The Dark Side (permanent post)

[annathecrow]

Welcome to the Dark Side. This post’s comment section is dedicated to all the angry, inflammatory, defamatory and otherwise outright negative things you might want to express. Not that saying negative things isn’t allowed in the weekly chat corners, but… you know how you sometimes just Have Thoughts about something, and you don’t feel like you can talk about it because everyone around you seems to love it? Those go here.

 

Some rules:

• No personal attacks.
• If you don’t want people replying to you, mention it in the comment.
• Follow the general comm rules.
• …that’s it, I think.

 

Comments

[annathecrow]

Alright, this week it's me who needs the tantrum corner, because I've been reading Republic Commando: Triple Zero and WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH ETAIN, TRAVISS.

Obviously, SPOILERS BELOW.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

(is this far enough? does anyone care about spoilers for a Legends book that's 15 years old?)

Like. I knew from the first book that this series is written in a more "traditional" mil-SF style, with the understanding of gender that goes with that. Manly men are manly, women are... who the heck knows. There were two female characters though, none of them outright stereotypes, and I liked Etain a lot. Good enough, for a mil-SF.

BUT THEN. TRIPLE GODDAMN ZERO.

Etain is our only main female character now. There are some other women (and one female Wookiee, that bit I liked), but they're shown through the clones' perspective and that's mostly as someone to be attracted to. This is not accidental; it's obviously a theme of the story.

Then, Darman/Etain - okay, that's kinda cute. But what the FUCK is with the "Etain decides that she doesn't want to be a Jedi because she loves the clones in general and Darman in particular... and so her new goal in life is to have Darman's son"??? Specifically a son, that bit is spelled out explicitly. And then she conceives, and there's a lot of words dedicated to describing how awesome that is.

I... just... ARGH. I am aware that making babies is Average Cis Woman Experience, and that many people of all genders find it very important and fulfilling and whatnot. But the whole "leaving the Jedi, therefore BABIES" is gross. The fact that having a baby is the only possible "family" Etain considers, no matter how little it makes sense with Mandalorian adoption tradition, her assumed knowledge of different family patterns (which she must have studied as a Jedi), and her childhood in the Order, is gross. All of this is gross. Maybe just to me, maybe in general, I don't care and I'm upset.

tl;dr I wanted to read about kicking ass and Brotherhood (tm), I got Peak Cishet Family and Baby Ideas, and I'm too queer to deal.

[annathecrow]

UPDATE: Having now finished the book (I know I know making judgements before finishing a story is bad practice I shan't do it again), I have to correct myself: apparently, "babies yay!!!" is just Etain's opinion. Kal Skirata has his own, which is just as unpleasant.

(By the way, Star Wars is the only world where speaking about "females" could be a valid choice, and Travis manages to write it in a way where it sounds greasy. Whow. Just... whow.)

I am going to be charitable and upgrade my opinion of the book from "uninentionally upsetting" to "intentionally upsetting", re:women. I don't actually believe that's the case, but you know.

Siiiigh. And here I thought I'd enjoy this series, in a popcorn-reading kind of way.

[fleurviolette]

Yikes on all of that. Thank you for the heads up tho. With that said, I’m not reading any of Traviss’s works given that she was responsible for the derailment and fridging of Mara Jade.

The main issue here is just the author inserting her own ideas and notions into the story rather than respecting the canon lore and building upon the story itself?

[sathari]

I have not read those books and now will DEFINITELY not be doing so, but oh, my Force, ;) I want to thank you for this comment. So often I will run into the "rocks fall, everyone breeds" in stories and. No, just no. I mean, I am at the point where I will deliberately work the "oh, you don't want biological children either? Hooray!" conversation into all my shippy fic. And also that I will have characters outright discuss contraception--- in worlds like Star Wars, it's fun thinking up options that don't exist in the real world, like Force-based biofeedback and such. (I remember telling a fandom friend once that one of the first things I always figure out in my worldbuilding is how birth control would work in a given universe based on what I know of the magic/science rules at play in that 'verse, and they were surprised, and I was in turn surprised by the extent of their surprise.) So, no, you are not alone in this type of problem with stories in general, even if I haven't read that specific set of books.

