David Brin vs. Star Wars
Allister Huggins
(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
Allister H.
Coyu
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
But will Salon Magazine give Michael Martinez equal time?
Allister Huggins
Silly question time. Who is Michael Martinez? More importantly, why
should he be given equal time?
Allister H.
Chad R Orzel
Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
He comes off like a bit of a crank.
He has a tendency to do this sort of thing- his harangue about Ralph
Bakshi has something of the same tone.
He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story, and
is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things. He reads
volumes into a number of events in Star Wars, yet takes Star Trek purely
at face value (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can save the
Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can save
the Federation).
Brin's essays are all too often reminiscent of Usenet. When he takes his
time, and puts in the work, he writes good stuff, and can argue
reasonably persuasively. When something rubs him the wrong way, though,
he tends to turn out poorly-thought-out screeds with a tone just this
side of the anarcho-libertarian hordes grepping the news spool for "g*n
c*ntr*l" and "H*inl*in."
Later,
OilCan
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>In article <3766843A...@home.com>,
>Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>
>He comes off like a bit of a crank.
Doesn't he, though?
>He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story, and
>is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things.
Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
> (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can save the
>Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
>attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can save
>the Federation).
And for that matter, I wonder if he saw the last few episodes of Deep
Space Nine, or the latest Trek movie.
--
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Last update 4/24/99
Laura Burchard
Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
It's hard to take very seriously an article that presents itself as
analytic, when the author was paying so little attention to the actual
movie that he has to ask cluelessly "Uh ... will anyone please explain
why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a
teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important --
any hint at all? Hello?"
I really expected better of Brin; some of his other points might be
interesting to debate, but as far as I can tell he watched the movie as
a pro forma prerequisite for a rant already prepared, not to actually
discuss the movie. It's remarkable to me the number of people that went
into TPM with their brains off, presumably because it was 'a Star Wars
flick, can't possibly have any subtlety', and then complained they
didn't understand it.
Sheesh.
--
Laura Burchard <l...@radix.net>
http://www.radix.net/~lhb * ICQ: 6854921 * IRC: dctrav
X-Review: http://traveller.simplenet.com/xfiles/episode.htm
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Paul Andinach
> On 15 Jun 1999 10:32:56 -0400, oil...@wam.umd.edu (Chad R Orzel)
> wrote:
>
> >Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> >
> > > So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's
> > > Salon (99/06/15)?
> >
> > He comes off like a bit of a crank.
>
> Doesn't he, though?
>
> > He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars
> > story, and is rather selective about where he looks deeply at
> > things.
>
> Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
Thank God. For a while there, I was afraid I'd been subverted by the
Dark Side of the Force.
Paul
--
The sixth Sikh sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
Allister Huggins
>
> On 15 Jun 1999 10:32:56 -0400, oil...@wam.umd.edu (Chad R Orzel)
> wrote:
>
> >Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> >> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>
> Doesn't he, though?
It was interesting still. I, however, agree totally with his criticisms
of the plot holes in the Phantom Menace (the second article in Salon).
>
> >He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story, and
> >is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things.
>
> Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
In what way? For all we know, Hitler as a youth may have been as
angelic as Anakin.
> I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born? I admit, I also tend to have a
problem letting going and enjoying pictures where the hero is a hero
because of his genetics.
> > (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can save the
> >Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
> >attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can save
> >the Federation).
>
> And for that matter, I wonder if he saw the last few episodes of Deep
> Space Nine, or the latest Trek movie.
Well, excusing the messiah complex in the last seasons of DS9. I can
understand where he is going. (How many times did the Enterprise
actually save the federation? Usually, they at least have the other
ships in the fleet take part.)
Allister H.
James Nicoll
Chad R Orzel <oil...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>In article <3766843A...@home.com>,
>Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>
>He comes off like a bit of a crank.
>Bakshi has something of the same tone.
>
>volumes into a number of events in Star Wars, yet takes Star Trek purely
>Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
>attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can save
>the Federation).
He also ignores some ugly details in the Trek-verse: there's
no evidence of democracy in the Federation, Indians and Chinese seem not
to have survived the 21st century and while the Federation claism to be
pan-Specific, the people who get the big guns are humans, by and large.
--
"Can i have my midlife crisis now while I am young and agile enough
to enjoy it?"
Paul Andinach
> Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>
> > I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the
> > Jedi.
>
> I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born?
Weren't they the result of an eons-long breeding program? Or was that
just the ones with red hair?
> I admit, I also tend to have a problem letting going and enjoying
> pictures where the hero is a hero because of his genetics.
There is something to that... but is Star Wars such a movie?
What about Han Solo? Or the Wookie? Did Mr Brin even mention them?
Jeff Kouba
> He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story,
and
> is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things. He reads
> volumes into a number of events in Star Wars, yet takes Star Trek
purely
> at face value (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can save
the
> Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
> attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can
save
> the Federation).
Or, overlooking Trek's annoying tendency towards species-ism. That is,
why is it that being human is the grandest goal a sentient being can
hope to attain? Like Pinocchio, Data wants to be human. He studies
humor, he has a cat, he gets an emotion chip. Why doesn't Data want to
be a Klingon, or a Horta? The Holodoc on Voyager modifies his
programming to explore aspects of human personalities. On DS9, the
Bajoran Prophets choose Sisko, a human, to be their Emissary. Trek is
far more guilty of promoting a certain set of morals and ethics than is
Star Wars. In the Trek universe, it is primarily humans from Earth that
travel the galaxy bringing democracy, peace, environmentalism, and an
all-around feeling of let's-just-get-along-here.
I love Star Wars because it is storytelling on a grand scale. Great
empires, danger, conflict, heroes, mysteries, sacrifice; Star Wars has
it all. And Brin seems to object to these very elements that make Star
Wars such a good story. Contrast the Star Wars universe with the Trek
universe. Star Wars acknowledges that good and evil exist. Trek assumes
evil is simply a lack of education. Star Wars acknowledges that in an
imperfect world, force must sometimes be used to resist evil. In Trek,
Federation starships aren't even considered to be military. They are
exploration ships. Star Wars, while not explicitly religious, portrays
the Force as something beyond ourselves, something worth committing to
and sacrificing for. Trek proclaims God is dead, and humans are now
sitting on the throne.
Given that, it is not surprising that an author who thinks sentient
dolphins make for compelling storytelling would recoil from the black
and white world of Star Wars. But what did surprise me is Brin's
discussion of the origins of storytelling, and his subsequent denial of
why storytelling's legacy is still important to us. Epic sagas to tend
to have common themes, and Brin mentions them. But Brin, mistakenly I
believe, says those common themes invite elitism. On the contrary,
these sagas, and Star Wars celebrates their message, tell us that
heroes are not born to the manor, but are ordinary people who choose to
be greater, or who choose to sacrifice for a greater good. The heroes
of Star Wars chose to become greater. The heroes of Trek are heroes
simply because they toe the politically correct party line.
No, I must disagree with Mr. Brin. Give me Star Wars and its grand
storytelling any day.
Jeff Kouba
Chad R Orzel
>On 15 Jun 1999 10:32:56 -0400, oil...@wam.umd.edu (Chad R Orzel)
>wrote:
>>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>>
>>He comes off like a bit of a crank.
>
I'll grant that he did have a fairly nice rundown of the plot holes in
Episode I, but the main article was a tad spittle-flecked...
>>He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story, and
>>is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things.
>
>Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
And one of the things that makes it seem like a Usenet post to me. It's
the sort of comparison that would be made on the fly by someone who was
making it up as they went along, but it's so strained that a few minutes
of calm reflection should point out the huge, glaring flaws. I wouldn't
expect something that silly to make it past careful proofreading.
>I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
He did have a throwaway line where he mentioned not liking Doc Smith,
IIRS.
>> (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can save the
>>Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
>>attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can save
>>the Federation).
>And for that matter, I wonder if he saw the last few episodes of Deep
>Space Nine, or the latest Trek movie.
I haven't followed Deep Space Nine ("Its mission: To boldly sit in one
place where no-one has sat in one place before...") for years. The last
movie was almost terminally goofy...
Even in the original series, though, a case could be made for Kirk as
Chosen One, egalitarian trappings aside.
I also find it ironic that, in one of the articles, he praises
Spielberg's preaching to the audience, given that there was a piece in
the Washington Post shortly after the release of _Saving Private Ryan_
decrying a similar authoritarian streak in the Spielbergian world view...
Later,
OilCan
(Which was also a lot of hot air, but then I expect that from the Post's
movie writers...)
Coyu
>> But will Salon Magazine give Michael Martinez equal time?
>
> Silly question time. Who is Michael Martinez? More importantly, why
>should he be given equal time?
A certain Usenet poster who has caused a 20% increase in traffic
on rasfw due to his frantic Phantom Menace partisanship.
As he himself put it, "How wude."
Tim May
Orzel) wrote:
> Brin's essays are all too often reminiscent of Usenet. When he takes his
> time, and puts in the work, he writes good stuff, and can argue
> reasonably persuasively. When something rubs him the wrong way, though,
> he tends to turn out poorly-thought-out screeds with a tone just this
> side of the anarcho-libertarian hordes grepping the news spool for "g*n
> c*ntr*l" and "H*inl*in."
You cannot hide your reference to "gun control" with these tricks. As
Heinlein himself put it, "an armed society is a polite society." Those who
support gun control are like Hitler.
--Tim May
--
Do unto Spike Lee as he would have done unto Charlton Heston
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
William Clifford
<alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
He sounds shrill, in a bad way.
The coolest thing about this was the link to EstroNet which linked me
to a wealth of good shrill.
-William Clifford
Know your fields before replying by mail
Keith
> > I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
>
> I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born?
Nope. It's explicitely stated in _Second Stage Lensmen_ that Kinnison
and MacDougall are the ultimate conclusion to a millenia-long breeding
program manipulated by the Arisians. Comments about their children are,
of course, unnecessary.
> Well, excusing the messiah complex in the last seasons of DS9. I can
> understand where he is going. (How many times did the Enterprise
> actually save the federation? Usually, they at least have the other
> ships in the fleet take part.)
How many times? If you count every time one of the Enterprises saved
multiple planets from destruction or something:
1. Kirk and Co stopped the planet-killer Berserker
2. Kirk and Co stopped the giant space-amoeba
3. Kirk and Co stopped the parasites moving from one planet to
the next
4. Kirk and Co stopped V'Ger
5. Kirk and Co stopped the alien probe (and saved the whales)
6. Riker and Co defeated the Borg at Earth
7. Picard and Co defeated the Borg in the past
8. Picard and Co revealed an alien infiltration of the Federation
That's off the top of my head. There's probably more.
--
Keith
doug-tr...@msn.com
Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>
I completely agree with him, and I've said much the same thing in posts
about the problems with Star Wars' morality.
Doug
--
Moviedogs: your favorite dogs in your favorite films:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1910/
Nancy Lebovitz
>Allister Huggins wrote:
>
>> > I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
>>
>> I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born?
>
>Nope. It's explicitely stated in _Second Stage Lensmen_ that Kinnison
>and MacDougall are the ultimate conclusion to a millenia-long breeding
>program manipulated by the Arisians. Comments about their children are,
>of course, unnecessary.
>
I'd say that all the Lensmen are included in the Arisian vision of the
Cosmic All, and wouldn't exist if the Arisians didn't think they'd be
good enough to be Lensmen.
