SW - Episode 7: Mary Sue wakes up but there's no coffee. RAGE.

[Samwise]

Here you lot watch the new TV spot instead

Now I'm less excited again.  Hooray!  I was starting to waver in my resolve to not see this in the theater.   

[jgsugden]

Do you really think your discussion of what the fuck opening/premiere dates mean was somehow better?

By about 1.2%, but this discussion you're continuing exceeds the quality of that by another 0.02%.  Nicely done.

I want to be excited by this movie - but it just doesn't feel right when I see the previews.  I can't put my finger on what it is, but that scene where Han says, "It's all true"... it just feels wrong.  Maybe it just needs context, but that doesn't feel like Han Solo.

[Ruvaldt]

That's actually one of my favorite parts of the trailer.

In episode IV Han says, "Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny."

Now, years later, after all that he's lived through, he absolutely believes that it's true, and he should because he's seen it first hand.  For Han, to continue to deny the force would be absolutely absurd.  He's going to believe in what he sees, and Han's seen some shit.  In that scene he's letting whoever he's talking to know about it.

[Evildrider]

I think the whole thing is that what happened in the original trilogy has become kind of a legend as time has gone on.  All the stuff about Jedi's and the Force would probably be seen as just tales after all these years. 

[Surlyboi]

This. Especially if Luke's gone and crawled up his own ass, Yoda hermit style rather than starting a new Jedi academy or some such.

[Teleku]

Which would sort of make sense.  I mean, after all that happened and he had been through, saying "Force wielding people totally fucked up the galaxy and killed billions of people.  It's probably best if there no more Jedi or Sith, and I just go isolate myself somewhere."

[Soln]

Or like the title suggests, the Force dried up after the Emperor died and the conflict is managing its return.  Yeah I know, "plot".

[sickrubik]

Well, keep in mind there were... what, 3 Jedi and 2 Sith (At least known) for the entire Galaxy in the original trilogy? it would be easy for people to not know about any of that part of the war... and then decades pass.

[Malakili]

Or like the title suggests, the Force dried up after the Emperor died and the conflict is managing its return.  Yeah I know, "plot".

Something something brought balance to the force.

[angry.bob]

Well, keep in mind there were... what, 3 Jedi and 2 Sith (At least known) for the entire Galaxy in the original trilogy? it would be easy for people to not know about any of that part of the war... and then decades pass.

Which would be reasonable in a society without any sort of records like books, movies, or holocubes and holographic projectors. Also more reasonable if the entire span from the death of the Jedi Order and Episode 4 was longer than 20 years. In Episode 1 everyone on Tatooine knows about Jedi, and while impressed they're not particularly surprised. It was like two FBI agents showed up. So we can use that as a gauge of public knowledge of Jedi. If some backwoods dump like Tatooine isn't startled by Jedi showing up, everyone everyplace knows about jedi. then like 10 years later the Jedi all get killed, Luke is born.

Fast forward to Episode 4. Luke's like 20 and all of a sudden Jedi are considered mythical wizards that may or not have ever existed. People think you're delusional for suggesting Jedi were real. In 20 years.

I've had brochures and business cards in my desk longer than that. There are probably stacks of Jedi pamphlets and shit in government storage rooms and desk drawers all over the galaxy when Episode 4 takes place. Fuck, it's been 20 years and people still haven't forgotten Pearl Jam existed, let alone an organization of thousands of people able to manipulate reality with their willpower and were charged with maintaining peace in the galaxy. Middle-aged people would have all sorts of stories about all the times Jedi came around and settled arguments by negotiating or chopping people in half. Based on the way some of them fought, half the shit still being used in the galaxy would have lightsaber damage someplace.

It's just not believable.

[Shannow]

Just another reason to hate the prequals..:D

[Khaldun]

Well, yeah. But I assume also that the Empire has dumped a lot of propaganda into rubbishing the idea of the Force--that it was all a lot of flim-flam and trickery, etc., exposed by our Dear Leader when the Jedi moved to seize power. But 20 years just doesn't work as a time frame for the Jedi to fade into legend completely, at least on the major centers of Galactic civilization (Coruscant, for example).

