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Maxwell Lord posted:Still doesn't solve the problem of how you make it actually work this time. The system currently in place does not actually work. How would you solve the problem?
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Mar 20, 2014 03:17
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Maxwell Lord posted:It's not defeatism- if you can actually deliver a coherent plan for a nonviolent transition to a fully egalitarian, nonauthoritarian society I'll be in favor of it. I do blame people for being skeptical. It's a choice between humanizing/resisting capitalism (i.e. the prequels) and re-inventing/re-activating communism (i.e. the unrealized potential of the original trilogy's rebellion, disclosed by its failure). Why nonviolence? What's missing in your idea of nonviolent transition is revolutionary terror, the dissolution of hierarchical links that allows democracy to emerge. The situation is already incredibly violent, so a nonviolent transition is impossible from the beginning. You are, at the very least, transitioning out of violence.
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Mar 20, 2014 20:35
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Maxwell Lord posted:Okay, so what should we do to bring about the revolution? What's the plan? What's the setup of the ideal society to follow? How do we prevent it from malfunctioning as bad as previous attempts? This is kind of a false question. What was 'the plan' behind liberal capitalism, which led to what we have today? Obviously there was no singular 'plan', despite various historical figures arguing for free-market policies or whatever. Nobody sat down and said 'let's invent capitalism!' (The term itself was coined by none other than Karl Marx.) The end goal - communism - is the plan, in other words. It's the universal ideal to be worked towards, in each concrete situation, through a variety of tactics (of which there are plenty of historical examples). But you are seemingly less concerned about a revolution 'malfunctioning' than of it functioning too well. The malfunctioning of the Rebellion in Star Wars is that Luke did not go far enough, and ultimately caused the prequels. Why do you feel that you deserve to be gutted?
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Mar 21, 2014 01:44
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Maxwell Lord posted:This sounds good but then shouldn't incremental change- deposing an Emperor, for example- still be something to celebrate? It may not be the singular glorious Revolution, but it is an improvement, no? That is what Danger and I have referred to as the unrealized, virtual potential of the rebellion. Here we can point to those other prequels - The Thing 2011, Prometheus, etc. - that are slavishly adherent to 'canon' and yet also feature characters who (have the potential to) make a radical break from continuity. "[Robespierre denounces the "humanitarian" concern with victims of the revolutionary "divine violence": "A sensibility that wails almost exclusively over the enemies of liberty seems suspect to me. Stop shaking the tyrant's bloody robe in my face, or I will believe that you wish to put Rome in chains." The critical analysis and the acceptance of the historical legacy of the Jacobins overlap in the true question to be raised: does the (often deplorable) actuality of the revolutionary terror compel us to reject the very idea of Terror, or is there a way to REPEAT it in today's different historical constellation, to redeem its virtual content from its actualization? It CAN and SHOULD be done, and the most concise formula of repeating the event designated by the name "Robespierre" is: to pass from (Robespierre's) humanist terror to anti-humanist (or, rather, inhuman) terror." (link, my italics) 'Course I'm repeating my earlier points here. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Mar 21, 2014 |
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Mar 21, 2014 05:59
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THE BAR posted:I thought that the point behind Prometheus was to break canon as much as possible, while trying to sell it as a traditional prequel to the previous Alien films? Playing on people's expectations? It's both! Prometheus is not fundamentally different from these other prequels. It has the same hyperreal aesthetic, and so-forth. It actually just doubles down on the canonicity - an entire film devoted to midichlorians.
