The "Slave 1"
- Thread starter jake88
- Start date
- Status
Master Boda
Sr Member
That’s the sad thing going on now with this strange “post-modernism“ time we are living in.A certain side is striving for everyone to be part of identity or group so there is no individual.Makeing it easier to blame the group for past or present actions that don’t fit there agenda.Funny if you did not like the new SW movies you were a ist or phobic of some sort or not going along with a name change to a fictional ship.
Cephus
Master Member
Or worse, who decide that pretending that words victimize people, it gives them a means to control the thoughts and actions of others, which is exactly what's going on today.
Oh boy…
Solo4114
Master Member
How is this thread not locked yet for being political (as well as irrelevant)?
Like, at this point, it's not about the damn ship anymore. It's just an excuse for folks to talk politics and occasionally provide an entertainment-related touchstone.
If we're cool talking politics now, great, I'm happy to join in, but if we aren't, then, you know, maybe it's time we stopped talking about it?
Like, at this point, it's not about the damn ship anymore. It's just an excuse for folks to talk politics and occasionally provide an entertainment-related touchstone.
If we're cool talking politics now, great, I'm happy to join in, but if we aren't, then, you know, maybe it's time we stopped talking about it?
cboath
Master Member
I'd just add that, while i'm sure there are some out there pushing agenda's in hollywood - which goes BOTH ways - a lot of what is being ascribed to agenda is really lame business practices.
Simply put, a lot of these companies don't believe in any attention is good attention. I think a lot of the diversity is simply to say 'we did it, see?' and try and simply avoid bad PR.
I mean, i tried watching a show back in the spring that was located in 18th century London. I'm sorry, but it doesn't take a doctorate in history to know that 18th century London was NOT a racially diverse society where everyone was treated equally with remotely equal access to all levels of society. It is very possible to not have a diverse cast and not be racist or exclusionary.
Things today you can simply go for the best person for the job, but for some reason we can't seem to do that. We're too busy trying to check off boxes and appease whiners. That's not to say that groups weren't marginalized in the past and aren't suffering for it now. Trying to correct that is NOT a bad thing. Forcing the correction at the expense of everything else undermines the entire point of it though. And ultimately if you let it damage the product fewer people will buy it and the few that buy it means less will get made. You keep that up and it goes away all together.
Simply put, a lot of these companies don't believe in any attention is good attention. I think a lot of the diversity is simply to say 'we did it, see?' and try and simply avoid bad PR.
I mean, i tried watching a show back in the spring that was located in 18th century London. I'm sorry, but it doesn't take a doctorate in history to know that 18th century London was NOT a racially diverse society where everyone was treated equally with remotely equal access to all levels of society. It is very possible to not have a diverse cast and not be racist or exclusionary.
Things today you can simply go for the best person for the job, but for some reason we can't seem to do that. We're too busy trying to check off boxes and appease whiners. That's not to say that groups weren't marginalized in the past and aren't suffering for it now. Trying to correct that is NOT a bad thing. Forcing the correction at the expense of everything else undermines the entire point of it though. And ultimately if you let it damage the product fewer people will buy it and the few that buy it means less will get made. You keep that up and it goes away all together.
I'd argue we're in post-post-POST-modernism.
These things DO seem to have a shelf-life. WARS and TREK had their heyday, then had the inevitable nostalgia-resurgences (with the 90s EU/prequel era and the TREK movies and spin-offs up through 2005). And comics went through their post-modern deconstruction phase with Alan Moore's MIRACLEMAN, WATCHMEN, etc., and have arguably been in a slow decline every since. Deconstruction and nostalgia-milking seems to work only once--maybe twice--in a genre/franchise's lifecycle.
Now, though, time has passed and enough of the people who made these things what they were--made them great and profound works of popular art--have dropped away. The people now in charge, as well as the naive, youthful target audience, don't care about "those old movies". And so we get a copy of a copy of a copy, which not only tears down the original, but also has no longevity or identity of its own to sustain the franchise. We've reached the "creative bankruptcy" and "milking it to death" stage. The terminal stage. A slow fade into oblivion, with them throwing TV shows and books and comics at the wall to see what might stick, even just a little.
STAR WARS, in particular, is the specific vision of one independent filmmaker, who, in a completely unique case in movie history, held sole control over it for decades. The movies are the real thing--the actual STORY--and the ancillaries (books, comics, games) kept it alive during lean times, and helped to flesh out the fantasy and the world for fans craving more of it. A suppliment to the main text, as opposed to Disney's Explanatory Universe, which exists to fix the massive plot holes of the movies AND continue the process of rewriting and tearing down the originals.
