Clone Wars The Clone Wars: Episode 316: Altar of Mortis Discussion Thread

i think 'will of the Force' requires some kind of sentience but anyway it matters on a point of view.... i think Force should be left alone for now it is just the Force... energyfield created by life.... yes that's it's definition but i don't see it as contradictory with the idea of Force having sentience of its own what actually would make it "some kind of god" (notice the 'some kind of' i added there) but i think it should be left open for interpretetion.....

if they just stop this digging of Force's origins now it's fine but more exploration like this makes me wanna puke one arc of this stuff is more than enough for me

Do you know how many countries make up North and South America(not to mention Central America)? Know how many massive cultural and nationalistic identities exist?

In terms of knowing what the Americas are, well I can certainly guess numerous different ways you could mean to use such a word. Me myself, I live in North America, in Canada and have never once said or heard anyone else say "I'm from the Americas."

To me it comes across as kinda like saying "I'm from the world" because the term Americas seems so incredibly broad.

Hi, I'm Rob, I'm from the Western Hemisphere. Me and my buddy Gry, who lives just south of me, hang out all the time

Yeah I'm also not partial to the idea that the Force "sent" the distress signal.

@DarthPhilosopher

No disrespect intended by not quoting your post, it's just that I don't necessarily disagree with most of it, and more importantly it doesn't seem to necessarily contradict my point that you were arguing against.

Well Americas is part of the world so it's not the same thing to say i'm from 'Americas' or i'm from the world..... World is much broder term than Americas because it includes those too I have many times said i'm from Europe not that i'm from Finland- maybe i just don't have so strong national identity i dunno..... but this isn't really thread for that....

If Americas is a term thats used to describe the western hemisphere in the rest of the world then I appologize if its something I'm unfamiliar with. I still think its a gross misrepresentation.

You won't find a single person in Canada saying they are American because here saying someone is American represents that a person that is from the United States of America.

I just think it might be for the best if people, if they are not from somewhere, to maybe avoid applying such labels. It would be no different if I waded into a discussion and implied that Bosnians, Croatians and Serbians all shared the same world view thus I don't enjoy talking with them, based upon their geographic location.

It would be an ignorant statement for me to make based upon the vast differences in cultural, religious and nationalistic identities those individual nations have.

I'm proud to call myself an American, since I come from Brazil.

Now let's drop this subject, shall we? Darth Philosopher already conceded that he simply didn't quite word his sentence correctly, and we should take his word for it that it was not meant as a parochial statement.

If anybody wants to further discuss these geopolitical issues, the social thread is always available.

Oh, I'm pretty sure I get what he was saying without his explanation.

This is still the balance of the user you're talking about, rather than the balance of the Force itself. Since the user is not the Force, these are different things.

Did anyone notice:

There's this 'rumble' sound effect when the Son appears in the shuttle, seemingly from out of nowhere.

The same sound is heard when the tower of the Father appears behind Obi-Wan.

When dark Ahsoka sees the sword, her voice changes and is doubled by the Son's voice. (Or so it seems)

Yup, that's what I'm talking about. I don't think the Jedi ever attempt to destroy whatever it is about the Force that makes use of the Dark Side possible, they just shun actually using it and encourage others to do the same. I think the Force is almost always in balance, except when frequent use of the Dark Side has a perverse influence on it, but that's just my take.

I guess you missed my other posts about this... read up on them... everything is addressed there.

Fact of the matter is ?the Americas? is a geographical term. I have every right to use it. I admit it wasn?t the correct term to use in the context, but then again everyone makes mistakes, and if I wasn?t solely referring to Canada, Mexico and the United States it would have been a correct term to use. If I had retained my narrow-minded point that would have confirmed my narrow-mindedness and my generalisation of the nations consisting of the Western Hemisphere. However I instead corrected myself.

As I have said humanities subjects are my passion and in subjects like Geography you talk in regions not nations. As such I tend to get used to using terms such as Americas, Eurasia, Asia-Minor, the Baltic, etc. As I was talking about a region and not a specific country I had every right to use the term ?Americas?... I simply should have narrowed it down to the Northern Americas.

About me generalizing... I was referring to a region of the world. If someone said I originated from the Pacific or Oceania would I be insulted? No, because that is where I live. There are many diverse cultures within Oceania and it is perfectly okay to describe the nations of that regions as so. So I am not generalizing... it is a geographical fact that you and everyone else from the United States is from the ?Americas?. How was it wrong for me to say this... I said I didn?t mean the nations politically or economical ?revolved? around the US but rather that I meant the nations immediately surrounding the superpower that is the United States... you know, Cuba, Canada, Haiti, Mexico...

I do still however find it slightly odd that you can live in the United States of America and not know the term ?Americas?...

Oh really? Are you somehow implying I am generalizing about the entire continental mass that consists of North, Central and South America? I find that incredibly insulting. I study the entire world in many aspects and I must admit I am anything but narrow minded... if I was I wouldn?t have a passion for these subjects.

Thanks to Gry for correctly acknowledging my point. With that said lets please get off this topic... it is clear what I actually meant, and it is clear I was not making a generalisation of any nation.

Sorry I am jumping in here -- and haven't posted in a week or so... [health issues]

But watching Filoni's Commentary -- he mentions the way they tried to wrangle this story line into continuity is to basically consider it a big Dagobah Cave parallel.

