Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[Ruin]

I really hate it when people say that something is automatically good because it "subverts expectations." I've watched, read, and played many things that subverted my expectations by being shit.

 

[Polyboros]

I always had the idea that they needed to focus to do the crazier stuff. Pretty sure there's some description for General Grievous out there that mentions part of what made him effective was the "What the flying fuck am I looking at?" factor that allowed him to rush them before they could get their guard up. SW is pretty bad with this where the Force can make someone a magical demigod one minute and barely better than some dude with a blaster the next but it's set up in a way where it's difficult to determine what's really an outlier.

There have been a couple explanations why there is a wide descrepency in Jedi competency in the Prequels. Most Jedi at that point we're ambassadors, trained to defend themselves but not really to fight. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were outliers, who actually participated in lightsaber fighting competitions(IIRC it's been a LONG time since I read the Phantom Menace novelization).

Grievous actually built/programmed his body to kill Jedi. In the novelization (which before the Mouse, were second only to the movies in terms of being Canon), each arm is programmed to be able to independently attack from randomly chosen angles 5 times a second. Obi-Wan was just the best defensive fighter in the Order, able to keep up with 20 parries a second. The novelization was much cooler than the movie, it was also written by Matthew Stover. Stover was one of the better Star Wars writers, wrote one of the few good New Jedi Order books, and was the only writer who really grasped the gigantic scale of a galaxy spanning government.

Then Karen Traviss, aka the Travissty, heralded the end of Star wars novels, stating that the clone army was only 3 million soldier, then acting like a Lolcow online when faced with criticism over the rediculously small number. She also masterbated onto the page over Mandolorians. In trying to look up details about it, she apparently moved on from Mandos to SPARTANs, and the Halo fanboys hate her as much as we did.

EDIT: Not quite sure how I got so far off into the weeds on that. I actually looked to see if I could rate my own post as Autistic.

 

[BR55]

Then Karen Traviss, aka the Travissty, heralded the end of Star wars novels, stating that the clone army was only 3 million soldier, then acting like a Lolcow online when faced with criticism over the rediculously small number. She also masterbated onto the page over Mandolorians. In trying to look up details about it, she apparently moved on from Mandos to SPARTANs, and the Halo fanboys hate her as much as we did.

Off Topic as fuck but Karen Travis's Halo books were even worse then her Republic Commando books.
And the Republic Commando books were nothing but her jerking her Mary Sue Mandalorian Original Character's donut steal off for 300 odd pages. So thats really saying something.

 

[JohnDoe]

I really hate it when people say that something is automatically good because it "subverts expectations." I've watched, read, and played many things that subverted my expectations by being shit.

Subverting expectations successfully requires that you substitute the expected experience with a distinctly different but equally satisfying event. For example, you go out to a fancy restaurant and order some foreign dish, you might expect a nice steak but instead get a delicious lamb dish; it's not what you thought but it's fucking delicious! You wouldn't call the evening successful if they 'subverted' your expectations by serving a bowl of warm dog shit.

Consider some cinematic examples. From Dusk til Dawn looks like it's going to be a gritty Tarantino crime thriller like some of his previous films but instead it's a gory horror comedy which is just as enjoyable. If the movie was a slogging poorly written romance it would have failed because the subversion does not deliver quality or a topic in keeping with the original expectation.

Now, I understand that JJ did not leave a lot of good plot hooks. The expected "mystery" inside the boxes he wrote were all retarded and answering any of them in a way that wasn't pants on head stupid and boring would be difficult. Rey being Luke's daughter for example would be stupid, pointless, and attempted justification for her Mary Sue qualities, but it would be an answer.

If you're starving you'll eat a cold Big Mac, no matter how shoddy and mass produced it is. You won't stand for being served dogshit in a box and being told it's caviar. That's what Rian did; he refused or was unable to do something clever, he refused to deliver something boring but serviceable, instead he told us all to fuck off and like it.

If you don't eat that dogshit and call it caviar then you're a racist, sexist Nazi manbaby according to Disney.