[sickrubik]

Fuck, it's been 20 years and people still haven't forgotten Pearl Jam existed,

Yeah, but, ask someone in the middle of Sudan about Pearl Jam.

[Sir T]

Ask that same Sudanese person about a Battle 500 years ago that their present conflict is in revenge for. Or everything that tribe X has done to their tribe

[sickrubik]

Ask that same Sudanese person about a Battle 500 years ago that their present conflict is in revenge for. Or everything that tribe X has done to their tribe

My point wasn't that Sudanese people don't have a sense of history. I'm saying that they might not have a sense of history that happened a very long distance away. I've always gotten the feeling that the Jedi stuff for the most part was seen as peacekeepers and the whole "magic" part was largely seen as myth as many people don't cross paths with Jedi in the time of the movies.

[Samwise]

It's believable that the small handful of force wielders in the OT might have been dismissed as myths, since so few people saw them do their magic.

If we take the prequels as canon, though, it hasn't been that long since armies of wizards roamed the galaxy, with a school at the capital where they taught people magic.  It also looked like every military unit had one at its head (cf order 66).  Being older than Luke, it actually makes no sense for Han to be skeptical of the Force, since he grew up in a time when Jedi were like goddamn cockroaches.

[Sir T]

Han would have been tested for force Sensitivity/Mitocloribullshit count as well, As per the line ion the Phandom Penance that Anakin would have been detected before then if he lived in the Republic.

[Samwise]

Yeah, I was thinking about that too... I'm imagining that every kindergarten would have a Jedi come in and talk to them about the Force, sort of like McGruff the Crime Dog coming in to talk to kids about drugs.

Then the Jedi would test them all for Force sensitivity, and anyone who tested positive either agreed to go to the Academy to take vows of celibacy, or got decapitated on the spot.  (I'm just assuming that's the only other option since the prequels give no indication of any non-Jedi Force wielders being allowed to live peacefully and openly.)

[Johny Cee]

Well, yeah. But I assume also that the Empire has dumped a lot of propaganda into rubbishing the idea of the Force--that it was all a lot of flim-flam and trickery, etc., exposed by our Dear Leader when the Jedi moved to seize power. But 20 years just doesn't work as a time frame for the Jedi to fade into legend completely, at least on the major centers of Galactic civilization (Coruscant, for example).

Exactly.  It fits the facts:  Obviously the Imperial propaganda campaign was that Jedi were frauds (as seen by the guy mouthing off to Vader).  The Rebels ended everything with "may the force be with you" which was probably adopted solely as a counter to Imperial propaganda.

Jedi were really really rare.  In Phantom Menace, if there were a bunch of Jedi everywhere, then Liam Neeson could have just called up the local Jedi rep on Tatooine and arranged transport instead of the whackadoodle bet on a five-year old pod racer to finance your ship repairs.  If Jedi were common, the Trade Federation would have known trying to gas them was dumb.  If Jedi were common, why wasn't there a pile of them already in Naboo?  Also, Anakin killed off all the students, right?  There were like a dozen kids in a room.

The bulk of the Jedi fighting in the war was also with clones and against droids.  Neither of those groups are going to talk about shit unless their controllers order them to.

Didn't episode 2 say that the Order took major losses in that fight?  And we only saw a few hundred Jedi show up.

[Merusk]

It's believable that the small handful of force wielders in the OT might have been dismissed as myths, since so few people saw them do their magic.

If we take the prequels as canon, though, it hasn't been that long since armies of wizards roamed the galaxy, with a school at the capital where they taught people magic.  It also looked like every military unit had one at its head (cf order 66).  Being older than Luke, it actually makes no sense for Han to be skeptical of the Force, since he grew up in a time when Jedi were like goddamn cockroaches.

