The Star Wars Thread

[Blackthorne]

Except it's not idiotic if people think it has value - which they clearly do, hence the debate.

People think a lot of crap has value - doesn't mean it HAS value.


Bt

[GrahamRocks!]

*is quickly backing away* I... I'm staying out of this!

[KatieHal]

Alright. I'm gonna give a very strong suggestion that Bt & Lamb step out of this thread going forth. If you think it's dumb, good for you, now GTFO.

Lamb, that'll be easy for you! You can't post for a week now. Bt, persist in being an ass in here and that'll go for you, too.

FURTHERMORE, Star Wars proposes itself to be science fiction--that means, in theory, it's mechanics are rooted in science. Tolkein can have all the talking trees he wants because magic. While there can be strong arguments for Star Wars having fantasy elements, that's the genre it claims to be.

So, everyone else, chatter away to your heart's content.

[Neonivek]

Ultimately the thing I have with settings is that I accept the settings logic but what I do not accept is when a settings logic turns on itself.

It is why a Starship appearing in Lord of the Rings would raise a flag.

Starwars slowly got to the point where the Force was indestinguishable from magic (Admittingly... Vader did to the Transgalactic Force Choke through a camera... and Obi Wan did give himself to the force in an instant and in a canonical "What if" Obi Wan manages to fight in his ghost form), but even then it has its own logic.

Actually it is sometimes interesting to kinda find the points of Starwars where the force stops being telekenesis and sort of hops into something more.

[KatieHal]

The Force is, really, magic when you get down to it. I agree. It's kind of one reason why the "midichlorians" BS in Episode 1 was so aggravating and grating. Don't try to explain it! Just let it be!

[GrahamRocks!]

Well, if we're going with "The Force is really magic" thing, then couldn't midichlorians just be another name for mana?

Then again, I watch the films to enjoy, not to analyze. Unless you ask me from what I've read on WookiePedia or StarWars.Com which I haven't checked out in a long time personally.

[Blackthorne]

Actually, Star Wars never purported itself to be more than myth or fantasy.  People have lumped it in with Science Fiction.


Bt

[GrahamRocks!]

Huh. Really? Must be because of all the lasers and robots and stuff.

[Neonivek]

The Force is, really, magic when you get down to it. I agree. It's kind of one reason why the "midichlorians" BS in Episode 1 was so aggravating and grating. Don't try to explain it! Just let it be!

Actually oddly enough when I first heard about it I didn't understand what was said and what I came up with was better.

That "Midichlorians" didn't actually give you the force but were a bacteria that was present in large abundance with force sensative individuals. Possibly feeding off the force itself. Thus testing blood for Midichlorians would be a good test to see if someone had the force.

Boy do I wish I was right back then.

People have lumped it in with Science Fiction

It is science fiction. Science Fantasy perhaps. I also put it with Science fiction because the setting is mainly one of high levels of technology. The Jedi somehow thrust into the "Movers and shakers" inspite of their powers not actually meaning a whole lot.

[crayauchtin]

No, it's not whether or not it's science fiction or fantasy. My complaint has nothing to do with science or reality.

My complaint is solely based on the world that Star Wars sets up that it's story takes place in. Here are the facts:

1) There is not inter-galactic space travel.
2) There IS space travel.
3) It is a long time in the past, so even if intergalactic space travel did currently exist, it did not then.
4) It is not in the same galaxy as Earth.
5) Not only are there humans (which WE know come from Earth -- being humans ourselves, even if the characters in the series do not know where the humans come from), there are humans on almost every planet and they basically run the government of the galaxy.

The problem is, you've put an entire galaxy in the control of a race of people who have NO way of being there, let alone being as populous as they are. And this is not ever addressed. I would take, magical portal brought humans to this part of the galaxy centuries ago and the populated like bunny rabbits over "this isn't actually possible, but this is the story we're giving you anyways."

Tolkein's world has no basis in reality, no. But the fact is, it is consistent. He created a world and the story he tells within it makes perfect sense given the world he created. Star Wars didn't manage that level of consistency even *before* the extended universe gets involved. I mean, it didn't even manage that level of consistency through the first scene of the first movie (that was made, that is).
And THAT is why I find it to be sub-par.

[Delling]

1) There is not inter-galactic space travel.
2) There IS space travel.
3) It is a long time in the past, so even if intergalactic space travel did currently exist, it did not then.
4) It is not in the same galaxy as Earth.
5) Not only are there humans (which WE know come from Earth -- being humans ourselves, even if the characters in the series do not know where the humans come from), there are humans on almost every planet and they basically run the government of the galaxy.

There are two possible explanations for this:
1) Superficial, apparently identical independent evolution--the humans of the Star Wars galaxy evolved independently of Milky Way humans to look almost exactly like them. Apparently, this is the official reasoning according to Wookiepedia with humans evolving on Coruscant.

