What happened to this forum?

There used to be such good, in-depth discussions around here.

Did we just run out of good things to discuss?

 

Films aren't designed to offer new things after years upon years of continuous discussion.



I will tell a personal story, though. I have not done very much posting at all in the actual Star Wars forums of this site since 2005. As many of you have noticed I am guest-modding in Saga for a spell, and this has drawn me to post in some of the Star Wars forums.

And some things are as if they were new, because I'm not as burned out on the forums.

But some things are very old indeed -- the same points, the same counterpoints, sometimes even the same posters making them.

It is as much a function of how long you've been here as it is everything else.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

I agree.

But I would like it if this board had an official list, for the archives, stickied at the top of this board... of all the "quality" topics and discussions that we've gone through on this board. We've had some excellent discussions here, I'd just like to remember what they were, and see if any are still "open" even with the saga now being complete for 4 years. Maybe it would help kickstart some good discussion here again.

Discussions on the Force were usually good, about Living/Unifying Force, dark vs. light and what the sides really mean, comparison to Western and Eastern religions, what bringing balance really meant, how midichlorians fit in scientifically and metaphorically, the powers of Darth Plagueis, the limits to the Force, etc. I liked the political discussions too (Palpatine's rise, studying the Senate, core worlds vs. the outer rim, the larger political issues of the GFFA that underline the tensions in the background, etc.) and the character-study discussions (Anakin, Padme, Luke). I started 2 threads, a while back, on what Anakin really wants, and another on what idea and symbolism each saga character "represents."

I just opened up a thread in both PT and OT, asking if people still have any unanswered questions from either trilogy, maybe that will give me some good ideas.

 

I'll look into it when I get back

 

To be honest this forum seems to be the most active its been in years. As far as I can see the discussion is as good as ever, but now its generating a much higher turn-over as well. I think Hal's doing a great job with Star Wars Saga and Adam's stint as guest mod has been a revelation, too. Well done guys.

 

Thats a very good idea. This forum useto be the best on the whole site, filled with very deep and interesting topics and discussions going on all the time...but now a days its just boring and redundant...

 

The old forum index was pretty good in its time. If we updated, expanded, and re-organized, that would likely be a worthwhile venture.

 

It goes through cycles like everything else. In fact it seems to be on the upswing lately.

 

Thanks G-FETT

I'm gonna be back shortly. But something I've thought about is instead of indexing older discussion threads, why not recreate them and start afresh with the newer membership as well as the older membership? There will be some great locked threads in this forum which a lot of the newer posters won't have had the chance to participate in. Instead of unlocking and bumping and making people read through countless pages, let's start again

 

As a new poster (although long time reader) I think that's a terrific idea and a great way to foster some new discussions.

 

I agree. Redo some of the classic threads

 

I think thats a great idea Fish.

The thing about Saga before is that it did generate excellent discussion, but the rather "high brow" nature of the forum tended to exclude the vast majority of users, IMO. So was it just a select few going over the same subjects between themselves, all-be-it with a very high standard of posts? Now we're bringing in many more users, the challenge is to try and retain a high quality of post content and open up all those great subjects/debates to a whole new group of JC'ers.

 

A redo might be worth trying. I participated in a lot of the old ones--so I'm unsure of how much I would want to engage in the same old debates. But it is still an interesting idea.

 

I think a "Personality Characteristics In Lightsabre Styles" v2.0 might well be worth doing, with the saga being over and quite abit of EU duellists being well-documented now. Does Ophelia still post?

 

I ran the forum into the ground as a way to spite the fanbase! I kid, I kid, but seriously, discussion has been really good around here for along time, but it did seem to play out this last year as enthusiasm began to dwindle. I don't remember removing any indexed thread, so I can't say what happened to it, and I modded here since 2006.

 

I think it's kinda strange that there's virtually no between-trilogies discussion here. Granted, this is a movie-oriented forum, but there's a 19-year gap between the end of ROTS and the start of ANH that doesn't get much of any mention here, and is still part of the Saga timeframe.

Could we perhaps discuss the Clone Wars TV show and the upcoming live-action series? How about EU that takes place in the multi-year gaps between films?

I tend to think that the prequel EU in particular is much less "hey, we can make more money off this" than the post-ROTJ EU, and actually ties in with the films of that period very well-to the point one might even say certain novels like Labyrinth of Evil are necessary to read unless you really appreciate randomly guessing about things.

 

Personally I don't have a problem with the CW series, and the live action one being discussed. But (again personally), I wouldn't want EU lit stuff coming up. We have a forum for that, and that path leads to the dark side

 

lol.

Just to point out-that forum, while it does require a certain level of knowledge to not look like a doofus, does have a pretty high amount of participation...

 

I'd liken this forum to being a gentle wine-bar as opposed to Lit being a nightclub

 

I suppose.

I didn't mean an everything-EU-included discussion; I meant stuff directly related to the films, like Labyrinth of Evil or the Clone Wars comics. POST-ROTJ obviously wouldn't apply here.

I mean, heck, Volume 8 of the Clone Wars comics, with Quinlan Vos and the siege of Saleucamia gets more direct mention in ROTS than TPM does.

 

Yeah, but is that really any different from the way Splinter of the Mind's Eye and Shadows of the Empire are kept out of CT discussions?

In theory, the films should contain ALL the essential information about the course of events. That's what would make them a complete 'saga'. However...

I disagree with your characterization of the issue. I think the big difference is that PT-era EU tends to involve filling in some of the significant narrative gaps that the PT possesses, whereas the OT really doesn't possess such gaps. There are time-line jumps, but the films themselves provide all the information you need for a full understanding of the story. Thus all the OT-era and post-RotJ EU ends up creating narratives largely from scratch.

 

And that's why discussing prequel EU is logical: It fills in gaps in the films. Which is, you know, kinda important.

 

But the basic presumption of this board is that the six films form a cohesive and complete saga. Doesn't acknowledging the necessity of the PT-era EU invalidate this board's raison d'etre?

 

This thread will not become a "PT is crap" discussion

 

I don't think so, no. The forum's name is Saga forum. It says absolutely nothing about being only related solely to the six films, either, and frankly EU comes up in here regularly when the films don't have an answer to specific questions quite abit.

If it's related directly to the films-like, say, the Sifo-Dyas & clone army backstory being in Labyrinth of Evil, or Obi-Wan mentioning events depicted in the Clone Wars comics-I don't see how it'd hurt things, honestly. Not to mention that a good portion of the 'Saga' era is the space between ROTS and ANH, which is going to be filled in by EU sources and the eventual live-action series.

I guess it comes down to if you view "saga" as meaning the time elapsed between TPM and ROTJ, or strictly the time documented by the films themselves.