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Mar 22, 2014 07:18
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Ewoks are good precisely because they're a sticking point: they don't 'fit in', so viewers keep returning to them over and over - like JarJar. In the middle of the fun, you get a big dollop of uncomfortable race imagery. Leia, dressed in fatigues, handing the 'primitive' little kid a candy bar is an extremely loaded image. Same with C-3PO being worshipped as a 'white god', and so many related things. There are two standard audience responses to the question posed by JarJar and the Ewoks. The first is to blame the alien for causing your discomfort. You see this in fan-edits that modify JarJar's behavior - making him speak more eloquently, act more rationally, and generally sanitizing him of his 'racial' attributes. Other fans go so far as to erase JarJar entirely. The other (related) response is the cynical one: to accuse George Lucas of being a hack and a racist, a manchild who loves poo humor and raped your childhood - basically the source of all evil. In either case, the fantasy is that if certain 'bad' elements are removed, the Star Wars Universe will be made 'pure and clean again'. Note all the fans overjoyed that the series is 'freed' of Lucas' influence. It's the premise behind "The People Vs. George Lucas". The Plinkett Reviews culminate with Lucas being labelled the Death Star, and heroically killed. It's this fantasy of purity and holism that must be rejected. It must be understood that it's the Universe itself that is to blame: the Republic ideology that cannot account for JarJar's 'intolerable' lower-class behaviour, and that sees the Ewoks as cute, noble savages. The Star Wars Universe itself is racist, and the only way to 'fix it' is through ideological critique and harsh (re-)interpretation. In this vein, the response to the Ewoks is that they are none other than the Jawas of Episode 4, treated patronizingly. They really are 'filthy creatures', as C-3PO says - the prawns from District 9. It's essential not to romanticize them, and yearn for a 'simpler life' - to understand that they're awful, flesh-eating rat-creatures, and love them anyway. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Mar 23, 2014 |
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Mar 23, 2014 04:36
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porfiria posted:Just look at how badly executed Anakin is in the prequels--he's supposed to be the frustrated avatar of the democratic conscience, or whatever. So fine, except why does that mean his feelings for Padme and his mother are so alien and remote? Shouldn't his passion at least feel real? There's a big difference between awkward overly formal courtship layering over genuine feeling (see Remains of the Day or about 10,000 other movies where this is done well) vs. the really badly written business in Clones. Anakin reads as a total sociopath. Or see Anakin slaughtering the Sand People--so he's just a murderer now? For the whole attack on liberalism angle to mean anything Anakin has to be a recognizable human being on some level. You are getting tripped up by supposed-to-bes, failing to interpret. As outlined in previous posts, the prequels are anti-humanist. Anakin's human failings - his mommy issues, his weird attachment to Padme, his resentment towards ObiWan, etc. - are what hold him back from becoming Darth Vader, the Angel Of Justice. Anakin's racism and so-on are a direct result of these human failings. He murders the sandpeople because they killed his mommy. He allies with the Emperor to protect his surrogate mommy/wife. Obiwan is 'holding him back' from resurrecting his mommies. And who is his surrogate mommy but the 'elected queen' who stands for a literally two-faced liberal elitism? Anakin's support of the liberal Republic is a direct product of his human pathologies. Anakin being a loser, therefore, is essential to the critique of liberalism - and vice-versa. He commits genocide in the name of liberalism. This is the exact same message as in Only God Forgives. Ryan Gosling being a creepy loser is not unintentional; it's Oedipus. Like the dude asking why JarJar is 'supposed to be' funny, if he isn't funny at all. The obvious answer is that JarJar is not 'supposed to be' funny; it's a bullshit premise. JarJar is the protagonist of Phantom Menace, and his treatment by the focal characters is unconscionable. His treatment by the Star Wars Universe itself is unconscionable, because it is the racist ideology of the Universe that makes him appear this way. It dehumanizes him. If it's funny, it's not 'ha-ha' funny. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Mar 23, 2014 |
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Mar 23, 2014 21:13
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I'm extremely suspicious of people who say "SMG your argument is persuasive and I can't find flaw with it, but I just don't see it." "Even if the movies are satires, they're just not fun." "Even if you do stand for truth and freedom, it's just not joyful." This, I claim, is ideology. The prequels are tons of fun if you have the tools to understand them. If you can't identify fun in Yoda battling an electric Dracula, the fault is yours alone! Lunatic Pathos posted:Okay, so the critique then is really with the practice and practitioners of liberal democracy, not with the idea itself. No, the issue really is with the ideology (root word: idea) itself. You can't look at the Republic and say they're not liberal enough, like 'if only Barack Obama were the queen!' We can, however, say that they're not democratic enough. Obiwan claims to stand for democracy - "all opinions are equally valid" - to the point that he would die for it. But this refusal to have a point of view, his insistence on total neutrality, is an extremely ideological position. Obiwan does absolutely nothing to help the homeless, on Tatooine and elsewhere, because to do so would violate his neutrality! So, he ends up just enforcing for whichever group is currently in power. This is why Obiwan's 'universal' democracy is not universal at all, but loaded with hidden exclusions. True democracy is based on emancipation: power to the people, in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
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Mar 24, 2014 04:15
