As a heavy guy, I don't like to make weight jokes, but they were asking for this one.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

Why should we be promoting this idea?

Quote from: yosemitemike on July 01, 2024, 02:52:32 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

Why should we be promoting this idea?

You know, after a rocky start to the film, I was onboard with Rey as a scrapyard scavenger nobody who gets catapulted into galactic events and gets by on being gutsy and clever.
And then they dumped her into the Jedi bucket and I lost interest.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 01, 2024, 03:14:18 AMYou know, after a rocky start to the film, I was onboard with Rey as a scrapyard scavenger nobody who gets catapulted into galactic events and gets by on being gutsy and clever.
And then they dumped her into the Jedi bucket and I lost interest.

There seemed to be a disconnect between what Abrams wanted to do and what Johnson.  We went from Rey's mysterious parents being important to her parents being nobodies to her grandfather being Emperor Palpatine.

None of that explains why anyone has any duty or obligation to promote that idea.

Quote from: yosemitemike on July 01, 2024, 02:52:32 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

Why should we be promoting this idea?

Why should we promote the idea that only nepo babies are important?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

Quote from: SHARK on June 30, 2024, 08:32:12 PMWell, historically, the "virtues" of a democracy or a democratic process are definitely a mixed bag. Ancient peoples everywhere promoted their leaders not originally based upon any kind of bloodline, per se, but rather the virtues of Fighting, Leadership, Knowledge, and Getting Shit Done.

BoxCrayonTales - I'd agree that it pulls from aristocratic themes like King Arthur. However, one can't decide based on politics what people like in art. I fully support trying to make stories about heroes with no special bloodline, but not limiting stories to that.

That said, I also disagree with SHARK here. Modern democratic nation-states have gotten stuff done insanely well. For most of history, famine, war, and plague were constant threats to everyone's life. All three have been reduced to a miniscule fraction of their former threat. People are now more likely to die from obesity complications than starvation, and more likely to die from suicide than murder. Cancer is considered terrible today not because cancer is worse, but because we're eradicated so many other diseases, and our lifespan is vastly longer.

I can and do complain a lot about how bad politics is, but the pre-democratic eras were even worse on just about any quantitative measure.

Quote from: jhkim on July 01, 2024, 04:39:30 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

Quote from: SHARK on June 30, 2024, 08:32:12 PMWell, historically, the "virtues" of a democracy or a democratic process are definitely a mixed bag. Ancient peoples everywhere promoted their leaders not originally based upon any kind of bloodline, per se, but rather the virtues of Fighting, Leadership, Knowledge, and Getting Shit Done.

BoxCrayonTales - I'd agree that it pulls from aristocratic themes like King Arthur. However, one can't decide based on politics what people like in art. I fully support trying to make stories about heroes with no special bloodline, but not limiting stories to that.

That said, I also disagree with SHARK here. Modern democratic nation-states have gotten stuff done insanely well. For most of history, famine, war, and plague were constant threats to everyone's life. All three have been reduced to a miniscule fraction of their former threat. People are now more likely to die from obesity complications than starvation, and more likely to die from suicide than murder. Cancer is considered terrible today not because cancer is worse, but because we're eradicated so many other diseases, and our lifespan is vastly longer.

I can and do complain a lot about how bad politics is, but the pre-democratic eras were even worse on just about any quantitative measure.

You mean free market capitalism right? Because that's what drove all of those changes not democracy.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 01, 2024, 07:34:06 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 01, 2024, 04:39:30 PMThat said, I also disagree with SHARK here. Modern democratic nation-states have gotten stuff done insanely well. For most of history, famine, war, and plague were constant threats to everyone's life. All three have been reduced to a miniscule fraction of their former threat. People are now more likely to die from obesity complications than starvation, and more likely to die from suicide than murder. Cancer is considered terrible today not because cancer is worse, but because we're eradicated so many other diseases, and our lifespan is vastly longer.

I can and do complain a lot about how bad politics is, but the pre-democratic eras were even worse on just about any quantitative measure.

You mean free market capitalism right? Because that's what drove all of those changes not democracy.

I support free market capitalism too. I'd agree that free market capitalism and especially science are also important drivers, and they're all intertwined in influence.

Quote from: jhkim on July 02, 2024, 07:04:50 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 01, 2024, 07:34:06 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 01, 2024, 04:39:30 PMThat said, I also disagree with SHARK here. Modern democratic nation-states have gotten stuff done insanely well. For most of history, famine, war, and plague were constant threats to everyone's life. All three have been reduced to a miniscule fraction of their former threat. People are now more likely to die from obesity complications than starvation, and more likely to die from suicide than murder. Cancer is considered terrible today not because cancer is worse, but because we're eradicated so many other diseases, and our lifespan is vastly longer.

I can and do complain a lot about how bad politics is, but the pre-democratic eras were even worse on just about any quantitative measure.

