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Star Wars General Discussion Thread

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I feel like the Jedi could have handled sex and sexuality better, but that people's obsession with sex leads them to overemphasize that element over other problems and failings.
 
Dunno, I think people are reading way too much into Grievous rather what he is, a generic evil warlord.
 
Zhang Jiao said:
There was no fleshed-out Grievous though.
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In books and stuff, I mean.

OK, general prequel take: Grievous should've come in during Episode II at least, the whole trade war nonsense in I should've got the chop so that the Clone Wars could rage more on the big screen. At the very least the main conflict shouldn't have changed almost entirely in the second film.
 
bluntblade said:
In books and stuff, I mean.

OK, general prequel take: Grievous should've come in during Episode II at least, the whole trade war nonsense in I should've got the chop so that the Clone Wars could rage more on the big screen. At the very least the main conflict shouldn't have changed almost entirely in the second film.
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No, the "books and stuff" Grievous sucked specifically because there is no difference between canon Grievous except that he's OP; he's not meant to be a "great villain" and it shows. It's like making Moff Piett some sort of "fleshed out" villain and magnificent bastard in that it just wouldn't work.

It's even worse with people like Boba Fett.
 
I didn't mean invincible Grievous, I meant Grievous the deformed remnant of a once-great warlord, left with nothing but bitter pride and vengeful anger.
 
My point is that I'd have wanted that in the films. Give me some sense of that ruined warlord, it would be much more interesting than the intriguing-yet-hollow dummy we got.

And play his death less... stupid.
 
bluntblade said:
My point is that I'd have wanted that in the films. Give me some sense of that ruined warlord, it would be much more interesting than the intriguing-yet-hollow dummy we got.

And play his death less... stupid.
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His death was alright and fitting for him. Why would he be a ruined warlord? His backstory is already alright as is and he's not an important character.
 
Yeah, sometimes characters are exactly who they seem to be. Grievous is just another Asshole Monster Man being propped up by Palpatine. He only exists as a heavy for Obi-wan to fight and to foreshadow Anakin's transformation into Vader.

Not every character needs to have a fully fleshed out tragic backstory or compelling motivation.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
Yeah, sometimes characters are exactly who they seem to be. Grievous is just another Asshole Monster Man being propped up by Palpatine. He only exists as a heavy for Obi-wan to fight and to foreshadow Anakin's transformation into Vader.

Not every character needs to have a fully fleshed out tragic backstory or compelling motivation.
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It really boils down to certain characters being blown out of proportion. It first happened with Boba Fett, then with Grievous in the micro-series, and now with Snoke (though Snoke is a bit more understandable). But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. What would you even do with Grievous? Spend more time developing Maul or something.
 
I'd just show Grievous actually being a general, tbh. Not just running away both times. Star Wars' villains have rarely been deep, but I'd have shifted Dooku out of the villain zone and given Maul and/or Grievous more to do.

I'm not calling for Grievous to suddenly be driving the whole plot, I'd just like him to be a bit more imposing and credible as a villain. Like Gothmog in LotR, for example. But this is yet another thing that's woven into the fabric of the prequels and most of the improvements I can think of would require a bunch of others to land properly.
 
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bluntblade said:
I'd just show Grievous actually being a general, tbh. Not just running away both times. Star Wars' villains have rarely been deep, but I'd have shifted Dooku out of the villain zone and given Maul and/or Grievous more to do.

I'm not calling for Grievous to suddenly be driving the whole plot, I'd just like him to be a bit more imposing and credible as a villain. Like Gothmog in LotR, for example. But this is yet another thing that's woven into the fabric of the prequels and most of the improvements I can think of would require a bunch of others to land properly.
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There's no need. All Grievous is doing is commanding a bunch of droids. There's really nothing more you could do with him in the leadership role. We see how he commands and that he can be cunning when he needs to be at times, but that's about it and that's all it has to be.
 
Zhang Jiao said:
It really boils down to certain characters being blown out of proportion. It first happened with Boba Fett, then with Grievous in the micro-series, and now with Snoke (though Snoke is a bit more understandable). But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. What would you even do with Grievous? Spend more time developing Maul or something.
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Except what people did with Boba Fett made for some good books and so on.

...now, it also made for terrible Traviss books, but Traviss's writing was, and always was going to be, trash.
 