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Lunatic Pathos posted:Why not? If liberalism means protecting individual "Jacques Ranciere proposed a very elegant and precise solution of the antinomy between Human Rights (belonging to "man as such") and the politicization of citizens: while Human Rights cannot be posited as an unhistorical "essentialist" Beyond with regard to the contingent sphere of political struggles, as universal "natural rights of man" exempted from history, they also should not be dismissed as a reified fetish which is a product of concrete historical processes of the politicization of citizens. The gap between the universality of Human Rights and the political rights of citizens is thus not a gap between the universality of man and a specific political sphere; it, rather, "separates the whole of the community from itself," as Ranciere put it in a precise Hegelian way. Far from being pre-political, "universal Human Rights" designate the precise space of politicization proper: what they amount to is the right to universality as such, the right of a political agent to assert its radical non-coincidence with itself (in its particular identity), i.e., to posit itself - precisely insofar as it is the "surnumerary" one, the "part with no part," the one without a proper place in the social edifice - as an agent of universality of the Social as such. The paradox is thus a very precise one, and symmetrical to the paradox of universal human rights as the rights of those reduced to inhumanity: at the very moment when we try to conceive political rights of citizens without the reference to universal "meta-political" Human Rights, we lose politics itself, i.e., we reduce politics to a "post-political" play of negotiation of particular interests." -Slavoj Zizek, The Obscenity of Human Rights: Violence as Symptom porfiria posted:This is all plot summary though, and doesn't really address what I'm saying. I'm not arguing Anakin does or doesn't "represent" those things--the problem is that his "human failings" as you call them aren't human at all. Clones spends a massive portion of its interminable run time on Anakin's awkward, tedious romance--and it's not creepy or unsettling or scary, it's just flat (although sometimes laughable, at least). I'm glad you brought up Only God Forgives; that movie does pathetic, attenuated romance really well. It's also not a coincidence Refn spends about three minutes on it, and half of that is in the hilarious dinner scene. Gosling's character isn't complex, but he's recognizably human--his awkwardness, and explosive rage, track. They, you know, make sense. Anakin's failings don't (and don't even get me started on Natalie Portman's emotional arc, UGH). This, again, is ideology. You claim that Anakin's behaviour is 'awkward' and 'alien', but miss that it must be awkward and alien to something. It is awkward in the context of the Star Wars Universe - the ideological universe of new-age quasi-Buddhism, where the Jedi strive to forgo all attachments and become sexless, disembodied transhumans. This is part-and-parcel with the entire greenscreen, CGI aesthetic of the films. Anakin does not behave 'unnaturally'. 'Nature' itself is flawed. Like the scene where Padme has no idea how to react to her husband's Genocide, and offers an awkward hug, Star Wars cannot comprehend such a horrible crime, let alone the greater injustice that spawned it. Padme simply cannot fit it into her worldview, and you can see her brain failing to process it. That scene is one of the best in the series. "To be angry is to be human." SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Mar 24, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 06:53
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:you're either a troll, or you are to CD what Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity I'm neither. That scene is perfect at illustrating Padme's stupidity. Anakin's like "I killed a bunch of homeless people!" and her response is "well, you're human." Not even "only human"; Padme considers humanity a baseline good thing, and genocide a natural (if unfortunate) consequence. Of course, implicitly, the homeless sandpeople are not human at all. This is a perfect mirror to the relationship between Jedi and Republic: the Jedi try to prevent bad stuff like genocide by simply transcending humanity and floating off into the singularity - but they rely on funding from the corrupt human Republic to do so. Instead of raising the Republic up, this connection drags the Jedi down - just as Anakin's pathological attachment to Padme drags him down. And just as Padme is a racist who doesn't care about sandpeople, the Republic obviously excludes 'third-world' planets like Tatooine. The scene provides a very basic summary of the film's science-fictional premise: humans are stupid. They aspire to something greater, but they don't know how. And, at the same time, they have these incredibly ugly reactions towards those considered inhuman. This is why the films are loaded with every possible type of sci-fi creature that bends the definition of humanity: ghosts, aliens, clones, robots, cyborgs, shapeshifters.... The thesis, in the end, is that humanity cannot progress because it fails to love the inhuman. JarJar is the protagonist. Padme is the villain. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Mar 24, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 08:23
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Lord Krangdar posted:I'm not sure why you use the word protagonist to describe Jar Jar, or how that specific detail fits with the rest of what you're saying. He's not really the protagonist in the sense that he doesn't display much agency at all. To me Qui-Gon is the protagonist of the first film since he's the only one making conscious, definite choices to drive the story whereas everyone else (besides Palpatine) kinda just goes along with whatever situations those two create. I'm drawing a distinction between protagonist and focal character. Qui-Gon and the rest of the Jedi are the focal characters in that they get the most screen-time, get into splashy battles and whatnot, but Jar-Jar is the audience-identification character (experiencing the conflict for the first time) with the strongest arc (from exile to General) and most relatable motivations (fighting for equality for his people, stopping the evil corporations). Compare the opening of Phantom Menace to the opening of A New Hope. There's a battle on a starship, two good guys escape to the planet below, where they encounter a naive young kid.... JarJar is the Luke Skywalker of The Phantom Menace. His role in the film is to be introduced to this galaxy-spanning conflict and to choose how he'll proceed. He takes advice from people, makes alliances... He chooses poorly, of course - but then he was being manipulated by those he thought were his friends. Baby Anakin also shares traits with Luke, but he's a secondary protagonist - appearing way later in the film and not doing quite as much. Phantom Menace is primarily the story of JarJar's induction into the Republic. JarJar being the audience identification character has obvious implications. He is you. "But I'm not like JarJar!" Sorry, but in the the context of the Star Wars Universe, you are. You're the person expected to buy into the film's message, to be happy that the multiculturalism orb is raised at the end, to feel like you've joined the good liberals and beaten the bad conservatives. You're expected to consider Padme a nice person, even though she thinks you're a dupe. And then, ultimately, you put the emperor in power!
