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TopicI rewatched Death Note again. Kira is Justice.
ParanoidObsessive
12/03/19 2:00:59 PM
#17
streamofthesky posted...
People who unironically think Kira is Justice belong on some sort of government watch list.

It's like people who miss the implied Guy Fawkes symbolism of V in V for Vendetta or who see Rorschach as the main character to aspire to in Watchmen. It misses the entire point of both of those characters.

And in those cases, it's at least partly because those stories were written by a British writer, who used British symbolism and context, which was completely missed by American audiences, who interpreted those characters through their own lens and didn't even remotely see what they were supposed to see.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicI rewatched Death Note again. Kira is Justice.
ParanoidObsessive
12/03/19 1:52:07 PM
#15
He's not really "Justice" as much as he is "Vengeance". There is a distinct difference.

It's also worth remembering that he's not omniscient, which means he isn't punishing people who are legitimately guilty, as much as he is punishing people he believes are guilty, which is a HUGE difference. Especially when he starts to go power-mad and his definition of what constitutes guilt and how much evidence he requires to justify it changes.

And then there's the fact that his name is "Kira", which literally means "killer". He's not "Justice", or "Judge", or anything else that indicates you should sympathize with him if you understand the context. He is literally just a serial killer who uses justice as the smoke-screen behind which he hides. He's literally called out for this in the story itself.

His entire story is basically a parable of how "Power corrupts" - or, if you prefer, how power reveals what was buried inside the entire time. Light is an honor student who seems to be a perfect citizen... but Kira is essentially a monster that cannot be restrained by guilt, shame, law, or responsibility. Kira is what you get when all of the chains are off and true nature is revealed.

Light/Kira is no better than the people he kills. In many ways, he's worse. That's the entire point.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicUhhhhh... crap. Guess they finally purged that Yahoo email I barely ever touched
ParanoidObsessive
12/02/19 5:26:37 PM
#10
streamofthesky posted...
Verizon already killed AOL Instant Messenger and Tumblr

To be fair, by the time they offed AIM there were about 3 people in the entire world left still using it, to the point where nearly everyone's response to AIM getting shut down was "Wait, AIM still existed?"

As for Tumblr, it still exists. And no, "Verizon made it worse!" really isn't a valid argument, because Tumblr was a festering wound begging for a mercy killing long before Verizon owned it (and "Hey, maybe 33% of the site's content shouldn't be porn" was probably a pretty understandable call to make for any ownership company - and was also a problem the site was dealing with before Verizon bought it). And they've since sold it off anyway..

With Yahoo mail (and even Yahoo search and other Yahoo features), the installed user-base is pretty significant, and Verizon isn't likely to make any major changes because they don't really need to, so there's very little motivation for them to sell off or gut anything.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicGucamelee 2 has one of the scummiest in game micro transactions I've seen
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 11:21:07 PM
#6
adjl posted...
I think it was the first Dragon Age that was infamous for doing that kind of immersion-breaking DLC pitch. It's not particularly uncommon, sadly.

Yeah, was going to mention this. The asshole shows up in your camp, begs you to help him, and stays there forever unless you buy the DLC.

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/704358679_ayGHY-L.jpg
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicUhhhhh... crap. Guess they finally purged that Yahoo email I barely ever touched
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 11:18:12 PM
#8
Zeus posted...
When I logged in, I think it mentioned the service was owned by Verizon or something so I imagine it'll probably be around for at least a few years and then eventually folded into something else.

Verizon bought it about two years ago. They rolled it under the same administration division as AOL.

They've said they have zero intention to dissolve them or rebrand them, so it's entirely possible they'll still be around for years. Especially since they're some of the few viable alternatives to Gmail for people who (rightly) don't like or trust Google.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicWow GTA V is like a top 5 game of all time...
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 9:39:24 PM
#22
It's a great game, but there are so many other great games that outrank it in my mind.

It also doesn't help that I probably enjoy watching people on YouTube playing the online multiplayer more than I actually enjoy playing it myself.

It's easily the best GTA ever, though. And I say that in spite of the massive hard-on I have for everything 80s flavored (which should put Vice City higher than I usually rate it).
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicHow do you like your food?
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 9:33:04 PM
#10
captpackrat posted...
There are some soups that should be served cold, like gazpacho, borscht or vichyssoise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=511VL3VEvQM
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicPick a Skyrim ability you'd want to have in real life
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 9:28:25 PM
#28
captpackrat posted...
Perhaps the reason we can't fast travel in real life is because there are always enemies nearby.

It's worse than that.

~puts on philosopher hat~

A man's truest enemy... is always himself.



Zeus posted...
You can't get that ability unless you're able to murder them covertly, otherwise you get a bounty.

Nah - all you have to do is kill the last witness and the bounty clears.

Though even if you do get a bounty, you can usually buy it off pretty easily.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicTrying to cancel any subscription.
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 5:53:25 PM
#8
DirtBasedSoap posted...
Microsoft makes it so stupidly difficult to cancel XBL on their website

This (along with data breaches) is why I adamantly refuse to give them (or Sony) my credit card info at all. I only buy pre-paid account cards and have total control over my account, and don't have to worry about BS involving accounts getting automatically renewed when I don't want them to, or having trouble cancelling things.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topicwhatever you're eating right now, the food i'm eating is better, ok?
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 1:45:06 PM
#16
Aculo posted...
ParanoidObsessive posted...
I'm not eating anything right now, but I still suspect that whatever you're eating is probably terrible regardless.

nope

Until you actually reveal what it is you're eating, I'm going to continue to assume you're eating sewer filth and are an objectively terrible human being with bad opinions.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicGrab and Go
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 1:43:08 PM
#7
BUMPED2002 posted...
ParanoidObsessive posted...
The "new" way?

Yeah the new way of bilk shopping and not paying for it.

I feel like you don't really understand what putting words into quotations that aren't actually a quote means.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicWhen there's a game choice of risk vs. reward... do you ever not maximum risk?
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 1:41:16 PM
#8
Depends on the game, and the consequences. And also the odds of success.

I really only go maximum risk/reward when I know I can save-scum my way to guaranteed victory, or when the consequences for failure are almost meaningless.

It's a large part of why I don't play rogue-likes - any game that resets all of my effort off a single failure sucks all enjoyment out of a game for me. I basically need steady progress - even if incremental - versus constantly risking losing everything.

