Star Trek/Star Wars: I have figured it out!

It all makes sense now. For all the STD haters out there, have a look at the posts now dealing with Star Wars leaks, true or false. The justifications for events and actions in the new Star Wars movies are following the same pattern as the justifications that were being generated by 'fans' to explain the events and actions in STD.

Both series have female leads, which means that any critique of those said leads can be shut down as being sexist. Both of these leads, Rey and Michael, have male names. Both of them seem to be better than their contemporaries, both having skills that no one could see coming and of course, being the only ones in close proximity who have solutions to problems that are being presented.

Both series explicitly and forcefully push 'diversity' as an image but not as a concept; this leads to characters acting in ways that any character could act, thus leading to bland characters that have no deeper emotional function and that we find it really difficult as viewers to 'get to know', or relate to. By removing any element of 'culture' or 'group', characters become entirely unpredictable to a viewer, and that's why we feel 'out to sea' when trying to figure out why a certain character does something (and also why actions always need to be explained in these shitshows).

Both series attempt to employ 'humour', which is really just quips and modern text language; devoid of real humour which, like irony, is based entirely on a careful and crafty mis-interpretation of the truth. Because as we all know, truth today is forbidden, humour as a result is not possible to convey in language, and thus it's necessary to fall back on...you guessed it, quips. This is also why we don't see body humour (i.e. slapstick) anymore either, as it's not appropriate to laugh at someone's misfortune...that's discriminatory.

cont.

cont.

Both series exhibit a complete and utter lack of understanding regarding being a part of a larger history and why canon is important to fans. They have shown this through their production design, but most importantly through their script prep and overall story arc prep. This relates directly to the first issue with diversity of image but not concept. To present something as being a part of an established canon means that one must first understand the canon thoroughly and secondly respect it enough to consider it a working manual from which one can add to but never subtract from or contradict. Why does this relate to the diversity issue you ask? Because they're doing the same thing with canon; they show things visually that fit in to the canon in image, but not in concept. This is why Han was such a let down in the last Star Wars movie...and why Leia hugged Rey instead of Chewie first.

I could keep on going on each element...costume design, character design, music, editing...it's all there. Star Trek and Star Wars suffer from the same problem: the producers have no idea what they're doing, but they have images that can make billions.

The most interesting thing of course is that the fans of both series have reacted in exactly the same way. The ones who haven't given up on the series keep on trying to find ways to fit events they see into the canon, forcing it like stuffing a pillow into a tight pillowcase.

When events and characters in new series fit into canon but are obviously different than what we've seen before, there isn't this struggle. In Star Trek, no one asked if Voyager was in a mirror universe because Tuvok was a black Vulcan. In the Star Wars Prequels, no one was hypothesizing how little Ani could podrace...that issue wasn't a mystery, not only because of the explanation by Qui-gon but because even though everyone hated the medichloreans it was still reasonably acceptable in the universe.

cont.

cont.

But now we have showrunners who believe that the only way they can get the public to watch their tripe is to put together a series of mysteries that are posited in shows that already have difficulty explaining characters and showing character development.

Consider this; why was it such a big deal that Han was frozen in Carbonite, and we didn't know if he'd ever be alive again? Or, why were we all wondering what would happen to Picard after Best of Both Worlds part 1? The emotional reaction was not due to the event itself, the 'shocking' aspect of the event. It was because the characters had grown and developed to a point where we felt like we could predict their actions, their words, and that the event essentially took those elements away from us, and we missed the characters.

These unsolved mysteries to be dealt with in future episodes/films were nailbiting because we cared about the characters who, up until that point, were not loaded with pre-arranged mysteries that we were simply forced to accept without any support.

Right now, fans can't figure out Rey's capabilities...what can she do with the force, what can't she do? How did she learn it, or even better, is it all instinctual? Her parents must be Jedi...but if the leaks are to be believed, then she's just a nobody. These are NOT mysteries that a fan watching this should be thinking about...these are mysteries that hatch from inconsistencies in the writing and writers who do not understand canon. The only reason they are seen as mysteries is precisely because the fans can't find a reason for these events to exist within the established canon.

cont.

cont.

The worst part about all of this is that every major property that has been rebooted or redone in the past 3 or 4 years has had this problem, most notably the Ghostbusters fiasco. Do you remember how many theories created by fans there were floating around that somehow, the female ghostbusters existed in a separate timeline, a parallel universe...anything to explain why Venkman was some idiot critic ghost non-believer, Ray was a cab driver, and so on and so forth.

The point is, you've all been played. All of you. Every single one of you who is trying desperately to find a way to link the new properties that have the name and image of your old favorite property, because it would obviously be much more fun if they all fit together nicely. We're pattern seeking mammals, after all...it's behavioral, and its genetically imbued.

Here's the whole reason for my post. I think I've figured it all out. I believe that the people who own these properties KNOW all about this issue of human behavior, and they also know that no matter what they create, you'll still go and see it. If you love the new properties because you hated the old ones, fine...if you hate the new ones because you loved the old ones, even better because you'll go and see it anyway just to find out if you're right or not on how much shit it is.

