I greatly appreciate the comment about how Luke characterizes the Jedi in Return of the Jedi. I always liked that depiction more, and its kind of bewildered me how everyone seems to overlook it and just treat it like "Luke has finally gotten his superhero powers". Hamil plays Luke way better than people give him credit for in that movie.
Part of the misconceptions becoming lore is how they treat the Stormtroopers. In the OT, whenever the Stormtroopers fight enemies that aren't the heroes, they have no problem killing their targets. Then you see in the Death Star and Bespin, they miss their targets. We assume some plot armor or bad aim is at play, until one notices that Darth Vader told them to miss on purpose because he wants them alive and to go to the Falcon, which he bugged in the first movie and he disabled their hyperdrive in the second. The moment they no longer have a no-kill code against the heroes, the Stormtroopers hit Leia and Artoo on Endor, which is like two out of five of the command staff there. But when you look at new productions like Rebels, the Mandalorian, or Ahsoka, bad Stormtrooper aim is practically baked into the lore. Some pieces of lore even stated that the Stormtrooper rifle, the E-11, is known for being inaccurate, even though the heroes don't have a problem hitting bad guys with the E-11 when they use it, and the Stormtroopers likewise don't have a problem hitting enemy troopers with it, meaning that the E-11 is a functional battle rifle that can hit its targets well.
I suspect most of the misconception-to-lore pipeline started with the West End Games RPG material that was subsequently taken as canon by the various authors of the Extended Universe novels.
@@russellharrell2747 Last I checked, the RPG materials made Stormtroopers out to be elites who were ready for battle at a moment's notice, and they even created a whole class of regular Imperial Army Troopers who were far below them in quality. It's more like some authors for novels who came down the line who propagated the errors.
@@HolyknightVader999 stormtrooper stats didn’t seem too impressive. And depending on if the supplement book was Rebel or imperial there was certainly a bias in the less crunchy, lore-laden parts. The stormtroopers-as-losers idea seems to predate even WEG with the Droids series showing the empire in a less than competent light. TIE fighters have faired even worse than Stormtroopers though, being referred to as flying coffins despite the pilots being propped up as graduates of elite academies and analysis of the films showing TIEs outperforming their rebel counterparts and all starfighters not piloted by main characters being equally vulnerable in combat.
@@russellharrell2747 That absolutely isn't the case. In the WEG books, stormtroopers are emphasised as the elite of the Imperial military: running into a squad is a serious threat, even to player characters. Stormtroopers are competent, intelligent, well-equipped, and organised. If the public perception of stormtroopers had been rooted in WEG lore, Obi-Wan could be accused of downplaying their lethality. The idea that stormtroopers can't hit anything comes from casual fans talking to the general public. It was never part of the lore, except in the Disney reboot. Not sure what your point is with TIE Fighters, those have always been "flying coffins". The entire defining feature of the TIE is that it makes a series of extreme trade-offs. No shielding, sacrificed to be the fastest starfighter of its day. No hyperdrive, provisions, or air pressure in the cockpit. No torpedoes, no astromech droids: the TIE is merely the best starfighter in the galaxy, in several critical factors. Of course the TIE pilots are competent, otherwise they couldn't take advantage of such a vehicle.
@@DZ-X3 I still have most of the WEG material and if you haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend "The Far Orbit Project" which I believe was the very last campaign book to be released before WEG lost the licence, It is an absolute mine of information cribbed from all sorts of sources including the Tie Fighter and X wing video games. But the real point here is to focus on the section regarding antagonists / forces of the Empire. This has a great run down of different forces including veteran Stromtroopers, Imperial Navy Spec Forces and Storm Commando teams - these are REALLY well done and will present a serious threat even to seasoned Player characters...
Appreciate this video. Being 45, I saw ROTJ in the theater with my dad and lived and breathed the Expanded Universe through middle and high school. I was 8 different kinds of excited in the year of hype leading up to Episode I. With few exceptions, everything since then has been one long episode of, "George, I am disappoint." I have a 12 year old daughter who has passing familiarity with it, but isn't all that interested, and I can't summon the nerdish obstinance to force it on her, because it's mostly incapable of generating the wonder it should, and once did. The most I can do is harass my wife into watching Andor with me.
Much the same, except my disenchantment started a little earlier when I noticed the highly variable quality of the EU material - some of it really _was_ just fan fiction, and _bad_ fanfic at that. (Looking at you, Kevin J. Anderson...) Then came the Special Releases of the OT in 1997, which among other problems was the source of the idea that Greedo Shot First. Nevertheless, I was still excited to see Phantom Menace... until it came out. By the time AotC came out, New Star Wars was no longer an instant must-see event for me.
One of the things I like about your essays is that while I don't always agree with you, I am always interested in your thoughts and conclusions. In this particular case I might have disagreements about this film or that one, this detail or that character, but the underlying thrust of your argument is quite strong, especially in this age of cinematic universes. It's almost a shame that Star Wars is the perfect vehicle to discuss this, because the myths are so central to many that the larger themes of the essay can get lost under a pile of fannish disagreement and nit-picking. But I suppose that level of passion also proves the point.
The best scene in "Reign of Fire" is the play they put on for the children that is "Star Wars" with the black knight and the white knight. Felt lime what would happen with SW mythology organically.
Foster also ghost-wrote the original Star Wars novelization. The Star Wars comic book by marvel started publishing new material by issue 7, predating Splinter. But that’s just comics so I guess it doesn’t count as a book.
There must be _some_ kind of FTL communication in the first movie: when the _Millennium Falcon_ is captured by the Death Star, an Imperial officer reports that "Its markings match those of a freighter which blasted its way out of Mos Eisley spaceport." And so assuming that the _Falcon_ is fast, and that they traveled directly from the Tatooine system to the Alderaan system, that word probably was not carried by another ship. Obviously there must be some limitations to this capability for the story to work at all, as you point out; but what those limitations might be is entirely a mystery.
Good point, I hadn't thought about that line. But now that you point it out, it could be a sort of daisy-chain FTL. So for example the Stormtroopers on Mos Eisley call in to their command a description of the Falcon. That gets broadcast to all Imperial assets in the vicinity via standard light-speed transmissions as part of a constant security data-dump. Then every time one of those Imperial ships jumps to somewhere else via hyperdrive, they transmit their list of bulletins to all the local Imperial ships and permanent posts, who retransmit it as part of their bulletins. If thousands of ships are doing this as standard practice, information can travel across the galaxy very fast without either the ability to broadcast FTL or having a ship make a direct flight to report it.
Reminds me how the Legends of King Arthur grew over time. With each Court across Europe adding something in it followed by writers later in history writing their own versions to comment on the state of England during their time.
Tarkin got a message from scouts on Dantooine. There was interstellar comunication. Luke also talked about transmitting his application to the academy.
But we don't know how that message was delivered. It could have just as easily been the scouts sending a guy back to report, as was done by militaries before radio. That would be more consistent with everything else in the film. But in the end it's just a movie and writers fudge things to keep the story going, George may have note even worked it out at that point. Re. Luke's application to the academy (I'm going to have to do a video on interstellar comms I think) it doesn't have to be directly transmitted from Tattooine to Coruscant in real time. Since the Empire has ships jumping around the galaxy all the time, the most efficient method of sending messages over interstellar distances may be to have ships receive data packets from whatever system they're in, then retransmit them when they drop out of hyperspace somewhere else, on and on until some set termination point is reached. Information could cross the galaxy fairly quickly that way, relying only on what the Empire is already doing and not needing either a separate FTL comm technology or the energy and resources to operate it. But again, Star Wars on its own only gives us so much to work with.
@@feralhistorianThey had interstellar communication. Prior to Rogue One making it a literal data disc, intercepting those communications was how Darth Vader figured that Leia was guilty of sabotage.
Signals go from planet, satellite, or ship to ship at normal light speed. If you want faster it goes aboard a vessel and rides a hyperdrive... much like communications in the 1700s or the Traveller RPG.
Tarkin also strides into the Imperial conference room for his first scene with news that the Emperor had just dissolved the Senate. I suppose a courier ship could have delivered the message, but it seemed more immediate than that.
Maybe a wee bit of a digression, but I'm reminded of a few years ago when Lakota Medicine Man Leonard Crow Dog (one of the AIM occupiers at Wounded Knee) actually tried to Disneyfy one of the Lakota's most sacred stories. In the earliest contact written records we have of White Buffalo Woman, c. 1870s, the story ALWAYS goes that two hunters encountered the WBW, and one of them was so in lust at her beauty, he tried to rape her and was instantly struck dead, most versions saying he was reduced to bones for his transgression. In Crow Dog's retelling, he said both hunters listened to WBW message and both went back to their encampment to deliver that message. Crow Dog was widely criticized in the Lakota community for daring to change "canon", altering an essential detail, perhaps to do his own version of "Noble Savage" who is immune from white people's sins, or only does those sins after prolonged contact with white people. As it is, Crow Dog's version is now permanently in print, and for all I know, is out there on the Internet as THE authoritative version.
Interesting. I'd heard the story before in the original version and was not aware of Crow Dog's edit. Just recently I was at an art exhibition in the Black Hills and saw a rather elaborate stained glass representation of the story the old way, complete with the resulting pile of bones.
@@feralhistorianthey need to continue the eu Star Wars visions Lucasfilm have said that all versions of the Star Wars mythlodgy is equal So I don’t know what your taking about ????? Your clearly being mislead
Do you think the Red Dead Redemption games could be a good topic for a video? I think you could weave in a good analysis of how the Western genre has changed in recent decades, with a greater focus on “realism” and historical accuracy for many works in comparison with how the genre started in the pulps with idealized adventures featuring proto-superheroic interpretations of historical figures like Wyatt Earp and Davy Crockett.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I still haven't played Red Dead, but I'm definitely going to talk about the Western genre from a couple different angles. Still in the "incoherent pile of notes" stage on that though.
One side note: The Jedi clothing in KOTOR I looks more like that in the original trilogy, with exceptions being Bastila Shan and the "gray Jedi" Jolee Bindo. I much preferred this sleek design; the image of a Jedi as a mix between a cop and a priest fits much better with my personal headcanon. It was in KOTOR II when Obsidian changed this. By the way, you should make a video on KOTOR II as a deconstruction of Star Wars mythology.
I don't think a corporation can own a mythos. They can only own their version of a mythos. If they make minor alternations to the mythos, they will be incorporated (hehe) into the mythos. But when they make large unpopular alternations to the mythos, current followers of the mythos will stop consuming the corporations mythos (loss of customers and income) and *ignore* their version of the mythos as corporate fan fiction. As an aside, I highly recommend the video "Obiwan has PTSD".
There's a long history of field-grade officers wearing civilian clothes, custom uniforms, or whatever they feel like, with reasons ranging anywhere from it's what they were wearing during a surprise attack to wanting to feel pretty. Maybe on her planet, a long gown is formal command wear?
Nah, framerate didn't change, we must be CPU-bound. Been working my way through your stuff these past few days and they're all great. Keep up the good work my dude.
I’m an original SW fan who saw the first movie in the theater when I was 5. I consider all of SW to be a fairy tale. We’re told that in the very first “A long time ago.” So, I feel free to accept or reject anything in SW. It’s exactly as you said ancient myths develop. I like some of what Disney does (Mando, Obi-Wan, Rogue One, Andor, Solo) and ignore the rest in my “head canon.” Anyway, your videos are universally excellent. 👏
copyright laws need fixing. that's all I'll say. what was once supposed to keep innovation going. it has instead given big companies like Disney the ability to gate keep and just hold back innovation.
You say that, until you write or invent something yourself. Yes, copyright is abused. But a world without it, is a world where the little guy has lost any and every ability to protect his work.
Were you going for a slight Jedi look when you made this? Otherwise, I have nothing to add because I couldn't have put it better myself. It's also nice to see a prominent youtuber who acknowledges Qu Rahn, if I write a fanfiction, he is going to be in it. Did you care much for the Force Unleashed story? For me the Force Unleashed was the last of Star Wars as I knew it before the disney takeover.
