So how are there non-believers in STAR WARS?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Aug 16, 2015 12:15 am

Shady314 wrote:Nice fallacy. Just because they didn't get rid of a specific piece of shit I hadn't even heard of before now doesn't mean I can't be happy they got rid of a lot of shit that I was aware of before. Even the originals have the Ewoks and I am aware most of the new stuff will just end up being shit too.

Spoiler alert, the fact that the things that are currently canon are bad and good in equal proportion, or hell, probably in much worse proportion, than the stuff they removed is not a fallacy about anything, it is a very good reason to not be happy about the removal of canon.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Sun Aug 16, 2015 1:08 am

Kaelik wrote:Spoiler alert, the fact that the things that are currently canon are bad and good in equal proportion, or hell, probably in much worse proportion, than the stuff they removed is not a fallacy about anything, it is a very good reason to not be happy about the removal of canon.

Spoiler alert?

Your fallacy was claiming that I could not be happy about things that were removed because they didn't remove everything terrible. Maybe you didn't mean to say it that way but you did and it was stupid.

Everything in the EU I ever experienced outside of a few video games was complete shit so I find your claim regarding proportions of quality hard to believe. Im glad Disney pointed out they weren't going to feel beholden to any of it. The wailing and gnashing of EU fanboys just makes me enjoy it more. With any luck the new movies will make zero mention of midichlorians and quietly sweep it under the rug.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Aug 16, 2015 2:47 am

Shady314 wrote:Spoiler alert?
Your fallacy was claiming that I could not be happy about things that were removed because they didn't remove everything terrible. Maybe you didn't mean to say it that way but you did and it was stupid.

No, my "fallacy" was wondering why you were crowing about the non-canon of a bunch of content. But it's okay because you explain later on in this post that you don't know anything about what is or isn't EU, and you don't actually know anything in the EU at all.

Shady314 wrote:Everything in the EU I ever experienced outside of a few video games was complete shit so I find your claim regarding proportions of quality hard to believe.

So to be clear, you have absolutely no experience with the EU whatsoever, and you think it sucks, because Fuck Man, I heard about some shit. Great, that is cute and all, but do you see how that puts you completely outside the scope of people with any informed opinion on proportions? Also, you know, just to be clear, that there are 7 movies and a TV series, and even assuming for the sake of argument that Return of the Jedi is 100% awesome, there are still 4 shitty movies and a medicore cartoon series. So like, 33% good in the EU would probably be equal proportions.

Shady314 wrote:Im glad Disney pointed out they weren't going to feel beholden to any of it. The wailing and gnashing of EU fanboys just makes me enjoy it more.

I'm glad they declared they wouldn't be following the EU, because I can only imagine the travesty that would be movie about Thrawn and Kessel and Admiral Daala and the Yuhzan Vong. But I get to have that opinion as an informed opinion, because I know what is in the EU, and you don't, so you get to have that as a baseless opinion.

Shady314 wrote:With any luck the new movies will make zero mention of midichlorians and quietly sweep it under the rug.

Yes, with any luck the people who throw out all the material that never mentions midichlorians, but specifically kept in all the material that does mention midichlorians will take a strong anti-midichlorians stance...

Or you know, not.

Morat · Post by **Morat** » Sun Aug 16, 2015 6:08 am

Kaelik wrote:Yes, with any luck the people who throw out all the material that never mentions midichlorians, but specifically kept in all the material that does mention midichlorians will take a strong anti-midichlorians stance...

Or you know, not.

The other thing is that I'm pretty skeptical that anyone is actually going to replace some of the dumbest bits of what they officially threw out.

Officially, we don't know shit about pretty much all of the aliens. But in practice, is anyone going to come up with a take on Hutts that isn't "they're all crime bosses"? Or Gand, Trandoshans, and Rodians that aren't from bounty hunting cultures because we saw one of each (plus Leia's Ubese disguise in ROTJ) on screen for a few seconds? Are Bothans now not going to be known as spies? Are all the aliens we first see as Jedi now going to be something other than "usually force-sensitive, meditative, peaceful, and justice-loving"? I bet that in 5-10 years most of that crap will have been re-established as new canon somewhere.

