Quote from: ForgottenF on June 22, 2024, 12:47:57 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 21, 2024, 04:44:35 PMDo you think that Lucas intended the Jedi to be as cruel and awful as some of the criticisms suggest?

Not at all. I would guess that Lucas thinks being recruited into the Jedi Temple is one of the best things that can happen to a kid, so he wouldn't see a problem with it. As far as the Anakin's mom thing goes, like I said, I think he expected the audience not to question it. He kind of wrote himself into a corner, too, because he wants Anakin's fall to be owed to his overattachment, but he also wants it to be sympathetic to the audience, and give him a reason to blame the Jedi for it. Just having him be overly possessive of Padme would have made him way too unlikeable. Just having him be afraid of her dying in ROTS would have been way too abrupt when he wanted the fall to be more gradual, and he couldn't plausibly blame the Jedi for it. He still bungled it, and he probably should have gone with another plot entirely, but that's what he went for so that's what we got.

Right. So the topic of how horrible it is to recruit babies into the Jedi order and train them as toddlers falls apart because the films are completely unrealistic about how that actually happens and the consequences of it. The author is just writing what sounds good, and doesn't care about the ramifications.
The furthest the conversation can productively go is "It doesnt seem Lucas put much thought into these issues."
If someone blames the fall of the Jedi on the fact that they recruit babies and seem callous to the psychological and moral issues, the answer is simply, it's not a problem because the author didn't see a problem with it, and so it wasn't included as a factor in the fall of the Jedi.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 02:38:31 AMMy bad. That was a jhkim quote. Editing nested quotes gets tricky.

It doesn't seem to work on mobile safari, but if you use a desktop browser you should be able to highlight text and quote that

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 02:56:46 AMRight. So the topic of how horrible it is to recruit babies into the Jedi order and train them as toddlers falls apart because the films are completely unrealistic about how that actually happens and the consequences of it. The author is just writing what sounds good, and doesn't care about the ramifications.
The furthest the conversation can productively go is "It doesnt seem Lucas put much thought into these issues."
If someone blames the fall of the Jedi on the fact that they recruit babies and seem callous to the psychological and moral issues, the answer is simply, it's not a problem because the author didn't see a problem with it, and so it wasn't included as a factor in the fall of the Jedi.

Maybe go with death of the author? We already don't like Lucas' thoughts on it, so why not go full reinterpretation? He's not Tolkien and even Tolkien didn't like how publishing a story set it in stone, as it were.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 22, 2024, 09:45:38 AMMaybe go with death of the author? We already don't like Lucas' thoughts on it, so why not go full reinterpretation? He's not Tolkien and even Tolkien didn't like how publishing a story set it in stone, as it were.

No, for several reasons:

First, "death of the author" is postmodernist bullshit.  Have you ever read Roland Barthes?  (I have, for my grad work in Lit).  Part of the problem with taking French literary critics seriously is that they don't take themselves seriously, either (they categorize their criticism as "word play").  French critics of Barthes' ilk try to twist concepts and definitions to highlight the inherent contradictions in definitions and conceptualization.  Unfortunately, other French, German and American critics latched on to this deconstruction as if it was the f-ing new scientific method.  Hence the postmodernist stupidity that followed (see Foucault, et al.).

Second, it's mental masturbation.  Without some grounding in the author's intent (or some other "first cause"), any piece of literature can be "interpreted" to mean anything, even something that is directly contradicted by the text.  It's (as Robert Frost once defined free verse) playing tennis with the net down... and also no out-of-bounds, unlimited hits, and no ball.  I'm open to a critical theory that establishes the basis of interpretation as something other than the author (I lean towards Historicism myself, but Elliot's Modernism has its strengths as well), but that something needs to be objective and/or universal.  Otherwise you're just wanking your hopes and dreams onto somebody else's story.

Third, it's not just the death of the author, it's the death of communication.  The whole purpose of communication is to transmit an idea from one person to another.  If all communication is held hostage to the interpretation of the hearer/reader alone, then such a transfer is impossible.