It did occur to me that I had a vaguely Jedi look going, but actually that's just how I dress on warm days. The Force Unleashed is one of my Star Wars blindspots. It was out during one of those periods when I wasn't gaming (09 was a busy year) and I never picked it up. Is it any good?
I had never thought of the no FTL communications plot hole. I had always through that the Star Destroyer was jamming communications or something so they needed to put the data in R2.
ALL we EVER needed to know about Luke's father, the Clone Wars, and Darth Vader was in Obi Wan's conversation with Luke in the first movie. The revelations that Darth Vader was Luke's father and Leia was his sister were extremely clumsy and unnecessary. Darth Vader was just supposed to be a masked bad guy with connections to the emperor. Leia was just the damsel in distress who evolved into so much more. But did she really need to be Luke's sister? Nope. One of my biggest problems with the prequels have nothing to do with the endless talky bits about the the war and politics, but rather the deconstruction of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Reducing the most feared and mysterious character of the first film, to a scared little boy who misses his mother and the woman he loved was a huge let down. The Prequels could have focused on so many other things and yet wasted it's screen time telling a story we already knew the ending to. It's like going to see Titanic and being surprised the ship sank! For me, my Star Wars Mythology extends as far as the first three films, and if I really want to condense it more, I stick wit the first film!
Between the two trilogies George seems to have gotten a little confused. The first trilogy was Luke's story, then the prequels were treated like Anakin's story when in fact the entire saga was Anakin's fall and redemption arc. The prequels should have been Obi Wan's story. Instead he was a sidekick.
The problem w the prequels was not that they were so bad, but THAT they were prequels. It's why STrek is so bad. I mean, did we really need to know why the Klingon appearance changes show to show? The first Star Wars film- Star Wars, not New Hope or Old Faith- was an inane confection that ripped off far more entertaining predecessors starring Buster Crabbe. There was literally not a moment that I did not go- saw that here, saw that there, and it was worse than what was originally seen, and I saw this film when 13 and was bored stiff by it. That it's an atrocious Sub-Star Trek mess today was utterly written into its DNA from the get go.
It’s a shame Lucas didn’t keep the Skywalker and Vader characters separate, yet still have Vader be Luke’s father. Obi-Wan obviously doesn’t want to tell Luke the truth in ANH (yes I know it’s actually just Star Wars but it’s a convenient short hand) so what we hear has to be missing something. Luke’s aunt and uncle may have known Skywalker and been witness to him following Obi-wan to war and assume Luke is the son of Skywalker when Ben returns to Tatooine with the boy. What only Ben and I assume Yoda would know is that Vader, who was a young pupil of Ben’s, younger than Skywalker (Ben’s friend and confidant), was Vader’s son. Ben hid his former pupil’s son at the home of his murdered friend and gave his friend’s name to the boy. Luke then grows up thinking his ‘dad’ was just a navigator on a spice freighter. Ben continues the deception by telling Luke he’s the son of a famous Jedi knight, while putting him on the path to hating his actually father. The reveal in ESB can then take on an Arthurian theme, with Vader knowing Skywalker had no children, but Vader did…with Skywalker’s wife, possibly disguised by dark side powers, taking on the appearance of Skywalker. Is this any more complicated than the actual story that was revealed with Anakin and Vader being the same man? I doubt it. But Lucas went a different way, and now most fans wouldn’t be able to see the saga play out any differently than what they’ve been given. And of course Leia would not be Luke’s sister, since that little bit of story was supposed to have fueled at least another movie’s worth of plot in searching the galaxy for Luke’s long lost sibling.
I respectfully disagree. I love the character of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. I’m not usually a fan of deconstruction, but I think it works well with Anakin. The 2003 Clone Wars Micro Series was an excellent glimpse into Anakin’s time in the clone wars and the clone wars in general.
I always remembered growing up and it was implied that the Clone Wars was between 49-60 years before the first OT movie. I hated changes that Lucas made for the prequels including making the Jedi monks rather than Knights.
I don't think it's quite accurate to say that Anakin lacks empathy; the character is, after all, introduced to us by means of his intervening to save some hapless out-of-towner from a beating at the hands (or rather, feet?) of a local tough guy whom the goober had inadvertantly managed to provoke. *Then* he volunteers to risk his life and his rather meagre personal property in a high-stakes race to help out some other people whom he'd just met. When we meet him again, of course, he's different, perhaps damaged somehow now after ten years of Jedi training, which has given him the ability to effortlessly slaughter a whole tribe of Tusken Raiders in retaliation for their murder of his mother, but not the discipline to stave off the black rage that precipitated said massacre. However, he has not yet had his empathy beaten entirely out of him, specifically citing all of the Jedi who died on Geonosis as his reason for wanting to fight Dooku, and in "Revenge of the Sith," where he appears ironically somewhat better-adjusted despite being in the middle of a galactic war, one of the first things thst he's shown doing is trying to abandon his mission of rescuing the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine in order to save some clone starfighter pilots until Obi-Wan talks him down from it, and then soon after putting his life in jeopardy to haul Obi-Wan's unconscious body across the cavernous and rapidly-disintegrating enemy flagship. Bearing all of that in mind, it seems to me that, to the extent that Anakin appears to lack empathy at times, this is a product of Jedi ineptitude, and Palpatine taking advantage of the same for his own benefit.
@@feralhistorian Oh, .. just please. Most so-called fans Only seen the movie of RotS and never read the novel. Movie throwaway line from Windu to Anakin after told to sit take a seat, Windu .. " Are we boring you ?" Cause in the novel Anakin fell asleep in the chair and was suffering battle exhausting for the pass month. The way the novel was written when Palpatine was talking to Anakin, any D&D role player will tell you those lines was Bluff or Diplomacy skill check and using Charm spell or Effect Minds force power skill use. Palpatine has been dropping post hypnotic suggestion on Anakin for years. Also in the Clone Wars novels, Jedi were dropping out of the war and leaving the order over PTSD and the Jedi council wasn't dealing with it. Even IF Palpatine didn't send out the kill order, the Order was already done for. In Legends eight different factions were developing and one Jedi even went full Mandalorian armor. 2.) Other side note before the Prequals, no one knew Anything about the Republic fall cause Lucas had it off limits to write about. From the WEG west end games d6 RPG Star Wars, lightsabers were something very special making marking knighthood during its creation as an adult. Then the prequal novels came out along with Darkhorse comics with the new updated WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars RPG books. Creating a lightsaber was no longer anything special. 4th-level Jedi being 13years old pair up with a 26 or 28year old Jedi knight of 7th-level. Making their first saber before the age of 14years old. Even if the student/ padawan is not took in under a single knight for training, they still build a saber by the time they are 16years old. as part of their force training. Student and teacher then train together for the next 13 to 15 years where the padawan becomes a 7th-level Jedi at 26years old and the teacher is a 10th-level Jedi at 43years old by gaming Xp level table. Normal by that time the 43year old knight is granted the rank of master or wait till they are mid fifty or sixty years of age. Now other than the role playing gaming system. Anakin was a force of nature but lack the mental/emotional Maturity of a 30year old knight. The Jedi high council could not grant Anakin the rank of Master because he lack the maturity and balance state a forty year old with thirty years of life experience under his belt. He hasn't mellow out with age. Also in the novels, padawans that failed their knighthood test were stuck with the rank of padawan for the rest of their life. What trip up Anakin and other young knights that were fighting in the war. Padawans in their fifties were grant or address as Master but they had barely the raw combat power of the young padawans/ knight fighting the war. It just seem so unfair ! ( .. deep breath and drawn out sigh, ..) It is not power that defines a Jedi, it is balance and inner calmness. Which comes after 20 or 30years as an adult. 3.) Then you have the whole attachment and marry family thing, .. Old EU pre 2000's Prequal. Han Solo home system Corillian, lot of green robe Jedi came from there. Most of them are related by .. blood. They regard the Jedi Order temple as a prep military boarding school. They regard themselves first being a space cop or smuggler that just happens to been raised at the Jedi temple. With Darkhorse comics and the Young Jedi series. Corillian Jedi had bloodlines and train their 1st to 8th cousins as mentors. And a few times during the Clone War novels, the Corillian told Anakin that being a Jedi is not an end all be all thing in life. b.) Everyone knows how Anakin story ends cause that is the way it was written. The authors just wrote what came before as being multiple outs that Anakin could, should, but could not take, which just makes his fall even more tragic. c.) As my multiple D&D gaming groups agree to after Reading the original RotJ and not From a Certain Point of View/ Life and Death of " fill in blank," series. Vader didn't toss Palpatine to save his son's life. Vader had an impulse of rage of the darkside cause he was just sick and tired of Palpatine's trash talking. I grew up in a bad way around people with anger issues and so did a lot of other people I met over the years. Seen enough times of teenagers trying to double hand throat choke someone up against a wall over the years. Then there were the bar fights. People diving across tables to strangle another with their bare hands. Not saying Lucas didn't write a great story and movie, but ... I have seen people snap many time from PTSD. Thank you for your time. You have a great narrator voice.
@@krispalermo8133 All interesting points. Like many, I have not read the novelization of any of the Star Wars films. And while I would scoff at anyone discussing Dune (for example) based solely on watching one of the adaptations, Star Wars was written as a screenplay first. Its native form is cinema. New material can be added in other media, gaps can be filled and character motivations made clear, but the pure form is what was on the screen. That said, RotS absolutely should have included some of the detail you mentioned. There wasn't much sense of a major war going one after that opening battle over Coruscant and the Jedi certainly didn't come across as a strained force suffering from too many deployments. A missed opportunity, to say the least.
@@feralhistorian Thank you for the time to reply, ..few points. a.) I tried over twenty years to learn to draw, I have not the talent or develop skill to create comic books. All of the first trilogy was film story board comic book picture action. Story telling with body language action without words. show don't tell or use words to explain. Comic book cinema, well George Wanted to do a Buck Rogers/ Flash Gordon. b.) As for the Prequals of AotC, I bought the sound tract, tune my tv to black & white with no sound and played the sound track along with the movie and it worked for me. I never had a problem with silent movies or reading sub text from foreign films. On one hand the Prequals were bad on the other hand, many people over the years turn those movies into great 5minute to 10minute music video tribute. From watching/ listening the director's cut with the directors and actors review the filming experience and listening to the director and effects crew talking about how the movie was put together. They had to cut 90min from the movie so it could be watch in one setting at the movie theaters. c.) Dune, omg the 80's I grew up on was just .. weird. The late 1990's Syfy channel mini series of Dune and Children of Dune. I tried as a teenager to read the Dune series but I just got bored with it. Now as for the Syfy series, not bad and enjoy my time, then Children of Dune I had few what the ? And my D&D gaming shop talked and argue about. First off the actors from one series worked in the second series. Just because Spice slowed aging, real human actors can age/ mature rapidly in a short few years. The imperial princess looked more than a few years older and they put grey in her hair which many of my gaming shop had a problem with. Then others pointed out, the children were flying their shuttlecraft Inside of the Worm's mouth for fun. Their stepmom the imperial princesses didn't find the action to be amusing or worth laughing about. I could see Where the grey in her hair came from.
@@krispalermo8133 arguing that Vader attacked Palpatine for any reason *other* than to protect his son is rather counterintuitive. Everything before and that moment is hyper-focused on the filial relationship between Luke and Vader and Luke using *that* as a wedge against Vader's loyalty to the Emperor, which Vader directly comments on and acknowledges the validity of. "Tell your sister you were right about me," i.e. there *was* some good left in me, and as a result, I turned against my master to save my son, rather than as a result of some random and heretofore unexpected fit of pique.
3:20 I like to describe the way Obi-Wan dresses in A New Hope as his "desert hobo disguise". 8:49 Personally, I think that Disney's decision to convert the old EU into Legends, and start over from basically scratch was the best thing they could do. Rather than try and incorporate the mess that the EU had become, they set it all aside and started picking out all the best bits of it while leaving the rest in a sort of odd semi-canon.