You mean free market capitalism right? Because that's what drove all of those changes not democracy.

I support free market capitalism too. I'd agree that free market capitalism and especially science are also important drivers, and they're all intertwined in influence.

Greetings!

Yeah, Jhkim, free trade and science are very important influences. Ancient Persia, Ancient India, such as the Gupta Empire, the Kushite Empire, Ancient China, Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire made all kinds of advancements and improvements--with only Greece and Rome flirting with democratic principles--the others made enormous advancements with very little to do with "democracy."

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 01, 2024, 09:28:23 AMWhy should we be promoting this idea?

Why should we promote the idea that only nepo babies are important?
[/quote]

No one said we should be promoting that idea.  Only one person said we should be promoting a specific idea and that's you.  You haven't said why either.  You just tried to deflect.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

So, now that your previous objections have been shown to be stupid, you pivot to this?  OK, I'll bite.

First, as democracy is one of the worst forms of government, and is the least protective of rights, I find it abhorrent that anyone would promote such an idea.  Because I personally live in a Constitutional Representative Republic, I would much rather promote the ideas inherent in that governmental structure: natural rights, civic duty, and personal freedom (none of which are "democratic" values).  Since these values have created arguably one of the greatest nations in human history, I far prefer its values to those of mob rule.

Second, there is room for all kind of movies with all kinds of values.  One thing that most of us here agree on is that we object to blatant political propaganda in our games, movies, etc. If a movie contains some ideas that are political in nature as a necessity for the story, it's no big deal.  But to "tune" your story for a political message?  That's propaganda.  And that's just as bad.

So no, we don't need those values crammed into this movie series.  It's not even true.  People aren't born equal in ability.  What they should have are equal rights, not equal outcomes.

Okay, my previous objections were stupid.

I think we should tell stories about jedi main characters who aren't nepo baby wunderkinds like Anakin, Luke, Rey, or Osha. I don't need to give a reason.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 03, 2024, 08:34:25 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 30, 2024, 07:28:45 PMI find this plot point antidemocratic. We should be promoting the idea that a nobody without any special bloodline can become a hero through hard work and determination.

So, now that your previous objections have been shown to be stupid, you pivot to this?  OK, I'll bite.

First, as democracy is one of the worst forms of government, and is the least protective of rights, I find it abhorrent that anyone would promote such an idea.  Because I personally live in a Constitutional Representative Republic, I would much rather promote the ideas inherent in that governmental structure: natural rights, civic duty, and personal freedom (none of which are "democratic" values).  Since these values have created arguably one of the greatest nations in human history, I far prefer its values to those of mob rule.

Second, there is room for all kind of movies with all kinds of values.  One thing that most of us here agree on is that we object to blatant political propaganda in our games, movies, etc. If a movie contains some ideas that are political in nature as a necessity for the story, it's no big deal.  But to "tune" your story for a political message?  That's propaganda.  And that's just as bad.

So no, we don't need those values crammed into this movie series.  It's not even true.  People aren't born equal in ability.  What they should have are equal rights, not equal outcomes.

To be fair, he did say "Through hard work and determination". I'd agree With the caveat that we can't always factor for serendipity. (Can't be a hero if you randomly get hit by a bus...)

Like I said earlier, I would have much preferred Rey if she were a nobody. Han was arguably a nobody, kinda had a rep with the local crime boss, but so did some other of Jabba's minions.

It's not like you have to be a powerful Jedi to be a player in the Star Wars universe. And it diminishes the fiction when the films become fan fiction and make bad fan arguments because X writer didn't like Y thing about the original films.

(And Democracy, as the joke goes, is two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for lunch...)

The funny thing about Return of the Jedi is that nothing Luke does in the final act matters in the grand scheme of things. Confronting the Emperor and turning Vader back to the light is a spiritual victory and completes his journey to become a Jedi, but without it, Han would still have dropped the shields and Lando would still have blown up the Death Star.

Kinda what I meant in my (much) earlier post about how Star Wars works best when the light-vs-dark battle is kept personal to the characters and not made the central conflict of the setting.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 03, 2024, 04:16:38 PMThe funny thing about Return of the Jedi is that nothing Luke does in the final act matters in the grand scheme of things. Confronting the Emperor and turning Vader back to the light is a spiritual victory and completes his journey to become a Jedi, but without it, Han would still have dropped the shields and Lando would still have blown up the Death Star.

Kinda what I meant in my (much) earlier post about how Star Wars works best when the light-vs-dark battle is kept personal to the characters and not made the central conflict of the setting.

I think Luke put it best in the shuttle. "I'm endangering the mission. I shouldn't have come."
But he had Jedi (plot) stuff to do there.

Arguably, being distracted by Luke meant Vader wasn't on Endor, and the Emperor was focused on turning Luke to the dark side instead of the battle around him.