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Post by natalie on Jan 26, 2021 17:24:55 GMT
I guess I just find it kinda disappointing that Boba Fett is now less a straight villain than he is (a somewhat ennobled) antihero, as steered by Season 2 of The Mandalorian. Wasn't that kinda the point of the new Mando character himself, to explore a version of this race/creed/what-have-you who has been taxed with a degree of virtue? Ya know, sometimes it's okay for bad guys to be left to their own council, so to speak. I never thought Jango and Boba Fett were evil incarnate; where even Jango himself coins his motivation as a simple man making his way through the cosmos. Yet in those Saga films they're both solid thugs. Good ol' fashioned bastards. Unscrupulous to the core. Jabba, Jango, Grievous... in Star Wars you need heroes and tragic heroes and scoundrels with hearts of gold and chaotic neutrals and the Devil, but you also need some straight up nefarious sons-a-bitches. I always liked Jango and Boba precisely because there were so elementally self-preserving criminals.
I'm not really all that interested in sympathizing with Boba just because it can be written that way. But it would seem the character's legacy "cool factor" has reached a tipping point where he must be further justified. Even where Lucas may or may not have revised otherwise (I suspect out of caprice more than anything else), as far as I'm concerned the fiend that was Boba Fett is rotting away in the belly of a sarlacc—end of story. Everything else is just else.
That's the thing about Jango. From his perspective, he really is just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe. He's just doing a job he's good at and making money to raise his son. Of course, the job he's good at happens to involve hunting, imprisoning, and assassinating people without any moral consideration whatsoever. But other than that, he's just your average workaday family man. But the added detail of Jango being a dad is only interesting if he's totally self-interested in every other respect--and even then, the peculiar thing about his version of fatherhood is that he's essentially just reproducing himself. Whereas Obi-Wan struggles with the emotional distance between himself and a "son" who is so very different from him, Jango might as well be reproducing by budding. Jango makes for a strange contrast with Obi-Wan. It's really a battle between two single fathers with a very different approach to life. The high-tech mercenary vs. the primitive warrior-monk. A man loyal to the highest bidder vs. a man loyal to a principle. That's the role Jango occupies in the movie. I don't see how being a member of an ancient, creed-based warrior culture really fits into that. It plays into the fantasies of a certain part of the fanbase, but other than that, it's just a big ol' non-sequitur. It might have made enough sense when "Mandalorian" was such a vague concept and we all just assumed that's what the Fetts were, but given what the Mandalorians were eventually established to be in The Clone Wars. there's no longer any place for the Fetts without a lot of narrative special pleading. The only thing the Fetts have in common with the Mandalorians is the centrality of violence to their lives--that's why they share the symbol of the Mandalorian armor between them--but the way they employ violence is very different. The Fetts employ violence for capitalist reasons, to get ahead in the modern game of life. The Mandalorians employ violence for cultural reasons, to uphold their ancient mythology and traditions and bring inherent meaning to their lives. That's why true Mandalorians like Almec have such contempt for a bounty hunter like Jango appropriating the symbol of their culture for such a materialistic end. To them, it's a desecration. And I imagine this is why Lucas saw the Fetts and the Mandalorians as being distinctly separate. They represent different things. Of course The Mandalorian, with its rampant conflation of Mandalorianism with bounty hunting and the mercenary lifestyle, just goes and scribbles "BOBA FETT BOBA FETT BOBA FETT" over the whole thing, and in so doing carelessly obscures these meaningful philosophical differences. Interesting perspective, I've never thought about Obi-Wan vs Jango as a battle of the "single dads" (both literally and figuratively). In ROTS, Obi-Wan transitions to a more comfortable older brother role ("You were my brother Anakin"). Wasn't Lucas himself a single dad of three for a long time? The theme of fatherhood is about the only thing Mandalorian got right from the Lucas years but they still don't dare develop it further (especially with Grogu still bein a toddler you can't have a more interesting dynamic). |
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Post by jppiper on Feb 9, 2021 4:46:01 GMT
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Post by natalie on Feb 10, 2021 23:39:50 GMT
natalie did you read what i posted about Lawrence Kasdan? Yeah... nothing new. |
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Post by Ingram on Feb 11, 2021 6:58:35 GMT
natalie did you read what i posted about Lawrence Kasdan? Sorry, I missed it or am too lazy to backtrack and look it up. What about Kasdan, in brief?
