Star Wars

[echo echo]

Phantom Menace ||Eight year old, in a cave, box of scraps||

[neon panther]

In a city, with used parts? Following a known design.

[echo echo]

If this is the objection it needs to be in the movie

[neon panther]

It is?

They describe the PM ||bombs during the dinner scene||

I believe the exact quote is PM||"Shmi: Any attempt to escape... Anakain: ...and they blow you up! Boom!"||

[echo echo]

Ah yeah

[silk solar]

that bell really should have been rung again

[echo echo]

Even so, this still stands

Also, Gilgamesh spoiler policy

[silk solar]

PM1 ||also, did they take anakin's out or does he just still have the bomb||

i feel like at some point they realized there was an issue, tried to patch it, but didnt make it fully work

[wintry lark]

||I mean, Watto transferred ownership. Whatever happened to the bomb must have happened then||

[echo echo]

Phantom Menace ||I also just feel like there's no reason Obi-wan or Anakin himself can't come back later with cash and buy Watto (now destitute from betting against Anakin) out||

[silk solar]

||i refuse to believe qui gon threating the bug dude doesnt get anakin's mom freed||

[silk solar]

||they could sell the pod that just won a race they dont need anymore idk||

[neon panther]

||I'm not sure overt threatening is in Qui-Gon's playbook.||

[silk solar]

||over slavery?||

||way more unbelievable a jedi master just leaves it there||

[neon panther]

||IIRC, they do, and they give Shmi the money before they leave.||

[echo echo]

||Then why doesn't she buy herself out? She's a slave for years more before she gets bought out by Lars||

Just a bizarre contrivance

[silk solar]

||how does she have money as a slave||

[echo echo]

Consistent problem with this act 2

[neon panther]

||Well, now that he's destitute, perhaps her sale price went up, lol.||

Slaves can have money, generally, even in real life.

[silk solar]

PM ||ok if padme is democratically elected (she isnt) how do they get away with the body double thing||

[neon panther]

Not all slavery systems are the same.

[silk solar]

||on corusant no less||

[echo echo]

B I Z A R R E C O N T R I V A N C E

[neon panther]

||What do you mean? If you mean in the actual meetings, that's actually her.||

[silk solar]

||no i mean when they land||

[echo echo]

||Yeah they do swap several times if you look closely||

[silk solar]

||also in naboo||

[warm thicket]

I think you all are missing a crucial bit of worldbuilding important to the Star Wars prequels:
It's cool

[neon panther]

||I think I'm missing what the issue is with the body double.||

[warm thicket]

||Padme having a body double and being the queen the whole time is cool. Anakin racing so hard he frees himself from slavery is cool. That's kinda where it ends||

[silk solar]

||there is no issue if she is a queen. there is if this is a democracy||

[neon panther]

(As a side note, I was pretty low on Phantom Menace a couple years ago, then I rewatched it and now think it's definitely overhated)

[neon panther]

||But what is the issue if it's a democracy?||

[silk solar]

||also the tatooine sequence is like an hour||

[warm thicket]

Phantom Menace is absolutely over hated. The movie isn't that bad, I would even argue that it's great

[silk solar]

||bc everyone knows what your elected officials look like||

||they run the body double scheme in the palace||

[neon panther]

That's probably helped by the crazy ceremonial makeup

[echo echo]

Rule of Cool has limitations

The more implausible it is the cooler it has to be

And a lot of what's in the PT is fine

But like

[silk solar]

||maybe they institute it post blockade, but then idk why they keep it up when they get to corusant or why no one says hey, you arent the person who was elected||

[echo echo]

The thing is, I love podracing in theory, I threw countless hours at the N64 game as a kid and expect to throw more at the new racing game coming up soon

But hanging some real thin plot points on it, and as many as they do, and it buckles if you think about it for more than like five minutes

[neon panther]

||I mean, just having a body double ready to go isn't that weird, imo. So yeah, when a dangerous situation came up they just went, 'alright, time to put on the makeup, Keira.'||

[silk solar]

||yeah the issue is coruscant which is why i brought it up at that point in the movie ||

[neon panther]

I'm still not really understanding the issue there, sorry. PM ||Are you saying Valorum should have noticed?||

[silk solar]

||vergences have been lovingly laid to rest (also kylo should have been a dark side vergence)||

[neon panther]

Now that's one that I'm not sure was ever really explained (outside of Legends)

[wispy lichen]

Based

[silk solar]

||if you go to your allies asking for help, the person asking for help would be the actual queen. not the body double. there is no reason to also have the body double with people you a) trust b) are asking for aid and 3) know what you look like||

[warm thicket]

||Uhh, but what if I'm extra and I wanna do a dramatic reveal?||

[wispy lichen]

Me

[silk solar]

||hey its the fate of your planet zee lmao||

[neon panther]

||Well, they do somewhat recognize that, for the official Senate meetings, they use Amidala herself. I don't know that there's a real difference which one says hi to the Chancellor||

I would be willing to bet they've never met before.

[silk solar]

||well they dont use amidala for the private meeting with palpatine||

PM ||i get they are just stalling but i refuse to believe it is that hard to determine if a system is being blockaded||

||esp if they were nominally doing it for tax reasons||

[wintry lark]

Star Wars all ||Ironically, it is in Anakin's||

[silk solar]

||its really funny the wookies start yelling||

PM ||is it ever established why qui gon went against the council previously||

[echo echo]

||Not a single instance, thing he does kind of habitually||

||Man is a bit of a maverick||

[neon panther]

||I've heard a lot of people say that Qui-Gon would have been able to keep Anakin from falling. And while I do think he'd be a better Master for him than Obi-Wan, I'm not sure that it would have worked out quite as well as people think.||

[silk solar]

PM ||yoda really grilling this kid for missing his mother WHO IS A SLAVE||

||like bruh ||

||totally forgot that quote came now||

[silk solar]

||then why was he sent on the super secret sensitive mission||

[neon panther]

||Being a maverick doesn't mean he's bad at his job.||

[silk solar]

||it really does in this instance||

[warm thicket]

||If we're going by what happens in real life, they can absolutely use the classic method, "I don't think you've proven that there's a blockade, and if there is one it's probably not a big deal, and if it is a big deal there's probably nothing the senate can do about it, and if there is something the senate can do about it it's probably too late"||

[neon panther]

||Does it? I think if we replaced him with 'generic jedi master,' the only real difference at this point in the story would be whether or not Anakin got picked up.||

[silk solar]

||that is bc qui gon isnt portrayed as a maverick at all and it is only brought up in this scene||

||which is an issue with telling characterization that is not supported in the rest of the text||

[silk solar]

||if the trade federation want the Senate to lower taxes, which from Bean's summary is what they want, then they do in fact have to let them know||

[echo echo]

||I'd argue that the whole sticking an eight year old in the Mos Eisley 500 is maverick behavior||

[silk solar]

||the rest of the stuff can be used to delay it but the reason stated doesnt make any sense ||

[silk solar]

||this is just child abuse lmao||

[neon panther]

That's fair. I just think it's out of the scope of this particular story.

He was perfectly willing!

[echo echo]

Exactly

[echo echo]

||I do think it is the kind of thing they have to justify in this story especially since this is the first story with Qui-gon in it||

[wispy vortex]

||Its not about lowering taxes. Senate wants to raise taxes, TF wants to prevent the bill from passing||

[bitter trail]

||and only...||

[echo echo]

There are Qui-gon books

[bitter trail]

oh i know

[silk solar]

||point still stands and i also dont think that is in the movie||

[bitter trail]

i'm going on the assumption and stance that we're not counting books for the purposes of necessary information

[neon panther]

Hey, I grew up on the Jedi Apprentice books, and I'm not sure that he came of as much of a maverick in those either.

[bitter trail]

i've not read them and i shouldn't need to read them

[echo echo]

That's what I'm getting at, yeah. Anything else is fixing a problem in this story, I agree

[bitter trail]

THOSE ones i did read

[neon panther]

So, I always got the impression that he's more of a... philosophical maverick? As opposed to an operational maverick.

