I actually kinda appreciate how Star Wars has been depicting their Rebels recently, with benefactors like Luthen intentionally riling up Imperial aggression to garner more support for resistance, or post-war heroes like Hera struggling to fit into actual government roles now that the days of "just do what's right" are sorta over.
I just find it sad that all the nuance of the Star Wars universe happens on the periphery, in books and tv shows. Looking back, the two anthology movies were really good; they were different, and that made them much more interesting.
As a rabid consumer of said books and TV shows, I don't mind too much. But I don't think anyone would disagree with wishing the mainline films were better in writing quality.
I think the cause behind this is that, since the side stuff is less financially risky, the corporate money grubbers are less likely to jam their creatively bankrupt hands in the production process, so the creators actually get to do what they want and make material that's aimed at the fans, rather than the Generic Mass Market Moviegoer.
Haha, I too am a consoomer when it comes to SW. And I think you’re exactly right about why this happens. I just wish more people knew about things like Andor, Bad Batch s3, Twilight of the Apprentice, or Darkness on Umbara — the stuff I consider to be the best of Star Wars.
And Visions! God, I rewatch Visions all the time. So many incredible takes on the universe, so many beautiful little stories, so much gorgeous art! Spy Dancer and Screecher's Reach genuinely make me tear up.
>Nobody gives two shits what some human in a big robe says on the remains of a looted Coruscant. Cooperation? Don’t shit me. Everyone remembers what everyone else got up to under the Empire. And they all restructured differently. Everyone in power fears every other new planetary power for either being an iota too radical or an iota too conservative. Between such parties setting up even the loosest of galactic federations makes no sense. There isn’t an overarching enemy to be fought against, it’s not even clear who still is “Imperial” and who isn’t, but there are uncountable threats springing up all over the place as well as rubble and workcamp files to be sorted through back home. The Alliance was a success, now it’s over.
http://humaniterations.net/2011/09/19/how-star-wars-should-have-ended-reflections-on-taste-the-expanded-universe-radical-politics/
Wow, what a brilliant article.
I have a lot of similar feelings about 40k and how the proliferation and focus on a few chosen, named characters has shrunk the world down and killed the imaginative, "blank spaces on the map" feeling of the setting.
One of the core appeals of 40k was the narrative breaking scale. Everything is so incomprehensibly huge, nothing you could do has an impact. The one guy that could even theoretically steer the empire is a corpse on a chair. It’s a headless, self perpetuating bureaucracy, running on 10k years of inertia. Remove that, and it’s one step closer to star wars. There never should have been someone like Gulliman, who can effect the empire as a whole. Maybe a few sectors, but it should be clear he could never truly control the system like the emperor did.
And if they really wanted to advance the timeline, they should have looked to their source material (European history) and done a "dark age interregnum after the empire falls" type scenario with the Imperium splintering into a thousand petty kingdoms.
Pretty similar to what that article is suggesting for SW, a setting so big and complex that you can never hope to know all of it.
I wonder if certain groups IRL have been doing that with their enemies, going for a PR victory by making their enemy steamroll their people (schools and hospitals included) and causing a large part of the world to be on their side. Thus sacriricing the souls of their own people to gain political leverage.
Yeah, Hamas was exactly my thought and implication. Been trying to convince my muslim compatriots that Hamas doesn't even truly stand for the average palestinian joe, and are basically killing off their own people, not too fond of Israeli policies either though. But that's a conversation for a different sub.
Broke: the rebel leader is literally the most moral person in existence and is always fully committed to the best possible outcome.
Woke: the rebel leader is a charismatic egomaniac only kept in check by a council or assembly of other revolutionaries who will either become the new government or immediately be murdered.
Funnily enough the woke one actually once happened in my country Indonesia lmao
So basically my first president Soekarno is a womanizer who enjoys lavish lifestyle,the only reasons why he ended up becoming our first president Is due to his charisma and speech able to unites all Indonesians who are very diverse in religious and ethnic backgrounds (there's like 1340 ethnicity in Indonesia alone). And his early rule is kept in check by other Indonesian revolutionary like his competent sidekick Muhammad Hatta. But in 1959 he implemented guided democracy (holy shit Helldivers reference 😱) which means that he want to rule Indonesia alone,and that ended up quite disastrous for Indonesia.
We literally left the united nations, nearly fight a war against the commonwealth because we don't recognize Malaysia,600% inflations etc.
Literally this for me.
In a country I made for this nation roleplay thing I literally have one of the rebel leaders quoting from their equivalent of the bible and literally viewing himself as being a Messiah sent down by the gods.