In any game where you can theoretically grind for small amounts of money or gamble for larger amounts (with the risk of losing everything), I'll choose the grind almost every time. Unless I've found a way to cheat the system or save-scum.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicPick a Skyrim ability you'd want to have in real life
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 1:37:53 PM
#6
Being able to murder 40 people in a town, then come back a few days later and no one cares.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topicwhatever you're eating right now, the food i'm eating is better, ok?
ParanoidObsessive
12/01/19 1:34:40 PM
#9
I'm not eating anything right now, but I still suspect that whatever you're eating is probably terrible regardless.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicOh cool Tom Savini designed a WWE title belt
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 10:32:01 PM
#8
JoanOfArcade posted...
Harper feels like he should be higher on the card, he can go hard in the ring and is pretty charismatic in interviews

Vince apparently hates him, solely because he couldn't do a Southern accent once like 5 years ago. So now they're holding him there against his will in spite of him asking to be released from his contract multiple times, and in spite of them having no intention to ever use him for anything meaningful.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicOh cool Tom Savini designed a WWE title belt
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 9:09:35 PM
#6
He designed the Fiend mask as well. And the mask that they gave Erick Rowan that he wore for like two weeks before they retconned him and Harper into the Bludgeon Brothers.

Savini's been in deep with the WWE for a while now:

http://bloody-disgusting.com/the-further/3492793/tom-savinis-studio-created-incredibly-cool-mask-wrestlemania-34
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 9:05:57 PM
#88
Mead posted...
Are we seriously gonna act like the kid who played short round didnt do a great job

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwDOTz-UWq0
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicA certain site has just been officially relaunched.
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 9:04:33 PM
#24
wwinterj25 posted...
I see the TC isn't responding. The plot thickens!

Why would he respond? He's already achieved his goal.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 8:07:51 PM
#86
darkknight109 posted...
Child acting is a tough gig and when you compare Lloyd's performance to some other examples of "the kid" in similar types of movies - like Short Round from Indiana Jones or John "Shrieky" Connor from Terminator 2 - he really isn't nearly as bad as people made him out to be.

"He's not bad because many kid actors are bad" really isn't a justifiable argument, though.

The fact that many kid actors are bad is the main reason why people dislike kid actors and roles in general. And what helps make the good kid actors stand out even more.

But I honestly don't think if we'll ever really know if Lloyd himself was a bad actor, because he was placed into a position I don't think ANY kid actor could have excelled in, no matter how skilled. The most brilliant kid actor ever and the worst kid actor ever were going to look equally terrible buried under Lucas' complete half-assed direction and weak script.



darkknight109 posted...
I mean, he managed to get roles in Jumper (as the lead role, no less) and Takers, both of which were reasonably popular and did well at the box office, yet he wasn't able to parlay that into anything bigger, because even in those films he was uninspiring.

Yes, but those films would have been uninspiring regardless of who the lead was, because they weren't very good films.

Which goes back to the point - a mediocre actor can become good with effective direction and scripts, and a good actor can become great, but if the only roles he could get were ones where he'd never really grow or be able to soar, he was never going to become a great enough actor to transcend the limitations.

Natalie Portman has gone on to be a critical darling, but in a different world with a few shittier directors early on and she'd be seen much, much, much worse.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 8:02:45 PM
#85
darkknight109 posted...
Sure, but that also doesn't mean they're good actors besides.

Again, McGregor and Neeson took awful scripts and turned them into decent-to-good performances. Portman was awful, but the Star Wars films remain a rare black mark in what is otherwise a pretty solid acting career. That's proof positive that all those people know how to act and that the problem wasn't anything to do with them.

But Christensen? He had basically nothing notable before Star Wars and basically nothing notable afterwards.

But all you're really doing is emphasizing my point.

The only actor who was really capable of even turning in an acceptable performance is extremely skilled, and put in a ton of effort on his own time, and was thus able to transcend the limitations of the task. Multiple Oscar-nominated actors turn out vastly subpar performances, either through apathy or out of an inability to adapt to green-screen nonsense and a disinterested director who is too busy masturbating over the idea of all the CGI he's going to cram into the scene later.

Those actors were able to survive the negative impact of their performances because it was obvious that Lucas WAS the problem, not them. They could point to prior movies, defend their skill, and continue to get work.

Christensen had been in fewer movies than even Portman did at that point, and really only one significant role (though tellingly, he'd been nominated for awards for it). That lack of precedent made it harder for him to demonstrate that it WASN'T entirely him, which made it less likely for directors to cast him in future (meaning he had less chance to prove his ability afterwards). He fell into a trap many actors do (regardless of talent), where he couldn't get roles to shake off his prior reputation, which led to him being less choosy about which scripts to take, which only reinforced the bad reputation.

He's HAD movies where he puts out talented acting ability (quite likely because he had directors who nurtured his talent and encouraged him to be better). There IS evidence out there that shows he CAN act when given the proper chance (just like there's evidence that Will Smith can play characters other than "The Fresh Prince", even if 90% of the characters he plays are basically just "The Fresh Prince"), but ultimately Christensen really didn't get the necessary opportunities to either showcast those talents or to further improve them.

In a universe where Christensen was never cast in the Star Wars movies, he'd almost certainly be seen as a better actor than we currently tend to see him as.

Granted, I'm not saying he's a brilliant prodigy or great unappreciated actor, but he gets shit on way harder than he really deserves.



darkknight109 posted...
Honestly, I thought Jake Lloyd was fine. I'm already on record in this topic as saying that I'm of the mind that TPM is by far the most tolerable of the movies and I felt that even at its worst it never plumbed the depths its successors would reach.

You've really just undercut my respect for your opinions here.

Lloyd's absolutely terrible. It's not entirely his fault, and he definitely didn't deserve the real life abuse he got over it, but... still bad.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 8:02:40 PM
#84
darkknight109 posted...
Liam Neeson also managed to turn a completely flat and unremarkable character into a halfways decent performance

I'd strongly disagree. He's one of the ones I feel doesn't even remotely give a shit, and is solely there to cash his check. He never really transcends the flatness of the character in any way, and it's a large part of why so many people have pointed out that his entire character is utterly superfluous. If he'd been able to turn it into a performance worth admiring even in spite of itself, we'd be charmed into forgetting how everything probably would have been better if we'd just left him out entirely, and had Obi-Wan fill his role (preferably with less stupidity).



darkknight109 posted...
and I found McDiarmid to be fine-to-good until his disfiguration, after which point he seemed to be channelling the Joker more than the Emperor.

I'll grant this, though even when he's being "subtle" there's still a bit too much of the pantomime in his performance. Like he stops just short of turning to the camera and winking whenever he does something sneaky or with hidden motive.