.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com
Calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<alhu...@home.com> wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>> Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
>
> In what way? For all we know, Hitler as a youth may have been as
>angelic as Anakin.
What if he was? That's not the part I had in mind.
Hitler was, in fact, a genuine war hero, but was something of a loner
as a kid, not much liked by most of his neighbors. Joining the Army
was how he first got a social life, pretty much.
I was thinking of his suggested trial of Hitler: "He saved his own
son! He's okay!"
Well, first off, Vader not merely saved his own son, he also offed the
Emperor and effectively destroyed the Empire. Second, he DIED doing
it -- which is pretty essential to the whole redemption thing, that he
gave his life for Luke. Third, nobody but Vader's own kids is seen to
forgive him. Fourth, as we see in ROTJ, Vader was under the Emperor's
thumb the whole time -- he wasn't Hitler, he was Goering, more or
less. It wasn't even Vader who blew up Alderaan -- it was Tarkin.
This leaves out the whole question of mind control by the Dark Side of
the Force, and the fact that the Empire wasn't racist, just power-mad.
Stalin would be a better comparison than Hitler, and Lavrenti Beria
might be better than either of them, but let's stick with the Nazis.
Suppose Goering had assassinated Hitler and immediately surrendered
Berlin to the Allies -- you think he'd still have been tried at
Nuremburg and hanged? Suppose he could show that he'd been drugged
from 1933 until the assassination...
>> I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
>
> I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born? I admit, I also tend to have a
>problem letting going and enjoying pictures where the hero is a hero
>because of his genetics.
Lensmen were mostly born. The Arisians ran a multi-millennial
breeding program to produce them.
Franklin Harris
Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote in message
news:3766843A...@home.com...
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
A few remarks:
1. It's a good thing Brin didn't post his article to USENET. He drops the
names "Hitler" and "Nazis" so much he'd automatically be deemed a troll.
2. Brin seems to have a problem with the quite obvious fact that people
*are* unequal -- and in a way no amount of education or training can
"correct." I'm not saying that people of one race or another are inferior to
those of yet another. I'm saying individuals have different talents that
give them all different advantages and disadvantages in various areas of
life, work, love, etc.
3. In order to show that "Star Wars" is somehow authoritarian, Brin glosses
over the very anti-authoritarian Rebel Alliance. Contrary to Brin's
assertion that only the "supermen" (i.e., Jedi) of "Star Wars" can be
heroes, the Trilogy is rife with examples of everyman heroes. Lando and
Wedge destroy the second Death Star. Chewbacca (as Brin notes!) destroys the
deflector shield. And Luke wouldn't have blown up Death Star I if not for
"regular Joe" Han Solo.
4. Brin also contends that "Star Trek" is more freedom-loving that "Star
Wars." That may once have been the case, but the current incarnations of
"Star Trek" are steeped in socialist, anti-private-property nonsense. To top
it off, the Federation is so top-heavy that any insane admiral poses a
threat to everything for which the Feds supposedly stand.
5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic. In
"The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
political correctness!
6. All that said, Brin's review of "The Phantom Menace," in non-political
terms, is right on the mark. It is a beautiful but incoherent mess.
--
Franklin Harris
Pulp Culture Online
tfha...@hiwaay.net
http://home.hiwaay.net/~tfharris
Franklin Harris
Tim May <tc...@got.net> wrote in message
news:tcmay-15069...@dyn-207-111-241-21.sjc.got.net...
> You cannot hide your reference to "gun control" with these tricks. As
> Heinlein himself put it, "an armed society is a polite society." Those who
> support gun control are like Hitler.
Oh dear. While I agree with you totally, I *really* wish you hadn't said
that....
Franklin Harris
Paul Andinach <pand...@mermaid.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.3.96.990616...@mermaid.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au...
> I don't think the name "Han Solo" appears anywhere in either article.
> Chewie's mentioned once - when he's pointing out that it's Chewie, not
> Leia or Luke, who saved the day in RotJ.
> Oh, look, somebody with no genetic predetermined whatsit just saved
> the day. Yes, well, let's just ignore that paragraph...
Yes. It's the linchpin whose destruction threatens Brin's entire essay.
BTW, didn't Brin do this monarchy-vs.-democracy thing in an anti-High
Fantasy commentary on "Sci-Fi Buzz" once upon a time?
Jim Mann
Allister Huggins wrote in message <37669AFB...@home.com>...
>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
`>> Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
>
> In what way? For all we know, Hitler as a youth may have been as
>angelic as Anakin.
I thought his "would we have forgiven Hitler if he had saved his son?"
missed the point. Vader is not "forgiven" for saving Luke. Vader in the end
sees the truth, realizes he's been mistaken in his goals, and repents. And
"forgiven" is perhaps not the best word choice here. "Saved" would be
better -- saved in the sense that before his death he stepped back into the
light. Lucas borrows from many religions/mythogies in the course of the Star
Wars films, and the end of Return of the Jedi seems to borrow from
Christianity.
>>
>> And for that matter, I wonder if he saw the last few episodes of Deep
>> Space Nine, or the latest Trek movie.
>
> Well, excusing the messiah complex in the last seasons of DS9.
Which, by the way, does not save the Alpha quadrant. It is saved (as Brin
implies in his general comments about Star Trek) by a number of people of
many ranks. It's saved by Kira, and O'Brien, and (if you had to pick one
person) Odo. Sisko is important in only one part of a much bigger conflict.
By the way, while I thought that overall Brin's essay was interesting (and
parts of it were on-target), he tended to overstate his case in a number of
places.
---
Jim Mann
Bertil Jonell
>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
If he reacts that way to Star Wars he'd better not read
Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
>Allister H.
-bertil-
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
exercise for your kill-file."
James C. Ellis
>
> It's hard to take very seriously an article that presents itself as
> analytic, when the author was paying so little attention to the actual
> movie that he has to ask cluelessly "Uh ... will anyone please explain
> why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a
> teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important --
> any hint at all? Hello?"
Can _you_ answer that question?
I understand why the Naboo situation was important to Palpatine, but
really what financial gain did the Trade Federation stand to inherit
(especially considering the expensive measures needed to blockade/invade
the planet)? How did tariffs and trade routes enter into it? How did
the Trade Federation "legalize" their blockade? How did they exploit
their control of the planet?
Was there a clue why Naboo was important to anyone other than
Palpatine (as a flashpoint)?
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Barrett
: 5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic. In
: "The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
: want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
: political correctness!
"An elected Queen" isn't that illogical or politically correct. The
medfem-l mailing list (for scholars of medieval women) had an interesting
discussion about just how many monarchs were actually elected in medieval
Europe. In Anglo-Saxon England, the various English kings (Cnut and the
Danes aside) were elected by the witan, the council of elders. Even an
usurper like Henry IV played the election card; as Chaucer suggests in his
petition poem, "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse," Henry is king of
England "by lyne and free eleccion," not by invading England with an armed
force and having Richard II discretely put to death.
So Amidala's elected royal status has precedent in our own history.
Granted, I do think Lucas was probably trying to balance fairy tale
narrative (queen in distress) with American egalitarianism (elected), but
he stumbled into something quite logical.
Best,
Rob
--
Robert W. Barrett, Jr. * E-mail: rbar...@dept.english.upenn.edu * World
Wide Web: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~rbarrett/index.html * Dept. of
English, Univ. of Pennsylvania * "What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage!" The Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), *The Wizard of Oz* (1939)
Chad R Orzel
>> wrote:
>> >He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story, and
>> >is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things.
>>
>> Yup. His Hitler/Vader comparison is interestingly wrong-headed.
>
> In what way? For all we know, Hitler as a youth may have been as
>angelic as Anakin.
Not that bit, the bit where he attempts to make an analogy between the
redemption of Darth Vader and forgiving Hitler at Nuremburg for saving
the life of his son.
Mr. Watt-Evans has already posted a nice analysis of this, so I'll defer
to him.
>> > (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can save the
>> >Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance is
>> >attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can save
>> >the Federation).
>> And for that matter, I wonder if he saw the last few episodes of Deep
>> Space Nine, or the latest Trek movie.
> Well, excusing the messiah complex in the last seasons of DS9. I can
>understand where he is going. (How many times did the Enterprise
>actually save the federation? Usually, they at least have the other
>ships in the fleet take part.)
Enh.
At least three of the movies involve the Enterprise bridge crew saving
the day (and note that it's not just the Enterprise, it's specifically
the bridge crew of the Enterprise (well, plus the doctor and the cief
engineer)), and half a dozen or so Next Generation episodes. Probably
more, if you use a fairly broad definition of "save the Federation."
This is largely due to the constraints of the weekly serial format, but
it runs kind of counter to the basic point Brin's attempting to make to
have one set of starship officers _always_ be the ones to save the day.
Even when other ships are involved, it's always the bridge crew of the
Enterprise that has the key insight/ gadget which allows the foiling of
the Evil Alien Menace.
Later,
OilCan
Evelyn C. Leeper
Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
Well, I agree with some of it and disagree with some of it, but it's a
heck of a lot better than most of what passes for commentary on THE
PHANTOM MENACE in that at least it gives us something of importance to
*discuss*. (A whole slew of things, in fact.)
In particular, I think he is dead wrong about "Oedipus Rex" being
boring. I think the problem is that he's watching it as a 20th century
person, and not thinking of it in terms of the beliefs and perspectives
of the intended audience.
I had the same reaction re-reading Exodus et al one time. I wanted
Moses to just throttle the Hebrews for being so cranky no matter what
he did. This does not mean I can say this story is not interesting,
just that I'm reading it in a way that was not intended.
(Undoubtedly my saying this will lead to all sorts of discussions of
deconstruction, etc. Which, as I said, are a heck of a lot more
interesting than the ten-thousandth "Jar Jar Binks Must Die" posting.)
The discussion of why fantasy loves a monarchy has been hashed,
thrashed, and smashed to death on panels at conventions around the
world. But the fact is that it does, for reasons that may make sense
on a mythic level rather than a rational one. And if we have some
inherent desire for monarchies, it may very well be better to satisfy
that desire by watching films like STAR WARS and joining SCA than by
deciding to have a real monarch.
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
"Publishing a book of poetry in the United States is liking dropping rose
petals off the rim of Grand Canyon and listening for the echo." --Don Marquis
Evelyn C. Leeper
Robert Barrett <rbar...@dept.english.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Franklin Harris (tfha...@hiwaay.net) wrote:
>
> : 5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic. In
> : "The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
> : want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
> : political correctness!
>
> "An elected Queen" isn't that illogical or politically correct. The
> medfem-l mailing list (for scholars of medieval women) had an interesting
> discussion about just how many monarchs were actually elected in medieval
> Europe. In Anglo-Saxon England, the various English kings (Cnut and the
> Danes aside) were elected by the witan, the council of elders. Even an
> usurper like Henry IV played the election card; as Chaucer suggests in his
> petition poem, "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse," Henry is king of
> England "by lyne and free eleccion," not by invading England with an armed
> force and having Richard II discretely put to death.
Well, don't forget that it was certainly to Henry IV's benefit to come
up with more justification for his kingship than having killed Richard
II, or he is just setting himself up to be the next target. He *has*
to put forth some at least viable claim to the throne other than
force.
tomlinson
[Brin's fulmination against STAR WARS]
: In particular, I think he is dead wrong about "Oedipus Rex" being
: boring.
