Very Interesting Article

[JMK]

He makes it kind of hard to argue against. Very well written:

http://www.davidbrin.com/starwarsarticle3.html

[Marcus Telcontar]

Posted and commented on some of that in the OOC forum earlier today. His summisations on anger are excellent and very hard to dispute, cause he is right. There are more things he is quite right about too. I'm quite sure he is goign to get pounced on by Star wars fans, but unfortunantly, it's quite valid opinions and discussion points.

[JMK]

They're very valid points, and as much as I love SW, I tend to agree with alot of what he says. It doesn't diminish my love for the movies, but they aren't perfect, and anyone who can be objective for 5 minutes would see that too.

[Sene Unty]

Very valid points. I liked it....

[ReaperFett]

I didnt agree with much he said, but my "Could Yoda have been done better" topic had an agreer at least :)

[Jedi Master Carr]

I don't really agree with him mostly because there is no values to be learned from SW, it is fantasy and fantasy doesn't have any major lesson, its like LOTR which doesn't either (unless you think there something out there that can turn people evil, I surely don't). As far as the anger bit, I also disagree with him in terms of the movies, that thing only deals with Jedi because of what anger, hatred can do to them. Actually though there are religions that believe the same thing, namely the Buddists who feel that one should never get mad at anyone that it disrupts their inner karma, so I think that is similar. Finally I don't care for his opinions, his books are terrible to me, the Postman was a bad novel turned into a bad movie.

[ReaperFett]

Oooooooooooh, HIM, Postman guy :)

[Doc Milo]

His conclusions about heroes at the end showed me that he was looking at these movies as singular stories. That criticism can be dispelled once you look at the six movies as a single story.

And I disagree with him on anger and fear in the villians. Emperor Palpatine in RotJ did show anger at the end. But we don't need to see the Emperor showing anger or fear to know that he is motivated by them. If you look at his actions and what he goes about doing, you see that his actions speak to someone who is internally angry, yet cold and calculating on the outside. And he uses fear as his weapon to subordinate the populace.

Certainly the Emperor is not afraid, but we are seeing Anakin's fall, and how fear will lead to anger and hate. The Emperor is in the last stage of that transformation, and acts out of hate.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Is he Doc? The discussion I alluded to in OOC I have stated that the Emperor does indeed work out of coldness and rationality. You know, I bet Churchhill was internally angry at Hitler too. What is so different between a Churchill and the Emperor?

While the Palpatine does show flashes of annoyance, he to me seems to be acting deliberatly and coldly - this to me is the way to be if you are going act out of any motive. The article writer is completely correct in this respect. Is Palpatine motivated by anger, or is he motivated by what he sees as things that HAVE to be done? It is the latter according to the TPM novel - he honestly thinks the Republic needs to be swept aside. To show he would use his own people (The Naboo) is a true cold hearted act.

No, Palpatine is acting cold. And even in the end, he more "Oh you foolish boy. *Shug* Okay now you die", and when he is zapping Luke, doesnt Palpatine seem to be more sadistic than anything? "Ooh yes, I'm enjoying killing you, have anthoer 10,000 volts up the klacker!". In no point do I see Palpatine acting out of true fury - or even really hatred, which to me says he is a rational thinker with a plan and truly one evil bastard.

JMC, The Postman was his first book. He's apparent written quite a few more books that are highly regarded. And the movie sucking aint his fault. And also.... LOTR has no message? WTF?!?!? Mate, there have been reams of paper dedicated to that subject! I'm sorry but what you said there makes no sense. How could such a novel, one that has won the hearts and minds of millions have in the end no message and be dismissed as a fantasy?!?!

Fundamentally, LOTR is a story about Tolkiens dislike of The Machine. The Ring represents the machine and how it's destroying nature and men. Thats the one line meaning. Now, please, do a Google search and and I bet you will find far better analysis and even anaylisis by Tolkein himself.