It kind of reminds me of the scene in Spaceballs where Dark Helmet is pretending to be Vespa's dad, and he looks directly at the camera and gets this little look on his face that says "I am blatantly lying". Except they do it for comedy.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 7:27:09 PM
#77
darkknight109 posted...
And, as mentioned, I don't think that was a bad thing.

I liked TLJ and I liked that it was non-traditional, in a Star Wars sense. It gave the story more unpredictability and, at points, more gravity.

But again, there's a time and a place. The middle of a trilogy that you only get to direct one part of is not the time and place to decide you don't really like anything about the universe or its themes and try to set fire to the entire house in a way that makes things incredibly hard for anyone else to follow after you without either retconning everything you did away or ignoring it completely.

That's the problem with collaborative storytelling. You AREN'T just telling the story you want to tell. You're telling the story you want to tell that takes into account everything that's come before, and allows people to continue after you. If you can't do that, you are terrible at your job.

If they'd given me directorial control over Episode VIII and I'd decided that I wanted it to be a character piece set in 1850's New England and which explored the relationship between a lesbian woman and her three dogs, that could theoretically be a good movie in and of itself, with deeper meaning and effective storytelling. But when most of the world decided they wanted to hunt me down and murder me for doing that, I'd find it hard to say they were wrong for being annoyed.

If Johnson had been given a side-film like Rogue One or Solo and wanted to do a stand-alone deconstructionist piece, people would have been far less annoyed. As is, the mere existence of Episode VIII essentially makes both VII and IX worse by proxy.

He basically made a mediocre-to-bad movie that is seen as being much worse because of how it conflicts with the previous part of the same story AND the overall tone of the entire setting as a whole.



darkknight109 posted...
I'm saying that the specific issue of Johnson basically shutting down the plot-hooks that Abrams left him were specifically because they were shit plot-hooks and that's not Johnson's fault.

But shutting those hooks down in the laziest and least satisfying way and then not replacing them with a single meaningful alternative pretty much IS his fault, though. Certainly moreso than almost anyone else involved in the franchise at all other than Kathleen Kennedy.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 7:16:05 PM
#76
darkknight109 posted...
Is that any different to what happened, though?

Yes.

Because as-is, the moment that reveal occurs, it isn't even remotely followed up on. The question is asked, the question is dismissed, the question is ignored. She goes on from that point as effectively the exact same character, and it really isn't addressed again in any significant way.

It's not presented as a "shocking revelation" that entirely redefines her as a character or opens new doors of opportunity (if she's someone's daughter, you can now explore scenes where she meets those people, or learns about them, or otherwise connects to them in some way). It's not really going "Surprise! The answer isn't what you thought it was!" It's curt dismissal. "The answer doesn't matter. Stop asking the question. Why were you even asking the question in the first place? None of this matters."



darkknight109 posted...
I get why Johnson didn't bother to do much with him, given that he was more interested in developing Kylo, but that could have been done without really touching on anything to do with Snoke and, essentially, keeping him in the background until the final movie

He doesn't really develop Kylo all that much, though. He's almost exactly the same character we see in TFA. He doesn't really grow, he doesn't really change. He kills his surrogate dad to impress the girl he wants to hook up with (teenage metaphors ho!), but that's entirely consistent with everything we've seen of him up to that point.

The only real change is showing why he turned, which casts him and Luke in a new light, but that doesn't really alter much.

Ironically, it would have been easier to do more to develop Kylo if Snoke was better established, presented as a meaningful foil to Kylo (a la the Emperor in the original trilogy), where we almost cast Rey/Luke as Superego to Kylo's Ego and Snoke's Id. Scenes of discussion back and forth, Kylo considering alternative viewpoints even as Snoke plays the devil on his shoulder, could easily make Kylo a deeper character.

As is, he's tantrum teen who wants to be his cool rockstar granddad and bone the cute girl, who's mad at his uncle for touching him while he was sleeping.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 7:15:01 PM
#75
darkknight109 posted...
Emperor's granddaughter - Ignoring the fact that I think wild snogging isn't really in character for a character like Palpatine, why would Han know who Rey was? Why would Obi-Wan show up in her visions?

Again, Han... kind of didn't?

And ignoring the fact that Palpatine is very much shown to be interested in the idea of establishing a legacy of some kind (Anakin), and has a habit of setting up competing schemes to counter-balance against others (using Anakin to remove Dooku, trying to recruit Luke to replace Vader), and completely ignoring the possibilities opened if we bring cloning into the mix, we really know very little about Palpatine at all other than the fact that he's a manipulative politician who wanted to kill the Jedi and become Emperor. He could have been boning a new mistress every other week while he was still Senator, for all we know.

He probably wasn't boning anyone after he turned into a withered monster man, but who knows? Maybe he had a secret harem back on Coruscant and the main reason why he's always sending Vader everywhere to do all his dirty work is because he's always knee-deep in puss and can't be bothered.



darkknight109 posted...
Why would Obi-Wan show up in her visions?

Why would he show up in her visions if she's a nobody?

But again, reference back to the original principle mentioned in the previous post.



darkknight109 posted...
Why does she *have* to be related to a character we already know about? That just makes the universe seem small.

Why ask the question at all if she's not related to a character who is at least significant in some way? That just makes the writing seem bad.

Again, whether Johnson liked the idea or not, the precedent was already established. If he was completely incapable of paying off the set-up, or adamantly refused to accept that the pay-off mattered in any way, he shouldn't have taken the job.

Colin Trevorrow left over "creative differences" with Episode IX - I have more respect for him doing that than I would have if he'd been like, "Ehh, fuck it" and just produced his own version of Episode IX that was two hours of ignoring everything that had happened in the previous two films that retcons everything and makes an even bigger mess.



darkknight109 posted...
This is what I mean when I say there really were no good answers the way that Abrams set it up. You could wedge a round peg into a square hole for a few of them, but none of them completely make sense.

But again, there WERE potential answers that could have been justified if the people involved spent more than 30 seconds shitting out a non-answer. You're only refusing to accept any possible alternative because you've already decided you like the non-answer you were given and are now trying to look for excuses to defend it.

But most of the audience would probably have happily accepted Rey's parentage being meaningful in some way, as long as some effort was expended to justify it. Because that's actually an answer that fits into what most people expect a Star Wars story to BE, and not an answer that basically insults them for asking the question in the first place.

Again, Johnson's answer is probably more realistic - but very few people are going to see Star Wars for realism.