In correct on the faster than light communication. Tarkin is told that the scouts have reached Dantooine and found the remnants of a rebel base. The phrasing does not imply they went and came back. It is implied that they are there and found the old base. So unless Dantooine is next to Alderan then they had to communicate faster than light.
I just rewatched that scene to be sure and yes, in isolation it sort of implies that they called it in from Dantooine. But it could just as easily mean they sent a courier back to report, which is more consistent with the other details implying a lack of FTL comms. Taken in context, it implies old-school recon, like before radio. The guy with the fastest horse has to ride back and report.
The Death Star personnel knew about the Falcon blasting out of Mos Eisley, implying the Imperials in orbit radioed to the DS or put out an APB on the Falcon. Unless it’s more reasonable to assume an imperial currier or scout ship reached the DS faster than the ‘fastest ship in the galaxy’, just to let Tarkin know about a random bear up freighter possibly heading to alderaan…which the Imperials in orbit around Tatooine wouldn’t know was the destination and target for the DS.
@russellharrell2747 you could argue that "the fastest ship in the galaxy" is a smuggler basting about his abilities. But it does seem likely they have FTL communication. Another way of seeing this is they put a homing beacon on the Falcon to track it to alderaan. How would that work without sending a FTL signal?
I see a Feral Historian video, I click. Another fine video, sir. I stopped watching the Star Wars movies after "Episode One" for this very reason. The bastardization of the lore reminds me of what Games Workshop has been doing in recent years to 40k. Absolutely no respect for the core material.
This is pretty brilliant. I've been watching a lot of your videos lately, and I especially enjoy all the sci-fi stuff. But you really nailed it on this one, with the analysis of myth and Campbell, etc. Keep up the great work.
I want Solo's Galaxy. The Force is a myth to scare kids. Only a fool brings a melee weapon to a blaster fight. Incompetent JJ missed his chance to have Han "Indiana Jones" the two Troopers, who for some reason bring upgraded staffs to a blaster fight. I came for Sci-fi (if rather lose in definition). Star Wars is now firmly swords and sorcery without the boobs, and I want none of it.
I have. The catch is that Deus Ex was out during a time when I wasn't doing any gaming, so I have to play it now as time permits. But it's been recommended frequently and is on my list.
The algorithm smiled gravely. “Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too
I love you're description of Return of the Jedi Luke. I enjoy the samurai aesthetic of the prequel Jedi, but i like the idea of him being a pastor that can figt when necessary (despite the fact that I think comparing jedi to western religion encourages the misconceptions about Christianity to be associated with jedi).
I am no master when it comes to Star Wars, but one should go look at the Ikko-Ikki in Japan to see what the Jedi are related the closest to. Warrior monks. Although, small little young Feral Historian had probably not heard about the Ikko-Ikki when he first saw the movie :)
The reason I hated the star sequel trilogy was that it was literally just the original trilogy retold. They mixed some story elements, moved some scenes around but it is just that. The original trilogy. It's a shocking display of how Hollywood decision makers are terrified to invest in new properties and will gleefully pump money into existing franchises till they extrude every last possible penny from fans.
Nothing demonstrates who far they have fallen than comparing the beginning of star was with the end of Rouge One. Darth Vader, a competent high ranking officer let's his subordinates do their job in capturing Tantive IV. He is close enough to be immediately on the scene for the important task of recovering the highly classified information. He can use the force to strangle you at a distance he could do it manually and he picks the Tantive IV's captain up by the throat, himself. At the end of rogue one, hours or minutes before, he is a human wrecking ball, smashing people and machinery aside with magic. His soldiers are janitors to clean up the after action mess.
Considering the only good Star Wars I've seen in the past decade has been from fan projects 90% of the time, I'd say it belongs to the fans. Good luck, Disney. Their are more of us than there are of you. Some examples Star Wars room builders. 3D print files for nearly every droid/prop For the Empire by AFK Various X-Wing fan films. The Millenium Falcon project.
My perspective is going to be very different from yours, but please following along. First of all, I do not consider the old stories to be just stories told. I do believe that the Odyssey is history. That it is a history book. I do believe that the Trojan War happened and that Odysseus, Ajax and Achillies was there for the duration of the decade long war. And I do fully believe that it took Odysseus a decade to get home to his wife and son. Now, is everything in the story true? Did Ares come down from the sky to join the fighting? Did Odysseus and him men blind the Cyclops? Perhaps and probably not. Perhaps some of it is true. I can not comment or know that far. But I fully do believe that the stories of old carry more truth than not. From the original tale of King Arthur, not the French fanfiction that was added much later. To the original story of Robin Hood, not the later fanfiction that was added later. And, I believe with everything that I am, that the New Testament is literal truth. Not a myth. Not a good story. But the literal truth. And so, I have no problem believing that Athena is an Angel sent by the Lord. But that is something else for another comment and conversation. I do put a large barrier between a story that is true, or that carries truth. To that of a story that is made to entertain, or communicate, or explain, or make money, or convey a message. These are very different things that come from different places. A campfire tale is not the same as Scripture. And a long drunken joke is not the same as a historical recording. We do them all, but they are not the same. ---------------- Now, to the actual topic of the video. As these are stories. They are yours the moment it enters your mind. When you buy a book, you have the full right to do whatever you want with that book. You hate the ending? Rip the pages out. You want to redo the start? Make up your own. Want to read it back to front? Go for it. How something looks, feels, smells, is entirely yours. What is not explicitly said and happens between paragraphs and chapters is entirely up to you to make up. If you want Frodo and Gandalf to have an extra conversation? Then that's entirely within your right as a thinking human being. Everyone SHOULD have a head-canon. That is what transforms a good written work, to something truly special. From children running around the yard with sticks pretending to be characters from Star Wars, or someone older who sits down and writes out entire Star Wars stories for their own amusement. This only elevates the world that exists for you, and to others who may enjoy your take on that universe. Yes, copyright exist as an economic reality. And it should. But that has absolutely no power over what exists within you, and what you talk about to your friends. If you want to make every character in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings to a different race or gender, or if you want to get really smutty about it. Nobody on this planet can stop you. The moment you have heard or seen a story, the story and the universe is yours. This was how I started writing. It all started with me filling in additional stories for the Dragon Age and Mass Effect. By the time Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 was released, I had already written out some basic ideas and additional stories that took place for my Warden and my Shepard. And before then, back when I was around 10 years old, around the time of the release of Return of the King. Me and my friends would run around with sticks, pretending to be various characters. Making up additional events and fights that took place in that universe. Always trying to follow canon (at least as far as we knew it). And always enjoying ourselves. Running around the farm with a friend, carrying sticks and tracking orcs, are some of my fondest childhood memories. ---------------------- And so, to the people who feel slighted by Disney's decision to scrap and make their own Disney canon. Why would anyone truly care? The full-blown over-dedicated fans have always filled in the blanks with how the Star Wars world worked. From throwing the whole "Midi-chlorian" concept out the window. Or making Anakin/Vader a truly terrifying Evil Knight. Or jumping ship entirely with that era, and instead spending entire focus on the Old Republic Era instead. Which is, let's be honest, far more interesting. The old canon is still there. Just because Disney has decided to do one thing, does not mean that anyone has to follow along. And, if people truly do care. They should just rename the Lightsaber to something like a Flashy Glow Saber. And then write their own stories in a setting and universe that is similar. That has always been my number one recommendation. To just write your own. You will find far more satisfaction from a setting and universe that you yourself have control over. Submitting your dedication and mental capacity to a megacorporation is both terrifying and disgusting. And something I can no longer understand. So, my advice for people is to just write your own.
All good points. I would add that there’s a lot of gradation with history, legend, and straight-up fiction. Using the Odyssey example, I put it in the same category as Saving Private Ryan as far as historical truth. WWII happened, the D-Day landing was real, but the personal stories of those characters, while sometimes based loosely on real events and people, were heavily fictionalized. As a historical source it can give you some useful truth, but it can also be misleading. A lot of the old stories, I think, fall into this category. They start with real events, but they’re crafted into narratives to better convey ideas and to hold the interest of an audience. Just as far more people watched Band of Brothers than read after-action reports of Easy Company’s engagements. Scripture is another good example. The Gospels contradict each other in numerous details and therefore can’t be 100% literal truth, but they can still be essentially true on the important points. Personally I think there’s been a lot of embellishment and inaccuracy, but that doesn’t change their relevance as stories conveying a core message rooted in the life and teachings of the actual Jesus of Nazareth who preached some things that riled the Roman and Judean authorities enough to take him out. And then on the far end of that spectrum we have things like Star Wars. No one believes that it’s literally true, but a lot of people have integrated it into their philosophical outlook. And it’s deeply influenced by the recent history of the time in which it was created. There’s a heavy WWII influence in both its style and themes. There’s a lot of Vietnam-era commentary woven through the trilogy. It’s as much a story about America in the 20th Century as a galaxy far, far away. We’re narrative creatures, we fit everything into stories. And we often have multiple reasons for doing so. Conveying truth, entertaining, and making money aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
@@feralhistorian First of all, I do applaud you for replying to so many comments. Even commenting on your older videos. It is, in all honesty, impressive. Now for the lengthy reply. I do agree with you. Personally, I would put the Odyssey closer to Band of Brothers than Saving Private Ryan. Band of Brothers is closer to the truth than Private Ryan, but that show also fiddles with what truly did happen for the sake of the narrative. Such as merging the encounter with the American fighting for the Germans, to then being killed by Spiers. In real-life, those two events happened at different times. But for the show, it was merged into a single event. Or how "Foxhole Norman" was turned into a representation of bad the Officers coming in, and then sucking at their job. He was certainly not celebrated by the men, hence the nickname. But his character became a caricature to serve the narrative. Which his family, as you probably know, certainly did not appreciate. I do not disagree with you, I am only "connecting to it" in a slightly different way than you do. As I said, Ares coming down to join the fighting, is pretty unlikely. An example as to why, is Hannibal Barca. The City of Carthage worshipped Hercules (or a form or likeness of him) as their god (primary god or whatnot, I am not a Carthage expert). And Hannibal looked at the story of Hercules's 10th labour, where he moved a herd of cattle through the Alps. And he took this, and followed the path through with his army, and doing what he did in Italy. But, as you stated, Saving Private Ryan also teaches us of the D-Day landing and the invasion of Europe while being a fictional story. So again, I agree with you more than I disagree with you. In a different way, it's like the recorded history of Julius Ceasar and the conquest of Gaul. And all recorded history really. Nobody denies the existence of Julius Ceasar. Nobody denies the conquest of Gaul. We know who was involved, we know when things happened. it is the history we have. Is every number given correct? Is every quote correct? That is not for me to say. But I will stand by that it is true. It certainly carries far more truth than fabrication. Some may say that the numbers given are wrong or embellished. Which may be true. Or, it is stubborn skepticism. Or with the Battle of Thermopylae. Here we see figures going from 4 million Persians, all the way down to as low as just 100 thousand. Which reminds me of recent figures that came out from China and the Soviet Union about their deaths and famines and all that. I am not in any position to say which number is correct. Only that the battle that took place would have been quite the sight to behold. The number I cannot say, but that the battle took place I have zero doubt to. ----------- Of course meaning, learning, conveying, teaching, all this stuff can be done through made up stories. I do not take away from that. And I certainly do not deny using fiction as commentary of what is going on around us. It would be a pretty strange thing for me to do considering how much I have been working on my own written stuff. But it is a flimsy universe that Lucas created. First he started changing it. Then a whole army of people added their own to it. And then he sold it, and the Mouse changed it even more. My take is simply that, we should take what we can from it. But leave it at that. We should never allow a person, government, or corporation, tell us what is "correct" Star Wars, and what is bad and should be forgotten. Star Wars is what people want it to be. They can make it what they want it to be. If they want the Jedi to be Knights and the Jedi Order a sort-of-space-church. Then kudos to them. Or, if you want to be a bit closer to Japan, you can make them more like the Ikko-Ikki, and have them be warrior monks. ------------- The New Testament is far more cohesive and coherent than the Old. There is an obvious reason for this. We know who wrote the Gospels. While the Old Testament carries thousands of years of condensed history. That's why I specifically said the New, and not the Old in the comment. Job, as an example, is old Hebrew comedy, and obviously not to be taken literally. While Jonah stuck in the whale, is just a dream. And then the whole Old Testament being filled with old songs, sayings, and all the rest that a collection 'stuff' is going to carry. While with the New Testament, each Gospel starts with "The Gospel according to [name]" But this is the wrong place to talk about the Gospel, we can hopefully do that another time. it's like discussing the meaning of life over text-message, it would be all wrong. ------------------ Again, I cannot stress how appreciative I am that you take time to reply to your comments. I wish you the best. And I am looking forward to your coming videos, where I will assuredly leave long comments on. It's a relaxing thing, to stretch the brain a bit after a day's work. Thank you.