[ReaperFett]

And also.... LOTR has no message? WTF?!?!? Mate, there have been reams of paper dedicated to that subject! I'm sorry but what you said there makes no sense. How could such a novel, one that has won the hearts and minds of millions have in the end no message and be dismissed as a fantasy?!?!
Millions loved Armageddon, hardly a strong message there ;)

[BUFFJEDI]

the guy is a loon, he needs to get over himself, and get a life.But that's just my opinion.:)

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I don't look for messages in Fantasy most of it is not the author's intent, IMO, sometimes they write things in their subconsious and that maybe, but I don't see the Ring like a machine though I see it like another fantasy, magical element. I like LOTR and SW for its great storytelling not for preachy messages, if I want to read that I could go with Dickens or Tolstoy who both were better at that kind of stuff and there whole objective was to preach a certain message. This is of course just my opinion, I am sure you could find a message in anything but to me its a waste of time to try to find in Fantasy stories like LOTR and SW.

[Marcus Telcontar]

But JMC, that was the point of LOTR, it DOES have a message and it is the author's intent for that message to be conveyed. It's not just good storytelling.


Millions loved Armageddon, hardly a strong message there

We're not talking Armageddon, and nor is it relavent. JMC dismisses LOTR as just a fantasy and that is totally wrong. If your going to quote, me, do so in context. Mindless entertainment has it's place, so does storytelling, but to dismiss LOTR as just fantasy.... that's just plain wrong. It's one of the 20th Century's greatest works of literature, it's got some incredible liguistic work, it virtualy invented and perfected fantasy novels in one hit, it not only has an story, it has incredible depth and tragety. And your saying it' just fantasy?!? No it is NOT!

[ReaperFett]

Jeez Marcus, I thought that was a pretty obvious joke :)

[Marcus Telcontar]

But millions DID love Armaggeddon, tho it was shallow and just in the end a bit of noisy explosions and fluff. I'm actually not denying that (and I'm runnig with this :p ) cause mindless stuff does have it's place. It's popluar for a while then dies out.

[ReaperFett]

I still watch Armageddon :)

[Marcus Telcontar]

And I might too, if only to oogle Liv Tyler. Does she speak Elvish in that movie?

[Levi Argon]

What? Like "Thank you very much" ? :)

(Plods off to read article)

[Jedi Master Carr]

For years Toliken disputed that he put any meaning into like religious meanings and anything involving WW II, that is what I read somewhere, if he changed his stance on that I must have not known. Also I don't think there is anything against machines in there at least not obvious like there was in H.G. Wells novels (he gets too pessimistic in some of his) Maybe I have to reread it a couple more times or take a course on Tolkien to see some of these messages. Still, it doesn't matter the reason why LOTR has lasted is because of the epic storytelling and the greatest of the story the same reason that Shakespear's plays have survived so long (as far as I know there isn't a major message in his plays) and he is the greatest writer of all time and he didn't have to resort to preaching to the masses like Upton Sinclair or H.G Wells. At least that is my take on it, not saying there aren't morals or lessons to be learned but that is not a reason why a book or play would last for centuries, if it was Upton Sinclair would be considered the greatest writer ever and not Shakespear.

[Admiral Lebron]

His points were well made. At the end of TPM the Emperor is sad and angered from the loss of his apprentice. Although I'm waiting for Episode III.

[JediBoricua]

I do believe the Emperor acts because of fear. He is afraid of Luke, if not why spend countless resources on tracking him down. He is afraid of systems going rebel, thus building two death stars.

At ROTJ the Emperor was pure darkness, he had emboddied fear and used it as another tool, like hatred, greed and such.

Anyway, there are good points in his essay, but I still loved the movies so what the hell. I love LOTR also, but I agree with JMC I don't read them for the message, I read them to loose myself in a wonderful fantasy world.

Not all Scifi/Fantasy is pure storytelling though. Orwell and Bradbury used their scifi to transmit very powerful messages. I guess it's up to the reader to think and decide.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I think the Emperor acts out of Hatred, as well, he hates the rebellion but as you said he fears them too. It is similar to Hitler and the Nazis, its not only that they hated out of jealousy and for ethnic reasons, but they also feared them, at least that was my interpentation, they sure went to a lot of trouble to get rid of them.