[annathecrow]

(continuation of this thread about Poe)

Wait, they actually went and contradicted the comics with the movie?

[yourlibrarian]

I figured this belonged here, especially as it has nothing to do with novelizations, though I wonder if anyone would see it.

Having just read an article talking about how genre TV is finally being acknowledged by the Emmys, there was a quote which said "I think everyone is just doing such extraordinary work that it's finally becoming noticed."

I disagree that this is a primary reason. There have been a number of shows doing work at least as good if not better than stuff going on now. But many of them did it with smaller budgets and small-name actors. That BSG was never nominated in the acting or writing categories during its run (much less won) says everything about that. It had a great look, name stars who had been nominated before, and in its early seasons excellent writing. But it was cable and it was scifi.

Most importantly, the composition of Emmy voters was significantly different and they looked first at broadcast and then everything else and it was pure snobbishness. Changing who the voters are has helped. The loss in prestige of broadcast TV has also changed things so that now things have flipped and even deserving broadcast shows can barely get a foot in the door. Ted Lasso is an excellent example. A good show, absolutely deserving of attention. Was it better than Good Place whose first and second seasons were truly groundbreaking when it comes to comedies? No. The only difference is in what is considered popular and who the Emmys are schmoozing.

Esposito's nomination as Moff Gideon is a perfect example -- a relatively nothing appearance on a mediocre show (I enjoy it, but it's not great TV) but he's nominated because people know him so he gets a nom.

(The same is true with Hahn in WandaVision, which I agree was different enough that it deserved attention, though all those nominations? No. Pretty sure something else somewhere deserved it more. I'm quite sure the reason it got them is because it was about TV itself and these awards always nominate stuff about their own industry.)

[annathecrow]

I agree with you on this one. I don't follow the TV show meta discussions much, but explaining the recent success of genre shows in official settings by saying that it's only gotten good now is pretty offensive. Besides, it completely sweeps under the rug how differently TV shows are made, consumed, sold, and basically everything nowadays.

[fleurviolette]

Some things I don’t understand from LF.

- the sequel trilogy. Aka how to ruin a beloved movie franchise in 5 years or less

- how EU writers kept pairing Luke with bland character love interests when Mara Jade was right there. Luke and Mara could have been the Clark and Lois of Star Wars! An established couple from the start??

[annathecrow]

Can't say about Mara Jade, as I've read very little EU books from that era, but sequels... oh, Sequels. I wonder if this is how OT fans felt when the Prequels came out.

I'm in a special level of hell, because I genuinely like (most of) the ST characters and how the story was set up in Force Awakens. Only then it went in a direction I don't like at all, and now it's what it is. Ugh.

Ah well, that's what fanfiction is for, I guess. I've holed myself up in the Prequels fandom for now, and once I feel less "bleh" about certain things I'll AU the heck out of it all, and I'll be happy.

[fleurviolette]

No Fear: watching the upcoming sw shows

One Fear: the shows tie into the Disney sequel trilogy

Update: Thoughts about Marcia Lucas’s quote? It is very interesting…

[fleurviolette]

Okay I just want to add another major thing that Disney doesn’t understand about Star Wars at all.

Why did they make the most generic sci fi looking theme park hotel at $6k per night, and not include any of the original saga characters or planets??? I don’t understand.

[astromech1138]

One Fear: the shows tie into the Disney sequel trilogy

I am more nervous than I'd like to admit about the possibility that a deepfake Han is going to show up with a baby Ben and drop him off at Luke's if Grogu decides to leave :/

What did Marcia Lucas say? Her whole story is completely fascinating. I hate the way LF has written her out of history. She won a damn Oscar!

[kittywhite]

Gotta get my Dark Side on because this is a bit mean spirited gloating of me.
So reviews are out for the latest High Republic book (The Fallen Star) and even people giving it 4 stars are acknowledging it has several problems.
It’s so vindicating for me that criticism isn’t being brushed off as “omg you’re just a neckbeard bigot hater!!!” now.
I wanted to give this era a chance and see what an almost blank slate could produce but any potential is quickly squandered and the quality sadly just isn’t there.
(Super happy that people are slowly acknowledging that main Jedi dude Elzar is coming across as a creep now with his continuing unrequited love for undeveloped Poster Girl Avar too!)

