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Post by Pyrogenic on Feb 24, 2020 21:58:32 GMT
Something mysterious that I have noticed about Star Wars is how very few (if any) experts on the subject have explicitly mentioned going on an imaginary journey within Star Wars, emulating moments differently within the mind’s eye, in relation to the potentially infinite symbolism of the filmic texts proper, for the purpose of retrieving psychic artifacts, i.e., conceptual “things” that can be utilized in the real world to understand and interpret the movies at a higher level, sort of like exploring a game world to find items that allow further progression/immersion into the story or that enhance player character’s progress. We have probably all experienced the situation of being frustrated by another person’s opinion about a movie we have spent hundreds of hours playing with/thinking about, not because their hot take is negative per se, but because they have obviously not yet gained enough experience points or acquired enough observations within the roughly delineated game world to play at the “level” of assumption the experienced players are operating at (the newbie or unskilled player will intrinsically have no idea how far ahead some of the other players are because everyone’s language usage sort of levels things out). Likewise, how rare it is for someone to be so utterly impressed by a seemingly superhumanly insightful post by another person on a message board (not necessarily saying this is one of them) to the point where one actually achieves a brief enlightenment moment – learns something new – that significantly changes their point of view on the subject and allows them to enter into a higher sphere! All of this may boil down to something I tend to find fascinating, which is that people don’t know what each other know, even if they express literally everything imaginable in text, to the point where, because so many things are indeed often explicitly stated, it appears that everybody knows everything at the same level, *just because they are able to communicate* (“The ability to speak does not made you intelligent…”). So, what I am wondering at the moment is where the other users on this forum are at. Not physical locations, but psychic positions. Where is everybody in Star Wars? There may not be “higher” or “lower” levels at all, but just “different” or “similar” as others’. Maybe a little idea node expressed in a few words will suffice as one of these *psychic artifacts* to further discussion. This may be tricky to articulate for each person, but…I suppose I’ll share one first?
“Hidden Echoes”
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Feb 24, 2020 22:28:13 GMT
"Dialogue as sound effects"
or a little trick I learned from you:
"Sound effects as dialogue"
Honestly, I like the ability to move around and explore. Not just confine myself to any location. My Star Wars universe started to expand once I began to see the echos and portals within itself. Then I let THX 1138 become part of it. It's subterranean. It's the subtext. It's a trilogy in itself within what has become a trilogy of trilogies. I still like the books and comics. But that's just one level. I began to let Lucas's other movies become part of this. At a certain point, if you spend too much time in Star Wars, you start to see other books and movies, and indeed life itself within the confines of Star Wars. It can be dangerous to see Star Wars as not just one unified story, but as the ONLY story. We as fans, especially the purists, can make our own Jedi prison planet. ("It's a trap!") We can turn our backs on lesser fictions, and meditate and turn these films over and in our head. But yes, there is only one unified story, and these lesser fictions are part of the real virtuality we seek. Even if there's peace on Ach-To, our destiny is for the greater good. Even the traps are part of the greater good. Not everything is Star Wars, and Star Wars is not everything. But we are. I think that's what we really are looking for in this video game. We are looking for ourselves and each other, and Truth itself. We have a choice between Force-choking ourselves and each other to death, or astral projecting ourselves so deep into space that we join into it, but no matter which direction we take, nobody ever really dies.
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Mar 7, 2020 9:41:37 GMT
This is actually a superb topic. Let me give you my own spin on it:
How effective do you find the prequels are at creating a living, breathing, believable world?
It's a question that has nothing to do with the narrative, and all to do with imagination. In this respect you can compare the prequels efforts with non-film materials like video games, comics and even novels.
I think Lucas' 2nd trilogy not only succeeds, but triumphs here. It is not for nothing that even those who're hostile to the prequels find it hard not to praise the films when it comes to their world-building. Two of my top three favourite SW films may be in the OT, but I have no doubts when I say that that Prequel Trilogy completely eclipses the OT in its use of the human imagination and ability to project new worlds. Naboo and Coruscant are simply out of this world, while smaller players like Mustafar and Geonosis are terrifically well designed. Tatoinne is returned, but in its staging of the pod race we get to glimpse a whole new aspect of that civilisation.
I particularly like how the Prequel Trilogy moved away from the OT's dependency on spaceship scenes. By shaping key events on actual planets, Lucas brought a subtle, yet significant light of realism onto his new trilogy. Yes, the planets could be futuristic, as in the case of Coruscant, but there's much more of a earnestness there when compares it with these unimaginably large spacecraft with God-like powers. They feel more like extensions of our technologically advanced age, of New York 2.0, and so are grounded, if you'll excuse the pun.
