karaddin Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 3 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said: See also Gwendoline Christie and possibly Keri Russel...we’ll see how much time she is wearing that bucket and hiding her luscious locks soon enough! Maybe they'll get someone gorgeous to play an older Bo-Katan - surely she wouldn't have to wear a helmet so much anymore. I could happily swoon lots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughn Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 5 hours ago, red snow said: I've always found this a dodgy aspect of the star wars universe and I'm with you on the use of "good guys" as it's pretty clear everyone knows the droids are self-aware yet they use them as slaves and kill them with wild abandon. At the very least they need to have different levels of awareness based on the tasks they perform but even that is problematic. To circle back to the idea that the first three movies were both important pieces of pop culture but also full of dumb stuff ... RotJ has droids torturing other droids in Jabba's palace. Doesn't make any sense on any level (why do droids have pain receptors, why would you torture one, etc...) other than to establish that it was a bad place full of bad entities. This is the kind of thing which has largely been jettisoned from the new movies and I appreciate that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jace, Extat Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 8 hours ago, Vaughn said: To circle back to the idea that the first three movies were both important pieces of pop culture but also full of dumb stuff ... RotJ has droids torturing other droids in Jabba's palace. Doesn't make any sense on any level (why do droids have pain receptors, why would you torture one, etc...) other than to establish that it was a bad place full of bad entities. This is the kind of thing which has largely been jettisoned from the new movies and I appreciate that. Umm, pain is an electrical impulse interpreted from the nervous system, indicating damage or insult to the body. Why would droids need to know when their body is damaged??? Hmm... I wonder? Maybe because they have a soul and they care how their bodies look??? Think of that? And so what if it isn't an uncomfortable 'pain' as we know it. Maybe the droid just gets a 10101 flashing in his eyes when his arm is disintegrated. But those flashing numbers each represent a piece of his robotic flesh being stripped away. And he knows there's only so much that can be destroyed before he's never going to have an oil bath again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mother of The Others Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 A short novel on the significance of droid slavery- - Star Wars was about feeling dwarfed by the metallic future (that star destroyer entrance) but then feeling hope that we might still have a place in such a future after seeing characters who could hold their own in a world of tech gone wild. Aren't the lightsabers a silly way of saying that we and our human ways can continue to matter even in the face of laser fire from robots? But look at how unlikely the jedi are! Even in the 70's, that's how far Lucas had to go to imagine us carving out a niche to occupy in the machine future. In our world, lacking lightsabers, things look a bit glummer for us once AI is capable of doing everything better. As part of the StarWars future, one of our keys to success has been holding AI minds back to droid level intelligence so they'd remain bumbling things who'd need our guidance when not doing the one job they're good at. Except for R2, the Michael Jordan of droids, who shows us droids have to potential to do everything well. Maybe if we brought our "free the droids!" protest signs to Coruscant everyone from 100 planets would say "hell no!" and regale us with stories about exactly why droids must be kept in check, because of how quickly they enslave human populations who let droids grow into full AI. Maybe it's the common sense of the future: every species who survived Earth's modern era on their own planets just knows from experience that you don't let droids outpace you, because on all the worlds that tried it the biologicals went extinct or became sad sack sluglike lumps of inactivity. Maybe it would be more complex than one side being right and the other wrong, and that could be a compelling movie / revelation. Maybe it's just a matter of what biologicals have to do to survive. Battlestar Galactica dealt with this, showing the ongoing pattern of human vs. AI abuses , wars , enslavements that went on and on without any clear end in sight. Like a lesbian scene, it could in theory go on and on indefinitely unless someone yells "cut!" So the Cylons addressed this unending cycle by creating a hybrid race to see if that might do the trick of bringing the wars to an end. And Lucas showed something of this idea by having Vader & Luke's bodies replaced with machine parts as time went on, and Grievous with his beating biological heart, and stormtroopers as a machined mind of sorts. As if things are heading somewhere more complicated than simply one side freeing the other to continue the cycle of abuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Relic Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 On 11/1/2019 at 1:38 PM, Vaughn said: To circle back to the idea that the first three movies were both important pieces of pop culture but also full of dumb stuff ... RotJ has droids torturing other droids in Jabba's palace. Doesn't make any sense on any level (why do droids have pain receptors, why would you torture one, etc...) other than to establish that it was a bad place full of bad entities. This is the kind of thing which has largely been jettisoned from the new movies and I appreciate that. Whut? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 The Star Wars franchise dodged a bullet there. Maybe D&D can go destroy some other fictional universe now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 19 hours ago, Triskele said: Vice has a piece here trying to sum up what's known about the D&D situation. Sounds a bit like Disney changed their minds rather than D&D. Maybe they need to say they are hiring people to develop/pitch projects rather than make a big deal announcement and then can it a year later. It's still crazy and concerning that no release for the mandalorian in the UK has been announced Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 Welp, Ming-Na Wen is not playing Mara Jade on The Mandalorian, as some have theorized. But she's still playing a badass new character. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/11/ming-na-wen-the-mandalorian-star-wars-fennec-shand Quote The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Mulan actor will appear as the assassin Fennec Shand, who crosses paths with Pedro Pascal’s masked bounty hunter midway through the first season of the Disney+ series, which launches with the streaming service’s debut on November 12. “We got our inspiration really from the name. The idea of a fennec fox came to mind,” Wen told Vanity Fair. “She’s tricky, and yet she’s able to maneuver and survive, and be stealthy—so very graceful and agile. I just love that whole image with the name.