Why I object to an SW reboot/decanonizing of DSW

[GreyICE]

Problematic about this is: Even these questions are not apodictically working.
- Is this artistic vision creative, interesting, and novel? Does it have something to grab you?

Where I'd say "Nope, definitely nothing novel or creative" - take for instance the episode of the Orville, where they entered the flat-universe. The story behind the flat-universe-story (Guy 1 needs to show, that he is officer-material and he has this heart to heart on a shuttlecraft) is something, that I've seen over on the "parallax"-Episode of Voyager and done relatively more competent.

Or - again - take Star Wars Episodes 8 and 9 - they do something creative or novel with the idea - no matter, how stupid we might find said ideas, but they're novel and creative, because it hasn't been done before on screen.

Even the camerawork in Disco would be something, I'd call "creative" or "novel" and don't think - entering point two - that it would obscure the artists vision very much.

Every analysis is going to be to some degree subjective. If you want to, you can argue everything is subjective, and nothing can be discussed. It's an argument, certainly. Quite a few artists have made it. But I won't say that it's ever lead to any productive discussion.

There's a video game reviewer who made fun of/impaled that position I was linked to once. He did a "totally objective video game review" where he made statements along the lines of "Halo is a video game that is played on the XBox console, which is sold and manufactured by Microsoft. In the game you play a person. The game uses video rendering technology and your TV to show you the illusion of a 3D world using moving lights. In this illusionary 3D world, you can move using the controller, this part is called gameplay. Sometimes you can't move using a controller, this part is called cutscenes. In this illusion there are guns, which you can pick up, and shoot. The enemies have guns and shoot you. You and the enemies can die, but because it is an illusion, neither you nor them actually die. And in fact they do not exist, except as a part of this game named Halo. This game has gameplay. And story. You can purchase this game in retail stores that sell it."


But if we move past that, we can look at the idea. Is the idea of telling the story of "A person who has high intellectual capacity, but lacks the the desire to do what others think they should be doing underachieving?"

I believe that's an inherently interesting premise. If I have an incredible talent for writing music, do I have to write music? Am I somehow wasting something if I don't? What if I really, truly hate writing music, but am great at it? Does the fact that I'm great at writing music indicate that I wish to be a music writer and am sabotaging myself because of doubt, or can it indicate that I have a natural talent that I don't enjoy using? And could you ever truly become a great music writer with simple talent and no desire to develop or use that talent?


It's not untraveled ground, but nothing is. It's a vision that tells a story that can fit into a 42 minute episode with commercial breaks. Now we can further break down what parts of this vision are simple, sophomoric, simplistic, based on false premises, or could be developed further. And we can critique whether the story was well told or not.


For the record, I agree with you that episode 7 had no vision beyond "dolla dolla bills". It was one of the most derivative pieces of crap I've ever had the misfortune to sit through.

[Link8909]

German comedian Mike Krüger started his career with the song "Mein Gott, Walter" (My god, Walter) which dealt with a hapless guy named Walter, and every time, something went wrong, someone near to him said "Mein Gott, Walter". Originally, Krüger wanted to be an architect, but he was into comedy and music and so he was singing that song in a little Hamburgian pub called "Dennys Pan". A record company got curious, he sang the song for them, then they put the song on the radio and when Krüger returned from his vacation - that song "Mein Gott, Walter" was a hit.

But his second album didn't sell that well, and he and his girlfriend were invited to the record company and there, he was told "Write another hit like Mein Gott, Walter".

Why am I telling you this little story about a comedian, you probably never heard from?
As difficult, as it is to come up with another Mega hit like "Mein Gott, Walter" for Mr. Krüger, I'm sure the sentence "Just tell good stories" is something, he, me, and all other people, who are creatively inclined say "Hey, good idea, why didn't anyone tell me?!"

Sure, "tell good stories" - how? What are good stories? And if "telling good stories" should be the goal, why do so many people just not... tell good stories, but waste their time with telling mediocre or bad ones?