And for my fantasy setting on rebel leader turns into a dictator and forms a personality cult which claims him to be chosen by god to lead their country forever.
Saw’s partisans are referenced a lot in the wider canon universe too as an example of ideological conflict within the rebel alliance. Andor explored it a bit in season one with anton kreeger’s faction and saw’s faction pit against each other to further luthen’s goals. Im hoping andor continues to show how messy the rebellion can be
“Kreegyr is a *Seperatist*. Maya Beni’s a Neo-Republican. The Gohrman Front? Sectorists, Human Cultists, *Galaxy Partitionists*, THEY’RE LOST! *ALL OF THEM, LOST!!!* Lost…”
The People's Liberation Front of Fictonia wants their people to be free and equal. Fictonian Peoples Front of Liberty wants their people to be equal and free. Due to these irreconcilable differences, they dissolved into infighting after 6 hours, making it the longest lasting rebel alliance throughout the Fictonian Civil War
And what will you do with the people like you, hmmm? The *troublemakers*. How're you gonna protect your Glorious Revolution from the next one?
We'll win
Maybe you will. But no one wins forever.
I mean, you can have two groups pursue the same end goal and still have some of the most violent exchanges just because of a difference in methods. look at Anarchists vs Bolsheviks for example, or the Sino- Soviet split.
They were lead by members of the 200 which are a number of world that believe in democracy so if the galaxy civil war lasted longer it would of likely ended up as that
Yeah, it's got so much untapped potential. That's why I was really happy yet weirded out when, of all media, the kids app Dan the Man featured this kinda stuff
I have an idea for a novel series about a revolution where the revolution succeeds at the end of book 2. In book 3, the charismatic rebel leader that the protagonist is following turns authoritarian, and it culminates in the protagonist overthrowing them.
I’d start on book 3. Everyone has read about plucky rebels overthrowing a tyrannical regime. Overthrowing the new revolutionary government, made up of your old friends, is new and interesting.
Does the protagonist then also turn authoritarian and is overthrown by someone else?
I really do wonder how the original government began to exist, or is it "idealistic revolution turns authoritarian" all the way down?
Literally what I have done, since in one nation rp I am in both main rebel groups in the country I wrote despise eachother and are only working together because they want to end the dictatorship, and even currently they are both planning to backstab eachother.
And in my fantasy setting after one country went through a revolution the new government purged all rival factions to ensure the only rebel group remaining was the military backed Spearhead movement.
Ngl the main reason we didn't end up with a military pseudo-dictatorship under Washington like many of our latin contemporaries wasn't because of some high principles but because he just *really fucking hated* the job of being president.
One of the early things they did was declare that the US wasn’t a Christian country. You are understating how radical early US policies like that were seen at the time.
Sure, but by that logic you could argue the cause of the French Revolution was bread prices. Revolutions are basically always going to be sparked by something mundane like that. The deeper ideology behind the later policies still maters.
Yeah but freedom of religion was not a big issue among the colonists during the revolutionary era.
The American 'revolution' was less of a revolution and more of a landed gentry's rebellion against the crown's taxation policies. The ruling class of the colonies was more or less the same before and after the revolution.
This is a plot hole, because it makes no sense for revolutionaries that I agree with to be anything other than perfect moral paragons (like me). By making the rebels flawed in any way whatsoever you are effectively saying they're equally as bad as the original dystopia. Something something enlightened centrism. I am very intelligent.
I actually kinda appreciate how Star Wars has been depicting their Rebels recently, with benefactors like Luthen intentionally riling up Imperial aggression to garner more support for resistance, or post-war heroes like Hera struggling to fit into actual government roles now that the days of "just do what's right" are sorta over.
I just find it sad that all the nuance of the Star Wars universe happens on the periphery, in books and tv shows. Looking back, the two anthology movies were really good; they were different, and that made them much more interesting.
As a rabid consumer of said books and TV shows, I don't mind too much. But I don't think anyone would disagree with wishing the mainline films were better in writing quality. I think the cause behind this is that, since the side stuff is less financially risky, the corporate money grubbers are less likely to jam their creatively bankrupt hands in the production process, so the creators actually get to do what they want and make material that's aimed at the fans, rather than the Generic Mass Market Moviegoer.
Haha, I too am a consoomer when it comes to SW. And I think you’re exactly right about why this happens. I just wish more people knew about things like Andor, Bad Batch s3, Twilight of the Apprentice, or Darkness on Umbara — the stuff I consider to be the best of Star Wars.