And if they are, they're probably seriously fucking disappointed by the time the credits roll.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 6:56:32 PM
#73
darkknight109 posted...
The "Force vision" thing is a cheap cop-out, a non-answer

But so is what we actually got, so it's not as if a cheap cop-out non-answer would be any worse.

And it would at least be a cheap cop-out non-answer with established precedent in-universe, which thematically fits the story being told far more than the alternative.

But like it or not, Luke is basically a space wizard. Luke doing space wizard things is entirely in-character and thematically appropriate. Having Force premonitions, or visions, or foretelling a prophecy are literally things which have happened multiple times in the story up to this point. You kind of can't put that back into the bag and call bullshit on it.



darkknight109 posted...
If Luke's wife left before Luke knew she was pregnant, Han would have no way of knowing who Rey was

Han gives very little indication that he knows who Rey is in TFA, so this isn't really a counterpoint.



darkknight109 posted...
and if it was after, Luke would presumably be more interested in finding her than starting up a Jedi school

Would depend entirely on why.

"You must give your daughter up forever, else she'll die and the galaxy will be devoured by the Dark Side" would be a pretty compelling prophecy, and would fit the epic/mythic/fairy tale-esque feel of the movies very well. Luke would probably be pretty willing to give her up if it meant she would at least get to live her own life and not die horribly and doom everyone else in the process.

Again, it's not hard to come up with answers if you're willing to spend the time setting those answers up. It's really only hard when you're too lazy to bother, or have decided that none of the questions matter because fuck narrative consistency.



darkknight109 posted...
The nanny - I can't think of any reason why a nanny would want to take the daughter of rebel heroes *away* from the safety afforded by the Republic

Are they safe in the Republic?

Was sending her to Jakku always the plan, or could it be desperate improvisation on the part of people left with no other choice?

Could someone getting paid to write a script come up with a plausible justification for pretty much anything if they were actually skilled at their job and spent enough time thinking about it?

The answer to the last one is "yes", by the way.
---
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 6:56:28 PM
#72
darkknight109 posted...
Han/Leia's daughter - why leave her on Jakku?

I'm going to quote myself here as an answer to this question, but you can assume it applies to every single question you ask along these lines:

"Any of them could easily have kids, and there are always ways to justify why she was abandoned if you're willing to do the work."

A script-writer could easily come up with a million different reasons why she was abandoned there, regardless of who her parents actually were. And then reasons why it matters can easily be layered into other parts of the story. The key is, you actually have to care enough to do the work.

"Ehh, you know what? Fuck it, they're nobodies" is basically just a lazy answer. It is literally the answer that requires the least effort, justification, and set-up, because it's a cop-out that negates the question.

It's not that hard to come up with better answers (and even BAD answers are generally better than non answers). The only real challenge is to come up with an answer and then make it work.



darkknight109 posted...
Luke's daughter - Jedi are supposed to be chaste, so that's strike one, but we'll assume that Luke discarded that particular tenant of the old order (despite the attachment it was supposed to prevent being one of the main reasons said order was driven to extinction).

On the flip side, from Luke's point of view attachment is also literally the only reason the galaxy was saved from the Emperor.

Remember, the Emperor was essentially winning with or without Anakin's help in the prequels. Without Anakin being tempted to the Dark Side because of his attachment to Padme, Palpatine likely still wins (he's really only "outed" to the Jedi at all because he's really focused on winning Anakin over). But then we're left with an Empire where he either has no apprentice, or trains a new apprentice who doesn't give a shit about Luke Skywalker (so no dramatic last-minute change of heart at the end of Jedi). Not that it matters, because Luke Skywalker wouldn't exist. Nor would Leia.

Without attachment, the Empire wins when they blow up Yavin because there's no pilot there good enough to blow up the Death Star. Even assuming they get that far - someone other than Leia might fail to escape with or hide the plans at all, or might crack under torture, or otherwise allow the Empire to win even earlier.

From Luke's point of view, attachment is the only reason he exists and the prophecy of balance being brought to the Force has been fulfilled. If anything, he might be more willing to seek attachment of his own, or at the very least, be willing to accept it if it comes. Or, at the very least, to see attachment as being more dangerous when it is hidden or corrupted, with "love" itself not being the problem, as much as what can flow from it if it goes wrong. But risk isn't a reason to reject something entirely. If it was, Luke wouldn't be able to do anything ever again, because every action he takes can go wrong in some way.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 6:09:02 PM
#71
darkknight109 posted...
Johnson's approach created tension where the old formula wouldn't have had any.

I'd argue the opposite - his approach killed all tension because he basically told the audience nothing matters. Ultimately, there is no tension, because there is no point.

Why care if Kylo tries to sway Rey? She's barely a character at this point, all of the underlying elements that we thought defined her as a character have been dismissed as being unimportant, and she has zero real motivation to care about the Sith, the Jedi, or anyone else. For that matter, who cares if Kylo wins, loses, dies, or is redeemed? He's barely a character, who has broken nearly every thread tying him to something more meaningful.

I no longer feel any tension over whether the Resistance survives, because I've been given very little reason to care about them, either as a concept or as individual characters. I have no real reason to care whether the First Order succeeds or fails, because they still haven't solidly established an expectation that what they're doing will have any real meaningful impact on the greater scale of the galaxy (since the New Republic is still a thing - defeating the Resistance doesn't immediately re-establish a new Empire - and even if it did, an Empire is not inherently evil if a Sith isn't running things as Emperor).

If Episode IX ended with Finn, Poe, and Rey flying to a distant Outer Rim world and just getting drunk in a cantina while leaving the rest of the galaxy to sort out its own shit without them, that would be just as meaningful an ending at this point as anything else. At least then you'd have the positives of them interacting as characters.

Johnson told us the old questions are meaningless and asked no new questions to replace them. Why do I care about any of this, precisely?

Abrams is basically trying to fix what was done by digging even deeper, by dredging up even more nostalgia and trying to ask new questions that are even older than the ones Johnson ruined - but even if it works, it still means that Episode IX is a cobbled together quick-fix that mostly only works because it ignores most of Episode VIII like a cancerous tumor in the middle of the trilogy.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 5:57:48 PM
#70
darkknight109 posted...
there's not a lot there and that's not a road they could continue down long-term.

Again, this is you trying to have things both ways. Did Abrams set up multiple plot-points that could be paid off in future films, thus hemming in Johnson's creativity, or did Abrams not establish anything, meaning Johnson only has himself to blame for not really coming up with anything better?

