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Post by Cryogenic on Jul 31, 2020 15:39:48 GMT
HousekeepingCryogenic I think this thread is still fit for purpose. What I don't like is it when it veers off topic, and I don't think pitting the prequels against the originals really helps, although comparisons between the two in certain areas are usually justified. Indeed. It would be nice if people adopted a more holistic mindset for the first six, and tried, for the most part, to avoid playing one film or one trilogy entirely off another. On the other hand, we don't want a repeat of TFN, either... Other, non-SW movie comparisons were left aside in Moonshield's second cited reply. But both of those cited replies are ones in which he laid into TESB and Irvin Kershner and Lawrence Kasdan. Surely his right to do that, but destabilising if the aim is to treat the originals and the prequels as roughly equal (or if, at the least, bashing an OT movie to save a PT one is considered bad form). But then, if you disallow people their opinions, what have you got left? Yes, I think it would be good if emperorferus embraced a bit of formatting. Readbility is important. But how about the content of their response? It cites an article that explicitly elevates TFA, a Disney movie, above the prequels. I thought you also wanted to keep Sequel Trilogy mentions to a staunch minimum? I know: that one is kind of the whole pivot of the article, and not a sidebar, but still... This situation highlights how tricky it is to discuss the prequels in a movie vacuum. Most articles that take shots at the prequels typically compare them to other movies. The prequels are, after all, works of cinema. Putting a lid on that (at least: each and every time) can sort of work against the thread. A fine line.
I can see why you'd not be in favour of another board. One solution might be, at some future point, to create an index for the thread and edit it into the opening post, pinpointing replies where specific articles get cited or discussed for the first time within the thread. However, if you have external threads for each new article in a dedicated board, they are easily locateable and anyone can dive in and say what they want about that specific item, avoiding some of the tangents that have developed here.
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Post by emperorferus on Aug 3, 2020 18:38:25 GMT
I will change the font of my commentary in the future, I apologize for not doing that before.
I also should have kept in mind that this was the Lucas section in choosing an article. That article in particular was begging to be debunked, but I should have paid attention better to where the content in it belonged.
That said, I'm looking for a somewhat better written article that's more of a challenge to debunk.
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 8, 2020 8:23:26 GMT
So on that one, at least, I don't think you can say a journalist was twisting her words. They always do that. I myself know several cases. |
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Post by jppiper on Aug 13, 2020 1:08:15 GMT
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 13, 2020 5:51:16 GMT
"If you'd like to help the channel grow, feel free to share this video on sites like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook."
That's why I always say: don't watch these videos, give likes/dislikes or write comments. You just help the channel grow. Moreover, one of his stupid videos is already dismantled by Anomaly.
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 13, 2020 6:44:47 GMT
The video is created by another greedy blogger, who doesn't know how to increase the amount of views. Two last videos are pure click-bait ("The problem with prequels", "When sex scenes go too far"). A year ago tried to hype with CGI ("Is CGI getting worse?"). In general, channel is stupid ("analyse movies", but nothing except simple blockbusters - Hobbit, Star Wars, Marvel movies, etc.) Best Practical Effects of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, which is repeated in 10000 100 000 time... etc. The channel is dying (the last six videos before "sex scenes" have less than 6000 views with 44000 subscribers, even "The Rise of Skywalker" click-bait doesn't work anymore). Blogger tries to revive it, but without big success. Hope that it will die, because Youtube is already full of this garbage.
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Post by jppiper on Aug 22, 2020 20:37:32 GMT
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Post by Subtext Mining on Aug 26, 2020 8:06:37 GMT
If you're going to post links to videos/articles here, actually debunk them. Please, no more link dumping. Please include at least two paragraphs of your own content when posting any link or mentioning any sort of external source, here and in other threads. i.e. what you agree or disagree with and how you see it differently. jppiper and everyone. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Aug 26, 2020 9:13:44 GMT
If you're going to post links to videos/articles here, actually debunk them. Please, no more link dumping. Please include at least two paragraphs of your own content when posting any link or mentioning any sort of external source, here and in other threads. i.e. what you agree or disagree with and how you see it differently. jppiper and everyone. I'd just like to add to that: When dropping a YouTube or other video-platform link into the discussion, please use the Insert Video feature, which is accessed via the clapperboard icon (from left-to-right, it's the fourth one along in the third row of buttons in the "Create Post" text box). A short explanation of the video you're dropping into the discussion also wouldn't go astray, in addition to some brief commentary of one's own, as our webmaster has just instructed. |
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 26, 2020 14:50:24 GMT
I have no blog. For what should I do that, if no one will read my articles (except some people who don't need them)?