They always win. Unless of course you simply decide, like I did after the first Star Trek reboot (2009), that I'm simply done. That I am not accepting these things any longer because they're not made out of love for the property but because they know that no matter what product they create, everyone will still go and see it, to love it, or to hate on it.

That is all. Thanks for your time.

Bump for op

Thanks...but given how dead things are, maybe I should have ended it with this pic.

How does The Orville fit into all this?

>everyone will still go and see it, to love it, or to hate on it
Ghostbusters 2016 was a giant flop tho
You're not wrong that studios are producing nothing but trash, but audiences still have it in them to reject the most obvious garbage.

The Orville is not made by anyone who thought they'd guarantee to make money out of it.

Every element of the Orville is drawn from someone's love of older Star Trek, most of it being drawn from TNG. The uniforms, the music, the sets, the pacing, the character development...everything. It's all 'been done before', but it's also very successful as a standalone because it uses an already successful formula.

Not only that, but the jokes work (not all of them, but quite a lot) because of something I mentioned before; cultural expectation. Why is it gratifying and sometimes funny to see people on the ship react to Alara's strength? Because we don't expect that out of a petite young lady. Why is Bortus hilarious when he is going to sing karaoke? Because he's deadly serious as a character and we can't imagine him singing.

We love characters on TV the same way we love people in real life. We grow accustomed to them, to their actions and their words, and when those expectations are broken, we feel something in response. Sometimes we laugh, because someone said or did something that was unexpected or out of character. Sometimes we cry, like when we see someone we know who is normally stoic and has all the answers to everything suddenly breaking down in tears because their grandmother died or something.

The Orville is criticised precisely because it has no intention of being a meme on TV. It is more interested in being the story behind the meme. Does that make sense?

Yes, but here's the reason Ghostbusters was rejected so quickly. No one wanted it.

Everyone wanted more Star Wars after Ep. 3, and the hint or whiff of a third trilogy that supposedly Lucas had considered was more than enough for any fan. Just imagine it...

We get to see what happened after ROTJ. Han and Leia are married with kids, happily ever after. Luke is training new Jedi, the universe is in peace...until SOMETHING happens. Who knows, a new and secret dark side order...maybe something from the extended universe that is now not canon (again, more evidence that they don't respect the canon at all).

I know...how about everyone is living their lives nicely...and then someone (Leia maybe) gets assassinated, not by a shitty assassin like in AOTC, but a dark Jedi of some kind. Han wants to go all revenge on this thing, but he needs Luke to help him find the guy because Han doesn't have force powers or whatever.

That would be a GREAT start to a movie...but it would have to happen about 22 minutes into it, after we've established that everyone is doing fine and happy....and I just came up with it now. A child could come up with better things than this, but the point is that that start already gives us precisely what we want after ROTJ; to know that the characters we love are okay, like older parents.

What do we get instead? Han is..a smuggler again. He lost the Millenium Falcon somehow. He and Leia are not together anymore. Their son is an ugly asshole. .....? Think about this, just think about this. The writers decided to make every single character we love go through shit that we don't see...so that when we do see them, it's a severe disappointment emotionally. Why would they do this if they truly loved the characters?

yeah that makes sense. I agree
i haven't given a shit about any newer movies or tv shows for like 10 years. Fucking sad

You know the worst part about all of that? It's not going to get better anytime soon, precisely because of the truth aspect. When it's taboo to categorize anyone based on who they are (their actions, their 'costume', etc.), then the concept of a 'character' disappears entirely.

Notice that we still have no idea who Rey is as a character. What does she find funny? What does she find sad? What does she think is attractive, or ugly?

Notice how clear it is if we ask the same questions of Princess Leia. Yes, I know, it's the same old RLM question (describe a character without describing their costume or function), but it's more than that. Their test doesn't talk about the real reason why it's an interesting test in terms of character.

You have to establish characters that have in-built prejudices for their actions. They have to like this, hate this, etc. in order for them to seem real. You cannot keep it on the level of 'they only hate things that are evil/dark side and like things that are only on the light side or good'. This is why, incidentally, Padme was so characterless and unpredictable. There's no reason for her to fall in love with Anakin, except that she's supposed to.

With Leia and Han, there's subtext everywhere in their actions from the get-go in ANH. The confrontational dialogue and actions are the embodiment of the thing that most of us understand; that opposites can attract and in many cases they do with a vengeance.

Are Rey and Finn opposites in any way other than skin colour and sex? Even Rey and Kylo...they are only different due to light side vs. dark...but as characters the only thing that is of any interest at all is Kylo's struggle with failure/expectation and not having anyone to help him learn how to be as great as he aspires to be.

Here's another terrible thing to consider....in the whole of TFA, I still can't answer a simple question. What does Rey want? I mean, really...what the fuck does she want?

