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Would this be a good idea for disney? It wouldn't have to modify anything major, and it'd have a new perspective.

It would be a terrible idea for disney. Hull 721s maximalist, pro-imperial and anti-force slants doesnt fit at all with disney's approach.

Its also massive steeped in old EU lore.

It would be a terrible idea for Disney.

It would be an excellent idea for me. Therefore, I vote in favor!

Crazedwraith wrote:It would be a terrible idea for disney. Hull 721s maximalist, pro-imperial and anti-force slants doesnt fit at all with disney's approach.

Its also massive steeped in old EU lore.

And, all of that is what makes it so awesome. Disney and the Mickey Mouse Force Wanking Club can all burn in hell for all I care.

Crazedwraith wrote:It would be a terrible idea for disney. Hull 721s maximalist, pro-imperial and anti-force slants doesnt fit at all with disney's approach.

Its also massive steeped in old EU lore.

Define "pro-Imperial" and "anti-Force" here, because we could go several ways with that.

On the former, is it just like what Zahn did, with decently sympathetic Imperial POV characters? Because even Disney did that: see SP-475 in "Battlefront: Twilight Company." Likewise with the latter, because if the "anti-Force" in Hull 721 is just that it doesn't buy into the utterly absurd Jedi win everything ever because precog lol stuff I've seen on here...that's hardly a bad thing.

RogueIce wrote:

Crazedwraith wrote:It would be a terrible idea for disney. Hull 721s maximalist, pro-imperial and anti-force slants doesnt fit at all with disney's approach.

Its also massive steeped in old EU lore.

Define "pro-Imperial" and "anti-Force" here, because we could go several ways with that.

On the former, is it just like what Zahn did, with decently sympathetic Imperial POV characters? Because even Disney did that: see SP-475 in "Battlefront: Twilight Company." Likewise with the latter, because if the "anti-Force" in Hull 721 is just that it doesn't buy into the utterly absurd Jedi win everything ever because precog lol stuff I've seen on here...that's hardly a bad thing.

Go read the fanfic, man. It's hard to describe. (So ECR forgive me if I do it injustice here)

It centres on an extremely competent, eccentric, 'zany' Stardestroyer crew. With all sort of top of the line imperial and home made tech. The first arc features them blowing up lots of rebels and getting involved in imperial politics/force users cabals. The second arc gets them even more deeply involved in imperial politics to the point where (last I've read) they've sort of rebelled and a third side because their Captain can't really stand either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance.

Likewise, I say Anti-Force because the Captain who is force sensitive hates both Jedi and Sith and the stories portrays both sides as very shitty. Describing it as either 'ommm or aaargh'.

I'd even pay to watch this. Sadly I expect it to never happen.

The anti-Force bit would likely get it thrown out alone. The current continuity generally portays the Jedi are unquestionably heroic in some sense, if sometimes incompetent. I also suspect KOTOR 2 would get thrown out for the same reason.

An eccentric Imperial crew would likely be improbably in any case. While there are a few competent and even sympathetic Imperial loyalists in the current continuity, they are all deadly serious. For a TV series I especially doubt it. There is a reason Rebels got made rather than Hull 721(or something like it).

RogueIce wrote: On the former, is it just like what Zahn did, with decently sympathetic Imperial POV characters? Because even Disney did that: see SP-475 in "Battlefront: Twilight Company." Likewise with the latter, because if the "anti-Force" in Hull 721 is just that it doesn't buy into the utterly absurd Jedi win everything ever because precog lol stuff I've seen on here...that's hardly a bad thing.

I'm pretty sure that Jedi point was literally just me(with virtually everyone else disagreeing). My original point was that the only reliable counter to Jedi or Sith is each other. It came out of a discussion on whether Dark Siders would be neccesary in the new films. I was saying that they would be in some sense.

Though I did more or less strawman myself.

Adam Reynolds wrote:The anti-Force bit would likely get it thrown out alone. The current continuity generally portays the Jedi are unquestionably heroic in some sense, if sometimes incompetent. I also suspect KOTOR 2 would get thrown out for the same reason.