David Brin thinks the "Oedipus Rex" is boring? What shreds of
respect I harbored towards him have just evaporated.
-tomlinson
--
Ernest Tomlinson
----------------
"In college, she had wanted to be an artist; but she had soon learned
that she couldn't bear to see others looking at her work, thinking
thoughts she couldn't control." (C. I. Gilman, "Frost Painting")
Chad R Orzel
>
>> He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story,
>> volumes into a number of events in Star Wars, yet takes Star Trek
>> is attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can
>> save the Federation).
>
>why is it that being human is the grandest goal a sentient being can
>hope to attain? Like Pinocchio, Data wants to be human. He studies
>humor, he has a cat, he gets an emotion chip. Why doesn't Data want to
>be a Klingon, or a Horta?
Well, he _is_ surrounded by humans, and fashioned in their likeness.
If he were crewing on a Klingon starship, he would presumably aspire to
Klingon-hood.
>Star Wars. In the Trek universe, it is primarily humans from Earth that
>travel the galaxy bringing democracy, peace, environmentalism, and an
>all-around feeling of let's-just-get-along-here.
This wishy-washiness is what I found tremendously frustrating about the
Next Generation episodes. Finally, with the advent of cheap CGI, they had
the technical ability to stage space battles that would look like
something more than models being blown up with firecrackers, and they
refused to just Blow Shit Up.
I understand that this may have changed somewhat in recent years, but I
haven't watched any new Star Trek in years (other than the movies,
anyway).
This was the only area in which Babylon 5 was significantly superior to
Star Trek (to open another flamewar)- they had good CGI effects, and by
God, they were going to use them. Things Went Fast and Blew Up with
satisfying regularity. Sadly, most of the rest of the show was as silly
as Trek, and the dialogue was actually _worse_... Ye gods, but
Straczynski has a tin ear...
>Given that, it is not surprising that an author who thinks sentient
>dolphins make for compelling storytelling would recoil from the black
>and white world of Star Wars. But what did surprise me is Brin's
>discussion of the origins of storytelling, and his subsequent denial of
>why storytelling's legacy is still important to us. Epic sagas to tend
>to have common themes, and Brin mentions them.
I think he misreads this as well, in painting Campbell's description of
these common themes as prescriptive rather than descriptive, but I found
Campbell a little hard to take for other reasons, and may have missed
that part.
But Brin, mistakenly I
>believe, says those common themes invite elitism. On the contrary,
>these sagas, and Star Wars celebrates their message, tell us that
>heroes are not born to the manor, but are ordinary people who choose to
>be greater, or who choose to sacrifice for a greater good. The heroes
>of Star Wars chose to become greater.
Where he really misses the boat is in omitting the characters of Han Solo
and Chewbacca (though, oddly, he does cite the Wookiee as the key player
in the resolution of RotJ...), who _aren't_ part of the Chosen Elite to
which he objects so strongly, but _are_ key players in the ultimate
success of the rebellion.
His incessant invocation of Ben Franklin also tends to grate (it mars
_The Transparent Society_, too). It comes off more like the rantings of
the tinfoil-hat anarcho-libertarian crowd than a legitimate philosophical
analogy.
Later,
OilCan
Maskull
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <lawr...@clark.net> wrote:
> >On 15 Jun 1999 10:32:56 -0400, oil...@wam.umd.edu (Chad R Orzel)
> >wrote:
> >>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> >>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
> >>
> >
> >Doesn't he, though?
>
> I'll grant that he did have a fairly nice rundown of the plot holes in
> Episode I, but the main article was a tad spittle-flecked...
He makes some good points, but he does comes off sounding positively
inquisitorial. He's not so much deconstructing as thought policing.
[...]
> I haven't followed Deep Space Nine ("Its mission: To boldly sit in one
> place where no-one has sat in one place before...") for years.
[...]
That's about it. I've always seen DS9 as a callous ploy by
Paramount to filch market share from Babylon 5.
--
Maskull
Technetronic Detritus
http://maskull.home.mindspring.com/index.htm
Allister Huggins
<snip>
> Chewie's mentioned once - when he's pointing out that it's Chewie, not
> Leia or Luke, who saved the day in RotJ.
> Oh, look, somebody with no genetic predetermined whatsit just saved
> the day. Yes, well, let's just ignore that paragraph...
>
Actually, Chewie is force positive. His daughter is training to become
a jedi in the teen JEDI series.
Allister H.
Franklin Harris
James C. Ellis <ell...@cadvision.com> wrote in message
news:3766B1...@cadvision.com...
> I understand why the Naboo situation was important to Palpatine, but
> really what financial gain did the Trade Federation stand to inherit
> (especially considering the expensive measures needed to blockade/invade
> the planet)? How did tariffs and trade routes enter into it? How did
> the Trade Federation "legalize" their blockade? How did they exploit
> their control of the planet?
This is a question an economist friend of mine and I have been tossing
around in e-mail for a few days. My conclusion is that the blockade makes no
sense as it is presented in the film and (in slightly more detailed form)
the Terry Brooks novelization.
If the Federation is simply upset about the Republic's taxation of
Federation trade routes, a blockade gains them nothing. It simply cuts off
*all* trade in the blockaded area, thus making it impossible for the
Federation to realize any revenue at all. And how is a blockade aimed at one
small world supposed to be a threat to the entire Republic? It's hardly much
of a bargaining chip.
The blockade only makes sense if it is the Federation that wants to collect
tariffs from everyone else who uses Federation trade routes. If Naboo is
resisting the Federation's taxation of Naboo's trade, then a blockade makes
sense. The Federation stands to gain if Naboo gives in.
Robert Barrett
: Robert Barrett <rbar...@dept.english.upenn.edu> wrote:
: >
: > Danes aside) were elected by the witan, the council of elders. Even an
: > usurper like Henry IV played the election card; as Chaucer suggests in his
: > petition poem, "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse," Henry is king of
: > England "by lyne and free eleccion," not by invading England with an armed
: > force and having Richard II discretely put to death.
: Well, don't forget that it was certainly to Henry IV's benefit to come
: up with more justification for his kingship than having killed Richard
: II, or he is just setting himself up to be the next target. He *has*
: to put forth some at least viable claim to the throne other than
: force.
Indeed. Chaucer is clearly playing to the Lancastrian p.o.v. in the poem
(a strategy that appears to have worked--he survived the purge of
Richard's officials/former officials *and* had his annuity renewed by
Henry). Henry was so desperate to avoid the label of "usurper" that he
ended up putting the English state at the beck and call of Archbishop
Arundel's anti-Lollard machine. Henry had his creatures in Parliament
introduce the statute *De haeretico comburendo* (On the burning of
heretics) in 1401, and he made sure it passed. So the state burned pesky
Lollards, and the English church under Arundel proclaimed Henry the
legitimate heir to Richard.
FrankieOx
>In article <3766843A...@home.com>,
>Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>
>Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
>a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
>all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
First, a correction: The "Star of the Guardians" series is written solely by
Margaret Weis.
Second, does it really? I think there's more going on underneath the surface:
SPOILERS
For instance, the fourth book: It turns out that God hadn't intended Dion to
stay king, but instead to be a martyr. Also, while Dion as a Starfire has a
claim by inheritance to the throne, actually getting and keeping said throne
depends heavily on his political marriage and his willingness to sacrifice his
happiness and true love, for a throne he's not all that interested in keeping
anymore. He ends up in a very bittersweet position; really, the only good
thing to come out of the fourth book for Dion is that he at least likes his
wife now. And Maigrey and Sagan are sent off to hell for subverting fate. In
other words, if we go by Brin's viewpoint, Maigrey and Sagan *pay* for being
impulsive and arbitrary and high-handed--they suffer in all four books for it
and get the ultimate condemnation in the last; Sagan in particular doesn't get
redemption like Vader does, even though Sagan is much less awful a person and
does many more good things. Weis's world is ambiguous in some unexpected and
interesting ways.
lam...@my-deja.com
na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
> In article <37668FA2...@polarnet.ca>, Keith
<kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
> >Allister Huggins wrote:
> >
Jedi.
> >>
> >> I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born?
> >
Kinnison
> >and MacDougall are the ultimate conclusion to a millenia-long
breeding
> >program manipulated by the Arisians. Comments about their children
are,
> >of course, unnecessary.
> >
> The answer's a little less obvious for the lesser Lensmen, though, but
> I'd say that all the Lensmen are included in the Arisian vision of the
> Cosmic All, and wouldn't exist if the Arisians didn't think they'd be
> good enough to be Lensmen.
It is explicitly stated in one of the Lensman books that the Lensmen
could pick out who would make lensman grade in the cradle if they
wanted to. The expensive training and weedout program are actually
for the benifit of those who enter but do NOT pass, and since the
'flunk outs' make up the vast majority of the galactic patrol you
can see the point.
i.e. Doc. Smith in Lensman has bought into genetic destiny and
superiority. But thinks it is a bad idea to run a society on the
basis of these things. Better to run things as a meritocracy and
let the naturally superior rise to the top. Note also that the
true roll of the Asirian's is kept secret for similar reasons.
DougL
Keith
> universe. Star Wars acknowledges that good and evil exist. Trek assumes
> evil is simply a lack of education. Star Wars acknowledges that in an
> imperfect world, force must sometimes be used to resist evil. In Trek,
> Federation starships aren't even considered to be military. They are
> exploration ships.
Note that many of the complaints regarding Star Trek depend on who
you are talking with. Someone toeing the Roddenberry line about a
happy-happy joy-joy future will make those points but there are
people who don't accept them, some of them the current writers and
producers of the shows. The best example I can think of it not
being pretty was the DS9 episode "In the Pale Moonlight" in which
Captain Sisko engages in fraud, accepts corruption and bribery and
eventually assassination in order to do what he has to.
There is a disagreement among fans of the show regarding elements
like that. It's easy to see on what side they fall. Ask someone
who has seen the episodes of The Next Generation involving the
character of Captain Jellico.
> Star Wars, while not explicitly religious, portrays
> the Force as something beyond ourselves, something worth committing to
> and sacrificing for. Trek proclaims God is dead, and humans are now
> sitting on the throne.
Umm, sometimes it does, sometimes not. There are episodes that make
the statement that religion is an outdated concept but there are others
that show great respect for religion and the people who believe in
it.
--
Keith
lam...@my-deja.com
(I have not read the novelization, but...)
I assume that the Federation franchise was either the right to
collect tarifs, or exclusive rights to trade, in the outer fringes
of the Republic. If it was just ordinary trade their franchise from
the Republic would not be important.
It has to be some sort of East India Company or tax farming franchise
for anything to make sence. This would tend to reinforce the idea
that the Republic is already in decline, letting your citizens be hit
by tax farmers or exclusive trade franchises when you previously had
some other system seems like a really bad idea.
If Naboo was resisting (engaging in large scale smuggeling) then the
trade federation may well have been trying to make an example of
Naboo under the cover of enforcing their franchise, hoping that a
success anywhere would reduce resistance everywhere, and with the
promised help from Sidious causing them to chose Naboo as the target.
Erich R. Schneider
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
Um, first, that's "Dr. Brin".
