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That's lame as hell because both Catholicism and Islam both canonically allow for aliens to exist and to be able to share in god's love and such.
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Mar 27, 2014 03:09
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Lunatic Pathos posted:Wouldn't you consider angels as alien like? They live on the moons of Iego, I think.
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Mar 27, 2014 03:18
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Someone in the thread, possibly SMG or Bongo Bill, recently brought up a discussion of midichlorians and how from essentially their inception, they've existed to show how pointless something that numerically quantifies how much Force you have would be. I just can't remember what the point(s) were right now or find the post in the thread. I bring it up because I was talking to a friend about the various Star Wars games and he brought up how Starkiller brought down a whole star cruiser with the Force as being stupid, but I reminded him that in ESB, Yoda tells Luke that the size of the object doesn't matter as long as you can will yourself and believe you can do it. Kind of like a Green Lantern. Yada yada yada... The conversation turned to midichlorians and I said it's kinda like power levels in DBZ, they're introduced to show how utterly worthless they are. But obviously the original poster explained it much better than I could, and I'd like to see what the thread in general thinks about them as a concept.
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Mar 27, 2014 04:35
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Reinanigans posted:Someone in the thread, possibly SMG or Bongo Bill, recently brought up a discussion of midichlorians and how from essentially their inception, they've existed to show how pointless something that numerically quantifies how much Force you have would be. I just can't remember what the point(s) were right now or find the post in the thread. It's funny though, because in the prequels Yoda seems to visibly strain when lifting or throwing large objects. Especially in the fight with Palpatine.
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Mar 27, 2014 04:40
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Reinanigans posted:Someone in the thread, possibly SMG or Bongo Bill, recently brought up a discussion of midichlorians and how from essentially their inception, they've existed to show how pointless something that numerically quantifies how much Force you have would be. I just can't remember what the point(s) were right now or find the post in the thread. Try this: Everybody hated midichlorians in the prequels. If the Force is some mystical thing, isn't it cheapened by saying it comes from some symbiotic microorganism? The answer is: of course it's cheapened that way. But the Jedi Order are the ones who are cheapening it. They believe in midichlorians, but they are wrong all the time. This is a sign of just how far they have strayed from their roots. The Force is faith; if you believe, you can draw upon its power. And the Jedi Order have undermined their faith by using this basically coincidental proxy measure as a substitute for it. Using the Force is supposed to give you clairvoyance, telepathy, and the ability to see the future, but the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy need to look at the results of a blood test in order to tell that they're standing in the same room as the Chosen One. They need to show Anakin flash cards before they can sense that the Force is strong with this one. Qui-Gon is the one who explains to Anakin what midichlorians are, but Qui-Gon doesn't believe in them. How would Qui-Gon have known to test Anakin's midichlorian count if he didn't already know that Anakin was special? He was angling to get his superiors to accept him as their Chosen One. (Obi-Wan lies; who do you think taught him to lie?) Here's the proof: it would not have made a bit of difference if Qui-Gon had straight-up falsified the results of that blood test. (This is the big difference between the films and EU novels: in the films, characters who accept an empirical quantification of faith are wrong; in the novels, they are right.) Of course, that Anakin was told the number is huge is important, as it fuels his arrogance and impatience. Midichlorians certainly do exist, but there's no reason we, the audience, have to believe that they mean what the wrong and stupid Jedi Council think they do.
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Mar 27, 2014 04:46
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Lord Krangdar posted:It's funny though, because in the prequels Yoda seems to visibly strain when lifting or throwing large objects. Especially in the fight with Palpatine. Doesn't Yoda strain with the X-Wing in Empire?
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Mar 27, 2014 04:56
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redshirt posted:Doesn't Yoda strain with the X-Wing in Empire? https://youtu.be/HMUKGTkiWik?t=1m50s I'd say he's concentrating, not straining.
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Mar 27, 2014 08:39
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Angels live on a moon somewhere, The Force is bacteria that talks to you, it's almost like Lucas knew what he was doing. But we're giving him too much credit, I just don't see it!
