Star Wars Conceptual Failure?

[BarkingGhost]

Ok, so the wife kept channel surfing through commercials yesterday and that included stops on Spike TV and watching the original three SW movies. Playing the devil's advocate, I considered the story of the Empire.

Was life under the empire really all that bad for the individual? We see a lot of political conditions, military, etc., and we see the rebel scum doing their thing as a counter-military effort, but I am not sure the wide-spread negative aspects being insinuated were really illustrated to any degree, let alone one justifying a rebellion.

Sure, the Emperor was a bad dude, and he had his evil sidekick, and the Empire kept order in the universe, but with the exception of exceptions, like the planet Tatooine, it seems that life for the individual was pretty nice.

Heck, even life on Tatooine a la Luke's life was not bad. How many want a land speeder? Robots? Sure, girls were few and far, but as a hard life it really wasn't all that hard.

I expected to see mass populations in labor camps to illustrate the bad aspect of the Empire, but what I got was something different. It wasn't like the Roman Colosseum (circus).

The only thing I was missing was home theater and Blu-ray movies.

[mike79]

True good points. Also you didn't have to worry about being drafted into the army because all the soldiers were cloned storm troopers.

[groove93]

"There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it."


William Wallace from Braveheart

[BluBonnet]

Gee, I don't know. Could it possibly have been that Lucas was counting on the audience to have enough imagination to fill in all the details about stuff that wasn't shown?

Lucas came from a generation that still spent considerable time listening to radio serials, and with those you really had to use your imagination to picture everything that was going on.

Nowadays, many folks want all the information spoon-fed to them. This in turn makes many filmmakers adopt a condescending attitude towards the audience, showing visually many things that could simply be assumed, or imagined by the audience.

As Ethan Edwards said, "Want me to draw you a picture?"

[scragham]

i think that you are, as the above poster says, envisioning a different picture of what ordinary empire life was like.

i envision something more along the lines of occupied europe during ww2, with the empire's version of the gestapo infesting every planet rooting out real and perceived dissension.

[Blu-Benny]

people can't imagine things anymore....it's sad really.

why look @ a saga from this point of view???

and technically, doesn't the prequel trilogy set up the empire being bad.....if but a little??

don't get me wrong op....i can def. appreciate what you are saying, but why dig into a great saga like this and trivilaize it??

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

why look @ a saga from this point of view???

Maybe the OP has gone over to the dark side and he doesn't see the Sith as "all that bad"

I mean, let's completely ignore that the Emperor was responsible for abolishing the Senate and the mass slaughter of the Jedi and blowing up an entire planet just to prove a point.

Yup, if you ignore that, the Sith really aren't all that bad.........

Logan

[Batman1980]

The Emperor destroyed planets in various ways, he committed genocide, he was a speciest (he didn't allow aliens to join Empire ranks, only humans). He was a tyrant.

[Blu-Benny]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

Maybe the OP has gone over to the dark side and he doesn't see the Sith as "all that bad"

I mean, let's completely ignore that the Emperor was responsible for abolishing the Senate and the mass slaughter of the Jedi and blowing up an entire planet just to prove a point.

Yup, if you ignore that, the Sith really aren't all that bad.........

Logan

[BarkingGhost]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

Maybe the OP has gone over to the dark side and he doesn't see the Sith as "all that bad"

I mean, let's completely ignore that the Emperor was responsible for abolishing the Senate and the mass slaughter of the Jedi and blowing up an entire planet just to prove a point.

Yup, if you ignore that, the Sith really aren't all that bad.........

Logan

I never asked for reflections of the social level, but life to the individual.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

people can't imagine things anymore....it's sad really.

I blame video games

But actually this lack of imagination as been coming up slowly in the last 20 years. In the mid 80's the Lego toys that was all about using your imagination to built stuff were change from already made packages where all you had to do was to follow the instructions to built. There was no longer need to use your brain. Sure we also had toys when I was a kid but we were outside using our imagination most of the time. Now a days kids spend their entire days sitting in front of a box killing monsters or gansters or aliens....Lack of imagination is all over, look at the new generation now in Hollywood with these remake. No need to use our brains, no need to use our imagination. Let's just grab something that was made 20 years ago and make it more dark and edgy. Look at all these TV shows from the past being turn into movies. I swear it won't belong before we see Jack Benny Show The Movie on the big screen.

[BarkingGhost]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

I blame video games

But actually this lack of imagination as been coming up slowly in the last 20 years. In the mid 80's the Lego toys that was all about using your imagination to built stuff were change from already made packages where all you had to do was to follow the instructions to built. There was no longer need to use your brain. Sure we also had toys when I was a kid but we were outside using our imagination most of the time. Now a days kids spend their entire days sitting in front of a box killing monsters or gansters or aliens....Lack of imagination is all over, look at the new generation now in Hollywood with these remake. No need to use our brains, no need to use our imagination. Let's just grab something that was made 20 years ago and make it more dark and edgy. Look at all these TV shows from the past being turn into movies. I swear it won't belong before we see Jack Benny Show The Movie on the big screen.

While many accuse me of have a lack of imagination I need to address this point. I have an imagination, and sometimes it is what makes me post like this. Point being, the representation of evil could have easily demonstrated evil better. This wasn't a G-rated movie, and I doubt a lot of the 'love' context was aimed at children.

