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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Star Wars Memes
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Hello there. Somehow, Star Wars memes have returned. It's not a trap, this is where the fun begins.
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I dig world building my specific gripe was trying to make a "gritty" or "real" Star Wars. It's a silly, fun adventure trilogy with dwarf bears fighting evil soldiers etc. Making it gritty and real feels very off. I think because sin a silly adventure movie, we understand the suspension of disbelief but in a gritty/real series, a lot of the sillier aspects/choices are much more noticeable.
To each their own, I just find the juxtaposition of silly/fun setting and gritty/real thriller to be too jarring for me personally.
It can be both. It's also a world with armored bounty hunters and political stakes, so saying it's only for dwarf space bears is a little disingenuous.
Star Wars is able to encapsulate the inane with themes that struggle with in the real world, only limiting it to just one or the other is antithetical to the very inspirations that it draws from.
With the context of Andor, to make it lighthearted would be a disservice to the deaths of the rebels who made the events of Episode IV possible. Moreover the events and themes from Andor and Rogue One are tonally aligned (would be weird if they weren't). It's one of the few pieces of SW that actually did a strong job connecting three sequential events of a story over 40 years later (coming from someone who enjoys 98% of what we've gotten), I personally think the reason it was able to work was due to the efforts to remove that halo filter of the force. By Andor not having that tonally lighter feeling to it the measure of success has a different sense. There's also the morally grey side of rebellion, which tons of SW games cover but rarely done in canon.
I think for all those reasons it's more than Andor just "trying" to grittify something lighthearted. Rather it's the highlight of a necessary ruthlessness that it can take to bring about rebellion and that successes aren't always light.
That's how I feel anyway, there's a strong tonal theme for each faction of Star Wars and I think rebels not having the same extent of cushioning from the force that the Jedi do makes for a more compelling piece :)
I mean, it has political stakes in the same way that Indiana Jones has political stakes.
Like, I feel this is just mythologizing our childhood movie. The theme is the same as pretty so many other children's action adventure movie, a small band of rebels vs a bad tyrannical emperor/overlord/dictator. That doesn't make these political or statements unless you want to go incredibly broad with a "fight against the odds" story which is pretty much every movie.
I mean, episodes 1 - 6 are pretty lighthearted stuff and a lot of rebels, jedi and Nabooians etc die to make those happen.
I'm not saying Andor can't accomplish certain goals, highlight something different or show another side of the story. All I'm saying is that to me, personally, it's Star Wars minus the joy. What's left is an attempt to be serious in a very unserious galaxy. Nothing wrong with enjoying it, it's just not for me! To consider the opposite, I would also have trouble if the Wire also had wisecracking aliens or something.
I feel like you're the one mythologizing your childhood, and the original movies only seem 'lighthearted' when viewed through a lens of nostalgia and time passed. The original movies really aren't that lighthearted if you really think about them, stuff filmed in the 70s just has that Patina of age that makes it hard to take seriously.
I think I've mostly said silly and fun rather than lighthearted.
But the basic idea is that they are at the same level of adventure, stakes and seriousness as most children's movies. You wouldn't call the Lion King a serious film would you? Even though it's probably not light-hearted if you think about it. (Same is true for most children's movies, think Land Before Time, most big Disney/Pixar classics etc.)
A more serious film, for example, probably grapples with Alderaan's destruction and mentions it outside of two immediate reactions.
This is quite the take you have laid out in this thread.
Yeah, honestly I'm a little surprised. In the wider community (or at least, my highly non scientific polling of a soccer team, volleyball group and movie friends) it seems pretty understood that Star Wars is a great kids movie that mostly works for all ages.
Heck, even George Lucas has said they were for kids "I wasn’t supposed to say this then, or now, but it’s a film for 12-year-olds,” he says. “In the real world … critics … certain fans. They’re not very nice.”
But damn are people riled up about that and instead insisting it's a very serious series and definitely not for kids.
It's kinda wild.
The magic of a good kids movie is that it engages the adults too. So I mean yeah, star wars is at least on some level pretty serious.
Luke did see his adoptive aunt and uncle roasted by the government. I mean that's pretty serious. So is genocide and torture. Three things we witness in the first hour if the first move.
I mean, on the same level of seriousness as most Disney films. Think 101 Dalmatians which is a bunch of puppies trying not to be skinned alive. Or Shrek which has torture, family separation/imprisonment (one of whom is later skinned and turned into a rug), floating eyeballs, a tyrannical monarchy etc.
And just like Star Wars, it would feel a little odd to put a gritty/serious movie in either of those universes without a dramatic retooling a la Cruella, which even then wasn't wildly serious. In my opinion at least.
(Also, I don't think we see any genocide in New Hope. Are you thinking the Jawas? Because that struck me as standard killing, not a "kill all Jawas.")
Alderaan
Ahhhhh. I'd never figured they were their own race but I getchya. We don't really have a good word for "murder a whole planet." At least, not until GRR Martin starts writing sci fi.
Do you remember how Indiana Jones had actual Nazis in it? I'd say that's about on par with the empire who were also inspired by the Nazi regime. Sure, there's a lot else going on but Star Wars has always clearly been political.
If you really want to call Indiana Jones a political movie, that's uhhh, your call. That seems a pretty silly reading of it but to each their own.
But I'm saying that the world becomes more gritty because it is getting explored more and it isn't resetting to the status quo.
Star Wars has the journey of a farm kid becoming a laser sword wizard by way of being a fighter pilot.
To explain the MacGuffin of the plans, you now have to explain rebel spies, how the Empire does R&D, and why that flaw exists.
To explain why one of the characters in the prequel became a rebel spy, you know how have to explain how he got radicalized.
There is no way you can keep it a jaunty adventure by drilling that deep.
Ehhh, I don't think so. You could have a pretty similar jaunty caper to episode 4 to get the plans and then just have some wiz kid engineer see a potential flaw.
You can expand the world without making it gritty, see the Mandalorian.
If you want detailed explanations behind everything, then that's closer? But it really doesn't seem a requirement. Scientist puts in flaw because they understand the film's logic which is Emperor = bad, rebels = good. Spies become rebel spies for the same reason all the fighter pilots and soldiers are on the rebels side, because they understand the logic, again, emperor = bad, rebels = good.