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Mar 27, 2014 11:06
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THE BAR posted:https://youtu.be/HMUKGTkiWik?t=1m50s Looks like he's straining. It's almost as if his new-age revelations that he convinced himself with during isolation turn out to be a little more difficult when put into practice.
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Mar 27, 2014 11:34
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Size matters not, he said. He didn't say Piece of cake, it will be.
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Mar 27, 2014 14:12
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I agree with Bongo Bill, the point of midichlorians is that the Jedi are just wrong about them. If people today believe that, say, giving money to the church appeases their God, and they are wrong, their god can still exist. Similarly, Jedi are like "Hm these things that are in Jedi totally link us to the Force" and are completely wrong about that.
Tender Bender fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 17:46
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I think the instant hatred of midichlorians affected how Lucas tried to explain them away. I can't remember if that seemed to be intentional in Episode I. Whatever he did, the whole thing is a poo poo storm debacle but I'm glad there's room to dismiss them in future films.
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Mar 27, 2014 17:48
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The midichlorians really do at least kinda seem to be an objective measure of Force Point (tm) totals though. Yoda really is one of the toughest Jedi around, as is Anakin.
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Mar 27, 2014 18:04
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I think the point still stands though. Maybe the midichlorians are just drawn to people strong in the force, maybe they ARE the force, it doesn't matter, it's just a way to codify one's potential. The jedi council has arrogant do-nothings like Yoda in charge because he has a high count, he must be great rather than looking at what he actually does or does not accomplish. You see this happen with Anakin through episode II and III, the council really does arrogantly hold him back even though he's hyper-capable AND has the highest count ever, because by falling into that trap the council became a bunch of complacent chumps.
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Mar 27, 2014 18:18
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porfiria posted:The midichlorians really do at least kinda seem to be an objective measure of Force Point (tm) totals though. Yoda really is one of the toughest Jedi around, as is Anakin. The problem with midiclorians and SMG's reading of them is that they 100% are not in the film as a mechanic to show via subtext the Jedi's failures. They are clearly in the movie to give a very specific and direct measurement of force levels. Lucas abandoned them in the second movie because it's a bad idea. An after the fact critical analysis allows you to read it however you want, but that was clearly not the authors intent. I'd prefer to analyze and discuss the Prequels based on how dumb they are and derive comedy from such a conversation, but others prefer to apply a post-modern critical analysis and derive all kinds of meaning, and that's fine! We can all get along. However, it's much more fun to mock the prequels because in a trilogy in which a ton of people get dismembered and children are outright murdered, there's a bunch of fart jokes.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:02
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We had the whole midichlorian debate not more than like 2 months ago! The Midichlorian scene in TPM - well they are mentioned a few times I think - are so at odds with the way the Force is portrayed by the end of ROTJ that it was obvious to me while watching the movie in the theater that some point was trying to be made there by the filmakers. I mean I guess we could fall back on "Lucas doesn't understand Star Wars" but that is a pretty outlandish statement that needs a lot of evidence. euphronius fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 20:12
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euphronius posted:We had the whole midichlorian debate not more than like 2 months ago! I know. Isn't the acting in the prequels wooden? Also the dialogue is stale!