It's a good run down.

In my experience with cults a very similar phenomenon happens.

All material surrounding the cult becomes purified and the cult leader becomes archetypal.

This means that he becomes deified and all events surrounding his actions become raged G. He is flawless and anyone criticizing him is doing so out of their own flaws or sins.

Every villain becomes black and white their is no grey area left. All good or all bad and anyone that doesn't agree is to be shunned and silenced.

>Sound familiar? It should.

You see we live in a cult. PC cukture or cultural Marxism, call it what you want, but it is a cult. And as such it is presenting itself as a cult.

Now reality takes a back seat to the preeminence of cult ideology, and everything that denies that ideology is black evil (even facts or reality).

It's not a sinister conspiracy it is the mass psychosis of cultist placing cult dogma in their bodies of work.

Places like 4 chan because of the cognitive dissonance cult dogma produces. One of the main pastimes here is pointing out the crazy cult beliefs and the inconsistencies to deprogram ourselves.

Here's a little synopsis on cult deprogramming

Sylvia Buford, an associate of Ted Patrick who has assisted him on many deprogrammings, described five stages of deprogramming:[22]
1. Discredit the figure of authority: the cult leader
2. Present contradictions (ideology versus reality): "How can he preach love when he exploits people?" is an example.
3. The breaking point: When a subject begins to listen to the deprogrammer; when reality begins to take precedence over ideology.
4. Self-expression: When the subject begins to open up and voice gripes against the cult.
5. Identification and transference: when the subject begins to identify with the deprogrammers, starts to think as an opponent of the cult rather than as a member.


Singer described six conditions of cultic control among which were control of the environment; a system of rewards and punishments; creating a sense of powerlessness, fear and dependency; and reforming the follower’s behaviour and attitudes, all within a closed system of logic.

Plain and simple you are dealing with cult members.

OP is a 39 year old white male from Ohio with an IT job making $65,000 a year.

fucking hater

Precisely; the only thing I can add is that I don't think the West has ever really seen this kind of cultism on this scale before, at least in modern times.

There is no alternate to the Hollywood machine. It's not a two-party system...it's one, ever growing. Furthermore, as you've rightly pointed out criticism is out the window, and it's been replaced by what we see from every movie 'critic' that exists online now.

Notice that in movie criticism today, the most important issue is not the construction of a movie, or the writing, but 'how the movie made the reviewer feel'. That's the benchmark...how a reviewer felt ('I cheered! I cried! etc etc.).

This is bullshit, it's the lowest form of digital graffiti that we've ever reached, and it's taking over. Being manipulated emotionally as an audience member is not the purpose of film, or any other serious art form. It's a byproduct of the higher intellectual experience of understanding something or coming to a revelation. That's what great films do actually...they tell you something you already know, force you to acknowledge that you know it or have blocked it out, and help you to learn about your own demons and how to conquer them.

Modern film does none of this because to show anything deliberately intellectual in this vein would be to rely on an acknowledgement of some kind of reality that we all experience. But as I said before, they can't acknowledge reality or else their entire system would fall apart.

So...who speaks first, me or you?

What did I say that was hateful? Your reaction just tells me I'm right.

Okay...and do you disagree with any points I've made, and if so, bring some ideas to the table. This is a discussion, or at least I'd hope it would be. I started this topic for the sole purpose of generating or at least prompting some thought other than 'REY KILLS KYLO' or 'DISNEY IS SHILLING' or 'SEE THESE LEFTISTS CONTRADICT THEMSELVES'.

There's more to film discussion than watching the reactions of people who react publicly solely for the purpose of fitting into the society they secretly hate.

No we haven't experienced anything like this in the west because the west has always tried to ground itself on the Christian tradition and from there extrapolate what reality is, and that worked pretty well.

However now there are so many social lies now that we have to have a constant stream of false reality fed to us to maintain the new paradigm.

One of the scariest attributes is that any society that values ideology over reality ends up using violence to enforce their world view.

This isn't some kind of joke this will become lethal. People will die. Just like communism, just like naziism, just like cults, cultural Marxism will end in blood.

Interesting stuff. I think right now, the average member of the public will never go through step one because the figure of authority is not a single person, or even a single symbol. The 'everyone is exactly the same and equal' issue is being broadcast from every sector of society, and being enforced through social shaming from every portal and outlet, and of course enforced by law as well. Furthermore, because it's diffuse, you can't identify it clearly and unmask it. No matter how you try, it's amorphous.

But here's where I think it's become a real problem...there are more than enough incentives being offered for people to want to continue living in this, even though they're giving up their freedom. What reason is there to rebel if they're getting everything they want?

Ignorance in this society is true bliss, because if we really just turn off our ability to think critically, so many things in life become miraculous. Give us small victories, every day, small victories, and it feels like we're progressing. Like a well made but free videogame on a phone....we'll play for hours just to progress, only to find that at the end of it all we've learned nothing, accomplished nothing, and that it was truly time wasted.

