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Star Wars: Now You Will Experience the Full Power of Disney


Corvinus85

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33 minutes ago, felice said:

Presumably because it's what he's paid to do. It's reasonable to assume that attempting to stop escaping prisoners is in the job description without requiring it to be explicitly stated onscreen.

If he was an independent bounty hunter he would no longer be in Jabba's employ as a bodyguard/enforcer in ROTJ. He would be doing another body hunter job at another place.

33 minutes ago, felice said:

Facts, yes, but "evil" is an opinion. It's possible for two people to reach different opinions on something despite having access to all the same facts.

That the Empire is evil and Jabba a vile gangster is an opinion established as a general fact by the narrator. It is not up for debate as such. You can disagree with the narrator there, be of the opinion that the Empire is not, in fact, evil, and the narrator is wrong there or misguided or whatever.

But we cannot say that the author/narrator of Star Wars wanted us, the audience, decide who the good guys and who the bad guys are in that story. It is crystal clear ... to the point that it is actually said who the bad guys are.

That is a tendency in the PT and ST as well, where 'evil is everywhere' during the Clone Wars, Count Dook is a 'ruthless Sith Lord', the Trade Federation is 'greedy', the First Order is 'sinister' and 'diabolical', etc.

The good guys are similarly marked as being brave, freedom fighters, heroes, etc.

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55 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

You can disagree with the narrator there, be of the opinion that the Empire is not, in fact, evil, and the narrator is wrong there or misguided or whatever.

But we cannot say that the author/narrator of Star Wars wanted us, the audience, decide who the good guys and who the bad guys are in that story. It is crystal clear ... to the point that it is actually said who the bad guys are.

I've disagreed with the notion everyone who worked for the empire was inextricably evil ever since I saw Clerks.  Also, in Boba's specific case, Lucas explicitly introduces greyish tones to his character in AOTC.

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57 minutes ago, DMC said:

I've disagreed with the notion everyone who worked for the empire was inextricably evil ever since I saw Clerks.

Nobody said anything about everyone working for the Empire being inextricably evil. Merely that the Galactic Empire as such is introduced and depicted as being evil. Nobody ever said anything about all its members, etc. being evil people.

Although it is quite clear that nobody working with or for the Empire is ever depicted as being a good person.

57 minutes ago, DMC said:

Also, in Boba's specific case, Lucas explicitly introduces greyish tones to his character in AOTC.

In AOTC we talk about a boy. A boy with a nasty and somewhat sadistic streak, though, enjoying how his dad seemingly dispatched Obi-Wan in the asteroid belt of Geonosis.

The adult Boba Fett in TESB and ROTJ is evil by virtue of being the guy tracking down and ratting out two of the heroes to Darth Vader in TESB, and by virtue of trying to kill at least two of the heroes in ROTJ.

He has about as much depth or character as the average Stormtrooper ... and if they are not good guys (which they are not) then Boba isn't, either.

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7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody said anything about everyone working for the Empire being inextricably evil. Merely that the Galactic Empire as such is introduced and depicted as being evil. Nobody ever said anything about all its members, etc. being evil people.

 

Your argument seems to be that the empire is intrinsically evil and since we only see Boba working for the empire or Jabba we must assume he too is evil, or a bad guy - and only a bad guy.  Perhaps I misunderstood, but that argument is really myopic.

10 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

In AOTC we talk about a boy. A boy with a nasty and somewhat sadistic streak, though, enjoying how his dad seemingly dispatched Obi-Wan in the asteroid belt of Geonosis.

That's not what I took from Boba's depiction in AOTC, but ymmv.

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2 hours ago, DMC said:

Your argument seems to be that the empire is intrinsically evil and since we only see Boba working for the empire or Jabba we must assume he too is evil, or a bad guy - and only a bad guy.  Perhaps I misunderstood, but that argument is really myopic.

I don't know in what sense the Empire is evil ... I just know that the movies do say it is evil and I accept that.

Boba Fett is a villain in the movies not because he works for the Empire but because what he actually does for the Empire and Jabba ... namely track down and attack the heroes of the story.

2 hours ago, DMC said:

That's not what I took from Boba's depiction in AOTC, but ymmv.

What I take is that Boba likes his dad, Boba protects his dad, Boba likes his dad hunting down people, Boba likes when his dad kills people, and Boba is traumatized when his father is killed in return.

He isn't an evil guy, but he is clearly a ruthless villain in the making ... and one could actually make the case that Boba Fett's descend into villainy (if one wants to call it that) makes more sense in context than that of Anakin Skywalker ;-).

But in general my point just is that the established picture of Boba Fett as per the movies and the EU is that he is a very effective, very ruthless bounty hunter ... not the guy who decides on a whim to become a good crime lord.

The guy we see in that Boba Fett show would have likely never worked for Darth Vader ... or at least not in the capacity to hunt down the Millennium Falcon. Nor would he have ever worked as Jabba's lackey.

But even if you want to explain that with Boba changing drastically post-Sarlacc ... he would never be the kind of ineffective moron he is in that show. Boba as cold-hearted and most efficient bounty hunter and assassin is, perhaps, the EU aspect which defined him the most. Taking that away from the character turned him into a joke.

Him riding a Rancor looked good ... but it cannot make up for him being fooled by a stupid Mayor. Nor for the disrespect he gets from literally everybody (indicating that he was never actually feared).

 

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16 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But in general my point just is that the established picture of Boba Fett as per the movies and the EU is that he is a very effective, very ruthless bounty hunter ... not the guy who decides on a whim to become a good crime lord.

