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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This is the first SW product that's made me sit back and go: "Y'know, maybe Star Wars isn't really that good, and the good bits of Star Wars are the exceptions, not the rule."

In other words, we're not seeing bad Star Wars. We're just seeing Star Wars.

Pretty sure the first inklings of that were in RotJ.
And then the prequels, but they managed to hang that albatross entirely on Lucas.

Voss wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Voss wrote:

So 'soft magic' = any amount of bad writing and donkey-pulls around magic is fine. Gotcha.
.

Uuh...so you claim that (among others) Tolkien was bad writer? Interesting take. Care to explain?

So I'm criticizing someone else's terminology (specifically a forum voice's take on someone else's terminology), explicitly dismissing it as garbage, making no mention of any authors at all, and you're assigning authors to that category and blaming me?
Interesting take.

That is the category the author falls in to. Nobody here has assigned them in to that category.

Garbage take, but interesting.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This is the first SW product that's made me sit back and go: "Y'know, maybe Star Wars isn't really that good, and the good bits of Star Wars are the exceptions, not the rule."

In other words, we're not seeing bad Star Wars. We're just seeing Star Wars.

I've wondered since SNW if maybe Star Wars and Star Trek are, as settings, just showing their age.

It's really hard for me in 2022 to look at either franchise and accept that everything is so analog. Even today you could swear the internet and nothing like it exists in either setting (yes yes holo net and planetary nets but its weird how neither of those things ever seem to be ubiquitous in anyone's life), let alone anything comparable to basic home security let alone security systems. The entire time Obi Wan was sneaking through the Inquisitor base, I was like "how the feth has no one noticed this Stormtrooper's credentials being used to wander this facility? He's gotta be off his patrol route why is no one calling him on the radio to ask wtf he's doing?" As settings devised in an age before the internet and society on the cusp of massive breakthroughs in automation, a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek just doesn't make sense on the surface level. There are things today the audience just 'knows' that have created plot holes in contrivances where 15-25 years ago there were none. This compounds down the line in a whole range of things where audiences have become, either more discerning or more picky, and these old school action scenes just don't cut it anymore when even a child can see a bunch of reasons things wouldn't play out that way.

And that's made me wonder if maybe the issue isn't that new Star Wars or new Star Trek is really bad (they not that different from the old stuff really), but that absent the nostalgia and investment we put into the old stuff, the base material is wearing out its relevancy and feeling more and more fake as time goes on. The romping adventure story where nothing mattered so long as there was some action, a speech about good triumphing over evil, and a bad guy to get his ass kicked is timeless, but the way Star Wars and Star Trek go about it as settings is just blarg.

The benefit of SW setting is that technically it takes place "a long time ago".

On the other hand they don't seem to have a single security camera yet droids have eyes.

It's baffling.

 Lance845 wrote:
The benefit of SW setting is that technically it takes place "a long time ago".

On the other hand they don't seem to have a single security camera yet droids have eyes.

It's baffling.

Obi-Wan dodged security cameras in ANH too if I recall correctly. At least the Death Star had storm trooper patrols and the heroes tried to avoid them lest their absence be noticed.

Don't get me wrong, the quality IMO has dropped but even so I still find myself constantly wondering why things that are obvious now don't exist and the only explanation is because the setting was devised in the late 70s as a callback/homage to settings from the 30s and 40s. And I mean, the only way to fix that is to honestly toss the prior stuff out and either write it off or just say 'it's not 1970 anymore get over it' when people bitch about compliance to prior works.

I guess I'd ask of an example of a fictional tech savvy setting where that isn't really a problem. Just to get an idea of a story where that's not an issue.

I find it more that ever piece of Star Wars somehow needs to be the best Star Wars. Like, I enjoy Kenobi, but its like a 6-7/10 or so. It's fine, its fun, its better than Boba, but its not the Mandalorian at its best.

Like sometimes Star Wars is just mediocre. Sometimes its actually terrible. Sometimes its fantastic. That rarely has much to do with the setting or anything like that and everything to do with the character dynamics, writing, and pacing. Ahsoka's final fight with Vader is fantastic, but that's because almost nothing matters in that scene except the two characters in it.

The setting is fun, but its just a setting. The stories told in it have to stand on their own merits. The setting isn't going to make them on its own, and the worst of Star Wars is the stories that seem to believe otherwise.

 LunarSol wrote:
I guess I'd ask of an example of a fictional tech savvy setting where that isn't really a problem. Just to get an idea of a story where that's not an issue.