There are actually multiple threads that could easily have been drawn on in VII and expanded on. Johnson chose not to. Abrams deliberately established plot-points the people who followed him could build on, Johnson took a hot shit on those things and then failed to replace them with anything meaningful.

The end result is many people being left completely disinterested in how Episode IX plays out, because we're mostly left with no questions other than "How are they going to fuck this one up?" and no real vested interest in any of the characters because we've been given no reason to care about any of them in any real sense.

People unexpectedly loved the Finn/Poe buddy-cop dynamic in VII, which is why Poe was allowed to survive when he was supposed to die in the crash (which is why Finn takes his jacket). They could have followed through with that, but no. Rey's parentage, potential destiny, and overall arc could have her grow and change, rather than leave her a mostly flat cypher. Kylo could have an arc dealing with the consequences of his actions, instead of mostly just being a non-character who mostly exists to do things to further the plot. We could explore more of the actual Republic/First Order/Resistance dynamic that was almost entirely unexplained, we could learn more about Snoke, we could have a more meaningful reason why Luke is hidden away, etc etc etc.

There was a lot of clay to work with there. Johnson just decided he didn't want to use any of it.



darkknight109 posted...
And, like it or hate it, Johnson absolutely did that. He provided a very different look at the Star Wars universe

Change solely for the sake of change is rarely a good thing, though. And a different Star Wars isn't necessarily a better Star Wars.

We can't even argue that he was somehow necessary to establish that Star Wars stories CAN be told differently, because we've already had that example, multiple times, before Episode VIII ever happened.



darkknight109 posted...
I'd still love to see a Sin City-esque crime thriller centring on a Star Wars bounty hunter, or a Top Gun-style starfighter movie reminiscent of the Rogue Squadron books of old.

The irony is, you are now less likely to see any of those things, solely because of Johnson.

Disney is now absolutely gunshy from the backlash. They'll be far less willing to innovate or deviate, which is why Rise of Skywalker is getting the "Hey look, it's Palpatine!" coat of paint. They're going to see TFA as the viable model to emulate and TLJ as the model to avoid, and most future films will likely be more cookie-cutter because of it.

Even the success of Rogue One will likely be ignored in favor of seeing Solo (itself hurt by the backlash to TLJ) as an argument against change.

At this point, any alternate SW viewpoint is likely going to come from things like The Mandalorian, where they can produce more flexible content on a smaller scale to a smaller budget, and react more effectively to criticism.

I freely admit I'd enjoy a Star Wars Western, or crime drama, or minor pilot/agent-based drama, or even something on the scale of the New Order books from the EU, with baby Jedi going on kid-friendly adventures. But those things are now less likely outside of cartoons or Disney+ live-action.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 5:57:43 PM
#69
darkknight109 posted...
And as for the movie being a deconstruction, I liked that this was not a Lucasean Star Wars film.

You liked it (and you're fully entitled to feel that way). Many people did not (and they're fully entitled to feel that way). But the problem is, whether you could enjoy it for what it was or not, it really didn't belong as the middle part of a trilogy that was deliberately being sold as Lucasean Star Wars, after the first film did everything in its power to try and be as Lucas as it possibly could, short of actually letting Lucas be in charge of it (or having Abrams secretly murder him and wear his skin).

Again, deconstructions CAN work in the proper context. Make a completely deconstructionist narrative or radically tonal dissonant story as part of a TV show like the Mandalorian, or as a stand-alone film like Rogue One, and people will be far more open to it.

If you're trying to figure out why so many people HATED the movie as much as they did (and why they may be less likely to see new films in the future, or buy merch, or any of the other things Disney is currently terrified about), that's almost certainly one of the primary reasons. People went to see the movie because they wanted to see a Star Wars film, and instead got a film that told them to go fuck themselves for liking Star Wars films.

Though even beyond that, I'd argue it was an objectively bad movie. The Rose and Finn scenes were almost entirely pointless (and Benicio del Toro's performance was needlessly annoying), and most of the Poe scenes were needlessly awkward and feel like a combination of "We don't know what to do with this character" and "Everyone needs to be stupid for the movie to happen". The Rey/Kylo/Luke scenes are the only ones that even really feel like they should be in the movie at all, and they're the ones where the deconstructionist problems are strongest.

The movie as a whole is a confusing mess that does little to pay off anything that happened before or set up anything to happen after. For all the flaws of the prequels (and there are SO many), Lucas was at least trying to tell a single cohesive story.



darkknight109 posted...
One of the things that really stands out about Episode VII is how little the plot stands the test of time.

I'd argue this is only the case because the movie that follows it makes no effort to follow up on anything, continue anything, or expand on anything. Had Episode VIII built on the foundation that VII established, VII would be more important to the overall narrative. As is, VIII basically takes the same characters and puts them in a story that is almost completely disconnected, ignoring the foundation completely to build the rest of the house without one, in a swamp, that is on fire. It's not surprising that the unfinished, unused foundation now looks less meaningful by proxy.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 5:54:27 PM
#68
darkknight109 posted...
To be fair, I'd probably be kind of annoyed if I was asked to direct a film, then the previous director handed me a book of what he wanted to have happen in it. Abrams was fine for offering it, but I also can't fault Johnson for dumpstering it either.

But you can't have it both ways - first you complained because you suggested that Abrams created a bunch of questions and didn't give Johnson any of the answers, but now you're saying Abrams created a bunch of questions with answers, which was also wrong.

So either you're arguing that Abrams shouldn't have set up any overarching plots or questions to be answered at all (which would make all of the movies incredibly boring and pointless, and we'd still be shitting on them right now), or you're saying that Johnson was right to change the answers if he came up with better ones (which I'd actually agree with, and which he was told he could do). But he DIDN'T come up with better answers - he just ignored the questions, and then flipped the middle finger to everyone asking them. And then he didn't even bother coming up with new questions or ideas for the next movie to deal with - he just handed a box full of smoldering ruin back and said "Have fun figuring out what to do with that, assholes."

Also, I'd argue that he wouldn't even have the right to be annoyed about being given ANY advice or ideas by a previous director, no matter how loose or strictly he was expected to conform to them. Johnson taking the job of directing the middle part of a trilogy in an existing franchise means he implicitly accepted the idea that there were going to be expectations on his work, and if he didn't like the idea or didn't consider himself capable of working under those conditions, he shouldn't have taken the job in the first place.