WhatCulture is a die hard prequel hater (and TESB sectant), it's well-known fact.
Anti-prequel propaganda was seriously damaged last five years, but it isn't destroyed still. New Wave Of British Heavy Metal prequel hatred can start. Greedy bloggers have amount of views and subscribers, clever people mostly doesn't spend much time in the Internet. (including myself)
And yes, I'm pissed by the stupid critique of the death of Padme, because I read Silmarillion and know about deaths of Luthien and Miriel Therinde. If WhatCulture doesn't know, let them read. Either Tolkien is dumb or Lucas is a genius. Personally I think that WhatCulture is dumb and both JRRT and GL are geniuses.
UPD. Tried to watch their argumentation. Damn.... there's no argumentation at all. Just rofls. And stupid cliche "Leia remembers her mother", which was a month ago deleted from Wikipedia (Padme's article).
Fun fact: they describe OT as "the holy trilogy", but don't know Obi-Wan's words "you were hidden from your father, when you were born."
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Post by Cryogenic on Aug 26, 2020 20:46:38 GMT
I have no blog. For what should I do that, if no one will read my articles (except some people who don't need them)? What was just said by Subtext and I was more in reference to YouTube videos. But the basic idea is to get involved: if you want to bring something to the thread, then add some commentary along with it. In other words, whenever you're introducing an outside source, make some kind of comment/critique about it, rather than just dropping a link in. We need to avoid spam. Spam degrades discussion. Commentary enhances it. |
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 27, 2020 5:52:02 GMT
I have no blog. For what should I do that, if no one will read my articles (except some people who don't need them)? What was just said by Subtext and I was more in reference to YouTube videos. But the basic idea is to get involved: if you want to bring something to the thread, then add some commentary along with it. In other words, whenever you're introducing an outside source, make some kind of comment/critique about it, rather than just dropping a link in. We need to avoid spam. Spam degrades discussion. Commentary enhances it.
I know. That was an answer to JPPiper's post.
As I said, the problem isn't in the videos. The problem is that they have a large amount of views. Every blogger tries to increase his amount of views. He will make click-bait videos, provocative videos, etc. Moreover, angry comments will increase ratings of his video.
Talking about corrupted journalists, I have to say that they have resources and we don't. Their articles are first in Google search (and others) - but nobody knows about our forum. Our articles won't be read. Sad, but true. Rick Worley had to create his own blog to explain what the prequels are. Moreover, he spent a year to create his essay.
Unfortunately, we have limited resources and limited time. Mikeximus works, Archduke works, Alex works, you too. I must work, too.
Counterpropaganda is a hard thing, because propaganda basically is an irreversible process. When RedLetterMedia created their horrible lying reviews for the first time and spreaded it to the wide audience, they hit a lot of emotions. Even if you create a blog with the same audience (5-7 millions) and explain their half-truths (but neither you nor I can do that, because we have no time), not all people will break down this lies. That's how it works.
Lies are horrible. Tolkien himself wrote: "Yet the lies that Melkor sowed in the hearts of men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed."
And there are too much lies everywhere about Lucas or about the prequel trilogy.
That's why I said, that the situation is worse than you think.