It struck me as yet another exposition of one of his pet ideas that
he's been bandying about for at least 8 years now (I recall a talk
where he advocated the position that long ago). Namely, that the
heroes of traditional fantasy are elitist snobs not worth of our
consideration. His view might be summarized as: "The wizards of
traditional fantasy, hoarding their knowledge in mountaintop places of
power, are despicable characters. If they were reasonable people, like
we in 20th century America are, they'd bring flush toilets,
electricity, and the germ theory of disease to the huddled masses."
IMHO, his Salon article is largely wasted effort. Different subgenres
of SF have different esthetic criteria, and people seem to like it
that not every SF story is just like _Earth_ or _Marooned in
Realtime_.
I agree with his statements about why "Empire" is the best of the four
movies, although it's puzzling that he didn't mention that it was
written by Leigh Brackett, Real Live SF Writer of the Pulp Era.
Also, he, like many others, needs to realize that it is easy to
show that most SF (Star Wars more than most) is ludicrously
unrealistic in various ways, ergo doing so does not make you look
particularly clever or insightful.
Me, I wanted to see Jedi doing cool stuff, and I did. End of story for me.
--
Erich Schneider er...@caltech.edu Caltech Information Technology Services
Mark Hanson
TV talking about how EP1 is the greatest movie of all time, that it was
refreshing to hear the viewpoint of someone who HATED it -- and not just
because it was a bad movie. I don't think TPM was very good -- and the more
I think about it, the worse it gets, kind of like Independence Day -- but
Jeez, I didn't think it was THAT bad!
He went a little overboard on the Star Wars/Star Trek comparisons -- I
don't think the Federation is the egalitarian utopia he makes it out to be
-- but he was basically on target (though I admit I loved the long, swoopy
intro to the new Enterprise in The Motion Picture).
His redeemed-Vader screed really got to me, however. He's completely right
-- Vader killed millions of people, personally tortured information from
his own daughter, and he gets off at the end because he saved Luke from the
Emperor. Whatta guy! Let's build him a statue.
Mark
Avram Grumer
> I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
Well, he did write:
: Above all, I never cared for the whole Nietzschian Ubermensch
: thing: the notion -- pervading a great many myths and legends --
: that a good yarn has to be about demigods who are bigger, badder
: and better than normal folk by several orders of magnitude. It's
: an ancient storytelling tradition based on abiding contempt for
: the masses -- one that I find odious in the works of A.E. Van
: Vogt, E.E. Smith, L. Ron Hubbard...
Or do you want specifics?
--
Avram Grumer | Any sufficiently advanced
Home: av...@bigfoot.com | technology is indistinguishable
http://www.bigfoot.com/~avram/ | from an error message.
Avram Grumer
> Well, first off, Vader not merely saved his own son, he also offed the
> Emperor and effectively destroyed the Empire. Second, he DIED doing
> it -- which is pretty essential to the whole redemption thing, that he
> gave his life for Luke. Third, nobody but Vader's own kids is seen to
> forgive him. Fourth, as we see in ROTJ, Vader was under the Emperor's
> thumb the whole time -- he wasn't Hitler, he was Goering, more or
> less. It wasn't even Vader who blew up Alderaan -- it was Tarkin.
One can make the argument that the Force forgives Vader/Anakin, which is
why he gets a ghostly afterlife instead of oblivion. But we can then make
the argument that one can't expect a universal energy field to have the
same values as human beings, and, hey, didn't Brin say that the SF he
likes questions human values...?
J. Moreno
> Keith <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
> >Allister Huggins wrote:
> >
> >> > I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the Jedi.
> >>
> >> I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born?
> >
> >Nope. It's explicitely stated in _Second Stage Lensmen_ that Kinnison
> >and MacDougall are the ultimate conclusion to a millenia-long breeding
> >program manipulated by the Arisians. Comments about their children are,
> >of course, unnecessary.
> >
> The answer's a little less obvious for the lesser Lensmen, though, but
> I'd say that all the Lensmen are included in the Arisian vision of the
> Cosmic All, and wouldn't exist if the Arisians didn't think they'd be
> good enough to be Lensmen.
I don't think they were breeding the rest of them, except possibly as
planed future mates. So I don't think they'd not exist if they weren't
going to be Lensmen -- but whether it's genetic or not, all of the
Lensmen ARE considered superior (morally at the least, generally
physically and mentally) than the non-Lensmen.
And given the rest of the story, I think it's likely that the moral
quality that made them Lensmen was inborn.
--
John Moreno
Julie A. Pascal
Bertil Jonell wrote:
>
> In article <3766843A...@home.com>,
> Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> > So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> >(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>
> If he reacts that way to Star Wars he'd better not read
> Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
> a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
> all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
What about the Star Kingdom of Manticore vs. the Peeps?
If I had to choose where to live, the Star Wars universe
or the Star Trek universe, I'd choose Star Wars... even
after the Emperor takes over.
As for morality...
I think that any society that would let a whole alien race
perish because of a noninterference policy is dead black evil.
At least as bad as blowing up a planet.
--Julie
Mariane Desautels
>
> Franklin Harris (tfha...@hiwaay.net) wrote:
>
> : 5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic. In
> : "The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
> : want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
> : political correctness!
>
> "An elected Queen" isn't that illogical or politically correct. The
> medfem-l mailing list (for scholars of medieval women) had an interesting
> discussion about just how many monarchs were actually elected in medieval
> Europe. In Anglo-Saxon England, the various English kings (Cnut and the
> usurper like Henry IV played the election card; as Chaucer suggests in his
> petition poem, "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse," Henry is king of
> England "by lyne and free eleccion," not by invading England with an armed
> force and having Richard II discretely put to death.
>
> Granted, I do think Lucas was probably trying to balance fairy tale
> narrative (queen in distress) with American egalitarianism (elected), but
> he stumbled into something quite logical.
The people of the Lac-St-Jean area in Quebec have elected themselves a
king roundabout last year.
M
--
"We want the special."
Franklin Harris
Robert Barrett <rbar...@dept.english.upenn.edu> wrote in message
news:7k6d6r$brt$1...@netnews.upenn.edu...
> Franklin Harris (tfha...@hiwaay.net) wrote:
>
> : 5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic.
In
> : "The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
> : want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
> : political correctness!
>
> "An elected Queen" isn't that illogical or politically correct. The
> medfem-l mailing list (for scholars of medieval women) had an interesting
> discussion about just how many monarchs were actually elected in medieval
> Europe. In Anglo-Saxon England, the various English kings (Cnut and the
> Danes aside) were elected by the witan, the council of elders. Even an
> usurper like Henry IV played the election card; as Chaucer suggests in his
> petition poem, "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse," Henry is king of
> England "by lyne and free eleccion," not by invading England with an armed
> force and having Richard II discretely put to death.
Actually, I'm well aware of all this. (This isn't the first time this
discussion has come up.) But if you're going to elect a monarch, why elect a
child? Senator Palpatine may have underestimated her, but he did so for a
reason. No one should expect a child with no political experience to be a
good or even competent leader.
This seems to me to be a matter of Lucas trying to shoehorn democratic
values in even where the are ill-suited.
Julie A. Pascal
Mark Hanson wrote:
(...)
> His redeemed-Vader screed really got to me, however. He's completely right
> -- Vader killed millions of people, personally tortured information from
> his own daughter, and he gets off at the end because he saved Luke from the
> Emperor. Whatta guy! Let's build him a statue.
>
> Mark
If forgiveness depends on being able to undo all the bad that
you've done we are all, each of us, unredeemable.
It's not uncommon for people to have a cosmology where
redemption... or salvation... depends on the balance of
good deeds and bad deeds. If the good deeds weigh more
than the bad ones then you get to heaven.
This is hardly the only cosmology out there.
Vader turned from the dark to the light. The light
accepted him. This is consistent with the very common
belief that we are not redeemed by our own merits.
--Julie
Elisabeth Carey
>
> On Tue, 15 Jun 1999, Allister Huggins wrote:
>
> > Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> >
> > > I'd be interested in his take on the Lensmen, as compared to the
> > > Jedi.
> >
> > I thought Lensmen were chosen, not born?
>
> just the ones with red hair?
That was just the Kinnison and Samms/MacDougal families, being bred to
produce one _particular_ result. Final defeat of the Eddorians
required mental powers that were strong enough to fight them; the
Kinnison/MacDougal offspring were a weapon, not the only people fit to
rule humanity. Most of the Lensmen were just the natural product of
humans doing what came naturally. And character counted heavily in the
selection process.
> > I admit, I also tend to have a problem letting going and enjoying
> > pictures where the hero is a hero because of his genetics.
>
> There is something to that... but is Star Wars such a movie?
>
> What about Han Solo? Or the Wookie? Did Mr Brin even mention them?
No, he doesn't, and their main function is to get Luke and Leia where
they need to be. Chewie, in fact, is little more than comic relief.
It's a little better in The Empire Strikes Back, where the "ordinary"
people can almost be said to do something important, but mostly the
people who really count are the Jedi and the Sith, all through the
series. In The Phantom Menace, we're told that what makes Anakin
important is his genes; he's a prophesied, genetically engineered
hero, _not_ an ordinary boy who achieves something extraordinary. And
Luke and Leia, of course, are his children.
Naboo has elections, but it's clearly election from within a limited
class, possibly one clan (or she wouldn't be a teenager), and what's
elected is a queen. The eligible candidates come from a small group;
how large is the electorate? We're never told, but there's no
particular reason to believe that it's anything like "the entire adult
population." That wouldn't be consistent with the limitations we _do_
see.
Lis Carey
Elisabeth Carey
>
> Jeff Kouba <jko...@dacotah.com> wrote:
> >
> >> He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story,
> >> and is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things. He reads
> >> volumes into a number of events in Star Wars, yet takes Star Trek
> >> purely at face value (Star Wars is bad because only the chosen one can
> >> save the Galaxy, while Star Trek is egalitarian. And yet no significance
> >> is attached to the fact that only the bridge crew of the Enterprise can
> >> save the Federation).
> >
> >Or, overlooking Trek's annoying tendency towards species-ism. That is,
> >why is it that being human is the grandest goal a sentient being can
> >hope to attain? Like Pinocchio, Data wants to be human. He studies
> >humor, he has a cat, he gets an emotion chip. Why doesn't Data want to
> >be a Klingon, or a Horta?
>
> Well, he _is_ surrounded by humans, and fashioned in their likeness.
> If he were crewing on a Klingon starship, he would presumably aspire to
> Klingon-hood.
Data was also created by humans--as was the Doctor on Voyager. What
species should they find more fascinating than their makers?
<snip>
Lis Carey
Rick
>
> "Julie A. Pascal" wrote:
>
> > As for morality...
> >
> > I think that any society that would let a whole alien race
> > perish because of a noninterference policy is dead black evil.
> > At least as bad as blowing up a planet.
> >
>
I actually do.
Elisabeth Carey
>
> Franklin Harris (tfha...@hiwaay.net) wrote:
>
> : 5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic. In
> : "The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
> : want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
> : political correctness!