The Jedi were already falling at the start of the OT. There were only 10,000 at the time of Phantom Menace according to the EP1 "visual dictionary" and that was when GL was back into caring about shit instead of licensing just for money so it can be considered pretty canon for a reference. Given that the galaxy had one billion inhabited star systems and the Empire only encompassed Seventy Million of those, there weren't Jedi on every corner and by a long shot.

They were already becoming legends at the time of TPM. The chance of encountering one outside of the core worlds would have been about 1: 100,000,000,000. You've got a better shot winning the lottery. The statement about Jedi on Tatooine by Watto was bad writing meant to be referencing a legend. Like you or I saying, "Who do you think you are, Superman?" Just because you reference something doesn't mean you think it's real or plausible.

None of this covers Han's skepticism, since he grew up on Corellia which was part of the Core Worlds.

But hey, they're just movies. If you're expecting competent world building from pulp sci-fi then you've got more invested than the guy with the Yoda mug who just spent 20 mins researching to write this post up.

[Fordel]

Yea, the scale of Star Wars should never be underestimated. Like what's the number they chuck around for how many fucking Star Destroyers the empire has?

[Samwise]

If they have a giant headquarters on the main capital world, and the government routinely uses them as ambassadors and generals, they are not "legends" in the same way that Yoda and Obi-Wan were when they went into hiding in the boonies.  I don't care about scale; there's only one Dalai Lama and everyone knows who he is even if they haven't met him personally, because he's a public figure.  Ditto the Pope.  And they don't even have that many magic powers to make them interesting; imagine if they could move shit with their minds instead of just being able to reincarnate and sanctify water and stuff.

[sickrubik]

Most of us don't believe the Dali Lami has magical powers (though believers do, basically).

Additionally, the US to China is a much smaller distance than from one side of a galaxy to another.

[Samwise]

Most of us don't believe the Dali Lami has magical powers (though believers do, basically).

Right, but you still know who he is, regardless.

Now imagine if he could literally move things with his mind, implant suggestions into other people's heads, see the future, etc.  And he did these things openly and repeatedly, probably with recorded video evidence (given how indiscreet the Jedi were in the prequels it's literally impossible that there wasn't plenty of contemporary video footage of them doing all this shit, even if Wookieepedia or whatever claims otherwise).  And he took students to teach them to do the same things.  

No rational person would disbelieve these powers, even if they hadn't witnessed them personally.  It'd be like not believing in evolution, or the moon landing.

Shit, let's use the moon landing as our example.  We haven't been to the moon since before most of us here were alive.  And there weren't that many moon landings.  Certainly none of us here has been to the moon personally.  Anyone here not aware that humans went to the moon?  Anyone?  How about those of us who were old enough to have actually seen it on TV?  Have you guys forgotten about the moon landing because it was so long ago?  Like, entire decades?  

If so, congratulations, your memory is as bad as Han Solo's.  

[sickrubik]

But Han solo's skpeticism was abou The Force, not about Jedi. The conversation here is kind of tying both together, but there's a lot of people who believe in a Man in the Sky, but I sure as hell don't. Doesn't mean I think Catholic Priests are also figments.

[Merusk]

Again: terrible world-building. Yes. Why does it matter, it's not high-art and literature it's pulp sci-fi by the Mouse and a guy who was more about merchandising than storytelling.

I have no need to dissect the story with such a blade any more than I need to analyze Anna and Elsa's parental relationships. Hell let's discuss what shitty parents their mother and father were. We can start here: http://notanotherdadblog.com/10-reasons-elsa-anna-frozen-terrible-parents/

Or how about how Gilligan should have been murdered about two months after being trapped on the island because he was the obvious problem with rescue.

[Samwise]

But Han solo's skpeticism was abou The Force, not about Jedi. The conversation here is kind of tying both together, but there's a lot of people who believe in a Man in the Sky, but I sure as hell don't. Doesn't mean I think Catholic Priests are also figments.

If every single Catholic priest had visible and measurable magic powers, it would not make sense for you to believe in the existence of priests and not in the existence of their magic powers.  Remember, it's not just high-ranking Jedi who can do the magic shit, and the magic shit is not stuff like exorcism where there are easy scientific explanations -- this is blatantly physics-defying stuff and every Jedi teenager can do it.