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Post by Cryogenic on Aug 27, 2020 9:11:46 GMT
Well, I think we've strayed from housekeeping onto philosophical or sociological matters now. But that's okay... What was just said by Subtext and I was more in reference to YouTube videos. But the basic idea is to get involved: if you want to bring something to the thread, then add some commentary along with it. In other words, whenever you're introducing an outside source, make some kind of comment/critique about it, rather than just dropping a link in. We need to avoid spam. Spam degrades discussion. Commentary enhances it. I know. That was an answer to JPPiper's post. As I said, the problem isn't in the videos. The problem is that they have a large amount of views. Every blogger tries to increase his amount of views. He will make click-bait videos, provocative videos, etc. Moreover, angry comments will increase ratings of his video. True. Too many people are chasing clicks and the oxygen of attention. When they receive it, they feel validated, and the people giving it only intensify the hive-mind effect. The Internet in this regard is more like a cluster of thought bubbles with occasional leakage. I take your point. My own work circumstances are up and down. I lost my last job due to the pandemic. I dissented when my employer tried to force me back in the middle of a national lockdown at the beginning of May on a week's notice. I vigorously called them out, and in return, I was aggressively threatened and told I had violated basic employment policy and swiftly booted. Obviously, capitalism is very controlling, where employers break rules left and right, there are few to no workers rights, livable pay is virtually non-existent, and freedom of conscience is impossible. But that's a whole other thread... Yes, we're always up against it. Anyone resisting a status quo or a maintained consensus will always be dealt with harshly and dismissed through a variety of means. Humans love to establish a dominant narrative (one that normally serves the interests of people benefiting from things remaining as they are), and then they love attacking, punishing, and marginalising anyone that brings it into question. I literally mean they love it -- i.e., they actually look for people to accuse with the stain of heresy, so that they (the accusers and puritanical gatekeepers) can keep their place in the group or advance up the hierarchy. Technically speaking, the Internet does, however, give us tremendous resources -- it's just finding the right way to employ those resources to one's advantage, or in the service of a good and valid cause. Unfortunately, so many people now use the Internet, and there's so much stuff on it, that it's getting harder and harder to draw people's limited attention and stand out.
I share more of your bleakness here. I think RedLetterMedia succeeded not so much because they twisted the truth and told lies, but because they were preaching to the choir. In the way the videos were constructed, they were playing with people's vanity and making them feel smart and justified in their collective contempt. "See? This guy knows good filmmaking. It's like a crash course in sound cinematic values." That was the general refrain. The RLM videos also happened to be part of an emerging zeitgeist of long-form YouTube reviews at a time when broadband speeds and access rates were improving. People were ready for the next phase of fanboy commentary, and YouTube provided the perfect outlet.
The RLM people had the luck of good timing. In 2010, many people were buying their first smartphone and registering accounts on Twitter and Facebook. A new world of instant access was opening up. A lot of big fantasy franchises that ran parallel with the prequels had concluded their run at that time (e.g., LOTR, Harry Potter, The Matrix, the first Spider-Man films), while others were part-way through (the Chris Nolan Batman films) -- tempting people to draw comparisons with the prequels in a subconscious retrospective sense. When Peter Jackson released The Hobbit films, look how many people said, "This is Peter Jackson's Prequel Trilogy."
I think the growth of the Internet had also begun to produce a snark-driven "meme" culture that continues with wild abandonment to this day. Lucas himself lightly tapped into that with his "Han Shot First" t-shirt marketing. Now there are entire hipster stores online, and a deluge of light-think clickbait articles that more or less pair together in some unseemly hipster-clickbait alliance. In this clamorous, anti-intellectual atmosphere, the prequels never stood a chance. Only recently perhaps, with the advent of the Disney era, are things changing for the better on this front (though a lot of gaslighting has come from the new copyright owners, too).
"Hit a lot of emotions" is right. At the climax of every prequel review, the RLM people made sure to draw a very loaded and romantic comparison between the prequels and the originals -- an audio-visual panegyric designed to beguile and polarise the viewer into feeling nostalgic for the originals and morally right to feel hatred for the prequels. A quasi-fascistic enterprise that gets people hankering for "the good ol' days". As The Bible says: "There is nothing new under the sun."
A poetic -- if depressing -- end. Hey, wait. That really is poetry.
But look, I can throw an Obi-Wan line at you, regardless of how rough the situation might seem: "You're focusing on the negative."
Then again, so am I. The only point I'm making is that you have to be careful, when you're so fixated on the shadows, not to blind yourself to the light.
We may be contending with an empire, but empires can be defeated. That's one of the object lessons of Star Wars, is it not?
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Post by Subtext Mining on Aug 27, 2020 11:10:57 GMT
Anyone else remember the early days of Youtube when you could link a rebuttal video to the video you're rebutting, like right on that video's description?
Now you can't even include a link in your comment on a video.