No, you'd be correct.

I've mentioned this in the Gundam Thread before. Scifi today is still very much trapped in the 'norms' of the pre-internet age. Part of that can be explained simply by generational gaps. Most of the world and most of its money are still owned and operated by people who grew up without the internet. We're only now in the past few years seeing the emergence of showrunners from Gen Y, who emerged right with the internet but plenty of us grew up without it as a ubiquitous part of life or our experience pre-dates social media and wireless interconnectivity. We might not see scifi really catch up until Gen Z comes along and starts running things that'll reflect their experiences.

The far future looks and feels exactly like the things we were envisioning 20-30 years ago despite technological changes and advancements. Star Wars is just a stellar example because of how its even more dated with things like wireless systems not existing most of the time and everything feeling so isolated and unconnected (hilarious with how characters keep crossing paths with one another across entries).

And I agree the setting can still be fun, but time again a big part of criticism and the nitpicky internet that seems obsessed with finding flaws (myself included) a lot of what gets called out aren't even flaws per see, but the settings and stories dating themselves by their assumptions. I think criticism of every side-character somehow becoming a pitch for a spinoff is a problem itself, but that's plot. The plots of Star Wars I don't think are exactly the problem. Lackluster execution and a lack of boldness on the part of creators and corporate boards are. The setting issue is just another thing that's been on my mind and I think is compounding the problem.

The lack of thought about these scenes and set pieces (where are the security cameras?) makes already lazy plots appear even more lazy. It's like no one spends time sitting down and just thinking through how the characters and this world are, how they think, or what they do. It's mostly just a barrage of 'people will like this throw some lightsabers in.'

Wait, what did Han, Luke and Chewie spend so much time shooting in the detention block on the Death Star, if not security cameras?

Voss wrote:
Wait, what did Han, Luke and Chewie spend so much time shooting in the detention block on the Death Star, if not security cameras?

They did. But that's literally the only time I can think of in Star Wars where security cameras existed. I'm sure there were others, but it's not something we've seen much of ever since and we see people infiltrate Imperial facilities with some frequency.

Voss wrote:
Wait, what did Han, Luke and Chewie spend so much time shooting in the detention block on the Death Star, if not security cameras?

I think that's the point. In 1977 somebody thought to put security cameras in the detention block. In 2022 video surveillance of a detention facility has apparently become a lost art.

It's not even consistent with other stuff Star Wars showed in the past. The Citadel in the Clone Wars show had cameras of the same design used on the Death Star.

I don't know what to make of the writers responsible for Obi Wan. Did they really not think of this stuff or did they figure they just didn't need it? With regard to what's been discussed above,I don't have a problem with a (now retro) sci-fi setting not catching up with real world technological advances, but writers not even obeying the rules of the setting they're working with is pretty dire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
Wait, what did Han, Luke and Chewie spend so much time shooting in the detention block on the Death Star, if not security cameras?

They did. But that's literally the only time I can think of in Star Wars where security cameras existed. I'm sure there were others, but it's not something we've seen much of ever since and we see people infiltrate Imperial facilities with some frequency.

As mentioned above, the Citadel has cameras. In Revenge of the Sith, the Jedi temple has cameras, too. Back to Clone Wars, I'd have to check to be sure but I believe there may be camera footage on Venators shown in the show. The headquarters of the Coruscant guard has video surveillance that's used to frame Ahsoka.. In Rebels, Kallus turns off surveillance on a Star Destroyer's detention block.

Security cameras exist and are used plentifully outside of A New Hope.

FWIW, Obi-Wan wasn't particularly concerned about security cameras in A New Hope either.

In truth, its just not always worth spending the time to show every time there's an Imperial facility.

 LunarSol wrote:
FWIW, Obi-Wan wasn't particularly concerned about security cameras in A New Hope either.

In truth, its just not always worth spending the time to show every time there's an Imperial facility.

It kinda was here, though, as the audience is clearly supposed to accept the Imperials as security conscious (TSA guy, console room minder, other officers sitting 4 feet away but apparently failing their Listen checks, despite hearing clear instructions to avoid security bots). They just come across as incompetent, such as when Suspicious Officer gets choked out in the complete lack of privacy of 'behind a couple mainframes,' and no one notices or cares.

It was a stealth rescue mission in one of the more secretive places in the galaxy, but the show didn't bother to put in the work. They spent the effects budget on Chekov's sea monsters (that no one ever pulled the trigger on) and playing tennis with blaster bolts for... quite some time.