 

[Polyboros]

Off Topic as fuck but Karen Travis's Halo books were even worse then her Republic Commando books.
And the Republic Commando books were nothing but her jerking her Mary sue Mandalorian Original Character's donut steal off for 300 odd pages. So thats really saying something.

In hindsight, she probably was my first exposure to the "Narcissist invades fandom, cries harassment at criticism, and the company doubles down on them" motif.

She's far from the first hated Star Wars writer(Kevin J "I'll make a force sensitive better than Luke in a super weapon that can ram through Star Destroyers and blow up stars" Anderson, who moved on to making the Dune fandom hate his fucking guts), but she really riled up the fan base. While I'm sure the very hit or miss New Jedi Order taking the wind out of the sails of probably already declining sales had a lot to do with the collapse of the Star wars novel market, but The Travissty really pissed off the hardcore hanger ons.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Hux is a joke. His presence and threat level is a joke. If Moff Tarkin was around, Hux would have been executed for incompetence. There was a reason people liked the Imperials despite them being the bad guys - they were efficient and dangerous. The New Order just seem like a bunch of idiots in black who could barely stamp out a fire let alone the 'Resistance'.

I feel like quoting something Phelous said in regards to intentionally shitty jokes and slightly change it to make it fit:

"By intentionally making the bad guys stupid and suck, it doesn't make the whole thing clever, it just makes the bad guys stupid and suck."

If anything, I blame George Lucas for this. It was a stupid thing for him to sell it off to a company that was interested in nothing but money and cashing in on a shitty cash grab. The shit we've seen in the ST is all a result of Lucas' stupidity to sell his company to Disney and get $4 billion out of it.

Eh, I would have done the same and just sold it. The franchise is no good to anyone sitting on a metaphorical shelf and collecting metaphorical dust.
The thing is: Precisely for the reason that Disney is nothing but a money-hungry, soulless megacorporation that would sell their own grandmother for the right money, I would have never guessed that they'd fuck up a movie this badly for no fucking reason. I would have expected them to coast through a couple movies on nostalgia and vaguely trying a few new things here and there. I did not expect them to essentially remake ANH in a way that shits all over the canon (by retconning the good end of the OT) and then crap out a turd as putrid and rotten as TLJ (in terms of story and characters, that is).

So, here's what a StarWars.com writer thinks. We, the people buying tickets, are not customers of Star Wars. We are customers of the movie theater. If we buy the books, we're buying from the publisher. The toys, Hasbro. Yeah, because Disney and Lucasfilm aren't making money off those sales, it's the people licensing Star Wars.

"You have to pay for our product, otherwise you're a bigot shitlord, but you are not our costumer and have no say in this product whatsoever."
Riveting. Truly riveting.

This is pretty much the discussion that happened in video games roughly 5-7 years ago, when publishers and gamedevs (namely EA and Bioware) attempted to give the word "entitled" a negative vibe.
"So, just cause you bought all our former games of this series, you feel entitled to have a say on what kind of game the next installment should be? Too bad for you, we owe you nothing, you entitled manbaby! Here, take these awkwardly written SJW-pandering characters, terrible gameplay, shitty quests and uninspired elements ripped off from some other game you have no interest in! Our new SJW customers will gladly eat it all up. Hey, where did all our revenue go?!"

It was stupid back then, it is stupid now. And now that I have realized that this is 1:1 the same thing as the "entitled" bullshit, I am even more mad.

Subverting expectations successfully requires that you substitute the expected experience with a distinctly different but equally satisfying event. For example, you go out to a fancy restaurant and order some foreign dish, you might expect a nice steak but instead get a delicious lamb dish; it's not what you thought but it's fucking delicious! You wouldn't call the evening successful if they 'subverted' your expectations by serving a bowl of warm dog shit.

Consider some cinematic examples. From Dusk til Dawn looks like it's going to be a gritty Tarantino crime thriller like some of his previous films but instead it's a gory horror comedy which is just as enjoyable. If the movie was a slogging poorly written romance it would have failed because the subversion does not deliver quality or a topic in keeping with the original expectation.

