all round really.


Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight 1 (Manchester United 0)

That made me chuckle though, so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time. :smallbiggrin:

[Closet_Skeleton]

That made me chuckle though, so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time. :smallbiggrin:

So the best thing about the article was that it let someone make a Zero Punctuation reference?

Wow. That is some faint praise.

[Tom_Violence]

So the best thing about the article was that it let someone make a Zero Punctuation reference?

Wow. That is some faint praise.

Yeah, basically. And I didn't realise that it was a reference, I don't have the guy's catalogue memorised yet. So I guess kudos to the original authour.

[GoC]

Meh, that article was one of the blandest that I've read in a very long time. Congrats, you can put the word 'hate' into an article a whole bunch of times, but where's the funny?! :smallannoyed:
Well I liked it.


It strikes me that he sat down and came up with the award-winning idea of "I know, I'll say I hate Star Wars! No one will see that one coming!" and then tried to crowbar everything he could think of about Star Wars into that idea, regardless of whether it fits or not - e.g. the videogames. I'll tell you what I hate - people that try and replace wit with faux anger and bile. Its been done to death, get a new thing.

I also hate people that overuse the word 'we' to make their audience think that they're actually important enough to be the mouthpiece for something that is so very much larger than themselves, like oh I don't know... the sum total of everyone that enjoys Star Wars, for example! Guess what buddy, I'm a Star Wars fan and I disagree with most of that article! Gasp!

I think what he meant to say was "I (not we) don't really like Star Wars but I think lightsabers are pretty cool and wish I could do crazy **** just with the power of my mind." I know its just a little article down some backalley on the internet but still, bad writing all round really.



That made me chuckle though, so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time. :smallbiggrin:
Someone forgot to read the bit at the bottom...:smallamused:

[Tom_Violence]

Someone forgot to read the bit at the bottom...:smallamused:

Not I, alas. I read the whole thing. The tragedy is that I can't unread it, smugface.

[Brickwall]

(compare Luke and Vader's fight on Cloud City to Anakin and Obi-Wans on Ord Mantell).

It's not Ord Mantell, it's Mustafar. Ord Mantell is where Han Solo ran into "that bounty hunter", mentioned around the beginning of Episode V. Ord Mantell is prominent in the expanded universe novels as an outlaw planet of sorts.

Personally, I like Star Wars. The original trilogy is just plain fun to sit down and watch. Yes, I joke about it. I acknowledge the silliness of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy. So what? They're faceless mooks, and the heroes are heroes. Of course they can't hit heroes! Add into the fact that blasters, in the OT, tend to be wildly innacurate until plot necessitates a good shot...yeah. It's all about the cinematics. Drama, etcetera.

I thank Star Wars for teaching us that a lazy drift to the left can be fancy maneuvers if narrated as such. I do not thank them for midichlorians though. I thought the Force was magic, not a disease.

[Athaniar]

Soooo, to be a Star Wars fan, you must hate everything about Star Wars except the idea, especially the prequels.

If that's true, I'm the perfect anti-SW-fan. I like Star Wars, with the prequels, ewoks, the video games, and Jar Jar Binks, and most importantly: I can respect the opinions of other fans.

To stretch it a bit, it's like Hitler (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodwinsLaw). "I have defined what makes a perfect human, and everyone else is worthless, and should be heartily laughed at, and placed in asylums and/or concentration camps."

...

And then I read the follow-up article, and it seems it was just a joke. Oh really? So instead of Hitler, he's the kind of guy who really enjoys watching people kill themselves over his words, and laugh heartily about it. What a jerk.

And the original KotOR is vastly superior to it's "sequel" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DisContinuity/DisContinuity) in any way, except meaningless confusion mislabeled "really deep and subtle stuff". Take that. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeThat)

[Kosmopolite]

I read it and thought it was funny because it reminded me of a lot of Star Wars I've spoken to online. Then I read that it was supposed to be a joke and thought 'duh'.

[Mr. Scaly]

Hehe. When I read that I wasn't sure whether to be offended, annoyed, sad...but now I'm just very amused. Why? For a very simple reason.

It's a load of bull****.

Actually, here's another one. This poor guy has made himself the center of a massive controversy by making a joke and putting it up where everyone in the world can see it. That, my friends, is freaking hilarious.

[Woofsie]

Hitler

Wow, that's the first time I've seen Godwin's Law invoked in a Star Wars thread.. kudos.