[annathecrow]

That's so bittersweet. :/ On one hand, seeing that you're not the only one with a negative opinion is always a relief, but on the other, it still doesn't make the disappointing series better.

Have you read the book yourself yet?

(I peeked at its Goodreads page and it's interesting: the overall rating is through the roof, but there's a lot of negative reviews. I wonder if the people who give it 5 stars don't see the problems, or if they love the book so much they can ignore them.)

[annathecrow]

I've found I don't have the spoons for the big TCW rant I was in a mood for originally, but about Anakin in Ep II, III and TCW: it's weird.

I think he's consistent between TCW and the first part of Ep III (the battle of Coruscant, Palpatine's rescue) - that's clearly where TCW writers were sourcing their characterization from.

And he's kind of consistent between Ep II and the later parts of Ep III (the Padmé scenes, the final duel).

But as a linear progression, Ep II => TCW => Ep III, it makes no damn sense.

In Ep II Anakin is a moody homicidal teenager. My pet characterization shortcut is "future school shooter", because that walking time bomb feeling (young, overconfident, unbalanced, still strangely pitiable) is just Ep II Anakin in a nutshell.

Then, in TCW he's much more stable, pithy, confident... only to somehow return to the unstable teenager young adult in Ep III. On a Doylist level I understand that, they wanted to make him a likeable protagonist and that would be impossible with his Ep II levels of I'm-not-okay, but it fucks up his character arc. They tried to fix that, with Obi-Wan hurting him by pretending he's dead and Ahsoka leaving the Order, and I suppose it works to a certain degree... but not enough. And they don't try to explain the change from Ep II to TCW at all.

Irony is, I like Anakin's characterization in TCW a lot, and TCW => Ep III sort of works, so if I could choose I'd bin Ep II. But TCW is the part that was done last; someone had to look at Ep II and Ep III and go, "yeah, we definitely can fit a show with Anakin as a protagonist between those two".

Which. WTF, honestly. I do love TCW and the richness it adds to the Prequel era, but I cannot get over the fact that it's a kid show about a mass murderer leading a slave army.

[astromech1138]

Thank you for sharing! This helps me clarify some things I was wondering about as I do a selected watch of TCW. (I find Anakin so much more interesting in TCW than the prequels, honestly!)

One thing I found frustrating about the prequels was Anakin's (lack of) character development, but I could never really put a finger on it. He could've used more time, honestly, and I don't know why he needed to be a kid in TPM. Three movies with Anakin played by Hayden Christensen would have been a good thing.

[fleurviolette]

Jess Pava may have been forgotten, but at least her character wasn’t flanderized in the next two movies.

Also I thought Matt the Radar Technician was a more compelling character than Kale Ron. Thanks mouse.

[annathecrow]

Jess Pava - yeah, that's true. What a bittersweet victory.

RE: femslash in SW

[annathecrow]

(an expanded reply to this comment by astromech1138)

Ah, yeah, the age-old question, "why is there no femslash in my fandom?"

Actually I think there is enough in SW to ship, but people just don't vibe.

If you're talking just about the movies then yeah, Prequels and Original Trilogy are both pretty bad when it comes to female characters, but Sequels, the Clone Wars show, and Rebels all have a lot of women.

There are characters who share scenes in canon (like Ahsoka/Trace), and since the fandom likes time travel and AUs, the combinatorics get even better.

But... the interest isn't there. I don't want to blame anyone for not writing or reading F/F. Trying to read something "because I should" is the worst possible thing.

Only it's a vicious circle: if people don't vibe, they don't write fic and meta, then there is too little fic and meta to choose from, people don't find fics they'd love, then they're not interested in talking and writing about the ships...

I always feel hypocritical when I talk about F/F. I like to write it, but I don't go looking for it and when I do, I usually don't find much that I'd like.

(And when I find a ship I'm interested in, I discover that I'm the only one who ever thought of it. I mean they're usually crack, but still! Argh!)

Re: femslash in SW

[kittywhite]

What usually turns me off with femslash in Star Wars is the amount of canon heterosexual pairings that usually end in marriage and children. There’s very few happily single women in Star Wars, if she’s female then she usually has a serious male love interest to obviously end up with. It’s hard for me to get into it if I know one half of the pair (or both halfs) officially love some other guy (that they usually have terrible chemistry with). Obviously that doesn’t stop other people but it’s a big “no thanks” for me.