Now, I understand that JJ did not leave a lot of good plot hooks. The expected "mystery" inside the boxes he wrote were all exceptional and answering any of them in a way that wasn't pants on head stupid and boring would be difficult. Rey being Luke's daughter for example would be stupid, pointless, and attempted justification for her Mary Sue qualities, but it would be an answer.

If you're starving you'll eat a cold Big Mac, no matter how shoddy and mass produced it is. You won't stand for being dogshit in a box and being told it's caviar. That's what Rian did; he refused or was unable to do something clever, he refused to deliver something boring but serviceable, instead he told us all to fuck off and like it.

If you don't eat that dogshit and call it caviar then you're a racist, sexist Nazi manbaby according to Disney.

 

[BScCollateral]

It’s simpler than that. The actors are old and dying off.

I've got to wonder if there's more to it than that.

Why BB-8? Does he do anything R2-D2 can't? Is R2-D2's actor getting too old? It's not like the property needed another cute robot.

Maybe it's about selling the new toy, maybe it's about wanting to use this cool new effect they thought of, but I don't know. There's this overwhelming sense of "Let's get rid of the old characters and replace them with cooler ones!" that wafts from the new trilogy like the odor of my unwashed socks.

 

[Kamen Rider Black RX]

So, reportedly the only reason Kennedy is still around is because of the hostile and toxic work environment that she has created makes it so no one else wants to succeed her.

 

[BR55]

In hindsight, she probably was my first exposure to the "Narcissist invades fandom, cries harassment at criticism, and the company doubles down on them" motif.

She's far from the first hated Star Wars writer(Kevin J "I'll make a force sensitive better than Luke in a super weapon that can ram through Star Destroyers and blow up stars" Anderson, who moved on to making the Dune fandom hate his fucking guts), but she really riled up the fan base. While I'm sure the very hit or miss New Jedi Order taking the wind out of the sails of probably already declining sales had a lot to do with the collapse of the Star wars novel market, but The Travissty really pissed off the hardcore hanger ons.

Tell me about it. Truth be told Travis pretty much writes glorified Fan Fics. In particular Hate Fics and Revenge Fics are what her work most resembles. Not to mention the ridiculously blatant character/faction shilling.
I still shudder at the mere mention of Talifans and the 3 million clones.
fftopic:It's too bad we don't have a Halo thread cause I could go on for hours about Travis's "contributions" to the Halo EU.

 

[Raging Capybara]

So just fire 100% of Lucasfilm staff.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

The thing is: Precisely for the reason that Disney is nothing but a money-hungry, soulless megacorporation that would sell their own grandmother for the right money, I would have never guessed that they'd fuck up a movie this badly for no fucking reason. I would have expected them to coast through a couple movies on nostalgia and vaguely trying a few new things here and there. I did not expect them to essentially remake ANH in a way that shits all over the canon (by retconning the good end of the OT) and then crap out a turd as putrid and rotten as TLJ (in terms of story and characters, that is).

I've been searching for a RLM takedown of both TFA and TLGJ but can't find a good one.

 

[Kamen Rider Black RX]

So, this is my take on what I posted after some thought. From the sounds of things, Disney is in a hard place if this is true. They fully realize identity politics isn't working, as I've said China considers these films "white left" or Baizuo and are put off by these politics. In addition, Lucasfilm and it's staff has been insanely hostile to any criticism as well as making numerous attacks on the Star Wars fandom. Throw in the history of troubled productions, increased budgets, the underperformance of TLJ, the flop of Solo and in general how many people are commenting on franchise fatigue.

The hard part is that Disney is a very bad position to fire her and her staff. If they do, the backlash from the media would paint a very bad picture in the eyes of the regular public. "Disney caves to manbabies! Star Wars betrays women and minorities," "Star Wars no longer for everyone as Disney fires a bunch of progressive voices." The same outlets that defended TLJ would rip Disney apart, something Disney doesn't want. Disney wants to be for everyone in order to take their money, and the politicization of Star Wars has made it impossible to cut the fat without taking some heat.