"Decanonizng." That's what Napoleon attempted to do in post-Revolutionary France, isn't it? Right down to changing the days of the week and the week itself to 8 days in an attempt to create a "new order." The Festivals and myths of the Church became recast as the Festivals and myths of the Empire... The reality is that "the faithful" hung onto the old myths despite the attempts of the State to determine otherwise.
You're conflating Napoleon with the Jacobins that came before him. The Revolutionary calendar and the Church of Reasons were products of a more radical phase of the Revolution that Napoleon helped bring to an end. Also, to conflate the French Revolutionaries' ham-fisted attempt to free themselves from centuries of aristocratic and religious oppression with Lucasfilm not wanting to be shackled to something a B-grade sci-fi author wrote in 1997 is a little hyperbolic.
Napoleon didn’t do that. It was the numerous post-revolutionary governments that did that. In fact his rise to power was in many ways a reaction against those things.
I swear, you and I share a brain. Back in the early 2000s, when I also wanted to be a cop, I conceived of myself as Luke in *Jedi,* a hybrid priest/constable.
2:40 Obi-Wan is at the *ass end of the Galaxy*, the simple answer is no one gives a shit. Also Beru and Owens know who Obi-Wan is, but few others even on Tattooine do 3:06 In the Clone Wars we DO see Jedi wear armor or even uniforms, same in the past. There's armored Jedi as officers in war.
Someone who understand Star Wars Luke and leia kissing Anakin and Vader being the same people Is just the same Has Rey and Palpatine being related It’s a mythology
That is between a man and his own conscience. I'm thinking about doing a video on things the Disney-era films did well, even things may have improved the lore . . . From a certain point of view.
I’d say that the Disney policy of decanonizing the EU allowed great freedom in adapting the EU to live action, similar to adapting any literature to the big or little screen. With mixed results at best.
SW & Disney SW has been a dance of light and dark and (shrudder) gray -- something that perhaps with the distance of time (and some declassified Disney management history) can make sense of . My rekindled interest in SW came during the 5th season of the Clone Wars, just in time to have it reach both Star Trek levels of exploration of what is humanity and expandable humans ... -- and just in time to have Disney snatch it away from me / us . And while I like everyone else love to shit on Disney ... -- it really is a mixed bag that brought us a lot of Kathleen Kennedy ... , but also some interesting reflection on society (much lik the OT was in the mind of Lucas ...) , such as this amazing Neo-Marxist SJW post-modernist dialogue* (during the Trump years) , foreshadowing what was to come ... , as Maul spoke truth to power (and power being oblivious) , not knowing that things were about to get much worse : Ashoka : "I'm here to bring you to Justice !" Maul : "Justice is merely a construct of the current Power Base ..." "... a base that ... according to my calculations ... is about to Change." Ashoka : With your help, the Jedi can stop Sidious before it's too late ." Maul : "Too late ? For what ? The Republic** to fall ?" "It has already has , you just can't see it !" "There is no Justice! No Law! No Order!" "Except for The One one that will Replace It !" * I'll attach the video in a reply, so this post won't get nuked by the rhythm ** America
12:12 I think you're approaching the inherent buffoonishness of the Empire and the EU's warlords with rose-colored glasses. Just like real-life fascists, the Imperials were thugs in nice uniforms and wrapped in the trappings of formality and tradition, but their beliefs were ridiculous and their personalities hilariously petty. It's fitting and proper that Hux sounds like space-Alex Jones or Nick Fuentes while totally sucking at everything he does, because those guys are *awful* at everything except loudly shouting into an echo chamber full of the worst people imaginable.
To defend the decanonisation. Disney wanted to create their own stories and the EU answers anything and everything. It even retconned itself a lot. Everyone knows how those stories end. Also I should add on that even the Disney films will be someone’s mythology one day.
I do suspect that, 20-some years on, Disney Star Wars will be held in higher regard than it is today. Much like the reevaluation of the Prequels in recent years. Rogue One and Andor in particular I think will exert significant influence on the next generation's view of Star Wars.
Ridiculous, Rian Johnson made the best star wars since Empire. As a matter of fact, TLJ is the best Dune Adaptation EVA !!! Redeemed Luke Skywalker only to be destroyed by JarJar Abrams and the House of the Rat !
I'm planning on a "ten years later" rewatch of the Last Jedi, just to see how it plays with some distance. I think it's going to require copious amounts of vodka though.
I think it's important to distinguish the difference between mythology and mythos. Fiction can have a mythos- Superman and Krypton, Doomsday, and Star Wars has a mythos. Star Trek has a mythos, as does Flash Gordon or James Bond or even Moby-Dick or Pinocchio. But, generally, mythology refers to no-fiction beliefs. They can be unreal, but mythology is twinned and twined w religion. The old saying that mythology is discarded religion. No one ever believed Superman was real. They believe Jesus is real. King Arthur and Set and Thor and Zeus are myths, as is Yahweh, but that's because people believed at some point they were real. We know Darth Vader and Capt Kirk are NOT real. No one ever thought they were. Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, and co. are or were thought to be real. And it's an important distinction. Real people can me mythologized, but fictive characters just have a mythos.
There's a subtlety here though that we miss, largely due to being immersed in Abrahamic religions with their monotheistic creator god. From my own historical studies of Roman and Scandinavian beliefs (which admittedly is not my primary field) I don't think we can look at those mythologies through the lens of literal belief in actual guys named Zeus or Odin so much as avatars of forces. For example, when I've looked into the Viking practice of etching a Tyr rune into a sword, it seems to be somewhere between a prayer as we would understand it ("please Thor, help me win this one" like asking a favor from another conscious being) and slapping a Punisher skull on a rifle (invoking the idea of the Punisher while knowing he's not real) I'm thinking too of stories like the Illiad, where the gods whisper thoughts to the characters. How much of it is "but Aries and Athena made me do it" and how much is literary device using the common references of the day? Mythos, mythology, and religion are more a continuum than a set of hard distinctions.
@@feralhistorian What did Yahweh do with Abraham but whisper that he needed to sacrifice Isaac to prove his faith. Lot and his wife were whispered to not look back. Moses was whispered to build a big boat, and on and on. I recently wrote a play on the Vikings and Sami and there's no doubt the Norse, and even the Sami, were die hard believers in the Norse gods. There is still an active cult of Apollo in Greece. Granted, these are small sects now, but size does NOT always matter in all matters. I'd say in 4000 AD the odds that the Abrahamic religions are more like these small sects than what they are now id almost a surety. The senescence of faith always is a scabbing then falling away. And, let's face it, Yahweh started out as a Levantine god of storms, and Jesus has at least a dozen and a half man-god antecedents in other then contemporaneous myths- from Gilgamesh to Heracles. That these obvious borrowings says much of the ability of Jews to borrow and remold, but I don't think it's fair to state that there were no real believers in them. Yes, Greeks and Nordics were a bit more skeptical of their Gods, and we could do with a bit of that today, but the larger point is we know Siege and Schuster made Supes, Finger and Kane made Bats, Ditko and Lee made Spidey, Roddenberry made Kirk, and Lucas made Han. Whoever created Odin is lost to time, and it likely was a multigenerational oozing of ideas that finally concretized long after those initial believers lives. It'd be quite scary to see a cult of Picard take off.
This video was 98% a great analysis, but the 2% that was a weird rant about cancel culture definitely tempted me to stop watching (I don't need Kathleen Kennedy conspiracy videos in my recommended), especially since you (perhaps unintentionally) downplayed SW's recurring criticism of capitalism, yet brought up Marxism of all things. Otherwise, it was pretty excellent. My other nitpick is I do think it's a little inaccurate to say the EU started with the Thrawn Trilogy though, even if it had a soft restart of sorts there, since there were the Marvel comics and the Han/Lando trilogies (and Splinter of the Minds Eye). Controversially, I'd say most people would rather forget the Lando books (too bleak) and Splinter (too awkward), but the Han Solo Adventures unquestionably played a heavy influence on later EU works.
You know, I'm not really political in the partisan sense, just vehemently anti-authoritarian regardless of ideology. But as an old guy I don't think too much of today's "progressivism" and as a historian I'm 100% certain it isn't going to age well. You make a good point regarding the Marvel comics and Splinter of the Mind's Eye. They're kind of the first Expanded Universe, nipped off by Empire and Jedi.
WEG west end games d6 dice pool system Star Wars RPG, riding off d20 roll under system D&D/ Traveler Syfy. WEG came up with the alien names from the bar and Jaba palace along with reference rules for space travel and the under preforming weak speed of Star Wars flying craft in atmosphere. Which used as guild lines for the Thrawn trilogy. Other than many foul ups of WED abstract d6 dice pool " Yahtzee ," Stander RPG Star Wars from WEG to WotC 4e Saga Edition and whatever they used now. The travel time from a planet to its nearest moon is 30minutes. And that is around 1light second. With 6seconds action rounds and each given class of spaceship had a given amount of actions it could take with it that time span. For teenagers it was an algebra word math problem. Mass x speed for kinetic impact for damage outcome. Cheap tramp freighter could fly one light second per 30minuts or 2ls/h. The T/e interceptor from RotJ makes a 7.5minute flight or 4 light seconds per hour. Problem is the book left out human reflex speed times in boxing and knife fighting which is 1/7 to 1/10 of a second. Notice incoming missile or laser targeting and reaction to dodge with flight controller. So closest to how far away the ship can dodge incoming fire For some reason people forget ten years of WEG Star Wars game adventures during the 1990's. Cash grabbing off of novel and comic sells. My first Star Wars Minis were stander green plastic army men spray painted white. Along with Splinter of the Mind's Eye temple kybar crystal of healing which broke apart and turn into a few lightsaber crystals.
I greatly appreciate the comment about how Luke characterizes the Jedi in Return of the Jedi. I always liked that depiction more, and its kind of bewildered me how everyone seems to overlook it and just treat it like "Luke has finally gotten his superhero powers". Hamil plays Luke way better than people give him credit for in that movie.
Favorite part is when you talk about the Jedi garb, fusion between 'cop and priest,' as well as the Jedi switch between pastor and spec ops.
Part of the misconceptions becoming lore is how they treat the Stormtroopers. In the OT, whenever the Stormtroopers fight enemies that aren't the heroes, they have no problem killing their targets. Then you see in the Death Star and Bespin, they miss their targets. We assume some plot armor or bad aim is at play, until one notices that Darth Vader told them to miss on purpose because he wants them alive and to go to the Falcon, which he bugged in the first movie and he disabled their hyperdrive in the second. The moment they no longer have a no-kill code against the heroes, the Stormtroopers hit Leia and Artoo on Endor, which is like two out of five of the command staff there.
But when you look at new productions like Rebels, the Mandalorian, or Ahsoka, bad Stormtrooper aim is practically baked into the lore. Some pieces of lore even stated that the Stormtrooper rifle, the E-11, is known for being inaccurate, even though the heroes don't have a problem hitting bad guys with the E-11 when they use it, and the Stormtroopers likewise don't have a problem hitting enemy troopers with it, meaning that the E-11 is a functional battle rifle that can hit its targets well.
I suspect most of the misconception-to-lore pipeline started with the West End Games RPG material that was subsequently taken as canon by the various authors of the Extended Universe novels.