Put simply, the "death of the author" is a loaded term, whatever you might intend to use it as.  And it's a pernicious term, with implications that defeat the purpose of storytelling to begin with.  If you have some other external measure of story, beyond the author's intent, that you feel would be a useful lens to approach understanding the story, that's great.  Promote that.  Describe that.  Advocate for that.  But if your point is "we can make up what we want the story to mean" (which is a simplification, but not too far from what "death of the author" means in a literary context), then you are part of the problem.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 22, 2024, 02:43:16 PMSecond, it's mental masturbation.  Without some grounding in the author's intent (or some other "first cause"), any piece of literature can be "interpreted" to mean anything, even something that is directly contradicted by the text.  It's (as Robert Frost once defined free verse) playing tennis with the net down... and also no out-of-bounds, unlimited hits, and no ball.  I'm open to a critical theory that establishes the basis of interpretation as something other than the author (I lean towards Historicism myself, but Elliot's Modernism has its strengths as well), but that something needs to be objective and/or universal.  Otherwise you're just wanking your hopes and dreams onto somebody else's story.

Yep. If we're going to reinterpret bullshit with more bullshit, then we've got multiple layers of bullshit to contend with. I'm pretty sure that just makes the problem worse.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 22, 2024, 02:43:16 PMWithout some grounding in the author's intent (or some other "first cause"), any piece of literature can be "interpreted" to mean anything, even something that is directly contradicted by the text.  It's (as Robert Frost once defined free verse) playing tennis with the net down... and also no out-of-bounds, unlimited hits, and no ball.  I'm open to a critical theory that establishes the basis of interpretation as something other than the author (I lean towards Historicism myself, but Elliot's Modernism has its strengths as well), but that something needs to be objective and/or universal.  Otherwise you're just wanking your hopes and dreams onto somebody else's story.

I don't advocate the "death of the author" as a general principle. I don't claim to know the full meaning of that. But I also don't think that the author is the final word in how we judge the characters.

If George Lucas thinks Jar Jar Binks is a hilarious and heroic character, I don't have to agree with him. I equally don't have to agree with Rian Johnson in how heroic he thinks Rose Tico is in _The Last Jedi_, or agree with J.K. Rowling that Dumbledore is really gay.

Declaring that the author is always right dismisses any connection to the text. I think that the text itself is the primary. The author doesn't get to unilaterally decide whether a character is funny, or smart, or likable, or good in their work.

If a character acts dumb, I can make an argument that they're dumb. It doesn't matter if the author declares that they're really smart. If the text shows them doing dumb things, then I have a point.

Authors can fail to convey their intentions, and create stuff that doesn't say what they originally intended.

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 06:34:59 PMI don't claim to know the full meaning of that.

Uhhh, then your opinion is, by your own admission, ignorant, and therefore, irrelevant.  I do know the meaning, history, and modern usage of the term, so how about you educate yourself a little before you opine?  If I want some ignorant rando's wrong opinion, I'll go to Twitter.

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 06:34:59 PMDeclaring that the author is always right dismisses any connection to the text.

Well, good thing no one did that, or even suggested it.  Authorial intent has nothing to do with "correctness" or authorial infallibility.  You don't know what you are talking about, and it's embarrassingly obvious.

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 06:34:59 PMDeclaring that the author is always right dismisses any connection to the text. I think that the text itself is the primary. The author doesn't get to unilaterally decide whether a character is funny, or smart, or likable, or good in their work.

If a character acts dumb, I can make an argument that they're dumb. It doesn't matter if the author declares that they're really smart. If the text shows them doing dumb things, then I have a point.

Authors can fail to convey their intentions, and create stuff that doesn't say what they originally intended.

Finding a character dumb is one thing. It's another to make up content out of whole cloth.
For example, we can say "Jar Jar wasn't funny. He was annoying." It's another thing to say that Jar Jar was a secret Sith Lord working in cahoots with Sidious to overthrow the Republic, and that's the most likely explanation for his annoying behavior as a ruse to cause people to not take him seriously. Which is a real thing that fans came up with as a joke and then seemed to take seriously.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarthJarJar/

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 08:31:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 06:34:59 PMDeclaring that the author is always right dismisses any connection to the text. I think that the text itself is the primary. The author doesn't get to unilaterally decide whether a character is funny, or smart, or likable, or good in their work.