[bitter trail]

same

[silk solar]

so what philosophy does he have that is different?

if it is extended universe stuff that is fine

[echo echo]

Phantom Menace ||I'd maybe agree if his defiance of the council wasn't supposed to justify Obi-wan defying the council operationally in taking Anakin on as an apprentice||

[bitter trail]

PT ||he doesn't actually seem like a loose cannon, more like, there are people on the council with whom he has a mutual longstanding series of disagreements. qui gon always seemed to me like the guy who refused a council chair rather than him being denied one||

[neon panther]

||The only things that come to mind are the belief in the Prophecy, and maybe more of a focus on the present situation than looking towards the future with the force (re: his opening conversation with Obi-Wan at the beginning of the movie)||

[wintry lark]

||I thought he was on the council||

[silk solar]

PM ||i dont really get the reason the council doesnt train anakin. are they just going to let him walk away with the higher powerlevel ever recorded?||

[wispy lichen]

SW ||Qui Gon focuses on the living force as opposed to the cosmic force which basically means he’s more hands on and wants to know people firsthand and interact and the rest of the Jedi are arrogant and isolated ||

[wintry lark]

It's been a while since I've seen the movie tbf

[neon panther]

||Obi-Wan says he would be if he wasn't so disagreeable with them.||

[silk solar]

||the council believes in the prophecy from what i can tell they just arent sure anakin is the chosen one||

[neon panther]

That's definitely possible. There's not a ton of detail they go into on that whole thing.

[silk solar]

PM ||THEY ARE BRINGING ANAKIN BACK TO NABOO||

[wispy lichen]

This is the big thing (SW) ||there’s a whole (canon) book on Qui Gon convincing the Council to go more hands on in a real mission because he feels they are too detached from life itself and people themselves ||

[silk solar]

PM ||this blockade is mickey mouse||

[neon panther]

PT ||Hm, ironically, after he dies, the Jedi go too far in the opposite direction, it feels like.||

[wispy lichen]

|| hey! It’s almsot like that’s the point (it is)||

||Qui Gon dying is supposed to doom the Jedi Order ||

Sorry that was a little mean 😭

[neon panther]

||Well, the blockade is largely done with at that point. Now that they control all the ports on the surface, they don't need to keep ships in orbit to stop people from leaving.||

[silk solar]

||you wouldnt let an unauthorized ship land on a planet you are occupying||

[neon panther]

||No, that's fair. I've just never really thought about his relationship to the order itself all that much. The discussion I've seen has all been a lot more about him and Anakin/Obi-Wan. (And maybe Dooku)||

[wispy lichen]

||there’s a lot of interesting discussion about how Qui Gon’s non-conventional views on the force would have greatly aligned with Anakin’s methods and that had Qui Gon been his master Anakin might have been better off ||

||also I was only aggressive with that message because I’m trying to shut up and ignore this chat so people can react freely to things in ways I don’t agree with so I’m sorry 😭 ||

[warm thicket]

techno music
"You steal
wouldn't a car"

[warm thicket]

||Iirc that's why Dual of the Fates is named that. It's a dual over the fate of Anakin's training.||

[wispy lichen]

Yep

[silk solar]

PM ||why did qui gon bring anakin to the palace if he just wants him to hide||

[autumn hemlock]

||Because Anakin can't be disappeared by Coruscant's CPS if he isn't on Coruscant.||

[neon panther]

No worries, haha. I get it. That feeling is why I started replying as well.

[autumn hemlock]

||Wait, my brain totally just shortcircuited palace to Naboo. The plan was probably to have somewhere defensible to store him before they got tied up by guards and Maul, but oops, it happened in a big open room instead.||

[silk solar]

PM ||meditating mid fight is aura i will admit||

||obi wan is pretty angry there. dont tell yoda||

[echo echo]

They used Qui-gon and Maul's poses here for the "rejuvinate your mana" ability in SWTOR

[silk solar]

PM and Ahsoka ||i did see people crud on ahsoka for this, but getting gut stabbed not automatically killing you makes sense, and in that show ahsoka was right there to give medical aid. seeing qui gon live for a few minutes after here makes it all consistent||

SW all ||idk what qui gon is imagining when he says bring balance. what is out of balance at the current moment?||

[echo echo]

The answer to this question is I think the fundamental problem with Star Wars

[silk solar]

really frustrating it has never been nailed down

[glad mason]

No part of the plot of PM makes sense lol

[silk solar]

SW ||anakin did bring balance by eliminating most of the jedi. i know the prophecy is meant to be about luke, but he just eliminated the sith. balance implies the light and dark are in balance. if not that, then i dont know what else||

[glad mason]

SW ||if I were Maul I’d also be incredibly pissed I got cut in half helping Fu Manchu invade tariffs or w/e was going on||

[silk solar]

||why does obi wan get knighted in a room with too er chairs||

[echo echo]

SW ||Anakin brought balance if you think that the Force is angling for a balance between Light and Dark, which I think is actually a much harder claim to defend than it appears at face value||

[glad mason]

SW ||that interpretation of the prophecy just makes the Jedi look like idiots||

[silk solar]

PM ||common yoda L not sensing the sith lord 2 feet from him||

[glad mason]

Phantom Menace is a movie saved by having really fun chase scenes

[silk solar]

ok finished

[silk solar]

||hardcore fans will probably disagree, but i thought an absolute necessity of the sequel trilogy was to expand the dark side beyond evil fascistic murderers||

[autumn hemlock]

SW OTPT ||The official answer is that Sith are unbalancing, while Jedi aren't, and that Vader brought balance to the Force when he chucked Sheev down the Death Star. The fun answer is that he brought balance to the force by joining the Dark Side and executing Order 66, which (classically) left the SWG with 2 Sith (Sheev and Vader) and 2 Jedi (Obi-wan and Yoda)||

[silk solar]

||bc the balance thing being ill defined is one of the reasons i dont think SW's philosophy is that coherent just from the flims||

[glad mason]

Sw ||the last part becomes less and less true with every new franchise release||

[silk solar]

||i always thought this was a great direction for finn's character, someone who has good reasons to dwell on negative emotions and find different answers than anakin or sidious||

[glad mason]

||maybe balance is 2 Sith and 10 Jedi||

[silk solar]

||and the other jedi/inquisitors lmao||

[autumn hemlock]

||Yeah, the fun interpretation only holds up for movie absolutists||

[glad mason]

SW ||I agree and disagree depending on what you mean, seeing dark side users fueled by more “mundane” emotions like lust, greed, etc., would have been interesting, but I think the idea of the dark side as fundamentally bad is inherent to star wars||

[silk solar]

||i wouldnt describe myself as an absolutist, but i do think that line should have a clearer interpretation in the films||

[bitter trail]

all ||i admit to being more annoyed by claims that balance must be a 50/50 - i don't think it needs to be that way||

[silk solar]

||if you want to define the dark side as inherently bad, then they need to broaden the emotional range of jedi which they seem equally unwilling to do||

||it really should be one or the other||

[glad mason]

SW ||I think stuff like Darth Graft and Darth Covets-His-Neighbour’s-Wife are interesting concepts in that it shows the human draw of the Dark Side, but it should remain very clearly a negative thing imo||

[glad mason]

SW ||I don’t really agree tbh, obi wan is basically the ideal Jedi and he’s plenty dynamic||

[autumn hemlock]

||Darth Mows-The-Lawn-At-The-Crack-Of-Dawn||

[echo echo]

I've always felt that the answer to the balance question should be something along the lines of a given motivation taken to an extreme (especially when that means abandoning morals and convictions you do hold but which you deem lesser than the primary motivator) is the primary path to the Dark Side

[silk solar]

||obi wan is a fairly unique case from my pov. ahsoka, the council, ezra, and so on converge to a really bland characterization ||

[glad mason]

Darth Homeowner-Association

[echo echo]

You can justify nearly everything existing in Star Wars with this, including the intransigence of the Prequel era Jedi

[silk solar]

PM ||like what yoda says about fear leading to suffering is just wrong lmao||

[glad mason]

SW ||I genuinely don’t agree, the ideals for the Jedi are to always be tranquil and at peace but in both the prequels and clone wars show, a lot of Jedi show very different personal philosophies and emotional ranges||

[silk solar]

||yeah but that is still philosophical ideal they are chasing ||

||which is also somewhat disjoint from the Balance the prophecies talk about||

[glad mason]

SW ||like Mace, Obi Wan, and then in the show Luminara, Plo Koon etc are all “ideal” and unambiguous Jedi but they’re all distinct enough and dynamic enough to be interesting||