Might it have something to do, with the fact, that each story might resonate with people on their personal level? Take "The orville" for example: They can tell, deep, meaningful, intelligent stories as much as they want, when they are having jokes about bodily fluids, I'm out.

There are people out there, who like the new trilogy, there are people out there, who like Discovery, Picard, the Orville - hell, there are people out there, who like SpongeBob Squarepants, as hard as that is for me to imagine, or people, who watch "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here." Granted, the latter one is not that much story driven.

But "tell good stories" is something, which makes me tilt my head and ask "What are good stories?" - and "does telling good stories not contain the risk, that someone might've told it before?"

I mean, you can say about Episode 8 and 9 whatever you want, but at least, they tried something new, instead of the rehash, that is Episode 7.

Well, if you found out the second part to the allegory - you notice that "they should just tell good stories" is basically the same?

What is a good story for you, what is a good story for me, what's a good story for SFDebris? And even if you have figured out a formula - it isn't good, it's formulaic and basically generic.

Honestly this is such a good point that I even realized it reading what I wrote. What I wrote is kind of crap. Sorry for making you read it, I rewrote it. My first post was bad - objectively bad. Hopefully I've made something better.

What good stories and critical analysis comes down to is two fundamental points:

- Is this artistic vision creative, interesting, and novel? Does it have something to grab you?
and
- Did the techniques the artist use show their vision, or obscure it? How cleanly and well did they present their vision, and does the presentation enhance what they're doing, or muddy it?

You'll often hear Chuck go after one of these two things in his review - either praising or condemning. For instance Discovery's camerawork is a good example of violating point two, it obscure's the actual vision, and distracts the viewer, hiding what the artists want to communicate.

You'll also hear him criticize very well made, well acted, well produced episodes that had nothing original or interesting to say. They were 42 well made minutes, but they had no vision. You can view a work through this lens and even completely set aside moral judgments, and just critique it as a piece of art.

That's the objective critical discussion we can have - how original, interesting, novel, and worth expressing were the idea(s) of the work, and how well did the techniques the artist use express and enhance those ideas?

I can tell you that Episode 7 was fucking excellent on number two - it nailed every goddamn point in how you make a movie. And oh my fucking god it failed at one so hard it hurts. That's a classic Disney movie.

I definitely agree with both your points here, for me personally I enjoyed The Sequel Trilogy, they were very well made films, but I would be exaggerating if I said they were the best, or my favorites, they were good for what they are, they do have a positive message to them, their not harmful or offensive in any way, however they do go over story elements that have already been treaded in The Original Trilogy despite the newer elements to them, and this was obviously done in response to The Prequel Trilogy.

Personally I would like to see Star Wars push more creatively different stories beyond small rebels vs oppressive dictatorship, which Rouge One and Solo were good directions in my opinion, however that doesn't mean I want The Sequel Trilogy to be erased, while they're not my favourite films doesn't mean they aren't someone else’s, people are going to get into Star Wars because of these films, children are going to grow up with these films much like how people grew up with The Prequel Trilogy, these films brought in more fans of the franchise, and for other fans to demand that The Sequel Trilogy be erased simple because they hated them is unfair to those fans who do enjoy them, it would be like going up to a kid dressed as Ray and bullying them because they had the audacity of Rey being their hero instead of Luke, It's no longer about the quality of the films, their dictating how one should be a fan and that there is a wrong way to be one, and to erase The Sequel or even The Prequel Trilogy is to say to those people that them liking them is the wrong way to be a fan.

I'm ok with other people not liking The Sequel Trilogy, there are some valid points made and I do find it interesting discussing them, however the sheer volume of negativity and criticism thrown at not just the films, but the cast and crew is ludicrously over blown, and for fans to demand that these films be erased feels more like fan entitlement than anything else, I personally think once people calm down about it or find something new to hate, that The Sequel Trilogy will fit into the franchise much like The Prequel Trilogy has done, and as for the future I'd personally think the next films would focus on a new group of people, maybe even set decades or even centuries past The Original Trilogy or even in the past, as you said GreyICE, the Star Wars universe is very big, and has more than enough room to tell different stories.