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhom Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 18 minutes ago, Corvinus said: Welp, Ming-Na Wen is not playing Mara Jade on The Mandalorian, as some have theorized. But she's still playing a badass new character. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/11/ming-na-wen-the-mandalorian-star-wars-fennec-shand Has Mara Jade popped up on anything else to officially make the leap from the old EU? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 26 minutes ago, Rhom said: Has Mara Jade popped up on anything else to officially make the leap from the old EU? I don't think so, but given the premise of this show, I guess people were hoping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 1 hour ago, Rhom said: Has Mara Jade popped up on anything else to officially make the leap from the old EU? No, she hasn't, and I doubt she will. 52 minutes ago, Corvinus said: I don't think so, but given the premise of this show, I guess people were hoping. That wouldn't make any sense anyway, Mara Jade would be in her early 20s I think when this is set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 On 11/1/2019 at 12:38 PM, Vaughn said: To circle back to the idea that the first three movies were both important pieces of pop culture but also full of dumb stuff ... RotJ has droids torturing other droids in Jabba's palace. Doesn't make any sense on any level (why do droids have pain receptors, why would you torture one, etc...) other than to establish that it was a bad place full of bad entities. This is the kind of thing which has largely been jettisoned from the new movies and I appreciate that. Funnily enough I had the exact same scene in mind when writing my post. Seems cruel to program droids that become distressed by what appears to be torture and moreso that the droid doing it appears to enjoy it. Generally I tend to look at droids as not being conscious. The majority of the ones we encounter don't have much in terms of personality and even C3PO feels like a set of automated responses but with camp sass thrown in (a bit like he has an option for how he delivers translations) as he never shows a range of emotions and behaviour. R2, BB-8 and Chopper always come across more like pets than entities you could have involved conversations with but that's probably due to them not giving those droids to speak in a way that the viewer can translate. L3-37 is where things get problematic as she had a range of emotions and behaviours making her seem genuinely sentient. I don't know if the expanded universe differentiates between types of droid? But i'd think there are levels of droid ranging from toasters to "pets" to Artificial life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Yeah, again the droids thing just seems to me an example of something in the world that Lucas didn't really think about in terms of worldbuilding. Questions like, 'Are droids sentient? If so, does that mean they're effectively slaves? How does the existence of droids affect the world? What work do they do? How do they function?' etc. were never on his mind, only 'robots are fun, let's have some of those'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 C-3PO and R2-D2 definitely express emotions of various kinds. C-3PO is a bit cowardly, R2 is braver, they argue with one another, R2 has argued with Luke, and so on. I think too much time is given for us to invest in them to not see them as proper characters. The EU explanation for why they (and other droids) stand out compared to the greater mass of droids is this notion that they've gone without memory wipes for decades, and this has led to greater personality developing and, ultimately, sentience. There's even a post-TFA comic, which I assume is considered canon, which touches on C-3PO's sentience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughn Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 K2-SO is, of course, the best droid in the current SW universe and as seemingly as sentient as L3-37, only with much more Marvin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 4 hours ago, Vaughn said: K2-SO is, of course, the best droid in the current SW universe and as seemingly as sentient as L3-37, only with much more Marvin. CHOPPER or GTFO But, no, they played a bit with droid sentience and freedom in the old EU but it never goes any where. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Did some looking around and apprently some official production book for Solo says the following: Quote Lando Calrissian's literally self-made copilot, L3-37, is the first mechanical being to embody another idea that George Lucas devised in the early 2000s: droid rights and autonomy. This contrasts with an apparent quote floating around from Lucas, from the 80s or 90s, where he said the fun thing with C-3PO was that he didn't have a soul and that his behavior is all programmed without his having any self-awareness. Seems like his ideas evolved over the years regarding how the droids should be seen, and so figures like L3-37 and K2-SO (as well as C-3PO, per that comic) are informed by that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughn Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Of course if you consider KOTOR to be cannon, there have been sarcastic assassin droids for thousands of years in this universe. Again, this is all supports my theory that these movies simply don't/can't be completely consistent given the vast amounts of content and moving pieces to it and anyone who gets too mad about that is just looking to have a bad time. IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhom Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 2 hours ago, Vaughn said: Of course if you consider KOTOR to be cannon, there have been sarcastic assassin droids for thousands of years in this universe. Again, this is all supports my theory that these movies simply don't/can't be completely consistent given the vast amounts of content and moving pieces to it and anyone who gets too mad about that is just looking to have a bad time. IMO. I don't need consistency with the old EU. I wasn't even mad they scrapped it. There was never a way to incorporate it. What I can't accept is that Disney paid an astronomical amount of money for the rights to the Star Wars universe and then just decided to put out a trilogy of movies without at least an outline of what would happen between point A and point C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 1 hour ago, Rhom said: What I can't accept is that Disney paid an astronomical amount of money for the rights to the Star Wars universe and then just decided to put out a trilogy of movies without at least an outline of what would happen between point A and point C. That is literally what they did with the Marvel movies, except they put out 20 of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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