[echo echo]

||I think Mace is actually supposed to be something of a villain||

||Like, I think they were going for a zealot with him||

[silk solar]

||also i remember mace only getting emotional when he was thrown out of a window||

[glad mason]

SW ||Mace is just a hardass, there’s people like him in every institution||

||my point is more that the Jedi ideals are just that, ideals, and Jedi don’t fulfil them completely anymore than trying to be good makes you a saint||

[silk solar]

SW ||to me the fundamental issue I have with star wars is that they have not distinguished the light side as a unambiguous existing concept from the jedi as a religion that worships that concept. like the difference between catholicism and god. so i often cant tell if the no emotion thing is something the jedi are imposing in their interpretation of the light side, or if the light side itself is preferring that. which is doubly annoying bc the only light side user who is explicitly not a jedi is ahsoka, and she is only that bc existing canon forces her to be. so i dont actually know what the difference is||

[glad mason]

SW ||Mace was just the strict disciplinarian to Qui Gon/ Obi Wan’s more lax/ gentle parenting||

[bitter trail]

sw pt and ot ||hmmm this isn't something i've ever thought before. this certainly isn't something i ever got from the OT, which i definitely had a lot more in mind before PT movies even existed (i saw 2 and 3 in theatres)||

[glad mason]

SW ||I think the light and the dark side are meant to be pretty unambiguously existing, being evil literally turns your eyes yellow and gives you jaundice||

[echo echo]

||The nightsisters being this for the Dark Side is why they work so well for me||

[silk solar]

SW ||so, for example. luke brings balance to the force. but he was taught by yoda who, as far as we know, is teaching him the same stuff yoda believed in the prequel era. which implies the jedi were on the right track, they just lost a power struggle. but the prequels iirc imply the jedi are at fault? but when they come back they dont change? also it doesnt matter bc the NJO gets blown up in ep 8 so we will never know, but they were returning to the old texts? which wree good? idk||

[silk solar]

i dont think this is an issue in the OT tbc

the OT is very consistent with this

[bitter trail]

SW ||if anything, the calmness seems to have a mostly technical purpose in accessing the force in that it seems to be training wheels in order to learn to listen and get yourself out of the way, at least until one is more practiced at it||

oh then it's not a fundamental issue with star wars, it's a fundamental issue with the PT

[silk solar]

||bc of the rule of 2 sith limitation, they were forced to expand the dark side in ways they were not for the light||

[silk solar]

||semantic difference ig. if i was to diagnose, i think george fell too in love wiht making anakin a tragic fall instead of a straight up villain, so the jedi come off worse in the PT to make anakin's fall more understandable, even though this essentially contradicts the OT||

[glad mason]

SW ||I really like the nightsisters as a concept tbh, it reminds me of how a lot of primitive/ early religious practices tend to trend towards ritual and sacrifice, including human sacrifice. I think their form of magic as dark-side does speak to a particular impulse in humanity which we default to without moral guidance. The Sith are a much more philosophical “we know good and evil, and chose to be evil”||

[echo echo]

I think OT is mostly able to dodge the question but I don't think Star Wars generally can afford to do so forever

[bitter trail]

i don't think i was talking about a dodge

[silk solar]

there is also basic story evolution to consider

[echo echo]

I don't think it meant to exactly

[glad mason]

SW ||this is really funny to me because Anakins fall isn’t understandable at all lmao||

[silk solar]

PT added to that conversation in a contradictory way, ST tries to pretend there is no issue when their clearly is imo

[bitter trail]

but addressing the statement that says, this is a problem in (all), which i don't really think it is

[silk solar]

||well yeah george messed that up too||

[echo echo]

It has a relatively narrow focus and the more you zoom out the more pressing the need for some fundamental answers like this are, and OT specifically didn't need to have them so it doesn't

[silk solar]

||bc he also wasnt willing to say "the jedi are a broken system and needed reform one way or the other"||

[bitter trail]

yes, i don't think there's anything there that's in conflict with what i said

[glad mason]

I think I have the opposite issue of you Duck, where I think there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the worldbuilding of the Force and the Jedi, aside from the Sith names being dumb as hell, but the PT doesn’t work for me because Anakin is so unlikable and inexplicable

[echo echo]

Fortunately, I'm not exactly disagreeing with you

[silk solar]

I consider episode 1-9 to be the main star wars story, because that is how it is billed and presented

[bitter trail]

i don't really think there was much relevant to my particular response there 😅

[silk solar]

if you just limit SW to mean original trilogy than yeah there is no issue

[glad mason]

Thinking about it more, I would have preferred Anakin as a wannabe Napoleon who plays a more active role in the downfall of the republic

[silk solar]

but i cant exactly be like stormlight doenst have an issue with class and by stormlight i mean way of kings ya know

it always returns to the french with camille smh

[echo echo]

Yeah SpaceDuck was making a general claim about Star Wars and I think the OT manages to not get caught too badly in a thing that is generally true of Star Wars

[bitter trail]

mm

[wispy lichen]

I consider episode 1- NJO to be the main SW story

[glad mason]

SW ||also duck I will defend Yoda’s statement in context, because Anakin was being incredibly stupid in that scene||

[silk solar]

when i say star wars, i mean the theatrically released films, the in continuity shows (that i have seen, i cant comment on other stuff), and that is pretty much it

which i think is a reasonable line to draw

[glad mason]

|| “I’m worried my girlfriend will die”

“Okay, is anyone trying to hurt her?”

“No”

“Is she sick?”

“No”

“Do you know how she’s in danger?”

“No”||

Like what are you supposed to say to that

[wispy lichen]

You can draw the line of what you have watched but you are also picking and choosing what “counts” because you have accessed it

[glad mason]

EU fans btfo

[silk solar]

im not saying it doesnt count, im saying idk what is in it

so if an issue is addressed in the mandalorian, i have no means to judge that

[wispy lichen]

If we’re counting anything beyond 1-9 then EU is fair game to consider core

[bitter trail]

sw || this is what i was responding to "have not distinguished the light side as a unambiguous existing concept from the jedi as a religion that worships that concept. like the difference between catholicism and god. so i often cant tell if the no emotion thing is something the jedi are imposing in their interpretation of the light side, or if the light side itself is preferring that. which is doubly annoying bc the only light side user who is explicitly not a jedi is ahsoka, and she is only that bc existing canon forces her to be. so i dont actually know what the difference is" and my response was in something in star wars and then duck responded paraphrased "well not the ot really"||

[echo echo]

There is also a strong sense of primacy in canonicity to the numbered Episode films, if only because when they do lore purges those films are always preserved

Everything else seems up for grabs

[silk solar]

i guess what i really consider the star wars story is I-IX

[glad mason]

Yeah, SW tv is only vaguely sorta canon to me

[silk solar]

it is just that most of the actual content is contained in tv shows and people like to bring it up

but i think I-IX should stand on their own and criticising them for issues not addressed in the flims is fair

[echo echo]

Cassian Andor has the most live action screen time of any Star Wars character

[bitter trail]

to me, star wars is what i say it is, and i say ST is not star wars and most of the tv shows are not star wars because i've not seen most of them, so they can't possibly be star wars to me

[wispy lichen]

Then I should be able to bring up EU stuff without being told “that’s Legends so it doesn’t count”

[glad mason]

I think criticizing the films on their own merits is totally fair tbh

[echo echo]

Move over, Luke, Cassian is John Star Wars now

[bitter trail]

it makes for a remarkably peaceful time in being a star wars enjoyer

[wispy lichen]

Most of the content is in books is the thing

[glad mason]

I don’t like it personally when people criticize Anakin characterization and people respond with “but tcw…”

[wispy lichen]

I agree but if I consider them under the merits of larger story, that shouldn’t be demeaned

[echo echo]

Books are the most commonly purged

Since the beginning, really, they barely got out the gate before they kicked Splinter of the Mind's Eye to the curb

(Nearly typed Splinter of the Mind's Rye)

[silk solar]

ig i could specify sw films, but ideally all of the major issues would be addressed in the movies. having to bring in other media properties for basic storytelling holes is an issue on its own imo

[wispy lichen]

I think 1-6 tell a cohesive and amazing story without the EU

[silk solar]

holden cauffield was great in that book

[wispy lichen]

I think the EU makes that cohesive story into a masterpiece of art

[bitter trail]

that is definitely part of why i love andor, is i don't get the sense of hole-patching or gap-filling at all. the time it covers didn't feel like it was missing before we got it