If a character acts dumb, I can make an argument that they're dumb. It doesn't matter if the author declares that they're really smart. If the text shows them doing dumb things, then I have a point.

Authors can fail to convey their intentions, and create stuff that doesn't say what they originally intended.

Finding a character dumb is one thing. It's another to make up content out of whole cloth.
For example, we can say "Jar Jar wasn't funny. He was annoying." It's another thing to say that Jar Jar was a secret Sith Lord working in cahoots with Sidious to overthrow the Republic, and that's the most likely explanation for his annoying behavior as a ruse to cause people to not take him seriously. Which is a real thing that fans came up with as a joke and then seemed to take seriously.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarthJarJar/

More importantly, authorial intent describes the functional role of an element within the narrative and theme, not the in-narrative attributes of the characters.  Lucas may have intended Jar Jar to be a comic relief character and a nexus between plot elements (the Jedi and the Gungans), along with a marketable character for children.  That doesn't mean that Jar Jar was effective at any of the above.  It does mean that a statement that Jar Jar was intended to satirize religious authorities would be be unsupported wankery.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 08:31:19 PMFinding a character dumb is one thing. It's another to make up content out of whole cloth.
For example, we can say "Jar Jar wasn't funny. He was annoying." It's another thing to say that Jar Jar was a secret Sith Lord working in cahoots with Sidious to overthrow the Republic, and that's the most likely explanation for his annoying behavior as a ruse to cause people to not take him seriously.

OK, I agree with this. That's why I was skeptical of the suggestion that the Jedi younglings lived with their families and only commuted to the Jedi temple, and/or that they weren't using real light sabers. Those seem like a stretch based on what was shown in the movies, more like the latter than the former.

I feel like calling the prequel Jedi wrong for their behavior is more like the former. I'm talking about judging the actual things they do on-screen.

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 09:40:04 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 08:31:19 PMFinding a character dumb is one thing. It's another to make up content out of whole cloth.
For example, we can say "Jar Jar wasn't funny. He was annoying." It's another thing to say that Jar Jar was a secret Sith Lord working in cahoots with Sidious to overthrow the Republic, and that's the most likely explanation for his annoying behavior as a ruse to cause people to not take him seriously.

OK, I agree with this. That's why I was skeptical of the suggestion that the Jedi younglings lived with their families and only commuted to the Jedi temple, and/or that they weren't using real light sabers. Those seem like a stretch based on what was shown in the movies, more like the latter than the former.

I feel like calling the prequel Jedi wrong for their behavior is more like the former. I'm talking about judging the actual things they do on-screen.

My fanwankery is no better or worse than anyone else's fanwankery.

What we are shown in the films is that infants can be taken into the Jedi temple, trained at a very young age with extremely dangerous weapons, and the Jedi teachings result in healthy, balanced adults who are responsible with their Jedi powers.
It's when Qui-Gonn goes against tradition that we are shown a character who goes off the rails and falls to the dark side.
As crazy as those ideas may seem, any critique of the Jedi must start by accepting those premises, or we're arguing about fanwankery.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 08:31:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 06:34:59 PMDeclaring that the author is always right dismisses any connection to the text. I think that the text itself is the primary. The author doesn't get to unilaterally decide whether a character is funny, or smart, or likable, or good in their work.

If a character acts dumb, I can make an argument that they're dumb. It doesn't matter if the author declares that they're really smart. If the text shows them doing dumb things, then I have a point.

Authors can fail to convey their intentions, and create stuff that doesn't say what they originally intended.