But, I don't remember that Cave sending out a 1000 year old Jedi Distress Signal at any point.

So it cannot be simply explained as a Dagobah Cave without further exploration of the differences as well.

But to agree with many of you -- of course I'l watch tonight - despite seeing last week's "Next Week on TCW..." and having my serious misgivings... you kinda have to just take this arc as a Infinities.
Some accept it - some Don't - and gonna be real hard to reconcile the two points of view.

And one last comment -- not that I don't appreciate the homages to other franchises like Orthanc and LotR etc -- but Star Wars is supposed to set the standard for homages to be made of it -- not look for every opportunity to homage something else.
They need to get a check on this imho

Well see, I don't feel that this couldn't have happened 'for real' if it is to be seen as a Dagobah cave metaphor.

I'm assuming for now that these people are real, and that they once indeed lived in the temporal world etc., and that Father sent the signal.

That doesn't change the fact that this seems to be a place on another plane of existence, much like the Netherworlds. It is in its own dimension, has its own laws and manifests itself in symbols in order to be interpreted by beings from the temporal world. It has its own dream logic, and is so strong with the Force that visitors will encounter reflections of themselves (just like the Dagobah cave!), their future selves, their 'guiding spirits' (Qui-Gon, Shmi), their possible destinies. Our heroes are key elements in an event of galactic importance, and their presence on this plane affects the world itself. It is only logical they would experience a virtual vision, it is simply their own 'karma' manifesting itself.

In other words, it is exactly like the Dagobah cave, because what is in there is what they take with them.

One doesn't contradict the other. The message of the story doesn't change for us, nor does it for our heroes, if this place is real. The cave was a real place too, albeit inhabited with symbols.

I will admit that sometimes this bothers me, but usually it's fine. If we're talking about the design of the LOTR movies, that's one thing... I guess... but given that those were based on the much older Tolkien books, and that those books didn't exactly invent wizards in towers etc, and in fact Tolkien's approach to synthesizing prior mythology is a lot like what Lucas has always done, it doesn't strike me as a big deal. Star Wars is a pastiche of other mythologies. In 2011, those mythologies include the Aliens films, spaghetti Westerns, M*A*S*H, and even camp figures like Truman Capote and Paul Lynde. Some fit better into SW than others, but I don't recoil at any of them. In fact, the homage nicknaming of Clone Troopers is a completely innocuous and endearing addition to the GFFA.

Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb and wonder if the thing about the distress signal even really happened, save as part of the convenient-dream-logic that had Obi-Wan wonder how to find Father and then BAM! the tower's suddenly right behind him.

Who's to say that they weren't meant to be in this funky vision, and as part of the internal logic of the vision, they had to make sense of how they got there?

That would mean the dream started before they even arrived at the monolith.

But yeah, like I said, I'm not worried about it being a real place. As for the 'Palpatine getting lucky' argument, I'm just not taking this strange adventure as a literal cause for what's happening in the galaxy.

Sooooo, what?

Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan are all back at the Temple sharing the same dream/vision?

Or is it all Anakin?

It's even dumber that way, keep the distress call and the journey to investigate real, let the rest be a dream/vision.

I actually find it less revolting if the whole thing is real, if it all really happened.

Never mind, doesn't matter, I'm just going to pretend none of this ever happened.

Ah, but in the cave, what's in there is ONLY what you take with you, and THAT's the big difference. If we assume that everything on Mortis is an expression of the heroes internal struggles, then who the heck sent the distress call? Anakin's id? Nope, it was the Father, which means he was already on Mortis before Anakin went there, so it's not like the cave. Mortis is a bunch of crazy stuff, PLUS what you take with you.

Remember, Mortis exists "outside the temporal world," as in outside of time itself. Just because it took a few seconds to the Clones has no ramifications whatsoever as to whether or not it was a dream/vision or if it physically happened or whether that even matters. So it's still just as open to interpretation a ever. But, just as it's been since the beginning, you're perfectly free to go with the interpretation you find most revolting if you so choose.

The comment you quoted was made before the episode aired.

Once again, I find all interpretations revolting.

Well sorry then, and I hope you are able to find an interpretation that is more suitable to your tastes.

Why do you find it 'revolting'...? It was merely a vision of the nature of the Force and how balance is brought about... I don't see how it could be revolting since it doesn't really change anything significant...

"Revolting" was my word.

Right.
But what you have in BOLD is precisely one of the the obvious similarities. No argument there.

And perhaps at the end of Part 3 - which I haven't watched yet - we'll see that this all happens in the blink of an eye and Rex doesn't understand why the 3 of them think they've been gone a week.
It can all be explained away as Inception -- a Dream within a Dream within.... [lol]

But still - this place had to call out to them [and Yoda didn't go] using 2000 year old signals and all that. The Cave on Dagobah seems more or less inanimate and simply exists - until someone enters it.
This is a Space Station of some sort sending out deep-space signals etc etc

So if you want to simply explain it as TCW / Filoni's version of the Cave -- he shoulda made it look like a Planet and not man-made. That would have helped a lot for me.

Either way -- it is not necessarily a contradiction I am speaking to -- rather confusion as to what Mortis actually is and who built it. But maybe when I watch Part 3 sometime today I'll understand much better

I suspected that we agreed on more than we realized because we were emphasizing different things, I'm glad that's squared away now.