[glad mason]

Tbh I think the PT makes the OT worse

[wispy lichen]

And I think it makes it better

[wispy vortex]

Definitely

[silk solar]

imo, i think 4-6 makes sense, and 1-6 introduces a lot of problems for me that are not addressed in any of the media close enough to the movies for me to automatically bring it in

[glad mason]

The portrayal of Anakin pre-fall makes him less sympathetic in the OT to me

[bitter trail]

there is a great deal of me that does cut out the PT in my heart. i just can't square that circle

[echo echo]

Yeah if you're talking about Star Wars in a sort of evolutionary sense then the Prequels create a lot of problems that they don't solve for the setting as a whole

[glad mason]

I like the worldbuilding and the portrayal of the Jedi in the PT but the heart of the story is Anakin and Luke, and the PT just makes Anakin not work

[silk solar]

memes aside, i dont talk about the OT not showing the empire being an evil empire bc i know andor (and solo somehow?) do address it, and that is the type of narrative complaint that i think supplementary material is really good at fixing

[wispy lichen]

Loving these movies so much does require quite a lot of tongue biting on my part to contain my excitement because I do think people should be free to hate things but yeah I want to be clear that I adore 1-6 unapologetically

[bitter trail]

PT has been around for a long time in my life but i still think after all this time, it still feels disconnected, and i don't have a big synthesized idea of what star wars that includes everything. i just find it all so different from the OT

[silk solar]

a show like the clone wars basically has to exist for that era to hold as much weight imo

[glad mason]

Tcw was good but didn’t do nearly as much as it could have tbh

[wispy lichen]

And it does kinda feel like I can never talk about 1-3 without this pretension coming in that “those movies suck. Such bad movies. You just like them for nostalgia or memes or etc.”

[silk solar]

and i do like a lot of what i saw of the clone wars

episode quality varied but i think star wars can handle that more than most universes

[bitter trail]

and, i really do feel like i missed the boat on TCW (and also rebels). i tried a couple episodes but i really don't know that i'm ever going to watch, not even the "watch these good episodes!" version of TCW

[silk solar]

i mean how many TNG episodes are just unwatchable

[bitter trail]

it just feels too young for me

[glad mason]

The SW universe basically has two ethno-cultural groups (excluding the gungans for being incredibly annoying stereotypes): the Dathomirians and the Mandalorians. Tcw could’ve done a lot more to worldbuilding

[glad mason]

It’s only 10% of the show that is straight unwatchable and that’s mostly early seasons

[quick ibex]

Really?

[wispy lichen]

Be so fr there are hundreds of books

[silk solar]

i am sad ahsoka didnt resonante with me bc that would have been good motivation to go watch rebels

[glad mason]

I meant in the context of filoni-verse and canon SW

[wispy lichen]

Even then the High Republic does a lot

[glad mason]

I’m sure the books are great but when I say SW I meant the canon stuff 😭

[wispy lichen]

HR is canon

[golden flame]

there are canon Star Wars novels lol

[glad mason]

Can I just say I meant normie SW then 😭

[wispy lichen]

The biggest loss of Legends being decanonized is the amount I see it getting treated as lesser and not an alternate universe

[silk solar]

wait the acolyte is a part of this

[wintry lark]

on-screen Star Wars

[silk solar]

ig a fundamental block for me is i want star wars to be on screen

[wintry lark]

I mean, it is harder to see it that way considering the fact that it's not being actively maintained. And it doesn't have the best reputation for quality control either

[wispy lichen]

It has better care for the wider universe than canon tbh

Feels much more like one universe than sporadic stories

[echo echo]

Being straight up I saw the Legends books as lesser to the movies even when they were canon

[silk solar]

it is going to be really awkward when the sequels get purged bc then there will not be a consistent movie canonicity either

[wispy lichen]

I see Legends as equal to say the shows

[wintry lark]

I also consider the canon books lesser lol

[glad mason]

Just speaking about tcw the show tho, there’s hundreds of hours worth of episodes about a civil war in a giant galaxy and yet almost no planet is fleshed out at all

[golden flame]

This does happen, but I don't think saying "I want the 'mainline' things that are being presented as a complete story to work on their own" is automatically doing that

[echo echo]

I haven't bothered with New Canon

Jesse Cox and friends put me off it

[quick ibex]

Only the republic core being fleshed out is why i dislike TCW

tbh

[silk solar]

dont insult legends like that

[wispy lichen]

I think 1-6 work on their own!

[glad mason]

It’s not even fleshed out lol

[quick ibex]

eh it has some level of depth

[wispy lichen]

Legends is better than the shows sure. I meant in level of canonicity.

[quick ibex]

more than the CIS

at least

[echo echo]

PT raises more questions about the Republic than it answers

[glad mason]

Name three cultural practices of Naboo

[quick ibex]

by republic core i mean coruscant

and uh

coruscant

[echo echo]

Ball, electing children to public office.... I got two

[bitter trail]

constant assassination of their leaders

[silk solar]

ornate outfits

[wispy vortex]

The decoys, all that gungan stuff

[silk solar]

which i think is really just for the body double thing

[quick ibex]

tbf elective monarchies have had child leaders

thats not unrealistic

[wispy lichen]

This has been DAYS of being told Legends doesn’t count for making SW worthwhile

[silk solar]

it is in a future sci fi literate society

[wispy lichen]

When the thing you love most is treated badly it is frustrating, yeah

[golden flame]

for the record, I do think criticisms of Star Wars could stand to define what they're talking about as "Star Wars" beforehand instead of painting it with a broad brush and then excluding things piece by piece as the conversation goes on

[silk solar]

i dont have any strong opinion on legends tbh, but the same company that decanonized them is also responsible for making a consistent and engaging canon and i dont think they have done that to my personal standard

[silk solar]

what is canon star wars is pretty well defined. when referring to legends i call it legends

[golden flame]

but once things have been delineated, I do think saying "I'm talking about this specific subset that's framed as being its own top-tier thing, and while I'm sure there is nice stuff elsewhere it doesn't actually make that subset work on its own for me" is a reasonable position

[glad mason]

For the record, while I’m glad Duck likes SW and is talking about it so much, idk if the SW thread is the best place to do it lol

Because I feel like he’s talking about it mainly from a media analysis perspective and this thread feels more like a “SW fan” place

[wispy lichen]

I do think people should feel free to hate or dislike things but man does a pile on of something you adore for multiple days feel disheartening

[silk solar]

that is fair. if people would prefer me in media im fine to do that

and dw monkeygirl, when i rewatch the original trilogy they will be appropriately praised

[echo echo]

I do think when SpaceDuck is doing a watch of the movies specifically, saying "oh this was solved in a book that came along later" is also just, that's not what the discussion is

[golden flame]

when you initially qualified things with "just from the films" etc it was clear what you meant (imo at least), but then you began mentioning things from outside the films and started referring to just "Star Wars" in general, which conveyed the impression that you were now talking about things more broadly
but then as the convo went on it got narrowed down to just the films+shows, then just the films, and sometimes just 1-3
which as someone trying to follow along made it hard to tell what parts you were or weren't taking into account at any given time, at least for me

[wispy lichen]

Yeah but saying “star wars never touches on x” when it is touched on feels disingenuous oftentimes

[golden flame]

and the clarification happening via the framing of "this is what I consider 'Star Wars' to be" is something where I can see how it came off to MG and Bean the way it did even if I don't think it's what you meant (hence me saying above that I don't think it's what you meant)

[wispy lichen]

Containing criticisms to the films shouldn’t make broad statements about SW never doing something

[echo echo]

The books touching on an idea without providing a definitive answer that is binding to what Star Wars is is, I think, irrelevant to the discussion

[glad mason]

I also feel like some of the tensions is based on whether you do or don’t vibe with SW as a concept, because SW as a concept does ask you to buy into mysticism and that can be tough for some lol

[echo echo]

When the books are consistently sacrificed at the altar of the movies and specifically the Episodic movies, I don't think they're relevant

[glad mason]

Well, I think they’re obviously relevant to some people but not to others (probs a majority)

[wispy lichen]

It informs the lens you view something under

It might not be explicitly within something but a change in the lens changes the content