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Post by jppiper on Feb 11, 2021 7:42:45 GMT
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Post by Alexrd on Feb 11, 2021 9:59:01 GMT
 Funny, I was making this same point in a discussion a few days ago in regards to Lucas and the Jedi. "Nothing happens by accident." - Qui-Gon Jinn |
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Post by Ingram on Feb 11, 2021 10:04:06 GMT
Pretty intense stuff, jppiper . It's a position I can definitely understand, at least. Couple questions.
1. What are your thoughts on the character now, in hindsight, post TROS? Do you think he was concluded more nobly, gracefully, having been a voice of conscious from beyond the grave (or whatever) for Kylo or was it all too little, too late or just too conceptually slipshod in plain?
2. What are your thoughts on Solo? Do you think it made matters worse or did it pull off its own thing without further tarnishing the character?
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Post by jppiper on Feb 11, 2021 18:59:23 GMT
Ingramwell this is embarrassing the only film from the Disney Era i saw was Rogue One
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Post by natalie on Feb 11, 2021 19:34:43 GMT
Ingram well this is embarrassing the only film from the Disney Era i saw was Rogue One Not a bad choice; it was the only decent one. |
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Post by Ingram on Feb 11, 2021 20:26:21 GMT
Ingram well this is embarrassing the only film from the Disney Era i saw was Rogue One Really? I'm assuming you saw The Force Awakens, as you reference its content in your essay. Or perhaps you proceeded from reviews of the film or a transcribed outline. In any event, wow. That takes commitment. I ventured the Sequel Trilogy dispassionately; it was a thing to be observed and, at the very least, I'm all for giving a theater experience its own fair shake. It's a trilogy not without some grace notes, mostly centered around The Last Jedi, a movie whose general sweep I can sorta dig more as an isolated production bearing the Star Wars brand—it's like a really shiny, ulatra-modern kitchen appliance of a Star Wars movie. With the two spinoffs I went in even more casual-minded and ended up favoring them the most, yes, especially Rogue One.
Rogue One is in an entirely separate tier below Lucas' Saga but a Star Wars movie I plainly enjoy.
I'm curious to know whether you've simply yet to muster the enthusiasm to sit down with the Disney-era films or just straight up opted out with a kind of "No, I'm good." resolution. I'm too much of a film critic/cinema junkie to ever fully understand the latter, but I can definitely admire its conviction.
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Post by jppiper on Feb 11, 2021 20:53:13 GMT
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Feb 16, 2021 14:40:42 GMT
Ingram well this is embarrassing the only film from the Disney Era i saw was Rogue One Really? I'm assuming you saw The Force Awakens, as you reference its content in your essay. Or perhaps you proceeded from reviews of the film or a transcribed outline. In any event, wow. That takes commitment. I ventured the Sequel Trilogy dispassionately; it was a thing to be observed and, at the very least, I'm all for giving a theater experience its own fair shake. It's a trilogy not without some grace notes, mostly centered around The Last Jedi, a movie whose general sweep I can sorta dig more as an isolated production bearing the Star Wars brand—it's like a really shiny, ulatra-modern kitchen appliance of a Star Wars movie. With the two spinoffs I went in even more casual-minded and ended up favoring them the most, yes, especially Rogue One.
Rogue One is in an entirely separate tier below Lucas' Saga but a Star Wars movie I plainly enjoy.
I'm curious to know whether you've simply yet to muster the enthusiasm to sit down with the Disney-era films or just straight up opted out with a kind of "No, I'm good." resolution. I'm too much of a film critic/cinema junkie to ever fully understand the latter, but I can definitely admire its conviction.