There actually is a pairing I’m really hoping for to happen in the new High Republic canon but I bet they won’t go there as it’s not a soft romance and that’s all they seem to be doing with the non-het pairs. I walked away after reading The Fallen Star shipping Affie and Nan, two young women who come from very similar backgrounds but ended up on opposite sides of the conflict. Of course there’s a damn guy lurking in the background to ruin it but I hope he just decides to stay a Jedi and not get a girlfriend lol

Obligatory TLJ salt thread

[fleurviolette]

I don’t consider TLJ as part of ‘canon’. All roads leading to TLJ? Nah. I view it as bad film studio corporate fiction, not a part of the original story.

Re: Obligatory TLJ salt thread

[primeideal]

You have my lightsaber!

(...and I increasingly feel this way about TFA too, sigh.)

Rise of Skywalker is trash

[ironymaiden]

JJ Abrams is a hack. he fucked up his second Star Wars movie just like he fucked up his second Star Trek movie - instead of building on the opportunity to tell new stories with new ideas after easing fans in with a nostalgia trip, he doubled down on getting feelings out of nostalgia for other films instead of generating anything real from the film he was making.

every possible moment of tension was diffused in like five minutes.

nothing that happened made sense or followed on anything from the previous film. i'm going to assume that dude got kicked out of improv class. Yes and, motherfucker.

and what was there was just so groanworthy.

I mean, seriously:
I am all the Sith!
I am all the Jedi!

neener neener neener. what are you, five?

Re: Rise of Skywalker is trash

[fleurviolette]

Yeah that movie was a mess. After watching it, it really soured my view on TFA and the Star Trek reboot, I haven’t watched the disney sequels ever since in theaters.

[annathecrow]

(reply to this comment)

a) Yeah, that was a big disappointment for me as well. I was really looking forward to seeing their relationship develop.

c) Ha, that's a good point. Although the result is the only part of TRoS I actually liked, the fact that it was Leia who trained Rey in the end.

d) I didn't like the casino subplot either. It felt like it was trying to give Finn something to do, not like it was integral to the plot.

As for Canto Bight and the world-building in general, I loved this review by Bret Deveraux from ACOUP. I mean, it also made me sad, because I hadn't noticed a lot of the problems he mentions and it took my opinion of the movie down a good few steps, but he talks about world-building, tone, and internal rules, and it's so spot-on it hurts.

As for Reylo... was anyone surprised? I felt like Reylo being canon was a 50/50 option after seeing TFA, and after TLJ I was sure that was where Disney was going.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I was fine with the idea that since Luke didn't really do it, Leia did it, which is another of those nice twists. Although unfortunately given what happened with Carrie, I suspect there was a lot less of that interaction than there would have been.

Thanks for that link! A good essay with great points. I thought it particularly interesting that the lack of a uniform is singled out:

Note that Leia wears a uniform in ESB/RotJ when she’s acting in a command capacity.

True, although she's in one in RotJ because all that footage is from ESB. But it's something I surprisingly failed to notice about TLJ and ties into his points very well. But while Leia's TLJ outfit is also not a uniform I think that it's handwaved that she's not leading the fleet. She is a General after all and is clearly in command of that particular ship. I suspect that the decision was made to more greatly obscure Carrie's figure while playing up Dern's which was -- not great.

Honestly it's been long enough that I watched it that I don't remember the weaponry issues discussed but OMG yes, THIS: "Who actually supports – and bankrolls – the First Order? Who built all these ships? Where did they build all these ships? How the hell did they hide that?"

Clone Wars and Rebels made clear there were actually more than two Sith at a time, just that they always tended to lead in pairs rather than, say, councils such as the Jedi had. So I can handwave that Snoke and the Knights developed in the intervening years and that the bad guys are in more than one place. But the funding is ABSOLUTELY key. And yes, that massive sort of distance projection, WTF. I disagree about the lightning, just because we didn't see any Jedi using it doesn't mean it couldn't have been used by anyone else and I seem to remember some story where a particular species employs it as a primary defense because they're well suited to it.