And I'm not sure how much difference it makes in practice for the future. Officially everything from Rebels onward is equally canon. But are the writers of Episode XII really going to be prevented from contradicting what they established five or ten years earlier in a mobile game or a Disneyland ride? If Disney thinks they can make more money by ditching new EU stuff, they will. Or, pretty much exactly like the old canon policy. The filmmakers used what little they wanted, and contradicted what they felt like.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:52 pm

Well, the Force did seem to have biological basis. Some intelligent life forms are utterly incapable of Force Use themselves, cannot be detected by the Force and are immune or resistant to the aspects of the Force. Yuuzhan Vong, for instance, in a multi-Galaxy system where planets are said to have hundreds of billions of people, if not trillions in the universe, managed to kill hundreds of trillions of sapient life forms. It is some strange aristocracy fronting as a religion with a biological basis. The Force could surround us and bind us and yadda yadda yadda, or it could just be some genetic quirk and bunk religion that doesn't really matter to literally quadrillions of people.

In the context of a universe that densely populated with quadrillions of people in it of intelligence comparable if not shockingly greater than human level intelligence and technological sophistication, Jedis could quite plausibly be written as several thousand weirdos who only produced several dozen people of merit. The level of the typical Force user doesn't seem much beyond funky little parlor tricks like cheating at a card game or throwing a rock. Sure, throwing a rock with your mind is neat, and better than throwing it with your arms (possibly) but, hey. In a world with quadrillions of people that has organ cloning, full cloning, nearly instanteous terraforming, Artifical Intelligence out the wazoo and ubiquitous FTL to a point where owning intelligent robots and traveling faster than the speed of light is like, I don't know, owning an iPhone or taking the Greyhound bus, Jedi are not that impressive.

Imagine if some, but not all, people at the Vatican could do minor tricks talked about in the Bible, like cure a skin disease magically, or turn a snake into a stick or water into wine or locally multiply food. Even with our impossibly crude technology, you couldn't blame people for not really caring all that much.

Jedi are also portrayed as corrupt and foolish politicians and diplomats, bungling military leaders and just, weird and bad for the universe. Quite apart before you go into their "evil" counterparts routinely committing massive atrocities. How admirable is their religion, anyhow?

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:16 pm

Kaelik wrote: No, my "fallacy" was wondering why you were crowing about the non-canon of a bunch of content. But it's okay because you explain later on in this post that you don't know anything about what is or isn't EU, and you don't actually know anything in the EU at all.

Awesome! A second fallacy. I haven't read/experienced enough of the EU to have a valid opinion on it! God you are a joke.

I'm glad they declared they wouldn't be following the EU, because I can only imagine the travesty that would be movie about Thrawn and Kessel and Admiral Daala and the Yuhzan Vong. But I get to have that opinion as an informed opinion, because I know what is in the EU, and you don't, so you get to have that as a baseless opinion.

That is literally what I said you fucking idiot. That the EU was shit and I was glad for the possibility the movies wouldn't be making use of it. I have read Thrawn and some of the Yuuzan Vhong books amongst other EU stuff and hated all of it. Every EU book I was convinced to try by fucking fanboys ended up being a giant waste of time. I think Ive suffered enough to have an opinion on it. Im not such a gigantic cocksucker Im going to keep suffering through shit eternally so some forum dipshit can find my opinion valid.

Yes, with any luck the people who throw out all the material that never mentions midichlorians, but specifically kept in all the material that does mention midichlorians will take a strong anti-midichlorians stance...

Or you know, not.

Unless you expect the studio to push for the inclusion of midichlorians its going to be up to the screenwriters and really the director. I seriously doubt Disney gives a shit one way or the other. We are all aware Disney tossed the EU to sell books not because they have strong opinions on the content.

Also youre such a fucking idiot because the EU DOES imply the existence of midichlorians as Insomniac points out. George Lucas just put a name to that bullshit.

Insomniac wrote:Well, the Force did seem to have biological basis.

The fact the EU implies the existence of midichlorians is one of the reasons I hate the EU (that I know nothing about apparently.) I didn't start reading any of the novels or comics until after the prequels because like an idiot I thought I could wash the taste of them out of my mouth with some highly regarded EU books. My mistake. I was pretty shocked by how reviled midichlorians were only to find stuff like vornskrs and ysalamiri which implies their very existence!

In the movies there's not much of a suggestion for a biological basis beyond the force running strong in the Skywalker family which is easily chalked up to destiny and simple storytelling.

EDIT: How can people not believe in the force? Well the Emperor's pogrom was highly successful. Im sure state run media suppresses all mention of the force. The better to keep new force sensitive types from developing any power to rival the Emperor. In fact if mentioned at all it probably denigrates it. The regime would have reason to cast the former government in the worst possible light along with any agents of that government like the Jedi. If we assume the Jedi/Force was not the official religion of the Old Republic there's no reason we should expect most people to believe in it.