Which is sad, because the Old Order all obviously had their heads up their own asses. And they were willing to sell out their own for political expediency.

An eccentric Imperial crew would likely be improbably in any case. While there are a few competent and even sympathetic Imperial loyalists in the current continuity, they are all deadly serious. For a TV series I especially doubt it. There is a reason Rebels got made rather than Hull 721(or something like it).

After a long time together, especially years, on the front line, any combat outfit will develop its little quirks, especially as it becomes more of a family, and, because it's been honed into an effiecent, combat unit. You have your eccentricities, but that doesn't mean they're not deadly serious about destroying as many of the enemy as it takes for them to come out alive.

(I suggest watching Das Boot for a fictional example of this. Or, its science-fiction analogue, the excellent Passage At Arms, set in Glen A. Cook's Starfisher universe)

I'm pretty sure that Jedi point was literally just me(with virtually everyone else disagreeing). My original point was that the only reliable counter to Jedi or Sith is each other.

And, in the Original Trilogy there were a total of three Jedi, two Sith, and one latent Force user. The fact that the EU, and even the new canon, had Jedi and Sith coming out of woodwork during the Rebellion era(which totally negates the point of Luke being the last of the Jedi at the end of the OT)is pure fanwank rivalled only by the "every motherfucker's a goddamn Space Marine" wankery amongst both 40K fandom and GW's staff, and the overall effect is the same: It cheapens something which is supposed to be rare, and makes it trite, instead of wonderful.

It came out of a discussion on whether Dark Siders would be neccesary in the new films. I was saying that they would be in some sense.

Though I did more or less strawman myself.

Except, the one thing which has arisen from all the Force wank that I can't abide is the black/white fallacy of "you're either a Jedi or a Sith, light or dark" and "if your use of the Force is not 100% in conformity with Jedi dogma, then you're automatically a dark sider, whether you know it or not."

I can't half blame ECR for seeing Jedi and Sith as two sides of a two-headed coin, because, they so often are. Especially, when it comes to the Old Order.

U.P. Cinnabar wrote: pure fanwank rivalled only by the "every motherfucker's a goddamn Space Marine" wankery amongst both 40K fandom and GW's staff, and the overall effect is the same: It cheapens something which is supposed to be rare, and makes it trite, instead of wonderful.

Your ideas of 40K are a bit wonky. The change in the depiction of marines isn't that there's more of them, it's that they've become invulnerable. Back in the day you couldn't turn a page in a 40K book without watching a marine get splatto'd by some powerful weapon that carved through thier armour and flesh like nothing. Now I've seen some fans get the idea that they can stop a boltgun shell with the palm of their hand.

That said, the idea of surviving Jedi had been established in the prequel films:



And did you think Vader never crossed blade with a jedi after RotS? That's a little bit of a sad performance for him, really. That hunting down and destroying the Jedi talked about in the original movie would be a lie then..

Adam Reynolds wrote: An eccentric Imperial crew would likely be improbably in any case. While there are a few competent and even sympathetic Imperial loyalists in the current continuity, they are all deadly serious. For a TV series I especially doubt it. There is a reason Rebels got made rather than Hull 721(or something like it).

It can be done. I submit Das Boot again (as earlier brought up) as an example of it done well. They didn't ignore that they were the bad guys, with the new officer basically being Mr. Nazi Ideologue, but the simple fact is that politics doesn't come up much in day to day work for anybody regardless of who you are.

Shit, Hitler enjoyed a good garden party now and again. Goering liked his booze and food. If you want to take your feel and themes outside of Saturday morning cartoons your villains need to follow suit. That means villains have to make sense as people.

If Ralph Fiennes can pull it off in a serious movie like Schindler's List, SWs can do it. In the end it makes them MORE villainous when you realize they are not robots but people who have agency to choose right and wrong just like you, and chose wrong.

Patroklos wrote:

Adam Reynolds wrote: An eccentric Imperial crew would likely be improbably in any case. While there are a few competent and even sympathetic Imperial loyalists in the current continuity, they are all deadly serious. For a TV series I especially doubt it. There is a reason Rebels got made rather than Hull 721(or something like it).