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Post by Ingram on Mar 7, 2020 11:33:34 GMT
This is actually a superb topic. Let me give you my own spin on it: How effective do you find the prequels are at creating a living, breathing, believable world? It's a question that has nothing to do with the narrative, and all to do with imagination. In this respect you can compare the prequels efforts with non-film materials like video games, comics and even novels. I think Lucas' 2nd trilogy not only succeeds, but triumphs here. It is not for nothing that even those who're hostile to the prequels find it hard not to praise the films when it comes to their world-building. Two of my top three favourite SW films may be in the OT, but I have no doubts when I say that that Prequel Trilogy completely eclipses the OT in its use of the human imagination and ability to project new worlds. Naboo and Coruscant are simply out of this world, while smaller players like Mustafar and Geonosis are terrifically well designed. Tatoinne is returned, but in its staging of the pod race we get to glimpse a whole new aspect of that civilisation. I particularly like how the Prequel Trilogy moved away from the OT's dependency on spaceship scenes. By shaping key events on actual planets, Lucas brought a subtle, yet significant light of realism onto his new trilogy. Yes, the planets could be futuristic, as in the case of Coruscant, but there's much more of a earnestness there when compares it with these unimaginably large spacecraft with God-like powers. They feel more like extensions of our technologically advanced age, of New York 2.0, and so are grounded, if you'll excuse the pun.
I suppose mine is a slightly different take on world-building, which is principally less about setting designs or evermore complex backdrop vistas than it is precisely narrative. Narrative, however, not in terms of story content, but as both a demonstrative and abstract device: action or geographical narrative. I dished some thoughts on this way back years ago on TFN regarding Lucas uncanny ability at wielding what I call mini-narratives. The way he repurposed the old serial cliffhanger sensibility for dividing up much of his screen time into little vignettes of motion or wandering not altogether essential to the plot that nonetheless expresses a myriad of venues constellating his storied universe ...where other fantasy/sci-fi so often devolves into the nonsensical with a binary of blunt spectacle for noise's sake and endless plot exposition. Examples include: > C-3PO and R2 aimless in the desert > Obi-Wan evading the Fetts through an asteroid field > The Falcon's detour into, and escape from, a space slug > Anakin and Padme running the droid factory gauntlet > Jar Jar and two Jedi Knights' journey through an aquatic planet core > Leia meeting Wicket -- or -- Luke negotiating a dicey Ewok feast > A speeder bike chase > An indulgently lengthy pod race > A trash compactor situation > An emergency runway landing The list goes on. I'll try and remember what I originally detailed so I can elaborate on this point later. |
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Post by Pyrogenic on Mar 11, 2020 21:38:45 GMT
Star Wars as...
A screen artifact with complexity operating at a level beyond the limited force field of telepathic vocabularies that humanity's complete hive mind can possibly articulate.
A feverishly coordinated abomination transfixing its viewers to a heavily fortified, corrupting state of preposterous futurism presenting itself, always now, as the past.
A delusion perpetually contriving the superficial consciousness of simple plot-point events extracted from a knowable context that is too big, contradicting any semblance of grand interpretative authority.
An operatic psychoanalysis detailing the currently, realistically, factually forbidden extraterrestrial companies forcing a specific senate into creating a catastrophically inevitable holocaust as extra-diegetic entertainment for youths.
An artistically legendary understanding of machines anticipating the sexual confusion of humans pretending to devour each other in imagination only.
A mystical framework of sense and existence, reminisced into a revolutionary obstacle course weeding out the ideologically critical indecisiveness of purely theoretical, dissonant nonsense.
A series of explosions looped by the viewer in order of subjective magnificence, eccentrically demonstrating the possibilities of reevaluation via the enchantment of an infinite array of ungraspable, outbursting particles of new information.
A subversion of boring other movies recording nothing of importance; intentionally defining the irreconcilable aspects of classically one-upping the competition's facture by simply being more stylistically confident.
A gratification of technicians listening to the fruits of their contemplation over several decades, ironically and ultimately imperial propaganda supporting the idea of rebellion.
A frantic set of beautiful choices understood only after having been created, oblivious to meaning per se, its form potentially indistinguishable from anyone's solipsistic idea of what it ought to be forever thwarted by being an objectively reified record.