----
On the other hand, as far as technological anachronisms go, Evil City Planet did have a pretty 'modern' communications infrastructure. The hundreds of random bounty hunters certainly got all the tweets & pics of Kenobi on their iWatches really fast.

So are you criticising then for not having static cameras when they had literal armed security cameras roaming the complex?

The camera thing is just an example.

It's the general lack of a sense of... sense in the setting. Stuff happens to move the plot along, usually in the laziest way possible or the way that involves the most lasers. The setting in general lacks a lot of simple details. Security cameras are one. Noticing your patrol droids are being destroyed and a guard is unconscious in a closet is another. Security at this super secure facility sucks and seems to function on a derth of things that are basic sense now, but then if it didn't we probably wouldn't believe Obi-wan made it out of there.

Most of these things wouldn't have stood out at all decades ago when the setting was new. Hence, my wondering that maybe in part the problem is that the Star Wars setting is just showing its age.

George Lucas wrote:“I put this little thing on it: ‘A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, an incredible adventure took place.’ Basically it’s a fairy tale now.”

If you're not on board with this then you're never going to be happy with it.

 Azreal13 wrote:
If you're not on board with this then you're never going to be happy with it.

It's all make-believe is maybe the laziest dismissal of critique there is.

You might as well point out that it's just a movie.

That's not the same thing in the slightest.

But perhaps we should get a conversation going about how if Aurora had slept for a hundred years how muscle atrophy would have set in and she'd have been barely been more than a skeleton, let alone how she kept hydrated and took in any nutrition!

Or maybe we accept that the storytelling is done in broad strokes, doesn't and was never intended to stand up to the level of scrutiny it's subjected to, and we don't look behind the curtain or we just ruin it for ourselves?

If you've got the sort of brain that really can't let go of the tiniest inconsistency, then, again, it's perhaps to accept you'll never be happy with it or move on.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Or maybe we accept that the storytelling is done in broad strokes, doesn't and was never intended to stand up to the level of scrutiny it's subjected to, and we don't look behind the curtain or we just ruin it for ourselves?

I'm pretty convinced at this point that the more lackluster something is, the more scrutiny with which it's torn apart. It's a sliding scale sort of thing. With a reverse slope at the far end where something becomes so bad it's good.

I can sit here and spend hours of point out all the way Pokemon doesn't make sense. But I don't. Except to have fun with it because it's funny. Because Pokemon is fun. So long as it stays fun, there's no particular reason to pick it apart in a negative way.

So long as it's fun, no amount of scrutiny will really ruin it. Hell, look at DBZA. They made an entire internet phenomenon out a series that is at least half poking holes at all DBZ's frequent plot holes and idiot ball moments, and while some people are ahoels about that those of us who grew up on DBZ love it no less for DBZA having fun with it and the makers of DBZA themselves love DBZ. I could go on and on. Most fiction has holes if you go looking for them. A lot of the time, no one cares what the holes are so long as the material is good enough. If anything the holes become points of fun for fans to laugh at.

But when it's meh, we just end up picking it apart harder. Cause it's not entertaining us in other ways so all we end up with is finding something else to think about while it drones on. And I don't even dislike Kenobi that much. It's okay. Kind of weird to think that when I was a kid, people hated McGregor in his role as Obi-Wan but fast forward and it's hard to imagine anyone else pulling it off. What it isn't is great, and when I try to think of why it's not great what I see is a movie plot stretched out to be a series with a lot of lazy padding thrown in that becomes lazier the more I think about it. And it's boring. So I've got nothing else to do but think about how lazy it is.

My commentary on the setting at large is more general and a musing on the state of science fiction at large. Even Cyberpunk 2077, a setting you'd expect to be in on technological advances of the past 10 years, is still mired in the norms of the 80s (edit: though, I suppose in their defense that's a bit purposeful since grunge cyberpunk is always kind of 80s-ish). It's not just Star Wars. I only bring it up here because another comment reminded me of the question and how it applies to Star Wars as a setting.

If you've got the sort of brain that really can't let go of the tiniest inconsistency, then, again, it's perhaps to accept you'll never be happy with it or move on.

And maybe instead of making this about me, you could actually talk about the content. I'll consume the media however I want and talk about it how I want.

If you've got the sort of brain that can't handle someone disliking something and saying why, then perhaps accept you'll never be comfortable talking to anyone about it?

Slow down there, cowboy, it was "you" in the colloquial sense, more correctly it should have been "one."

