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hyzmarca
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Post by hyzmarca » Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:49 am

> Kaelik wrote:I think the Light Side vs Dark Side and what the Dark Side is is basically incoherent.
> I mean, there is a Cave that is filled with Dark Side energy, so the Dark Side is a specific thing unattached to a person, but by the same token, nothing is ever dark except force users and a random cave. Even angry assholes committing genocide does not appear to be Dark Sided unless those angry assholes are strong in the force.
> But yet, the Dark side is created by emotions, so apparently the path to the Dark Side is just being angry. Yoda just straight tells luke to go into the Dark Side cave. Neither Yoda nor Obi-Wan ever warns luke of any possible way to fall to the dark side besides some emotions. So it sure seems like the Dark Side is pretty much just something created by the evil bad force users, so there is no actual dark side, it's just a statement of "with great power comes great responsibility."
> Spoiler Alert the magic super powers that are also morality are as incoherent as morality and magical powers usually are in stories.

The Force is an energy field that is generated by all living things. The Dark Side is turbulence created by Fear, Anger, and Hate. Normal people don't have to worry about it because their connection to the Force is too weak. Jedi-level Force Sensitives can influence the Force all by themselves, at least locally.
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Mechalich
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Post by Mechalich » Mon Jan 04, 2016 4:23 am

An almost unimaginably vast amount of ink has been spilled trying to define light side versus dark side and what that means and how it applies to Force sensitives versus non-sensitives. Of course, much of that discussion took at least partly from EU examples, which explored a far greater range of situations and moral conundrums compared to the movies, and must now largely be thrown out.
The most explicit still-canon discussion of the nature of the Force and Dark vs Light is now the Mortis Arc of TCW. While watching it may make you want to throw things at your screen (because though they tried so very, very hard TCW still couldn't make Anakin not unbearable), it will provide insight into where the current consensus is located.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:20 am

> hyzmarca wrote:The Force is an energy field that is generated by all living things. The Dark Side is turbulence created by Fear, Anger, and Hate. Normal people don't have to worry about it because their connection to the Force is too weak. Jedi-level Force Sensitives can influence the Force all by themselves, at least locally.

Yes, and all of that perfectly explains why there is a cave that is always angry and hateful when people enter it, but your average genocidal tyrant perpetuating a planet of fear and anger doesn't even register on a Jedi's radar.
Also why people who act based on fear transform into angry hateful monsters that murder their wives and chop their kids arms off and just generally do horrible things for their entire lives because they were afraid one time.
Because it's just an energy field that has eddies in it, and then for reasons that are totally coherent and not at all completely incompatible with the energy field theory, being a afraid makes you personally turn into a monster without affecting any of the people around you at all.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
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Post by Maxus » Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:35 am

> Kaelik wrote:

> > hyzmarca wrote:The Force is an energy field that is generated by all living things. The Dark Side is turbulence created by Fear, Anger, and Hate. Normal people don't have to worry about it because their connection to the Force is too weak. Jedi-level Force Sensitives can influence the Force all by themselves, at least locally.

> Yes, and all of that perfectly explains why there is a cave that is always angry and hateful when people enter it, but your average genocidal tyrant perpetuating a planet of fear and anger doesn't even register on a Jedi's radar.

The EU explanation for the cave, that I recall, was a Dark Jedi was slain there a long time ago, and, oh, his spirit was hanging around. Not coherent enough to show up and talk to people, but definitely coloring the metaphysical atmosphere.
My personal headcanon is the Dark Side is it's a drug. Dark Side users get a huge rush of cheap power and, what's more, feel powerful and aggressive, but it dampens the ability to feel emotions other than, well, fight-or-flight emotions--fear, anger, hatred, etc. And when they're not using it, they're pretty emotionally empty so they want to use it more to feel powerful again.
Leading to a cycle that usually winds up with an unstable personality who overreacts to trivial setbacks and offenses.
Not to mention what it does to your skin and teeth and eyes.
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Last edited by Maxus on Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:23 am

> Maxus wrote:The EU explanation for the cave, that I recall, was a Dark Jedi was slain there a long time ago, and, oh, his spirit was hanging around. Not coherent enough to show up and talk to people, but definitely coloring the metaphysical atmosphere.