Finding a character dumb is one thing. It's another to make up content out of whole cloth.
For example, we can say "Jar Jar wasn't funny. He was annoying." It's another thing to say that Jar Jar was a secret Sith Lord working in cahoots with Sidious to overthrow the Republic, and that's the most likely explanation for his annoying behavior as a ruse to cause people to not take him seriously. Which is a real thing that fans came up with as a joke and then seemed to take seriously.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarthJarJar/

Don't forget Skippy the Jedi Droid.....

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Skippy_the_Jedi_Droid

Well Lucas made a 40 year old fan magazine theory that Darth Vader had a beef with the Sand People a reality so god only knows what they might do to JarJar.

Here's an example of the kind of dippy bullshit you get from people who talk about "death of the author".  There's a theory that is making the rounds again that Earl and Val, the two male leads from Tremors are actually a gay couple.  It's pushed by the kind of people who see any camaraderie between men and immediately assume that they must be gay.  I have seen this movie several times.  There is nothing at all in the text to support this idea.  If you point this out, people will cite "death of the author" to justify their pet theory even though they are clearly not gay and were never meant to be gay.  it's also used to justify smearing anyone who contradicts this fanwank bullshit as homophobes.

Death of the author is just word games and wankery to allow people to say that any story means anything they want it to mean even if that ignores or directly contradicts what the author said about their own work.  The only thing that actually matters is how good you are at slinging bullshit and getting people to believe it.  It's not saying that authorial intent isn't the only way to interpret something.  It's saying that authorial intent and, for that matter, the author do not matter at all.  That's why it's called death of the author.     

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 22, 2024, 10:10:33 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 22, 2024, 09:40:04 PMOK, I agree with this. That's why I was skeptical of the suggestion that the Jedi younglings lived with their families and only commuted to the Jedi temple, and/or that they weren't using real light sabers. Those seem like a stretch based on what was shown in the movies, more like the latter than the former.

I feel like calling the prequel Jedi wrong for their behavior is more like the former. I'm talking about judging the actual things they do on-screen.

My fanwankery is no better or worse than anyone else's fanwankery.

What we are shown in the films is that infants can be taken into the Jedi temple, trained at a very young age with extremely dangerous weapons, and the Jedi teachings result in healthy, balanced adults who are responsible with their Jedi powers.
It's when Qui-Gonn goes against tradition that we are shown a character who goes off the rails and falls to the dark side.
As crazy as those ideas may seem, any critique of the Jedi must start by accepting those premises, or we're arguing about fanwankery.

This is not what is shown in the films. Anakin is far from the first time a Jedi has fallen to the Dark Side. Count Dooku had a normal Jedi adoption and training, and he fell to the Dark Side. In general, falling to the Dark Side is implied to be a significant danger to any Jedi.

Training Anakin at 9 years old (instead of the usual cutoff at 6) was an exception, but it is not implied that this was the first time in a thousand years that any rule was broken in Jedi training. Qui-Gon might have suggested the idea of training him, but the Council as a whole endorsed it.

The stated history is that the Jedi as a whole have remained generally loyal and thus stayed in power for a thousand years, so falling to the Dark Side was only a small percentage of Jedi. However, staying in power for a thousand years isn't a moral quality. The Assyrian Empire lasted for 1500 years, for example. I'm fine with saying that the Jedi were roughly as moral as the Assyrians.

---

Lucas' intent was to say that the Force was out of balance in Qui-Gon's time. Qui-Gon openly says to the council that he thinks Anakin is destined to restore balance to the Force, and they don't deny that it is out of balance.

It's not clear that training Anakin was the wrong move. If Anakin had been rejected, Palpatine still could have found him and trained him. If so, then Anakin's children might have been raised to the Dark Side, and the Empire would have been a long-lasting dynasty instead of a brief blip in galactic history. Even if Anakin was killed, it is an open question what would have happened to Palpatine's bid.

At the end of the day, it's easier to just make up a new universe with more consistent rules. Corpos should stop taking existing IPs and twisting them into something they're not. We need to retire old IPs and make new ones. Reform copyright law too, while we're at it. Fans should be free to make new IPs recycling material from old IPs, and revive abandoned IPs, rather than locking it in copyright jail.