Star Wars...Star Trek..they're just another part of this; giving stupid people something just familiar enough that they THINK they're getting what they want, and trying to justify the inconsistencies, the lack of truth as a thoughtful built-in mystery that will be solved in the next installment rather than as an inherent flaw due to an inability on the part of the producers to actually create something.

>That is all. Thanks for your time.
>tfw I didn't read any of your shitty posts and took your gratitude anyway
Your opinions are irrelevant, and you're welcome.

I agree with you, but I have yet another thing to add (and maybe contradict...I'm curious as to your thoughts on this).

You mention that there are 'so many social lies now that we have to have a constant stream of false reality fed to us to maintain the new paradigm'. I agree with this, but with a conditioner: The people who receive these lies actively pay for more. They WANT more, because these lies are addictive.

In other words, I agree with you, but it's more scary than I think either of us can say. These people are being killed by gas, but the gas smells so good that they breathe it in all the more vigorously.

There we are! Sup Forums at its best!

>posts 10 pages of his blog
>nobody likes it
What did you think would happen?

What's a blog?

And, do you have anything to actually add to the conversation?

Same reason people stay in cults or abusive relationships. You're totally right.

The cult leader is ideology, not an individual. It's not a cult of personality. But you also have to understand the cult will never ever present the truth to you. The vast majority of white men feel like you and I. The majority of white women do as well.

The example I always use is Donald trump. He wasn't endorsed by a single major publication. And yet the patriarchy is supposed to be this all powerful menace.

At the same time White men voted for Donald Trump by almost a super majority, and most white women, and yet not a single major MSM media gave him favorable coverage.

So all while we are told the white men rule everything and the patriarchy is this arch villain. We are getting an exclusively gynocentric minority viewpoint coming from all our media outlets.

And he won! Half the country is Unrepresented by our media and basically all white males.

You can't trust what you see or hear.

And this is why that is so dangerous.

Not really. I stopped giving a shit about this faggotry after Attack of the Clones.

You idiot, THAT WAS THE BEST ONE!!!

>Your reaction just tells me I'm right.
living in fantasy

>lashing out at his worldview being challenged.
sad

>one day I'm gonna make movies
But you never did make movies, did you Chip? Your mom was always on your case and your sister's court case meant you had to go to community college, but you were going to do it.
Now you're not even on the level of a hack fraud.

I ignored that point. But in my opinion people accept it because of two reasons.

First they accept it because it is a sidelight issue couched in a morality tale.

The homosexual was really a good guy he shouldn't have been treated so horribly by the evil wife beating white man.

Or they could make a really great movie, then shove in a transgendered person in the background. (This was done in the 90's movie witches and many contemporary films). You accept a little distasteful additions because you want the product. (Just like junk food).

Eventually values dissonance starts occurring where being racist is a special kind of evil in and of itself or rape is a special evil, or the magical negro is in every single depiction of angels or god for the last 25 years.

Basically they can alter the world one generation at a time. Kids shows are absolute blatant agitprop.

The one thing however that we've seen in history so far (and it's important that I qualify it by saying, 'so far') is that the majority of situations like this always end in a financial collapse just before a political one. It's almost never happens that the population all of a sudden simply decides enough is enough, time to do a French Revolution.

I think our modern age is a very special and unique situation; we have enough food, enough shelter, enough for the basic Mazlow's needs. Give men and women videogames, porn, and the weed or other drugs that affect our observation of the passage of time, and you can keep a population docile.

Those distractions have never existed en-masse before, especially the videogame paradigm. While I understand your viewpoint, I am not at all convinced that the average person will risk their comfort to change a system that gives them everything they want on the potential (and at this stage, it's only potential) of better things.

We're too lazy as humans...but that's again built in biologically. And of course, the people in power know this, which is why they're afraid of populations that do not have distractions to keep them happy.

>What's a blog?

whats a computer

A really great example is all the slave movies.

They are literally just inversions of the 1917 KKK propaganda film birth of a nation targeting white men with the same Tropes used against blacks.

If you've ever seen the eternal Jew those are used as well against white men.

In mighty ducks 2 they actually included one of Hitler's speeches given to the multicultural team delivered by Emilio estavez.

There are also government agencies that make studios put in PSA propaganda, like don't drink and drive, and real men don't beat women, or this is how you ask a girl out. Etc. etc.

The scary part is that this kind of mind control is extremely powerful and never should have been ceded to essentially foreigners who have radically different viewpoints than native sons.

We would be better off with China running the media.

nigger

who do you think you're talking to? im not OP

I can't agree with your last sentence, fellow user. It's no joking matter how China censors their media outlets and forms of communication. Obviously it's no where near as bad as in North Korea, which is perhaps the most restrictive in the world, but it is a great deal more problematic (to use the word correctly) than in the West.

I will agree with you that this kind of mind control is extremely powerful, but then again, we could always argue that the ones who are in power are there precisely because they are masters of manipulating the generators of this kind of control.

