(no subject)
Thanks to everyone who came out to Andrew's party! He had a great day.
I now have to make up for the fun by spending a day doing a thousand law things. But before I do, one little bit of Star Wars rumination that was floating around in my head as I set up shop for the day.....
Two aspects of the presence of aliens in the prequels have consistently irked fanboys like me. First, that the alien population is so overwhelmingly large. I understand that the budget and CGI allowed George to include more crazy aliens this time, and that isn't necessarily a problem. The problem is that he overdid it. Aliens now dominate the screen. They overcrowd. Almost no exchange takes place with a human being. Mace Windu is the only human jedi besides our heroes. The only human senators are Palpatine, then Amidala and Organa. The only humans we meet on Tatooine are Anakin and his mother. Human beings are barely in the films.
Second, as a specific instance of this, humans barely show up as Jedi. There are some human background extras at the arena on Geonosis. But other than that, not only is the Jedi council comprised entirely of alien races, so is just about every Jedi we ever see, Master or no.
There's already a fanboy consensus that the first problem can be somewhat mitigated by the suggestion, never hinted at in the films but present in some of the comics and novels, that the Empire is a racist enterprise that seeks to suppress non-humans, and hence the population of the original trilogy is more prominently human for that reason. Doesn't really explain why the other races are entirely absent from the original movies, or why the original rebel pilots that attack the first Death Star, for example, are all human -- is the rebellion also racist?
But it does have some hints of credibility. We do see throngs of aliens at two points, after all -- at the cantina in Mos Eisley, and at Jabba's palace. Both are seedy places of ill-repute, suggesting that there is something underworld-y about the alien races. We also see some in the bowels of Cloud City, we see some on the streets of Mos Eisley. In general, the underclass does seem to be comprised of alien races. Even their absence from the rebellion can be explained away -- the rebellion clearly grows over the course of the movies, and by the end we see a few aliens in it, most notoriously Admiral "It's a Trap" Ackbar. Chewbacca is in the rebellion, after all, and we can tell from how the Imperials treat him ("this...thing") that he's considered beneath their notice.
Two things always bugged me about this explanation, though. First, I don't like the politically correct notion that a despotic, genocidal tyrant needs to be racist, as well, in order for us to hate him. Needs his racism to be a driving force in his tyranny for that matter. You know what? When Moff Tarkin blew up Alderaan, he did it to make a point. He didn't have a racist bone in his body. Not every villain needs to be Hitler. (Bugged me about Voldemort and his followers, too, before you ask)
Second, though, is that Palpatine surrounded himself with alien allies during his rise to power. There was Mas Ameda, the tentacled major domo character who stays at Palpatine's side constantly as chancellor (and summons Organa to the emergency meeting of the Senate). There are the Rodian senators that communicate with Palpatine. I suppose the various Separatist leaders he exploits don't count, since his use and disposal of them would be completely compatible with the "he's a racist" narrative.
And worse, the various aliens Palpatine surrounds himself with in the prequels are gone in the original trilogy. So what happened?
I think their presence in the prequels, absence in the originals, and even the dominance of aliens among the jedi ranks, can all be explained in one fell swoop.
Aliens are more force sensitive. Qui Gonn hints that aliens make better Jedi when he observes that few humans are pod racers because they don't have the reflexes -- and that use of the force to anticipate the immediate future can enhance reflexes.
If aliens are more force sensitive, the following all falls into place:
1. There would be more alien jedi.
2. Palpatine would want to use force-sensitive aliens to shield his influence from the Jedi as he rises to power, and to warn him should any Jedi become suspicious.
3. Palpatine would have purged his own force-sensitive followers once he'd fortified his power base, to keep himself all the more secure.
At the start of A New Hope, Luke has never heard of the Force, and Han Solo doesn't believe in it. Tarkin treats it like a dead religion. How could this have happened? Simple: the Emperor lets no one know he uses the Force. Few even gain an audience with him. He has all the force sensitive aliens eliminated or subdued, and convinces the populace that not only have the Jedi attempted to stage a coup, their abilities themselves have been exaggerated, and their talk of the Force a lie. Wholly discredited, the Jedi vanish, and so does any interest in the Force. Now the Emperor is truly unchallenged -- there are no Jedi remaining, no talk of the Force to generate interest in their return, and only one other Sith: his apprentice Vader.