2) Slavery and relocation--some super-species evolved in the Milky Way and for some reason, after enslaving early humans, decided to leave for the other galaxy... my best narrative guess would be that some prophecy told them they were about to die out and that for the race to survive they should go to some distant star, but said star turned out to be the Star Wars galaxy. They headed off over there but still died out, leaving the newly seeded proto-humans to finish their development and become the dominant species in the galaxy... probably because they had access to this arch of super-tech that significantly advanced their understanding of science, etc. No one now has inter-galactic travel because those guys died out and deconstructing an inter-galactic drive to figure out how it works... not that simple.

The Jedi somehow thrust into the "Movers and shakers" inspite of their powers not actually meaning a whole lot.

Even in a scientifically driven society, the guy who shows up and demonstrates "Hey, I can move stuff with my mind" still kind of wins... if you understand physics, then this guy has just said "I can generate arbitrary forces at will"... that's incredibly useful (though it does raise questions as to why force-sensitives aren't seen in industrial work... still, the police work they do do does make sense).

[darthkiwi]

Tolkein's world has no basis in reality, no. But the fact is, it is consistent. He created a world and the story he tells within it makes perfect sense given the world he created.

Well, maybe, I guess. But surely the axiom you missed from that list is the very one you're worried about: "Humans live in this galaxy." Yes it makes no sense, but neither does the fictional universe itself since, as far as we know, FTL travel is impossible and there is no evidence that any of the Star Wars alien races could evolve like that.

Think about Tolkein for a moment. Yes his world is internally consistent, but how could the world exist at all? Where is it? Which planet is it on? When did it happen? What is the basis for all of his languages etc.? He can get around some of this by specifying that a God created the world and work forward from there, but it still doesn't answer the basic question: how can this be?!

So any fiction, really, is set in a world which is completely impossible, because it never happened and almost certainly never could happen. But that doesn't mean you should write it off. You just take on a set of axioms at the start. And I agree, a spaceship turning up in LOTR would be absurd, because it breaks the internal ruleset. This was one reason so many people hated the Mass Effect 3 ending, I guess. But I think that "humans live here" is part of Star Wars' axiomatic set, because we see humans pretty much as soon as the film starts.

To be honest, I can see where you're coming from - and it's a fun thing to pontificate over - but ultimately, the fact that nobody who watches Star Wars goes "Wait, there are humans here?" when they see them for the first time kind of shows that this probably isn't an issue.

[inm8#2]

Star Wars threads are easily the most amusing on the web. The discussion goes in so many directions!

[Neonivek]

Even in a scientifically driven society, the guy who shows up and demonstrates "Hey, I can move stuff with my mind" still kind of wins... if you understand physics, then this guy has just said "I can generate arbitrary forces at will"... that's incredibly useful (though it does raise questions as to why force-sensitives aren't seen in industrial work... still, the police work they do do does make sense).

Those are the least useful Jedi abilities when you go to a galactic scale.

The REALLY useful Jedi abilities are things like sensing, Mind tricks, and being psychic. (Ignoring expanded universe abilities like the ability to make everyone in an entire dogfight fight better.)

As for "Why sense sensatives arn't seen in industrial work" there are a few reasons
1) Force sensativity isn't common and for some races (like Wookies) it is incredibly rare
2) Using the force requires very focused training. Leia for example is Force Sensative but never manifested it.
3) Machines are still far supperior to the force in that regard with few exceptions (and those exceptions being universe class Force users)
4) Most people will not know they have the force as the clues are often invisable. Anakin for example just appeared Talented.

[crayauchtin]

To be honest, I can see where you're coming from - and it's a fun thing to pontificate over - but ultimately, the fact that nobody who watches Star Wars goes "Wait, there are humans here?" when they see them for the first time kind of shows that this probably isn't an issue.

Uhm, no. Nobody who likes Star Wars -- obviously not nobody or we wouldn't be having this discussion. Those of us who notice that humans don't fit the axiom of any other race (they don't have a homeworld, at least not that's called a homeworld in the movies being one such example) and that they don't seem to make sense in the universe tend not to be fans. Cause, y'know, seems like poor writing.

Like, why be fans of a space opera that can't or doesn't explain the presence of one of its main races when you could be a fan of Farscape, Star Trek, Babylon 5.... virtually any other space opera? I'm not saying these are all thoroughly consistent (I'm looking at you, Klingon noses! And I know they tried to explain that too but I'm not buying it either! ) but at least the things that aren't consistent are mostly cosmetic, not major facets of the story.

[darthkiwi]

Star Wars threads are easily the most amusing on the web. The discussion goes in so many directions!

I know. And I keep replying, and every time I do I feel a bit sillier. Oh dear.