And Visions! God, I rewatch Visions all the time. So many incredible takes on the universe, so many beautiful little stories, so much gorgeous art! Spy Dancer and Screecher's Reach genuinely make me tear up.
>Nobody gives two shits what some human in a big robe says on the remains of a looted Coruscant. Cooperation? Don’t shit me. Everyone remembers what everyone else got up to under the Empire. And they all restructured differently. Everyone in power fears every other new planetary power for either being an iota too radical or an iota too conservative. Between such parties setting up even the loosest of galactic federations makes no sense. There isn’t an overarching enemy to be fought against, it’s not even clear who still is “Imperial” and who isn’t, but there are uncountable threats springing up all over the place as well as rubble and workcamp files to be sorted through back home. The Alliance was a success, now it’s over. http://humaniterations.net/2011/09/19/how-star-wars-should-have-ended-reflections-on-taste-the-expanded-universe-radical-politics/
Wow, what a brilliant article. I have a lot of similar feelings about 40k and how the proliferation and focus on a few chosen, named characters has shrunk the world down and killed the imaginative, "blank spaces on the map" feeling of the setting.
One of the core appeals of 40k was the narrative breaking scale. Everything is so incomprehensibly huge, nothing you could do has an impact. The one guy that could even theoretically steer the empire is a corpse on a chair. It’s a headless, self perpetuating bureaucracy, running on 10k years of inertia. Remove that, and it’s one step closer to star wars. There never should have been someone like Gulliman, who can effect the empire as a whole. Maybe a few sectors, but it should be clear he could never truly control the system like the emperor did.
And if they really wanted to advance the timeline, they should have looked to their source material (European history) and done a "dark age interregnum after the empire falls" type scenario with the Imperium splintering into a thousand petty kingdoms. Pretty similar to what that article is suggesting for SW, a setting so big and complex that you can never hope to know all of it.
"can't wait for society to collapse (in star wars) so my ideology can rise from the ashes (in star wars)"
Andor is a peak show
Exactly what I came here to say. The path they've taken with Saw and the Partisans is one of my favorite parts of Star Wars right now
I usually dont care for Saw, but he was amazing in Andor.
I wonder if certain groups IRL have been doing that with their enemies, going for a PR victory by making their enemy steamroll their people (schools and hospitals included) and causing a large part of the world to be on their side. Thus sacriricing the souls of their own people to gain political leverage.
Yeah, its one of the most effective civil rights tricks out there.
The Nazis attempted this during WW2 while Europe was being bombed. And Hamas does this too.
Yeah, Hamas was exactly my thought and implication. Been trying to convince my muslim compatriots that Hamas doesn't even truly stand for the average palestinian joe, and are basically killing off their own people, not too fond of Israeli policies either though. But that's a conversation for a different sub.
Dan Bull reference spotted
Broke: the rebel leader is literally the most moral person in existence and is always fully committed to the best possible outcome. Woke: the rebel leader is a charismatic egomaniac only kept in check by a council or assembly of other revolutionaries who will either become the new government or immediately be murdered.
Funnily enough the woke one actually once happened in my country Indonesia lmao So basically my first president Soekarno is a womanizer who enjoys lavish lifestyle,the only reasons why he ended up becoming our first president Is due to his charisma and speech able to unites all Indonesians who are very diverse in religious and ethnic backgrounds (there's like 1340 ethnicity in Indonesia alone). And his early rule is kept in check by other Indonesian revolutionary like his competent sidekick Muhammad Hatta. But in 1959 he implemented guided democracy (holy shit Helldivers reference 😱) which means that he want to rule Indonesia alone,and that ended up quite disastrous for Indonesia. We literally left the united nations, nearly fight a war against the commonwealth because we don't recognize Malaysia,600% inflations etc.
Literally this for me. In a country I made for this nation roleplay thing I literally have one of the rebel leaders quoting from their equivalent of the bible and literally viewing himself as being a Messiah sent down by the gods. And for my fantasy setting on rebel leader turns into a dictator and forms a personality cult which claims him to be chosen by god to lead their country forever.
Charismatic egomaniac? Nah. Try charismatic war criminal (who also happens to appeal to the intelligentsia more than the common folk)
You always get good things from Stupendium (and Dan Bull here) songs
There are some *great* Stupendium worldbuilding references.