Zhang Jiao said:
Really? I disagree, but if that's the case, then it's only because he's as blank a slate as you can get.
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Well, to list three sets of works:

1) Young Boba Fett. This admittedly is based more on the kid than the man he becomes, but eh. As a child's series similar to Jedi Apparentice and Jedi Quest, it's pretty compelling. It does have a little bit of a Forrest Gump feel, but it does have Boba basically in over his head the whole time.

2) He shows up as a... minor's not the word. Moderate antagonist in A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy. He serves a bounty on Han Solo's head and almost captures him, only for Han to be rescued by Lando (which is how they meet.) His tracking of bounties, especially on a rebel figure, drives another part of book 2 and 3, and of course he shows up at the end chasing yet another bounty and being, well, a lethal motherfucker. Without being invincible or portrayed as particularly moral or even decent, his code basically extending to, "Don't double-cross your clients, that's bad for business." Which segues into a similar sort of portray in...

3) Finally, the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, which is highly underrated. It begins just after Fett is spat up by the Sarlac. He's found by another Bounty Hunter, entirely vulnerable and on the edge of death. As well, one Jabba's slaves gets involved--it's stated that weirdly Fett was keeping an eye on her, for reasons that eventually get explained. The bounty hunter doesn't kill Fett, both out of fear--ala The Wire, the most dangerous bounty hunter in the galaxy relies partially on rep--and greed. Perhaps they could work together to seek a particular bounty? The novels begin with flashbacks, as the two swap stories of the near-death Bounty Hunter, and his exploits, which portray him as really, really dangerous... but also not the Honorable Warrior that Traviss tries to make him. He lies, cheats, and betrays left, right and center, and almost dies a half-dozen times.

I obviously don't want to spoil too much, but it was the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy that basically helped solidify my view of who Boba Fett is, and why he's an interesting figure. Obviously, it builds on the movies--where he does in fact do clever things and stand up to Vader and so on--but then uses that to do its own thing.

So I wouldn't say he's entirely a blank slate, honestly? There's enough that, combined with the aesthetic, it makes sense he'd be viewed as interesting. A good aesthetic goes a long way, and Maul honestly had even less to go off of in terms of character beats.
 
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The Laurent said:
Well, to list three sets of works:

1) Young Boba Fett. This admittedly is based more on the kid than the man he becomes, but eh. As a child's series similar to Jedi Apparentice and Jedi Quest, it's pretty compelling. It does have a little bit of a Forrest Gump feel, but it does have Boba basically in over his head the whole time.

2) He shows up as a... minor's not the word. Moderate antagonist in A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy. He serves a bounty on Han Solo's head and almost captures him, only for Han to be rescued by Lando (which is how they meet.) His tracking of bounties, especially on a rebel figure, drives another part of book 2 and 3, and of course he shows up at the end chasing yet another bounty and being, well, a lethal motherfucker.

3) Finally, the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, which is highly underrated. It begins just after Fett is spat up by the Sarlac. He's found by another Bounty Hunter, entirely vulnerable and on the edge of death. As well, one Jabba's slaves gets involved--it's stated that weirdly Fett was keeping an eye on her, for reasons that eventually get explained. The bounty hunter doesn't kill Fett, both out of fear--ala The Wire, the most dangerous bounty hunter in the galaxy relies partially on rep--and greed. Perhaps they could work together to seek a particular bounty? The novels begin with flashbacks, as the two swap stories of the near-death Bounty Hunter, and his exploits, which portray him as really, really dangerous... but also not the Honorable Warrior that Traviss tries to make him. He lies, cheats, and betrays left, right and center, and almost dies a half-dozen times.

I obviously don't want to spoil too much, but it was the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy that basically helped solidify my view of who Boba Fett is, and why he's an interesting figure. Obviously, it builds on the movies--where he does in fact do clever things and stand up to Vader and so on--but then uses that to do its own thing.

So I wouldn't say he's entirely a blank slate, honestly? There's enough that, combined with the aesthetic, it makes sense he'd be viewed as interesting. A good aesthetic goes a long way, and Maul honestly had even less to go off of.
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He was a blank slate in ESB.