I don't know if I've said this before, but I haven't seen Rise of Skywalker and don't have any solid plans to see it. Part of it is a lack of will, part of it is not wanting to have my impressions of the original characters and situations any further tainted by superfluous associations. A bit silly, perhaps. But that's why my criticisms of the movie have never ventured far beyond incredulity at the mere concept of Zombie Grandpa Palpatine. Beyond that, I don't feel right criticizing something I haven't seen. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Feb 16, 2021 15:01:12 GMT
I've only seen TFA and R1. I think there's a name for us, Rinzlerians or something? I'm adamantly averse to seeing, or even hearing about any of the others.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Feb 17, 2021 7:31:13 GMT
I've only seen TFA and R1. I think there's a name for us, Rinzlerians or something? I'm adamantly averse to seeing, or even hearing about any of the others. I saw all of them up until TROS, if only out of a sense of obligation. But after that I stopped seeing the point. I'd probably watch TROS at home if it weren't for the Palpatine thing. That was the one pure thing from the originals Disney Wars hadn't interfered with, and as far as I'm able I'm going to keep it that way. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 18, 2021 12:54:17 GMT
I've only seen TFA and R1. I think there's a name for us, Rinzlerians or something? I'm adamantly averse to seeing, or even hearing about any of the others. I saw all of them up until TROS, if only out of a sense of obligation. But after that I stopped seeing the point. That's a shame. It's not for me to tell anyone else how to watch Star Wars -- i.e., which parts to watch, when, or how (let alone why) -- but I think you deprived yourself by not seeing the ST through to completion. TROS doesn't offer a ton of surprises, but it's a satisfying film with a lot more energy, humour, and panache than the previous sequel entries, in my opinion. Yeah, it's a JJ Abrams/Disney corporate hydra "for normies as well as nerds" blue-pill offering, designed to pander a fair degree and make a ton of cash, but it has a bit of that free-wheelin' vibe -- that, to me, was painfully absent in TFA and TLJ. I also think it's plainly the most Star Wars-y feeling of the set. Of course, you need to take that last assertion with a shaker of salt, since that term obviously means different things to different people. But TROS slightly puts me in mind of AOTC (yeah, blasphemy to a some, I know), with its planet-hopping eccentricity (including a moody water-lashed fight that is doffing its cap to both Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar and Obi-Wan and Jango on Kamino), a murky General with hidden ties to Palpatine and his resurrection cult, the forbidden connection between Rey and Kylo (which kicks up a dramatic notch on the "forbidden" desert of Pasaana), and, well, the whole "this thing barely fits together yet snaps together rather beautifully" sort of feel. I understand your aversion, and maybe having Palpatine there is the most desperate move in the whole trilogy, but it's also a pretty inspired one that gives the nine-episode saga (if you're prepared to see it that way for five minutes) a much more joined-up feel. Frankly, I don't think Star Wars has ever had a more fiendish villain than Palpatine, and he is now one of fantasy cinema's most diabolical "last stage bosses". Having him in all three trilogies is very satisfying, and his presence in TROS works far more than it had any right to -- well, in my opinion, anyway. I'd like to add that Palpatine isn't really in TROS a whole lot. I haven't totted up his screentime, but he doesn't have a ton of scenes; and most of them occur in the final act. That's another way that TROS is more reminiscent of AOTC (or, yes, ROTJ). Plus, when he does appear, he looks and sounds terrific. They nailed the "Night Of The Living Dead" look in his makeup and with the lighting. His voice is arguably a bit over-processed in places, but it suits the situation. There's a smaller scene he has where he speaks with Richard E. Grant's character (yes: Richard E. mother-f****n Grant!!!), and in that scene, he speaks more softly, more reminiscent of the way he talks as "Palpatine" in the PT. TROS has lots of little treats like that. You may see it as hackneyed, but they also worked hard to give Palpatine a few familiar lines and sayings from the PT -- all of which raised a smile or a chuckle (in me, anyway). By importing Palpatine into the ST, even if at the last minute, it vaguely feels like the prequels are being acknowledged much more explicitly than in the previous films. Like here you have this talking ghoul from ages past: a PHANTOM CLONE(D) SITH. It's actually pretty awesome. Moreover, it's great to see Ian McDiarmid on the screen again, and it's equally great to hear John Williams working with the Emperor's Theme one last time. True to form, while Palpatine isn't in it much, his presence sort of hangs over the movie, much like he dominates the PT (especially ROTS). It's like the movie is saying: "This is really why you like Star Wars, isn't it?" The whole movie is practically his shrine. Of course, if you have a serious roadblock with the mere idea that Palpatine could come back to life in any viable form, my reassurances are probably all sounding like nails on a chalkboard. However, the way I see it, the Sequel Trilogy was potentially on a hiding to nothing until they decided to up the ante and bring back the saga's ONE TRUE EMPEROR. They know they're being dramatic, just like me, with their promiscuous, goofy embrace of ALL CAPS in the opening crawl. So even if it's contrived as all get-out, the movie is sufficiently self-aware to have a bit of fun with its whole "meta" construction. The Disney Side of the Force is a pathway to many meanderings some consider to be... unnatural. |