As far as lessons I am the same way, sure there are works which one could read for lessons, Dickens comes to mind and like you said Bradbury and other science fiction writers, though I don't like it when they get too preachy.

[JMK]

I do believe that SW and LOTR carry some sort of messages, but its up to each person on whether or not they want to take that away from the experience. SW is derived from myth, but placed in a fantasy world, but to say that SW has no messages is to say that myths don't either. While I appreciate the messages, and think that they lend more weight to the movies, I watch them because they totally suck me into their world.

[Doc Milo]

Well I don't look for messages in Fantasy most of it is not the author's intent, IMO, sometimes they write things in their subconsious and that maybe, but I don't see the Ring like a machine though I see it like another fantasy, magical element. I like LOTR and SW for its great storytelling not for preachy messages, if I want to read that I could go with Dickens or Tolstoy who both were better at that kind of stuff and there whole objective was to preach a certain message. This is of course just my opinion, I am sure you could find a message in anything but to me its a waste of time to try to find in Fantasy stories like LOTR and SW.

How can you say that it's not the author's intent to put messages in fantasy? At it's heart, fantasy is very much like satire and myth in that it uses the fantasy setting to examine the human condition. In fact, Science Fiction (a form of fantasy) began as a way to satirize current political and sociological elements of society. There are definitely messages, and ones that the author intentionally put in there, in fantasy novels, especially in the classics.

Also, just because someone says that there are messages, that doesn't mean that they are "preachy." Some of the best messages are brought to us in totally sublte ways, so they don't come off as preachy. I write fantasy, JMC, and I intentionally put messages in my fantasy, although I try not to be preachy about those messages.

I don't like the attitude that "it's just fantasy" or "it's just SF" and thus doesn't have messages. It's that attitude that I attribute to the anti-SF/Fantasy/Horror bias of the Academy of Motion Pictures -- and why a movie from those genres, no matter how well done, will never win a Best Picture award. Because they think, "It's just fantasy. It's just Sci-Fi. It's not serious fiction. There's nothing important to be gleamed from it." And that is just not true.

Marcus, I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or I just didn't say it clearly enough.

I don't think the Emperor is acting with fear or anger. Like you said, he is acting with cold-hearted cruelty. But, who he is might have been shaped by fear and anger early on. Sure, he may truly believe that the Republic needs to be swept away, and that he should be the ruler of the galaxy, and he will do anything, use anything in order to achieve that goal. But why does he feel this way? Why is he evil? Yeah, we don't get glimpses into the background of him, what made him the way he is, but we can gleam from quotes by Yoda and the Jedi that perhaps it has something to do with fear and anger, early on in his lifetime, shaping his path. Now, he acts with cold-hearted logical efficiency, but that doesn't mean that who he is wasn't shaped by fear and anger. It just means that, instead of being dominated by them, and lashing out and acting out of fear and anger, he instead uses those negative emotions as a fuel to feed the fire of his desires -- a slow buring fuel that manifests itself as cold-hearted manipulations, a fuel that burns efficiently.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I have to admit I might have understated the message in fantasy I think mostly it is that I don't look for them and just get enthralled into the storytelling. I guess there are some authors who do put a message that is perhaps not obvious to the reader. I still don't think it was Tolkien's main attention to write LOTR as a work preaching against technology. Perhaps he put that in there as he was telling his story, but from what I have read is that his books first start as as stories he told his kids and he decided to publish them, I think that was his primary intent the story, and maybe he decided to convey some messages into the story.

[Doc Milo]

Hmmm. I don't know much about Tolkien's life. But that sounds an awful lot like L. Frank Baum, the author of "The Wizard of Oz." Could you be confusing the two, or are both author's stories similar?

[Jedi Master Carr]

They both might be similar because I know that Tolkien wrote the Hobbit for his kids, I read it in a book on his life. I didn't even realize that Baum did the same thing.