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Mar 27, 2014 20:18
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Every analysis is ostensibly "after the fact" as it requires an act of viewing and reading. The author's intent or interpretation, while at times telling, isn't more important than the viewers' and doesn't have any privileged meaning in comparison to the multiplicity of other meanings that could be supported by the text and context of the film. For instance, the midichloridians introduce an important narrative arc in the prequels that sees it's realization in Anakin's body melting.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:19
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When Darth Vader says that he thinks the Jedi are evil, it is important to go back and look at things the Jedi said and did that made him think that. The first thing he learns of the Jedi was that they're a religious institution with more faith in microscopic parasites than in the Force (compared with which the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant). But, surely this was unintentional.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:20
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quote:The Midichlorian scene in TPM - well they are mentioned a few times I think - are so at odds with the way the Force is portrayed by the end of ROTJ that it was obvious to me while watching the movie in the theater that some point was trying to be made there by the filmakers. I recall reading that Lucas wanted midichlorians in A New Hope, so it's also the Force becoming what he wanted in the first place. RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 20:41
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porfiria posted:The midichlorians really do at least kinda seem to be an objective measure of Force Point (tm) totals though. Yoda really is one of the toughest Jedi around, as is Anakin. Is Anakin, though? I mean based on what happens in the film he does a lot of important stuff, but he was also put in a position to do so (by both the Jedi Council and Palpatine) because they believed his midichlorians meant he was awesome. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:11
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He believes he can do it, and that is why he succeeds.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:13
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RBA Starblade posted:I recall reading that Lucas wanted midichlorians in A New Hope, so it's also the Force becoming what he wanted in the first place. I don't know about Lucas wanting to put them in the original Star Wars, but there definitely is a quote from him in the late 70s along the lines of, "some people can use the force because their brains have more midichlorians." But then, there are also quotes like "using the force is like yoga, anyone can learn how to do it" from around the same time. So this is probably another thing that changed back and forth as the series developed.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:20
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What he put in the movies is probably the best evidence of what he wanted to put in the movies for this topic. It's not like he needed to wait for cgi to catch up.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:46
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Jerk McJerkface posted:The problem with midiclorians and SMG's reading of them is that they 100% are not in the film as a mechanic to show via subtext the Jedi's failures. They are clearly in the movie to give a very specific and direct measurement of force levels. Why are they not in the film to do that, when they clearly do that and serve that purpose perfectly? Films can do this thing where they draw attention to something by not doing so. Like the Nolan Batman movies go out of their way to not point out all the clear flaws in Batman's plan - the film is from Batman's perspective and therefore (unthinkingly, or to Batman justifiably) self-edited to make it look like Batman never directly kills anyone and never stops to show the sort of poo poo you have to live with after getting bones and poo poo broken by a vigilante and you have no money because you're just some pimp's lowly bodyguard. Did Nolan 'not intend' to make a film where the holes in Batman's logic are glaring in their absence, just because it's hard to notice if you've decided in advance the films are bad and Nolan is a hack or whatever? Extrapolating: Whether Lucas/Nolan intended it or not, they have both (accidentally or not) made films that essentially function as propaganda from the perspective of their main characters/'heroes', with clear glaring absences. There is literally a scene in the second film where a librarian says that if a planet isn't in the archives it does not exist. It's that glaring mechanistic idiocy that destroys them and caused them to invent midi-chlorians. Compare and contrast with an older and wiser Kenobi who can sense a planet actually disappearing. Spending decades away from the old order seems to have been good for his ability to use/read the force. What people who refuse to read the film seem to want is for Obi-Wan Kenobi to have a scene where he drops everything and directly says 'we're the baddies!' - but he doesn't do that because he's indoctrinated or otherwise believes they're right, which makes him even stupider than someone who does realise this - Anakin. Anakin is deeply flawed himself but at least manages to perceive the truth briefly before he (poorly) decides the solution is Empire. McJerkface, you appear to be doing your best to preserve your implicit value judgment of the films as 'bad', and therefore 'not deep'. While I reject premises such as 'depth' and 'good/bad' from the get-go, I find your reading of the film to be based too much on letting the author's reading define your own, and identifying the creative process (this is here/not here because audiences didn't like X in the previous film, etc.) than reading the film. It's fun to make fun of the prequels and RLM founded a career on it, but that doesn't change the material and your ability to read it.
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Mar 28, 2014 03:05
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The problem stems from the fact that context plays a great role in how we receive a film. It can be hard to reconcile seeing the Jedi be arrogant fools when all along you have been told that they're the exact opposite. The discomfort or annoyance one feels at that incongruity can cause one to feel that what one sees is bad because it doesn't line up with his or her preconceptions. Now a lot of people say the answer to that is to ignore that context and take the film or whatever as a perfectly self-contained artifact. But the problem with that is that all it really does is artificially recontextualize the work. Better you accept all the emotions a work makes you feel as part of its affect and pathos. At that point, if you want to call it bad because it doesn't achieve what you perceive as its creators rhetorical purpose--you think Lucas wanted to portray the Jedi as humble wisemen--that's totally valid. But readings that see it as succeeding at other rhetorical purposes are also valid. This isn't speech class. We don't have to assign George a grade. We can just talk about how we derive meaning from a very complex work of art(ifice).