But I'm fine with people not liking things, I'm fine with people saying they don't like things. I'm puzzled by people still complaining about the things they don't like by episode 5. I'm even more puzzled by the people (and there are several just on this board) who seem to actively watch things they clearly aren't enjoying explicitly for the purpose of bitching about it online.

I didn't much care for season 2 of Locke and Key. So I watched a couple episdoes then stopped. Didn't post anywhere online about it even once.

It's probably because they have nothing better to do, and maybe they don't dislike it so much they'll stop watching it.

Some stuff is just 'stuff.' We consume it. We move on. To Disney, I'd note they're making a lot of that lately. Bad isn't the right word for any of it, but neither is good. We watch it. We bitch about it. They make another one. We watch it. We bitch about it.

It feels especially applicable where their D+ series' are concerned, where I feel like the only stellar offering is The Mandalorian and the rest feeling a lot like... Seriously, it's like we're the Call of Duty community talking about the latest annual release. Perfectly functional. Entertaining if you take it for what it is. But we all know we won't be talking about it in 6 months and half of what we're talking about in the meantime is the parts that kind of suck >.>

I dare say it's practically become it's own sort of business model, intentionally or otherwise. A constant stream of 'that'll do pig' content that's just good enough to keep our interest but isn't so good as to really stand out in any meaningful way.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's not the same thing in the slightest.

But perhaps we should get a conversation going about how if Aurora had slept for a hundred years how muscle atrophy would have set in and she'd have been barely been more than a skeleton, let alone how she kept hydrated and took in any nutrition!

Or maybe we accept that the storytelling is done in broad strokes, doesn't and was never intended to stand up to the level of scrutiny it's subjected to, and we don't look behind the curtain or we just ruin it for ourselves?

If you've got the sort of brain that really can't let go of the tiniest inconsistency, then, again, it's perhaps to accept you'll never be happy with it or move on.

There is a difference between how regular people in a military use technology in a way that makes sense and how magic functions in preserving a body when cursed. I don't argue that luke can do a big flip with the force. Magic lets him. I do argue that a military installations door lock is a little spinny plug at knee hight that any astro mech droid can open.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's not the same thing in the slightest.

But perhaps we should get a conversation going about how if Aurora had slept for a hundred years how muscle atrophy would have set in and she'd have been barely been more than a skeleton, let alone how she kept hydrated and took in any nutrition!

https://www.oglaf.com/morning-breath/

 LordofHats wrote:

I dare say it's practically become it's own sort of business model, intentionally or otherwise. A constant stream of 'that'll do pig' content that's just good enough to keep our interest but isn't so good as to really stand out in any meaningful way.

This is hardly something new. This is how television has always worked. Consumable, forgettable bits of entertainment is pretty much what television was all about prior to the rise in popularity of the DVR. It wasn't until the widespread migration to streaming services that we got shows that weren't terribly concerned about padding out the episode count. Just compare the final season of Clone Wars to the first couple if you need a Star Wars example, but what your describing is just the way TV is for all sorts of reasons. (Budget, production speed, staff on hand, budget, etc) Even the best shows are often only truly loved for a handful of episodes with only a handful of shows every few years capable of churning out consistently great content.

Any chance of taking that to a new thread for the discussion thereof?

Kenobi finale tomorrow. I’m interested to see how open ended it’s left myself.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Any chance of taking that to a new thread for the discussion thereof?

I don't think this is wise. In all my decades I've never found silence to shorten a wait. Quite the opposite, actually.

I think Kenobi may be a little light on things to discuss if you remove the questionable worldbuilding. It's a bit of an unfair comparison because Obi Wan has a very limited number of episodes to work with (so far), but take Rebels and Bad Batch. They also fall in the period between Episode 3 and Episode 4, add some new locations or show known ones for the first time or in far more detail than before. They have their share of established character appearances. But fundamentally they're stories about a cast of new characters, with their own problems to overcome and their own corners of the galaxy to explore. If they interfere with or add to the stories we already know, it's in limited and unintrusive ways. Those may add some neat moments, but it doesn't change that, again, fundamentally they're stories about characters that could go anywhere.