[silk solar]

i can certainly be more specific when i talk about stuff, but part of the issue with star wars as a franchise is that a lot of different answers have been given for a lot of different things, so pretty much anything i say it doesnt do is probably actually done somehere. but i do think it was clear i was talking about disney canon star wars, both bc i dont have any experience with it and bc it isnt canon. which, to be clear, is not a statement of quality or legitimacy for me, but the company that makes star wars does silo off that content

[glad mason]

This is a complete spiel but I feel like a lot of the “okay but what if the dark side was complex and nuanced” is just a fundamental failure to understand SW’s theology and really kind of a detachment from religious theology in general, which is an issue because the worldbuilding of SW is religious. It’s like reading wheel of time and being like “okay what if time isn’t a wheel”

[silk solar]

so to me the only way to talk about star wars consistently is to talk about disney canon, bc like kon i like to talk about where star wars as a franchise as a forward facing media empire is going, and the movies and show are most relevant to that

[bitter trail]

(and this may have ben glided past but also i do think convo should stay here in this forum, broadly there has been a great deal of star wars convo outside of here, and even though it's not to everyone's taste, conversation developing from someone actually watching star wars)

[bitter trail]

i agree; i don't think it's religious. spiritual and mystical of course but there isn't worship there

[silk solar]

i would describe star wars as spiritual

[wispy lichen]

(I agree fwiw but I also avoid talking about this because SW mysticism will get me going for hours lol)

[glad mason]

Maybe not religious in the sense of organized religion but it asks you to buy into a theological framework

[bitter trail]

i don't buy even the word theological

[echo echo]

This is why I think Grey Jedi are dumb

[golden flame]

that's rude when Grey is right here

[wispy lichen]

Grey Jedi are dumb yeah

[glad mason]

It’s the “what if the devil was good and right” thing but for SW, which is inherently kinda silly because the dark side/ the devil/ whatever are meant to represent all the bad things that are part of human nature and our condition

[bitter trail]

i DID do a double take but i'm also tired and a little woozy

[quick ibex]

its religious in the same way buddhism is

[silk solar]

whether or not the metaphysics of star wars works one way or the other is different from the issue of what you consider star wars

[glad mason]

Buddhism is 100% an organized religion lol

[wispy lichen]

They’re related considering different authors say different things

[silk solar]

also buddhism doenst have actual ghosts

[quick ibex]

yeah but so are the jedi

[glad mason]

It is but I do feel like some of the issues you’re having are from because you’re looking at the SW universe in a kinda atheist way, if that makes sense?

[silk solar]

well that is the thing. if i consider grey jedi star wars, then whenever anyone says the dark side is unambigiuously evil i can say aha! got you! star wars doesnt have to do this

[glad mason]

It does according to buddhists

[bitter trail]

they DO call it a religion right away in ANH but you know, probably my hangups with certain words and phrases

[wispy lichen]

I think there are tons of answers thematic or plotwise that make certain complaints make sense but those answers come from engaging with deep levels of content people shouldn’t be expected to engage in but it does also make it a bit like… well yeah your complaints are valid but I can’t really say anything in favor of my argument, you know?

[echo echo]

I'm coming at it from a direction of, if Star Wars is a story about good and evil (and the triumph of good over evil), what is good and what is evil in this context? And the Prequels really muddy those waters

[silk solar]

so i think that im coming at star wars from an angle of someone who was really into it, lost touch, and is now coming back to catch up on what i missed. i think by atheist you mean i dont really have a side in the ongoing debates in the fandom for the last however many years. im not planted on one side or the other. so i am viewing them more from wanting engaging stories than advocating for my specific vision of star wars

so i think my pov on hot button issues isnt usually the same as other people's, but idk if other people agree with that

[wispy lichen]

I think it was more that || “what if sith not bad” is a common complaint about the force when the sith are just inherently evil lol ||

[bitter trail]

PT/OT ||i think part of my feelings vis a vis mysticism/spirituality also is that PT seems to ... shy away from the mystical elements and it seems like there is barely any element of spiritual practice in the jedi of the PT, which is so different to how and what yoda taught luke||

also i think i need a snack

[silk solar]

||i think my point was more that i want a dark side that manifests in more interesting ways than the sith and assorted villains we have been presented||

[glad mason]

I think it’s kinda hard to explain, but to me SW feels like it has a cosmological system, where there is a pathway that represents good and a pathway that represents evil which are real and discrete concepts. And people aren’t 100% good or 100% evil and choices aren’t always clear cut, but Good and Evil are real in the same way water is real or air is real

[echo echo]

I'm surprised you're still awake

[wispy lichen]

I think what I’m saying here is if you see all the connections and links and repairs and things that make it all feel so wonderful, then ofc when you watch the mainline movies all those experiences inform your viewing experience.

So basically it becomes a one-sided debate and Legends fans have no voice to respond because they will inherently view the movies under that lens.

Idk if that makes sense.

[glad mason]

I think if you are critical of that cosmological system it’s really hard to like SW

[silk solar]

i also think my complaint on the sith is colored by the meta perspective of wanting something different, and SW (insert meaning of this here that makes you the least angry) does recycle a lot of concepts, so the evil dark lord in all black doesnt really do it for me anymore

[echo echo]

I'm critical of it and I manage to do alright

(I agree with Duck's characterization, broadly, the Dark Side especially is like, if you use it is is tangibly physically warping)

[silk solar]

i get what you are saying monkeygirl, but also if i am watching a movie and some additional context or connection is in something else, i give credit to that something else. and especially bc star wars is almost overexplored, i dont think it is part of the intended viewing experience to tredge through the wiki or have someone cite something to explain something that I, watching the movie, consider to be an issue

[wispy lichen]

I totally get that

But it also means I have to not respond to complaints I disagree with lol. Which is more a “just stop going on Discord MG” thing than anything lol.

[golden flame]

The way I think about this is like... if someone who only reads Stormlight says ||"it feels like the Ghostblood plot didn't go anywhere"||, me as a full Cosmere reader saying ||"it's clearly setting up the next Mistborn trilogy"|| is a valid perspective but not a relevant one to the topic?

[silk solar]

bc i havent read the relevant content, i have no idea if i will reach the same conclusion. so if someone is like, that is addressed in Book X, i would have to go read Book X. and who knows what i will think, I like the Solo naming scene and people meme on that

[glad mason]

I think I do want more complex stories in SW but I think that can be done while maintaining the cosmology of SW

Unironically Maul does this well

[silk solar]

feel free to respond, it just may be easier on us both if it is more of a "hey, here is how legends addressed this" vs "no actually it is like this," if that makes sense

[wispy lichen]

Yea but it’s like saying Stormlight is terrible for that (where you love Stormlight)

[silk solar]

not even saying that is what has been happening

[silk solar]

guy who doesnt realize the ghostbloods trilogy also isnt going anywhere:

[glad mason]

Because Maul is a character with very real and human desires, a need for connection, and genuine capacity for affection who is also 100% unambiguously full time evil

[silk solar]

pulling in legends can feel like reading stormlight, having an issue, and then someone saying, yeah, brandon explained why that isnt a problem while he was dressed up as a pirate playing magic on a livestream

wobs should be additive but the issues in the books are still issues

[bitter trail]

I think there is a difference between saying "this is terrible for that" and "I don't like it for this", and I think it's all been more the latter

[wispy lichen]

I think there is this feel of objective badness of the Prequels in the chat

[wispy vortex]

He should do more magic pirate livestreams

[golden flame]

Imo in that situation it would be entirely valid for them to say Stormlight doesn't work for them for that reason, and if I were to explain why I think it contributes to the series or at least doesn't tank it, I would try to do so by focusing on Stormlight itself, or acknowledge that it's a weakness in Stormlight even if I like how the bigger picture is built around it

[glad mason]

Genuinely the prequels do have a lot of interesting stuff to them but I think they’ve always been kinda controversial

[wispy lichen]

I think… a lot of people see them from a craft level of poor scripting acting pacing, etc which lends to thinking of then as objectively bad

Which I don’t agree with

A craft level vs a personal level

[bitter trail]

I think people need to be able to express a negative opinion, too, but sometimes the only thing to say is not "but it's good" when the original is "[x] is bad to me"

[wispy lichen]

I agree!