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Mar 28, 2014 04:37
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For me the feeling of 'being robbed', by seeing Jedi who are dumb rather than smart and so on, is tremendously important to my reading of the film. I just don't use that as an explicit value judgement either - it's another facet. In other words, while I think "George Lucas abandoned midi-chlorians because they were a bad idea" is the sort of value judgment that isn't really useful to me (also inaccurate, midi-chlorians play a very important role in Anakin's life in ep3), the fact that for some people reading Lucas' intent is the first port of call for reading the film or divining its quality is interesting to me. Someone earlier said you can't ever learn anything about people from their opinions unless they say 'not enough fisting'. What if a large amount of people suddenly started criticising one particular film for not having enough fisting? This reaction is itself interesting and can be incorporated into a decent reading of the film. Why does it create this feeling of fist-absence in its viewers? What does this evoke? Is humanity
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Mar 28, 2014 05:36
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You don't have to judge the film's value, but you certainly can. But if you do, you should be clear about your criteria. It's okay to reject an interpretation, but it's nice to provide an alternate one at the same time. As to why people are so drawn to interpretations based on (perceived) authorial intent, that is because films are intentional artifacts. They are made by people who are intending to present meaning(s).
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Mar 28, 2014 05:56
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There is the presumption that a movie that's "bad," by whatever not excessively subjective criteria you please, is a movie that failed to say anything interesting. It makes sense that banal presentation and banal content would coincide, right? Some heuristic is necessary considering that life is short, and the idea of quality is a good and useful heuristic, but not a perfect one.
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Mar 28, 2014 09:11
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I just don't think the Jedi are arrogant or that foolish. I mean you've had something that's been working pretty well for the past millennia, are you really a complete moron for thinking it's probably going to work out, since it's dealt pretty well with all this galactic change that's been going on? Most Jedi are humble and genuinely nice people who try to help the world as best they can through judicious use of the resources they have available to them. If you say they live in a goddamn palace therefore they're blind to suffering, then you're ignoring that they're dealing with an order of thousands of superweapons who can if improperly trained turn to the dark side and murder the poo poo out of thousands of people with lightning and force chokes. I'd give them a goddamn planet given the upside is some of the best law enforcers and mediators in the world. Their order it flawed because their interpretation of the force is unable to deal with the crazy poo poo that Anakin is. The Jedi deny the idea of personal relationships because they correctly note that there is a great risk of turning to the dark side if someone close to you dies unfairly. Surprise surprise, Anakin turns for this exact reason. What they're incorrect about is that people can deny personal relationships. It's just not possible, especially for a Jedi who's meant to go out and deal with people on a day to day basis and show them compassion. Instead of using relationships as a pillar of strength for the light side the Jedi choose not to. I feel like this is the difference between them and Qui Gon. The thing is though, that's a pretty subtle distinction and the Jedi have been doing pretty well even with that mistake. Midichlorians aren't a sign of the Jedi being obsessed with numbers or power in the force. If that was true Anakin would have been made a Jedi Master, they specifically don't do that because the Jedi believe there is more to mastery of the force than pure power in it. Like Ki-Adi Muundi is a Jedi master even though Grievous kicks the living poo poo out of him. Same is true of Shaak Ti. RotJ is a victory for the Jedi because Anakin and Luke specifically use their relationship with one another to bring balance to the force. Luke wins precisely because of his love for and his faith in his friends. They correct the flaw with the Order. Luke's Order should look the same as the previous because they were people genuinely committed to doing good in the world, but utilising their relationships to help them get closer to the force. Having trouble dealing with anger? Talk to your wife, I'm sure she'll be able to help and understand what you're going through. This is absent whether the prequel movies are good or bad. I think they're bad because they lack the same focus on individual characters that the original trilogy has. Like Phantom Menace should be about Obi Wan and instead the narrative is massively disjointed because it focuses on like four characters at the same time. Don't get me started on whether Star Wars is a criticism of liberal democracy. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Mar 28, 2014 |
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Mar 28, 2014 14:13
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Yorkshire Tea posted:some of the best law enforcers and mediators in the world. When has Jedi involvement not ended in gunfire and explosions and everything getting a lot worse?