I have this chat with friends and relatives once in a while, and it's always the same conclusion. I ask them: 'do you expect politicians to tell the truth?' And normally, they'll say, 'yes, of course'. And I ask, 'why?'. They'll give some longwinded answer about morals, ethics, doing good for humanity, etc....but I stop them dead in their tracks when I point out the simple truth that every single politician has told a lie, a verifiable lie during their run for office.

From my point of view, one must expect politicians to lie, and to be astounded when they actually tell the truth. But the average person doesn't even conceive of this possibility. To them, catching a politician in a lie is like catching the wolf with the sheep...that somehow this should be a lesson to be learned, that the politician should apologise and promise never to do it again.

The average person applies their own hopeful sense of morals and ethics to politicians who not only don't play by those rules but actively manipulate what society governs to be good or bad based on what controls the population best.

That's why we keep seeing these swings on what is ethically good or bad, and also why right now we've hit the magical point where people are being retroactively accused of crimes that occurred in a social climate that had very different behavioral norms and expectations.

Your thinking to concretely. There already was a complete coup in this country.

It occurred in the 1960's and was ongoing until is completion in around the early 2000's. Not one bullet was fired, and yet it was a total and complete overthrow.

They called it the cultural revolution, and it changed litterallu everything about America. Hell they erased most of your history, made up bogeymen to scare you, made a propaganda machine to enforce it, imported 160 million foreign nationals, enacted unassailable constitutional rights enshrining their new viewpoints, destroying actual enumerated rights. etc. etc.

I doubt America with have the kind of revolution where we oust the sitting president, but things can change again slowly.

Or we could have Hitler in 10 Years. If we're not willing to fight for freedom we're not willing to fight tyranny either.

go the fuck back to plebbit you fucking soyboy

Most of those same politicians tell you they love you and at the same time would kill you.

Just like communism.

And that's my point I don't expect them to tell the truth. But I do expect their actions do.

And the truth they are telling is that they are actively trying to destroy our lives, our philosophy our culture our history. I know this for a fact because I was groomed to be one of them, because I know the real history, and the real values that made this nation great. Natural immutable law.

They can't stand against it, they can't stop it nor is it even possible to do so.

But that's precisely the point that I see is a problem. Tyranny doesn't matter if people don't feel they're living under tyranny.

If people have everything they need to survive and enough distractions, the politicians can do whatever the hell they want and no one will do anything about it.

The only reason Hitler worked for Weimar Germany was because people were starving. It's incidentally the same reason why the fears of German politicians today about the AfD coming to power are baseless; extremism doesn't work if people don't feel the existential need for it. It's one thing is society is problematic...one can always shut oneself away from it for a few hours a day. But if you don't have enough food to eat...well, look at Venezuela...give that situation a year or two, and you might just see some extremism there.

There are definitely places in the US that need help on the basis (clean water, etc.) but not enough in terms of population for it to make a difference. In my view....

You hit the spot with that question. What does Rey want? When I think what does Luke want, I can answer by saying, to leave his shitty life and then to avenge his family and to become a Jedi. But seriously, what does Rey want in this life?

Demonization of the past is a definite strategy; it always breaks apart civilizations and societies that normally band together due to tradition. Divided societies are always easier to conquer or maintain control over.

While I think I understand your conviction ('they can't stand against it...'), I'm personally not convinced that this is the case. I think it's very easy, almost too easy in the modern day to destroy history and erase it. It always survives in some format, of course, but that tends to reside in the old dusty libraries and not on the mantle next to the family fireplace.

Incidentally, before anything else happens, I'd like to thank you user for conversing with me on this admittedly deep topic. It's been a pleasure.

Do you know that feeling when you read through what initially appears to be a long but thoughtful post reflecting on the medium of cinema, and then it turns out to be yet another logically inconsistent rant by yet another whiny MAGA-pede wanting to read everything into his narrative of cultural victimization?

It's been happening alot on Sup Forums lately

It's a sad thing, isn't it? All the main characters are fully fleshed out in ANH: Luke wants what you've said, Leia is a princess who wants to save her people in the Rebellion, Han wants money because he's a smuggler, Obi-wan basically wants to help in any way he can, Darth Vader wants the plans.....

In TFA What do we have? I don't know what Rey wants. I think I know what Kylo wants...but I've forgotten. I don't know what Poe wants. Finn doesn't like being a Stormtrooper...which doesn't make sense if they're brought up from birth to be this way...behaviorally none of what he does makes sense given the context we know about. I don't know what Han wants, and Leia is the same, but she's got no fire at all. Is that all of them?

God it's a horrible movie. I tried re-watching it, but I couldn't do it. It's so horrible. Like sitting in a concert listening to shitty music being played badly...but you are captive and you have to sit through it all.

I can understand it though. There are a lot of people hurting out there, and there is definitely evidence now to support their particular position.

