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Geifer wrote: Man, I'm glad Han didn't shoot first and Luke didn't murder those two Gamorreans that inconvenienced him. I too prefer my Star Wars firmly black and white and unapologetically uncomplicated.
But stormtroopers are literally faceless! Not people!
Imagine if that got undermined by a scene where two Stormtroopers talk about a hobby because they're bored of guarding an empty walkway. I'm glad Stormtroopers don't get humanized liked that. Where'd be the fun in shooting up those guys by the cartload if they were just people trying to make a living?
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
The Empire's competence (or lack thereof) was something the EU used to struggle with - for some reason the writers in the 90s had trouble rationalizing why a superpower would have trouble stomping out a decentralized insurgent force and took it upon themselves to make up any number of logistical issues in the Empire that boiled down to incompetence on some level. Frankly its a miracle the Death Star didn't blow up by itself.
The Emperor doesn’t want ambitious folk too near him. He wants toadies, lick spittles and crawly little bumlicks who rely on him for promotion. That gives him greater control, relatively little upper echelon conflict (at least aimed at him. The rest can stab each other in the back for all he cares) and no-one to really oppose his plans.
Consider his decision to develop and fund The Death Star and Super Star Destroyers over projects like the (demonstrably far more valuable against the Rebellion’s preferred tactics) TIE Defender.
Rebels and Rogue One show us various parties within The Empire squabbling over project funding. That is by design, not incompetence.
There's an interesting tidbit from the Alphabet Squadron books related to this. Spoilers for Victory's Price and the broader cross-media plot of Operation Cinder:
Spoiler:
The Empire kept extensive records on all its personnel, not just straightforward metadata regarding their physical traits, intelligence, etc. (plus something called M-count), but also personality profiles honed from after-action reports, psychological analysis, disciplinary infractions, right down to complaints from other officers or even civilians, in order to cultivate the down right sociopathic ur-Imperial profile we see in Star Wars. People who prove to value the people under the Empire over the Empire itself are sidelined into stagnant careers, troopers reprimanded for committing atrocities would be moved into similarly inclined units while their commanders would be rewarded for their integrity with a front-line post on Mimban or some other similarly costly post-separatist clean-up operation. Loyalty to the Emperor was valued more than loyalty to the Empire, but cruelty, ruthlessness, the capacity to hate complete strangers, all of these were extremely valuable traits that the Emperor was actively searching for, and the Empire is, as an organization, intended to cultivate.
It was this dataset that determined which Imperial officers were approached by the Emperor's messenger droids after he died, which imperial forces were sent to the unknown regions to found the First Order, which ones fought in costly battles against the New Republic, and which ones were killed in fratricidal conflict with other Imperial forces during the same period.
Geifer wrote: Man, I'm glad Han didn't shoot first and Luke didn't murder those two Gamorreans that inconvenienced him. I too prefer my Star Wars firmly black and white and unapologetically uncomplicated.
But stormtroopers are literally faceless! Not people!
Imagine if that got undermined by a scene where two Stormtroopers talk about a hobby because they're bored of guarding an empty walkway. I'm glad Stormtroopers don't get humanized liked that. Where'd be the fun in shooting up those guys by the cartload if they were just people trying to make a living?
True dat there was an ace bit in the the first No One Lives Forever game from the 90's were you can eaves drop on a couple of cannon fodder grunts have a lengthy chat about forming a band with some other mooks,if I hadn't tripped their aggro radius I would have sneaked past
"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had a fun deleted scene.
After the scene where Austin runs over a dude with a steam roller, it cut to a suburban household where a wife was talking on the phone about how proud she was of her husband and his new job, which led to all these good deeds the family was then able to do. She hangs up, and another call comes in from her husband's new job, where he was killed on the job in a steam roller mishap.
Good bit.
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Easy E wrote: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had a fun deleted scene.
After the scene where Austin runs over a dude with a steam roller, it cut to a suburban household where a wife was talking on the phone about how proud she was of her husband and his new job, which led to all these good deeds the family was then able to do. She hangs up, and another call comes in from her husband's new job, where he was killed on the job in a steam roller mishap.
Good bit.
I thought that was part of a series of scenes in the films that when mooks die you would cut to their families/friends.
Geifer wrote: Man, I'm glad Han didn't shoot first and Luke didn't murder those two Gamorreans that inconvenienced him. I too prefer my Star Wars firmly black and white and unapologetically uncomplicated.
But stormtroopers are literally faceless! Not people!