[Captain Crimson]

My biggest question is why bother? Seriously, why bother? The galaxy is fucking enormous. I haven't properly dived into the size of the Legends Galaxy, but it's about 2/3rds mapped, filled with over a million (MILLION) inhabited bodies, many of which are so far out of touch that it's hard to even properly quantify in today's internet age. You have to go back to like the age of explorers or something where a King might die and no one finds out about it for months. Only this is more like that over a galactic scale, so it could be years. Decades. There could be a wing of Star Destroyers out there, flying around, recruiting and training new Stormtroopers and maintaining Imperial order because... why not? Space isn't corrosive, things don't decay. Many starship designs are centuries old.

You don't need alternate timelines. It's all true, more or less. Plenty of worlds work that way - 40K, World of Darkness, most D&D works, etc. Everything you see, read, hear, and play is true - it's someone's truth. It might not be the real, actual, factual truth, but it's someone's truth.

Just start telling some good stories. I still haven't seen the last two movies because I watched the remake of A New Hope, and it was not a new story, and every single review I've seen of the next two movies has been mixed to awful. Just a steady stream from everyone who has seen them of "it's not really worth your time."

I imagine what a smart Disney will do is just start telling good stories. Good stories sell. Bad stories don't. The original trilogy was some really loose storytelling, from a timeline and worldbuilding sense. Great stories though.

Contrary to modern-day LF propaganda, consistency was the glue that held the old multimedia empire together. Granted, a good story should take focus. But what made it unique past the world of the ST EU was how they worked to be consistent. Did that always work? Of course not. And things like TCW, which my impression is that was Mr. Lucas's attempts to do for the PT what the SE were for the OT, retconned a lot, so that a reboot was probably inevitable, but nowadays, there is no effort put to the consistency of the multimedia empire, only the TV shows and movies, while the side material, the books and comics, suffer. Mr. Martin literally says, "It's made up, so believe whatever you want."

The core issue is old-school lore fans and SF junkies are not the top dogs now, and for all his warts, Mr. Lucas was just that. So you won't get a good story anyway. It's a pale imitation of past lore that LF has disavowed and pretends never existed as a way to mooch to easy success. And while casuals will like the older EU references, for those who have consumed more than a dozen books and comics, it's painful. With a very real possibility SWL could fade away forever. The old EU had more attention to details. The new canon does not. And don't be fooled, the argument the EU is way too dense to go on is born from nothing but laziness. Like corporate welfare, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

Look at it this way. In any older SWL book, you flip it open, you see a timeline. The new EU does the same thing. So why should SWL be discontinued? Older fans prefer the novels and comic books since they greatly expanded the lore and in today's hyper-paced world, are a bit more niche. That's perfect for the SWL fans. And while they want casuals, they could have kept the canon production line for the TV shows and movies, nothing else. Everyone would win that way. But they don't want to do that. And it's not just PC agenda. It's vanity, and it's the bottom line, and it's so many people with their hands in the jar now looking to make bank. Do you really think the final product is gonna hold up under those circumstances? It won't.

Lucasfilm it may be named, but the spark, the spirit of Mr. Lucas is gone. And I think that's what most fans miss.

[GreyICE]

Contrary to modern-day LF propaganda, consistency was the glue that held the old multimedia empire together.

I'm gonna call bullshit, because the glue that held the old world together was toy sales. Seriously, the Star Wars toy sales were fucking legendary.

Also the very first material was still the RPG, which wasn't consistent at all. None of the video games worried too much about consistency (they're at best inconsistent, at worst just made shit up like the TIE Defender - utterly nonsensical since Vader was using a TIE Advanced), and the books only worried about consistency in the most mundane kind of factual check list sense - often the direct and arcs of the Republic would change very abruptly inbetween series, and there was little tonal consistency.