They can't fire the unprofessional shitheads at Lucasfilm, and no one wants to take them over.

 

[Polyboros]

Tell me about it. Truth be told Travis pretty much writes glorified Fan Fics. In particular Hate Fics and Revenge Fics are what her work most resembles. Not to mention the ridiculously blatant character/faction shilling.
I still shudder at the mere mention of Talifans and the 3 million clones.
fftopic:It's too bad we don't have a Halo thread cause I could go on for hours about Travis's "contributions" to the Halo EU.

If there isn't a thread for outside writers fucking up established franchises in Art and Literature I might consider researching and writing up a better synopsis of The Travissty to start one. I enjoyed reading about Kevin J Anderson's Dune abortions, and even though I know little about Halo, I'm curious about Travis's work there.

 

[BR55]

So, this is my take on what I posted after some thought. From the sounds of things, Disney is in a hard place if this is true. They fully realize identity politics isn't working, as I've said China considers these films "white left" or Baizuo and are put off by these politics. In addition, Lucasfilm and it's staff has been insanely hostile to any criticism as well as making numerous attacks on the Star Wars fandom. Throw in the history of troubled productions, increased budgets, the underperformance of TLJ, the flop of Solo and in general how many people are commenting on franchise fatigue.

The hard part is that Disney is a very bad position to fire her and her staff. If they do, the backlash from the media would paint a very bad picture in the eyes of the regular public. "Disney caves to manbabies! Star Wars betrays women and minorities," "Star Wars no longer for everyone as Disney fires a bunch of progressive voices." The same outlets that defended TLJ would rip Disney apart, something Disney doesn't want. Disney wants to be for everyone in order to take their money, and the politicization of Star Wars has made it impossible to cut the fat without taking some heat.

They can't fire the unprofessional shitheads at Lucasfilm, and no one wants to take them over.

TLDR Social Justice Not Even Once.

 

[Polyboros]

They can't fire the unprofessional shitheads at Lucasfilm, and no one wants to take them over.

Hopefully they can pay off Kennedy to retire gracefully and shit can the rest.

I'm my options, their best bet is to delay the two upcoming trilogies. Dump Johnson's after Episode 9 underpreforms, and let the Game of Thrones guys know to keep working on their own. Then after IX, take a two year break to clean house and stast back up with a new trilogy that is minimally connected to the social justice trilogy, and let it mostly get forgotten.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I've got to wonder if there's more to it than that.

Why BB-8? Does he do anything R2-D2 can't? Is R2-D2's actor getting too old? It's not like the property needed another cute robot.

Maybe it's about selling the new toy, maybe it's about wanting to use this cool new effect they thought of, but I don't know. There's this overwhelming sense of "Let's get rid of the old characters and replace them with cooler ones!" that wafts from the new trilogy like the odor of my unwashed socks.

Seeing how they slightly redesignes the Millenium Falcon in Solo, just so they could sell a new variation of it as a new toyline, I guess including BB-8 was just a means to sell more toys.
Distancing the new trilogy a little from the old one might also have been part of the motivation. It seems BB-8 is a bit more mobile than the clunky design of R2D2 (since R2D2 somehow lost his jet engines from the PT, at least).

And I'm really fine with his design. Up until they ruined BB-8 by completely going overboard in TLJ, that is.

The hard part is that Disney is a very bad position to fire her and her staff. If they do, the backlash from the media would paint a very bad picture in the eyes of the regular public. "Disney caves to manbabies! Star Wars betrays women and minorities," "Star Wars no longer for everyone as Disney fires a bunch of progressive voices." The same outlets that defended TLJ would rip Disney apart, something Disney doesn't want. Disney wants to be for everyone in order to take their money, and the politicization of Star Wars has made it impossible to cut the fat without taking some heat.

This is what they get for letting loose these assholes and allow them to run their mouths the way they did.
By not preventing these chucklefucks from employing their wonderful rhetoric of "everybody that disagrees with our poor creative choices is literally Hitler" Disney has maneuvered itself into a corner where they simply can't fire Kennedy without this backfiring horribly in the ways your mentioned.
Seems like the incompetence in managing the Star Wars IP extends even to those one layer further up the hierarchy, namely Kennedy's boss.