@Cray: fair point, but to my mind Star Wars was never really in the same boat as, say, Star Trek. (I've not seen B5 or Farscape so bear with me.) Star Trek is about what humanity might be like in the future, how it might view its past, how it manages to get along with others races, and what kind of ideals it might have. Whereas Star Wars is about cowboy-like shootouts or sword-fighting-like combat when on a planet, and WW1/2-like dogfights when in space. Basically, it's an excuse for an adventure: the adventure comes first, then the humans. And there are some aliens because, like, aliens are cool. And an Empire because everyone loves a David and Goliath fight and, more importantly, this is an American film.

So it always seemed to me that the mysteriously unexplained humans were just there because you can't have an adventure without humans (at least without very expensive special effects). So it was just "part of the fun". Which doesn't mean that I think Star Wars is better than the series you listed - in fact, I think it's just silly fun, but I think episodes 4 and 5 are surprisingly well-written silly fun, so I enjoy them. They're not going to trump "The Brothers Karamazov" as a work of incredible, humanistic endeavour, but if you take them on their own terms they're pretty good.

Nobody watches Star Wars for the moral dilemnas or the intellectual wranglings - that's what ST:TNG is for. They watch it for the space dogfights and the lightsabers.

[Delling]

Star Wars threads are easily the most amusing on the web. The discussion goes in so many directions!

Nobody watches Star Wars for the moral dilemnas or the intellectual wranglings ...

Wait...
... they don't?
Oh, well then...
*drops pile of binders and notebooks*

Code Select Expand

del http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/*

Actually, I think it's all rather silly too. Also, I think the complaint "but they have humans..." can reasonably be raised about any number of settings. It is a point which is almost never raised in fantasy, but I think it reasonably could be there as well... But, eh, news flash: humans are self-agrandizing and insert themselves into everything.

[Neonivek]

Also, I think the complaint "but they have humans..." can reasonably be raised about any number of settings

The major difference however is that in Starwars case it takes place in our own universe rather then being some entirely seperate universe entirely.

Mind you I guess I can think of a few other settings with humans existing inexplicably.

-NOT Original Startrek: They are aliens... they just look exactly like humans.
-The Dungeons and Dragons Pathfinder Universe: Yep humans and human-like gods existing in our own universe. Mind you they specifically mention that earth is genuinly far away from our world.

[crayauchtin]

I'm not too familiar with Pathfinder, but there's some notably bizarre D&D settings. Is Pathfinder connected to Spelljammer at all? It's the D&D space-travel setting...... where Illithids travel space in giant Illithid heads.

Don't look at me like that. I didn't make it up.

Now, it's true that Star Trek is much more complex than Star Wars intellectually but you're looking at the themes and morals of the stories, not the actual universe that was created. I'm not looking at anything else but the fiction here. It's weird, it seems poorly done.

As for humans in fantasy settings, most of the time there IS a given explanation. Most fantasy worlds actually have explanations for how every race came to be. Even if a lot of those explanations involve magic or divine influence... they're in a fantasy world, so that's pretty consistent. However, most fantasy settings are actually utterly removed from Earth.

For example, in Warcraft humans evolved from a race of giants. When they were born, they were cast out for being so dimunitive. The giants believe (and so far there is no evidence to the contrary) that they lost their height due to the Vrykul (those are the giants) losing their faith in their gods (the Titans) and failing to fulfill their duties to them. I suspect we'll eventually discover, though, that it's actually a curse placed on them by the Old Gods that made lose their height but so far that hasn't been actually established.

In Lord of the Rings, men were a race created by the god Illuvatar. This is pretty standard for the origin of a race in that world though. Tolkein was super inventive except when it came to racial origins.

And Neonivek, I'm confused by what you said about Star Trek? :\ Humans are humans from Earth in all of the Star Trek series (I think in later series, Earth is sometimes called "Terra" or "Sol III" but it's still Earth). There's some races that look just like humans, but if they're not humans they don't count. Farscape, for example, has Sebacceans as the most populous race in that part of the universe. They look just like humans and -- as it turns out later in the series -- are genetically similar enough to humans to breed with them (well, him) but that's actually a plot point. I think Star Trek has an episode where they were investigating why so many races are so similar to humans as well though it must not have been a very good episode since I don't remember what happens in it.

Anyways, all I'm saying is.... there's not even a throwaway "Coruscan is the human homeworld" even in the Phantom Menace when they go there? There's not even like a minor character who is bitter that humans came from some mysterious nowhere and took over the galaxy, who gets shot and killed thirty seconds later. Like, you don't have to delve deep and you don't have to make a major story arc out of it. A tiny little sidenote. But the Star Wars universe doesn't even do that. They go so far out of the way to make sure we all know there is no Earth ("groundquake" instead of "earthquake") but they don't bother to not call them humans? It just seems sloppy to me.

[Numbers]

I just want to know why Star Wars doesn't have any bathrooms.