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Mar 28, 2014 15:07
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sassassin posted:When has Jedi involvement not ended in gunfire and explosions and everything getting a lot worse? You can't bring balance to an omelet without breaking a few trade agreements.
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Mar 28, 2014 15:16
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Yorkshire Tea posted:Don't get me started on whether Star Wars is a criticism of liberal democracy. With the depiction of the senate in the prequels, this seems like an odd thing to consider so especially ridiculous.
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Mar 28, 2014 15:56
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Sprecherscrow posted:With the depiction of the senate in the prequels, this seems like an odd thing to consider so especially ridiculous. I think that, as opposed to a critique of democracy, it is more feasible that is is a commentary about the fickleness of 'good' people and the ability of manipulative power-hungry political animals to take power and conquer them
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Mar 28, 2014 19:09
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thehacker0 posted:I think that, as opposed to a critique of democracy, it is more feasible that is is a commentary about the fickleness of 'good' people and the ability of manipulative power-hungry political animals to take power and conquer them That is still an implicit criticism of liberal democracy, showing that it does not defend against such manipulation and may even enable it.
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Mar 28, 2014 19:30
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I think it shows flaws with liberal democracy not in a "and this is why it sucks" way but in a "it's imperfect but it's the best we've got" way, since the only real alternative presented in the films is the Empire.
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Mar 28, 2014 19:30
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PeterWeller posted:That is still an implicit criticism of liberal democracy, showing that it does not defend against such manipulation and may even enable it. Agreed. But maybe less of a direct critique of the system and its viability, but more of a showcase of what can happen when people are too hesitant to stand up against those who would use power and influence to achieve nefarious ends. Interesting to think about this theme, I hadnt really thought about it too much
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Mar 28, 2014 19:36
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You guys have summarised exactly what I would have written. My phrasing was a bit incorrect, I just don't think Star Wars advocates communist utopia.
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Mar 28, 2014 19:43
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Hbomberguy posted:Why are they not in the film to do that, when they clearly do that and serve that purpose perfectly? Films can do this thing where they draw attention to something by not doing so. Like the Nolan Batman movies go out of their way to not point out all the clear flaws in Batman's plan - the film is from Batman's perspective and therefore (unthinkingly, or to Batman justifiably) self-edited to make it look like Batman never directly kills anyone and never stops to show the sort of poo poo you have to live with after getting bones and poo poo broken by a vigilante and you have no money because you're just some pimp's lowly bodyguard. Did Nolan 'not intend' to make a film where the holes in Batman's logic are glaring in their absence, just because it's hard to notice if you've decided in advance the films are bad and Nolan is a hack or whatever? The first time Batman goes all out in using his toys, the movies stop to have Alfred bitch at him about the property damage he causes. The victorious moment at the end of the movie is levied with the notice that Batman may have saved the city, but the way he chose to do it, things will get worse. The rest of the movies directly criticize the results of his actions and the choices he makes. The Clone Wars cartoon does a better job than the movie of balancing Jedi doing things, and then criticizing what they do. The films just make them look more like total idiots. Which is entertainment in itself, just a different type.
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Mar 28, 2014 19:47
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I don't see how it's any more a criticism of liberal democracy than "conservative" democracy--insufficiently orthodox leftism is always way more offensive to true believers than out and out conservatism. I guess the idea is Chancellor Valorum=Jimmy Carter, Palaptine=Reagan. And Anakin is Bush. Luke is Clinton.
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Mar 28, 2014 19:50
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