@@russellharrell2747 Last I checked, the RPG materials made Stormtroopers out to be elites who were ready for battle at a moment's notice, and they even created a whole class of regular Imperial Army Troopers who were far below them in quality. It's more like some authors for novels who came down the line who propagated the errors.
@@HolyknightVader999 stormtrooper stats didn’t seem too impressive. And depending on if the supplement book was Rebel or imperial there was certainly a bias in the less crunchy, lore-laden parts. The stormtroopers-as-losers idea seems to predate even WEG with the Droids series showing the empire in a less than competent light. TIE fighters have faired even worse than Stormtroopers though, being referred to as flying coffins despite the pilots being propped up as graduates of elite academies and analysis of the films showing TIEs outperforming their rebel counterparts and all starfighters not piloted by main characters being equally vulnerable in combat.
@@russellharrell2747 That absolutely isn't the case. In the WEG books, stormtroopers are emphasised as the elite of the Imperial military: running into a squad is a serious threat, even to player characters. Stormtroopers are competent, intelligent, well-equipped, and organised. If the public perception of stormtroopers had been rooted in WEG lore, Obi-Wan could be accused of downplaying their lethality. The idea that stormtroopers can't hit anything comes from casual fans talking to the general public. It was never part of the lore, except in the Disney reboot.
Not sure what your point is with TIE Fighters, those have always been "flying coffins". The entire defining feature of the TIE is that it makes a series of extreme trade-offs. No shielding, sacrificed to be the fastest starfighter of its day. No hyperdrive, provisions, or air pressure in the cockpit. No torpedoes, no astromech droids: the TIE is merely the best starfighter in the galaxy, in several critical factors. Of course the TIE pilots are competent, otherwise they couldn't take advantage of such a vehicle.
@@DZ-X3 I still have most of the WEG material and if you haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend "The Far Orbit Project" which I believe was the very last campaign book to be released before WEG lost the licence, It is an absolute mine of information cribbed from all sorts of sources including the Tie Fighter and X wing video games. But the real point here is to focus on the section regarding antagonists / forces of the Empire. This has a great run down of different forces including veteran Stromtroopers, Imperial Navy Spec Forces and Storm Commando teams - these are REALLY well done and will present a serious threat even to seasoned Player characters...
Appreciate this video. Being 45, I saw ROTJ in the theater with my dad and lived and breathed the Expanded Universe through middle and high school. I was 8 different kinds of excited in the year of hype leading up to Episode I.
With few exceptions, everything since then has been one long episode of, "George, I am disappoint."
I have a 12 year old daughter who has passing familiarity with it, but isn't all that interested, and I can't summon the nerdish obstinance to force it on her, because it's mostly incapable of generating the wonder it should, and once did.
The most I can do is harass my wife into watching Andor with me.
Much the same, except my disenchantment started a little earlier when I noticed the highly variable quality of the EU material - some of it really _was_ just fan fiction, and _bad_ fanfic at that. (Looking at you, Kevin J. Anderson...) Then came the Special Releases of the OT in 1997, which among other problems was the source of the idea that Greedo Shot First. Nevertheless, I was still excited to see Phantom Menace... until it came out. By the time AotC came out, New Star Wars was no longer an instant must-see event for me.
Got ya both beat. I’ve been a disgruntled SW fan since 1983 with ROTJ failing to live up to my childhood expectations.
One of the things I like about your essays is that while I don't always agree with you, I am always interested in your thoughts and conclusions. In this particular case I might have disagreements about this film or that one, this detail or that character, but the underlying thrust of your argument is quite strong, especially in this age of cinematic universes. It's almost a shame that Star Wars is the perfect vehicle to discuss this, because the myths are so central to many that the larger themes of the essay can get lost under a pile of fannish disagreement and nit-picking. But I suppose that level of passion also proves the point.
Even I don't always agree with me when a little time is involved.
The best scene in "Reign of Fire" is the play they put on for the children that is "Star Wars" with the black knight and the white knight. Felt lime what would happen with SW mythology organically.
Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster was the first Star Wars expansion book which has still not been fully paid for by Lucas Film.
Didn't GL have a good working relationship with Alan?
I can't imagine GL stiffing an author how helped him ghost-write the first movie's novelization.
@@kiethhammer6882 Disney stiffed Foster
@@mightybluespider OK, so it's what I thought was happening.
Foster also ghost-wrote the original Star Wars novelization.
The Star Wars comic book by marvel started publishing new material by issue 7, predating Splinter. But that’s just comics so I guess it doesn’t count as a book.
There must be _some_ kind of FTL communication in the first movie: when the _Millennium Falcon_ is captured by the Death Star, an Imperial officer reports that "Its markings match those of a freighter which blasted its way out of Mos Eisley spaceport." And so assuming that the _Falcon_ is fast, and that they traveled directly from the Tatooine system to the Alderaan system, that word probably was not carried by another ship. Obviously there must be some limitations to this capability for the story to work at all, as you point out; but what those limitations might be is entirely a mystery.
Good point, I hadn't thought about that line. But now that you point it out, it could be a sort of daisy-chain FTL. So for example the Stormtroopers on Mos Eisley call in to their command a description of the Falcon. That gets broadcast to all Imperial assets in the vicinity via standard light-speed transmissions as part of a constant security data-dump.
Then every time one of those Imperial ships jumps to somewhere else via hyperdrive, they transmit their list of bulletins to all the local Imperial ships and permanent posts, who retransmit it as part of their bulletins.
If thousands of ships are doing this as standard practice, information can travel across the galaxy very fast without either the ability to broadcast FTL or having a ship make a direct flight to report it.
@@feralhistorian Both in the movie, and in the original book though, they get an immediate report back from the scouts sent to investigate Dantooine.
Reminds me how the Legends of King Arthur grew over time. With each Court across Europe adding something in it followed by writers later in history writing their own versions to comment on the state of England during their time.
Tarkin got a message from scouts on Dantooine. There was interstellar comunication. Luke also talked about transmitting his application to the academy.
But we don't know how that message was delivered. It could have just as easily been the scouts sending a guy back to report, as was done by militaries before radio. That would be more consistent with everything else in the film.
But in the end it's just a movie and writers fudge things to keep the story going, George may have note even worked it out at that point.
Re. Luke's application to the academy (I'm going to have to do a video on interstellar comms I think) it doesn't have to be directly transmitted from Tattooine to Coruscant in real time. Since the Empire has ships jumping around the galaxy all the time, the most efficient method of sending messages over interstellar distances may be to have ships receive data packets from whatever system they're in, then retransmit them when they drop out of hyperspace somewhere else, on and on until some set termination point is reached.
Information could cross the galaxy fairly quickly that way, relying only on what the Empire is already doing and not needing either a separate FTL comm technology or the energy and resources to operate it.
But again, Star Wars on its own only gives us so much to work with.
@@feralhistorianThey had interstellar communication. Prior to Rogue One making it a literal data disc, intercepting those communications was how Darth Vader figured that Leia was guilty of sabotage.
Signals go from planet, satellite, or ship to ship at normal light speed. If you want faster it goes aboard a vessel and rides a hyperdrive... much like communications in the 1700s or the Traveller RPG.
Tarkin also strides into the Imperial conference room for his first scene with news that the Emperor had just dissolved the Senate. I suppose a courier ship could have delivered the message, but it seemed more immediate than that.
Maybe a wee bit of a digression, but I'm reminded of a few years ago when Lakota Medicine Man Leonard Crow Dog (one of the AIM occupiers at Wounded Knee) actually tried to Disneyfy one of the Lakota's most sacred stories.
In the earliest contact written records we have of White Buffalo Woman, c. 1870s, the story ALWAYS goes that two hunters encountered the WBW, and one of them was so in lust at her beauty, he tried to rape her and was instantly struck dead, most versions saying he was reduced to bones for his transgression. In Crow Dog's retelling, he said both hunters listened to WBW message and both went back to their encampment to deliver that message. Crow Dog was widely criticized in the Lakota community for daring to change "canon", altering an essential detail, perhaps to do his own version of "Noble Savage" who is immune from white people's sins, or only does those sins after prolonged contact with white people. As it is, Crow Dog's version is now permanently in print, and for all I know, is out there on the Internet as THE authoritative version.
Interesting. I'd heard the story before in the original version and was not aware of Crow Dog's edit. Just recently I was at an art exhibition in the Black Hills and saw a rather elaborate stained glass representation of the story the old way, complete with the resulting pile of bones.
@@feralhistorianthey need to continue the eu
Star Wars visions
Lucasfilm have said that all versions of the Star Wars mythlodgy is equal
So I don’t know what your taking about ?????
Your clearly being mislead
Do you think the Red Dead Redemption games could be a good topic for a video? I think you could weave in a good analysis of how the Western genre has changed in recent decades, with a greater focus on “realism” and historical accuracy for many works in comparison with how the genre started in the pulps with idealized adventures featuring proto-superheroic interpretations of historical figures like Wyatt Earp and Davy Crockett.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I still haven't played Red Dead, but I'm definitely going to talk about the Western genre from a couple different angles. Still in the "incoherent pile of notes" stage on that though.
One side note: The Jedi clothing in KOTOR I looks more like that in the original trilogy, with exceptions being Bastila Shan and the "gray Jedi" Jolee Bindo. I much preferred this sleek design; the image of a Jedi as a mix between a cop and a priest fits much better with my personal headcanon. It was in KOTOR II when Obsidian changed this. By the way, you should make a video on KOTOR II as a deconstruction of Star Wars mythology.
I don't think a corporation can own a mythos. They can only own their version of a mythos. If they make minor alternations to the mythos, they will be incorporated (hehe) into the mythos. But when they make large unpopular alternations to the mythos, current followers of the mythos will stop consuming the corporations mythos (loss of customers and income) and *ignore* their version of the mythos as corporate fan fiction.
As an aside, I highly recommend the video "Obiwan has PTSD".
Ahh, yes. Admiral Evening Gown, who can't even be bothered to put on a uniform.
There's a long history of field-grade officers wearing civilian clothes, custom uniforms, or whatever they feel like, with reasons ranging anywhere from it's what they were wearing during a surprise attack to wanting to feel pretty.
Maybe on her planet, a long gown is formal command wear?
Good lord, I can't wait to see what you make of The Acolyte. Or for that matter, the Disney live-action remakes.
Nah, framerate didn't change, we must be CPU-bound.
Been working my way through your stuff these past few days and they're all great. Keep up the good work my dude.
I’m an original SW fan who saw the first movie in the theater when I was 5. I consider all of SW to be a fairy tale. We’re told that in the very first “A long time ago.” So, I feel free to accept or reject anything in SW. It’s exactly as you said ancient myths develop. I like some of what Disney does (Mando, Obi-Wan, Rogue One, Andor, Solo) and ignore the rest in my “head canon.” Anyway, your videos are universally excellent. 👏
copyright laws need fixing. that's all I'll say. what was once supposed to keep innovation going. it has instead given big companies like Disney the ability to gate keep and just hold back innovation.
You say that, until you write or invent something yourself. Yes, copyright is abused. But a world without it, is a world where the little guy has lost any and every ability to protect his work.
"Our stories are the real Star Wars now" resonates with this Star Trek fan.
Were you going for a slight Jedi look when you made this? Otherwise, I have nothing to add because I couldn't have put it better myself. It's also nice to see a prominent youtuber who acknowledges Qu Rahn, if I write a fanfiction, he is going to be in it. Did you care much for the Force Unleashed story? For me the Force Unleashed was the last of Star Wars as I knew it before the disney takeover.
It did occur to me that I had a vaguely Jedi look going, but actually that's just how I dress on warm days.
The Force Unleashed is one of my Star Wars blindspots. It was out during one of those periods when I wasn't gaming (09 was a busy year) and I never picked it up. Is it any good?
I had never thought of the no FTL communications plot hole. I had always through that the Star Destroyer was jamming communications or something so they needed to put the data in R2.