Nice article EE, though the bit about the kids being booed off the stage in the second one made me very, very angry. :smallfurious:

[Tirian]

Yes, but a true Star Wars fan hates the novelist for bringing [Boba Fett] back to life.

Oh, be fair. Boba Fett fell into the digestive tract of a creature who ordinarily would take a thousand years to digest you, and that creature itself was arguably dead ten minutes later. Meanwhile Fett is presumed healthy and is wearing the most 1337 armor in the galaxy. By western serial sci-fi standards, it would be insane to presume that he was dead. He wakes up, fixes his jet pack, and flies back to town.

But let's not be blinded to the more obvious fact; Lucas deserves hatred for having the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy incapacitated by a blind man turning around. If there is one single reason why SWEU >> SW, it is because George Lucas has never respected his villains. I also think that Fett is too cagy to have been killed in an epic 1v1 firefight as he was in Dark Forces, but at least there he had the honor of being the toughest boss in the game.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Wow, that's the first time I've seen Godwin's Law invoked in a Star Wars thread.. kudos

Except that this is the story that involves a Chancellor gaining absolute power by creating an imaginary threat and then turning a democracy into an Empire with an army of elite Stormtroopers.

[WalkingTarget]

Oh, be fair. Boba Fett fell into the digestive tract of a creature who ordinarily would take a thousand years to digest you, and that creature itself was arguably dead ten minutes later. Meanwhile Fett is presumed healthy and is wearing the most 1337 armor in the galaxy. By western serial sci-fi standards, it would be insane to presume that he was dead. He wakes up, fixes his jet pack, and flies back to town.

But let's not be blinded to the more obvious fact; Lucas deserves hatred for having the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy incapacitated by a blind man turning around. If there is one single reason why SWEU >> SW, it is because George Lucas has never respected his villains. I also think that Fett is too cagy to have been killed in an epic 1v1 firefight as he was in Dark Forces, but at least there he had the honor of being the toughest boss in the game.

Ok, I fully recognize that my EU-fu is weak, but was Boba Fett the "greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy" and did he have "the most 1337 armor" as of 1983?

I don't know how fully fleshed out the character was when RotJ came out, but other than having a lucky hunch about why the Star Destroyer couldn't find the Falcon during ESB he doesn't show uber-leetness in the films. Unless there's EU content that shows him as this mega-badass and also came out prior to RotJ, then the problem isn't with Lucas not respecting his villains, it's just that the fandom latched onto an unexpected character. Han taking him out accidentally was a lucky break, but the heroes tended to be lucky in general.

[Rogue 7]

"In my experience, there's no such thing as 'luck.'":smallwink:

[FoE]

I think the point of the article is that Star Wars fans qualify as an Unpleasable Fanbase. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnpleasableFanbase)

[WalkingTarget]

"In my experience, there's no such thing as 'luck.'":smallwink:

So, Luke crash lands onto a planet and just happens to be within easy walking distance of the person he's trying to find?

Ok, forget I said "lucky" and swap it with "the Force is with them", it works out the same way and doesn't change the points I made on how awesomely-outrageous Boba Fett is meant to be in the initial films.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Ok, forget I said "lucky" and swap it with "the Force is with them", it works out the same way and doesn't change the points I made on how awesomely-outrageous Boba Fett is meant to be in the initial films.

Ah yes. If someone evented a dialogue global find and replace function for DVD players, you could replace every instance of force with plot and not damage your viewing experiance.

[SDF]

I'm a huge SW nerd. I liked ALL the movies. Many of the games and books as well.


We hate the fact that George Lucas got it wrong from the beginning, creating incest between Luke and Leia.

WRONG. SW was originally based in large part on the story of King Arthur, so it makes a lot of sense.

But anyway, I don't need an internet zine writer to tell me if (and how) I (should) like something.

[Emperor Ing]

The end of KOTOR2 leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth. The whole lack of a real ending just ... damages it.

Though on the whole, they're among the best Star Wars games ever.