Yeah I mean, that's basically totally nonsense, and makes no sense on about 800 levels (His spirit that can't really talk to people is way more powerful than Vader and the Emperor combined) and persists forever. And brings us right back around to problem 2)
How the fuck does this guy having been afraid and or angry lead to him being trapped in a cycle that makes his ghost perpetually haunt a place with terror visions if the Dark Side is just him projecting his own anger.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
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Post by tussock » Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:17 pm

I figure they have to accept their future success with the force for it to work, no doubts or thoughts of others or any other cloudy minded stuff, which you either learn to do very slowly and calmly by feeling the natural flow of it and keeping your head clear, or you just get angry and do it easy because angry makes you really sure of stuff like who should be in pain right now.
It's not that the force makes you bad forever, it's just wicked easy to use it when you're angry and attacking things, and then Vader shows us what a dick that makes you with the constant force-chokes for minor stuff because it just gets to be a serious habit.
But The Force itself is also the place your your mind and eternal spirit live, thus all the luminous beings, and that it can shape the thoughts of the weak minded. So sure, there can be an eternal spirit of an angry and fearful force-sensitive dude in a cave.
It's also some sort of far-seeing bullshit where they all know the names of people that are training in the force because plot has needs to foreshadow at that point or something. Perhaps there's only ever 2 Sith because when Luke, Yoda, and Ben all got together for a few seconds that was 3 and everyone in the universe could see it if they had the knack.
Like having 3 Rangers in a first edition party. Just doesn't happen, bad mojo.
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Post by name_here » Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:32 pm

I've always interpreted it as a feedback loop; fear and anger lead to the Dark Side, and the Dark Side makes you angrier. This is particularly severe when actually using the Force for a direct attack born of anger, and can affect others to a limited extent. Regular people aren't strong in the Force and so don't generate the feedback loop.
Jedi training includes both learning how to use the Force and how to resist the Dark Side. People who aren't trained in using the Force don't have to worry about the Dark Side as much. Training to use the Force but not to resist the Dark Side tends to end very badly. Leia has neither part of the training in much depth, so her powers are limited and she's not at particular risk of falling to the Dark Side.

> DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.

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hyzmarca
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Post by hyzmarca » Mon Jan 04, 2016 4:03 pm

> Kaelik wrote:

> > hyzmarca wrote:The Force is an energy field that is generated by all living things. The Dark Side is turbulence created by Fear, Anger, and Hate. Normal people don't have to worry about it because their connection to the Force is too weak. Jedi-level Force Sensitives can influence the Force all by themselves, at least locally.

> Yes, and all of that perfectly explains why there is a cave that is always angry and hateful when people enter it, but your average genocidal tyrant perpetuating a planet of fear and anger doesn't even register on a Jedi's radar.

A planet full of genocide does register on a Jedi's radar "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."
The tyrant himself doesn't, because he isn't channeling that energy through himself the way a darksider does.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:53 pm

> hyzmarca wrote:A planet full of genocide does register on a Jedi's radar "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."
> The tyrant himself doesn't, because he isn't channeling that energy through himself the way a darksider does.

Yes I agree the movie does say things that completely contradict your earlier claim, if you admit that non force sensitives being able to create a disturbance in the force by a single moment of intense fear, than it obviously follows that an entire planet living like North Korea will permanently turn the entire planet into a ball of Dark Side Energy.
So you are right back to "Man it turns out non force sensitives can effect the force." Which is still in contradiction to everything Yoda and Obi-Wan actually say about dangers of the Dark Side. IE, they never tell Luke to do anything to make sure that other people aren't afraid, they never even mention that as a possible concern.
And again, if regular people's feat creates Dark Side energy distortions, then those same dark side distortions would refocus back on those same regular people eventually tuning them into hateful monsters.
Either the Dark Side is created by angry people or it isn't. If it isn't, then Obi-Wan talking about Alderaan isn't about the Dark Side, and your Dark Side fluctuations in the energy field theory is still bad, because you have to commit yourself to the idea that no one tyrant planet matters at all and they have no effect on the force whatsoever.
If it is, then Alderaan was about all the people of Alderaan collectively turning to the Dark Side because they were afraid, and that also means that tyrant planet turns to the dark side. And Yoda and Obi-Wan are super shit for not warning luke that hanging out around angry people can result in him turning to the dark side by the random corruption mechanic that also doesn't make sense.
In either case you have to explain how vader living next door does absolutely nothing to your emotions, but vader himself being afraid at any point leads to a feedback loop that turns him into a monster.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Shrapnel » Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:32 pm