[bitter trail]

some people are just going to think the PT is bad

[wispy lichen]

I agree

[glad mason]

That’s fair, i do think some people (me, Duck, Kon Tiki, etc) do like to dissect things from a craft perspective which is different from looking at it as a fan or viewer

[silk solar]

i think its tough bc it is hard to talk about acting pacing or scripting without it coming off as objective, even when it is implicitly isnt

[echo echo]

I mean the Prequels frustrate me from a fan perspective too

I kind of think the craft does more to save it than hurt it actually

[golden flame]

The casual audience would be exposed to 2000% more WoBs if he juggled colorful eggs while answering

[echo echo]

Its so close to being really good

[wispy lichen]

I think people absolutely should be able to talk about it on a craft level and criticize or even hate, but yeah I was just expressing where my frustration was coming from lol

[silk solar]

totally fair

[echo echo]

https://klipy.com/gifs/rogue-one-verge-of-greatness

This genuinely is my feeling on the PT

[glad mason]

The pacing in aotc did have issues for me, but my main problem for the PT is Anakins characterization, which, to me, is unsalvageable. You gotta redo the entire thing with a personality remake for Anakin for it to work (imo)

[silk solar]

i dont really like the prequels much from a fan perspective, but i do want to see more before i lock in exactly what i think is wrong with them vs what are non issues

[bitter trail]

sometimes people say (different media) "the pacing on this was very bad" and though i disagree, the response isn't "actually, it's good", it's more like, the pacing on this really worked for me actually and then follow up with specifics if desired. opinion to opinion

[silk solar]

when i finally watched TLJ, my rating was about what i expected, but my reasons for disliking it were much different than i thought they were going to be

[echo echo]

I think the changes you'd need to make are actually very small

[bitter trail]

i might certainly think the pacing on whatever book is excellent as an objective fact, but it's best not to bring the idea that anyone is speaking objectively out of it

[wispy lichen]

While I largely like what the prequels do, I think Stover’s RotS does an excellent job with Anakin’s character

[bitter trail]

(i say book because it's usually books for me)

[silk solar]

ahsoka is the real SW this applies to

[glad mason]

Disagree, I think you need to completely redo the structure of the movies, start it with an older Anakin and have the first two focus on his achievements in order for his fall to have pathos

[wispy lichen]

Now I do agree with this and I do think S2 can be amazing

[silk solar]

pacing is also so complicated i dont even know how to talk about it on its own

[glad mason]

I do want to read that book lol, the prose is pretty good in the excerpts I’ve read

[bitter trail]

the star wars i want in my heart has a totally different idea and structure for PT but i'm not exactly going to get that

[silk solar]

i think ahsoka is the most frustrating star wars from me because these scenes are there, the actors are on screen next to each other, and the conversations just dont happen

[bitter trail]

dw, pacing was just an example - it's something that came to mind because it's something that i do have in my mind as something i've experienced

[silk solar]

which i cant really say for the prequels

[wispy lichen]

For me pacing = || good when dialogue, philosophizing, lightsaber fights, dogfights ||
Pacing = bad when ||any other combat or tension building scenes ||

[silk solar]

my real scorching hot take

[glad mason]

Phantom Menace peak pacing LOL

[silk solar]

after seeing M and G and rewatching Phantom Menace

[echo echo]

Ahsoka doesn't live rent free in my head because I think she's just a bigger miss and a lot less load bearing than Anakin / the Prequels

[silk solar]

and i know everyone is going to laugh here

[wispy lichen]

Love PM

[wispy vortex]

Haha

[silk solar]

we need a 10 year moratorium on starfighter fights

[glad mason]

Ashoka lives rent free in my head because I resent her being alive at all

[silk solar]

im tired of them

no more small squadrons of fighters in space trying to blow up big thing

[wispy lichen]

This is funny because my favorite scene in MaG ||was the dogfight||

[silk solar]

i will suffer for ryan gosling, but under protest

[wispy vortex]

https://tenor.com/view/puss-in-boots-last-wish-death-whistle-hood-gif-9893935255528933629

[wispy lichen]

||all the other action and tension building scenes were boring af||

[glad mason]

walks into movie called Star Wars

“Why are there stars and wars in this movie??”

[quick ibex]

https://klipy.com/gifs/guardians-of-the-galaxy-adam-warlock

[silk solar]

i am ok dying on this hill

[wispy vortex]

To be fair, squadron blowing up big thing isn’t a dogfight

[quick ibex]

Spaceduck

i actually kind of agree tbh

[silk solar]

i want star wars to level up in the fights it can present and X wings are a crutch

[wispy lichen]

Dogfight

[quick ibex]

i think there needs to still be starfigher dogfights

[wispy vortex]

Dogfights are the best

[quick ibex]

but i want more big battles

[silk solar]

number of dogfights is not that high

[bitter trail]

ahsoka doesn't live in my head because i haven't seen TCW or her show

[wispy vortex]

MG did you play Squadrons?

[wispy lichen]

The people yearn for the space fights

[glad mason]

Based

[wispy lichen]

YES poor game

Loved Squadrons

So much fun

[wispy vortex]

I loved ittttt

[echo echo]

I disagree until this statement. Star Wars need to be more Top Gun and less Death Star in its starfighter fights for sure

[wispy vortex]

I still go back and replay the campaign

[echo echo]

Trench run works at most twice

[quick ibex]

like star destroyers fighting against star destroyers

[wispy vortex]

Opening to ROTS

[quick ibex]

well not star destroyers

but like

ships of that scale

[silk solar]

this is what im asking for lmao

[wispy lichen]

I think we should get dogfight movies with one big battle at the end the way Michael Stackpole intended

[silk solar]

it is also really hard to make thrawn threatening when everyone's tactics is to plant their cruisers away from each other and have fighter duke it out in the middle

[glad mason]

The more I think about it, the more I straight up dislike Ahsoka’s existence

[wispy lichen]

I mean usually we see something like this with ||two capital ships sending out smaller fighters to try to bomb or attack the other capital ship||

[bitter trail]

i want more dogfights that make me breathless

[silk solar]

more of a meta problem in star wars

[quick ibex]

i dont like this tbh

[bitter trail]

it's more that i dislike them when i'm .. ah, bored

[wispy vortex]

God, Starfigher better be good

[quick ibex]

it should be reminiscent of like naval battles

[silk solar]

PM ||or when a 9 year old child saves the day||

[glad mason]

This was how ww2 naval battles worked wasn’t it

[bitter trail]

indeed, i did not find it very interesting

[echo echo]

The Poe piloting intro in TFA is legit like 15 seconds of top tier Star Wars

[wispy lichen]

I’m not normal because MaG ||I was bored watching all the fighting and tension scenes. Like can we get back to the dialogue??? ||

[quick ibex]

yes but WW2 naval battles are boring

[wispy vortex]

That’s why I love Honor Harrington. It’s basically naval battles translated to space

[echo echo]

He does a badass thing and when it is recognized in the script you actually agree

[silk solar]

disney star wars never eclipsed that moment

[wispy vortex]

But 19th century naval battles

[wispy lichen]

Rogue One had cool dogfights

[wispy vortex]

Rogue One’s best space scene was capital ships though

[wispy lichen]

I’m a simple Monkey

[wispy vortex]

||when the hammerhead cruiser shoved the star destroyer||

[glad mason]

I do gotta give Rogue One credit for having the best animated character to live action transition

[wispy lichen]

Capital ships cool

[glad mason]

Saw Guerrera my GOAT

[quick ibex]

Rogue one saw is good

[echo echo]

Grey I hope you see that and why it got blocked

[wispy vortex]

Saw is amazing

[wispy lichen]

Saw lmao

[glad mason]

He’s such an inherently silly concept but they pull it off so well

[bitter trail]

brb pasting it into my browser

also happy birthday

[wispy lichen]

saw does something controversial in Bad Batch

[bitter trail]

oh GOOD andor gif

[echo echo]

Its the URL

[glad mason]

“What if Che Guevara was in space and also a crackhead”

[bitter trail]

it is that too!

[quick ibex]

tbh saw is way way better in live action than animated

[silk solar]

Mg trying to clickbait us to watch the bad batch. it will not work!