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Mar 24, 2014 11:17
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Chex Warrior posted:Wow, I just got caught up on this thread. SMG, I am not persuaded by your argument re: racial stereotypes in the prequels. There is nothing particularly subversive or edgy about conniving, cowardly Chinese villains, or a comical minstrel show buffoon. Regurgitating Star Wars canon to justify their existence only proves that Star Wars is internally consistent. What is it that you would subvert? 'Racism', in the abstract? Racism is a mask for class conflict - and class conflict is all over Star Wars, through and through. When you talk about 'subversion' and 'racism' ('stereotypes', etc.) without the context of real progressive struggle, you are reducing them to buzzwords. You are speaking vaguely about how 'people will take issue (with racism)', they have valid opinions and I shouldn't dismiss them. This is false. I can tell a great deal about a person based on their opinion of Star Wars. When you speak, you are communicating. A person who strives to erase JarJar is promoting a racist ideology, the same multicultural ideology as the Republic that would also erase JarJar. There's a very funny thread about this topic called Commercial Film as Art Form- Does analysis outweigh the bad messaging? - that I encourage you to read.
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Mar 24, 2014 20:09
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Chex Warrior posted:I've read it. Here's the problem: It's a work of fiction. JarJar is not real. The issue I take with him, Watto, the Seperatists, etc. is that they are all based blatantly on stereotypes used to justify atrocities, and never deviate from these stereotypes. The issue I take with you is the implication that JarJar & co are appropriate standins for these minorities. You seem to be saying that I don't like Jar Jar because I secretly don't like black people, but my issue is that he's reminiscent of blackface, ie a white man parodying a black man.  "my issue is that he's reminiscent of blackface, ie a white man parodying a black man." You are correct that JarJar is a creation, but he is is a creation of an ideology. "The “being” of blacks…is a socio-symbolic being. When they are treated by whites as inferior, this does indeed make them inferior…. The white racist ideology exerts a performative efficiency. It is not merely an interpretation of what blacks are, but an interpretation that determines the very being…of the interpreted subjects." (Zizek, Violence) JarJar acts inferior because, in the context of the liberal Star Wars Universe, he is inferior. The Universe makes him inferior - Star Wars itself is to blame, and must be rejected. By attempting to shift the blame onto the person of George Lucas, you are falling in line with that racist ideology. By saying JarJar is just a mere parody of a black man, opposing him to your notions of 'real' black men, you are falling in line with that racist ideology.
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Mar 24, 2014 22:41
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Fading away and disappearing are pretty much synonyms. Don't get pedantic. It's dumb.Chex Warrior posted:I am well aware that the actor is black, but my issues are with the imagery being used. By parody, I'm not saying he's not my version of a "real" black man, I'm saying he evokes minstrel show characterization, especially with the Chinese and Jewish stereotypes present as well. I mentioned Lucas' status as a rich, white male because there are perfectly legitimate reasons to be uncomfortable with how these films handle race. That the writer/director/creator is the exact opposite of a minority is one of them. Would you say that George Lucas should 'check his privilege'? This vague opposition is tiresome. I don't care at all about your "issues." If the film has made you uncomfortable with blackface imagery, then great! It's a film about racism - the racism of the Republic. Your problem is that you are mad about Ahmed Best 'acting stereotypical' instead of his character's unfair treatment by the racist 'heroes'.
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Mar 24, 2014 23:48
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porfiria posted:Yes but what if Chex Warrior were black? Identity politics? Shameful!
