Star Wars: Down with the Empire?!

[williamsjar]

Kind of a kitschy first post but I find pop-culture stuff interesting (love FDR's reviews of kid movies - When are you doing Finding Nemo?) 

 

After Disney bought LucasFilm, the 'Clone Wars' cartoon (airing on Cartoon Network) was discontinued and a new show, 'Star Wars: Rebels', was created. It premiers, I believe, this October. Recently, a new promo website was released for the franchise.

 

Take a look. I love the anti-state message ... so far.

http://holonetnews.com/

[Bedouin]

Haha that's excellent. It's not hard to be anti-state when talking about the largest state (and probably one of the most oppressive) depicted in any sci-fi franchise ever.

 

Even so, it would be better to live in that galaxy than our own. There are supposed to be a million inhabited worlds and countless other habitable ones so libertarians and anarchists could literally go and find their own idyllic planet and need never even think about the Empire.

[Mr. Binary]

What, you don't like it here? Why don't you move to Somalia Tatooine.

[Mr. Wrong]

I could discuss for hours how the Jedi and the Sith are both evil. If you love Star Wars canon you must inform yourself about Kreia who was, technically, my first introduction to the non-aggression principle where 'The Force' is simply the 'Use of Force' which Kreia found evil and wanted to extinguish from the universe. She felt the force had a will of it's own (no kidding) which she identified as manipulative and, of course, objectionable to her. She was the first Force Anarchist in other words.

 

In the end the MMO ditched all the interesting stuff she introduced and focused on the Jedi good, Sith bad, nonsense all over again. They didn't make use of a character known as the Exile very well either who was, essentially, an anti-force user. The stronger her opponent the stronger she became. Around other powerful Jedi she was impossible to beat which made her the perfect partner for Revan who was super-duper powerful. Revan was like the Death Star and the Exile was like a Black Hole. It would have made for a very interesting character study and philosophical questioning.

 

Oh well. I didn't expect Lucas Arts to allow Star Wars to be taken into such interesting and challenging places. Especially the obvious revelation all the Star Wars mythos teaches that, despite claims to the contrary, the Dark Side is more powerful than the light. That, and that the Dark Side isn't evil and the Light side isn't good.

[Mr. Binary]

I briefly played SWTOR, which was my first exposure to the expanded universe (or whatever it's called), and I found it extremely silly. I think I even wrote a blog post about it.

 

*rummages in blog history*

 

Here it is.

[Mr. Wrong]

I read your post. Frankly, pointing out that their codes are nonsense is, I dunno, a cheap critique? If I were to judge every fictional universe on it's moral codes or whatever passes for them I'd wouldn't enjoy any fiction.

 

The characters were fun and it was Kreia that brought something interesting to think about. At least for me when I was 14 or so.

[Mr. Binary]

Yeah, on second thought / read, my post was kinda ranty and without any real point. There's a reason I'm not a writer.

 

Your second point is interesting though. Since I got into philosophy, I lost almost all interest in fiction, to the point where I don't read ANY fiction books anymore, and I can't stand watching most movies, not to mention TV shows. I still play MMOs, where I can relax together with my wife and friends, without paying attention to the story content.

[Mr. Wrong]

Well, what was interesting about Kreia, and probably why she was never seen or heard from again, is that she argued that the Force itself had a will and had manipulated the universe to it's whim. She concluded that it was evil and needed to be destroyed.

 

Essentially, she pointed out that the writers of the entire Star Wars mythos were full of crap and had no right to make claims about morality through the Star Wars fiction. She was correct. She also introduced the non-aggression principle to me in a roundabout way. She's what killed my interest in Star Wars from a story perspective and shifted it into more of a philosophical study. A study into how it's totally bogus and the people that don't understand that.

 

I like the Star Wars mythos insofar as I can use it to argue philosophy with people who aren't comfortable arguing it outside of their fictional universe. I'm really more interested in the people and the authors of the content now. That goes with other fiction as well. Unless there are some really stellar characters I tend not to engage in a whole lot of fiction from a fan's perspective.