However as to your description, this is the first time I've ever encountered it personally. I don't normally get worked up about things, but noticing the clear similarities between the two fandoms and how they're trying to rationalize the gang rape of their favorite shows made me want to write the post, and see if anyone else noticed this disturbing trend too.

You've seen what you described a lot user?

Curious...I will respond to this. Though I have no intention or inclination to make movies, it's an interesting attempt at assuming my purpose and then criticizing that assumption.

Obviously, if I were a filmmaker the natural thing would be to 'make a film that's better to prove my point'. But this discussion is about something entirely different.

Haven't you noticed that the critique of these films and TV shows has never really gone in this direction....that it's always about the surface of 'I hate this character' or 'why did they change the bridge so much' or 'damn lens flares' or any other surface thing....

In other words, the critique is always about the how, not about the why. No one tries to understand 'the why', so that's why I wrote this post. I'm trying to understand it, and I'd sincerely hope that others are too...

So, I started the thread with that in mind. I hope that clarifies things...

Now, do you have something of value to add?

Your analysis of the commodification of culture and reduction of beloved franchises to formulaic cinematic junkfood is interesting and was worth reading.

then came along and stuffed it into the same trite political dichotomy that is already killing this board.

Well, that poster seems to have either gone for a bit or said their peace...

Would you like for us to pick up the subject of the original post? I'm happy to discuss it only because (as I've said before much to everyone's annoyance by now) I find it such a strange thing that no one talks about it at all...

Come, tell me your thoughts on this phenomenon, if you see it the way I do, if you agree (and more importantly, if you disagree!), and all that jazz.

Pull up a chair user. I've got a drink in hand, and maybe you should get one too.

Good posts OP

Thanks user. This subject has bothered me for a long time, but it's only now that I thought I'd figured it out. How do you feel (to use that horrible word) about the whole thing? Do you feel like I do, that the Star Trek franchise is now in its worst iteration with STD since newSpock yelled, 'KAHN'? Do you feel like I do about the Star Wars franchise, that the glowing reviews of the Last Jedi all seem to be missing the most crucial bits of information; not spoilers, mind you...but actual thoughts on what filmmaking is all about rather than how laugh-out-loud funny the movie is?

Pull up a chair...you're always welcome.

Sure, I'll bite.

I appreciate your frustrations, two similar instances that come to mind are The Hobbit trilogy and the Jurassic Park soft reboot. The reason people didn't freak out as much about those two is probably that everyone could see the Hobbit would be a trainwreck from a mile away, while Jurassic Park fans had already been numbed by progressively worse sequels.

But the question is if this isn't in a sense inevitable; the cultural context that made things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park and LOTR successful has come and gone, what remains now is our nostalgia and our desire to have it pandered to; hence, the vultures (Disney and the like) move in to pick apart the rotting carcass of once beloved cultural behemoths. Our increasing postmodern awareness of culture as a product doesn't help either. We know this exists to make money these days, which automatically makes us more critical.

There are of course examples of effective reboots that managed to slowly change only slight things while retaining the original appeal; you posted James Bond, which is probably the best example of how to do it. The world James Bond is a part of changes ever so slightly, and the special effects are obviously always improving, his sidekicks can be blackwashed, made younger or genderbended to fit with the times, but the core character is still there - they haven't forgotten that people still want to recognize the story.

Star Trek, meanwhile, made successful reboots both with TNG and with DS9, but I can't really explain how that works seeing as I have yet to see TOS for comparison.

Never been into Star Trek much so I can't comment on that

But as for Star Wars, I like many others grew up loving Star Wars, I'm known by my family and friends as the Star Wars guy. I was super hyped for TFA, slightly hyped for Rogue One, not hyped at all for TLJ.

I think the new movies are simply a product, nothing more to sell merchandise, not to say the previous films weren't but they definitely had soul. TLJ does not sound promising at all if the leaks are true, it feels devoid of any soul. What they've done to Luke is unforgivable, this is not the same Luke that trained with Yoda. I believe the Dagobah scenes in ESB to be the best parts in all of star wars. Yoda is wise but not boastful, Luke is mindful but still full of energy. He has doubts, he doesn't believe in himself, but he still goes on because of Yoda's teaching and then ultimately his love for his friends. Their dialogue is interesting and perfectly mysterious.

All of that is missing from the new star wars. There will be no conversations like that between Rey and Luke, because the current Luke has been bastardized. Disney has so fundamentally misunderstood the OT characters that it is insulting. It all comes down to the fact that there are no artists working on this film, simply those Disney chose by committee to push their agenda and merchandise

Okay...patience for a moment, I'll do you one at a time...

The Hobbit failed because they didn't have enough time to prep. The LOTR trilogy had a decade of development before they shot their first scene. That's a long time to develop production design, characters, and most importantly story and script. Despite what you see in the supplementary material discs, for the most part they knew what they were going to shoot before they shot it, which meant they also knew what props they'd need, what sets, what costumes, etc...all of it.