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Mar 24, 2014 23:55
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Yeah, but playing 'you missed a detail' skips over HBguy's actual point: that Chex Warrior is refusing/failing to interpret the film. Interpretation goes beyond mere description ("JarJar acts funny", "the film was made by white people", etc.). HBguy's interpretation - that the Gungans are actually treated as disposable by the racist heroes - is not contradicted by the additional detail. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 00:20
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Chex Warrior posted:Refusing, I guess? I'm not offering an interpretation at this point. My issue has only ever been with the claim that everyone who didn't like Jar Jar is racist. That's beyond film interpretation, it's accusatory and confrontational, and I can't wrap my head around why you think that's how to share film interpretation. I don't suspect you reached your interpretation of the film because a Internet Forum Guy said you were racist if you didn't. This is a repeat of the Pacific Rim thread, where the simple interpretation of that film's ideology as fascist/corporatist was met by so much crocodile tears. How-dare-yous, and "how could you say that about me?". Please. Your deep, inner feelings are absolutely unimportant to me, except when you evoke them as a tactic of mystification. When you speak, you communicate. I don't know how you feel inside? Then speak better, because this Tumblr stuff doesn't cut it.
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Mar 25, 2014 02:29
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Chex Warrior posted:This isn't about my deep inner feelings, you goof. It's about you claiming knowledge of others' motivation. The question is not "how could you say that about me?" but "how could you infer that about me soley from my opinion on this popular film?" People aren't responding to your interpretations of the film, they're responding to your personal attacks, and you know that full well. I infer things about your opinions based on your opinions. If your opinion is bad, you will receive no quarter from me.
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Mar 25, 2014 04:30
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Orkin Mang posted:Holy poo poo, what a bad rear end! Look out; I'm aggressive and I think I'm correct.
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Mar 25, 2014 05:49
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The point of midichlorians is not that they don't work, but that they work too well. They are a pretty straightforward metaphor for genetics, genetic engineering and so-on. DNA, obviously, exists - and genetic engineering obviously works. The force, however, is psychological - as when Superman levitates through sheer force of will in Man Of Steel. So what you see with Star Wars, when taken as a whole, is a debate over cognitive science and consciousness. The Jedi are not different from the Sith except that they attribute a New Age spirituality to these scientific findings. You know how New-Agers are always using 'quantum' and other terms (often incorrectly, but even if they are not...)? That's what the Jedi do. They're all about notions of 'natural health' and 'balance' applied to psychology and then extrapolated outward to the whole of society. Here again we can look at other prequels. In The Thing '82, the universe is cold and deterministic. Selfhood is just a surface screen over a mass of interacting cells. Humans are meat, like dogs. In The Thing 2011, however, you go 'back in time' to a female character who realizes "there is no fate but what we make" (as in Terminator 2), and makes a radical break from the continuity set by the 1982 film, wandering off into some alternate universe. You see the same in Star Trek 2009 and Prometheus. Maxwell Lord posted: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. "What is foreclosed in the opposition between a predatory technologised capitalism and a primitive organicism, evidently, is the possibility of a modern, technologised anti-capitalism. It is in presenting this pseudo-opposition that Avatar functions as an ideological symptom." (k-punk) As with Avatar, the alternative rests outside the films.
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Apr 1, 2014 21:13
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Maxwell Lord posted:Yes, but formalism dictates that you don't go outside the films. That way lies authorial intent and other messiness. Nah; the interpretation of the films is a precise critique based on textual and contextual elements, and not reliant on that sort of mystification.
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Apr 1, 2014 22:37
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The Jedi in the original trilogy - especially Yoda - need to be read in concert with the Mystics in Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal. Like Yoda, the Mystics are these ancient hippy muppet dinosaurs who live in a swamp and commune with nature. They fade away when they die, etc. etc. However, they are mirror images of the evil Skeksis, these corrupt and decadent bird-monsters who rule the land and enslave people. Not just being the opposite, they are invisibly connected: if a Skeksis is cut, his Mystic counterpart bleeds. If a Mystic fades away, a Skeksis' body disintegrates. The unspoken implication is, of course, that the Mystic's harmonious organic-foods commune is invisibly sustained by the worst slavery and oppression. If they are connected in death, then they are also connected in life: the slavery that keeps the Skeksis fed also fuels the Mystics' spiritual meditations. The Mystics are not 'bad people', but they're failures. They're isolated and impotent, unable to do anything about the genocide just outside their territory. In the end, the hero commandeers the Skeksis' castle - and, presumably, its armies of magic drones - on behalf of the slaves. So it's basically like a fantasy version of Elysium. He defeats the Skeksis, but this inevitably means destroying the Mystics as well.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:44
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Randarkman posted:The tossing away of the blaster is obviously meant as nothing more than a reference to 'an elegant weapon for a more civilized age'. You seem under the impression that words and phrases do not mean things unless imbued with magical intentionality. When you read the word 'apple', for example, it is 'nothing more than a word' unless I, personally, imbue it with meaning. I can present you with a literal apple in real life, and you will not be able to feel it or eat it because its effects will not exist unless I intend them to. "Here is an apple. I do not intend for you to taste it. What do you taste?" Under your logic you would taste nothing, because it is just an apple. That's delusion.