>
> "An elected Queen" isn't that illogical or politically correct. The
> medfem-l mailing list (for scholars of medieval women) had an interesting
> discussion about just how many monarchs were actually elected in medieval
> Europe. In Anglo-Saxon England, the various English kings (Cnut and the
> Danes aside) were elected by the witan, the council of elders. Even an
> usurper like Henry IV played the election card; as Chaucer suggests in his
> petition poem, "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse," Henry is king of
> England "by lyne and free eleccion," not by invading England with an armed
> force and having Richard II discretely put to death.
>
> Granted, I do think Lucas was probably trying to balance fairy tale
> narrative (queen in distress) with American egalitarianism (elected), but
> he stumbled into something quite logical.
But note that those "elected kings" were elected by a very small
electorate, from an even smaller body of "eligible candidates". As
must, of course, be the case with Amidala, or Naboo's newly-elected
queen wouldn't be a young teenager.
It's not exactly a free and open democracy we're talking about, here.
Lis Carey
Elisabeth Carey
>
> Bertil Jonell wrote:
> >
> > In article <3766843A...@home.com>,
> > Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> > > So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> > >(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
> >
> > If he reacts that way to Star Wars he'd better not read
> > Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
> > a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
> > all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
>
> What about the Star Kingdom of Manticore vs. the Peeps?
The parliamentary democracy vs. the rather brutal socialist
dictatorship, you mean? That's an easy one.
> If I had to choose where to live, the Star Wars universe
> or the Star Trek universe, I'd choose Star Wars... even
> after the Emperor takes over.
I think you have not stopped to consider what conditions actually were
for the average person. In the Republic, admittedly on the fringes of
it, Anakin and his mother are slaves. In the Empire, Owen and Beru are
afraid even to tell Luke the truth about who his parents were, or
allow the Jedi to be so much as mentioned. And they're right; they're
killed because their connection to these things is finally noticed.
Care to criticise imperial policy on anything? In public? In private,
in a room you haven't personally swept for bugs?
<snip>
Lis Carey
Laura Burchard
Franklin Harris <tfha...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>6. All that said, Brin's review of "The Phantom Menace," in non-political
>terms, is right on the mark. It is a beautiful but incoherent mess.
Actually, it's not one bit incoherent. It has its flaws, but they don't
include the plot, which is a beautiful double layered thing. By far the
best plotted of any SW movie, lightyears of improvement.
Laura
Laura Burchard -- l...@radix.net -- http://www.radix.net/~lhb
X-Review: http://traveller.simplenet.com/xfiles/episode.htm
"Good design is clear thinking made visible." -- Edward Tufte
Franklin Harris
Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote in message
news:37671052...@mediaone.net...
> I think you have not stopped to consider what conditions actually were
> for the average person. In the Republic, admittedly on the fringes of
> it, Anakin and his mother are slaves. In the Empire, Owen and Beru are
> afraid even to tell Luke the truth about who his parents were, or
> allow the Jedi to be so much as mentioned. And they're right; they're
> killed because their connection to these things is finally noticed.
Even in "The Phantom Menace," slavery is an oddity. It apparently exists
only on boondocks worlds like Tatooine, and even there it hardly seems
particularly oppressive. (I.e., the slaves are little worse off than anyone
else on the planet.)
Also, there is no evidence at all to support the conclusion that the
Empire -- even at its height -- is totalitarian enough to have listening
devices in the huts of moisture farmers. And your invocation of Owen and
Beru is absurd. They don't speak of the Jedi because they don't want Luke
running off on some "damn, fool, idealistic crusade," *not* because talking
about the Jedi is intrinsically dangerous. Also, Owen and Beru are killed
because of their connection to the missing droids/Death Star plans, not
because of their connection to the Jedi via Luke.
William December Starr
ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) said:
> Admittedly, in Episode 1, Qui-Gon talks as though he believes the
> Force has a mind -- he mentions that it was the will of the Force
> that they met Anakin, and suggests as a possibility that Anakin was
> conceived by the the Force. However, I choose -- until Lucas
> contradicts me -- to believe that this is just Qui-Gon's personal
> view, and that he's full of it.
Reconciling "The Force is not a sentient entity" with "The Force
arranged for a virgin birth to take place" might be a bit tricky,
though. :-)
(Yeah, I know: the pseudoTreknobabble about the Force and
"midichloridians" and the like was so brief and meaning-free as to
make it hard to tell not only what actually happened with Shmi
Skywalker but even what any of the significant characters _thought_
had happened... Nevertheless, it _is_ at least a possibility that
Annakin didn't have a father in the normal sense of the word, and that
either it was a _vast_ coincidence or the Force at work.)
-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>
Julie A. Pascal
Franklin Harris wrote:
>
> Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote in message
> news:37671052...@mediaone.net...
>
> > I think you have not stopped to consider what conditions actually were
> > for the average person. In the Republic, admittedly on the fringes of
> > it, Anakin and his mother are slaves. In the Empire, Owen and Beru are
> > afraid even to tell Luke the truth about who his parents were, or
> > allow the Jedi to be so much as mentioned. And they're right; they're
> > killed because their connection to these things is finally noticed.
>
> Even in "The Phantom Menace," slavery is an oddity. It apparently exists
> only on boondocks worlds like Tatooine, and even there it hardly seems
> particularly oppressive. (I.e., the slaves are little worse off than anyone
> else on the planet.)
And I don't think that things on Tatooine have gotten worse,
either. Owen and Beru may have a hard life, but it's their
own life. They have their own little farm and can afford
rather sophisticated equipment. Luke is rather dissatisfied--
he wants to fly spaceships.
The Star Trek Federation, on the other hand, seems like such
a controlled place. What happens to the people who want to go
to the stars but don't quite make it into Star Fleet? Everything
seems so regulated... everyone so conformed. Now and then they
show a character who doesn't conform so well as everyone else
but we're never shown that they have any other options.
Star Wars, even without showing specific cases, gives an impression
of a huge, ancient, and diverse universe.
> Also, there is no evidence at all to support the conclusion that the
> Empire -- even at its height -- is totalitarian enough to have listening
> devices in the huts of moisture farmers. And your invocation of Owen and
> Beru is absurd. They don't speak of the Jedi because they don't want Luke
> running off on some "damn, fool, idealistic crusade," *not* because talking
> about the Jedi is intrinsically dangerous. Also, Owen and Beru are killed
> because of their connection to the missing droids/Death Star plans, not
> because of their connection to the Jedi via Luke.
Thankyou very much for pointing this out.
--Julie
Julie A. Pascal
Allister Huggins wrote:
>
> "Julie A. Pascal" wrote:
> >
> > Bertil Jonell wrote:
(...)
> > > If he reacts that way to Star Wars he'd better not read
> > > Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
> > > a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
> > > all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
> >
> > What about the Star Kingdom of Manticore vs. the Peeps?
>
> Huh? Could you please explain this?
Brin seemed to be pounding on the portrayal of elitism as
any kind of a good thing. The Star Kingdom of Manticore has
got a Queen and a bunch of very privileged nobility... they
are the "good guys" while the Peeps... yes, as someone said,
a socialist dictatorship in reality, hypes egalitarian dogma.
> > If I had to choose where to live, the Star Wars universe
> > or the Star Trek universe, I'd choose Star Wars... even
> > after the Emperor takes over.
>
> *Shrug*, no way. I'll take the Trek universe any day of the week. That
> genetic legacy thing is VERY distasteful in my mouth. Sure, Han Solo
> helped a bit, but I tend to view the SW movies along the lines of how
> Kirk used to save the day with a little backup from Spock as compared
> with ST:TNG. As silly as it sounds, TNG crew tended to spread the glory
> around more.
Yeah, to the whole bridge crew rather than just Kirk, Spock and
McCoy.
> > As for morality...
> >
> > I think that any society that would let a whole alien race
> > perish because of a noninterference policy is dead black evil.
> > At least as bad as blowing up a planet.
> >
> Depends on the situation. I actually never had a problem with this.
Why not? Does it bother you to watch starving Ethiopian children
on TV or do you just figure that it's their own stupid government
and none of our business?
--Julie
David Navarro
>
> I love Star Wars because it is storytelling on a grand scale. Great
> empires, danger, conflict, heroes, mysteries, sacrifice; Star Wars has
> it all. And Brin seems to object to these very elements that make Star
> Wars such a good story. Contrast the Star Wars universe with the Trek
> universe. Star Wars acknowledges that good and evil exist. Trek assumes
> evil is simply a lack of education. Star Wars acknowledges that in an
> imperfect world, force must sometimes be used to resist evil. In Trek,
> Federation starships aren't even considered to be military. They are
> the Force as something beyond ourselves, something worth committing to
> and sacrificing for. Trek proclaims God is dead, and humans are now
> sitting on the throne.
It's funny, I've never considered myself a fan of either series, but
on the strength of the paragraph above, I guess I'll have to color
myself Trekkie.
Off to read the article now...
--
___________________________________________________
David Navarro http://www.alcaudon.com
___________________________________________________
"What a lovely day for shoving a cucumber through a
letterbox and shouting `The Martians are coming!'"
-Ken Dodd.
Paul Andinach
> It's hard to take very seriously an article that presents itself as
> analytic, when the author was paying so little attention to the
> actual movie that he has to ask cluelessly "Uh ... will anyone
> please explain why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk
> everything to capture a teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue
> why Naboo was important -- any hint at all? Hello?"
Similarly, the way he harps on a genetically-determined elite (ie. all
the heroes are from a couple of families, to be a Jedi you must have
midichlorians, etc.) without mentioning any of the counterexamples.
I don't think the name "Han Solo" appears anywhere in either article.
Chewie's mentioned once - when he's pointing out that it's Chewie, not
Leia or Luke, who saved the day in RotJ.
Oh, look, somebody with no genetic predetermined whatsit just saved
the day. Yes, well, let's just ignore that paragraph...
Paul
--
The sixth Sikh sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
Ross TenEyck
>In article <37679c8c...@md.news.verio.net>, lawr...@clark.net wrote:
>> Well, first off, Vader not merely saved his own son, he also offed the
>> Emperor and effectively destroyed the Empire. Second, he DIED doing
>> it -- which is pretty essential to the whole redemption thing, that he
>> gave his life for Luke. Third, nobody but Vader's own kids is seen to
>> forgive him. Fourth, as we see in ROTJ, Vader was under the Emperor's
>> thumb the whole time -- he wasn't Hitler, he was Goering, more or
>> less. It wasn't even Vader who blew up Alderaan -- it was Tarkin.
>One can make the argument that the Force forgives Vader/Anakin, which is
>why he gets a ghostly afterlife instead of oblivion. But we can then make
>the argument that one can't expect a universal energy field to have the
>same values as human beings, and, hey, didn't Brin say that the SF he
>likes questions human values...?
I prefer not to imagine that the Force is capable of "forgiving"
anyone. In the original trilogy, the Force is pervasive and mightily
powerful, but nobody suggested that it was in any way *conscious.*
It's like, oh, gravity -- you can learn to use it to your advantage,
but gravity itself has no "will" in the matter.
The distinction between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force I
took to refer to their effect on *people* -- i.e, if you use the
Force in certain ways, for certain ends, then you are giving in to
the Dark Side and it will have bad effects on your character. The
Dark Side is not, in and of itself, evil; it's that part of the Force
that can be *used* by evil people and for evil ends.