But, despite the many twists and turns along the way, Lucas finished his story, and his six-film cycle. The End. STAR WARS arguably ended on May 19, 2005, when REVENGE OF THE SITH came out, since it was Lucas' last artistic statement on his story. Everything else was a fun afterthought, designed to flesh out the unseen corners of the story and keep fans engaged.
By contrast, everything Disney has done has been heavily-dependent on nostalgia. Bait-and-switch, counterfeit sequels featuring the original characters. Unnecessary prequels. A prequel TV series featuring derivative versions of existing characters (Boba Fett and Yoda), which relied on yet more nostalgia-milking (after the unprecedented backlash to the "sequels") by bringing in Luke Skywalker as a season-ending fanservice stunt.
The story of STAR WARS is long since over and done. It had its time, and did what it did extremely well. With apologies to the MCU (...which is also quickly going down in flames. And I much prefer the comics.), STAR WARS is the greatest and most beloved franchise in movie history. Everything since the Lucas era ended has just been rehashing and treading water. Disney should have taken the risk of starting something new, set many years after the originals, with new characters and new problems. Instead, pure creative bankruptcy and rehashing/repainting of old characters, ships, and ideas ("AT-ST! AT-ST! I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!"). A woke remake of the original trilogy which also destroyed the characters, themes, and plot of all six of Lucas' films.
Artistically, it's over and done. There are no new barriers to break, no new ideas to explore. Just increasingly-bland riffs on what we've already seen before. It's now purely about commercial exploitation and desperate nostalgia-milking. STAR WARS (and many of the others) has become a victim of its own unprecedented success. And the stupid rewriting of history--changing starship names, retconning Luke into a failure during the original trilogy era, making Lando pansexual, etc., etc., will get more and more petty and spiteful as the ship slowly sinks.
Prepare yourselves.
Questions of censorship and race-relations are inextricably linked with the question posed by the thread's original post. If that's forbidden talk, then perhaps the thread should have been removed before discussion could begin.
That being said, this has been a refreshingly restrained and interesting discussion, and I commend all participants for their input.
cboath
Master Member
You know, other than the fact that that prequel TV series having George very involved and working with Filoni on it. He's spoken frequently on their meetings and that everything was ok'd by him and if George said no, he didn't do it.
And there ARE plenty of things they can do with Star Wars. They just need to divest themselves from the skywalkers. Jump back 500-2000 years or whatever. Plenty of uncovered territory. Jump ahead 1-200 years or more, again, blank slate. You just need to get the idiot corporations to back off of storytelling because they don't know jack @$%& about it. But, good luck with that. I mean, you CAN do a pass the torch type of ST if you want and not destroy the characters and make everyone happy, but for corporations that claim to be risk averse, the ST was a just a series of bad decisions and cratering seemingly for the sake of cratering it. They really thought the way to recreate the success of the 70's/80's was destroying Luke, Han, and Leia simply to pump up the new crew?
Movies today are kind of like Words With Friends. It sounds like a good idea, until you realize it appears to be more of a 'what we can we do to continually shove ads in people's faces to turn big profits"' - then simply built a game around that.
Star Wars succeeded because the story resonated with everyone of the day. Not because it sold stuff outside the movie or appealed to different groups or any of the garbage they look at today. It was a good story that captured everyone's attention - and yeah, had fx the likes of which hadn't been seen before.
I'll disagree on Marvel. They seem to be doing what star wars did in it's day. Telling stories that capture the attention of their day. There may be some finagling with different groups and what not, but unfortunately that's part of the times they are in. I'll say they aren't beating you over the head with it and they're not destroying their characters in the process either. Star Wars run lasted 6-7 years. Marvels? it's still going at 2008-? Like Star Wars, it's something never achieved before. Period. Two epics in two different periods of time. I agree SW was better, but the scale of Marvel is much greater. I mean, for one, they were centered on earth and covered more ground in the galaxy than the story set in space where ships can travel between planets in the blink of an eye
The original new trek was able to keep going as well through the OS and 6 flicks. The successfully started TNG which was also a big success jumping into the future and doing something, well, the same but new. It was only after that they ran it into the ground.