Of course they were making changes as they went along, which was not easy, but that's happens in every production.

The Hobbit failed because it was under a different director, and when that fell through and Jackson took over they had about 1 year to do prep work for his version and vision of the movies. That already will cause failure if you're shooting 3 movies at the same time, I don't care if you're Marlon Brando himself. It's not possible.

Now, that combined with the fact that the Hobbit didn't have enough source material for 3 movies, you have a very severe problem. The production companies KNEW they had a cash cow on their hands, and that fans would go and see the Hobbit films if they knew the same people who made the beloved LOTR series a decade before were behind the cameras. It was a win-win. The fans however had no idea of the production problems behind the scenes, which meant that they saw something that on the surface had the same look as the original series but didn't seem very well thought out or consistent in quality. cont.

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The LOTR had too much material for 3 films, so they had to cut stuff and condense it. It's far easier, as you know, to take out material rather than to invent it. The Hobbit had to invent a shitload of things to fill the time and create artificial story arcs. Yes, LOTR did that too (Faramir's character arc is completely different, etc.), but it's not the same in LOTR. For instance, LOTR would not have had space for a made up female elf to act as a love interest to a dwarf. There was barely enough space for Faramir and Eowen...

So, I agree with you that the Hobbit was a trainwreck that could be seen from a mile away, but no one really acknowledged precisely why. The easy answer was 'too many movies for too little material'....but it was much more than that. If they had enough prep time, they could have worked out all the flaws of the script and scenes, and the stuff they made up could have at least been tested a bit more (not with audiences, but with themselves).

In LOTR, they talk about the original idea of having Arwen suddenly appear with the Elf army at Helm's Deep, and they even went so far as to shoot some scenes of her fighting. But then they thought about this for a while, and perhaps due to some internet pressure (it's still not clear), they took it out because they thought they could do something closer to what Tolkien wrote (the flashback scenes, etc.) that could still get Arwen and Aragorn together.

I think in The Hobbit there was simply no time for this kind of thinking.

cont.

As for Jurassic Park, we have a very interesting case here. It's essentially horror/monster movie genre, isn't it, and the only reason the original was at all beloved was because it was the first dinosaur movie where the dinos looked real. Thank Stan Winston for that. Many of us were kids at that time, and that movie was responsible for a sudden renaissance of kids being into dinosaurs again.

Come 20 years later, and the movie companies recognize the moneymaking possibilities of nostalgia. We have better tech, so why not do Jurassic Park? You've mentioned the nostalgia angle, which I completely agree with, but here's where I disagree slightly; I don't think it's about the companies picking apart the franchises like vultures...I think it's because they've recognised a key problem with our culture.

As culture gets more reliant on technology in terms of communication, the shorter our own memories become. As data access becomes faster, so to diminishes our need to store data in our memories. Do you remember a time when people would sit around a dinner table, for example, arguing over a particular nugget of fact or trivia, and eventually they'd get to a point where no one could remember a detailed fact that was absolutely pertinent to solving the said discussion? There was no way to look it up other than to find a book (which was probably not present at the said discussion) and thus the argument remained entertaining but unsolved.

Today, these situations don't exist. If we don't know something, we look it up on our phone, instantly. There is no discussion, no memory pitted against memory.

This problem applies directly to how we view things from the past. Nostalgia is heightened precisely because the things we remember from last week do not need to be remembered for any reason....if we need to know something from last week, we just look it up. But before the internet era, we had to remember everything in order to participate socially. cont.

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That's why so many of us can remember Simpsons quotes and jokes from the golden age, but we have no fucking clue what happened in season 18. When Jurassic Park came out, everyone saw it twice in the theaters and got it for their birthday on VHS the year after.

To me, the problem is that nostalgia is all that is valuable to companies because making new memories is no longer a social requirement. We don't need to remember what Captain America said, we just YouTube it. Even memes provide this for us automatically...there's no need to do this 'in real life'. Nostalgia, not originality, is the new currency; it is most effective and powerful tool they have left, because if everyone can watch movies and tv shows for free online, what in gods name do you have to offer someone to force them into a theater?

You have nothing, nothing except the memory of seeing a movie with a first love, or seeing a certain character or actor in a situation that you loved as a child. The companies have nothing else they can offer us.

Incidentally, and quickly, so I can get to the other user. Bond has also suffered all of this...I wrote about it a few nights ago. Basically, the current owners of Bond play heavy on nostalgia as well, but they've fucked up the character irrevocably. They've stripped him of everything masculine (because masculinity is toxic, doncha know?) and made him into every feminist's dream; a harmless man who's broken. Of course, when faced with this, feminists hate him too, which is why no one likes Bond anymore and everyone yearns for the Bond of old. But that's another topic...

I too grew up enjoying Star Wars, only because my elder brothers of course grew up with the films in the theater. But I do still think that ANH was really constructed very well...everything in it is fine, and if you accept the universe it's trying to portray, then it's an enjoyable and exciting movie (with superb special effects for the time period that still stand up in many cases).