Which explains, too, why Vader's son is so crucially important.
It all fits....
I now have to make up for the fun by spending a day doing a thousand law things. But before I do, one little bit of Star Wars rumination that was floating around in my head as I set up shop for the day.....
Two aspects of the presence of aliens in the prequels have consistently irked fanboys like me. First, that the alien population is so overwhelmingly large. I understand that the budget and CGI allowed George to include more crazy aliens this time, and that isn't necessarily a problem. The problem is that he overdid it. Aliens now dominate the screen. They overcrowd. Almost no exchange takes place with a human being. Mace Windu is the only human jedi besides our heroes. The only human senators are Palpatine, then Amidala and Organa. The only humans we meet on Tatooine are Anakin and his mother. Human beings are barely in the films.
Second, as a specific instance of this, humans barely show up as Jedi. There are some human background extras at the arena on Geonosis. But other than that, not only is the Jedi council comprised entirely of alien races, so is just about every Jedi we ever see, Master or no.
There's already a fanboy consensus that the first problem can be somewhat mitigated by the suggestion, never hinted at in the films but present in some of the comics and novels, that the Empire is a racist enterprise that seeks to suppress non-humans, and hence the population of the original trilogy is more prominently human for that reason. Doesn't really explain why the other races are entirely absent from the original movies, or why the original rebel pilots that attack the first Death Star, for example, are all human -- is the rebellion also racist?
But it does have some hints of credibility. We do see throngs of aliens at two points, after all -- at the cantina in Mos Eisley, and at Jabba's palace. Both are seedy places of ill-repute, suggesting that there is something underworld-y about the alien races. We also see some in the bowels of Cloud City, we see some on the streets of Mos Eisley. In general, the underclass does seem to be comprised of alien races. Even their absence from the rebellion can be explained away -- the rebellion clearly grows over the course of the movies, and by the end we see a few aliens in it, most notoriously Admiral "It's a Trap" Ackbar. Chewbacca is in the rebellion, after all, and we can tell from how the Imperials treat him ("this...thing") that he's considered beneath their notice.
Two things always bugged me about this explanation, though. First, I don't like the politically correct notion that a despotic, genocidal tyrant needs to be racist, as well, in order for us to hate him. Needs his racism to be a driving force in his tyranny for that matter. You know what? When Moff Tarkin blew up Alderaan, he did it to make a point. He didn't have a racist bone in his body. Not every villain needs to be Hitler. (Bugged me about Voldemort and his followers, too, before you ask)
Second, though, is that Palpatine surrounded himself with alien allies during his rise to power. There was Mas Ameda, the tentacled major domo character who stays at Palpatine's side constantly as chancellor (and summons Organa to the emergency meeting of the Senate). There are the Rodian senators that communicate with Palpatine. I suppose the various Separatist leaders he exploits don't count, since his use and disposal of them would be completely compatible with the "he's a racist" narrative.
And worse, the various aliens Palpatine surrounds himself with in the prequels are gone in the original trilogy. So what happened?
I think their presence in the prequels, absence in the originals, and even the dominance of aliens among the jedi ranks, can all be explained in one fell swoop.
Aliens are more force sensitive. Qui Gonn hints that aliens make better Jedi when he observes that few humans are pod racers because they don't have the reflexes -- and that use of the force to anticipate the immediate future can enhance reflexes.
If aliens are more force sensitive, the following all falls into place:
1. There would be more alien jedi.
2. Palpatine would want to use force-sensitive aliens to shield his influence from the Jedi as he rises to power, and to warn him should any Jedi become suspicious.
3. Palpatine would have purged his own force-sensitive followers once he'd fortified his power base, to keep himself all the more secure.
At the start of A New Hope, Luke has never heard of the Force, and Han Solo doesn't believe in it. Tarkin treats it like a dead religion. How could this have happened? Simple: the Emperor lets no one know he uses the Force. Few even gain an audience with him. He has all the force sensitive aliens eliminated or subdued, and convinces the populace that not only have the Jedi attempted to stage a coup, their abilities themselves have been exaggerated, and their talk of the Force a lie. Wholly discredited, the Jedi vanish, and so does any interest in the Force. Now the Emperor is truly unchallenged -- there are no Jedi remaining, no talk of the Force to generate interest in their return, and only one other Sith: his apprentice Vader.
Which explains, too, why Vader's son is so crucially important.
It all fits....