It can be done. I submit Das Boot again (as earlier brought up) as an example of it done well. They didn't ignore that they were the bad guys, with the new officer basically being Mr. Nazi Ideologue, but the simple fact is that politics doesn't come up much in day to day work for anybody regardless of who you are.

Shit, Hitler enjoyed a good garden party now and again. Goering liked his booze and food. If you want to take your feel and themes outside of Saturday morning cartoons your villains need to follow suit. That means villains have to make sense as people.

If Ralph Fiennes can pull it off in a serious movie like Schindler's List, SWs can do it. In the end it makes them MORE villainous when you realize they are not robots but people who have agency to choose right and wrong just like you, and chose wrong.

Exactly, I feel that outside of simplistic "saturday Morning cartoon" style narative your villain needs some other motive then "evil for the sake of evil" to be a strong character, it can be a misguided or stupid motive but it must be a beliveble motive, since no real persons really see themselves as evil or at very least see themselves as the necessery evil to make a better world what ever that means to that character.

NecronLord wrote:And did you think Vader never crossed blade with a jedi after RotS? That's a little bit of a sad performance for him, really. That hunting down and destroying the Jedi talked about in the original movie would be a lie then..

Not contesting there was a whole lot of Jedi killing going on before the OT. Definitely not contesting that Vader and the stormies were butchering anyone even suspected of being a Jedi, witch hunts being what they are.

My point was that when ANH begins, we see one Jedi, one Jedi in training, and one Sith. In ESB, one Jedi in training, one Jedi, two Sith Lords. In ROTJ, one Jedi, two Sith, one latent Force sensitive.

Granted, Yoda asked Luke to teach others what he taught him, and, it's not improbable that Luke does precisely that(nor embarks on a quest for ancient Jedi and other Force-related artifacts and traditions, like he did in the old EU).

But the fanwank(and now Disney) would have you think there are Jedi behind every bush, and the same with the Sith, not because there are, but because they concentrate on the Jedi(and Sith)to the exclusion of the rest of the Star Wars universe, and, I think, that's missing the point of the original trilogy.

The change in the depiction of marines isn't that there's more of them, it's that they've become invulnerable.

No, not that there's more of them, but that there's a disproportionate emphasis on them. As well as the fact that they've become invunerable.

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Except, the one thing which has arisen from all the Force wank that I can't abide is the black/white fallacy of "you're either a Jedi or a Sith, light or dark" and "if your use of the Force is not 100% in conformity with Jedi dogma, then you're automatically a dark sider, whether you know it or not."

Rebels hasn't done that. Ahsoka is pretty clear she does not consider herself a Jedi anymore, and hasn't since TCW's Season 5. She is definitely not evil. Hell, even Kanan didn't at the start, though he came around. And as for Dark Siders, the Inquisitors are very clearly not Sith, which was made clear when describing them in comparison to Vader. Likewise, "Sith" is never once mentioned for Kylo Ren, though we'll have to wait for the remainder of the Trilogy to play out to see if they hold to that.

RogueIce wrote:

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Except, the one thing which has arisen from all the Force wank that I can't abide is the black/white fallacy of "you're either a Jedi or a Sith, light or dark" and "if your use of the Force is not 100% in conformity with Jedi dogma, then you're automatically a dark sider, whether you know it or not."

Rebels hasn't done that. Ahsoka is pretty clear she does not consider herself a Jedi anymore, and hasn't since TCW's Season 5. She is definitely not evil. Hell, even Kanan didn't at the start, though he came around. And as for Dark Siders, the Inquisitors are very clearly not Sith, which was made clear when describing them in comparison to Vader. Likewise, "Sith" is never once mentioned for Kylo Ren, though we'll have to wait for the remainder of the Trilogy to play out to see if they hold to that.

I hope that remains the case with the sequels as well.

I'll have to concede where Rebels is concerned, until I'm able to watch more of the series, but, it would be a welcome relief, if the above is the case with the show.