Like I said earlier (and am about to mention again later), a complete deconstruction that ignores previous continuity and proactively limits options in future works is fine if you're doing a stand-alone film. Not so much when you're specifically hired to make the second movie in a three movie trilogy where the movies are deliberately being designed to interlock and interrelate (as opposed to a collection of mostly unrelated stories).
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 5:54:19 PM
#67
darkknight109 posted...
but whose fault it was doesn't change my comment. The acting in the sequel trilogy is worlds better than the prequels

Oh, I agree. Like I said, having a competent "actor's director" and using more practical effects helps actors actually produce acceptable performances, while being stuck alone in a green room talking to the air makes it extremely hard for even the best actors to adjust (see also the Hobbit meme with Ian McKellen as Gandalf basically having an existential crisis/nervous breakdown).

I've said in the past it feels like the only person who didn't give up and stop trying completely is Ewan McGregor (who clearly put in a ton of effort to try and mimic Alec Guinness' performance). About the only other person in the film who seems to even remotely give a shit is Frank Oz. Everyone else is either just there to cash a check, has tuned out completely because they can't cope, or has completely ceased to give a shit and are just amusing themselves (Ian McDiarmid is bordering on pantomime most of the time).

But it's still hard to blame any of THEM for the problem. Because it really isn't any of their fault.

Even Jake Lloyd, for as much shit as he gets, really wasn't the problem with his performance. It was the utter lack of guidance or support he got, while being put in a position very few child actors would ever have done well in, no matter how skilled.



darkknight109 posted...
Taking one look at his post-Star Wars acting resume calls this very much into question. Every other good actor who got a bad shake in the prequels was able to recover and build/resume decent careers.

That's deceiving, though. Nearly everyone else either had a career beforehand that gave them enough rep to survive the terrible performances (even Natalie Portman, young as she was), or had such a minor role that it didn't really stick to them (like Keira Knightley).

In his case, he was front and center in the films, and didn't have a huge body of work beforehand, so he was immediately seen as being little more than "shitty Anakin". He was basically doomed to low-tier B-movies forever, so he never really had a chance to shine all that much, before Hollywood mostly stopped calling at all. He was always going to have a much harder time shaking off that stink.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicI remember having advance classes in elementary school
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:50:32 PM
#3
I had advanced classes in elementary school. They were basically supposed to be for the kids who were way too smart for the rest of the class, but who for whatever reason they didn't want to just jump ahead a grade or two (which is honestly terrible in terms of childhood development and socialization in general).

The downside is, because of how they ran those classes (it involved busing all the "gifted" kids from about a dozen different elementary schools from their own school to a central school where they had advanced classes), it was a huge clusterfuck that really only just acted like "reverse mainstreaming", slowing the gifted kids down enough that everyone else sort of caught up to them and then they just got shuffled back into the main group anyway.

In my more cynical moments, I tend to believe that was exactly the whole point, and the system was working exactly as intended.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Topicicoyar has been unusually tame lately
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:47:00 PM
#7
DirtBasedSoap posted...
Cacciato posted...
He said hes been swamped with work.

I would honestly be proud and back off of him if that were true.

It would be hilarious if he secretly gets a job and gets his life more or less in order, yet still maintains the illusion of being the same old Icoyar on this board, never admitting the truth.

It would be even funnier if it turns out this was actually the case all along, and none of us have ever really known the real person behind the account, and it was all a massive performance art piece the entire time.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicGrab and Go
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:45:11 PM
#2
The "new" way?
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicThe leader of a rival martial arts school has killed your master
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:43:36 PM
#4
NeoSioType posted...
Your master realized long ago that both schools have perpetuated this cycle of hate for decades. You suspect he willingly walked in the ring and accepted his death in advance.

You know that if you don't take matters into your own hands then your bothers will die as well. They won't ever stop killing. They'll never be satisfied with just one sacrifice. This is how you try and justify it but going against his wishes troubles you as well.

If the problem is a cycle of revenge, and I cannot break it via inaction (because others will carry it on regardless), the only viable solution is the reverse - to engineer a revenge so destructive and complete that only one side survives, and the rivalry ends forever.

So I go to the rival school, and poison their well with a slow-acting toxin that will enter their bloodstream undetected and kill them all before any of them realize they've been poisoned. And then I hunt down any survivors and murder them, their families, their children, their friends, and anyone who ever met them.

This ultimately leads to one of two outcomes. Either my fellow students agree with my stance and support me, in which case only our school remains and the rivalry is ended because there's no more rival. Or my fellow students turn against me, seeing my methods as being too draconian and violent, in which case they are forced to join with the rival school to defeat me, thus ending the rivalry as they must band together against the far greater evil. Either way, I win.

This also has the added benefit in that my actions don't actually violate my Master's wishes - I am not vowing revenge, I am acting logically and dispassionately to break the cycle of violence. I don't seek to punish the rivals for what they have done, I simply seek to eliminate them forever to stop them from ever doing it again.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicAlberta Education Minister proves she doesn't understand the Social curriculum
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:36:59 PM
#8
Based solely on the context you yourself provided, I'd say she's not actually wrong and that it does appear an agenda is being pushed.

The first question is pretty clearly establishing a political point-of-view.

The second question is arguably asking the reader to parse out someone else's political view and analyze it for meaning without specifically attributing value to the statement, but considering it's on a Social Studies test and not an English one (which is where reading comprehension-style questions more appropriately belong), it still kind of has connotations of trying to push an agenda.

It's entirely possible that with more context that might not be the case, but just from that picture, she's not really wrong to feel the way she feels.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicHow do you like your food?
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:32:50 PM
#2
Depends on the food.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicC/D most pro life people are hypocrites
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 4:32:05 PM
#7
I agree, most pro-life people are hypocrites.

So are most pro-choice people.

And also people who don't really have a strong opinion on the subject one way or another.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicWhat kind of drunk are you?
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 2:51:06 PM
#2
Hyperactive/manic. I tend to talk faster, louder, and get more excited and interested in everything the more alcohol is in me. Not entirely dissimilar to what you'd expect from someone riding high on a sugar rush.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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TopicDo the choices in Life Is Strange actually matter?
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 12:35:18 PM
#13
Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...
Depends on how grand.

Not really. The grander the scale, the less the choices matter. Anything above the most granular level your impact on the universe is more or less zero.
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Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 12:20:47 PM
#45
darkknight109 posted...
So Johnson is left to answer this impossible riddle and goes with: nobody. Her parents were junk dealers of no significance at all. Which, honestly, is probably the most sensible answer he could give, plus it dodges the annoying trend Star Wars developed of having every important character be related to someone who first appeared in the OT.

There actually was an answer, though. Daisy Ridley has admitted that she knows what it was supposed to be.

