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Watched the original Star Wars trilogy with the kid this weekend and it’s been a long time since I have seen it. One thing that really stuck out to me was… what, thematically, is the movie trying to *say* about droids? The message seems to be that they are regular people like everyone else, and also chattel slaves, and also that’s it’s fine and also kind of funny? Like both Han and Luke are repeatedly shown doing obvious villain shit to droids and I can’t tell why we are not supposed to care

@glyph My fave is how they operate totally autonomously and never need to be plugged in to power or get an update. Save that one time in Dagoba where Luke plugs R2 in or the fact that R2 is always shorting out you’d forget they need power. Also they operate seamlessly in sandy deserts, on ice planets, in space, under thick foliage, etc.

Basically, the droids are Laurel and Hardy, or Cagney and Lacey. The odd couple, in space, played for laughs. That’s as far as Lucas goes with it.

Cat Hicks

@cyberlyra @glyph otoh this is treated so much more seriously and beautifully in Andor though where there are continual questions of droid power and functioning, as so many of the questions about manufacturing and technology were taken much more seriously in that show! My favorite was the part where the droid lying was going to take extra power. Lost none of the original Star Wars droid poignancy and added so much with those choices

@grimalkina @cyberlyra I still haven't seen Andor largely out of spite for Episode IX, I should probably just get over it and watch the good star wars even if it came after the bad star wars

@grimalkina @cyberlyra I am still so, so mad about the squandered potential of TLJ

@glyph @cyberlyra that's a forever mood. The secret alternative stormtrooper uprising plot that lives only in my head...😭

@glyph @grimalkina lol I am one of the very few humans on the internet that loved TLJ. All the rest of em, prequels, sequels, basically everything else I can’t stand, with exception of most of Rogue One and Andor.

(I realize them’s fighting words but I think I was just so, so mad about the squandered potential of literally everything released after ROTJ, that a movie that said, burn it all down, let the past die, don’t take any of this too seriously, made me feel seen ;)

@cyberlyra @grimalkina I loved TLJ! what I hated was RoS, a movie whose synopsis was so atrocious that I refuse to even see it

@cyberlyra @grimalkina like, TLJ was stretching, reaching out, straining to reach a level of self-awareness about what Star Wars *is* as a franchise and a cultural artifact and then, in conversation with these powerful ideas ("let the past die, kill it if you have to") RoS's take is: wheeeeee laser swords

@glyph @grimalkina oh cool we have found each other then! The two people on the internet who loved it!
RoS was the worst. Like a toddler having a tantrum with all his Star Wars toys. You didn’t miss anything, just the sad sad ending of a movie series that long deserved better.

@cyberlyra @grimalkina my favorite part was when the skywalker said "it's skywalkerin' time"

@cyberlyra @glyph I liked TLJ too 😃 I like a lot of stuff. Agreed on these takes haha

@cyberlyra @glyph @grimalkina TLJ was my favorite Star War, unquestionably. I will not write an essay here about why because I can't decide how to keep it to 500 characters!

@cyberlyra @glyph @grimalkina make it three! TLJ is great. The bad part is that ROS followed it. That was a huge slap in the face.

@algernon @cyberlyra @glyph @grimalkina While TLJ has its flaws, it retroactively improved the prequels for me, and it was genuinely exciting to see Star Wars pivot in anticipation of an endgame. They had a beautiful opportunity to do a break-the-cycle story and just completely wasted it.

@mpirnat @algernon @cyberlyra @grimalkina _yes_, absolutely. the implications of the big twist-reveal about the nature of the Dark Side were so thick you could cut them with a knife. and then nothing. Nothing!

@glyph I too have never seen it because of exactly that reason but Andor is one of the best pieces of storytelling about resistance I have ever seen

It’s a slow start, and kind of has three large four-episode arcs, but very good

@glyph @grimalkina @cyberlyra TLJ was the same as ESB in that it went straight to “these characters don’t deserve to save the galaxy” and then ROTJ was like “let’s do ANH again with muppets”

@flyingsaceur @grimalkina @cyberlyra ROTJ certainly has its flaws, but I felt like it at least had something to say? It was a weird, muddled thing in places (Obi-Wan is like "if you don't kill your dad, then the emperor won" and then the emperor responding with "the way that I win is I get you to kill your dad") but it at least can be easily interpreted as a commentary on the corrosive nature of hatred, even justifiable hatred, and honoring sacrifices. RoS is just an unmitigated disaster

@glyph @flyingsaceur @cyberlyra counterpoint, I dressed up as BB8 for Halloween including a lighter and a little BB8-shaped ball fascinator on top of my head and it was amazing

@glyph @grimalkina @cyberlyra not saying that ROTJ wasn’t good, but it retreaded old ground and set the precedent of “if Tatooine is so boring, why do the movies keep spending time there?” Jabba’s palace, gross eighties aliens, characters going on weird side quests, it all feels like Lucas indulging his storytelling tics and putting that into The Phantom Menace. Leigh Brackett took the sequel in a completely different direction, like Rian Johnson did, and the creators blinked. JJ Abram’s is no George Lucas, so Rise of Skywalker
wasn’t even an interesting mess like Revenge of the Sith

@flyingsaceur literal Muppet Star Wars would rule, actually? Kermit & Miss Piggy as Han and Leia, mmmmaybe Rizzo as Luke.

@0x2ba22e11 Family Guy Blue Harvest is a throwback to when every kids cartoon did a Star Wars episode the way Moonlighting did Taming of the Shrew: i remember Muppet Babies did that, and even Hello Kitty had one

@glyph @cyberlyra it's got one of my favorite episodes of any sci-fi ever in it!

@grimalkina @glyph @cyberlyra the series is quite good, but I’m curious which episode you mean?

And now I’m pondering my favorite single episode of TV scifi… probably Kiksuya from West World s2? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiksuya

en.wikipedia.orgKiksuya - Wikipedia

@glyph @grimalkina @cyberlyra
Bad Batch is also a good series. It is animated though. Some say it is kid stuff, but I would disagree.

@grimalkina @glyph yes that is true. Also in Solo, which for all its foibles actually had droid rights at its core. Kind of in the same way that Mary Poppins makes fun of suffragettes, but at least it was in there, along with Lando caring for his robot companion, and the story line indicates continuity with the Falcon’s computer…

@cyberlyra @glyph ohhh I actually haven't seen that one yet and now I'm looking forward to it thank you! Our machines and ourselves 😭 so fascinating to see the complexity come out even in the biggest most nostalgia-grab franchises sometimes

@grimalkina @cyberlyra @glyph one of the central themes of the various non main movie Star Wars things is how the rebels treat their droids much better and the empire often loses as a result. Several episodes of Clone Wars feature droids as the main characters. But none of it quite comes together into a coherent take.

@asociologist @grimalkina @glyph Agh you know, I still haven’t found the time to watch Clone Wars… Sadly, it is still on my list. I think I’m overwhelmed at how much of it there is.

@cyberlyra @grimalkina @glyph it’s a lot and not all of it is great. From an earlier era of tv when shows could meander for a while. I think it’s kind of important here - it eases you into what ends up being a dark reflection on the horrors of war, PTSD, child soldiers, etc. but it starts a bit goofy and uneven. Unlike the movies, it actually answers compellingly the key q of the prequels: how did Anakin become Vader? But you have to get through a lot…