ALL we EVER needed to know about Luke's father, the Clone Wars, and Darth Vader was in Obi Wan's conversation with Luke in the first movie. The revelations that Darth Vader was Luke's father and Leia was his sister were extremely clumsy and unnecessary. Darth Vader was just supposed to be a masked bad guy with connections to the emperor. Leia was just the damsel in distress who evolved into so much more. But did she really need to be Luke's sister? Nope. One of my biggest problems with the prequels have nothing to do with the endless talky bits about the the war and politics, but rather the deconstruction of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Reducing the most feared and mysterious character of the first film, to a scared little boy who misses his mother and the woman he loved was a huge let down. The Prequels could have focused on so many other things and yet wasted it's screen time telling a story we already knew the ending to. It's like going to see Titanic and being surprised the ship sank! For me, my Star Wars Mythology extends as far as the first three films, and if I really want to condense it more, I stick wit the first film!
Between the two trilogies George seems to have gotten a little confused. The first trilogy was Luke's story, then the prequels were treated like Anakin's story when in fact the entire saga was Anakin's fall and redemption arc. The prequels should have been Obi Wan's story. Instead he was a sidekick.
The problem w the prequels was not that they were so bad, but THAT they were prequels. It's why STrek is so bad. I mean, did we really need to know why the Klingon appearance changes show to show?
The first Star Wars film- Star Wars, not New Hope or Old Faith- was an inane confection that ripped off far more entertaining predecessors starring Buster Crabbe. There was literally not a moment that I did not go- saw that here, saw that there, and it was worse than what was originally seen, and I saw this film when 13 and was bored stiff by it.
That it's an atrocious Sub-Star Trek mess today was utterly written into its DNA from the get go.
It’s a shame Lucas didn’t keep the Skywalker and Vader characters separate, yet still have Vader be Luke’s father. Obi-Wan obviously doesn’t want to tell Luke the truth in ANH (yes I know it’s actually just Star Wars but it’s a convenient short hand) so what we hear has to be missing something. Luke’s aunt and uncle may have known Skywalker and been witness to him following Obi-wan to war and assume Luke is the son of Skywalker when Ben returns to Tatooine with the boy. What only Ben and I assume Yoda would know is that Vader, who was a young pupil of Ben’s, younger than Skywalker (Ben’s friend and confidant), was Vader’s son. Ben hid his former pupil’s son at the home of his murdered friend and gave his friend’s name to the boy. Luke then grows up thinking his ‘dad’ was just a navigator on a spice freighter. Ben continues the deception by telling Luke he’s the son of a famous Jedi knight, while putting him on the path to hating his actually father.
The reveal in ESB can then take on an Arthurian theme, with Vader knowing Skywalker had no children, but Vader did…with Skywalker’s wife, possibly disguised by dark side powers, taking on the appearance of Skywalker. Is this any more complicated than the actual story that was revealed with Anakin and Vader being the same man? I doubt it. But Lucas went a different way, and now most fans wouldn’t be able to see the saga play out any differently than what they’ve been given.
And of course Leia would not be Luke’s sister, since that little bit of story was supposed to have fueled at least another movie’s worth of plot in searching the galaxy for Luke’s long lost sibling.
I respectfully disagree. I love the character of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. I’m not usually a fan of deconstruction, but I think it works well with Anakin. The 2003 Clone Wars Micro Series was an excellent glimpse into Anakin’s time in the clone wars and the clone wars in general.
@@crusader2112 The regular Clone Wars series was also quite good for that. We really get to see what Anakin was like in his Jedi prime.
I always remembered growing up and it was implied that the Clone Wars was between 49-60 years before the first OT movie. I hated changes that Lucas made for the prequels including making the Jedi monks rather than Knights.
I don't think it's quite accurate to say that Anakin lacks empathy; the character is, after all, introduced to us by means of his intervening to save some hapless out-of-towner from a beating at the hands (or rather, feet?) of a local tough guy whom the goober had inadvertantly managed to provoke. *Then* he volunteers to risk his life and his rather meagre personal property in a high-stakes race to help out some other people whom he'd just met. When we meet him again, of course, he's different, perhaps damaged somehow now after ten years of Jedi training, which has given him the ability to effortlessly slaughter a whole tribe of Tusken Raiders in retaliation for their murder of his mother, but not the discipline to stave off the black rage that precipitated said massacre. However, he has not yet had his empathy beaten entirely out of him, specifically citing all of the Jedi who died on Geonosis as his reason for wanting to fight Dooku, and in "Revenge of the Sith," where he appears ironically somewhat better-adjusted despite being in the middle of a galactic war, one of the first things thst he's shown doing is trying to abandon his mission of rescuing the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine in order to save some clone starfighter pilots until Obi-Wan talks him down from it, and then soon after putting his life in jeopardy to haul Obi-Wan's unconscious body across the cavernous and rapidly-disintegrating enemy flagship.
Bearing all of that in mind, it seems to me that, to the extent that Anakin appears to lack empathy at times, this is a product of Jedi ineptitude, and Palpatine taking advantage of the same for his own benefit.
All good points. Anakin really should have a full character analysis.
@@feralhistorian Oh, .. just please.
Most so-called fans Only seen the movie of RotS and never read the novel.
Movie throwaway line from Windu to Anakin after told to sit take a seat, Windu .. " Are we boring you ?"
Cause in the novel Anakin fell asleep in the chair and was suffering battle exhausting for the pass month.
The way the novel was written when Palpatine was talking to Anakin, any D&D role player will tell you those lines was Bluff or Diplomacy skill check and using Charm spell or Effect Minds force power skill use. Palpatine has been dropping post hypnotic suggestion on Anakin for years.
Also in the Clone Wars novels, Jedi were dropping out of the war and leaving the order over PTSD and the Jedi council wasn't dealing with it.
Even IF Palpatine didn't send out the kill order, the Order was already done for.
In Legends eight different factions were developing and one Jedi even went full Mandalorian armor.
2.) Other side note before the Prequals, no one knew Anything about the Republic fall cause Lucas had it off limits to write about.
From the WEG west end games d6 RPG Star Wars, lightsabers were something very special making marking knighthood during its creation as an adult.
Then the prequal novels came out along with Darkhorse comics with the new updated WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars RPG books.
Creating a lightsaber was no longer anything special.
4th-level Jedi being 13years old pair up with a 26 or 28year old Jedi knight of 7th-level. Making their first saber before the age of 14years old. Even if the student/ padawan is not took in under a single knight for training, they still build a saber by the time they are 16years old. as part of their force training.
Student and teacher then train together for the next 13 to 15 years where the padawan becomes a 7th-level Jedi at 26years old and the teacher is a 10th-level Jedi at 43years old by gaming Xp level table. Normal by that time the 43year old knight is granted the rank of master or wait till they are mid fifty or sixty years of age.
Now other than the role playing gaming system.
Anakin was a force of nature but lack the mental/emotional Maturity of a 30year old knight. The Jedi high council could not grant Anakin the rank of Master because he lack the maturity and balance state a forty year old with thirty years of life experience under his belt. He hasn't mellow out with age.
Also in the novels, padawans that failed their knighthood test were stuck with the rank of padawan for the rest of their life. What trip up Anakin and other young knights that were fighting in the war. Padawans in their fifties were grant or address as Master but they had barely the raw combat power of the young padawans/ knight fighting the war. It just seem so unfair !
( .. deep breath and drawn out sigh, ..)
It is not power that defines a Jedi, it is balance and inner calmness. Which comes after 20 or 30years as an adult.
3.) Then you have the whole attachment and marry family thing, ..
Old EU pre 2000's Prequal. Han Solo home system Corillian, lot of green robe Jedi came from there.
Most of them are related by .. blood.
They regard the Jedi Order temple as a prep military boarding school.
They regard themselves first being a space cop or smuggler that just happens to been raised at the Jedi temple.
With Darkhorse comics and the Young Jedi series. Corillian Jedi had bloodlines and train their 1st to 8th cousins as mentors.
And a few times during the Clone War novels, the Corillian told Anakin that being a Jedi is not an end all be all thing in life.
b.) Everyone knows how Anakin story ends cause that is the way it was written. The authors just wrote what came before as being multiple outs that Anakin could, should, but could not take, which just makes his fall even more tragic.
c.) As my multiple D&D gaming groups agree to after Reading the original RotJ and not From a Certain Point of View/ Life and Death of " fill in blank," series.
Vader didn't toss Palpatine to save his son's life. Vader had an impulse of rage of the darkside cause he was just sick and tired of Palpatine's trash talking.
I grew up in a bad way around people with anger issues and so did a lot of other people I met over the years. Seen enough times of teenagers trying to double hand throat choke someone up against a wall over the years. Then there were the bar fights. People diving across tables to strangle another with their bare hands.
Not saying Lucas didn't write a great story and movie, but ... I have seen people snap many time from PTSD.
Thank you for your time.
You have a great narrator voice.
@@krispalermo8133 All interesting points. Like many, I have not read the novelization of any of the Star Wars films. And while I would scoff at anyone discussing Dune (for example) based solely on watching one of the adaptations, Star Wars was written as a screenplay first. Its native form is cinema. New material can be added in other media, gaps can be filled and character motivations made clear, but the pure form is what was on the screen.
That said, RotS absolutely should have included some of the detail you mentioned. There wasn't much sense of a major war going one after that opening battle over Coruscant and the Jedi certainly didn't come across as a strained force suffering from too many deployments. A missed opportunity, to say the least.
@@feralhistorian Thank you for the time to reply, ..few points.
a.) I tried over twenty years to learn to draw, I have not the talent or develop skill to create comic books. All of the first trilogy was film story board comic book picture action. Story telling with body language action without words. show don't tell or use words to explain. Comic book cinema, well George Wanted to do a Buck Rogers/ Flash Gordon.
b.) As for the Prequals of AotC, I bought the sound tract, tune my tv to black & white with no sound and played the sound track along with the movie and it worked for me.
I never had a problem with silent movies or reading sub text from foreign films. On one hand the Prequals were bad on the other hand, many people over the years turn those movies into great 5minute to 10minute music video tribute. From watching/ listening the director's cut with the directors and actors review the filming experience and listening to the director and effects crew talking about how the movie was put together. They had to cut 90min from the movie so it could be watch in one setting at the movie theaters.
c.) Dune, omg the 80's I grew up on was just .. weird.
The late 1990's Syfy channel mini series of Dune and Children of Dune.
I tried as a teenager to read the Dune series but I just got bored with it.
Now as for the Syfy series, not bad and enjoy my time, then Children of Dune I had few what the ? And my D&D gaming shop talked and argue about.
First off the actors from one series worked in the second series. Just because Spice slowed aging, real human actors can age/ mature rapidly in a short few years.
The imperial princess looked more than a few years older and they put grey in her hair which many of my gaming shop had a problem with. Then others pointed out, the children were flying their shuttlecraft Inside of the Worm's mouth for fun. Their stepmom the imperial princesses didn't find the action to be amusing or worth laughing about. I could see Where the grey in her hair came from.
@@krispalermo8133 arguing that Vader attacked Palpatine for any reason *other* than to protect his son is rather counterintuitive. Everything before and that moment is hyper-focused on the filial relationship between Luke and Vader and Luke using *that* as a wedge against Vader's loyalty to the Emperor, which Vader directly comments on and acknowledges the validity of. "Tell your sister you were right about me," i.e. there *was* some good left in me, and as a result, I turned against my master to save my son, rather than as a result of some random and heretofore unexpected fit of pique.
Just discovering your content. Love your point of view
3:20 I like to describe the way Obi-Wan dresses in A New Hope as his "desert hobo disguise".
8:49 Personally, I think that Disney's decision to convert the old EU into Legends, and start over from basically scratch was the best thing they could do. Rather than try and incorporate the mess that the EU had become, they set it all aside and started picking out all the best bits of it while leaving the rest in a sort of odd semi-canon.
In correct on the faster than light communication. Tarkin is told that the scouts have reached Dantooine and found the remnants of a rebel base. The phrasing does not imply they went and came back. It is implied that they are there and found the old base. So unless Dantooine is next to Alderan then they had to communicate faster than light.