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Post by Cryogenic on Aug 27, 2020 11:31:03 GMT
Anyone else remember the early days of Youtube when you could link a rebuttal video to the video you're rebutting, like right on that video's description? I don't remember that, no. Video descriptions these days on YouTube are quite extensive, but you don't seem to be talking about that, per se. There are many things you can no longer do on YouTube. Especially -- in terms of video content -- when it comes to what you're allowed to say, and how long you're allowed to say it. |
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 27, 2020 17:23:34 GMT
I take your point. My own work circumstances are up and down. I lost my last job due to the pandemic. Than we are closer than we thought - I lost my last job due to the pandemic too, with my best friend. Moreover, he was threatened, too. Technically speaking, the Internet does, however, give us tremendous resources -- it's just finding the right way to employ those resources to one's advantage, or in the service of a good and valid cause. Unfortunately, so many people now use the Internet, and there's so much stuff on it, that it's getting harder and harder to draw people's limited attention and stand out. Yes. Absolutely. I think RedLetterMedia succeeded not so much because they twisted the truth and told lies, but because they were preaching to the choir. Yes. They've found their audience. In the way the videos were constructed, they were playing with people's vanity and making them feel smart and justified in their collective contempt. "Vanity... Definitely my favourite sin." "See? This guy knows good filmmaking. It's like a crash course in sound cinematic values." That was the general refrain. Yes. Propaganda works only because of peoples' ignorance. Stuckmann's propaganda works exactly in the same way, when he told lies about Pod Race and critisized that all shots are "left to right". The calculation was: "These apes on Youtube don't know 180-degree rule!" Stuckmann himself is a filmmaker. He knows 180-degree rule. It means that he deliberately tells lies. But even without basic filmmaking skills, if people thought more, they could recall that all shots from Death Star Assault were right to left. Or Terminator 2 canal chase (my favourite action scene). Another example how it works in cryptography: www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/1999/0215.htmlThe RLM people had the luck of good timing. Yes, they had. Talking about RLM, we can mention another case, when they tell lies. Apart from "midichlorians weren't mentioned" (they were mentioned in III), they said that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon should be one character (Obi-Wan). Don't they realize that it will kill the whole story? Anakin betrayed Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan didn't have enough authority in Anakin's eyes and Qui-Gon did, but he died. Or "Why don't Obi-Wan use Force Speed?" (Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul, Qui-Gon meditates) - very simple: he can kill himself by the Force Field or fall down into the pit right behind the force fields. The whole Plinkett's prequel reviews are snake oil. And proofs that they are "objectively bad" are snake-oil proofs. But look, I can throw an Obi-Wan line at you, regardless of how rough the situation might seem: "You're focusing on the negative." That's just my habit, based on my personal experience. We may be contending with an empire, but empires can be defeated. That's one of the object lessons of Star Wars, is it not? Star Wars is a movie, but, fortunately, there are many real examples how empires were defeated, or even more terrifying propaganda failed.
By the way, I know another case when the creator had bad blood with other members of the company and after his departure the history was rewritten. It's Pink Floyd. When Roger Waters retired (I am his fan), Gilmour and Wright began to say that they wrote or co-wrote his songs and wore T-shirts "Who's that f...g Waters?"
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Aug 28, 2020 23:18:00 GMT
Moonshield How long have you a part of the fandom, or more specifically, been following the geek media's coverage of Star Wars? Just curious. You would seem to have the most energy for tackling anti-PT drivel out of any of us right now. |
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Post by jppiper on Aug 28, 2020 23:49:06 GMT
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Post by Moonshield on Aug 29, 2020 5:28:02 GMT
A year and a half You would seem to have the most energy for tackling anti-PT drivel out of any of us right now. No, you have more energy. I just read Naboo News and watched Anomaly Inc and some other videos. I only continued to do what you did. Rick Worley and Anomaly have made a good compilation of anti-prequel articles. |
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Aug 29, 2020 23:44:53 GMT
A year and a half? Ah, that's pretty recent, although I only starting posting (on Naboo News, that is) sometime in late 2018, so not too long before you. I would say I've been keeping an eye on Star Wars news since early 2017-ish, and before that the only online media I would consume were podcasts, which I got into about 2015 (in the run-up to the new sequel film).
I tended to stay away from SW YouTube during the Dark Times, but there was one particular basher video I did watch, and has stood out ever since. And it wasn't RLM, rather from the guys at Collider/Jedi Council, who were doing commentary tracks on the prequels. The sneering, obnoxiousness and the sheer condescension coming from those buffoons, thinking they knew filmmaking better than George Lucas himself - this was circa 2014 and it was peak basher season. Intriguingly, after a quick search of Collider's channel, it would appear that the videos have now vanished...
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