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Apr 17, 2014 06:55
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The Jedis are not equally bad as the emperor. They're merely bad, where Palpatine is Evil. Palpatine is so commited to pure, unmotivated Evil that he circles around to become the good guy of the prequels. He's tearing poo poo up, it's amazing.
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Apr 22, 2014 18:47
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Lucas's suicide-strike on Wookiepedia is the best poo poo to happen to Star Wars since Jar Jar Binks.
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Apr 29, 2014 06:13
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OldSenileGuy posted:So is there a consensus on what the best fanedit of the prequels is? I know there's only so much you can do with polishing a turd, but I'm hoping there's gotta be one good edit out there that condenses all three movies into one 3+ hour movie and cuts out all the garbage. I'm a firm proponent of the idea that only bad films should be given fan-edits. To edit the prequels is wrong.
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Apr 30, 2014 07:57
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sassassin posted:"Died of a broken heart" means suicide and has since, gently caress, the invention of metaphor? Exactly; she commits Force Suicide, but they have the tact not to make it a videogame move.
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Apr 30, 2014 21:25
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Kart Barfunkel posted:I understand that all the stories are out, but does this mean that all the little details are moot too? Do the cantina guys have no names? Will there be any more jizz-wailing? Jizz-wailing is now the term for overwrought fan-reactions.
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May 1, 2014 05:45
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reignofevil posted:Well given that so many people seem to have utterly missed it; perhaps that theme was poorly communicated to the audience. Nope.
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May 1, 2014 18:16
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reignofevil posted:I think I found the problem; it seems to be that you believe that it is the audiences job to find any potential redeeming explanations for the content of the movies. Actual problem: you define "a masterpiece" as "a film with redeeming explanations for [its] content."
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May 1, 2014 18:51
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reignofevil posted:I believe any film can be found to be competently made given [your] reasoning. That's not what competence means.
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May 1, 2014 19:12
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reignofevil posted:We going by Merriam? In the context of filmmaking, competence refers to technical skill. In your own words, a competent film is one that 'communicates well to the audience'. However, you then define 'communicating well' as providing 'potential redeeming explanations for the content', because that is the movie's 'job'. Films that provide 'sufficient' redeeming explanations for the content are (inherently?) pleasurable and therefore 'entertaining'. Sufficiency is measured in relation to cost of the film, so less expensive films need not provide (as many?) redeeming explanations for their content. The standard that you have set to gauge technical skill is extremely weird.
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May 1, 2014 19:35
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reignofevil posted:Finally I think you could do a little better to help discussion along if instead of simply declaring things to be untrue you took time to go into why your explanation was correct; as we could have avoided the entire competence derail. If we are discussing the plot of the prequel trilogy as a written script; it was not competently written. That is; not done with technical skill. Introducing characters like General Grevious into the text dump at the beginning and then having no effort to explain him at all is poor villain introduction. It doesn't HAVE to be but it takes a very technically skilled (aka competent) script and director and editor to pull that off. Revenge of the Sith did not. If we are talking about the technical skill of the directing; it was mostly A shot B shot dialog. Technically adequate; and it could even pass for technically skilled; but it just doesn't in AoTC. To use an analogy, your posts are technically incompetent because they're a cluster of conflicting and unsupported declarative statements. I can, however, still read your words and make sense of them. I am making more sense of them than you likely intended, making them funny. For example: you assert that the film is not competently plotted because there's no 'effort' to 'explain' characters. You then write that a script doesn't need to 'explain' characters if it is competently plotted. (Interestingly, you refer to the script as if it were a person.) Although you wrote a great deal of words about 'competence', this circular and self-cancelling non-statement reveals that you are actually preoccupied with 'effort' - a notion that you do not elaborate upon at all. The end result is that you are not actually talking about the film, but about weird fantasies of the script's inner laziness. reignofevil posted:I didn't claim that thinking about a film could not be pleasurable; merely that if ONLY a film can be pleasurable by thinking about it; and you spent a crapload on it (and this part is implied; I recognize now it is my failure to get it in there) and you utterly failed to communicate the MESSAGE that leads to the pleasurable way of thinking; then you did not get your message across with technical skill. Another example: The above quote is a grammatical trainwreck that hurts to read. However, I've managed to parse the following: you believe a technically competent filmmaker is able to communicate 'MESSAGES' that actually bypass communication, directly impacting the audience's pleasure-centers. If the 'MESSAGE' is only revealed after thinking, the filmmaker is incompetent. This relates back to your assertion that certain scripts contain an inexplicable/incomprehensible 'effort' that makes them good. reignofevil posted:I am finally arsed enough to get on that. Be ready for it to blow your mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kArgQz1RKmk