I just rewatched that scene to be sure and yes, in isolation it sort of implies that they called it in from Dantooine. But it could just as easily mean they sent a courier back to report, which is more consistent with the other details implying a lack of FTL comms.
Taken in context, it implies old-school recon, like before radio. The guy with the fastest horse has to ride back and report.
The Death Star personnel knew about the Falcon blasting out of Mos Eisley, implying the Imperials in orbit radioed to the DS or put out an APB on the Falcon. Unless it’s more reasonable to assume an imperial currier or scout ship reached the DS faster than the ‘fastest ship in the galaxy’, just to let Tarkin know about a random bear up freighter possibly heading to alderaan…which the Imperials in orbit around Tatooine wouldn’t know was the destination and target for the DS.
I'm going to get into the weeds on this in an upcoming video. A lot of people made a lot of good points but still, I think, missed a few details.
@russellharrell2747 you could argue that "the fastest ship in the galaxy" is a smuggler basting about his abilities. But it does seem likely they have FTL communication. Another way of seeing this is they put a homing beacon on the Falcon to track it to alderaan. How would that work without sending a FTL signal?
I see a Feral Historian video, I click. Another fine video, sir. I stopped watching the Star Wars movies after "Episode One" for this very reason. The bastardization of the lore reminds me of what Games Workshop has been doing in recent years to 40k. Absolutely no respect for the core material.
I barely know 40K lore and even I cringe at some of the recent . . . additions.
This is pretty brilliant. I've been watching a lot of your videos lately, and I especially enjoy all the sci-fi stuff. But you really nailed it on this one, with the analysis of myth and Campbell, etc. Keep up the great work.
I want Solo's Galaxy. The Force is a myth to scare kids. Only a fool brings a melee weapon to a blaster fight. Incompetent JJ missed his chance to have Han "Indiana Jones" the two Troopers, who for some reason bring upgraded staffs to a blaster fight. I came for Sci-fi (if rather lose in definition). Star Wars is now firmly swords and sorcery without the boobs, and I want none of it.
Love your stuff, been showing it to my friends. Keep em coming brother.
Have you considered doing a video on the original Deus Ex computer game?
I have. The catch is that Deus Ex was out during a time when I wasn't doing any gaming, so I have to play it now as time permits. But it's been recommended frequently and is on my list.
I would argue that Star Wars evolved from a movie and turned into a business.
The algorithm smiled gravely. “Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too
I love you're description of Return of the Jedi Luke. I enjoy the samurai aesthetic of the prequel Jedi, but i like the idea of him being a pastor that can figt when necessary (despite the fact that I think comparing jedi to western religion encourages the misconceptions about Christianity to be associated with jedi).
I am no master when it comes to Star Wars, but one should go look at the Ikko-Ikki in Japan to see what the Jedi are related the closest to. Warrior monks.
Although, small little young Feral Historian had probably not heard about the Ikko-Ikki when he first saw the movie :)
@@Hugebull Epic
The reason I hated the star sequel trilogy was that it was literally just the original trilogy retold.
They mixed some story elements, moved some scenes around but it is just that. The original trilogy.
It's a shocking display of how Hollywood decision makers are terrified to invest in new properties and will gleefully pump money into existing franchises till they extrude every last possible penny from fans.
Dont blame Rian Johnson, who added extra wrinkles LOL
Nothing demonstrates who far they have fallen than comparing the beginning of star was with the end of Rouge One. Darth Vader, a competent high ranking officer let's his subordinates do their job in capturing Tantive IV. He is close enough to be immediately on the scene for the important task of recovering the highly classified information. He can use the force to strangle you at a distance he could do it manually and he picks the Tantive IV's captain up by the throat, himself. At the end of rogue one, hours or minutes before, he is a human wrecking ball, smashing people and machinery aside with magic. His soldiers are janitors to clean up the after action mess.
Considering the only good Star Wars I've seen in the past decade has been from fan projects 90% of the time, I'd say it belongs to the fans.
Good luck, Disney. Their are more of us than there are of you.
Some examples
Star Wars room builders.
3D print files for nearly every droid/prop
For the Empire by AFK
Various X-Wing fan films.
The Millenium Falcon project.
My perspective is going to be very different from yours, but please following along.
First of all, I do not consider the old stories to be just stories told. I do believe that the Odyssey is history. That it is a history book. I do believe that the Trojan War happened and that Odysseus, Ajax and Achillies was there for the duration of the decade long war.
And I do fully believe that it took Odysseus a decade to get home to his wife and son.
Now, is everything in the story true? Did Ares come down from the sky to join the fighting? Did Odysseus and him men blind the Cyclops?
Perhaps and probably not.
Perhaps some of it is true. I can not comment or know that far.
But I fully do believe that the stories of old carry more truth than not. From the original tale of King Arthur, not the French fanfiction that was added much later. To the original story of Robin Hood, not the later fanfiction that was added later.
And, I believe with everything that I am, that the New Testament is literal truth. Not a myth. Not a good story. But the literal truth.
And so, I have no problem believing that Athena is an Angel sent by the Lord.
But that is something else for another comment and conversation.
I do put a large barrier between a story that is true, or that carries truth. To that of a story that is made to entertain, or communicate, or explain, or make money, or convey a message.
These are very different things that come from different places.
A campfire tale is not the same as Scripture. And a long drunken joke is not the same as a historical recording.
We do them all, but they are not the same.
----------------
Now, to the actual topic of the video.
As these are stories. They are yours the moment it enters your mind.
When you buy a book, you have the full right to do whatever you want with that book. You hate the ending? Rip the pages out.
You want to redo the start? Make up your own.
Want to read it back to front? Go for it.
How something looks, feels, smells, is entirely yours. What is not explicitly said and happens between paragraphs and chapters is entirely up to you to make up.
If you want Frodo and Gandalf to have an extra conversation? Then that's entirely within your right as a thinking human being.
Everyone SHOULD have a head-canon. That is what transforms a good written work, to something truly special.
From children running around the yard with sticks pretending to be characters from Star Wars, or someone older who sits down and writes out entire Star Wars stories for their own amusement.
This only elevates the world that exists for you, and to others who may enjoy your take on that universe.
Yes, copyright exist as an economic reality.
And it should.
But that has absolutely no power over what exists within you, and what you talk about to your friends.
If you want to make every character in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings to a different race or gender, or if you want to get really smutty about it.
Nobody on this planet can stop you.
The moment you have heard or seen a story, the story and the universe is yours.
This was how I started writing.
It all started with me filling in additional stories for the Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
By the time Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 was released, I had already written out some basic ideas and additional stories that took place for my Warden and my Shepard.
And before then, back when I was around 10 years old, around the time of the release of Return of the King.
Me and my friends would run around with sticks, pretending to be various characters. Making up additional events and fights that took place in that universe.
Always trying to follow canon (at least as far as we knew it).
And always enjoying ourselves.
Running around the farm with a friend, carrying sticks and tracking orcs, are some of my fondest childhood memories.
----------------------
And so, to the people who feel slighted by Disney's decision to scrap and make their own Disney canon.
Why would anyone truly care?
The full-blown over-dedicated fans have always filled in the blanks with how the Star Wars world worked. From throwing the whole "Midi-chlorian" concept out the window.
Or making Anakin/Vader a truly terrifying Evil Knight.
Or jumping ship entirely with that era, and instead spending entire focus on the Old Republic Era instead. Which is, let's be honest, far more interesting.
The old canon is still there. Just because Disney has decided to do one thing, does not mean that anyone has to follow along.
And, if people truly do care.
They should just rename the Lightsaber to something like a Flashy Glow Saber.
And then write their own stories in a setting and universe that is similar.
That has always been my number one recommendation.
To just write your own.
You will find far more satisfaction from a setting and universe that you yourself have control over.
Submitting your dedication and mental capacity to a megacorporation is both terrifying and disgusting. And something I can no longer understand.
So, my advice for people is to just write your own.
All good points. I would add that there’s a lot of gradation with history, legend, and straight-up fiction. Using the Odyssey example, I put it in the same category as Saving Private Ryan as far as historical truth. WWII happened, the D-Day landing was real, but the personal stories of those characters, while sometimes based loosely on real events and people, were heavily fictionalized. As a historical source it can give you some useful truth, but it can also be misleading. A lot of the old stories, I think, fall into this category. They start with real events, but they’re crafted into narratives to better convey ideas and to hold the interest of an audience.
Just as far more people watched Band of Brothers than read after-action reports of Easy Company’s engagements.
Scripture is another good example. The Gospels contradict each other in numerous details and therefore can’t be 100% literal truth, but they can still be essentially true on the important points. Personally I think there’s been a lot of embellishment and inaccuracy, but that doesn’t change their relevance as stories conveying a core message rooted in the life and teachings of the actual Jesus of Nazareth who preached some things that riled the Roman and Judean authorities enough to take him out.
And then on the far end of that spectrum we have things like Star Wars. No one believes that it’s literally true, but a lot of people have integrated it into their philosophical outlook. And it’s deeply influenced by the recent history of the time in which it was created. There’s a heavy WWII influence in both its style and themes. There’s a lot of Vietnam-era commentary woven through the trilogy. It’s as much a story about America in the 20th Century as a galaxy far, far away.
We’re narrative creatures, we fit everything into stories. And we often have multiple reasons for doing so. Conveying truth, entertaining, and making money aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
@@feralhistorian First of all, I do applaud you for replying to so many comments. Even commenting on your older videos. It is, in all honesty, impressive.
Now for the lengthy reply.
I do agree with you.
Personally, I would put the Odyssey closer to Band of Brothers than Saving Private Ryan. Band of Brothers is closer to the truth than Private Ryan, but that show also fiddles with what truly did happen for the sake of the narrative.
Such as merging the encounter with the American fighting for the Germans, to then being killed by Spiers. In real-life, those two events happened at different times. But for the show, it was merged into a single event.
Or how "Foxhole Norman" was turned into a representation of bad the Officers coming in, and then sucking at their job.
He was certainly not celebrated by the men, hence the nickname. But his character became a caricature to serve the narrative. Which his family, as you probably know, certainly did not appreciate.
I do not disagree with you, I am only "connecting to it" in a slightly different way than you do.
As I said, Ares coming down to join the fighting, is pretty unlikely.
An example as to why, is Hannibal Barca.
The City of Carthage worshipped Hercules (or a form or likeness of him) as their god (primary god or whatnot, I am not a Carthage expert).
And Hannibal looked at the story of Hercules's 10th labour, where he moved a herd of cattle through the Alps.
And he took this, and followed the path through with his army, and doing what he did in Italy.
But, as you stated, Saving Private Ryan also teaches us of the D-Day landing and the invasion of Europe while being a fictional story.
So again, I agree with you more than I disagree with you.
In a different way, it's like the recorded history of Julius Ceasar and the conquest of Gaul.
And all recorded history really.
Nobody denies the existence of Julius Ceasar.
Nobody denies the conquest of Gaul.
We know who was involved, we know when things happened.
it is the history we have.
Is every number given correct? Is every quote correct? That is not for me to say. But I will stand by that it is true. It certainly carries far more truth than fabrication.
Some may say that the numbers given are wrong or embellished.
Which may be true.
Or, it is stubborn skepticism.
Or with the Battle of Thermopylae.
Here we see figures going from 4 million Persians, all the way down to as low as just 100 thousand.
Which reminds me of recent figures that came out from China and the Soviet Union about their deaths and famines and all that.
I am not in any position to say which number is correct.
Only that the battle that took place would have been quite the sight to behold.
The number I cannot say, but that the battle took place I have zero doubt to.
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Of course meaning, learning, conveying, teaching, all this stuff can be done through made up stories. I do not take away from that.
And I certainly do not deny using fiction as commentary of what is going on around us.
It would be a pretty strange thing for me to do considering how much I have been working on my own written stuff.
But it is a flimsy universe that Lucas created.
First he started changing it.
Then a whole army of people added their own to it.
And then he sold it, and the Mouse changed it even more.
My take is simply that, we should take what we can from it.
But leave it at that.