RogueIce wrote:

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Except, the one thing which has arisen from all the Force wank that I can't abide is the black/white fallacy of "you're either a Jedi or a Sith, light or dark" and "if your use of the Force is not 100% in conformity with Jedi dogma, then you're automatically a dark sider, whether you know it or not."

Rebels hasn't done that. Ahsoka is pretty clear she does not consider herself a Jedi anymore, and hasn't since TCW's Season 5. She is definitely not evil. Hell, even Kanan didn't at the start, though he came around. And as for Dark Siders, the Inquisitors are very clearly not Sith, which was made clear when describing them in comparison to Vader. Likewise, "Sith" is never once mentioned for Kylo Ren, though we'll have to wait for the remainder of the Trilogy to play out to see if they hold to that.

There's also the Lasat force shamans who are evidently benevolent, but not jedi.

RogueIce wrote:

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Except, the one thing which has arisen from all the Force wank that I can't abide is the black/white fallacy of "you're either a Jedi or a Sith, light or dark" and "if your use of the Force is not 100% in conformity with Jedi dogma, then you're automatically a dark sider, whether you know it or not."

Rebels hasn't done that. Ahsoka is pretty clear she does not consider herself a Jedi anymore, and hasn't since TCW's Season 5. She is definitely not evil. Hell, even Kanan didn't at the start, though he came around. And as for Dark Siders, the Inquisitors are very clearly not Sith, which was made clear when describing them in comparison to Vader. Likewise, "Sith" is never once mentioned for Kylo Ren, though we'll have to wait for the remainder of the Trilogy to play out to see if they hold to that.

There's an issue here that I feel needs to be addressed.

A lot of people who try to impose moral ambiguity/relativity on Star Wars (and I say "impose" because at its core, its very much a series built around metaphysical good vs. evil) seem to falsely conflate two separate issues- weather the Force is divided into Light and Dark, and weather you have to be a Jedi/follow the Jedi Code to be Light.

Those are very, very separate questions. Jedi are not prefect beings, and are not portrayed as such in canon. They strive to follow the Light Side, but they are capable of making mistakes, and the Jedi philosophy evolves over the course of the films on things including having loved ones/family. And I wonder how much of the protests against Star Wars' Light vs. Dark philosophy are, at least in part, a protest against the Jedi Code and the mistaken belief that to be Light Side one must follow the Jedi Code to the letter.

In any case, its all ridiculous because, as you say, their are plenty of examples of Light Siders who aren't Jedi in canon.

Bottom line- their is a Light and a Dark Side in Star Wars, unless you want to overrule the OT, but the Jedi Order is an organization created by fallible beings. Jedi does not equate to Light Side. And non-Jedi does not equate to Dark Side.

Edit: I mean, how can anyone actually watch the films and conclude that the message is that anyone who doesn't follow the Jedi Code to the letter is evil?

The Romulan Republic wrote: Bottom line- their is a Light and a Dark Side in Star Wars, unless you want to overrule the OT, but the Jedi Order is an organization created by fallible beings. Jedi does not equate to Light Side. And non-Jedi does not equate to Dark Side.

I wouldn't say it's that clear cut. Even with PT thrown in, almost everything we are told sbout the force itself comes from someone who is buying into a certain belief system. Jedi order has one but so do the Sith. So when we are told there is a "shroud of the dark side", the information is already affected by a belief that we're the good guys and something hampering our ability to do X must be caused by the evil which we oppose. Palpatine professes his belief that there is a dark side and that gives him power.. yea.. could be, but can we really know? He too is following a some sort of belief system, one the movies tell us even less about. As you say, Jedi and Sith orders are both creations centered around a belief that there is a light and a dark side to the force and one could even say nothing in between but I'd call evidence saying this is the end be all to the matter flimsy at best.

Come to think of it, Sith and Jedi call the dark side by the same name. Does a sith ever even mention the light side of the force?? I'm fairly sure it doesn't happen in the movies.

Of course then there's the EU but that's like 2nd hand smoking, hard to avoid and causes cancer.