Or Moffit was just trying to slam Vader and didn't expect Vader to have the nerve to actually assault him.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 12:56 am

Insomniac wrote:Well, the Force did seem to have biological basis. Some intelligent life forms are utterly incapable of Force Use themselves, cannot be detected by the Force and are immune or resistant to the aspects of the Force. Yuuzhan Vong, for instance, in a multi-Galaxy system where planets are said to have hundreds of billions of people, if not trillions in the universe, managed to kill hundreds of trillions of sapient life forms. It is some strange aristocracy fronting as a religion with a biological basis. The Force could surround us and bind us and yadda yadda yadda, or it could just be some genetic quirk and bunk religion that doesn't really matter to literally quadrillions of people.

In the context of a universe that densely populated with quadrillions of people in it of intelligence comparable if not shockingly greater than human level intelligence and technological sophistication, Jedis could quite plausibly be written as several thousand weirdos who only produced several dozen people of merit. The level of the typical Force user doesn't seem much beyond funky little parlor tricks like cheating at a card game or throwing a rock. Sure, throwing a rock with your mind is neat, and better than throwing it with your arms (possibly) but, hey. In a world with quadrillions of people that has organ cloning, full cloning, nearly instanteous terraforming, Artifical Intelligence out the wazoo and ubiquitous FTL to a point where owning intelligent robots and traveling faster than the speed of light is like, I don't know, owning an iPhone or taking the Greyhound bus, Jedi are not that impressive.

Imagine if some, but not all, people at the Vatican could do minor tricks talked about in the Bible, like cure a skin disease magically, or turn a snake into a stick or water into wine or locally multiply food. Even with our impossibly crude technology, you couldn't blame people for not really caring all that much.

Jedi are also portrayed as corrupt and foolish politicians and diplomats, bungling military leaders and just, weird and bad for the universe. Quite apart before you go into their "evil" counterparts routinely committing massive atrocities. How admirable is their religion, anyhow?

And that's why I like some of the expanded universe stuff that radically increases the power of force users. If you want people in-universe to realistically care about the Force then it should at the minimum be on Force Unleashed levels.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:04 am

Shady314 wrote:Awesome! A second fallacy. I haven't read/experienced enough of the EU to have a valid opinion on it! God you are a joke.

Hey fucking idiot. Go back to school. Or use google. Or wikipedia. Pointing out that people who are uninformed have baseless opinions is not in fact a fallacy. If you disagree with the premises of an argument, that argument doesn't magically become a fallacy.

Shady314 wrote:That is literally what I said you fucking idiot. That the EU was shit and I was glad for the possibility the movies wouldn't be making use of it.

No, what you said was "I am so glad they are ditching the EU BECAUSE IT IS ALL GARBAGE ESPECIALLY THE BIT ABOUT MIDICHLORINS THAT ISN'T IN THE EU." I mean, it is cute that you think you know the EU, but you don't.

See, also I wasn't saying all of that was shit, just that movies of it would be shit.

Shady314 wrote:Im not such a gigantic cocksucker Im going to keep suffering through shit eternally so some forum dipshit can find my opinion valid.

That's cool, but that does in fact mean that your opinion is still baseless. (Or has a very tiny itty bitty base, if you prefer.)

Also, you of course hate all anime because when you watched toonami it all sucked right?

Shady314 wrote:Also youre such a fucking idiot because the EU DOES imply the existence of midichlorians as Insomniac points out. George Lucas just put a name to that bullshit.

Yeah, like the time where Jason Solo learned to detect the YV in the force, presumably he must have infected all of them all over the universe and all their creations with midichlorins at the same time. But special Jason only midichlorins. Oh wait, the EU is completely incompatible with midichlorins, and the idea of a creature that interacts with the force by sensing it or pushing it away is actually not in any fucking way an argument for midichlorins, since, and this is important, vonyskers don't smell your bacteria, and yalsmari don't kill it.

Shady314 wrote:The fact the EU implies the existence of midichlorians is one of the reasons I hate the EU (that I know nothing about apparently.)

See right here, you are once again talking about how you hate the EU because of the midichlorins that don't exist in it. Again. Like, look man, at a certain point, it might just be time to admit that you hate star wars, except the really basic hero's journey you saw when you were 10 for nostalgia reasons. It isn't even a bad position to take. But hating the EU for midichlorins is not a sensible position. It means in effect that you hate everything except the original trilogy, and you hate vast swaths of content for a reason that doesn't even begin to make sense.

spongeknight · Post by **spongeknight** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 2:48 am

Insomniac wrote:Well, the Force did seem to have biological basis.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Skippy_the_Jedi_Droid

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Knight

Literally two seconds on google shows us two EU canon droid force users. No, midichlorians were not hinted at in the EU at any point, they were a shitty movie production.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 3:29 am

Iron Knights aren't droids. They're silicon-based life forms who use droid bodies to interact with the world. Yes, this is stupid, but it is also canon to the EU. Skippy is a joke character who is clearly non-canonical even ignoring Star Wars' absurdly over-regularted levels of canonicity and sticking with flexible but non-absurd definitions of canonicity. Silent Hill style, any ending could be correct except not the Dog Ending because come on.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 4:05 am

Are we really arguing whether a system that required you to reference an author table as to whether or not it was canon is worth preserving?