I hope this is a lesson to Disney - it came with a 4bn dollar pricetag after all.

sheesh, listening to that GraceRandolph video is grating...

 

[Zaryiu]

My Opinion on Rogue One and Solo are they are schlock but in the Old EU sort of way, i thought in that context they were fine. Reminder that they both had not of the sjw of the ST and that the clearly sjw droid is treated as insane.
I miss the times were the EU was schlock but it didn't ram us in the face with sjwism

 

[JohnDoe]

I feel like quoting something Phelous said in regards to intentionally shitty jokes and slightly change it to make it fit:

"By intentionally making the bad guys stupid and suck, it doesn't make the whole thing clever, it just makes the bad guys stupid and suck."

This was brought up in an interesting video on the military failures in TLJ, and I'll bring it up here. Another of the glaring failings of TLJ is that the villains have no threat - zero, zilch, no danger to them at all. Which is bad because without a legitimate threat there is no tension in your movie. If the antagonist is a bumbling clown, why would you ever be worried about the protagonists? If every decision the 'villain' makes is unrealistically stupid at first glance, how did they ever become a threat?
How can a hero be heroic if there is no struggle, no challenge? (Note this shares the same concern as having a character be a Mary Sue.)

The reason that we cheer for our heroes at the cathartic endgame when they finally succeed is because we have spent time building up to that climax in a struggle against stacked odds and a genuine sense of menace and peril. We love and admire John McClane in Die Hard not because he defeated a bunch of dudes, but because he overcame a very intelligent group of well trained 'terrorists' that presented a credible threat to everyone - thats something really extraordinary. Ellen Ripley is lauded for managing to survive what squads of space marines couldn't handle, and neutralizing mammoth threats in the process - all while being a strong female character embracing her femininity organically. These heroes wouldn't be well known if their antagonists were idiot trash, a mistake a lot of the copycat films fall into.

In the OT the Empire was scary as hell, not just because they blew up planets and killed billions in cold blood, but because of their professionalism. They were a huge, well equipped, well disciplined military with commanders that radiated threat. Were they perhaps overconfident or not perfectly adapted to handling guerilla warfare? Certainly so, but they never were out and out incompetent. They were never a joke, because joke enemies don't present a threat and they destroy tension. By making the Empire so menacing, the OT created the emotional weight needed to actually feel something when our heroes managed to scrape out a victory.

As we can see in the Sequel Trilogy, however, the SJW mindset has completely corrupted this incredibly basic storytelling and script-writing idea. Now the movie has to have obvious real world parallels and the hash-tag resistance has to be the good guys, right? Since the 'progressive' writers always see themselves as absolutely morally right, and they are opposed by the First Order, so they must be the right-wing and Trump, obviously. Trump must always be mocked, therefore 1+1=banana and the First Order has to be a joke. Everyone tweet about how you roundly mocked the Trump stand-in and ignore that you killed a franchise to do it.

 

[A Useless Fish]

They can't fire the unprofessional shitheads at Lucasfilm, and no one wants to take them over.

Good, let the entire rotten fucking structure collapse in on itself.

Hopefully they can pay off Kennedy to retire gracefully and shit can the rest.

That won't happen. She's 'woke'. She will have to be dragged kicking, screaming and flinging shit from her bare hands out of that place, then she will breathlessly stagger from news room to news room, screeching to the high heavens about racists fans while accusing every man above and below her of thought-raping her, and the MSM will eat it all the fuck up. But then again, what else could be expected? She's a feminist. You can't be surprised when a feminist acts like a feminist.

Kennedy ruined the franchise, but there is alot of blame to go around. There are such a thing as dailies in the film industry. The people in chrage of her should have been doing their own job and checking on their massive fucking investments. Instead they gave her free reign to crowbar in highly divisive politics into a movie franchise that is supposed to be for everyone. I have no sympathy for any of these fucking people.

 

[Zaryiu]

Burn it all to the ground (figuratively),