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May 1, 2014 20:56
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reignofevil posted:I think we will have a much better dialog if you actually take time to show any evidence that this is my position at all; you may surprise even me and then I would gladly admit to being mistaken. "I didn't claim that thinking about a film could not be pleasurable; merely that if ONLY a film can be pleasurable by thinking about it; and you spent a crapload on it ... and you utterly failed to communicate the MESSAGE that leads to the pleasurable way of thinking; then you did not get your message across with technical skill." Let's break this sentence down. [Note: the entire above quote is one run-on sentence.] PART 1: Money and Skill IF The filmmaker spent a crapload of money. AND The filmmaker failed to communicate the MESSAGE. THEN The filmmaker failed to communicate with technical skill. If the filmmaker fails to communicate the MESSAGE, but does not expend a crapload of money in doing so, they might still have technical skill. Essentially, you're saying that a skilled person might be held back by budgetary limitations, but Lucas is rich enough to have 'no excuse'. Because Lucas had a large budget, failure to communicate the MESSAGE can only be the product of incompetence/laziness. What is the MESSAGE? PART 2: The MESSAGE IF The filmmaker failed to communicate the MESSAGE (due to incompetence/laziness or poor funding (see PART 1)). AND Thinking about the film can still be pleasurable. THEN The MESSAGE did not lead to the pleasurable way of thinking. AND The film can ONLY become pleasurable by process of being thought about. As you can see, you assert that there are many ways to enjoy the film, but pleasure that is not a product of the MESSAGE is illegitimate. And then, you do ultimately define legitimacy as a combination of 'sufficient' money and 'competence' (read: effort) on the part of the filmmaker. This is where things break down, because you do not ever actually define what the MESSAGE is - but it's readily apparent that the MESSAGE is actually synonymous with this pre-linguistic 'legitimacy' that is imbued through money and effort. The MESSAGE is legitimacy and legitimacy is the MESSAGE, and both are totally intangible. Technical skill has nothing to do with this. Your opinion is based entirely on weird fantasies of how rich and lazy George Lucas is. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 22:50 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 22:42
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Colonel Whitey posted:A film can inspire thought and still be a bad film. Unfortunate, then, that we are talking about good films. Lunatic Pathos posted:I disagree with your parsing of PART 2, though I agree with your interpretation of PART 1. It seems to me that the IF and THEN statements were confused. I don't believe this is accurate. Reignofevil makes no mention of witty dialogue or whatever - and if he did, how does witty dialogue transcend thought? When broken down, the MESSAGE is an intangible X-factor that exists 'beyond' thought, pleasure and the audience interaction in general. It leads to pleasurable thought. It is something located inside George Lucas. The term can be used interchangably with 'intent', although he also uses words like 'explanation', 'effort', 'competence' and so-on. For example, his point about General Grievous: Reignofevil claims that General Grievous has a poor introduction because his appearance in the film is not 'explained'. Although we can say that he obviously provides a face for the Separatist movement, and doesn't really need 'deep' characterization to convey that he's a goofy devious cyborg, that is not 'legitimate' because we do not know George Lucas' MESSAGE. We are only thinking. We don't know. Competence, intelligence, intention and whatnot are all called into question because he believes that there is a true MESSAGE that has been locked away from us, that exists beyond language. If only Lucas spoke better, we could see the MESSAGE. If only... Reignofevil does not define what the MESSAGE is - for the obvious reason that he does not know what the MESSAGE is. Reignofevil has absolutely no clue how General Grievous ended up in the film, and is unwilling or unable to look at the text to reach a conclusion. So, instead, he indulges in fantasies about Lucas' enjoyment. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 00:23 on May 2, 2014 |
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May 2, 2014 00:21
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Lunatic Pathos posted:the films may be poor in that they fail to communicate, for a plurality of moviegoers, any meaning. If they did not think to find meaning, its because the expectation to think was not managed, or the speaker did not anticipate his audience in order to properly convey meaning or that thinking about meaning was important. I don't know what Reignofevil intended, but I read what he wrote and I believe that my reading is of it is more accurate. With films, there is no 'win condition' and, therefore, no way to judge failure. This is why Reignofevil relies on democratic consensus: whatever the majority of people think, that's what the film is. You can see a funny reflection of this in Episode 3, where Obiwan declares Anakin 'truly lost'. Anakin does not consider all opinions equally valid and, therefore, believes that the majority can be wrong. This belief in Truth is absolutely heretical to the Jedi order. When the Emperor takes over, the Jedi see it as just the bad guys corrupting democracy. They do not understand that their democracy is itself to blame, Freedom dies to thunderous applause, etc. Reignoifevil, likewise, believes that George Lucas corrupted the MESSAGE with his laundry-list of fantastical personal failings. The MESSAGE, however, doesn't actually exist. When people talk about the audience, they forget that I'm in the audience.