Admittedly, in Episode 1, Qui-Gon talks as though he believes the
Force has a mind -- he mentions that it was the will of the Force
that they met Anakin, and suggests as a possibility that Anakin was
conceived by the the Force. However, I choose -- until Lucas
contradicts me -- to believe that this is just Qui-Gon's personal
view, and that he's full of it.
(I seem to recall somebody posting something from one of the books
-- non-canon, I know -- about the believers in the "Living Force,"
versus the believers in the "Unifying Force," the main proponents
of interest being Qui-Gon and Yoda, respectively. It sounded like
that hinged on just this distinction.)
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Aaron M. Renn
>If I had to choose where to live, the Star Wars universe
>or the Star Trek universe, I'd choose Star Wars... even
>after the Emperor takes over.
The Star Wars universe is much better. There are all those cool weapons
and you get to use them. Then again, if I had unlimited access to a
holosuite...
--
Aaron M. Renn (ar...@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/
Paul Andinach
> This was the only area in which Babylon 5 was significantly superior
> to Star Trek (to open another flamewar)- they had good CGI effects,
> and by God, they were going to use them. Things Went Fast and Blew
> Up with satisfying regularity. Sadly, most of the rest of the show
> was as silly as Trek, and the dialogue was actually _worse_... Ye
> gods, but Straczynski has a tin ear...
George Lucas, JMS, ... I wonder if there's some rule saying that great
visionaries in speculative fiction must write bad dialogue?
Paul Andinach
> His redeemed-Vader screed really got to me, however. He's completely
> right -- Vader killed millions of people, personally tortured
> information from his own daughter, and he gets off at the end
> because he saved Luke from the Emperor. Whatta guy! Let's build him
> a statue.
Point to me where people say "He saved his son, so that's all right",
"Whatta guy!", or "Let's build him a statue", and maybe I'll consider
the point.
Stephen Taylor
> Allister Huggins wrote:
>
>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>
> But will Salon Magazine give Michael Martinez equal time?
Congratulations. I think you've just made the post of the month. ROTFL
and all that.
Michael is a bit *focussed* ins't he?
S.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Taylor st...@afs.net.au
Applied Financial Services
Phone: +61 3 9670 0233
Fax: +61 3 9670 5018
Stephen Taylor
> You cannot hide your reference to "gun control" with these tricks. As
> Heinlein himself put it, "an armed society is a polite society." Those who
> support gun control are like Hitler.
Golly!! Anyone out there remember Serdar Argic?
> --Tim May
Allister Huggins
>
> Bertil Jonell wrote:
> >
> > Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> > > So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> > >(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
> >
> > Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
> > a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
> > all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
>
> What about the Star Kingdom of Manticore vs. the Peeps?
Huh? Could you please explain this?
>
> If I had to choose where to live, the Star Wars universe
> or the Star Trek universe, I'd choose Star Wars... even
> after the Emperor takes over.
*Shrug*, no way. I'll take the Trek universe any day of the week. That
genetic legacy thing is VERY distasteful in my mouth. Sure, Han Solo
helped a bit, but I tend to view the SW movies along the lines of how
Kirk used to save the day with a little backup from Spock as compared
with ST:TNG. As silly as it sounds, TNG crew tended to spread the glory
around more.
> As for morality...
>
> I think that any society that would let a whole alien race
> perish because of a noninterference policy is dead black evil.
> At least as bad as blowing up a planet.
>
Depends on the situation. I actually never had a problem with this.
Allister H.
Chris Blakeley
: Laura Burchard wrote:
: >
: > It's hard to take very seriously an article that presents itself as
: > analytic, when the author was paying so little attention to the actual
: > movie that he has to ask cluelessly "Uh ... will anyone please explain
: > why the Sith Lord and Trade Federation risk everything to capture a
: > teeny periphery planet? Can we have a clue why Naboo was important --
: > any hint at all? Hello?"
: Can _you_ answer that question?
Maybe... let's see if I can take a whack at this issue. First off, I'm
taking it from a POV that doesn't get bogged down in trade agreements,
tariffs (except in name) etc because I'd be willing to bet that Lucas
never bothered himself with such details in order to tell a story.
Naboo isn't important and never was important except as an isolated place
where nothing of consequence happened and so fell into the boondocks.
They're wealthy, they're cultured and have a lot of pretty buildings but,
well, if they fell off the edge of the Galactic Rim nobody would really
notice. It is probably only because they were a power once (think Russia
in the Security Council) that they have any clout in the Senate.
Perfect for Palpatine. Incite an incident, wait a certain amount of time
and a certain number of atrocities, call the queen to the Senate and call
for a change of power. He walks in, does his deeds and we're on our way
to Episode IV-VI.
The Trade Federation, as I see it, should be seen as very powerful
lobbyists, pushing for their own agendas independent from their race(s).
They've plateaued, in terms of power, and the Senate/populace have grown
used to having them around. They want to make a statement to call
attention to themselves and gain some power in the process. Palpatine
(wink wink) approaches them with an idea to blockade some third rate
boondock planet that used to have a lot more clout than it does now. The
blockade is drawn, atrocities committed, the Senate will be so stunned
that either
A) they take action to appease the Federation and all is well (highly
unlikely) or,
B) they take no action, there's a shift in power to Palpatine who gets
what he wants and can then deal with the Federation as he sees fit. (Much
more likely)
I'd be willing to bet that he never saw the invasion turned back but he
could/would/did work around that too. Whether it was or not, Palpatine
probably saw them as utterly disposable.
The Federation never exploited the planet because it wasn't in the plan
that they were aware of. It was simply a really big hostage.
: Was there a clue why Naboo was important to anyone other than
: Palpatine (as a flashpoint)?
Nope. You can either chalk it up to being very subtle (as in those force
fields) or that it would have required more screen time to exposition and
lengthened the film by about 15 minutes or more.
"But Master... why is Naboo so important?"
"Well Obi-Wan, it's because...."
"But Master... why is the Trade Federation...?"
"Well Obi-Wan, it's...."
pass...
--
* Q: What animal would you be if you could be an animal? *
* A: You already are an animal --from _Microserfs_ *
***************************************************************************
* Chris Blakeley * blak...@acm.msu.edu * CyberSkeptic *
Chris Blakeley
: So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
: (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
Well most of what bothered me has been dealt with already. The dismissal
of epic archetypes, the insistence on a certain type of logic until it
became inconvenient (only the Chosen Few could help... except for
Chewbacca that one time... and Lando... and Han... and...), and the
incessant glossing over of details all bothered me. And while his
nitpicking in the second article was ok, a lot of it was so pedantic that
it made my hackles rise. So what if we've seen the little ships go into
the big ship 3 out of 4 movies? Wasn't it cool? I didn't even think that
we'd seen it before this time around.
But the part that bugged me was in an article where he was basically
griping that the characters/events needed some sort of greater motivation
(as I read it, anyway) he missed out on one of the more subtle ways Lucas
uses motivation/characterization, and that is the anger thing. His
insistence that the fact that Young Obi-Wan and Luke goes against the Yoda
speech "Fear leads to anger...." yadda ya.
As i see it, both these characters succeed with their anger because it's
not based on fear. It's just anger, it's just rage at seeing things go
wrong and people that they care about hurt or killed. Anakin is afraid of
the big bad universe, afraid of the judgment of the council as a general
rule and the insistence that he's just not good enough to be Jedi, which
gets him mad, which primes him towards revenge and other bad things:
"...leads to suffering."
C/v
Richard Horton
<alhu...@home.com> wrote:
> In what way? For all we know, Hitler as a youth may have been as
>angelic as Anakin.
ObSF: Geoffrey Landis' short, "Interview with an Artist" (yes, =that=
painter, I'm sorry, I don't find it a significant spoiler) in the
latest Asimov's.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: richard...@sff.net
Home Page: www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Richard Horton
<tfha...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>5. Lucas has gone out of his way to make his universe more democratic. In
>"The Phantom Menace," he even gives us an elected Queen. What does Brin
>want? Lucas is already throwing logic out the window in the face of
>political correctness!
>
Yes, but as I think you are saying perhaps, this is real silliness.
It's Lucas saying "I wanted a Queen, but that's not PC. So I'll make
her (14-year old her!) an =elected= Queen."
Gaah.
>6. All that said, Brin's review of "The Phantom Menace," in non-political
>terms, is right on the mark. It is a beautiful but incoherent mess.
Yes. Though IMO the beautiful (and the extra-textual (extra-filmic?)
explanations one can make (paging Michael Martinez - nah, let's page
Graydon instead) for some of the incoherencies do help a bit.
Richard Horton
wrote:
>I thought it was great. I've seen so many sycophantic, slavering idiots on
>TV talking about how EP1 is the greatest movie of all time, that it was
>refreshing to hear the viewpoint of someone who HATED it -- and not just
>because it was a bad movie. I don't think TPM was very good -- and the more
>I think about it, the worse it gets, kind of like Independence Day -- but
>Jeez, I didn't think it was THAT bad!
You have? I've seen tons of slavering ... not idiots, no, but people
who've rather lost a sense of proportion ... raving about how bad TPM
is. On Usenet, mind, and in newspapers, not on TV. My reaction is
"Hey, it was fun, OK? It wasn't the greatest thing since sliced
bread, or _Dune_, or _Blade Runner_, or _Citizen Kane_, or _2001_
(choose yer pizen), but it wasn't as bad as all =that= either."
Laura Burchard
Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>Naboo has elections, but it's clearly election from within a limited
>class, possibly one clan (or she wouldn't be a teenager), and what's
>elected is a queen. The eligible candidates come from a small group;
>how large is the electorate? We're never told, but there's no
>particular reason to believe that it's anything like "the entire adult
>population." That wouldn't be consistent with the limitations we _do_
>see.
Nope. She's in fact a farmer's daughter (from the book), but Naboo is
sufficiently egalaterian that she got the best education anyone. I really
didn't have a problem with it even without the book background; it's
another case of visuals telling a lot about the story. The elaborate
costumes and handmaids said to me that the Naboo invested a lot of ritual
value in the position of Queen as well as administrative, so that they
would choose someone for more reasons than simple politics didn't
surprise. Joan of Arc was an example one of the interviews used, I thought
vestal virgins as well.
And it's just a trope of Lucas' universe that age is not a barrier to
political power, especially for females. Both Leia and Mon Mothma were
elected Senators in their teens. Complaining that someone's non-human
universe doesn't have the same social rules as 20th century America seems
to me to be a profoundly anti-sfnal idea. It's not a very good Brin essay.
Mariane Desautels
>
> In article <7k6qbq$5...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
> ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) said:
>
> > Force has a mind -- he mentions that it was the will of the Force
> > that they met Anakin, and suggests as a possibility that Anakin was
> > conceived by the the Force. However, I choose -- until Lucas
> > contradicts me -- to believe that this is just Qui-Gon's personal
> > view, and that he's full of it.
>
> arranged for a virgin birth to take place" might be a bit tricky,
> though. :-)
>
> (Yeah, I know: the pseudoTreknobabble about the Force and
> "midichloridians" and the like was so brief and meaning-free as to
> make it hard to tell not only what actually happened with Shmi
> Skywalker but even what any of the significant characters _thought_
> had happened... Nevertheless, it _is_ at least a possibility that
> Annakin didn't have a father in the normal sense of the word, and that
> either it was a _vast_ coincidence or the Force at work.)
Anakin is a clone. How many times will I have to repeat MOPPeT before it
catches on?