Imagine if that got undermined by a scene where two Stormtroopers talk about a hobby because they're bored of guarding an empty walkway. I'm glad Stormtroopers don't get humanized liked that. Where'd be the fun in shooting up those guys by the cartload if they were just people trying to make a living?
True dat there was an ace bit in the the first No One Lives Forever game from the 90's were you can eaves drop on a couple of cannon fodder grunts have a lengthy chat about forming a band with some other mooks,if I hadn't tripped their aggro radius I would have sneaked past
There's a similar bit in, I think, Max Payne 2 where 2 random mooks have an awkward conversation when one of them asks if they name their gun. It's really well done and you only get to hear it if you don't do the standard "all guns blazing" approach.
While kind of funny, being good to your kids after getting home from shaking down small businesses for protection money or suppressing the populace in support of a fascist regime doesn't garner a lot of sympathy from me.
Like I totally get there are absolutely movies where "heroes" blaze through totally innocent security guards and the line, but the Stormtroopers, mobsters and world conquering super villain henchmen.... nah. I don't care how good the benefits are, you know what you're doing and what the risks are.
Propaganda and living through a galaxy wide conflict would do a lot to alleviate the perceived "badness" from the grunt POV. Stuff like Bad Batch and Rebels showing how people are so easily drawn in by Fascism is IMO what makes them really good. Agent Kallus from Rebels is honestly one of the best characters in that show. He's cocky and proud of the power he wields as an ISB Agent but then as the brutal truth of the Empire hits home he realises that he has been taking pleasure in being a terrible person and actively works to atone for the crimes he has committed.
At the same time you get the opposite with Governor Pryce who sees everything the Empire does as justified and is so taken in that even when faced with her death she refuses to abandon the Empire. Its tragic because for a split second the show makes you think she's going to go for it then refuses and dies a brutal death for a kids show.
LunarSol wrote: While kind of funny, being good to your kids after getting home from shaking down small businesses for protection money or suppressing the populace in support of a fascist regime doesn't garner a lot of sympathy from me.
Like I totally get there are absolutely movies where "heroes" blaze through totally innocent security guards and the line, but the Stormtroopers, mobsters and world conquering super villain henchmen.... nah. I don't care how good the benefits are, you know what you're doing and what the risks are.
And then think of the history of humanity, that is full of loving your kids while doing stuff like chopping off the prisoners 5 year old daughters hands because he is behind on his production quotas. Or all those soldiers who go on to be lionised as heroes having raped and murdered their way through a war. Humans are funny creatures. Not showing that I think does people a disservice as you have a far bigger disconnect with reality when you finally have to encounter mans inhumanity. Also leads you to think funny stuff about justice and punishment and you don't want to see the shades of grey that go on in any society and end up making problems worse.
LunarSol wrote: While kind of funny, being good to your kids after getting home from shaking down small businesses for protection money or suppressing the populace in support of a fascist regime doesn't garner a lot of sympathy from me.
Like I totally get there are absolutely movies where "heroes" blaze through totally innocent security guards and the line, but the Stormtroopers, mobsters and world conquering super villain henchmen.... nah. I don't care how good the benefits are, you know what you're doing and what the risks are.
And then think of the history of humanity, that is full of loving your kids while doing stuff like chopping off the prisoners 5 year old daughters hands because he is behind on his production quotas. Or all those soldiers who go on to be lionised as heroes having raped and murdered their way through a war. Humans are funny creatures. Not showing that I think does people a disservice as you have a far bigger disconnect with reality when you finally have to encounter mans inhumanity. Also leads you to think funny stuff about justice and punishment and you don't want to see the shades of grey that go on in any society and end up making problems worse.
Absolutely, but at the same time trying to show sympathy for that kind of stuff is also why we have this era of people that are... probably a little too into the Empire. Like there's a whole "maybe the Rebels are the real villains all along" segment of the fanbase that gets more and more creepy the more of this kind of stuff that gets pushed. Like, no, they destroyed an occupied planet to build a space station that they used to destroy another occupied planet for the sole purpose of threatening any further dissent with mass extinction. Even in places where they're not actively involved in atrocities, Stormtroopers are never doing good. They might be doing "their jobs" but the lengths people go to justify them is.... kind of creepy and gross at best.
It's important for people to understand why so many support the Empire while showing the "justification" for it as baseless and entirely down to manipulation. IMO that's why Imperial-gone-Rebel stories are so important. They start off all patriotic and ready to serve, then they see what that service actually entails, and their world is shattered (metaphorically in this case).