Honestly, your attempts to paint everyone who disagree with you as a johnny-come-lately is straight up bullshit, and I wish you'd stop. This sort of grognardy bullshit just makes everyone hate your fandumb.

The core issue is old-school lore fans and SF junkies are not the top dogs now, and for all his warts, Mr. Lucas was just that.

Given that he started is great movie series "Once upon a time" I think you might find he was telling a fairy tale and knew he was doing so. This idea it was ever for "hard sci-fi junkies" is laughable, they were often the ones spearheading the charge against Star Wars as "fantasy in space", and for decent reasons. Technology works on the "why yes, very well thank you" principle, and any idea of sensible technological development is right out the window.

[Captain Crimson]

I'm gonna call bullshit, because the glue that held the old world together was toy sales. Seriously, the Star Wars toy sales were fucking legendary.

Sales hold together any company. But what holds together a multimedia empire is consistency. Refer to ST in its prime. STV deviated too far from that, as well as STE, so that they were shedding viewers. Because it is "Star Wars" does not magically mean that thinking should stop. It just means it attracts a higher number of people who wave things away by saying the story is built to turn off your brain. That wasn't the case at all, going back to '77, and didn't become the case until arguably '83 when Mr. Lucas had switched gears into wanting to make popular movies, not art.

Honestly, your attempts to paint everyone who disagree with you as a johnny-come-lately is straight up bullshit, and I wish you'd stop. This sort of grognardy bullshit just makes everyone hate your fandumb.

I'm sorry if I've come off as patronizing. That's not my intent. At times, however, I do feel my age, and perhaps it makes me a bit impatient with people. That being ironic since I'm in my late twenties. The disagreement here is fine as are any new fans, older fans, and all stripes in between. I just feel a sad that you say, why should going back to SWL matter? Because it defined me as an SW fan until '14. It was my whole worldview and I think we deserve better than LF propaganda about SWL. I think what they are blowing on corporate excesses could be put into a production line for new books by the old guard. It's where the SWL fandom wants a continuation, not TOR. Not Marvel #108. Not DSW.

It is also rather irritating to see arguments being made by people who have no familiarity with SWL past online articles, or subjective but brief experiences by casual fans. Yes, I'll say that. Being casual doesn't make you any less of a fan. It does mean you are not part of the hardcore geek fringe, though, which pick apart such stuff for hours, geek out with guidebooks and technical details, and what have you. JMS made a whole SF series out of that conceit, and it endures to this day.

I think it's just many casuals feel apathetic to losing SWL since it's mainly stuff books or comics and the new movies are "close enough" so they either feel it validates SWL as garbage if they hate the DC, or think the DC did it better given what many online articles are perpetuating out there on LF's behalf RN. I mean, all of this stuff newcomers bash on SWL for is a natural end result to franchising a fantasy world. Older fans know this. And yet LF is perpetuating a narrative to let the past die and kill it if you have to. It is ultimately what I found in my second viewing through TLJ, and why I came to respect it. It's challenging you and being honest about it. And it's that love-hate thing which made me appreciate it for reasons I think others do and don't.

Winter has made these points before. The old cast is gone, likely never to return but with the possible exception of Mr. Hamill. The main characters are gone, their bloodlines wiped out. SWL is no longer being worked on. So much has been lost while they try and market to nostalgia. I don't get why this is happening, such a schizophrenic management style, but there it is. As fans, we deserve better.

If there's room in the SWU for more stories, that should include SWL, as well. Without dumping what is just non-canon trash into it.

Given that he started is great movie series "Once upon a time" I think you might find he was telling a fairy tale and knew he was doing so. This idea it was ever for "hard sci-fi junkies" is laughable, they were often the ones spearheading the charge against Star Wars as "fantasy in space", and for decent reasons. Technology works on the "why yes, very well thank you" principle, and any idea of sensible technological development is right out the window.