And there ARE plenty of things they can do with Star Wars. They just need to divest themselves from the skywalkers. Jump back 500-2000 years or whatever. Plenty of uncovered territory. Jump ahead 1-200 years or more, again, blank slate. You just need to get the idiot corporations to back off of storytelling because they don't know jack @$%& about it. But, good luck with that. I mean, you CAN do a pass the torch type of ST if you want and not destroy the characters and make everyone happy, but for corporations that claim to be risk averse, the ST was a just a series of bad decisions and cratering seemingly for the sake of cratering it. They really thought the way to recreate the success of the 70's/80's was destroying Luke, Han, and Leia simply to pump up the new crew?
Movies today are kind of like Words With Friends. It sounds like a good idea, until you realize it appears to be more of a 'what we can we do to continually shove ads in people's faces to turn big profits"' - then simply built a game around that.
Star Wars succeeded because the story resonated with everyone of the day. Not because it sold stuff outside the movie or appealed to different groups or any of the garbage they look at today. It was a good story that captured everyone's attention - and yeah, had fx the likes of which hadn't been seen before.
I'll disagree on Marvel. They seem to be doing what star wars did in it's day. Telling stories that capture the attention of their day. There may be some finagling with different groups and what not, but unfortunately that's part of the times they are in. I'll say they aren't beating you over the head with it and they're not destroying their characters in the process either. Star Wars run lasted 6-7 years. Marvels? it's still going at 2008-? Like Star Wars, it's something never achieved before. Period. Two epics in two different periods of time. I agree SW was better, but the scale of Marvel is much greater. I mean, for one, they were centered on earth and covered more ground in the galaxy than the story set in space where ships can travel between planets in the blink of an eye
The original new trek was able to keep going as well through the OS and 6 flicks. The successfully started TNG which was also a big success jumping into the future and doing something, well, the same but new. It was only after that they ran it into the ground.
Well said. There are many examples of good, organic storytelling which have addressed social issues in a great, positive way. The introduction of John Stewart as Green Lantern, the choice to make the lead of ALIEN a woman, etc.
It all comes down to execution. Do the story and characters come first, or is it all about sending a message, instead?
Sometimes the best way to make a statement is to not scream it from the rooftops. Lieutenant Uhura was just THERE, with no lip-service as to how Stunning and Brave she was. Ellen Ripley was just THERE, and made smart choices which enabled her to survive. Beloved characters because they were GOOD CHARACTERS.
These things should be normalized and presented as No Big Deal, rather than calling attention to themselves to the exclusion of all else. That's how you do it.
Cephus
Master Member
Unfortunately, there are some topics in fandom that simply cannot be discussed at all without at least acknowledging the underlying political ideologies that drive them. It's one thing not to want a thread to turn into a political bloodbath, but clearly another to just have some very important topics be entirely off-limits because they violate an arbitrary rule.
I too am surprised this wasn’t locked down. Tread lightly.
Bigdaddy
Master Member
This seems to describe your behavior in this thread, it seems many people are taking a discussion about a fictional spaceship to rather extreme assertions about the downfall of society. Frankly I don't have time to address the ridiculous amount of fallacious statements and positions I've read posted in this thread since I've had any time to respond so I'll just close out by quoting you...
Thank you for your input and your passive-aggressive non-arguments.
Just keep in mind that pop culture and entertainment are a reflection real culture. I was doing just fine until the culture war came knock-knock-knocking on my door and completely trashed all of my favorite franchises and characters. And now the same mindsets and buzzwords which invaded and poisoned nerd culture are spreading out into real culture. It's a domino effect. And the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Free speech and dissenting opinions must be heard, and your frankly condescending, high-horse attitude does not change that.
The only "ridiculous" thing here is sticking one's head in the sand, pretending that everything is hunky-dory, and utterly dismissing the "small minority of toxic fans" who are calling out the nonsense for what it actually is.
THAT is the real fallacy, here.
Probably best to be over and done with this thread, now, though. It's been fun.
Thanks, gents. Have a better one.
Paul Andrew
Master Member
The rule isn't arbitrary. It was put in place ostensibly so that we could avoid generating the kind of dialogue we're starting to see in this thread and focus on fandom and entertainment related topics.
This is supposed to be a place where we can talk about the things we all love, not a place to post topics that are so loaded they will inevitably spill into this sort of thinly veiled side drawing.
If folks want to go on about the great corporate culture war on red blooded white males there are places for that besides the RPF.
Lock this thread down. It's a goner.
I don't think anyone has gone political at all. It's a societal issue, which is how this discussion has gone. No one has mentioned a party or anything, which to me is encouraging. Having said that, I would guess the Ban Hammer is probably unholstered while mods are reading this so be careful.
- Status
Similar threads