Truth be told! :smallsmile:
KOTOR 2 had fantastic potential, but Obsidian didn't deliver. I wished project Gizka's mod would come out for Xbox though. :smallfrown:

[Tom_Violence]

Truth be told! :smallsmile:
KOTOR 2 had fantastic potential, but Obsidian didn't deliver. I wished project Gizka's mod would come out for Xbox though. :smallfrown:

A rather funny way of looking at, I must say. I was always under the impression that they had gigantic amounts of publisher pressures.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Truth be told! :smallsmile:
KOTOR 2 had fantastic potential, but Obsidian didn't deliver. I wished project Gizka's mod would come out for Xbox though. :smallfrown:

I think that Obsidian doesn't get enough blame for being over ambitious. Everyone says "if you look at what was cut Obsidian actually had really good ideas" when the truth is more like "Obsidian had no idea how to work out their development cycle and spent too much time on script wanking". Obsidian has the excuse of being a new company that had never made a game before (despite have experianced employees) and had yet to find out how their team worked. If KotOR 2 had been Obsidian's third game they could have had the sense to cut a bit out of the middle in order to get the ending sorted.


A rather funny way of looking at, I must say. I was always under the impression that they had gigantic amounts of publisher pressures.

I'm sure they did have "gigantic amounts of publisher pressures" but they should have known that before they used a licensed property as their first game.

[Tirian]

Ok, I fully recognize that my EU-fu is weak, but was Boba Fett the "greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy" and did he have "the most 1337 armor" as of 1983?

Fair enough. Boba Fett rose to the top of the bounty hunters that Darth Vader commissioned (and I don't think that it's luck, it was clever to presume that your opponent would use smuggler tricks where the Imperial Army kept assuming that they were fighting rebel soldiers), and we were are left to presume that DV had the prestige to hire the best. Also, Slave 1 did appear in TESB, and it was the coolest ship in the original trilogy.

And, most importantly, the EU at the time was the action figures and I think it was a serious miscalculation to dismiss an action figure with a jetpack, backpack rocket launcher, and a grapple gun. That beats lightsaber, bowcaster, or any other weapon sets at the time. Fans might not have known the word "Mandilorean", but it was obvious to kids in 1981 that he was ten pounds of win in a five pound bag.

[Tom_Violence]

I think that Obsidian doesn't get enough blame for being over ambitious. Everyone says "if you look at what was cut Obsidian actually had really good ideas" when the truth is more like "Obsidian had no idea how to work out their development cycle and spent too much time on script wanking". Obsidian has the excuse of being a new company that had never made a game before (despite have experianced employees) and had yet to find out how their team worked. If KotOR 2 had been Obsidian's third game they could have had the sense to cut a bit out of the middle in order to get the ending sorted.

I'm sure they did have "gigantic amounts of publisher pressures" but they should have known that before they used a licensed property as their first game.

Heh, yeah, I can just imagine that board meeting:

"We've been given the opportuinity to do the sequel to KotOR, what do you guys think?"
"Oh goodness no! We'd be mad to! Lets do something much worse first, just to make sure we can. Offers like that come round all the time, no worries..."

I'm happy with KotOR2, even with its problems. Why? Because if anyone else had made it, even if they had completed it, it wouldn't have been nearly as good. And I really liked the writing in the game, and wouldn't want to miss out on that. If the price of that is a few holes here and there, I'm okay with that.

[SurlySeraph]

Truth be told! :smallsmile:
KOTOR 2 had fantastic potential, but Obsidian didn't deliver. I wished project Gizka's mod would come out for Xbox though. :smallfrown:

You think that's bad? Do you know how they ended Neverwinter Nights 2?
Rocks fall. Everyone dies. Really. (Though they get better in time for the expansion).

[13_CBS]

Oddly, I kind of liked midichlorians. For me, Sci-Fi means Science (hey, look, it's even in the name!), and the idea of a magicky Force thing flitting about in a world of lasers, spaceships, and FTL travel doesn't sit well with me. Others enjoy the mysticism it adds to the series, and I respect that, but for me, pulling the Force into the realm of Science makes it a good thing. Instead of, "ooooh, Force, *magicalness*" you have, "The Force is an energy field project by a symbiotic organism that inhabits all living beings, etc." Gives it a better feel of verisimilitude, IMO.

I think Lucas's main flaw, however, would be that his movies focused too much on getting the visuals, the vision of the Star Wars universe, than on the characters themselves. As far as I can tell, most or all of the characters are fairly 2d, with enough character development to get them some 3d shading (but still no full 3 dimensions), which is a shame since they had such a huge, diverse universe to play around in.

And, of course, the villains:


Darth Maul? Double-sided lightsaber, superb fighting skills, looks for all the world like a red/black tattoed ninja. Gets killed by a newbie.

Jango Fett? Supposed to be the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Gets his butt handed to him by Obi Wan, a defensive-fighting jedi, on Kamino, and needs his little clone son to get him out of the fight. Then he faces Mace Windu in one of the most anticlimatic fights ever.