The thing is though, it should be going that way. We already have most of the Empire being fine with loads of war crimes and stuff so we need the character-driven stories to have these people realise "Holy heck I am a piece of human garbage I should change that". Then again, people don't like it when media tells them "Maybe you shouldn't be rooting for the fascists yeah?".
Gert wrote: It's important for people to understand why so many support the Empire while showing the "justification" for it as baseless and entirely down to manipulation. IMO that's why Imperial-gone-Rebel stories are so important. They start off all patriotic and ready to serve, then they see what that service actually entails, and their world is shattered (metaphorically in this case).
We see a bit of that in Obi-Wan, with the driver/farmer ratting them out to the Storm Troopers, and seemingly being really quite positive about The Empire and it’s at least perceived benefits.
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Bad Batch has done it especially well. The crossover between a period of intense galactic conflict a one of stability and peace.
It's as Tarkin says, why does the Empire need expensive Clones when they have hundreds of thousands willing to sign up to help keep the peace? The chain code system as well is an ingenious idea. Get rid of all the old money and give people a sense of security in their lives.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/08/12 15:39:55
Spot on as usual. Shows how at odds Disney is with their family friendly focus and their attempts at making villains feel actually villainous when it comes to what crimes they can do as a protagonist. It would be like if Walt in breaking bad only ever made medicine that fought off cancer for guys like Gus. He would be the one who sleeps in socks, not the one who knocks.
This is part of the reason why I feel very skeptical that they'll be able to pull off Daredevil well in the same vein as the Netflix version as I doubt we'll be seeing Fisk decapitate anyone with a car door again anytime soon.
Imo, calling the Empire fascist is wrong, as it clearly removes any nuance in the conversation and ends up with it having to be always evil for evil sake, and obviously almost mustache twirling-y stupid and bad. Because of the connotation. The bad guys are reduced to always being 100% wrong all the time, and the good guys are always right 100% of the time.
I think it would be much better to that it's not entirely black and white, imo, but now that the image of fascist = Empire is there, there's no way that'll ever happen, so good job, I guess.
Well…given The Empire was always presented as a Fascist Dictatorship, I’m not sure what you’re loling at.
You might as well try to claim Daleks aren’t a direct analogy of Nazis and people shouldn’t say that because it reduces them to *checks notes* an exaggerated but ultimately accurate portrayal of Nazis and ideals of “racial purity”
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/08/12 17:31:44
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It was my understanding that some expanded material made it appear less so. Maybe I am wrong, I still say it would make a better story. As it stands, there's no room for twists or anything of the sort, there's no room for a sympathetic Empire character unless they're also going to turncoat, and so it becomes easy to see how things will go, the sort-of good-guy on the Imps will turn, or die shortly after having turned, because there's no room for more.
IDK about any Daleks, Dr.Who holds little interest to me.
The Empire is bad and more specifically fascist though. Objectively.
Blatantly authoritarian, human-supremacist, militaristic, massive reliance on state-run propaganda, literally making up enemies in the form of the Jedi's "betrayal" of the Republic, the fact that in ANH Palpatine just dissolves the Senate because its an irritant. The only real sign of fascism it doesn't cover is the disdain for women (The Empire is an equal opportunity employer).
So yeah, the Empire very much fits the bill of fascism and as an entity is very much in the "bad" category. Individuals can still do good within the system but the system is bad.
There are sympathetic characters who don't turn to the Rebellion but they are very few and often end up being sympathetic because the Empire they so ardently support in turn screws them over. Governor Pryce is a good example of someone who excels in the Empire until a point where she makes a load of errors and she realises the Empire is only your ally until you become a problem.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/08/12 17:43:51
Gert wrote: Individuals can still do good within the system but the system is bad.
That I can agree with. Though I'll note that I personally haven't heard of it being referenced to being Fascist until very recent time. Prior to... I want to say 2014-15? Sometime around that, the close we got were calling the uniforms of the officers Nazi-like.
That The Empire is a fascist dictatorship doesn’t automatically preclude interesting stories.
Whilst you cannot, and should not, humanise and soften The Organisation? You can show positive impacts on a population, to explain how it maintains some level of popular support. A tired trope of Nazi Germany? They Made The Trains Run On Time.
I mean, whatever form of Government the next man might feel to be abhorrent? Every single system of Government will have common folk that win, and common folk that lose out.
Hence I found the Sullustan truck driver quite interesting in Obi-Wan, as he only had positive opinions of The Empire.
There’s even room for stuff like Schindler’s List type tales, of someone quite deep set in Awful Thing who, for whatever reason, Does Good Things.
But what you cannot do is make The Empire look heroic and noble. Because it just…..wasn’t. At all.
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