I guess there is an in-universe explanation for everyone forgetting about all those magic powers, though -- the Emperor mind-tricked everyone.  That was the real purpose of the giant satellite dish on the Death Star, it was to amplify his telepathic powers so he could reach throughout the Empire and make everyone forget the single most influential group of people in the galaxy.  A few months before he met Luke, Han Solo had clear memories of being tested for midichlorians in grade school, but then the Death Star was finished and the Emperor wiped his brain.

I completely agree with Merusk, btw, I just have more fun poking at these things than he does.   

[Khaldun]

I dunno. I can swing this sort of stuff either way. There are things that twenty year olds today don't know at all that boggle my mind. Most of the ones I teach have barely heard of the Cold War, are sometimes not aware that there are still 15,000 nuclear missiles in the US and Russia. They don't really know much about the Vietnam War or Watergate. Many cultural figures whose names are readily known to anyone over 35 are not known to them. They know we've landed on the moon but many of them aren't very aware of the space shuttle program or of the Challenger and Columbia disasters. I've definitely been in communities in Africa where all this is even less known or remembered, including the moon landing. (I think not so much because nobody's ever heard it but because it's so irrelevant to life that they don't pay much attention to it.)

But yes, if there had been an order of military monks with powers beyond those of ordinary mortals, they'd probably be remembered. Unless some equally global power was working very hard to cover over the traces. And we don't get any sense of that from ANH and ESB. Part of the problem is really Tatooine. If it really were a total backwater far away from everything--the equivalent of being in Tashkent or Goma--then you could see Ben getting away with a bit of light Jedi-ness, and Luke not knowing anything about the Force, and Luke mooning around about how Biggs Darklighter gets to go to the Rebellion and all I get to do is Toshi Station, fuck you Uncle Owen. You could say the same about Han Solo--he's hanging around with a two-bit psycho like Jabba because he couldn't hack it at the Imperial Academy or whatever, he's a sort of lost soul who pretends to self-importance by talking shit about the Force. But then they go back to Tatooine again and then again again and it's hard to think of it as a flyspeck a trillion miles from anything that matters. Back on Coruscant, there should be plenty of people of the right age who are like, "Yeah, those asshole Jedi, one of them jumped on my taxi once while chasing some bounty hunter, I know the Emperor says we're not supposed to talk about them but it's not like I liked them anyway."

I'm not sure there's ever been a world-building series of films/TV shows that have been built around rock-solid ideas from the start. Even Babylon 5 palpably was making shit up that doesn't jibe with the early episodes--I'm pretty sure JMS switched the Vorlons and Shadows to being Order and Chaos once people started to bitch about just how obvious the Lord of the Rings ripping off was becoming by mid-Season 2.

[sickrubik]

If every single Catholic priest had visible and measurable magic powers, it would not make sense for you to believe in the existence of priests and not in the existence of their magic powers.  Remember, it's not just high-ranking Jedi who can do the magic shit, and the magic shit is not stuff like exorcism where there are easy scientific explanations -- this is blatantly physics-defying stuff and every Jedi teenager can do it.

Not everyone is seeing it. There are plenty of people in the OT that believed in The Force. Hell, the Rebels say it all the time. But it's not crazy for people who aren't interacting with Jedi to not believe they can do that stuff. Especially when they've skirted everything that's been going on with the war.

The galaxy is huge. It's not insane to think there are plenty of people that don't believe in it.

Hell, we have people that think the world is Flat here. *Shrug*

[Samwise]

Hell, we have people that think the world is Flat here. *Shrug*

Well, exactly -- that's about the level of credibility I'd expect for NOT believing in Force abilities.  That's why I used the moon landing as an example; people believe that was faked, and they say "well you weren't THERE so you don't know for certain," but there's such a preponderance of evidence that even though it's been decades since anyone's physically been to the moon, it's a complete fringe whacko belief to say that it never happened.  That's what the prequel trilogy sets up when it shows Jedi as being so highly visible -- anyone in the OT who says they don't believe in Jedi powers is logically either a whacko or the victim of a mind wipe.