Johnson didn't refuse to answer the question (and every other question) in any satisfying way because he couldn't think of a satisfying answer. He refused because his explicit philosophy and the theme of the movie is "The answers don't matter." He was given answers he could use if he wanted to, but he deliberately rejected every single one of them and intentionally dismissed the questions entirely. Stop asking questions, the past isn't important. The past is actually a handicap. Let it die, kill it if you have to.

Which, again, can be a thought-provoking theme for a deeper movie, but it kind of clashes horribly in a franchise which has almost entirely been built on symbolism and myth arcs (which is what he's actively rejecting). It's something he might have been able to get away with in a side-movie like Rogue One or Solo, but not as the middle episode of the new trilogy.

There was also an answer who Snoke might be, Johnson didn't use it (and basically shrugged and said "And it doesn't matter because he's dead now anyway").

If you're going to blame ANYONE for TLJ, it is entirely on Rian Johnson. Because he was given complete freedom to do whatever he wanted to do with the movie, without having to answer any of the questions from TFA or set up new hooks for Episode IX, with none of the people in charge even remotely attempting to enforce a consistent through-story to connect the three movies.

Rian Johnson made exactly the movie he wanted to make, and that is what we got.

But it isn't really the movie he should have made.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 12:14:14 PM
#44
darkknight109 posted...
I mean, to pick one notable one, let's talk about Rey's parentage. TFA sets it up like it's some big deal, with her last name never released, Obi-Wan showing up prominently in her visions, and Han hinted at having some insight on who she is, but... who would her parents be? None of the obvious, widely hypothesized candidates - Luke, Leia/Han, Obi-Wan, or Chewbacca - make much sense. Obi-Wan was a by-the-books Jedi, meaning him having descendants is unlikely in the extreme, and none of the other answers would have had any reason to dump her on a desert planet in the middle of nowhere. She could be from a "branch" of the family - like Obi-Wan's grandniece - but how would that be significant from a narrative perspective?

You're actually underselling things pretty significantly there - there ARE potential answers that could easily work.

A lot of the fanbase assumed she was Han/Leia's daughter because that would cast her in the Jaina role counter to Kylo, who feels like a blatant copy of Jacen from the EU (because he probably was). But Luke's daughter also works, because then she's a gender-swapped Ben. Any of them could easily have kids, and there are always ways to justify why she was abandoned if you're willing to do the work. Easiest might be to have Luke be her father, but her mother left with her without Luke ever knowing she was pregnant, with the intent to hide her from Luke in a deliberate echo of hiding Luke/Leia from Anakin. Or even just have Luke have a Force vision that says she needs to be hidden for the good of the galaxy, so he sends his wife away.

The other easy way to handle things is to assume she was left in the custody of a guardian/babysitter/nanny/etc for some reason, and they left her on Jakku to hide her (perhaps they were being chased by remnants of the Empire/the First Order), with the intent to go back for her later, but died before they could, or could tell anyone where she was. With her actual parents assuming she was dead, unable to find her.

Conversely, you go the other way. She IS the Emperor's daughter/granddaughter, or the daughter of some other Imperial (perhaps abandoning her to hide her from Rebellion/New Republic forces), and the narrative becomes her eventually rejecting her heritage and choosing good over evil.

For more minor options, she could be the daughter of some other minor figure (hell, Wedge's daughter!), where she has the connection, but you also push the idea that the important thing is less WHO her parents were, but more the moment when she eventually discovers her past and the reason why she was abandoned (ie, she assumes she was left behind deliberately, but if her parents always wanted to come back but couldn't, it changes a large chunk of her backstory, and thus, her perspective).

Hell, you could always stoke the fanboy boner and say Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc, had a daughter, and ditched her. Even THAT is more satisfying than the non-answer.

In a realistic sense "Your parents aren't important" works (because it's the most likely answer if this happens in the real world), but in a narrative sense it's actually bad writing, because the story clearly builds them up as being significant right up until it spontaneously decides they aren't and that particular plot thread is immediately hacked away without any real resolution. It's breaking the Chekov's Gun premise.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 11:57:02 AM
#43
darkknight109 posted...
Compared to Hayden Christiensen and Natalie Portman in the PT? They're practically Oscar winners.

To be fair to them, that's not really on them. That's Lucas' fault as a phenomenally shitty director when it comes to actors (nearly every actor who has worked with him has said so, even the original cast back in the 70s), combined with it being extremely hard to work when you're in a featureless green room talking to empty space that will be CGIed in later.

The main strength of the sequels (possibly the only real major strength) is that they were filmed with far more practical effects under directors who are better at directing human beings to emote and interact.

Hayden Christensen is a much better actor than most people realize. You'd just never know it from the prequels, because the only actor in them that seems to have overcome the multiple handicaps filming them was Ewan McGregor.



darkknight109 posted...
He's not meant to be. That's the point - he was set up to be the anti-Vader, a fanboy desperately trying to live up to his grandfather's legacy and failing horribly at it.

I definitely agree with this, though, and have defended Kylo's personality to people who complain about it. He's a shitty version of Vader because he's NOT Vader, and he's not supposed to be. He's not Maul, who is designed to look cool and nothing else, he's not meant to be a badass. He's supposed to be confused, inept, and struggling towards establishing his own identity.

The problem is "He's supposed to be whiny and annoying" doesn't really change the fact that he's whiny and annoying. So people bothered by that are going to be bothered by it regardless of whether or not it's part of the overarching plot establishing that he's basically a rebellious teenager trying to be like granddad and completely failing, because he doesn't even remotely understand anything about his grandfather.



darkknight109 posted...
See, I blame TFA for this more than TLJ, because JJ Abrams did exactly what he always does: set up some grand mysteries which *sound* really intriguing on the surface, but when you think about them hard enough they have no satisfactory answer (then he dumped them on another director's lap who basically did what he could to sidestep the issue altogether).

This would be valid if that's what actually happened. But multiple people involved have said that Abrams actually HAD answers for most of the questions he asked, and gave the list of details and ideas to Rian Johnson, who was told "You can use whatever you want, or ignore whatever you want - you've got full freedom to do what you think is best."

And then Johnson basically shat on every single one of those answers, and provided far more unsatisfactory answers for every one, because he decided he felt like making the film a deconstruction ("Let the past die, kill it if you have to"), and didn't give a shit how that would affect the next movie or the trilogy/franchise as a whole. Which left them scrambling with how to salvage Episode IX.