Grievous? FOUR LIGHTSABERS!! Come on!!! But no, after making some fancy swings he gets shot to death. No honor of getting sabered for him.

Death Star I: Farmboy flies in, launches two little torpedoes and wipes out a battle station the size of a small moon. Whoops.

Boba Fett gets knocked into a 1000 doom by a blind man. If you declare the EU to be blasphemy and refuse to recognize its canonicity, then it all ends there for Boba.

Emperor: after wiping out hundreds of thousands of jedi and personally cutting down many, he gets thrown off a catwalk by a parapalegic. Wow.


Lucas, your villains are kickass. WHY do you have to treat them so badly?!

On the games:

I think the author isn't arguing that the Star Wars games are bad games, only that said games aren't very good Star Wars games, if you catch my meaning.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Oddly, I kind of liked midichlorians. For me, Sci-Fi means Science (hey, look, it's even in the name!), and the idea of a magicky Force thing flitting about in a world of lasers, spaceships, and FTL travel doesn't sit well with me. Others enjoy the mysticism it adds to the series, and I respect that, but for me, pulling the Force into the realm of Science makes it a good thing. Instead of, "ooooh, Force, *magicalness*" you have, "The Force is an energy field project by a symbiotic organism that inhabits all living beings, etc." Gives it a better feel of verisimilitude, IMO.

Except Star Wars never was Science Fiction, but a Space Opera Fairy Tale.

[GoC]

Not I, alas. I read the whole thing. The tragedy is that I can't unread it, smugface.

The point is that it's intended to be thought provoking not taken seriously.
I hate his response though...

13_CBS: I prefer an unexplained force. I really don't understand why authors feel I need to explain everything. Don't they understand that I'm quite happy to accept that that's just how their universe works?
It's also a waste of space in 90% of cases.

[sealemon]

I think his biggest mistake with the prequels was obscurely shoe-horning Trade Federations, bureaucrats, and groaning political systems into what should always have been a story about a boy becoming a man.

From the "sequel" article. Explains in a nutshell what was wrong with the prequel trilogy. It's exactly the same thing that happened to the Matrix Trilogy and the Highlander sequel.

Personally,y I got that the article was partially tongue in cheek, and I do agree with most of it.

[stm177]

It's an influential series, so it get picked apart more than anything else out there.

I will admit I enjoy the remixes like AHA! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGXF5orynk), and Lego Star Wars more than the actual movies at this point. But I saw every one of the movies in the theaters and I'd do it again.

[The Extinguisher]

It's true. Everyone knows the real fans are the ones who stick around just to complain about it.

[Tirian]

It's an influential series, so it get picked apart more than anything else out there.

To a certain degree, sure, the fact that there is more Star Wars criticism than Buck Rogers criticism doesn't mean that Buck Rogers was better.

The way I interpret that article is not that I hate Star Wars, but that George Lucas can design an outstanding universe but trips up when it comes time to create a storyboard and seriously booches on the script (in my opinion). To give a specific example, something magical happens when you combine Lucas' universe with Timothy Zahn's writing ability. If Zahn were a superstar, then we might easily criticize him for being a great author but incapable of creating an environment worth caring about unless he's leeching off of Star Wars.

It's the same thing as hating the Harry Potter books. One doesn't do it because one hates all popular things, but because J.K. Rowling has strengths and weaknesses as a writer and pointing out why one doesn't worship the best sold children's books in history seems like blind hatred.

[13_CBS]

Oh, and before I forget:

Lego Star Wars is made of blocks of win.

[Tyrant]

And, most importantly, the EU at the time was the action figures and I think it was a serious miscalculation to dismiss an action figure with a jetpack, backpack rocket launcher, and a grapple gun. That beats lightsaber, bowcaster, or any other weapon sets at the time. Fans might not have known the word "Mandilorean", but it was obvious to kids in 1981 that he was ten pounds of win in a five pound bag.

That figure initially was supposed to come with a firing rocket launcher, but the design was changed at the last minute after lawsuits over simiar toy features in other lines. Even his figure was too much for most people to handle.


