Saga Is "Star Wars logic" a legit excuse?

Right. But this also occurs in a movie that makes a conflict between accidents and deeper meaning an inherent part of its diegesis.

It's as deep -- or as stupid -- as you want it to be.

 

Woah, didn't think this thread would get inflated as much as it did.

For the record, none of the stuff I said in the opening post came from my own mouth; not once when watching these movies did I ever consider these. It wasn't only until recently, when the scum of the Internet was nitpicking and finding every single thing wrong with these movies to ruin other people's enjoyment, that I started noticing.

IMO, part of being a movie-goer is having a suspension of disbelief and using your imagination. A movie shouldn't have to spell out every single tiny detail for it to plausibly function. But when you have a sci-fi movie like this, where you have unbelievable things showcased to you, it makes you wonder why not continue doing it? For story convenience? OK, fair enough. But then why not have the movie explain it to you? It's that movie-goer use your imagination thing again, but it seems nowadays less and less people follow that thinking.

There's confusion regarding "Does not equate a galaxy full of Jedi" right? Well, the "explanation" if you can call it that, argues that if Obi-Wan says the Force is created by all living things, and if Yoda's spewing on the Force being everywhere is to be believed, why doesn't someone like Han be a Jedi? Why not R2-D2?

 

I understood that you were pretty much just reporting other people's objections in the OP, myself, and raising it for a larger discussion. I probably should've made that clearer in my response.

As for the "galaxy full of Jedi" thing-- well, you're obviously not going to have a whole lot of Jedi after the Empire's wiped out the order. You'll certainly have no shortage of Force-sensitive people being born who would've had the potential to become Jedi if the order had been around to identify them and start training them at an early age. For all we know Han might've very well been a Jedi candidate if he'd grown up during the PT era. But he didn't. Same with Leia.

And R2? Hell, he could've been on the damn Council. But presumably there's a difference with synthetic sentient beings.

 

I'll inflate your thread. I'm your huckleberry.


I must be on a Phantom Menace binge today. I just noticed something else that connects to what I wrote in my last two posts.

When Qui-Gon grabs Jar Jar's tongue at the dinner table -- due, again, to the way the scene was edited -- the silhouettes of Padme and Shmi, and the visage of Anakin, essentially all freeze. Qui-Gon and Jar Jar literally have a private moment, since Qui-Gon appears to pull Jar Jar out of the normal film-time continuum, admonishing him before the others know what has happened. When Qui-Gon lets Jar Jar's tongue go, Jar Jar takes a moment to recover, slobbering about, and we see Shmi reacting to this, as her perception returns just ahead of Anakin and Padme's (though Anakin's hand is kinda floating and moving of its own accord during this time). The scene then resumes its normal pacing.

It's an exceptionally trivial thing I'm harping on, but then, in-depth discussions are what this forum is all about, right? And why not? The film has been skewered over the smallest details in other contexts. So, anyway, I think these Jedi are capable of dicking with the Force, and maybe have powers so seamless most viewers won't ever notice. This is really interesting, however, because it occurs in a scene where a discussion of "very fast, very dangerous" racing dominates, and the issue of Qui-Gon's Jedi-ship is brought up and clarified for the audience.

Would Lucas sneak in stuff this subtle? You bet he would. Would a fanboy like me ascribe it to Lucas regardless? You bet he would. It doesn't matter, though. It's there. It exists. Just my little reading of that moment. I swear... these movies will send ya crazy.

 

The nature of the Force explains many things (such as the absence of a difference between lifting pebbles and lifting X-Wings).

 

I mark it up as reading too much into the narrative. All movies can be picked apart this way not just SW. I like having the suspension of disbelief and enjoying films without too much analyzing---but I understand plenty of people don't It's like The Walking Dead viewership that can't understand how Hershel has a unlimited shotgun ammo supply but ignore the fact that DEAD PEOPLE ARE ACTIVE AND EATING THE LIVING lol. I see what you are saying but like I said some just choose to ignore the little logic inconsistencies...