SF is far more than just "a fairy tale" as you paint it. That's one aspect you're conveniently overlooking. Even a wonderful fantasy world needs coherence and an attention to details. I read the HP books, so I can say this with accuracy. It's why I felt the movies gradually dropped in quality over time. And honestly, my larger point was corporate overlords such as Mr. Iger and Ms. Kennedy aren't fans nor do they participate in fandom events. They came into this as cold, sterile businessmen who, at best, watch the movies a few times, and that's all.

Whatever flaws you think of Mr. Lucas, he was an artist, and a terrible writer who aspired to classic SF - the social and scientific aspects. It's only when he started getting into his head to make popular movies that took a nosedive. While he surrounded himself with yes-men, he also surrounded himself with competent and highly talented craftsmen of the artistic SF trade. Again, it is quite telling that Mr. Karpyshyn on ideas he's reached out to LF with has been turned away, with KOTOR, ME, and the DBT under his belt. There's no love here. No spirit here. You have to make do with what you can.

It's late, heading to bed. Night!

[MrL1992]

I generally object to most media going the way of comix books and pulling off sweeping retcons, particuarly in response to people not liking a story or two. Comics at least have the excuse of needing to run with the same mainstay characters seemingly constantly so retconning is inevitable but its not something other media should embrace.

I really don't like Episode IX but I'll live with it. Though Rey will still just be 'Rey' in my head, not Palpatine, not Skywalker.

[GreyICE]

Sales hold together any company. But what holds together a multimedia empire is consistency. Refer to ST in its prime. STV deviated too far from that, as well as STE, so that they were shedding viewers. Because it is "Star Wars" does not magically mean that thinking should stop. It just means it attracts a higher number of people who wave things away by saying the story is built to turn off your brain. That wasn't the case at all, going back to '77, and didn't become the case until arguably '83 when Mr. Lucas had switched gears into wanting to make popular movies, not art.

You know there's this place called "SF Debris" that did a really good review of Star Wars, and they brought up that Lucas specifically made the movies to be popular. He made them deliberately as "big, popular, fun blockbusters." They were never meant to be art films Apocalypse Now.

Anyway, go check out that website, it's got some really great stuff on it.

I'm sorry if I've come off as patronizing. That's not my intent. At times, however, I do feel my age, and perhaps it makes me a bit impatient with people. That being ironic since I'm in my late twenties. The disagreement here is fine as are any new fans, older fans, and all stripes in between. I just feel a sad that you say, why should going back to SWL matter? Because it defined me as an SW fan until '14. It was my whole worldview and I think we deserve better than LF propaganda about SWL.

Oh for fucks sake, I've been a Star Wars fan for longer than you've been alive. Literally. I've literally been a fan since before your dad's cock fertilized an egg in your mom's womb. I remember placing a library hold on Dark Force Rising. I loved those books, and I loved those movies.

I remember Legends. The good, the bad, and the ugly. There was quite a bit of the first, quite a lot of the second, and a few examples of the third.

It still started with the 1987 roleplaying game, and therefore the first thing, the very first principle of "Star Wars Legends" as you put it is "make your own story." That principle predates everything else, except the movies.

SF is far more than just "a fairy tale" as you paint it.

No. Fairy tales are far more than you think they are. George Lucas worked hand in hand with John Campbell, the man who created the idea of The Monomyth, who created the idea of The Hero's Journey, and Star Wars very, very closely follows the format of The Hero's Journey, with almost no deviation.

It's a modern fairy tale - not as in glass slippers and fairy godmothers, but as in a myth, a touchstone with universal human appeal. A tale that transcends culture and time period. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." "Once, upon a time."

Is Disney the right shepherds of this? Fuck no. They can all go stick their dicks in ground glass, as a service to future generations. But the only thing that would be as bad as Disney is some fucking uber-fan getting their hands on it and making everything conform to their view of what "the true Star Wars" should be.

Ideally I'd like the license to be managed like Lucas Arts in the late 80s/early 90s - give it to anyone who seems competent, see what they do with it.