We should never allow a person, government, or corporation, tell us what is "correct" Star Wars, and what is bad and should be forgotten.
Star Wars is what people want it to be.
They can make it what they want it to be.
If they want the Jedi to be Knights and the Jedi Order a sort-of-space-church. Then kudos to them.
Or, if you want to be a bit closer to Japan, you can make them more like the Ikko-Ikki, and have them be warrior monks.
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The New Testament is far more cohesive and coherent than the Old. There is an obvious reason for this. We know who wrote the Gospels.
While the Old Testament carries thousands of years of condensed history.
That's why I specifically said the New, and not the Old in the comment.
Job, as an example, is old Hebrew comedy, and obviously not to be taken literally.
While Jonah stuck in the whale, is just a dream.
And then the whole Old Testament being filled with old songs, sayings, and all the rest that a collection 'stuff' is going to carry.
While with the New Testament, each Gospel starts with "The Gospel according to [name]"
But this is the wrong place to talk about the Gospel, we can hopefully do that another time.
it's like discussing the meaning of life over text-message, it would be all wrong.
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Again, I cannot stress how appreciative I am that you take time to reply to your comments.
I wish you the best.
And I am looking forward to your coming videos, where I will assuredly leave long comments on.
It's a relaxing thing, to stretch the brain a bit after a day's work.
Thank you.
What if Anakin Skywalker wasn't Darth Vader, but Mickey Mouse? 🤔
"Decanonizng." That's what Napoleon attempted to do in post-Revolutionary France, isn't it? Right down to changing the days of the week and the week itself to 8 days in an attempt to create a "new order." The Festivals and myths of the Church became recast as the Festivals and myths of the Empire... The reality is that "the faithful" hung onto the old myths despite the attempts of the State to determine otherwise.
You're conflating Napoleon with the Jacobins that came before him. The Revolutionary calendar and the Church of Reasons were products of a more radical phase of the Revolution that Napoleon helped bring to an end.
Also, to conflate the French Revolutionaries' ham-fisted attempt to free themselves from centuries of aristocratic and religious oppression with Lucasfilm not wanting to be shackled to something a B-grade sci-fi author wrote in 1997 is a little hyperbolic.
Napoleon didn’t do that. It was the numerous post-revolutionary governments that did that. In fact his rise to power was in many ways a reaction against those things.
I swear, you and I share a brain. Back in the early 2000s, when I also wanted to be a cop, I conceived of myself as Luke in *Jedi,* a hybrid priest/constable.
Great Horned Mickey has destroyed Star Wars far more than any of the old EU did.
2:40 Obi-Wan is at the *ass end of the Galaxy*, the simple answer is no one gives a shit. Also Beru and Owens know who Obi-Wan is, but few others even on Tattooine do
3:06 In the Clone Wars we DO see Jedi wear armor or even uniforms, same in the past. There's armored Jedi as officers in war.
Someone who understand Star Wars
Luke and leia kissing
Anakin and Vader being the same people
Is just the same
Has Rey and Palpatine being related
It’s a mythology
So 1st gen Jedi were like a benevolent Judge Dredd?
nailed it!
Isn't the one true answer "The Believers"? That is always who owns a mythology. The author is simply a conduit to the divine.
So should I be ashamed of myself for enjoying the later movies or not? So many signs point to yes.
That is between a man and his own conscience.
I'm thinking about doing a video on things the Disney-era films did well, even things may have improved the lore . . . From a certain point of view.
@@feralhistorianthey can't improve the lore they threw out for royalty reasons. It would be a whole replacement not organic improvement over time.
I’d say that the Disney policy of decanonizing the EU allowed great freedom in adapting the EU to live action, similar to adapting any literature to the big or little screen. With mixed results at best.
Rian Johnson is just a mad dog. I'm looking for the one who let him off his leash..
SW & Disney SW has been a dance of light and dark and (shrudder) gray -- something that perhaps with the distance of time (and some declassified Disney management history) can make sense of .
My rekindled interest in SW came during the 5th season of the Clone Wars, just in time to have it reach both Star Trek levels of exploration of what is humanity and expandable humans ... -- and just in time to have Disney snatch it away from me / us .
And while I like everyone else love to shit on Disney ... -- it really is a mixed bag that brought us a lot of Kathleen Kennedy ... , but also some interesting reflection on society (much lik the OT was in the mind of Lucas ...) , such as this amazing Neo-Marxist SJW post-modernist dialogue* (during the Trump years) , foreshadowing what was to come ... , as Maul spoke truth to power (and power being oblivious) , not knowing that things were about to get much worse :
Ashoka : "I'm here to bring you to Justice !"
Maul : "Justice is merely a construct of the current Power Base ..."
"... a base that ... according to my calculations ... is about to Change."
Ashoka : With your help, the Jedi can stop Sidious before it's too late ."
Maul : "Too late ? For what ? The Republic** to fall ?"
"It has already has , you just can't see it !"
"There is no Justice! No Law! No Order!"
"Except for The One one that will Replace It !"
* I'll attach the video in a reply, so this post won't get nuked by the rhythm
** America
12:12 I think you're approaching the inherent buffoonishness of the Empire and the EU's warlords with rose-colored glasses. Just like real-life fascists, the Imperials were thugs in nice uniforms and wrapped in the trappings of formality and tradition, but their beliefs were ridiculous and their personalities hilariously petty. It's fitting and proper that Hux sounds like space-Alex Jones or Nick Fuentes while totally sucking at everything he does, because those guys are *awful* at everything except loudly shouting into an echo chamber full of the worst people imaginable.
👍👍
The Star Wars "fandom" is why I don't claim to be a part of the fandom.
To defend the decanonisation. Disney wanted to create their own stories and the EU answers anything and everything. It even retconned itself a lot.
Everyone knows how those stories end.
Also I should add on that even the Disney films will be someone’s mythology one day.
I do suspect that, 20-some years on, Disney Star Wars will be held in higher regard than it is today. Much like the reevaluation of the Prequels in recent years.
Rogue One and Andor in particular I think will exert significant influence on the next generation's view of Star Wars.
Ridiculous, Rian Johnson made the best star wars since Empire. As a matter of fact, TLJ is the best Dune Adaptation EVA !!! Redeemed Luke Skywalker only to be destroyed by JarJar Abrams and the House of the Rat !
I'm planning on a "ten years later" rewatch of the Last Jedi, just to see how it plays with some distance. I think it's going to require copious amounts of vodka though.
@@feralhistorianHeck if you survived the Prequels, TLJ will seem a masterpiece.....unless you love sand, its coarse & gets everywhere hahaha
I think it's important to distinguish the difference between mythology and mythos. Fiction can have a mythos- Superman and Krypton, Doomsday, and Star Wars has a mythos. Star Trek has a mythos, as does Flash Gordon or James Bond or even Moby-Dick or Pinocchio.
But, generally, mythology refers to no-fiction beliefs. They can be unreal, but mythology is twinned and twined w religion. The old saying that mythology is discarded religion.
No one ever believed Superman was real. They believe Jesus is real. King Arthur and Set and Thor and Zeus are myths, as is Yahweh, but that's because people believed at some point they were real. We know Darth Vader and Capt Kirk are NOT real. No one ever thought they were.
Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, and co. are or were thought to be real.
And it's an important distinction. Real people can me mythologized, but fictive characters just have a mythos.
There's a subtlety here though that we miss, largely due to being immersed in Abrahamic religions with their monotheistic creator god. From my own historical studies of Roman and Scandinavian beliefs (which admittedly is not my primary field) I don't think we can look at those mythologies through the lens of literal belief in actual guys named Zeus or Odin so much as avatars of forces.
For example, when I've looked into the Viking practice of etching a Tyr rune into a sword, it seems to be somewhere between a prayer as we would understand it ("please Thor, help me win this one" like asking a favor from another conscious being) and slapping a Punisher skull on a rifle (invoking the idea of the Punisher while knowing he's not real)
I'm thinking too of stories like the Illiad, where the gods whisper thoughts to the characters. How much of it is "but Aries and Athena made me do it" and how much is literary device using the common references of the day?
Mythos, mythology, and religion are more a continuum than a set of hard distinctions.
@@feralhistorian What did Yahweh do with Abraham but whisper that he needed to sacrifice Isaac to prove his faith. Lot and his wife were whispered to not look back. Moses was whispered to build a big boat, and on and on. I recently wrote a play on the Vikings and Sami and there's no doubt the Norse, and even the Sami, were die hard believers in the Norse gods. There is still an active cult of Apollo in Greece. Granted, these are small sects now, but size does NOT always matter in all matters. I'd say in 4000 AD the odds that the Abrahamic religions are more like these small sects than what they are now id almost a surety. The senescence of faith always is a scabbing then falling away. And, let's face it, Yahweh started out as a Levantine god of storms, and Jesus has at least a dozen and a half man-god antecedents in other then contemporaneous myths- from Gilgamesh to Heracles. That these obvious borrowings says much of the ability of Jews to borrow and remold, but I don't think it's fair to state that there were no real believers in them. Yes, Greeks and Nordics were a bit more skeptical of their Gods, and we could do with a bit of that today, but the larger point is we know Siege and Schuster made Supes, Finger and Kane made Bats, Ditko and Lee made Spidey, Roddenberry made Kirk, and Lucas made Han.
Whoever created Odin is lost to time, and it likely was a multigenerational oozing of ideas that finally concretized long after those initial believers lives.
It'd be quite scary to see a cult of Picard take off.
@@danschneider7531 Tea, Earl Grey, .. Hot.
Nicely done.
@@danschneider7531 As a Puritan, that made me cringe. :)
This video was 98% a great analysis, but the 2% that was a weird rant about cancel culture definitely tempted me to stop watching (I don't need Kathleen Kennedy conspiracy videos in my recommended), especially since you (perhaps unintentionally) downplayed SW's recurring criticism of capitalism, yet brought up Marxism of all things. Otherwise, it was pretty excellent.
My other nitpick is I do think it's a little inaccurate to say the EU started with the Thrawn Trilogy though, even if it had a soft restart of sorts there, since there were the Marvel comics and the Han/Lando trilogies (and Splinter of the Minds Eye). Controversially, I'd say most people would rather forget the Lando books (too bleak) and Splinter (too awkward), but the Han Solo Adventures unquestionably played a heavy influence on later EU works.
You know, I'm not really political in the partisan sense, just vehemently anti-authoritarian regardless of ideology. But as an old guy I don't think too much of today's "progressivism" and as a historian I'm 100% certain it isn't going to age well.
You make a good point regarding the Marvel comics and Splinter of the Mind's Eye. They're kind of the first Expanded Universe, nipped off by Empire and Jedi.
WEG west end games d6 dice pool system Star Wars RPG, riding off d20 roll under system D&D/ Traveler Syfy.
WEG came up with the alien names from the bar and Jaba palace along with reference rules for space travel and the under preforming weak speed of Star Wars flying craft in atmosphere. Which used as guild lines for the Thrawn trilogy.
Other than many foul ups of WED abstract d6 dice pool " Yahtzee ,"
Stander RPG Star Wars from WEG to WotC 4e Saga Edition and whatever they used now. The travel time from a planet to its nearest moon is 30minutes. And that is around 1light second. With 6seconds action rounds and each given class of spaceship had a given amount of actions it could take with it that time span. For teenagers it was an algebra word math problem. Mass x speed for kinetic impact for damage outcome.
Cheap tramp freighter could fly one light second per 30minuts or 2ls/h.
The T/e interceptor from RotJ makes a 7.5minute flight or 4 light seconds per hour.
Problem is the book left out human reflex speed times in boxing and knife fighting which is 1/7 to 1/10 of a second. Notice incoming missile or laser targeting and reaction to dodge with flight controller. So closest to how far away the ship can dodge incoming fire
For some reason people forget ten years of WEG Star Wars game adventures during the 1990's. Cash grabbing off of novel and comic sells. My first Star Wars Minis were stander green plastic army men spray painted white.
Along with Splinter of the Mind's Eye temple kybar crystal of healing which broke apart and turn into a few lightsaber crystals.