Granted, the new EU has some stupid shit, but still...

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:21 am

The idea of midichlorians is simply unnecessary, but it isn't the worst thing in the universe.

It's also not meant to be, iirc, the origin of the force, merely the means by which force users interact with the Force.

There are far worse things in the EU, such as almost all of it. I personally abhor the idea of the Sith Empire. The Sith are meant to be a cult, a religion, not a race of evil wizards. When I played the original Knights of the Old Republic video game I winced at stupid stuff such as NPC's expressing their desire to go to Sith Academy, like it was evil space hogwarts.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:56 am

I thought midichlorians were supposed to just be something like mitochondria (ie, a symbiotized monocellular organism) that is attracted to force use and is thus a handy way to measure a person's force sensitivity.

Or was that someone retcon saving Lucas' dumbass idea?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:21 am

ghost whistler wrote:The idea of midichlorians is simply unnecessary, but it isn't the worst thing in the universe.

It's also not meant to be, iirc, the origin of the force, merely the means by which force users interact with the Force.

There are far worse things in the EU, such as almost all of it. I personally abhor the idea of the Sith Empire. The Sith are meant to be a cult, a religion, not a race of evil wizards. When I played the original Knights of the Old Republic video game I winced at stupid stuff such as NPC's expressing their desire to go to Sith Academy, like it was evil space hogwarts.

Well, in the Sith empires the Sith are a cult. Sith empires are theocracies. Unless you are talking about the species, but they never even left Korriban and were pretty much instantly enslaved by the dark jedi exiled to Korriban.
Sith academy makes sense to me. Sith are at war with the jedi, and they need reinforcements. The easiest way to find more Sith is to promise power and to have potential candidates come to you themselves.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:03 am

ghost whistler wrote:The idea of midichlorians is simply unnecessary, but it isn't the worst thing in the universe.

It's also not meant to be, iirc, the origin of the force, merely the means by which force users interact with the Force.

There are far worse things in the EU, such as almost all of it. I personally abhor the idea of the Sith Empire. The Sith are meant to be a cult, a religion, not a race of evil wizards. When I played the original Knights of the Old Republic video game I winced at stupid stuff such as NPC's expressing their desire to go to Sith Academy, like it was evil space hogwarts.

What Longes said. The Sith race were just a bunch of guys who were enslaved, and their evil force user masters took that name, that part makes perfect sense. Then the fact that evil force users (now sith) would recruit allies in an attempt to overthrow the jedi makes perfect sense. That is the obvious path that everyone ever takes. That they would attempt to conquer also makes perfect sense, see Palpantine anyway, but yes, the Sith empire is an obvious extension of their being a bunch of evil force users fighting against the jedi.

If anything, it is that across a galaxy with at the very least quintillions of people that there are only two sith at all that needs explaining, and honestly, the Darth Bane series does a modestly adequate explanation of that.

For my money, the dumbest thing in the EU is the Jacen Solo heel face turn, and like 90% of the things related to that. It doesn't specifically taint everything or anything around it, like midichlorins, but as a character piece it makes no fucking sense on any level at all.

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:25 pm

In the EU, the Sith are an actual race though. They took others as slaves and trained/intermingled with them. This is where you get the Evil Space Hogwarts from: Sith Academies where people could go and learn to be eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil! A bit like playing the Sith in SWTOR.

The whole thing, Kevin Anderson and his hack cohorts created, read like it wanted to be sword and sorcerery. There are very few good ideas IMO.

I really don't know why you'd want to redefine the Sith as an actual race. They make much more sense as an ideology or religion, the opposite of the Jedi. That they had to shoehorn in the Rule of 2, which makes no sense at all, to fit in with what George created for the prequels shows you how lame it all is.

Of course YMMV

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:03 pm

In the EU, the Sith are an actual race though. They took others as slaves and trained/intermingled with them. This is where you get the Evil Space Hogwarts from: Sith Academies where people could go and learn to be eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil! A bit like playing the Sith in SWTOR.