M
--
"We want the special."
William Clifford
<lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>Chad R Orzel wrote:
>> >Or, overlooking Trek's annoying tendency towards species-ism. That is,
>> >why is it that being human is the grandest goal a sentient being can
>> >hope to attain? Like Pinocchio, Data wants to be human. He studies
>> >humor, he has a cat, he gets an emotion chip. Why doesn't Data want to
>> >be a Klingon, or a Horta?
>>
>> Well, he _is_ surrounded by humans, and fashioned in their likeness.
>> If he were crewing on a Klingon starship, he would presumably aspire to
>> Klingon-hood.
>
>Data was also created by humans--as was the Doctor on Voyager. What
>species should they find more fascinating than their makers?
I, for one, would have enjoyed ST:TNG a lot more had Data wanted to
become a Gorn.
-William Clifford
Know your fields before replying by mail
William Clifford
wrote:
>In article <7k5t32$o...@rac9.wam.umd.edu>, oil...@wam.umd.edu says...
>[...]
>> I haven't followed Deep Space Nine ("Its mission: To boldly sit in one
>> place where no-one has sat in one place before...") for years.
>[...]
>
> That's about it. I've always seen DS9 as a callous ploy by
>Paramount to filch market share from Babylon 5.
What little I've seen of DS9 (sporatic bits and pieces while visiting
my parents on weekends) showed considerable promise. There was a good
villian--one of the Cardassians (the neck tendon guys) who had
apparently been a death camp commandant while they were occupying the
planet of the nose-bridge-ear-chain people. He provided the show with
a good run of ruthless villiany for a long time and I enjoyed watching
him be mean whenever the show was on and I was in the room.
Then I happened to catch most of an episode where he was trapped or
held hostage or something in a cave with Sisco. He was having some
sort of guilt-overload nervous breakdown it had something to do with
his half-breed daughter. I was disappointed that he should prove to be
so weak, but I let it drift.
Later though I caught part of an episode in which he apparently sold
his soul to the Devil and in the process took out one of the main
characters. I was impressed. It's not every day that you see a serial
TV show sacrifice a protagonist so that the villian can sell his soul
to the Devil.
A couple of weeks ago I saw another snippet wherein the Devil had
transformed him from a neck-tendon guy to a nose-bridge guy so he
could hide out on the planet of the nose-bridge people and wreak havok
under cover.
For me at least, the show just gets better and better.
I haven't seen any Babylon 5.
Richard Harter
Jar Jar's clone. It's all a matter of timing in the development
sequence.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
Q. What's the difference between a bagpipe and a trampoline?
A. You take off your shoes when you jump on a trampoline.
William Clifford
wrote:
>Evelyn C. Leeper (ele...@starship.lucent.com) wrote:
>
>[Brin's fulmination against STAR WARS]
>: In particular, I think he is dead wrong about "Oedipus Rex" being
>: boring.
>
>David Brin thinks the "Oedipus Rex" is boring? What shreds of
>respect I harbored towards him have just evaporated.
Yeah I forget his exact words but I remember wincing and thinking,
"this guy has gone off the deep end."
I wonder if he's actually seen it performed or was just made to read
it in class somewhere? I wonder what he thinks of _Medea_? (actually I
don't really want to know)
William December Starr
"Julie A. Pascal" <ju...@pascal.org> said:
> The Star Trek Federation, on the other hand, seems like such a
> controlled place. What happens to the people who want to go to the
> stars but don't quite make it into Star Fleet?
I _really_ don't think it's even come close to being implied that
Starfleet has a monopoly on spaceships. I mean, you don't ask "What
happens to the people who want to go sailing but don't quite make it
into the U.S. Navy," do you? :-)
> Everything seems so regulated... everyone so conformed. Now and
> then they show a character who doesn't conform so well as everyone
> else but we're never shown that they have any other options.
Remember, Star Trek focuses pretty much on what pass for military
institutions in the 23rd/24th century. Star Wars, on the other hand,
deals mostly with civilians.
Peter Brülls
> Julie A. Pascal wrote:
>> If I had to choose where to live, the Star Wars universe or the
>> Star Trek universe, I'd choose Star Wars... even after the Emperor
>> takes over.
> I think you have not stopped to consider what conditions actually
> were for the average person. In the Republic, admittedly on the
> fringes of it, Anakin and his mother are slaves. In the Empire, Owen
> and Beru are afraid even to tell Luke the truth about who his
> parents were, or allow the Jedi to be so much as mentioned. And
> they're right; they're killed because their connection to these
> things is finally noticed.
Human/citizen rights violations committed by the Federation:
* Telepathic and empathic scanning w/ authorrization by a
court. (About any time when Deanna ``Stasi'' Troi snoops around.)
* Brainwashing, Erasing and Implanting of false memories and/or
personalities without the consent tó the affected person.
* Witholding drug therapy medicaments from space-faring people asking
for help on their own free will.
* Slavery or attempted slavery, dispossesion of natives. (Data, Lal,
Moriarty, other holographic liveforms.)
* Murder. (Tuvix)
* Murder. (Lore)
* Race-related questions on Star Fleet entry forms.
* Preventing genetically altered person from entering Star Fleet w/out
valid reason, while allowing Star Fleet to conduct genetic
experiments on children.
Peter Brülls
> Data was also created by humans--as was the Doctor on Voyager. What
> species should they find more fascinating than their makers?
Their own? Other species?
It's not just that both do not only strive to better understand and
emulate humans, but both express feelings of inadequacy and
inferiority when they fail.
And every other species 10 Million years up the evolutionary ladders
go ape whenever they see humans and do their ``You are destined for
greatness'' spiel.
Hmmm... I wonder.. perhaps all the Star Trek races of human-type
intelligence *are* retards after all and the Q, Organians and the like
just try to booster their ego, while waiting for them to die out and
makngplace for the next wave of carbon lifeforms.
Stephen Taylor
> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
> (99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
A disturbing experience. I was very dissapointed by The Phantom Menace,
and surprised to see how magnificent sets and costumes, graceful,
vigorous fight scenes, state of the art CGI and - given the limitations
of the script - quite decent acting, didn't add up to a movie I liked. I
could go on for hours about the different things I disliked in TPM, but
instead...
I'll just have to say that Brins article was *awful*. It read like an
off the cuff Usenet post, full of snitty little complaints bunged
together in point form, some, some senseless, some just petty. The whole
thing feels like half an hours not very careful work.
One thing that particularly pissed me off is the slighting reference to
politics: "A sci-fi action movie whose premise is based on taxation of
trade routes and negotiations over tariff treaties? Now that ... (yawn)
... is something ... I've ... never ... (snore) ...".
That's not just Brin - there have been a lot of similar comments on the
net. Now I'm *not* saying that the politics in Star Wars is anything to
write home about, but I'd love to see more and better political
manouvering. Nothing says it has to be boring - for a few examples:
_True Colours_, _Wag the Dog_. _The Manchurian Candidate_, Robert Graves
_Claudius Books_, etc.
I remember when I saw the first Star Wars movie, back when I was just a
puppy, as soon as the initial excitement had worn off, I started wanting
details: Where did the rebels get the funding for all that weaponry.
Overt or covert funding? What political compromises did they have to
make to *get* that firepower? Was the rebel alliance grouped around some
pre existing political entity, or was it more like a free floating
guerilla force? What was the political status of all the non-human
aliens? And so on...
Hmm. I'm not sure how this turned into a rant on how SF needs more
politics, but there you go...
> Allister H.
Jens Kilian
> His redeemed-Vader screed really got to me, however. He's completely right
> -- Vader killed millions of people, personally tortured information from
> his own daughter, and he gets off at the end because he saved Luke from the
> Emperor. Whatta guy! Let's build him a statue.
He did most emphatically NOT get off. He died.
Brin may gnash his teeth all he wants to, but even the most evil bastard
can be saved by true repentance. That's a basic Christian belief.
Jens.
--
mailto:j...@acm.org phone:+49-7031-14-7698 (HP TELNET 778-7698)
http://www.bawue.de/~jjk/ fax:+49-7031-14-7351
PGP: 06 04 1C 35 7B DC 1F 26 As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
0x555DA8B5 BB A2 F0 66 77 75 E1 08 so is contempt to the contemptible. [Blake]
Allister Huggins
>
> In article <37670665...@mediaone.net>,
> Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
> >Naboo has elections, but it's clearly election from within a limited
> >class, possibly one clan (or she wouldn't be a teenager), and what's
> >elected is a queen. The eligible candidates come from a small group;
> >how large is the electorate? We're never told, but there's no
> >particular reason to believe that it's anything like "the entire adult
<snip>
> And it's just a trope of Lucas' universe that age is not a barrier to
> political power, especially for females. Both Leia and Mon Mothma were
> elected Senators in their teens. Complaining that someone's non-human
And this is a good thing? Let's see, the best we can get is a couple of
teenagers? Yeah right. That makes little sense.
Allister H.
Allister Huggins
>
> In article <hDMoc91t#GA....@pet.hiwaay.net>,
> Franklin Harris <tfha...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
> >6. All that said, Brin's review of "The Phantom Menace," in non-political
> >terms, is right on the mark. It is a beautiful but incoherent mess.
>
> include the plot, which is a beautiful double layered thing. By far the
> best plotted of any SW movie, lightyears of improvement.
>
Huh? Did we watch the same movie?
Allister H.
Mariane Desautels
> Laura Burchard wrote:
> > Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
> > >Naboo has elections, but it's clearly election from within a limited
> > >class, possibly one clan (or she wouldn't be a teenager), and what's
> > >elected is a queen. The eligible candidates come from a small group;
> > >how large is the electorate? We're never told, but there's no
> > >particular reason to believe that it's anything like "the entire adult
>
> > political power, especially for females. Both Leia and Mon Mothma were
> > elected Senators in their teens. Complaining that someone's non-human
>
> And this is a good thing? Let's see, the best we can get is a couple of
> teenagers? Yeah right. That makes little sense.
Considering that to which old men in political situations (Vader,
Palpatine, Tarkin, etc.) get up in the Star Wars universe, I'd say that
Leia, Amidala and Mon Mothma are pretty damned good choices.
Paul Andinach
> Laura Burchard wrote:
>
> > Franklin Harris <tfha...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
> >
> > > 6. All that said, Brin's review of "The Phantom Menace," in
> > > non-political terms, is right on the mark. It is a beautiful but
> > > incoherent mess.
> >
> > Actually, it's not one bit incoherent. It has its flaws, but they
> > don't include the plot, which is a beautiful double layered thing.
> > By far the best plotted of any SW movie, lightyears of
> > improvement.
>
> Huh? Did we watch the same movie?
Possibly not. It depends on your views on how a person's beliefs and
expectations affect the reality they experience.
Paul
--
The sixth Sikh sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Chad R Orzel <oil...@wam.umd.edu> spake:
>In article <3766843A...@home.com>,
>Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
>> So what did people think of Mr. Brin's article in today's Salon
>>(99/06/15)? You can read the article at http://www.salon.com
>He has a tendency to do this sort of thing- his harangue about Ralph
>Bakshi has something of the same tone.
>He completely misreads a number of elements of the Star Wars story, and
>is rather selective about where he looks deeply at things. He reads
So what else is new?
