Independent George wrote:I'm not familiar with the EU at all - what typically happens to force sensitives who never get training from either Jedi or Sith? Do their talents fade, or do they end up learning all the wrong things from misusing those powers? It's an awful big galaxy to expect the few Jedi out there to find all of those kids early enough for training.
From what I recall (of the old EU at least), generally they’re pretty much how Luke was up until ANH or how Leia is throughout the OT. Their talents remain pretty much untapped, but they can get an edge instinctwise over non-sensitives, such as getting hunches (eg they may hesitate when crossing a road and a second later a speeder blasts passed which would have knocked them down if they’d continued crossing, or a gambler might be able to better predict when an opponent is bluffing, not going full on mindreading, just picking up on surface feelings).
In the EU there were also numerous other Force-based religions scattered throughout the galaxy that would also be picking up sensitives the Jedi and Sith hadn’t found (iirc one of the plot lines in one of the latter series had Han and Leia’s oldest son having journeyed throughout the galaxy to learn non-Jedi teachings to try and gain better perspective of the Force). Personally, I think it’s a pity this wasn’t encorporated into the PT to some degree; I’d have had Palpatine be a member of one of these other Force-religions as a way of further explaining why the Jedi never realised he was a Sith - any hints they had of his power that the Dark Side hadn’t blinded them too/hadn’t masked would have been dismissed as him being a practitioner of a non-Jedi religion.
Morgaine wrote:
All this shows it was something Lucas made up on the spot because he thought it was cool and was possibly.... "inspired" by a certain Japanese novel from 1995 which was followed by a videogame in 1998 dealing with mitochondria enabling superpowers in humans. He clearly put no thought into the effect of integrating this explanation into a setting that had already established it as space magic wielded by wizards.
Lucas first mentioned midi-chlorians in his 1977 guidelines for the proto-EU, he wanted to put them in the OT but never found the right opportunity, explaining Anakin's significance gave him one. They are far more likely inspired by the mentalics and Bene Gesserit, who use the scientifically quantifiable spice but are still presented in a mystical context. Chuck already explained how he wasn't ripping anyone off in the Hero's Journey.
Beastro wrote:Returning to Dune, there is actually very little backstory and history to the books. Somethings were explained and others were left vague in the same way real history is has events and periods of time that are spotty to us today. What was explained rarely went into any detail and the paradoxical effect was creating a sense of depth out of proportion to what was presented, typical in an off the cuff manner like someone flipping through a history book and mentioning random states and civilizations throughout history.
Amusingly, it's the opposite approach to Tolkien took but both worlds have a heavy weight of history about them, although Tolkien's still has a vastly deeper sense of that to it.
As far as Tolkien, it's mostly true there too that things are left vague. He certainly had ideas about the long and deep history of the world and its people, but the novels only make passing reference to the stories and ruins they encounter, due to the limited point-of-view. This is an intentional part of the storytelling, as elaborated upon in this talk: Lord of the Rings: How To Read J.R.R. Tolkien by Michael D. C. Drout. Any elaboration we have about the details comes from peripheral material.
Deledrius wrote:
As far as Tolkien, it's mostly true there too that things are left vague. He certainly had ideas about the long and deep history of the world and its people, but the novels only make passing reference to the stories and ruins they encounter, due to the limited point-of-view. This is an intentional part of the storytelling, as elaborated upon in this talk: Lord of the Rings: How To Read J.R.R. Tolkien by Michael D. C. Drout. Any elaboration we have about the details comes from peripheral material.
I don't know the full publication history of LotR, but every edition I've encountered has a lengthy appendix attached to Return of the King. Generally, if any of the history is important enough that it gets a passing mention in the text, there's a bit more information on it at the end. There's a full calendar of important dates in the Third Age (including events after the story ends, such as Gimli and Legolas taking the last ship to the undying lands) genealogy on the kings of Gondor (important because that line carries elven blood), and an expansion on the story between Aragorn and Arwen.
That is, it's not even peripheral material when it's released with the actual material. You might still have even more curiosity, but Tolkien basically shows his work when it comes to the worldbuilding. He's thought out the world and if there's anything he suspects readers might want to know about, he gives a few more details.
I don't know what to say about as it relates to Star Wars, though. If there were details important for the reader to know in order to understand what was happening, he generally included them in the main text. That doesn't seem like it was always the case for Star Wars, where vague allusions to prophecy were made without telling us about it.
bronnt wrote:I don't know the full publication history of LotR, but every edition I've encountered has a lengthy appendix attached to Return of the King. Generally, if any of the history is important enough that it gets a passing mention in the text, there's a bit more information on it at the end. There's a full calendar of important dates in the Third Age (including events after the story ends, such as Gimli and Legolas taking the last ship to the undying lands) genealogy on the kings of Gondor (important because that line carries elven blood), and an expansion on the story between Aragorn and Arwen.
That is, it's not even peripheral material when it's released with the actual material. You might still have even more curiosity, but Tolkien basically shows his work when it comes to the worldbuilding. He's thought out the world and if there's anything he suspects readers might want to know about, he gives a few more details.