[wispy vortex]

Saw is always doing something controversial

[wispy lichen]

A reminder Camille keeps begging for leftist infighting among the Jedi

[glad mason]

Are we cancelling him on twitter

[wispy lichen]

He got cancelled for sure

[glad mason]

I should actually watch bad batch

[echo echo]

Bad Batch is decent-to-good

[wispy vortex]

I knew it, this whole conversation was a psyop to get Camille to read NJO

[wispy lichen]

Bad batch is solid

[quick ibex]

I want more leftist infighting in star wars too but not in the jedi

[silk solar]

camille it is all clones

[wispy lichen]

Leftist infighting the series

[quick ibex]

the jedi can do like the protestant reformation or something idfk

[glad mason]

I’ll read it after bring up the bodies

[glad mason]

YESSSSS s

[quick ibex]

i want the rebels to argue about leftism

[glad mason]

Yeah but it’s fine cause I can tell them apart

[wispy lichen]

NJO general ||Kyp and Luke arguing over whether the Jedi should be militant or peaceful and contemplative ||

[echo echo]

I think to the extent that Saw wasn't fully cancellable from the jump is.... maybe TCW wasn't the best place to intro him

[silk solar]

camille will read NJO, complain the entire time, give every book a 9/10, and then complain there is no thomas cromwell type figure, and then go back to writing maul slash fic

[echo echo]

He's suppposed to be an extremist among rebels

[wispy lichen]

BB is a pretty good show yea

[wispy vortex]

||And also Jacen and Anakin, looking at the force more directly||

[wispy lichen]

||man I love Jacen and Anakin top tier characters||

[quick ibex]

him doing this was based i think

[wispy lichen]

https://tenor.com/view/one-peak-one-piece-one-piece-cry-its-so-peak-gif-13413926760013023520

[wispy lichen]

There is a Maul type character

[glad mason]

There’s a podcast where the director for Andor talks to my GOAT Mike Duncan (of revolutions podcast fame) and compares Luthen to Danton 😍

[silk solar]

camille have you seen andor

or did you pull a wheel of time

[glad mason]

I need to finish it

[silk solar]

or malazan

OH SHOCKER

[glad mason]

I’ve actually started a lot of stuff I need to finish

[wispy lichen]

Let me think is there a Thomas Cromwell in NJO

[wispy vortex]

Andor S2 is entirely leftist infighting 😭

[quick ibex]

Yet noone calls someone an idealist

fake leftists

clearly all socdems

[bitter trail]

every scene with luthen is a 10/10 for me 😍

[quick ibex]

smh

[glad mason]

My priorities rn are my non fiction Frev book, Bring up the Bodies, and then maybe Andor

I also have a book on Biblical analysis I borrowed from my bf and need to finish

[echo echo]

The fact that Stellan Skarsgaard had to have his lines fed to him in s2 because his memory is going but he still had such a good grasp on the character immediately makes him an alltimer actor in my mind

[bitter trail]

oh no! 😭

[silk solar]

mamma mia star stellan skarsgard?

[bitter trail]

that's lovely tho

[silk solar]

speaking of leftist infighting, i watched mamma mia recently

[quick ibex]

Skarsgard is amazing

[bitter trail]

skarsgard plays the aforementioned every scene 10/10 character

[wispy lichen]

You should watch more musicals

[glad mason]

Tcw ||his intro episode is Ahsoka teaching him and his gang how to blow up power plants which I think is 100% actual big boy terrorism||

[silk solar]

no 😘

i watched singin in the rain, called it a banger, then retired from the musical life

[wispy lichen]

Camille recommends Ragtime, Great Comet, and assassins

[glad mason]

~~Passive aggressive use of the 😘 emoji must stop ~~

[glad mason]

Also Hadestown and Sweeney Todd

And ofc Les Mis

[silk solar]

i have nothing but respect for musical enjoyers

[wispy lichen]

Les Mis

To #1378391089366696046

[glad mason]

The “twelve shippable twinks” Tumblr post lives rent free in my head

[echo echo]

||It is, but he always manages to come off as sanitized somehow in TCW||

[glad mason]

To bed 🫩

[glad mason]

Well it’s TCW 😭

[echo echo]

That do be my point

[silk solar]

star wars fans are the real leftist infighting

[wispy lichen]

TBB ||yeah in TBB he manages to have a more real impact on the main cast ||

[quick ibex]

||in TCW hes so sanitized it feels like a different character||

[wispy lichen]

In Rebels ||Saw is straight tripping ||

[quick ibex]

Rebels ||Isnt rebels saw super duper racist IIRC||

[silk solar]

also what should i watch after the prequels

[wispy lichen]

||ish. To a geonosian ||

[wispy vortex]

OT

[wispy lichen]

Ewoks movie

Or the Holiday special

[quick ibex]

the 2d clone wars

[echo echo]

The second Ewoks movie

The second one is like

[wispy lichen]

https://tenor.com/view/eww-chewy-gif-23016979

[echo echo]

Half watchable

[silk solar]

ok do you want me to say i dont like things or not

getting conflicting messages

[silk solar]

i think you mean the mandalorian and grogu prequel

logically kenobi would be next

no way that is worth right

[wispy vortex]

https://tenor.com/view/kenobi-kenobaay-maul-darth-maul-kenoobi-gif-16056672

[quick ibex]

its not

[lavish flame]

Logically, I'd say, kenobi would be never.

And I say this as someone who liked the show.

[echo echo]

I DNFd it

[wispy lichen]

I liked Kenobi but not strong like

[lavish flame]

Because I came in expecting a 2/10 honestly.

Exceeded those expectations so...

[wispy lichen]

Maybe 7/10 (which is what I gave MaG)

[lavish flame]

Came out happier on the other end.

[silk solar]

ok normalizing for monkey's star wars scale

kenobi is not looking good

[wispy lichen]

Don’t do BoBF ever

[lavish flame]

I'd say kenobi is pretty average by modern star wars standards.

[wispy lichen]

That’s a rare dislike for me

5/10

[lavish flame]

There also I went in expecting a 2.

[echo echo]

I thought Kenobi was worse than BoBF

[lavish flame]

And somehow was still disappointed.

[echo echo]

0/10, worst Star Wars I've seen and not close

[silk solar]

MG, i hate to say it, but you are on the camille IGN score adjustment plan

[lavish flame]

I think kenobi really depends on how much you like Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan for its own sake which is what saved the show for me.

[wispy lichen]

I give TLJ a 2/10 and TROS a 1/10 tbf

[silk solar]

i add a couple of points to kon's scores

[silk solar]

based???

[lavish flame]

Ayy, same scores.

[silk solar]

TLJ: 3
RoS: 1

[quick ibex]

my scoring is really simple

7/10, 0/10 or 9.6/10

[wispy lichen]

10/10 is the rare flawless masterpiece

In Star Wars that’s uh

[bitter trail]

N/A/10 to like all those

[wispy lichen]

Traitor is a 10

[silk solar]

i dont need something to be flawless to be a 10

[bitter trail]

didn't watch (on purpose), no score

[lavish flame]

I rate from -10 to 10.

[wispy lichen]

RotJ and ESB are 10s

[lavish flame]

The room is a -9/10 for example.

Unfortunately bad star wars aside from like the holiday special never really goes too high on the minus scale.

[silk solar]

i can never decide if i am too harsh or too easy on star wars

[quick ibex]

I have a single 10/10

[lavish flame]

Star wars in general is very interesting because I think it's somehow way more than the sum of its parts.

[wispy vortex]

Kenobj was brought down ||by Leia. I just can’t forget this tiny kid outrunning grown adults||

[lavish flame]

As a franchise I'd say I still love it.

But man if you start breaking down to its individual parts it's got a low average.

[silk solar]

the average score for the canon films is uhh

not good

[echo echo]

Actual Three Stooges hours

[quick ibex]

Do i even gotta say it its gotta be obviousa tp

[silk solar]

say it or dont idk

[lavish flame]

How do you rate the OT?

[quick ibex]

no i mean that like waht it is is obvious

i think

[silk solar]

i dont know what it is

[silk solar]

havent seen it recent enough to score

my guess would be strong 8/ light 9/ decent 7?

[quick ibex]

MGS2

[silk solar]

i will confirm it relatively soon

[lavish flame]

Fairly okay ratings I think.

[quick ibex]

tbh empire is like a perfectly made film its not the best ever but it does everyhting it tries to do perfectly

[silk solar]

RotJ is really two movies, the good part and the meh part

so it averages

[lavish flame]

I'd just put them at a level 8/9.5/8.