-- <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
Jim Mann
Maskull wrote in message ...
>> place where no-one has sat in one place before...") for years.
>[...]
>
> That's about it. I've always seen DS9 as a callous ploy by
>Paramount to filch market share from Babylon 5.
>
But DS9 in it's last couple of seasons has turned into one of the best SF
shows ever. These last couple of years have been very good, and things
certainly haven't been just sitting in one place. It's just a shame that
so many people gave up on it in its first couple of years, before the show
matured (I think, at least in part, because Voyager became the "flagship"
and thus the Paramount powers-that-be began ignoring DS9 so that they could
get away with things they'd never have gotten away with had it still be the
main Trek show.)
---
Jim Mann
Jim Mann
William Clifford wrote in message <3771491e...@news.ionline.com>...
>held hostage or something in a cave with Sisco. He was having some
>sort of guilt-overload nervous breakdown it had something to do with
>his half-breed daughter. I was disappointed that he should prove to be
>so weak, but I let it drift.
>
In isolation, that's perhaps how it would come off. But there was a lot of
build up to this point. His relationship with his daughter and his breakdown
after her death (I don't think he was fully sane any more after she died)
were developed over many episodes.
---
Jim Mann
Elisabeth Carey
>
> In article <37670665...@mediaone.net>,
> Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
> >Naboo has elections, but it's clearly election from within a limited
> >class, possibly one clan (or she wouldn't be a teenager), and what's
> >elected is a queen. The eligible candidates come from a small group;
> >how large is the electorate? We're never told, but there's no
> >particular reason to believe that it's anything like "the entire adult
> >see.
>
> Nope. She's in fact a farmer's daughter (from the book), but Naboo is
> sufficiently egalaterian that she got the best education anyone.
Nope, sorry, doesn't work. The Queen and her Handmaidens have
specialized commando training; if _everybody_, or any substantial
fraction of "everybody" on Naboo had that kind of training, the head
of her palace guard wouldn't be complaining that they only have
security and police forces, no army.
> I really
> didn't have a problem with it even without the book background; it's
> another case of visuals telling a lot about the story. The elaborate
> costumes and handmaids said to me that the Naboo invested a lot of ritual
> value in the position of Queen as well as administrative, so that they
> would choose someone for more reasons than simple politics didn't
> surprise. Joan of Arc was an example one of the interviews used, I thought
> vestal virgins as well.
>
> And it's just a trope of Lucas' universe that age is not a barrier to
> political power, especially for females. Both Leia and Mon Mothma were
> elected Senators in their teens. Complaining that someone's non-human
> universe doesn't have the same social rules as 20th century America > seems
> to me to be a profoundly anti-sfnal idea. It's not a very good Brin > essay.
Complaining because the society as presented makes no sense at all is
very sfnal. If a couple of teenagers are the best available candidates
for political office in a high-tech, star-traveling culture, they're
in serious trouble. Where are their adults in their thirties and
forties, who have some experience of the galaxy? And if Princess Leia
is the "best candidate" for the _obvious_ reason, her _rank_, they're
in even more trouble, and Brin is even more right about the
essentially hierarchical, authoritarian nature of the Star Wars
worldview.
Bear in mind that Jeanne d'Arc was an inspirational leader at a time
when France _was_ in a very sad state, didn't possess day-to-day
political power--and ultimately lost. The Vestal Virgins were taken
from "good" families at age ten, were educated to their position--and
also were not a part of the day-to-day government of Rome.
Lis Carey
Jim Mann
Chris Blakeley wrote in message <7k73q0$kaa$2...@msunews.cl.msu.edu>...
>>
>But the part that bugged me was in an article where he was basically
>griping that the characters/events needed some sort of greater motivation
>(as I read it, anyway) he missed out on one of the more subtle ways Lucas
>uses motivation/characterization, and that is the anger thing. His
>insistence that the fact that Young Obi-Wan and Luke goes against the Yoda
>speech "Fear leads to anger...." yadda ya.
But he was right in part of this at least. The whole bloody mess is Yoda's
fault. They bring in a kid who is potentially dangerous (the whole Jedi
council sees this). The logical reaction -- train him under their eye, so
that he is lead in the proper direction. Their decision (pushed by Yoda):
let the somewhat hot-tempered apprentice of a Jedi known for doing things
his own way train him.
---
Jim Mann
Elisabeth Carey
>
> Allister Huggins wrote:
> >
> > "Julie A. Pascal" wrote:
> > >
> > > Bertil Jonell wrote:
> (...)
> > > > If he reacts that way to Star Wars he'd better not read
> > > > Wise & Hickmans 'Star of the Guardians', or he'll be risking
> > > > a heart attack: SotG comes out very *explicitely* in favour of
> > > > all the things he objects to in Star Wars.
> > >
> > > What about the Star Kingdom of Manticore vs. the Peeps?
> >
> > Huh? Could you please explain this?
>
> Brin seemed to be pounding on the portrayal of elitism as
> any kind of a good thing. The Star Kingdom of Manticore has
> got a Queen and a bunch of very privileged nobility... they
> are the "good guys" while the Peeps... yes, as someone said,
> a socialist dictatorship in reality, hypes egalitarian dogma.
Weber does, in fact, deal with some of the serious problems caused by
having a privileged nobility, and the nobility exercising their
privileges is _not_ portrayed as one of the good things about
Manticore. And the egalitarian propaganda of the Peeps is a mask on a
_far_ more stratified and unequal culture than Manticore has.
<snip>
Lis Carey
Jim Mann
Peter Brülls wrote in message <87n1y0y...@rogue.peter.ecce-terram.de>...
>Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net>:
>
>
>> Data was also created by humans--as was the Doctor on Voyager. What
>> species should they find more fascinating than their makers?
>
>Their own? Other species?
>
>It's not just that both do not only strive to better understand and
>emulate humans, but both express feelings of inadequacy and
>inferiority when they fail.
Most of us express such feelings when we fail at tasks that are important to
us.
>
>And every other species 10 Million years up the evolutionary ladders
>go ape whenever they see humans and do their ``You are destined for
>greatness'' spiel.
>
"Every other species"? Well, except for the Ferengi. And the Romulans. And
the Klingons. And the Cardassians. And the Founders. And the Borg. And the
various species Voyager ran into in the Delta quadrant. And ...
---
Jim Mann
Phil Fraering
>Brin's essays are all too often reminiscent of Usenet. When he takes his
>time, and puts in the work, he writes good stuff, and can argue
>reasonably persuasively. When something rubs him the wrong way, though,
>he tends to turn out poorly-thought-out screeds with a tone just this
>side of the anarcho-libertarian hordes grepping the news spool for "g*n
>c*ntr*l" and "H*inl*in."
Please don't associate the libertarians with Brin, especially after
the transparent society stuff. It almost looks like some of the
more ill-conceived rants you sometimes see on slashdot.
--
Phil Fraering "What are we going to to tonight, Miles?"
p...@globalreach.net "Same thing we do every night, Ivan,
/Will work for tape/ try to take over the Imperium!"
Phil Fraering
>You cannot hide your reference to "gun control" with these tricks. As
>Heinlein himself put it, "an armed society is a polite society." Those who
>support gun control are like Hitler.
I see your "gun control and Hitler" comparison, and raise you
one "STOP HITLER FROM BANNING GUNS SO WE CAN BLOW UP THE MOON
AND MOVE THE EARTH INTO A NEW ORBIT."
William Clifford
wrote:
>I remember when I saw the first Star Wars movie, back when I was just a
>puppy, as soon as the initial excitement had worn off, I started wanting
>details: Where did the rebels get the funding for all that weaponry.
>Overt or covert funding? What political compromises did they have to
>make to *get* that firepower? Was the rebel alliance grouped around some
>pre existing political entity, or was it more like a free floating
>guerilla force? What was the political status of all the non-human
>aliens? And so on...
That's were a lot of franchises have gone wrong. SF fans demand
details. In the case of SW it never had fine detail because Lucas just
shoots from the hip. Where even unimportant and trivial details lack
fans of a particular franchise will retcon. See
<http://www.theforce.net/swtc/> for example (although I know that you
already know intimately what I'm talking about).
Paul Andinach
> That's were a lot of franchises have gone wrong. SF fans demand
> details. In the case of SW it never had fine detail because Lucas
> just shoots from the hip. Where even unimportant and trivial details
> lack fans of a particular franchise will retcon. See
> <http://www.theforce.net/swtc/> for example (although I know that
> you already know intimately what I'm talking about).
An interesting wrinkle with the Star Wars franchise is that a lot of
this detail *does* exist - it's just not in the movies.
Consider The Phantom Menace - every member of the Jedi Council, all of
the Trade Federation whatsits, and Queen Amidala's retinue, they all
had names even though none of the names are actually used on screen.
(Which makes reading the credits a pain.)
Chad R Orzel
>oil...@wam.umd.edu (Chad R Orzel) writes:
>>Brin's essays are all too often reminiscent of Usenet. When he takes his
>>time, and puts in the work, he writes good stuff, and can argue
>>reasonably persuasively. When something rubs him the wrong way, though,
>>he tends to turn out poorly-thought-out screeds with a tone just this
>>side of the anarcho-libertarian hordes grepping the news spool for "g*n
>>c*ntr*l" and "H*inl*in."
>Please don't associate the libertarians with Brin, especially after
>the transparent society stuff. It almost looks like some of the
>more ill-conceived rants you sometimes see on slashdot.
Actually, he's not really all that far from the tinfoil-hat
net.libertarian crowd, at least on the level of his basic premises. They
both see personal freedom as an unalloyed good, and view government and
authority- _all_ government and authority- as at least a potential threat
to personal freedom. Governments are not to be trusted, and must be
watched closely at all times.
They differ primarily in the means they choose to achieve the limitation
of government. Brin is, so far as I can tell (I'm halfway through the
book), more pragmatic, saying "Look, we've already _got_ a big
government, and we're not going to get rid of that. How do we use
technology to constrain government?" rather than "Let's get rid of most
of the government."
He's deliberately chosen an oddball tactic for achieving his goal, but
the aims and goals are not so different from those professed by the
net.libertarians.
As to this specific article, I used the anarcho-libertarian crowd on
Usenet as an example largely because the tinfoil-hat wing of that faction
is presently responsible for most of the poorly-thought-out
frothing-at-the-mouth screeds that are occupying the newsgroups I read.
And Brin's basic line of argument is pretty similar to their jabbering.
Later,
OilCan
James Nicoll
Allister Huggins <alhu...@home.com> wrote:
>Laura Burchard wrote:
>>
>> In article <37670665...@mediaone.net>,
>> Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>> >Naboo has elections, but it's clearly election from within a limited
>> >class, possibly one clan (or she wouldn't be a teenager), and what's
>> >elected is a queen. The eligible candidates come from a small group;
>> >how large is the electorate? We're never told, but there's no
>> >particular reason to believe that it's anything like "the entire adult
>
>
>> And it's just a trope of Lucas' universe that age is not a barrier to
>> political power, especially for females. Both Leia and Mon Mothma were
>> elected Senators in their teens. Complaining that someone's non-human
>
>teenagers? Yeah right. That makes little sense.
>
Anyone here known how old the American Founding Fathers were in
1776?
--
"Can i have my midlife crisis now while I am young and agile enough
to enjoy it?"