Oddly, I kind of liked midichlorians. For me, Sci-Fi means Science (hey, look, it's even in the name!), and the idea of a magicky Force thing flitting about in a world of lasers, spaceships, and FTL travel doesn't sit well with me. Others enjoy the mysticism it adds to the series, and I respect that, but for me, pulling the Force into the realm of Science makes it a good thing. Instead of, "ooooh, Force, *magicalness*" you have, "The Force is an energy field project by a symbiotic organism that inhabits all living beings, etc." Gives it a better feel of verisimilitude, IMO.
In another thread about prequel hate, someone brought up a reason I had never considered for disliking it. It wasn't that it was explained. It was that the one more or less mystical thing about the trilogy was more or less the only thing given anything approaching a scientific explanation. Surrounded by technology that they never bother to even try to explain, and they break down the Force with techno babble (or is that genetics babble in this case?).
Personally, I am fine with it as I don't see how it ruins anything, We already knew the Force was passed down. We already knew not just anybody could think happy thoughts and make it happen (otherwise there is no point in trying to capture and turn Luke). Sure it required concentration and devotion, just like in the PT, but even in the OT you needed the right stuff to do it. This just put a name on it. I look at it as being similar to what they do in the show Ghost Hunters. They use things like IR, magnetic scanners, and nightvision to detect energy which they then say are ghosts. They are trying to use science to understand something, that if true, should probably completely defy scientific explanation. They aren't (to the best of my knowledge, I don't really watch the show) claiming that the various things they are detecting are the ghosts. It is merely what they can detect an record as they interact with the material plane. I look at midiclorians the same way. At some point in the Star Wars universe it stands to reason that there was great study into the nature of the Force from a scientific standpoint. It is obviously a source of great power and if nothing else the Jedi and Sith would be greatly interested in it's inner mechanics. Midiclorians were simply what they were able to detect. They are a sign of the Force (like the IR images of the "ghosts". Not the Force itself. That probably contradicts what Qui Gon said. I am willing to overlook that as he died very early on and was apparently not needed as a mentor figure for very long. Obi Wan was allowed to come back to help Luke and I assume they chose the right man for the job so I go with his explanation of the nature of the Force.

[LurkerInPlayground]

I really doubt that's what Lucas was thinking.

Really he was probably thinking:
"Midichlorians = Force"

That's okay EU writers will retcon the thing and add yet another byzantine passage to an already convoluted mythos.

I love explanations for magic or obscure technology, because in the end, it's not really actually being explained anyway. Chi allows me to do "X," "Y" and "Z." Just because.

It's particularly funny when the explanations are overly involved.

[Tyrant]

I really doubt that's what Lucas was thinking.

Really he was probably thinking:
"Midichlorians = Force"


Oh, I agree that is what he was thinking. My comment was from the perspective of trying to have it make sense in the context of everything else we hear. I, and I'm sure many others, accepted a while ago that Lucas and the words "great dialogue" generally don't belong in the same sentecne without some kind of negative modifier. This is just one more example of that. I enjoy the movies. I would prefer them to be somewhat cohesive. If that means I have to use a very simple rationalization that doesn't contradict anything else to have it make sense, then so be it. Is it a sign of a flaw in the movies that I have to do that, sure. Am I going to get bent out of shape over it, not really.

[turkishproverb]

Ah yes. If someone evented a dialogue global find and replace function for DVD players, you could replace every instance of force with plot and not damage your viewing experiance.

"MY ally is the plot, and a powerful ally it is!"

[Hawriel]

I see most of you have more or less got what the author was trying to do. For thoughs of you who did not and didnt read the last bit about a fallow up article with the link. Here it is.




http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=25600

Im quoting my previose post. Im doing so because all but a hand full of you ware behaving in that serten way the author of the artical was talking about. Your flying off the handle about how he obviosly does not get it or is just trying to spread hate. Read the fallow up artical and get off the high horse.

[Ganurath]

I find the article from the OP to make perfect sense. On the other hand, I read Dominic Deegan.

[SilentNight]

Huh, I never pegged myself as much of a fan but apparently I am.:smallconfused: The things you learn.

[Gael_Judicium]

I can't tell which is worse. The fact that I laughed, or if I was laughing because it was completely true. Stories are only as good as the storyteller, but a real storyteller can tell just how much further they could've pushed it toward perfection.

[TheGreatQuimble]

Ill go along with the artical for the most part. what i do not understand is how you all flying a tie fighter/x wing in the game skews the reality of some make believe universe that exists in print and film. its his original idea and if he wants to make storm troopers into little pink fluffy bunnies of doom, then so be it. Actually that would make me enjoy it that much more...

"Dammit chewwie the bunnies are breeding again."

which could also explain why their are so many clones....



~You have all been Q'd