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Post by jppiper on Mar 2, 2021 20:26:17 GMT
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Post by mikeximus on Mar 14, 2021 20:56:48 GMT
EDIT: I noticed some of the pics aren't working. I am in the process of replacing them. So, full disclosure, I enjoy the Mandalorian. Why? Because it is simple, and it is fun. Is it perfect? No it is not perfect. It is simple and fun. It does not take the characters I know and love and regress them to prop up new characters. Mandalorian did not make Luke Skywalker a whiny bitch. Mandalorian did not make Han Solo a dead beat dad. Mandalorian did not stick Princess Leia into a perpetual state of Rebel Leader. Mandalorian did not retcon the chosen one prophecy. Mandalorian does not preach to me about identity politics, about the current state of the culture wars, about politics. It is simple, it is fun. It tells a story, albeit very slowly. Again, it is not perfect, but, it at least has allowed me to enjoy something Star Wars since Rogue One. What is a Mandalorian... Well according to two people that are commenting here in this thread, George Lucas saw The Clone Wars TV show as his vision, as 100% his level of canon, no different than HIS movies... so according to TCW, which is the same as saying according to George Lucas (according to some here).. these are Mandalorians:  According to TCW, which I have been informed is basically the same as according to George Lucas. The vast majority of Mandalorians had ditched the warrior way, that military style society. Notice the lack of armor?The vast majority of Mandalorians craved peace and neutrality, no more wars, no more fighting, according to TCW and by extension George Lucas. Because I have been told that Lucas saw TCW as 100% his vision and 100% the same as his movies... Now according to TCW, these are also Mandalorians:  But these Mandalorians are a subset of the Mandalorian culture. They are extremists. This subset wants Mandalorians to return to their old ways.... the warrior ways. They are a bit of a minority, banished from Mandalore for being extremists. They are guerillas, leading a guerilla campaign against the current Mandalorian culture. They are wearing the Boba Fett armor, using Jet packs, oh noes how unoriginal on Filoni and Lucas's part to use something soooo derivative in their show What does this have to do with the the Disney show The Mandalorian? Well, the obvious thing is that some people are commenting on what is and isn't a Mandalorian, trying to use what Lucas thought is or was a Mandalorian to try and bash the show, while ignoring the show that they claim Lucas sees as no different than HIS movies (as I have been told by a couple ppl here). Clearly in TCW, Mandalorians are not just a warrior culture anymore. Now if the argument is that the show Mandalorian is too derivative of Boba Fett.. is it? One of the quotes that Alexrd has thrown around to try and show that Lucas would not approve of such a ripoff of Boba Fett is this quote: In this quote we have Filoni talking about how they would approach the Mandalorians in TCW, and how they did not want the Mandalorians to look or be like Boba Fett. The crux being that the show The Mandalorian is too derivative because it starts off with the Mandalorian of the show being a Bounty Hunter.. which would be too derivative of Boba Fett. However, I have pointed this out to Alexrd in another conversation about that quote. It is not the full quote. Why people cannot use full quotes is beyond me... So here is the full quote, and again, keep in mind that this is Filoni talking about how he (and Lucas) were approaching the Mandalorians for TCW: So the very first sentence of that quote says alot... "Were they a mercenary people? Yes, they absolutely [were]." A mercenary people.. mercenaries.. Like.. Bounty Hunters... Bounty Hunters are mercenaries. But OMG... The Mandalorian in the Disney Show is a Bounty Hunter.. what a rip off of Boba Fett. How can there be another Mandalorian Bounty Hunter in aq culture that were a mercenary people (according to Filoni and by extension Lucas)..? So horrible.. It becomes evident that some here aren't really following what is happening in the show with the main character, Din Djarin (The Mandolorian). Why he looks the way he looks, why the armor, why the character believes the way he believes. During the Clone Wars, Din Djarin and his parents were caught up in a Separatist invasion of their planet. Djarin's parents were killed in the attack and he was about to be killed by a Super Battle Droid. Now keep this image in mind for later:  However.. a group of Mandalorians intervened and saved Djarin from the Separatist attack.This was not just any group of Mandalorians though. This was not the peace loving group that wanted neutrality during the Clone Wars. The group that saved Djarin were the extremists. Death Watch, the same Death Watch from TCW (you know the show that Lucas saw as 100% the same as his movies, according to some). The same extremists that hung onto and still practiced the old warrior ways of Mandalore. That wore the old style Mandalorian armor. The Boba Fett armor.. gasp... Notice the insignia.. It is the insignia of Clan Vizla (from TCW which according to some, Lucas saw as 100% the same as his movies), or Death Watch..  