 

To be honest, the whole "IT'S FANTASY" argument is rather disingenuous. It's silly to criticize works for elements of their premise, like zombies or lightsabers or what have you. But that doesn't mean they get a free pass on getting the ordinary things wrong.

 

But can't that excuse on "ordinary" things just be chalked up to "it's a fantasy world, what they see as ordinary is not the same as we do".

For example, I've seen people criticize the temple kids being called "younglings", when they should just be called kids.

 

That's been used in fantasy novels predating the PT- maybe that's where Lucas got the idea from in the first place?

 

The primary criticism of that happens to be the way in which it's difference for difference's sake. It's also, again, not something related to the premise.

 

My theory is that he lifted it from Rogue Planet.

 

It's not difference for difference's sake unless you can't resolve -- or appreciate -- basic differences in the world to begin with.

"Youngling" is a real word: a noun for "a young person, animal, or plant".

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/youngling

In Star Wars, George Lucas clearly draws a varied tapestry of associations between people, animals, and plants (and non-bio technology).

In fact, in the younglings scene, he even decks their training room with flowers -- a clear aberration inside the anodyne confines of the Jedi Temple.

To go a stage further, the word "youngling" is actually derived from an Old English word of Germanic origin, "geong-ling" (think Geonosis).

http://www.bosworthtoller.com/015561

Furthermore, "clone" is from a Greek (think Greek tragedy) word for "twig", while "attack" traces back to an Old Italian (think Naboo) word, "estaccare", meaning "attachment".

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/attack

ATTACK OF THE CLONES = ATTACHMENT OF THE STICKS/TWIGS/YOUNG SHOOTS/YOUNGLINGS

EPISODE II

"You don't want to sell me death sticks."
"Attachment is forbidden."

The film is an hallucinatory koanistic tapestry (Kaminoan = AMINO (from "ammonia", possibly related to "ammon") KOANS (parodoxical statements used in Buddhism; from two Chinese words meaning "public matter"))...

A bold audio-visual folding and re-folding of the banal and extraordinary aspects of societal growth and decline; control; coercion; subduing; brainwashing; etc. "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is". Notice how Yoda uses the more common-place noun when he steps outside his Jedi frame for a moment?

The film has, like, a billion contradictions and explosive farce-like happenings layered within it. "I'm terribly sorry about all this." It's hugely clumsy, monumental, twisted, weird, silly, violent, epic, restrained, parodic, soft, sudden, and outrageous, sometimes all at the same time.

"How can that be?" It can't.... not really. Everything is skewed, elided, and displaced into a fractal storm of Kubrickian chicanery. Even the words "mystery" and "puzzle" are incorporated into character dialogue (multiple times in the original script) to heighten the contortions at play.

A pan-up takes us *over* the classic yellow opening text. A mirrored ship descends into a digital soup. "Good friends" constantly gripe and bicker. Anakin streaks down the wide frame in perfect "flow". Obi-Wan is placed between stars in a scene in which a sage elfin master teaches enslaved kids the beauties of the Force by stuffing their heads in oversized helmets while they machinically swing junior-sized lightsabers around. A young Jedi seduces an older politician at a sparkling lake retreat with a terrible pick-up line. A mystery plot is established and never solved. Etc.

I think we can allow Lucas use of the word "youngling". He's up to a lot of tricks in AOTC. It's probably his most fever-ish film.

 

Oh, and another way to answer the original question, from AOTC, appropriately enough...

"If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist."

Be mindful. Art follows its own rules.

In order to enjoy the films, you can't be too concerned with whether things perfectly cohere and correlate with what already exists in the body of human knowledge and/or the limited scope of human language.

That's sorta the whole point of art: to expand and transcend (often by provoking or challenging) what's already known about or considered valid or worthy in the world. Art has dimensions past language itself.

You could actually look upon Star Wars, being that it's "mythological" by nature, as, again, going to an extreme and making a statement about itself, about all art: that art is, by definition, mythical/mystical, and doesn't have any particular rhyme, reason, or solution.

On the other hand, whatever problems or errors you see... are real. At least, to the extent that you consider them to be.

 

You can't apply logic to Star Wars.

You just can't.