[silk solar]

not many other star wars movies approach those scores

[bitter trail]

i usually just rate the OT as one block

[silk solar]

i think ahsoka is the only non SW movie i can actually give a score

[echo echo]

Oh you were talking to me

Just realized that's in 30min

[bitter trail]

i tried to make it but i am so sleepy

[silk solar]

side note, not really any good sites to score tv shows

[bitter trail]

🎉

[echo echo]

Living my best post-gommage life

[bitter trail]

woohoo

[bright blade]

I made a mistake stopping the Maul show at episode 3 when I did. Episode 4 is where things really get good.

[supple star]

That was my thoughts too. The first 3 episodes were good, but I didn’t really get pulled in enough. ||Once the Empire shows up it goes to great||

[glad mason]

Maul ||The portrayal of the early empire is legit so good||

[vale dirge]

Wow, lots of Star Wars talk recently

Maybe I’ll listen the the Phantom Menace soundtrack today

[queen folio]

Wait it is your birthday?

[echo echo]

Unfortunately

[queen folio]

https://tenor.com/view/celebrate-awesome-yay-confetti-party-gif-8571772

[bright blade]

Yeah, six episodes in and the Maul show is pretty good. Looking forward to the rest.

[glad mason]

Lawson was my unexpected fav from that show tbh

[bright blade]

Agreed

Two-Boots is pretty neat too

Maul episode 7 + Ahsoka + Tales of the Jedi ||I like how this show is following the Star Wars tried-and-true formula of "take a pre-existing character who looked cool but did nothing cool and freaking died like a wussy and extrapolate on their backstory to make it seem like they were cool" with the two Inquisitors. As I recall, one of them died moments after first meeting Ahsoka when she immediately stole his lightsaber and chopped his head off, and the other one died in a lightsaber fight with Sabine, who was barely even a Padawan with no Force aptitude.||

Sequel Trilogy ||As far as "pre-existing characters who looked cool but did nothing cool and freaking died like wussies" go, do y'all think we'll ever see more of the Knights of Ren or will they just be permanently wasted?||

[wispy vortex]

Wasted

[bright blade]

https://giphy.com/gifs/wasted-RLi2oeVZiVkE8

Maul Episode 8 ||Nice how we get a deep dive into Maul's broken psyche here, but I also find it funny that Sam Witwer is just obviously the voice of both Maul and Sidious in this scene.||

||I know he's a villain and all and has done some really terrible, evil things he's totally unrepentant of, but Maul's also just a really sad character. A life of unending tragedy with no fulfillment.||

||Two-Boots locking in fr||

||Is it my imagination, or are Maul's eyes not yellow when we see his reflection in the water? Ohhh, wait, that's his younger self he's seeing, isn't it?||

||I wasn't imagining it||

[glad mason]

yeah, i came for Maul but actually genuinely liked the exploration of life under the early Empire and what the transition felt like for people who depended on the republic

[glad mason]

maul e8 ||also really interesting how none of the voice lines match what actually happened and the backstory doesn't match Son of Dathomir. we love an unreliable narrator||

[bright blade]

Unreliable narrator or unreliable canon?

[glad mason]

Sam Witwer confirmed it was intentional

Maul e8 ||savage’s dying words are different than in tcw episode and his “what have you done to my brother” line is from when he finds Maul on Lothal||

[wispy vortex]

Just saw M&G

Wow that was bad

[silk solar]

not good!

[heavy linden]

was it? Most of the reviews I've seen said it was fine, in a lukewarm 'this could have been an email' sort of way

[silk solar]

it is not beating the converted D+ series allegations

[heavy linden]

I do feel like some of the D+ series would have been better as movies, though, in the sense that they're making 6 hour movies and just padding them way out

[wispy vortex]

I forgot how stupid Grogu looks doing literally anything other than sitting in a hover chair

[heavy linden]

but yeah mando season 5 or whatever this would have been probably isn't the best fit for the first Star Wars movie in 7 years

[wispy vortex]

Weightless puppet that can barely even move its limbs

[heavy linden]

what, they didn't bring out the breakdancing yoda CGI?

[wispy vortex]

Also a ||Hutt with no accent, just sounding like a regular guy. So offputting.||

[heavy linden]

||wait, like speaking English? They do that? That would be so weird||

[silk solar]

||with a six pack no less||

[heavy linden]

I'm really not caught up on my SW

[wispy vortex]

Yepppppp

[unkempt sail]

clone wars ||isn't there like a purple Jabba cousin who does that, Zemo or something to that effect?||

i am mixing disney franchises; it's ||Ziro though he is also purple https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ziro_Desilijic_Tiure||

[wispy vortex]

He at least sounded like a Hutt

Not a random person you’d meet on the street

[quick ibex]

||idk havent seen it but rotta is probably just jabba again considering jabba is his own father i dobut he could have anything unique about him smh ||

[wispy vortex]

||Honestly most of the aliens just sounded like regular people. No accents, nothing||

[quick ibex]

Honestly though the fact that all ive heard aboutt his movie at all is people meming on the ||Im not my father, im my own man|| line is probably a sign thats its Not Good

[silk solar]

||crazily, this line is said more than once||

[wispy vortex]

He sounded a bit like Chris Pratt if you downshifted his voice a few octaves

[quick ibex]

||Yeah i heard tht it was said mnore than once too i presuemd thats why it got memed so hard||

[silk solar]

||Once would have been sufficient for memes||

[wispy vortex]

||did you notice how in the entire movie, he doesn’t get shot in an armor plate once? He just dodges all the blaster bolts. One of the things I liked about him was how he was basically a tank.||

[echo echo]

The problem has gone both ways

[upper tangle]

(days late on this, but them casting a kid who was several years younger than the character he's meant to portray just cause he was cuter is still such a nonsense choic)

(or more accurately iirc they aged down the character to fit Jake Lloyd's age)

also it's 2am so my memory is fuzzy

[wispy lichen]

https://youtu.be/WwZKVUdwAdA?si=Be_vbWZfFZ6Amujb

Hey she’s reading the Thrawn Trilogy

Based

[silk solar]

The universe has rewarded you for withstanding prequel slander

[echo echo]

https://tenor.com/view/j-jonah-jameson-slander-libel-spider-man-jk-simmons-gif-23201080

[silk solar]

oh i spoke it too dont worry kon

[wintry lark]

I don't think that's quite right. Anakin in AotC was made to be the same age as Luke in ANH

[bright blade]

Maul Episode 9 ||What a great cliffhanger. Now to see if they can keep Darth Vader intimidating. Also, getting a five-way lightsaber lock was so cool. Star Wars running on the rule of cool as usual.||

Maul Episode 10 ||Come to think of it, I've never seen Maul and Vader fight before. Cool.||

||Vader just casually parrying them with minimal effort is so Vader. Also, Maul seems to be oddly selfless in these last two episodes. Always telling others to go on, being the last to leave a fight after making sure everyone else has gotten away. I wonder why.||

[bright blade]

This Maul show better get renewed for a Season 2.

Maul Episode 10 ||Looks like we might be getting a Darth Talon after all, eh?||

[restive bluff]

It was already renewed before a single episode released

[bright blade]

https://giphy.com/gifs/starwars-star-wars-episode-3-xTiIzL9Btjx9hegHT2

[glad mason]

Maul e10 ||that fight scene was so peak||

Overall ||I loved how it the show made the empire, Vader and even the inquisitors scary||

[silk solar]

Ahsoka all || @wispy lichen after the time skip is ezra a jedi?||

[wispy lichen]

||yes he is||

[silk solar]

Interesting

[wispy lichen]

Ahsoka all ||it’s funny because he’s really the only “Jedi” in the show||

[silk solar]

||I was asking because of the title of the last episode ||

||i wasnt sure there was a jedi||

[upper tangle]

https://vxtwitter.com/bhangbhangducx/status/2063423231894401331?s=46

Bhangbhangduc (@bhangbhangducx)

"fridging" is a trope where a female character is killed solely to motivate a male character. Dave Filoni has never and will never do this, because no events that happen in his shows ever motivate any characters to take any action

QRT: Quicksilver2D
The concept of thinking Dave Filoni dosnet fridge women 💀

vxTwitter / fixvx · Jun 7, 2026, 12:50 AM

[silk solar]

scorching burn

[quick ibex]

yeah saw this oen earlier its a banger

[silk solar]

filoni characters should react more to other characters dying

[quick ibex]

Filoni characters should react more

in general

[supple star]

This is ||Satine and Steela erasure||

[supple star]

They do in the animated shows

[quick ibex]

Not really