Anyways, that all sounds terrible, especially A.C. Crispin's work, which I hated.
 
sciencefiction said:
Actually if you are solely using the movies as evidence then the Separatist droid army are not sapient beings. We see they can perform certain tasks like run a warship, respond to verbal cues, and serve as poor soldiers but if responding with voice cues to a remark was the definition of sapience Amazon's Siri is sapient. We have robots in the real world like the average roomba that can adapt to accomplish their tasks but they also aren't sapient. We also have military drones that can make limited autonomous actions without human input, though admittedly we do not allow them to fire weapons but they are not sapient. At no point in the movies do we see the average B-1 or B-2 act as a sapient person so the Jedi aren't committing murder or genocide by destroying them.

Even taking the wider Disney and Legends expanded universe into account while it is certainly possible for certain droids to be Sapient I would make a good argument that R2-D2 has crossed the line to sapience and many other Astromech droids and other higher level droids might the have the potential to be sapient the average droid is explicitly shown to be a non-sapient machine. You can have a discussion on where that line is and support not building droids that might have the potential to become sapient but thats an entirely different debate.
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I thought they were. Adapting to a complex battle situation, responding with remarks to comments, even trying to not get blown up in a fight or firing a weapon at the right target shows knowledge of tactics. So I thought the Separatist Droid Army was sapient. And as much as I adore Mister Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu, one of the only guys to see thru Palpatine's transparent charade somehow, he was ready to blow up or enslave beings that I do believe are sapient. And you won't convince me otherwise. Yes, they were committing murder and genocide, because they arrogantly assume that only flesh-and-blood people are people. And if they won't listen when Droids themselves clamor for respect, a leader like General Grievous is needed, who will make people listen.

I don't think the Droids who were not C-3PO or R2-D2 were shown to be non-sentient. At least the ones involved in battles. Like I said above, even showing "poor soldier tactics" shows a degree of calculation and intelligence that IMO a machine couldn't have unless it could think like a sentient, sapient human.

sciencefiction said:
Also in regards to General Grevious I believe we see him destroy a battle droid that gets in his way in Episode III and if not their he certainly does in other sources both Disney and Legends so he certainly cannot be considered a legitimate force of droid liberation or indeed any liberation since he outright brags about killing people in the EU and even in Episode III when he meets Anakin and Obi-Wan he is most interested in taking their lightsabers for his collection after killing them
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Like I said, George Lucas wrote super-mega-flimsy villains so we wouldn't support them at all, and honestly I think it's Out of Character for Grievous to wreck his own peeps. That's Lucas's fault. The actual character of Grievous was committed to liberation. Just at any cost. Because the Jedi really wouldn't listen if he politely asked them to respect cyborgs like him or Droids. And when you're a military guy in a world where people apparently resolve their disputes with sword duels or gun duels, except whenever Jedi start it "It's justified," General Grievous needed to send a chilling message to enemies that were prepared to kill him and his entire army. Who cares if he took a lightsaber from a fallen Jedi? Obi-Wan blasted his heart with a blaster. But it's okay when Jedi are super-violent? Please.
 
kittygirl said:
Like I said, George Lucas wrote super-mega-flimsy villains so we wouldn't support them at all, and honestly I think it's Out of Character for Grievous to wreck his own peeps. That's Lucas's fault. The actual character of Grievous was committed to liberation. Just at any cost. Because the Jedi really wouldn't listen if he politely asked them to respect cyborgs like him or Droids. And when you're a military guy in a world where people apparently resolve their disputes with sword duels or gun duels, except whenever Jedi start it "It's justified," General Grievous needed to send a chilling message to enemies that were prepared to kill him and his entire army. Who cares if he took a lightsaber from a fallen Jedi? Obi-Wan blasted his heart with a blaster. But it's okay when Jedi are super-violent? Please.
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What are you even talking about?

Grievous isn't real - he exists only because Lucas created him. He doesn't have his own Cartesian Self that's somehow corrupted by Lucas intruding on his reality (or whatever). He's just a character in a movie who exists solely as the personification of the heroes enemies, and to foreshadow Darth Vader (alongside Maul and Dooku, who each represent an aspect of Vader). Even if the ancillary material shade him with a bit more nuance he's still, you know, not real. Everything he does is because an author wrote him that way.

The idea of Lucas somehow fucking up the characterization of a character he himself conceived and created is nonsensical.
 
kittygirl said:
Adapting to a complex battle situation,
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They...don't though? The droids (and for that matter the clones, movies-wise) generally fight in close order, marching forward and firing their blasters from the hip. They don't maneuver, or take cover, or take aim, or do any of the sort of things that would suggest they are capable of adapting to a complex battle situation.
 
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