But yes, I'm glad that he brings up the whole disconnect about this section of the Republic fleet and suddenly it being some last stand for the entire galaxy?

The discussion of dialogue is, to me, the most fascinating part. "why would Yoda even have a phrase for ‘page turner’?" Such a good point!

I too love roughly 50% of the original series, exactly five seasons of TNG, DS9 and four or five Voyager episodes, like everyone else.

Haha, excellent snark! And I appreciated his comment at the end about how the recent Trek films kept the branding but little else.

Although I didn't go into it in my comment I do appreciate how he fleshed out my own observation that "When you put Star Wars in front of a movie, you are selling a certain kind of story"

[yourlibrarian]

I think my thoughts about the last Skywalker film are probably best put here. I just don't have a lot that's positive to say about it. The plot just veers around widely and completely improbably to bring stuff about because it's cool or because it's in demand, not because it makes any sense. I mean the massive hidden fleet, Palpatine being alive all this time, Rey being a Palpatine, potential relatives of other kinds, Poe's former flame turning up, the unsettled issue of whether Finn has the Force (something made clear in the LEGO Christmas special of all things) etc.

There are certainly things I liked such as Rey being trained by Leia, and there are some scenes and visual that were great, as was Lando's unexpected appearance. But the whole thing just doesn't hold together.

[primeideal]

I was so frustrated with TLJ and, in retrospect, TFA as well that I didn't bother to watch TROS :( so my knowledge is limited to memes.

"They fly now?" "They fly now." "They fly now!"

Crow's grumpy thoughts about the Prequels era

[annathecrow]

(contd of this thread - I vagued about being grumpy about TCW and surferofdreams took me up on it)

Honestly, a lot of it is extremely subjective XD

For the movies, I hate how terrible the dialog in the Prequel movies is, especially in the romance scenes. (Oh god, WHY.) I'm also pissy that GL fridged two women for Anakin's manpain, both of them in a way that feels extremely badly backed up by logic. (Why did the Tuskens abduct a random woman and torture her to death? Why did Padmé die at all? I mean, both can be explained by "Palpatine did it", but there's no good evidence of that in the actual on-screen story, so it feels more like an excuse than an explanation.)

TCW mostly irritates me because it's almost the kind of story I love, but not quite. I'm a big fan of mil-SF, and TCW is a lot of things but mil-SF it is not. The strategy of the Clone Wars as a whole is non-existent, the battle tactics are flimsy, and the clones are portrayed with a shallow rah-rah soldiery that makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Now, I don't want to sound like I don't like the clones, because I really, really do. Only, in the show they feel like a preteen boy's idea of a soldier, and it creeps me out. Which makes sense, it's a childrens' show! That doesn't make me feel any better about the whole thing, unfortunately. (Thankfully, fanfic writers deliver. Bless this fandom, honestly.)

Oh wait, I forgot! Whomever decided to make Nightsisters the worst stereotype of evil, man-hating matriarchy deserves their ass kicked. I haaatessssssssss that, precious.

And since I'm ranting about Prequel-era, I can't avoid mentioning my seething hatred for about 75% of the Republic Commando series. Which would be easier to stomach if I didn't adore the remaining 25% XD (If you want all the gory details, you'll find them higher up in this thread)

*takes a deep breath* Uhhh. So that's that. As I said, I genuinely enjoy the Prequels trilogy and TCW (and even RepComm, ugh). I just... have Opinions, I guess? XD

Re: Crow's grumpy thoughts about the Prequels era

[surferofdreams]

I agree 1000% with most of what you said here. I feel like a lot of the bad story decisions are bc it seems like most of Star Wars is built around events and plot rather than people and character? Like things happen bc the narrative needs them to happen for whatever reason, not bc characters are written as people who make decisions. Communities and governments and even individual characters are often simplified into stereotypes bc it's what the plot demands.

It's The Evil Badguys that cause the problems and The Pathetic Victims that suffer and the Valient Heroes who win the day, and I think especially in the prequels Lucas was taking inspiration from older stories that used similar narrative building methods and had horrible stereotypes for most of the female characters, which sucks. Especially since it seems like a lot of Padme and Shmi's stories are reduced to their impact on Anakin's descent into the dark side.