Of course if you ignore the prequel trilogy and pretend that during that period of time there weren't a bunch of Jedi running around doing military/diplomatic/police work in public, Yoda was already in hiding, etc, things are free to make a lot more sense.

[Sir T]

And Mr Slavemaster McJew says "Who do you think you are, a Jedi or something?" when Liam Nielson tries the Jedi mind trick on him, and then wastes a minute of screen time explaining why he is immune.

How come I remember these things despite only seeing the film once. AAAGHHH!!!

[Malakili]

And Mr Slavemaster McJew says "Who do you think you are, a Jedi or something?" when Lian Neilsontries the jedi mind trick on him, and then wastes a minute of screen time explaining why he is immune.

how come I remember these things despite only seeing the film once. AAAGHHH!!!

I always thought that scene was bizarre.  If you think this guy is a Jedi trying to swindling what the fuck are you doing business with him for?  As if the mind trick is the only way he has to hose you.  Either that or you think he is a nut case who is trying to pretend he is a Jedi.  Either way, just tell him to fuck off. 

Then again, most of the plot of the prequels would have been short circuited if anyone in the galaxy behaved like anything other than a total idiot the entire time.

[HaemishM]

Again: terrible world-building. Yes. Why does it matter, it's not high-art and literature it's pulp sci-fi by the Mouse and a guy who was more about merchandising than storytelling.

Just because it's pulp sci-fi doesn't mean there can't be good world-building. Of course, in this case, it's LOLLUCAS so yeah, it's very shitty world-building.

[Merusk]

I completely agree with Merusk, btw, I just have more fun poking at these things than he does.   

Nah I enjoy it, but only when it's obvious and deliberate. There is nothing other than a lazy framework for the basis of the story. Trying to dissect the details of a pulp property is the opposite of a Ron Swanson "Moby Dick is only about whaling."

[jgsugden]

Quick Google Fu shows reasons why the story works, even if it isn't a story I like.

There were a bit more than 10,000 Jedi at the time of Phantom Menace through Clone Wars - then The Great Jedi Snuff eliminated most of them.

10,000 sounds like a lot, but is it?  The FBI employs 35,000 people.  How many people in the US have knowingly met an FBI employee?  How many people in the world have?  How many worlds are there in the Star Wars universe?  Look up the population on the planet the Jedi Temple was located - Coruscant: 1 trillion people.  About 150 times as many people than exist on Earth - and then there are the countless other planets out there....

I'd say the vast majority of people in the universe lived their lives without seeing a Jedi's parlor tricks.  As such, they were more myth than fact when there were 10,000 of them.  Then the purge cut their numbers down to 100-200 and they were all on the run and in hiding, effectively wiping them from existence (except Vader - one lone mysterious figure).  

Flash forward 20 something years to A New Hope - pretty much all Jedi are gone.  Those that knew Jedi know they existed, but a lot of other people may not be so sure anymore.  Granalak claims he saw a Jedi throw someone around with the force, but was it a parlor trick?  Or is Granalak just full of %$@#?  There are holos of the Jedi still lurking around dark channels, but the Empire eliminated most of the widely available holos... so are those dark network holos floating around out there fakes or not?  

We're 15 years out from 9/11 - why did the towers fall?  What information is out there and what do people believe?

Flash forward another 40 or so years to Force Awakens - It has been abut 60 (or more?) years since Jedi last flew around the cosmos (assuming that the Jedi Order was not restored between Jedi and Force) .  Most people that knew Jedi have died like the Jedi before them.  The remainder were mostly kids - and kids that knew Jedi might not be sure what they knew - and probably were taught that Jedi were bad or fakes.  Historians and scholars probably have restored some records proving they existed and describing their lives - and deaths - but who cares?  The universe has been fighting a civil war for decades.

I buy it - but I don't like having it be the story they decided to tell.