Y'know what I'm happy about? Now that film has finally come out, we can finally stop having to hear about fucking Star Wars every five minutes in the media. I mean, I'm as big a Star Wars fan as the next guy, but one can only handle so many months of GMA playing the Star Wars theme and interviewing Daisy Ridley and BB-38. I swear to god, I got so sick of hearing about the Force Awakens that I almost didn't go to see it. Almost.
Anyway, now we can go back to worrying and obsessing about REAL issues in the news, like when the next Star Wars film will come out.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:00 pm

> Shrapnel wrote:Y'know what I'm happy about? Now that film has finally come out, we can finally stop having to hear about fucking Star Wars every five minutes in the media.

Haha... that's not how Starwars hype works.
Anyway. As for the one true rational explanation of the force. Whatever it is I'm pretty sure if you were going to write it then it pretty much HAS to BEGIN with "The Jedi and the Sith are confused religious idiots and just about everything they have to say about the force is utterly baseless superstition".
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Occluded Sun
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Post by Occluded Sun » Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:39 pm

By the time of the prequel movies, yeah, the Jedi have become religious dogmatists.
It's worth noting that, according to what little we know about Sith teachings, the Emperor was pretty seriously corrupt - by their standards. Instead of instructing his apprentices and strengthening them as much as possible, to the point that they would supplant him, he repeatedly arranged for his apprentices to be killed off so as to continue his own rule.
That's not the way of the Force, which is about transition and growth.
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Post by Mechalich » Tue Jan 05, 2016 12:01 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:Anyway. As for the one true rational explanation of the force. Whatever it is I'm pretty sure if you were going to write it then it pretty much HAS to BEGIN with "The Jedi and the Sith are confused religious idiots and just about everything they have to say about the force is utterly baseless superstition".

During the period where Lucas had personal word of god status, word of god was that the Jedi had the best understanding of how the Force works. Various EU novelists and sourcebook writers jumped through about ten million hoops to try and reconcile the different Jedi teachings between the two trilogies (and Timothy Zahn fought a private between the lines war with Kevin J. Anderson about force use in the novels).
Lucas no longer has word of god status though, so who knows what Disney will decide. Probably need to wait for the first wave of official sourcebooks that incorporate Force Awakens to find out.
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Post by erik » Tue Jan 05, 2016 1:17 am

> Shrapnel wrote:Anyway, now we can go back to worrying and obsessing about REAL issues in the news, like when the next Star Wars film will come out.

Close...
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Post by PhoneLobster » Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:16 am

> Mechalich wrote:Lucas no longer has word of god status though, so who knows what Disney will decide.

You don't seem to be following. I wasn't telling you what I thought they would do or had done I was telling you how it should be done.
I do not for a second think they will dismiss the Sith and Jedi as completely wrong religious nutters. The closest they will get will be "the jedi are mostly right but need to slightly embrace the darkside". This will be for two reasons.
1) Star Wars isn't actually very smart, and they don't think their audience is smart. No one would think the audience would "get it" if it turned out to all be religious mumbo jumbo after all, and they do not believe the audience would ever happily accept declaring the anointed good guy holy men were actually as bad wrong or even potentially worse than the bad guy's you are supposed to boo at who exist for the purpose of being wrong bad.
2) Star Wars movies DID some "the force isn't what you think it was and actually has some in setting scientific/non-religious basis" with the audience before. And it cocked it up spectacularly. Now ANY major departure from bullshit inconsistent jedi mysticism will be tainted with the label of Midiclorians mark 2.
What they actually will do to make a consistent sensible smart explanation of what the force is and how it works is... THEY WON'T. They don't need to, they don't want to, they think the majority of the fans don't want them to and they may right.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Tue Jan 05, 2016 3:12 am

Yeah, the Force is great for star wars movies because star wars movies aren't about complex moral grey areas.
Having the same magic power source that allows people to use laser swords to deflect blasters also give an unfailingly correct accounting of who is good and evil is feature, because that way the audience always knows who the good guys and bad guys are, and you don't need a second weird thing to accept to get the laser swords.
I say this, I obviously don't think Disney is going to follow Frank's suggested plotline of "Ben Double Agent" because I think that even as super basic and obvious as that is, it is still too morally grey for New Star Wars Reboot.
I could of course, be wrong.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
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Post by OgreBattle » Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:50 am

Anyone else interpret John Boyega's character as a runaway slave? He even gets named by a 'good' white guy, then lashed on the back when a 'master' finds him...
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Post by Mechalich » Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:41 am

> OgreBattle wrote:Anyone else interpret John Boyega's character as a runaway slave? He even gets named by a 'good' white guy, then lashed on the back when a 'master' finds him...