I have more relevant thoughts specifically about TCW, but I'm running out brain for the moment

[fleurviolette]

personally, I see Star Wars as a multiverse. I get this is not a popular opinion, and I’d like to have a mostly cohesive story line, with 45 years of movies, books, and tv shows, there are plot holes and inconsistencies from the creator himself, and from other writers. Plus when Disney took over, there were too many people with conflicting visions, so a consistent and fully cohesive storyline is impossible at this point.

In short, I see the original saga happened in one time line. The EU happened in another timeline, and the Disney sequels and tv shows happened in a different timeline.

[annathecrow]

that's a very reasonable way of looking at it, honestly. Nicest thing is, you don't even contradict anything. I think at least in fandom, EU getting turned into Legends made a lot of people treat SW as a multiverse in practice, even if not as explicitly as you do. I definitely do that when I write: I say "this is canon for this story, this is not", often explicitly in the AO3 tags, and I use that as a playing field.

Salt/Thoughts on Kenobi Series

[fleurviolette]

This show could have been really good but it’s just okay at best. It could have been better but it is not.

The show “breaks canon” so much, I’m not even connecting it to the original saga. It all happened in a different timeline.

Re: Salt/Thoughts on Kenobi Series

[kittywhite]

Agreed.
The trailer made me expect a different program and I do feel like it was a bit of bait and switch. I’m just treating it like a video game now, it’s something entertaining and flashy to pass my time with.

Boba’s show flopped for me too so I would have combined the two previous live action shows into one Mandalorian based saga and had Obi-Wan be the Tatooine focused show.

PHASMA: Content advisory for discussion of incest

[sathari]

I don't know if Delilah S. Dawson meant to do this, but the way she set up the dynamics in Phasma's birth family, specifically her father describing it as "blasphemous" or something of the sort for someone not of their bloodline to sit on the family throne... okay, well, if you're not going to bring in other people, the only way to continue the line is, well, incest. Which puts literally everything else about Phasma's behavior in a different light altogether--- if she got her family killed because the older men in it were trying to rape her to impregnate her, and possibly if she had initially thought her brother was on her side and then he turned rapey too and that's why she stabbed him in the leg... well, like I said, that puts a lot of her behavior in a different context. Which is not to say that the coping mechanisms she developed from that are okay--- I don't know if anyone else reading this has also read Andrew Vachss' Shella, but that's basically a much more graphic/adult version of that kind of dynamic. (In fact, with this book, I have kind of come to think of Phasma as the GFFA's answer to the title character of that book.)

Because I can't get through a post about Star Wars without mention of my beloved Ben|Kylo, I have also long held the idea of him and Phasma in a prickly sort of bromance--- he's the brother she wishes hers had been to her and she's the twin sister he thinks his life would have been better if he'd had. Except that in her mind the whole idea of "brother" is tangled up with "someone I'll trust only to have him betray me to rape me" so she doesn't do trust well and Kylo is very careful around her mental tripwires. (Also he started hanging out with her because he figured if he could emulate her level of constant low-grade rage he'd be just what Snoke wants him to be.)

And, last but not least, I was utterly amazed at what I consider to be the straight-up horror-movie high-octane nightmare fuel content that the powers-that-be allowed in a book for a franchise that markets heavily to kids. I mean, I am very much not a horror fan because I am easily horrored and don't enjoy it, but da-amn were there a lot of things that would have given me nightmares if I'd picked that book up as a wee Star Wars fan who loved the written word. Was not expecting that.

Andor critical

[fleurviolette]

It shouldn’t take five episodes to get to the point. The pacing is way too drawn out, and incredibly boring.

Re: Andor critical - Update

[fleurviolette]

I honestly have a hard time getting into this show that I just gave up on it. I’m sorry. I feel bad because even tho it’s nice seeing lengthy meta posts, I just have no investment in any of the new characters. It feels more like a generic sci-fi thriller than a Star Wars show. Not too surprised given the show runner is not a fan. It completely baffles me how LF kept hiring creatives who are not fans or don’t care about Star Wars.

Meanwhile it’s so odd how some fans on other social media belittle other fans simply because they critique or don’t like a show? Fans aren’t a monolith, they have their own tastes and opinions on shows.