You can talk and speculate a lot more about the new things as well as the unknowns presented in those shows. Kenobi doesn't have much of that. There is simply no question as to where Obi Wan, Darth Vader, Leia and two of the three prominent Inquisitors go. Yeah, we get to see more of Alderaan, junkie planet looks nice enough, mining world is, eh, but that's mining for you, and live action inquisition fortress has its charms to be sure, but they're all places with little effect of their own. They exist for nothing more than to give the characters a place to enact their drama. The Imperials outside of the main cast are not shown to add anything of interest. The refugee network exists to rescue Obi Wan and get rescued by him in turn, or something. As an organization or group of people they don't look like they have any lasting role or enough characterization to show up again. I'm not seeing a new Hondo or Saw in there. The only one with that potential exploded herself.

In my opinion Obi Wan is pretty barren as a topic for discussion if you limit yourself to its merits. There is a lot more to talk about if you include the show's potential. All those things that could have been in there but aren't. I don't see any harm in talking about those things, to be honest.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kenobi finale tomorrow. I’m interested to see how open ended it’s left myself.

Someone mentioned earlier there were rumors about what the show was supposed to end like and how it actually does, if it has in fact been changed to accommodate another season. Would be good to actually see a link or something. I'm certainly not going to go looking for any of that stuff before the show concludes and risk spoiling the show for myself, but afterwards it might make for an interesting read.

 LunarSol wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

I dare say it's practically become it's own sort of business model, intentionally or otherwise. A constant stream of 'that'll do pig' content that's just good enough to keep our interest but isn't so good as to really stand out in any meaningful way.

This is hardly something new. This is how television has always worked. Consumable, forgettable bits of entertainment is pretty much what television was all about prior to the rise in popularity of the DVR. It wasn't until the widespread migration to streaming services that we got shows that weren't terribly concerned about padding out the episode count. Just compare the final season of Clone Wars to the first couple if you need a Star Wars example, but what your describing is just the way TV is for all sorts of reasons. (Budget, production speed, staff on hand, budget, etc) Even the best shows are often only truly loved for a handful of episodes with only a handful of shows every few years capable of churning out consistently great content.

Fair enough,

 Geifer wrote:

Someone mentioned earlier there were rumors about what the show was supposed to end like and how it actually does, if it has in fact been changed to accommodate another season. Would be good to actually see a link or something. I'm certainly not going to go looking for any of that stuff before the show concludes and risk spoiling the show for myself, but afterwards it might make for an interesting read.

There are articles out there. They don't give the sense that anything was changed (for a season 2, a lot was changed for other reasons), just that McGregor would love to do another season, and the director & others are playing coy about whether they would do it if Disney asked.


https://www.gamesradar.com/obi-wan-kenobi-season-2-addressed-head-writer-star-wars/

The Disney Plus show was conceived as a limited series – and so far there has been no word on a potential follow-up.

https://screenrant.com/obi-wan-show-season-2-joby-harold-response/
This amuses me the most:

So what can this show do to stick the landing?

I feel it's wasted too much of its runtime repeating its initial set up:

Part 1 - Obi is down and out. Leia is kidnapped.
Part 2 - Obi rescues Leia and escapes.
Part 3 - Obi continues to escape with Leia. Leia is kidnapped. Again.
Part 4 - Obi rescues Leia (again) and escapes (again).
Part 5 - Obi continues to escape (again!).

Like... what else can happen? Obi takes Leia back to Bail and Vader just goes "Aw shucks! He got away! Next time Kenobi! Next time!!!"

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So what can this show do to stick the landing?

I feel it's wasted too much of its runtime repeating its initial set up:

Part 1 - Obi is down and out. Leia is kidnapped.
Part 2 - Obi rescues Leia and escapes.
Part 3 - Obi continues to escape with Leia. Leia is kidnapped. Again.
Part 4 - Obi rescues Leia (again) and escapes (again).
Part 5 - Obi continues to escape (again!).

Like... what else can happen? Obi takes Leia back to Bail and Vader just goes "Aw shucks! He got away! Next time Kenobi! Next time!!!"

Seriously. How does this wrap up in a single episode that doesn't put Leia at incredible risk for the rest of her life and makes sense when Vader has interactions with her in A New Hope? What fething corner have they written themselves into?

It's possible (and somewhat implied early in the season) that the galactic senate still has some power. Enough that going after Bail openly is something the Inquisitors can't do and if they can't do it's because Palpatine doesn't want them to. He didn't dissolve the Senate until ANH, so while there are some very action and secret plan ways this can end, it can also end with Bail showing up, taking Leia, and leaving and Vader being forced to stand down and leave it be. Palpatine doesn't have his hate boner for Obi-Wan and would care more about keeping the Senate in line until he can get rid of it.



Let's see if I'm right again!