The box office] success insured a viewing audience well outside the kids forum. And yet the movement away from evil representation increased. Now, I grew up with all sorts of toys including Legos. I built homes complete with interior walls and floors, and surprised my parents when I built a replica of the Brady Bunch house. It was about two feet long and a foot and a half deep.

I also built things like the Imperial Shuttle, which was about 16" tall and about the same wide. I didn't constrain myself to one or two boxes of Legos, the last count I had dang near 15,000 pieces--and it is a shame that today's kits base themselves in smaller amounts of pieces.

But, this deviates from the intent of the original post. I see more evil represented by Disney films than I did with the SW movies. And this isn't to say I didn't or don't enjoy them, because I do.

[BarkingGhost]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

.i can def. appreciate what you are saying, but why dig into a great saga like this and trivilaize it??

I wasn't attempting to trivialize, but to question.

For instance, we see Stormtroopers on Tantooine and on Endor. On the outlaw planet Tatooine they are looking for someone and not occupying. On Endor, they built a defensive shield array and protected it, but they didn't seek to enslave or perform genocide on the Ewoks.

In fact, the Ewoks seem to co-exist with the Empires limited presence on their planet. Heck, we don't even see any bullying of the Ewoks by Stormtroopers.

[Agrare]

Originally Posted by BarkingGhost

I wasn't attempting to trivialize, but to question.

For instance, we see Stormtroopers on Tantooine and on Endor. On the outlaw planet Tatooine they are looking for someone and not occupying. On Endor, they built a defensive shield array and protected it, but they didn't seek to enslave or perform genocide on the Ewoks.

In fact, the Ewoks seem to co-exist with the Empires limited presence on their planet. Heck, we don't even see any bullying of the Ewoks by Stormtroopers.

On Tatooine they were looking for the droids but they would have happily killed Luke, Han, Ben, and Chewie to get them if they had the chance. It wouldn't really make sense to go around killing\oppressing everyone in site when you have a specific mission of recovering the plans to a weapon that can destroy a planet.

also, on Endor, it doesn't make sense to stir up the locals when your real goal is to protect and keep secret the building of another weapon that can destroy planets. They didn't want the location known, if they started a war with locals, word spreads of more oppression\genocide of locals by the Empire, people come to help them and notice this huge weapon being built...not exactly what the Emperor would want.

-Agrare

[Duffy12]

Originally Posted by BarkingGhost

On the outlaw planet Tatooine they are looking for someone and not occupying.

But look at what they did to Luke's aunt Beru and uncle Owen, and also the Jawas that they slaughtered.

You knew that they were doing this sh** to everybody all over the galaxy.

The first time I watched this as a kid and saw those roasted corpses lying there (and John William's awesome score helps give it a more emotional punch), I knew immediately the point that Lucas was making about this evil Empire, along with the Jawa massacre and the Alderaan incident to help drive it home.

After those scenes, is there really any other examples needed for the viewer to understand this?

Its all right there in the first 45 min of the very first movie.


.

[Gabriel360]

Do we need to see people suffering? Isn't it enough for the story to tell you that the Empire is evil and seeks to control everyone while the Rebels are the good guys trying to free the galaxy from the Emperor's rule?

[groove93]

Exactly!!!! And this is why I used that line from Braveheart. To think that everything is "OK" is about as short-sided as Barbara Bush's comments on the people of New Orleans who were moved to Houston.

The films were meant for KIDS!!!

If you think that everything was really ok, maybe you should look up some footage with Sadaam Hussein greeting his "People" and look at their frightened faces as he speaks to them.

[ACD]

Well, the Empire did blow up a whole planet as a demonstration of the Death Star. But hey, they're not that bad, everyone who was not on Alderaan must be living peaceful lives not having to worry about storm troopers killing them for buying a couple of droids or something.

[Monolithium]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Gee, I don't know. Could it possibly have been that Lucas was counting on the audience to have enough imagination to fill in all the details about stuff that wasn't shown?

Lucas came from a generation that still spent considerable time listening to radio serials, and with those you really had to use your imagination to picture everything that was going on.

Nowadays, many folks want all the information spoon-fed to them. This in turn makes many filmmakers adopt a condescending attitude towards the audience, showing visually many things that could simply be assumed, or imagined by the audience.

As Ethan Edwards said, "Want me to draw you a picture?"

Irony?

[The Dragon]

Originally Posted by BarkingGhost

...Was life under the empire really all that bad for the individual? We see a lot of political conditions, military, etc., and we see the rebel scum doing their thing as a counter-military effort, but I am not sure the wide-spread negative aspects being insinuated were really illustrated to any degree, let alone one justifying a rebellion.

Sure, the Emperor was a bad dude, and he had his evil sidekick, and the Empire kept order in the universe, but with the exception of exceptions, like the planet Tatooine, it seems that life for the individual was pretty nice.

Heck, even life on Tatooine a la Luke's life was not bad. How many want a land speeder? Robots? Sure, girls were few and far, but as a hard life it really wasn't all that hard.

I expected to see mass populations in labor camps to illustrate the bad aspect of the Empire, but what I got was something different. It wasn't like the Roman Colosseum (circus).

"So this is how Democracy ends?... "

-Senator Amedala, ROTS.