This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think taking Snoke as the 'main bad guy' of TFA isn't really treating that movie fairly. You can see what TFA is doing in outline - Snoke is Palpatine, Ren is Vader, Hux is Tarkin - and even within that outline, Snoke is barely in the film. Ren and Hux are the primary villains of TFA, and they remain the primary villains in TLJ.
On the EU - yes, I think the lower barrier to entry made a big difference. Novels and comics are much easier and cheaper to produce than films or television series, which allowed for a lot more of the experimentation we're talking about. There were limits to what could be done with major film characters, but the specific example you give doesn't seem like a great one, to me? Luke was paired up with a bunch of different characters, and eventually I think the fan and writer consensus settled on Mara as the best one, and they went with that. Mara wasn't the result of a higher authority pushing an agenda. (As far as I'm aware, not only did Zahn not originally intend her as a love interest, it was actually Kevin J. Anderson who encouraged that idea to Zahn, which is an impressive degree of cooperation considering that it was also Anderson who'd also developed Callista more, after her introduction by Barbara Hambly.) By contrast, the Jaina ship war was settled by higher authority - KJA had probably pushed her more toward Zekk, but Troy Denning liked Jag Fel more, so she ended up with Jag. So that seems like a case where the core, film character went through a more organic, evolutionary development, while the EU-original character struggled with top-down interference.
One option might have been, as you say, to try and mine what worked best in the EU and turn that into films. I'm not sure how well that would have worked. It has generally worked for superheroes, but superheroes are already a mess of different continuities, and films have been considered their own separate continuities from core Marvel or DC canon since the 70s. More usually, reboots premised on simplifying and retelling the best stories from a convoluted and mature continuity fail.
I think I'd distinguish between a hypothetical ST-as-EU-reboot, that is, the ST as a kind of 'Star Wars Ultimates', which I think would probably have failed, and the true MCU or superhero film strategy. The latter is what I think Ross Douthat recommends here - "treat Darth Vader like Batman". There are many Batman films, but for the most part they don't even try to be in continuity with each other. They're all just different takes on the one central idea. Would that have worked? Maybe. But it's a different strategy because it doesn't involve trying to tie it all into one integrated universe.
I don't see why it matters? The EU was considered a separate continuity by most everyone except us nerds. They could have just wiped it and taken the bits they like and have now adapted anyway like Thrawn.
But there's plenty of stuff you could have used for background worldbuilding or character inspiration (like the post-Emperor warlord era and how the Republic grew) as opposed to doing no worldbuilding at all.
You can shove in Vader into many works because he's a guy in a suit. The problem with the ST that basically mandates a single canon is that Luke, Leia and Han (who elevate Vader in their interactions) just are certain actors. They didn't start as comic book characters, they are fixed in our minds as certain people in a certain, bounded story that has always been the only certain canon. Everything else changes around that canon but it's what people think of as Star Wars, not sixty different DC continuities and reboots. This is why the ST is a one-shot deal.
You can do what Douthat suggests on the TV side but - and I fully grant it might be the nerd in me - I don't see the point in having thousands of years of open canvas and not simply trying different stuff in different time periods or regions. This is, historically, how the EU handled the need for variety.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link