Technically, Finn is a runaway slave. He's a child soldier conscript, and the UN generally classifies those as slaves in their accounting.
The whole 'naming' bit is actually kind of jarring in a way. Yes the Empire/First Order is a bunch of de-humanizing space Nazis, but it is absurdly impractical for frontline combat troops to have to refer to each other using duty numbers.
And TCW (among other EU sources but its the one that's still canon) solved this problem by the simple expedient of having the clones take a variety of informal callsigns for informal usage, often, just like in Finn's case, based on some permutation of their official code, leading to characters like 'Fives' and 'Niner.'
So Finn probably should have always been called Finn, at least amongst his fellow stormtroopers - he's not a clone, he didn't come out of a tank, he's presumably been training for years.

> PhoneLobster wrote:2) Star Wars movies DID some "the force isn't what you think it was and actually has some in setting scientific/non-religious basis" with the audience before. And it cocked it up spectacularly. Now ANY major departure from bullshit inconsistent jedi mysticism will be tainted with the label of Midiclorians mark 2.

Midi-chlorians aren't gone. Force Awakens de-emphasizes them, but they remain canon. The current trilogy can avoid talking about them because Palpatine banned talking about everything about the Force (that's EU but matches the 'Jedi as myth' vibe in the OT and so probably stands).

> PhoneLobster wrote:What they actually will do to make a consistent sensible smart explanation of what the force is and how it works is... THEY WON'T. They don't need to, they don't want to, they think the majority of the fans don't want them to and they may right.

It's actually more like they CAN'T. There's too much inconsistency simply between the PT and the OT alone, plus TCW and (presumably, haven't watched it) Rebels. To produce a smart explanation for how the Force works you'd have to de-canonize everything but the OT and start over from there.
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Post by Prak » Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:48 am

> Mechalich wrote: Yes the Empire/First Order is a bunch of de-humanizing space Nazis, but it is absurdly impractical-

Um.

> When modern media wants a group of baddies to look badass, it’ll often borrow design elements from Nazi uniforms. It’s not hard to understand why; the Nazis famously had their uniforms designed by professional fashion designers, including runway mogul Hugo Boss, and it worked wonderfully in terms of giving Nazi troops a stylish and intimidating public image.
> What’s less well known, however, is how ridiculously terrible those uniforms were for any purpose other than looking smart.
> Let me give you an example: suspenders. Back in the 1930s, the modern tactical harness hadn’t yet been developed. Instead, soldiers would wear a sturdy pair of leather suspenders in order to help distribute the weight of their ammo belts (which could be substantial - bullets aren’t light!). Hitler didn’t care for that - he thought it would make his troops look like farmers. Instead, he commissioned his uniform designers to come up with a complicated system of internal suspenders that could be worn under the uniform jacket, with metal hooks projecting from special holes near the jacket’s waistline. The idea was that the ammo belt would rest on the hooks, thus allowing it to be supported without disrupting the jacket’s clean lines.
> The problem? The system’s designers, being accustomed to crafting for the runway, had completely overlooked that soldiers sometimes need to move quickly. At any pace quicker than a brisk walk, the ammo belt would bounce off of the hooks and slide down the wearer’s torso, often tripping him in the process. Worse, news of the issue didn’t filter back to the high command until the uniforms had already been widely distributed, so it was impossible to fix in an economical fashion. The Nazi troops eventually resorted to wearing external suspenders over the internal suspenders in order to keep their ammo belts in place, thus entirely defeating the purpose.
> Then there are the cold-weather jackets, made infamous by the Nazis’ disastrous Winter Campaign against Russia in 1941-1942. At the time, the standard cold-weather jacket in use by most armies consisted of heavy quilted fabric stuffed with torn-up cotton. Hitler didn’t like that at all; in his opinion, it made it look like his troops were wearing blankets. So he had each soldier issued an individually tailored winter jacket made of suit-grade fabric and lined with fur (sourced from civilian clothing seized from death camp inmates, because of course it was).
> You can probably guess where this is going. Predictably to anyone who’s not a Nazi fashion designer, the fine fabric of the jackets wasn’t tightly woven enough to stop the wind. The fur, meanwhile, harboured lice and fleas, stank abominably when wet, and was impossible to launder in the field. They’d managed to issue their troops dry clean only winter apparel, in a campaign that would send them far from their supply lines. That the weather ended up killing more Nazis than the Russian army should thus come as no surprise.
> And these aren’t outliers. Virtually every element of the Nazi uniform made up for its smart styling by being ridiculously impractical. The officers often had it worst of all; their uniforms were expertly tailored to make their builds look trim and powerful, at the cost of being stuffy, uncomfortable, and difficult to move around it. Indeed, some officers’ uniforms were so smartly tailored that they couldn’t sit down without taking their pants off. Yeah, let that image roll around in your head for a moment or two.
> The upshot is that whenever I see baddies in a movie or a TV show with clearly Nazi-inspired uniforms, my first thought is less “whoa, badass!” and more “these men are about to be murdered by their own trousers”.