I don't know what to say about as it relates to Star Wars, though. If there were details important for the reader to know in order to understand what was happening, he generally included them in the main text. That doesn't seem like it was always the case for Star Wars, where vague allusions to prophecy were made without telling us about it.
Different media, different rules - it's easy enough to add an appendix to the back of a 1,000+ pages of text. How do you add an appendix of supplementary materials to a film? The closest analogue I can come up with is a DVD extra, like the 'history of Westeros' shorts on the Game of Thrones Blu-Rays. Is there an equivalent of a showrunner's bible for film?
The Lord of the Rings is obviously full of passing references to earlier works and characters, but the amazing thing is that there are only two references that did not already exist in some form in his previous writings- the Cats of Queen Beruthiel, and the names of the Blue Wizards.
Tolkien has some big advantages over almost any other world-builder, let alone a director working with studios, investors, etc. What ended up being background stuff for The Lord of the Rings was material that Tolkien had been passionate about and writing for decades, and those writings were based on still earlier traditions drawn from a huge number of sources. His job as a philologist made him the perfect person to draw on ancient traditions and create a new mythology. The demand for more Hobbits also forced Tolkien to come up with something a little less esoteric than some of his Silmarillion material, so it was really a perfect storm. By way of comparison, The Hobbit, while still a rich book, doesn't have the same depth of connection; there are some anachronisms in the book, and some of the references feel incidental.
Star Wars really benefits from a similar "lived in" feel. Lucas drawing from Kurosawa and other earlier sources in film and literature contributed to that. While we should obviously doubt some of Lucas' claims about how everything fit together exactly as he planned, I think he does deserve credit for drawing on some of his earlier sources. It just doesn't end up being quite as deep or as well thought out as, say, Dune, and certainly isn't even in the same league as Tolkien.
Independent George wrote:Different media, different rules - it's easy enough to add an appendix to the back of a 1,000+ pages of text. How do you add an appendix of supplementary materials to a film? The closest analogue I can come up with is a DVD extra, like the 'history of Westeros' shorts on the Game of Thrones Blu-Rays. Is there an equivalent of a showrunner's bible for film?
That's part of why I'm not sure what to make of it. I just wanted to point out that there's no fair comparison between Tolkien and Lucas because Tolkien was able to show all the work he did.The main problem with "The Phantom Menace" is that Lucas doesn't seem clear on what story he is trying to tell and how he's telling it. There's no single clear plot thread that carries the story from start to finish, nothing even close to Frodo's involvement with the ring and the quest to destroy it.
Independent George wrote:I'm not familiar with the EU at all - what typically happens to force sensitives who never get training from either Jedi or Sith? Do their talents fade, or do they end up learning all the wrong things from misusing those powers? It's an awful big galaxy to expect the few Jedi out there to find all of those kids early enough for training.
From what I recall (of the old EU at least), generally they’re pretty much how Luke was up until ANH or how Leia is throughout the OT. Their talents remain pretty much untapped, but they can get an edge instinctwise over non-sensitives, such as getting hunches (eg they may hesitate when crossing a road and a second later a speeder blasts passed which would have knocked them down if they’d continued crossing, or a gambler might be able to better predict when an opponent is bluffing, not going full on mindreading, just picking up on surface feelings).
In the EU there were also numerous other Force-based religions scattered throughout the galaxy that would also be picking up sensitives the Jedi and Sith hadn’t found (iirc one of the plot lines in one of the latter series had Han and Leia’s oldest son having journeyed throughout the galaxy to learn non-Jedi teachings to try and gain better perspective of the Force). Personally, I think it’s a pity this wasn’t encorporated into the PT to some degree; I’d have had Palpatine be a member of one of these other Force-religions as a way of further explaining why the Jedi never realised he was a Sith - any hints they had of his power that the Dark Side hadn’t blinded them too/hadn’t masked would have been dismissed as him being a practitioner of a non-Jedi religion.
Hilariously Luke when recruiting for his order.. told to scout out casinos and look for people that consistently beat the house without any visible cheating. 6 out of 10 they turned out to be force sensitive.
____
I kinda enjoy the fact that so much of GL's decision making was for the sake of one scene since as would be writers will tell you several stories start at a climactic scene... and then you have to work backwards!
"When you rule by fear, your greatest weakness is the one who's no longer afraid."
Morgaine wrote:
All this shows it was something Lucas made up on the spot because he thought it was cool and was possibly.... "inspired" by a certain Japanese novel from 1995 which was followed by a videogame in 1998 dealing with mitochondria enabling superpowers in humans. He clearly put no thought into the effect of integrating this explanation into a setting that had already established it as space magic wielded by wizards.
Lucas first mentioned midi-chlorians in his 1977 guidelines for the proto-EU, he wanted to put them in the OT but never found the right opportunity, explaining Anakin's significance gave him one. They are far more likely inspired by the mentalics and Bene Gesserit, who use the scientifically quantifiable spice but are still presented in a mystical context. Chuck already explained how he wasn't ripping anyone off in the Hero's Journey.
Yes because Lucas has never lied before about planning things ahead of time right?
Given these "notes" were published in an appendix to a book published in 2007 you'll excuse me if I don't take the fabrications of a proven liar seriously.