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Post by Pyrogenic on Aug 14, 2020 20:49:06 GMT
A quick little thing I wrote the other day (posted here at Cryogenic's request):
"Code Inputting"
The powerful occult principle, someday discovered again, locates a person listening to noisy babel for the purpose of gleaning useful linguistic information, unintended by those actively generating the record, yet intended by the careful observer in hindsight. Without overtly challenging the prevailing sense of humor surrounding the magician’s culture, the magician nevertheless cracks everyone up to code. Ubiquitous in its presence, shades of similarity pervade the world of items as a single coherent entity, a system of networked echoes pertaining to each other insofar as one is capable of playing from one through the other. Questioning disputes that may arise from tenuous discrepancies, the magician as mediator confines his attitude of judgment to only those aspects of similarity that are existent. Clarity or resonant power of an echo serves as an attribute undergirding yet another layered shell of monadic truth. A spell describes a thing, and because a similar spell describes a similar thing, there are as many similar things as there are similar spells. Transitioning between the shifting tapestry of spells is a conjured unity. The essence of an item is traceable through a shifting set of synonymic descriptions. This is magic code.
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Post by smittysgelato on May 24, 2021 1:27:37 GMT
Where am I at in the video game so to speak? I'm busy excavating the cultural heritage/foundation that Star Wars is built on. I'm reading through Jung's Collected Works and finding all sorts of connections to a Galaxy Far Far Away. In particular all of the alchemical parallels. Star Wars is of course influenced by Faust, itself an alchemical narrative.
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Post by Pyrogenic on May 24, 2021 15:21:10 GMT
Where am I at in the video game so to speak? I'm busy excavating the cultural heritage/foundation that Star Wars is built on. I'm reading through Jung's Collected Works and finding all sorts of connections to a Galaxy Far Far Away. In particular all of the alchemical parallels. Star Wars is of course influenced by Faust, itself an alchemical narrative. That’s a great question. One just needs to access the HUD/pause/debug/option/cheat menus of reality itself to answer it. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on May 24, 2021 20:47:54 GMT
Where am I at in the video game so to speak? I'm busy excavating the cultural heritage/foundation that Star Wars is built on. I'm reading through Jung's Collected Works and finding all sorts of connections to a Galaxy Far Far Away. In particular all of the alchemical parallels. Star Wars is of course influenced by Faust, itself an alchemical narrative. Yes indeed. I would love to do a whole series on Carl Jung Depth Psychology in Star Wars. The most obvious being Darth Vader as Luke's Shadow. |
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Post by smittysgelato on May 25, 2021 1:41:51 GMT
Where am I at in the video game so to speak? I'm busy excavating the cultural heritage/foundation that Star Wars is built on. I'm reading through Jung's Collected Works and finding all sorts of connections to a Galaxy Far Far Away. In particular all of the alchemical parallels. Star Wars is of course influenced by Faust, itself an alchemical narrative. Yes indeed. I would love to do a whole series on Carl Jung Depth Psychology in Star Wars. The most obvious being Darth Vader as Luke's Shadow. That'd be sweet. What form would you do it in? Blog, video, other? |
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Post by Subtext Mining on May 26, 2021 2:53:57 GMT
Ultimately video, but I'd do a first run in essay form, with which to elicit feedback, etc.
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 12, 2021 21:01:14 GMT
Star Wars is interesting because, like science, religion, or any metaphysical world system, it posits things behind things and the potential existence of ulterior realities -- not to mention alterior realities. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterity |
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Post by Pyrogenic on Aug 8, 2021 18:40:35 GMT
The Star Wars Gestalt (an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts)...
One of the areas where I wish this forum's members shared a bit more common ground is in actually realizing or practicing the hopefully pretty well-established theory that Star Wars is an organized whole with MANY (potentially infinite?) parts capable of being articulated, and that these myriad pieces tend to resolve a lot of the criticisms aimed at the films, amongst another multitudinous set including other possible functions.
This is especially true when it comes to the ST, which has a few defenders here, but still gets constantly sidelined by a rough dismissal without a true summary appraisal of its component units. The same thing generally happened to the other films in their time. To borrow a phrase from Eyes Wide Shut, "You're not even looking at it." I still contend that the whole of Star Wars benefits from the inclusion of the ST, and that all the films in general are GREATER than not only any thing within them, but yes, the sum of those things. As a thought experiment, this idea is ridiculously mind-opening. The potential that an itemized list of parts in even one of the films, summed, is still "less than" the film proper, is amazingly useful for defending the films.
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Aug 8, 2021 19:48:21 GMT
Hey Pyro, have you seen Solo yet?
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Post by Pyrogenic on Aug 8, 2021 22:46:11 GMT
Hey Pyro, have you seen Solo yet? I saw it ages ago… |
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Aug 8, 2021 22:59:00 GMT
Hey Pyro, have you seen Solo yet? I saw it ages ago… oh ok. Maybe I'm thinking of Cryo. |
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