Johnson didn't just say "I don't know how to answer these questions", he said "None of these questions matter and the answers are pointless". Which kind of leads people to ask "Then why am I watching these movies again?"
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 11:37:14 AM
#40
AllstarSniper32 posted...
The new trilogy is just fine. But no matter what they make people will whine about them. They've been whining since TPM.

To be fair, the only good movie they've made since TPM is Rogue One. So all of the complaints are justified.



Mead posted...
People actually whined a lot about RotJ when it came out too from what I hear

I was there at the time, this isn't really true. Especially compared to the reactions to the prequels and sequels.

The only real complaints that people had about RotJ was that the Ewoks were kind of stupid and feel like they were put there solely to be cute and sell toys (which is a valid argument), and that the Yub Nub song was kind of stupid (also true). Almost everything else about the movie was near-universally praised, and plenty of people unhesitatingly said it was better than the original Star Wars/Episode IV/A New Hope. And that the Luke/Vader/Emperor scenes were easily the best in the entire trilogy.

Some people even said it was a better movie than Empire, but those people were objectively wrong, so we'll ignore them.

The real backlash to Star Wars didn't really start to pick up steam until the Special Editions, when people were like "Wait, why is Greedo shooting first now?" and "Why in the holy fuck did Lucas replace the musical number in Jabba's palace with a song so cringe-y my asshole is now lodged somewhere up near my neck?" Along with people saying "Man, that restored scene where Jabba meets Han in the hangar is kind of lame, because CGI Jabba looks like shit and they're mostly just repeating the exact same lines Han said to Greedo earlier, this is so unnecessary", and "You know, most of the stuff he's added to these movies is almost completely pointless. A few more CGI animals in the background of scenes doesn't really add much of value at all, and the really blatant stuff he changed is all terrible."

And ironically, he replaced the Yub Nub song (which we SHOULD have enjoyed, because we'd been making fun of it for 15 years), but we didn't like it because he replaced it with something completely generic and dull, and added a few more stupid pointless scenes, and made the whole thing kind of lame. And as much as we'd made fun of the Yub Nub song, we'd sort of gotten used to it, so taking it away and replacing it with something mediocre just made us feel like it wasn't really an improvement at all.

But even then, everybody was SUPER-excited for Phantom Menace before it came out. The teaser trailer was awesome. We all had so much hope, so much optimism, so much joy. We were all READY to love the shit out of more Star Wars.

And then the movie came out and we all embraced the Dark Side because there was nothing left but hate.

Now the fanbase has basically been taught to have zero hope, zero optimism, zero joy. We've been burned way too many times, so now the expectation is that whatever movie comes next is probably going to be mediocre at best and terrible at worst, and we're almost going to see them more out of a weird feeling of nostalgic obligation than out of any real enthusiasm. Most people at this point don't see Star Wars films any more because they LIKE Star Wars, they see them because they USED to like Star Wars.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
Topic'The prequels are worse than the Disney trilogy!!!"
ParanoidObsessive
11/30/19 11:23:39 AM
#39
Mead posted...
7 was very entertaining imo and left a lot of unanswered things to build on

8 answered all of those questions in boring, unsatisfying, and conclusive ways to such a point that I really dont care how the trilogy wraps up

Anything I found even mildly interesting from The Force Awakens got either killed off or ruined in TLJ

I agree with most of this. Even at the time, when some people were complaining that TFA was just a rehash of the original trilogy meant to exploit nostalgia, my response was "If this sets up better things in the next two movies that fan service was used effectively, but if it doesn't pay off effectively then it kind of makes TFA worse retroactively." The nostalgia and fan service was necessary to win back good will after the prequels burned off a lot of it, but then Episode VIII and IX needed to build from that base and do something new and interesting.

Then TLJ basically came along, slit TFA's throat, and then raped the corpse. Which sort of ruins the entire trilogy no matter what happens in Episode IX.

Just in terms of each film standing alone, I'd say TFA is easily better than all of the prequels, but TLJ is easily worse than all of them. But as collected trilogies I'm tempted to say that TLJ makes the sequel trilogy unavoidably worse no matter what TRoS does, because I don't see how it can even remotely salvage everything that's broken now (and none of the advance talk seems to inspire confidence).

What sucks is that Disney is clearly capable of making Star Wars content that isn't 100% terrible. Rogue One was interesting in its own way, and it seems like everyone loves The Mandalorian. But for some reason they decided to completely half-ass production on the most important movies they'll ever make in a franchise they paid billions for. That's almost criminally negligent, especially when in their own company you've got the Marvel movies as an example of how to properly organize and produce multi-film epics in an expansive universe. Star Wars basically needed a Kevin Feige, and instead it got a Kathleen Kennedy.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicSo I got a PSVR. Just played through Batman but it's super fun.
ParanoidObsessive
11/29/19 10:53:52 PM
#18
wwinterj25 posted...
The only folk calling VR a fad for the most part is those who haven't experienced VR.

Most of the people I know who call VR a fad are absolutely the people who've experienced it, and formed that opinion for precisely that reason.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicIt's Friday Night, why aren't you on a date?
ParanoidObsessive
11/29/19 10:50:12 PM
#5
I'm an actual adult. Friday stopped being "date night" or "party night" years ago.

Generally, when I go out at all (socially), it's usually on a Saturday night or early Sunday afternoon/evening.

At a certain point, the idea of going out to a bar, or a club, or whatever starts becoming less and less attractive of an option as opposed to just staying home, watching TV, and going to bed early because you're always tired and everything aches. Especially when you're already in a relationship with someone who feels the same way, and not a desperate husk of a human being hoping to meet similarly desperate people in clubs or bars or wherever to cling to in an attempt to validate your own self-worth.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicAny reality shows you like?
ParanoidObsessive
11/29/19 9:16:43 PM
#14
OrangeDawn posted...
Mead posted...
Im a sucker for survivor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicSo I got a PSVR. Just played through Batman but it's super fun.
ParanoidObsessive
11/29/19 9:10:59 PM
#15
blu posted...
I don't know why being worried it won't have enough games coming out for it indicates research wasn't done.

I'd assume the assumption on at least some people's parts is that there is ample evidence out there to suggest that VR in its current form is a fad at best and is already on the down-turn, meaning there likely won't be all that many more worthwhile games coming out for it at any point in the future, and thus, you would have known that (and potentially avoided buying VR entirely) if you'd done more research.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
TopicI finished my re-watch of House MD today.
ParanoidObsessive
11/29/19 8:56:34 PM
#2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyt4KFyVQQ8
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family
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