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May 2, 2014 02:00
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The Goon posted:This is all speculation but if this movie follows any of the previous films' themes then Luke Skywalker is probably gonna bite it in this one, the same way Qui Gon and Obi Wan did. The true message of Star Wars is that Luke and Leia are not genetically related. They are 'brother and sister in Christ'. The light side fully overwrites the old familial ties. The twin seen at the end of Revenge Of The Sith is a distinct character who has disappeared into a plot hole. Yoda refers to her when he says 'no, there is another...' This is why Leia can remember her mother - her real mother, and why the love triangle in A New Hope is not skeevy.
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May 2, 2014 02:23
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Anakin's hatred of sand is essential characterization. Obviously, he's talking about growing up on Tatooine - but the important part is that he praises how smooth Naboo is by comparison. It's frictionless and ordered, where Tatooine is rough and chaotic. Of course, he's 'actually' referring to Padme's smooth, white skin. But in that case: who are the unspoken, irritating, rough-skinned people who 'get everywhere'? None other than the sandpeople! Those who criticize the sand line as bad romantic dialogue miss that it is an expression of Anakin's racism and classism. Remember that he's the kid who built a golden gay butler for himself, and commited genocide against those sandpeople. Lucas directly links the love story to the genocide. This is not 'supposed to be' sympathetic - it's satire!
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May 3, 2014 01:46
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People are putting a lot of work into puzzling out Obi Wan's hidden motivations for acting like a burnt-out old hermit - missing the obvious explanation that he simply is a burnt-out old hermit. There's no grand scheme to conceal his identity because neither he nor the Empire give a poo poo. He's lived in a shack at the rear end-end of the galaxy for thirty-odd years, studying how sandpeople walk. He calls himself Ben because people on Tatooine have names like Luke and Owen. As for Luke Skywalker: people miss that he was adopted by the Lars family. His legal name is undoubtedly Luke Lars. So, why does he call himself Luke Skywalker? It's a big rebellious gently caress-you to his fake mom and dad. Luke found out he's adopted and took up the Skywalker name as a symbol of pride and defiance. That's why he's so happy to yell "I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm here to rescue you!" The Skywalker name means nothing to Leia, but it means a great deal to Luke. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:38 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 04:35
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echronorian posted:Smg you should do commentary tracks so moment by moment I can be reassured whatever movie I'm watching is really interesting. The posts we've been seeing are of the tactical realism variety, focusing on the most flawless way to conceal your identity. This approach misses characterization. Luke isn't trying to conceal his identity. He's trying to assert his identity. His entire life revolves around living up to the Skywalker name. When he blows up the Death Star, he thinks "finally, I am a Skywalker!" Even before the big twist was planned, it was obvious that Luke was more enamoured with the idea of heroism than with his father's actual human identity. This is why Empire Strikes Back is so crushing. After blowing up the Death Star, Luke becomes increasingly disenchanted with the Rebellion. It turns out to be an unglamorous slog - but he is still motivated by the idea of avenging his father. The big "I am your father" twist shatters Luke's self-image completely. The perfect father never existed. Despite all this, people got very mad that the prequels did not present an idealized Anakin. They missed the point entirely. The prequels, rightly, underline that Anakin actually was just a whiny racist loser. The perfect father never existed. He had some good qualities, but he was ultimately a little poo poo until he put on the mask. Darth Vader is the true hero, the real superhuman avatar of Justice. In Return of the Jedi, Luke's assertion that "I am a Jedi, like my father before me" is his belief - against all available evidence - in his father's heroism. He's reclaiming the idealism of Episode 4, but he's no longer naive about it. "The logic is here the same as that of Anne Frank who, in her diaries, expresses belief in the ultimate goodness of man in spite of the horrors accomplished by men against Jews in World War II: what renders such an assertion of belief (in the essential goodness of Man ...) sublime, is the very gap between it and the overwhelming factual evidence against it, i.e. the active will to disavow the actual state of things. Perhaps therein resides the most elementary meta-physical gesture: in this refusal to accept the real in its idiocy, to disavow it and to search for Another World behind it." This is the Light Side of the force, and it's why Luke and Leia are not genetically related. The Light Side is a rejection of the idiotic, canonical world shown in the prequels. This is what motivates Vader to finally accomplish his destiny and kill the emperor. Vader, despite knowing inside that he really is a piece of poo poo, decides to act like the father he's supposed to be.
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May 3, 2014 05:34
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