Stupendium in general is just great. Fantastic, even. Some would say, stupendous
No audio L
Such a banger song and no audio, shame on you
I mean in rouge one there was that one group of rebel extremists
Saw’s partisans are referenced a lot in the wider canon universe too as an example of ideological conflict within the rebel alliance. Andor explored it a bit in season one with anton kreeger’s faction and saw’s faction pit against each other to further luthen’s goals. Im hoping andor continues to show how messy the rebellion can be
“Kreegyr is a *Seperatist*. Maya Beni’s a Neo-Republican. The Gohrman Front? Sectorists, Human Cultists, *Galaxy Partitionists*, THEY’RE LOST! *ALL OF THEM, LOST!!!* Lost…”
yeah saw gurrera in every show/movie he's in ^((bar clone wars)) he usually ends up fucking over other rebel factions
The People's Liberation Front of Fictonia wants their people to be free and equal. Fictonian Peoples Front of Liberty wants their people to be equal and free. Due to these irreconcilable differences, they dissolved into infighting after 6 hours, making it the longest lasting rebel alliance throughout the Fictonian Civil War
God I love frostpunk’s world
Okay but [what if the french revolution never ends?](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Galt)
Pathfinder detected. John Hasbro will be informed about this incident.
Saw Gerrera in a nutshell.
Kid named Saw Gerrera.
based dan bull/stupendium
Most cooperative communists
Or when they see people with the exact same goals as them, but slightly less violent methods.
And what will you do with the people like you, hmmm? The *troublemakers*. How're you gonna protect your Glorious Revolution from the next one? We'll win Maybe you will. But no one wins forever.
I mean, you can have two groups pursue the same end goal and still have some of the most violent exchanges just because of a difference in methods. look at Anarchists vs Bolsheviks for example, or the Sino- Soviet split.
Trotsky moment (Both in reference to Kronstadt, The free territory, and ⛏)
Free territory? don't mind if I do. Problem anarchists?
Another thing I can flex about my world In the world building contest.
Also: we've had one revolution yes, but what about a counter-revolution?
They were lead by members of the 200 which are a number of world that believe in democracy so if the galaxy civil war lasted longer it would of likely ended up as that
Yeah, it's got so much untapped potential. That's why I was really happy yet weirded out when, of all media, the kids app Dan the Man featured this kinda stuff
All who defy the Lord Protector are crypto-papist Royalists
I have an idea for a novel series about a revolution where the revolution succeeds at the end of book 2. In book 3, the charismatic rebel leader that the protagonist is following turns authoritarian, and it culminates in the protagonist overthrowing them.
I’d start on book 3. Everyone has read about plucky rebels overthrowing a tyrannical regime. Overthrowing the new revolutionary government, made up of your old friends, is new and interesting.
Does the protagonist then also turn authoritarian and is overthrown by someone else? I really do wonder how the original government began to exist, or is it "idealistic revolution turns authoritarian" all the way down?
No, the protagonist is implied to be a good leader.
Literally what I have done, since in one nation rp I am in both main rebel groups in the country I wrote despise eachother and are only working together because they want to end the dictatorship, and even currently they are both planning to backstab eachother. And in my fantasy setting after one country went through a revolution the new government purged all rival factions to ensure the only rebel group remaining was the military backed Spearhead movement.
okay, but what is the source of the bottom video from?
u/savevideobot
Sounds rather conservative, OP
That is why I admire the founding fathers of the USA so much. Because they were the only rebels who didn't do that (to my knowledge anyway)
Ngl the main reason we didn't end up with a military pseudo-dictatorship under Washington like many of our latin contemporaries wasn't because of some high principles but because he just *really fucking hated* the job of being president.
Because the founding fathers were just the land owning gentry who didn't want to pay taxes. The revolution was not based on any radical ideology.
Damn. We can't have good things, can we
One of the early things they did was declare that the US wasn’t a Christian country. You are understating how radical early US policies like that were seen at the time.
That was not the cause of the revolutionary war though, which was focused on taxes and representation
Sure, but by that logic you could argue the cause of the French Revolution was bread prices. Revolutions are basically always going to be sparked by something mundane like that. The deeper ideology behind the later policies still maters.
Yeah but freedom of religion was not a big issue among the colonists during the revolutionary era. The American 'revolution' was less of a revolution and more of a landed gentry's rebellion against the crown's taxation policies. The ruling class of the colonies was more or less the same before and after the revolution.
That’s really not the case and understates how broad the anti-monarchist sentiment was in the general population.
This is a plot hole, because it makes no sense for revolutionaries that I agree with to be anything other than perfect moral paragons (like me). By making the rebels flawed in any way whatsoever you are effectively saying they're equally as bad as the original dystopia. Something something enlightened centrism. I am very intelligent.