So "The Mandalorian" from the Disney show "The Mandalorian" or Din Djarin, was saved and indoctrinated into the extremist side of the Mandalorian culture. It seems that after being saved by Death Watch, he was passed a long to an even more ideological extremist group of Mandalorians that even believed in never removing their helmets. Does that sound like Boba Fett? It doesn't sound like it to me. So there is this group of extremist warriors. What else are they going to do in order to survive? Make money? Become accountants? Maybe stock the shelves at the local Walmart? They are going to use what they know, what they have been trained to do. Just like in real life. Here in the USA, many of our returning Vets from Iraq and Afghanistan turn around and become legal mercenaries. They go to work for private "security agencies" like the now infamous Blackwater. They use the skills as warriors that they learned to make a living. In fact many "private security contractors" have died in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting along side US troops. So in fictional world of fantasy, where a warrior culture that were also known to be mercenaries.. it's something far fetched that there is another Mandalorian Bounty Hunter? But he looks like Boba Fett, and Lucas wanted Fett to look unique.. Din Djarin looks like Fett? :format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68497170/HUC2_FF_003556.0.jpg) Nah.. Din Djarin actually looks more like that "army concept" that Filoni was talking about, again, these are the Death Watch Mandalorians from TCW (you know the show that Lucas saw as 100% canonical to his movies, according to some here): So that whole foundlings thing... I never read the EU. So I don't care about the concept of the Foundlings coming from there. What is clear is.. Why the concept was introduced here. There needs to be something that breaks Din Djarin free from his cultural conditioning (as a killer) and oaths as a Bounty Hunter. Remember the pic of the Super Battle Droid from earlier? Well when Din Djarin meets Grogu...  This is Grogu's (baby Yoda's) view as IG-11 is about to kill him... does it remind you of something? A uncaring, unfeeling droid about to kill a defenseless child? So this is the connection that breaks Din Djarin from his cultural indoctrination, from his oaths as a Bounty Hunter. He connects with Grogu's situation as it reminds him of his situation as a foundling. To me, imho, The Mandalorian is the most Lucas like Star Wars that has come out of Disney since they bought it. It has these instances of "rhyming" like Lucas used. It is not perfect, it is far from, it is not Lucas level. However, I can enjoy the show because it gives me moments to appreciate like above without the modern day preaching, without tearing my favorite characters apart. Trying to use the "what would Lucas do" argument against the show, while ignoring what Lucas has actually done when it comes to capitalizing on the iconography and imagery of Boba Fett feels rather disingenuous. |
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Post by Alexrd on Mar 16, 2021 22:25:03 GMT
However, I have pointed this out to Alexrd in another conversation about that quote. It is not the full quote. Why people cannot use full quotes is beyond me... I can use full quotes. What the full quote here doesn't do is provide the context of the conversation. That's why I truncate it to point out solely the Lucas portion. Because the context of the full quote is Filoni trying to tone down the EU fans' outrage and controversy over the Mandalorians at the time. He's trying to play both sides, so he says that the EU stories and portrayals "absolutely exist" and "did happen", when that's obviously not the case at all. Something he expanded upon in other interviews at the time. The Mandalorians aren't mercenaries. They aren't guns for hire. Jango and Boba were. That was one of the main distinctions to George. The Mandalorians were soldiers, supercommandos. Their portrayal in the EU is not what George envisioned. They are a regimented society. They are uniform, not customized. They fight for their nation and history, not for money. And now Filoni is doing the same thing with The Mandalorian. He's pandering to the EU portrayals and what was established there, thus at the expense of George's vision. Once again we have the vagabond gun for hire, the Boba Fett wannabe. And they know it. It's done on purpose. They are taking advantage of the Boba Fett appeal, so they created their own "Boba Fett In Everything But Name". Not only that, they turned all the Mandalorians into the Boba Fett fan club they already were in the EU. |
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Post by starwarshexalogy on Mar 19, 2021 10:30:22 GMT
It seems JJ. Abrams may be the one most responsible for Lucas´s story treatments for Episodes VII, VIII and IX being discarded:
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Post by Ingram on Mar 19, 2021 19:38:00 GMT
I maintain to this very minute that any contentions I have over the Sequel Trilogy (along with spinoffs and shows), none of it has to do with the canning of Lucas' story treatments. When-and-wherever such storylines are the principle of discussion, I would've rather Lucas himself directed them, or served as an executive producer with a filmmaker of his choosing at the helm.
I can only wonder if someday they might be retooled just enough outside the (studio commercial) Skywalker saga continuity to serve as an entirely separate Star Wars trilogy all their own, and under more ideal creative conditions. Probably never happen.
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