The new movies are precisely as you describe, a product, and nothing more than to sell merch. But here's where I think we hit on something very interesting and important to talk about. You say, 'it feels devoid of any soul'. This is something I hear quite a lot about these films, and though I agree to an extent, I would like to posit a few ideas about the problem of identifying this issue precisely. In other words, why does a certain film (like, say, The Ninth Gate) have a soul, a definite soul, and another (like TFA) feel like it has none?

I have a few ideas about this.

The first is what you identify in the end of your post; that these ideas are chosen by committee to push their agenda and merch. There are lots of bits to this that are important to touch upon.
Cont.

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First, the committee issue. This is always a problem with films, and it can't be avoided. But I think it's worse and more obvious today because of how bland everything becomes when everyone has an equal voice. Before anyone jumps on me, let me elaborate.

Opinions are not equal; opinions only have value based on the evidence that backs them up. There was a time when this still held true in the artistic fields (music, dance, architecture, film, and literature) but it has all but disappeared entirely from film and dance, it's disappearing from music, and architecture long ago degraded itself from being considered art. In film, we now have hit a point in history where society considers all opinions to be not only valid but equal in value. This is not only impossible practically, but devastating socially. The old saying, 'to try to please everyone means you please no one, especially yourself' is not just a nice proverb, it's dead truth.

For a long time there have been focus groups that these films are shown to, and tested upon. But the film makers were only really beholden to the producers, and they were all in relative agreement about the basic directions that things should go. Their opinion was of higher value than those they tested the movies on, and even though viewers could influence choices to be made or changes to be made, the bottom line was that if there was a fundamental disagreement between the audience and the producers, the ideas of the producers would be the ones being followed.

Cont.

Jesus fucking christ, OP is the most autistic person I've seen post in a while

Cont.

Today, the whole thing has shifted. Social media (again, sadly, the internet) has changed the value of the views of the population at large. Anyone can write anything, and any viewpoint is equal (though I'd say, equally useless, but perhaps I'm just being polemic). Think of the way in the past year that social media has influenced events in modern day. The people's voice actually has power to influence...this NEVER used to be the case, ever at any time in Earth's history. Neverbefore have we been so connected, so able instantaneously to influence others. This is a power that no one saw coming, and that no one knew how to control early on.

But the ramifications are significant. Rotten Tomatoes has now become a very important source of reviews for the average populace...so important that now commercials for movies are being advertised as having '93% on Rotten Tomatoes' instead of the usual 'Two Thumbs up' or '5 stars'. The aggregate of many views is really just flatening out of serious views into something more average. This is the case with critics, and with audiences.

Producers of movies understand this sad truth; dissention in society is no longer tolerated, so in many ways, everyone having an equal voice and an opinion that has equal value is actually socially enforced, but this has the effect on creativity that we've seen in film. Things are bland, not special or memorable, and entirely forgettable because there is nothing unique because anything unique could potentially offend someone.

cont.

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It gets better though. When we get back to the problem of why a movie has soul and why another one doesn't, what are we looking for? Or to put it another way, what doesn't have a soul? Well, an easy answer is a machine. We don't see machines as having souls, because they do not create, they only imitate. That's the key to all of this.

The new movies you describe only imitate what has been done...they don't create because to risk creation is to risk doing something that is unexpected, and the unexpected is antithetical to an equal society because it produces by its very nature of existing a form of inequality.

Yes, the New Star Wars movies are to sell merch, of course. And they will never have the interesting dialogue we find in classic Star wars again. But it can be put down to the idea of creation vs. derivation. Now, of course there are many little layers to it...practicality influencing design aesthetics (that's why Kylo's lightsaber is shit) to actual character building (notice how no one in the new Star Wars actually says anything memorable or more importantly, 'new'). But to be new, to be original, is to be against the grain of everyone being the same and equal. It just doesn't work, and the companies know this.

Now I'm tired...dear lord. Does any of this make sense to anyone still here?

Not autistic. Just wanted to relax and talk for a bit...also I had too much coffee...

Well, maybe I've scared you all off. But it's time for go to Bedfordshire anyway.

G'night lads...sorry we couldn't solve the problems of the world....but I feel like we were getting close.

Thanks. I'll leave you with the only thing that I remember from TDKR.

Part of it might be that you are looking at it purely through the lens of the most popular cultural icons, icon, which have long ago been purchased and slightly repackaged for the masses by opportunistic mass media conglomerates.

Your point would be more accurate if challenging or evocative art was no longer being produced, but that isn't the case. There are still filmmakers with a unique voice, who are commercially viable at the same time (Coen Brothers, Villeneuve, Nolan, Wes Anderson). In fact, the social media you so deride help unique products reach a wider audience, because word-of-mouth is a much more potent force in the internet age. There are even examples of straight up anti-consumerist or anti-capitalist media reaching the cultural mainstream precisely because of this, take for instance the popularity of an artist like Banksy