The Sith, as in the red skinned natives of Korriban with large whiskers, are irrelevant on the large scale. They didn't even have spaceships! They were a barbaric race with a kind-of strong connection to the Dark Side that no one cared about. At one point 12 dark jedi got exiled into the unknown regions of space, and they landed on Korriban, and immediately became local witch-kings by the virtue of having magic powers far above anything Sith have ever seen. For all intents and purposes The Sith are a dark side cult. The Sith species is irrelevant.

I don't know what your problem with the sith academy is. Sith are at war with the Jedi. Sith need more Sith. People with the talent in the Force need training to achieve full potential. The options are: aprenticeship or school. School is obviously infinitely better. Sith Academy is not evil hogwarts. Sith Academy is an evil monastery where you learn certain philosophy and train your magic powers.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:10 pm

It's weird that you think "evil space cult" and "has academy" are somehow incompatible. Have you seriously never heard of Catholic School? It's not a euphemism or anything. It is an actual alternative to public education run by Catholics.

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:30 pm

Chamomile wrote:It's weird that you think "evil space cult" and "has academy" are somehow incompatible. Have you seriously never heard of Catholic School? It's not a euphemism or anything. It is an actual alternative to public education run by Catholics.

Catholics aren't a race of people. They aren't an occluded part of the society they inhabit. They are also not an empire.

Sith are a race of people who want to rule the universe and people queued up to learn at their special Sith schools. Compared to what the Sith were 'meant' to be it just seems monumentally lame. I've no idea why those writers felt the need to reinvent it that way. The Sith don't need to be anything more than they were; the anthithesis of the Jedi.

Now we have the likes of the Clone Wars stomping all over that by designing their own Sith 'homeworld' (MOraband), and everyone else having to pretend that what they created (Korriban) was another name for it. Though I think the wrtiers of the CW did that deliberately

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:33 pm

Longes wrote:
I don't know what your problem with the sith academy is. Sith are at war with the Jedi. Sith need more Sith. People with the talent in the Force need training to achieve full potential. The options are: aprenticeship or school. School is obviously infinitely better. Sith Academy is not evil hogwarts. Sith Academy is an evil monastery where you learn certain philosophy and train your magic powers.

My problem is that it was unnecessary and poorly written.

Most of the EU is IMO. Star Wars has a certain feel and a certain style and much of the EU doesn't fit that style. If you enjoy it, good luck to you.

It will be amusing to see how much of all that, including stuff used by FFG, will be contradicted in the new film (and I don't want to know until i'm sat in the theatre so no spoilers please).

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:39 pm

ghost whistler wrote:The Sith don't need to be anything more than they were; the anthithesis of the Jedi.

You understand that Jedi also have academies, right? Your objections are incoherent.

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:41 pm

Chamomile wrote:
ghost whistler wrote:The Sith don't need to be anything more than they were; the anthithesis of the Jedi.
You understand that Jedi also have academies, right? Your objections are incoherent.

Coherence doesn't bother me. I've read the Great Hyperspace War. I didn't care for it.

Perhaps FFG should have waited another year to release FnD!

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 2:15 pm

ghost whistler wrote:
Chamomile wrote:It's weird that you think "evil space cult" and "has academy" are somehow incompatible. Have you seriously never heard of Catholic School? It's not a euphemism or anything. It is an actual alternative to public education run by Catholics.
Catholics aren't a race of people. They aren't an occluded part of the society they inhabit. They are also not an empire.

Sith are a race of people who want to rule the universe and people queued up to learn at their special Sith schools. Compared to what the Sith were 'meant' to be it just seems monumentally lame. I've no idea why those writers felt the need to reinvent it that way. The Sith don't need to be anything more than they were; the anthithesis of the Jedi.

Now we have the likes of the Clone Wars stomping all over that by designing their own Sith 'homeworld' (MOraband), and everyone else having to pretend that what they created (Korriban) was another name for it. Though I think the wrtiers of the CW did that deliberately

You keep equating Sith race and Sith force cult. That's wrong. People don't study at the academies of Sith race, they study at the academies of Sith cult. First and foremost because at the time of KotOR the Sith race was fucking extinct in the known galaxy. They were still present in the secret Sith empire of SWTOR, but they were not the dominant race. Humans were. Sith emperor was a human.

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 2:38 pm

If you like their take on the SW universe, then more power to your elbow.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 2:43 pm

Disclaimer: My knowledge of Star Wars begins and ends with knowing to walk away from someone attempting to discuss it in public.

How ubiquitous is space travel for the average schmuck? Is a common laborer on an outer rim world unlikely to ever escape the gravity well of their birth? How much more likely is it for a entry-level technician on a core world?