-Gunhead

We have no reason not to believe either Jedi accounts of the Light Side or Sith accounts of the Dark Side. You can question the Jedi account of the Dark Side since they are not seeped in it, and vice versa for the Sith and the Light Side. But it is silly to dismiss their knowledge of the Force they follow. It's not belief, it is demonstrable in the SW universe. It may be religious in analogy, but if Christianity could be demonstrated in anyway like a Jedi could demonstrate the Force, then we'd all be Christian.

The most prominent Jedi also ignored the Jedi Code when it matters. Obi-Wan has an attachment to Anakin, Mace Windu has an attachment to the Republic, and Yoda rather ironically has an attachment to the Jedi code itself.

Luke flat out throws out the Jedi Code in its entirety. As Palpatine points out, he has too much faith in his friends. But that faith is rewarded, when not only do his friends succeed, he is also able to redeem Anakin.

Not to mention that The Force is based on Eastern religious ideas. Enlightenment is a goal in itself, not a means to some other end.

Patroklos wrote: It can be done. I submit Das Boot again (as earlier brought up) as an example of it done well. They didn't ignore that they were the bad guys, with the new officer basically being Mr. Nazi Ideologue, but the simple fact is that politics doesn't come up much in day to day work for anybody regardless of who you are.

Shit, Hitler enjoyed a good garden party now and again. Goering liked his booze and food. If you want to take your feel and themes outside of Saturday morning cartoons your villains need to follow suit. That means villains have to make sense as people.

If Ralph Fiennes can pull it off in a serious movie like Schindler's List, SWs can do it. In the end it makes them MORE villainous when you realize they are not robots but people who have agency to choose right and wrong just like you, and chose wrong.

Hell, even Thrawn drank beer during briefings.

Like I said in the "Imperial POV" thread, the main villain I could see getting their own Imp-centric film is Darth Vader; from the current Disney that is -- and even then it'd likely not be what we'd really want to see.

Adam Reynolds wrote:The most prominent Jedi also ignored the Jedi Code when it matters. Obi-Wan has an attachment to Anakin, Mace Windu has an attachment to the Republic, and Yoda rather ironically has an attachment to the Jedi code itself.

Luke flat out throws out the Jedi Code in its entirety. As Palpatine points out, he has too much faith in his friends. But that faith is rewarded, when not only do his friends succeed, he is also able to redeem Anakin.

Not to mention that The Force is based on Eastern religious ideas. Enlightenment is a goal in itself, not a means to some other end.

Quite. Luke in RotJ is actually arguably something of the ideal Jedi to me, because he chose the Light without being bound by the narrow-mindedness of the Jedi Code.

Adam Reynolds wrote:Luke flat out throws out the Jedi Code in its entirety. As Palpatine points out, he has too much faith in his friends. But that faith is rewarded, when not only do his friends succeed, he is also able to redeem Anakin.

Which was the point: Luke's faith in his friends*—well-justified over the course of the trilogy before he's brought before Palpatine—was his greatest strength, as it allowed him to become stronger in the Force than even his father.

Those friendships—those attachments so scorned by the Old Order's self-serving, self-defeating, ultimately-destructive dogma—made it possible for Luke to believe in his father's redeemption strongly enough to be willing to lay down his own life for it.

While Anakin was, at the very best, kept at arm's length by the Jedi to whose standards he tried to live up, and whose dogma he rigidly embraced, even when it became an inescapable trap. Hell, even his own master, who would later claim him as "a good friend[following two decades in which to revise his history]," barely tolerated him, and only trained him, because he felt obligated to. Everyone in his life either left him(or was pushed out of his life, as Ashoka was), died on him, deceived him(even Padmé in TPM) or feared and outright rejected him, to the point where he couldn't trust the woman who loved him unconditionally, and he lashed out with the only thing anyone but Padmé and his mom let him feel: Anger and frustration.

And, that, Yoda, was why he failed, and why he fell. He may have pulled the trigger, but you Jedi fuckers and your self-serving Code helped supply the gun.

*as well as in the average, ordinary, non-special Rebel grunt willing to stand on the line and face an AT-AT with a blaster rifle.

My point is that despite throwing out the Jedi code, he was still a considered a Jedi by everyone. Even Obi-Wan and Yoda.