absurd impracticality was something of a hallmark of nazis...
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> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Post by maglag » Tue Jan 05, 2016 8:25 am

Impratical or not, germans in WW II still managed to basically conquer France in a few months along some other countries and send the Brittish running across the channel.
And they wouldn't be the first ones understimating Russian Winter. Napoleon understimated it too, and that guy had to move his troops on foot, so I would suppose their uniforms had to be as pratical as possible for long marches.
Russian troops also suffered from fleas and lice despite having the top winter garments. There's just no escaping that when you're at war and bathing/laundry are at the bottom of the priority list. Parasites will eventually crawl in inside your warm garments filled with delicious skin and blood. Still better than freezing to death.
Point being, the Russians didn't push all the way back to Berlin just because the nazi's uniforms may've been not that pratical.
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Post by LargePrime » Wed Jan 06, 2016 9:48 pm

> Prak wrote: Um.

> > When modern media wants a group of baddies to look badass, it’ll often borrow design elements from Nazi uniforms. It’s not hard to understand why; the Nazis famously had their uniforms designed by professional fashion designers, including runway mogul Hugo Boss, and it worked wonderfully in terms of giving Nazi troops a stylish and intimidating public image.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ ... practical/
"It gets a few details right, but is in the main largely incorrect."
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Post by Prak » Wed Jan 06, 2016 10:00 pm

So basically, their harnesses were actually even worse than stated above, their coats weren't in anyway standard, and their actual uniforms were just standard wool, but the quality got worse.
Huh.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Post by Occluded Sun » Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:32 pm

The Force Awakens meets Calvin and Hobbes
Those are some pretty nifty drawings.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th » Sat Jan 09, 2016 8:39 pm

I thought the movie was pretty good. I didn't have the unsettling "What the fuck was that?" I had while watching The Phantom Menace, so that's something. The Force in this movie works as a "makes cool shit happen" thing rather than a coherent ideology. It's like playing a video game with the morality meter, you only get the best shit at the extreme ends.
Starkiller Base looked awesome but the physics of that made me roll my eyes, why the hell wouldn't it violently pull itself back into a sphere? Maybe a space wizard did it.
Speaking of space wizards, I like Kylo Ren as a character. He's not the equal of previous Star Wars villains and he is very aware of that fact. It made him more interesting as a character. And they didn't kill him off right away (Darth Maul was arguably the best part of Episode 1, I would have liked to see more of him).
I wouldn't say it's a great movie (hell, I wouldn't consider the original trilogy "great" movies either), but very entertaining.
Last edited by Count Arioch the 28th on Sat Jan 09, 2016 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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Ancient History
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Post by Ancient History » Sat Jan 09, 2016 11:00 pm

I have a series of Star Wars fanfiction. They're not terribly good. It's complete fanboy shit, minus all of the main series characters, except maybe the Force ghost of Luke Skywalker at some point. I had my guy behead a wookie with a lightsaber once, and he got sent to Jedi prison and met Sith the E. T. Anyway, I say all this because the New Trilogy fucks with the background for my stories, which was based on the EU. So I wrote a terrible story to work it in:
http://www.the-unpublishable.com/2016/0 ... ities.html
Next time, I'm going to write one about TIE Fighters that are also mechas.
Deep Cuts In A Lovecraftian Vein
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