I guess I just don't see almost being eaten by the Sarlaac then being rehabilitated by the Tuskens as "deciding on a whim."  Like I said, I think the premise was perfectly fine, it was the execution that was sorely lacking.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

I guess I just don't see almost being eaten by the Sarlaac then being rehabilitated by the Tuskens as "deciding on a whim."  Like I said, I think the premise was perfectly fine, it was the execution that was sorely lacking.

The good crime lord thing comes on a whim and only after his Tusken tribe has been destroyed. Him starting to care for others comes earlier and not on a whim. But once his tribe is gone he could have literally done anything to be or become a better person. Hang out with the Mandos, join the New Republic, be a good bounty hunter, smash crime on Tatooine and replace it with proper order, etc.

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7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But once his tribe is gone he could have literally done anything to be or become a better person. Hang out with the Mandos, join the New Republic, be a good bounty hunter, smash crime on Tatooine and replace it with proper order, etc.

Sure, and the last three things you mentioned there are kinda what he tried to do.  So again, the problem was just that the way it was portrayed sucked, not the idea itself.

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10 hours ago, DMC said:

Sure, and the last three things you mentioned there are kinda what he tried to do.  So again, the problem was just that the way it was portrayed sucked, not the idea itself.

I'd say that conceptually both the idea of a 'good crime lord' sucks ... and for Boba Fett the reason why he would want to topple Bib Fortuna and take over Jabba's position and care for the people of Tatooine of all places is not established at all. There it could have made sense if Fortuna had been the guy with the train and/or the guy who killed his Tusken friends.

He bonded with the Tuskens, specifically, not the Tatooinians who hate them. Why should he care about them when he originally believes some of them killed his brothers?

The portrayal sucks insofar as Boba pretty much has no plan how to be a good crime lord or how to manage things, always deciding to do things on a whim - hiring the street gang, hiring the Wookiee, etc.

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15 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd say that conceptually both the idea of a 'good crime lord' sucks

I don't see how it's all that much different than "the good bounty hunter" idea.  And both taking over Jabba's empire and Tatooine are the obvious choices for Boba to pursue such an endeavor considering it's already established (or at least heavily suggested) that it's a lawless place where the "crime lords" are effectively the government - and therefore if there's anywhere you could be a "good" crime lord, it's on a planet like Tatooine.  The rest of your complaints I entirely agree with, but are what I'm referring to in the shitty execution/portrayal.

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3 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't see how it's all that much different than "the good bounty hunter" idea.

The 'good bounty hunter' idea would be to only hunt down criminals rather than hunting down people wanted by criminals or evil organizations like the Empire.

What a 'good crime lord' is I cannot even describe since Boba still runs organized crime as Jabba's successor. He is less evil than Jabba but not really good.

3 hours ago, DMC said:

And both taking over Jabba's empire and Tatooine are the obvious choices for Boba to pursue such an endeavor considering it's already established (or at least heavily suggested) that it's a lawless place where the "crime lords" are effectively the government - and therefore if there's anywhere you could be a "good" crime lord, it's on a planet like Tatooine.  The rest of your complaints I entirely agree with, but are what I'm referring to in the shitty execution/portrayal.

I'd say that I don't really understand what Boba's ties to Tatooine are aside from his severed ties to the Tuskens. I'm not saying it makes absolutely no sense that he would try to establish himself there ... but the show doesn't gives us a good reason why he should. Tatooine is just one of many backwater Rim worlds.

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28 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

What a 'good crime lord' is I cannot even describe since Boba still runs organized crime as Jabba's successor. He is less evil than Jabba but not really good.

It sounds like you just fundamentally disagree with the concept of a "good" crime lord, whereas I don't.

28 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Tatooine is just one of many backwater Rim worlds.

Sure but it's pretty much the only planet we can associate Boba with based on the OT.

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My main issue with the Book of Fett stems from how naïve he acts through the whole thing. Boba in Clone Wars seemed to have a better grasp on how things work than reformed Boba. It didn't help having Fennic explain the obvious to him every week.

Book of Fett Boba isn't some wet behind the ears kid. He's a 30 year veteran experienced operating on the edge of law.  

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19 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

Book of Fett Boba isn't some wet behind the ears kid. He's a 30 year veteran experienced operating on the edge of law.  

He's also played by a guy who's 20 years older than Boba is supposed to be.

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12 minutes ago, DMC said:

It sounds like you just fundamentally disagree with the concept of a "good" crime lord, whereas I don't.

I just don't understand what exactly that is. Boba is not exactly taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He is just softer and less vindictive than Jabba, presumably.

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

Sure but it's pretty much the only planet we can associate Boba with based on the OT.

Well, then the writers could have developed him more. It is clear that Boba's post-Sarlacc story would start on Tatooine ... but it was a deliberate choice of the writers to get him stuck there.

But in general it really seems the Boba stuff was filler. I thought if Mando showed up in that show it might make sense ... but his episodes are basically just continuing his original story, having literally nothing to do with Boba until Mando is recruited for the final battle.

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8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I just don't understand what exactly that is. Boba is not exactly taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He is just softer and less vindictive than Jabba, presumably.

I suppose Vito Corleone would be the template for a "good" crime boss.

8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I thought if Mando showed up in that show it might make sense ... but his episodes are basically just continuing his original story, having literally nothing to do with Boba until Mando is recruited for the final battle.

Yeah it really seemed like the last three episodes were supposed to be the first three episodes of Mando Season 3 and they just stretched out the gaps in Boba's story for the first four.

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dunno, LV.  the crawl can say what it wants--in law, we designate this as 'conclusory allegation.'  unilateral moral declarations are hardly objective, but are submitted plainly as one advocate's position.  in this case, we have a religious dispute between two sets of fundamentalists. that one set of fundamentalists is happy to start a civil war using anti-democratic capitalists as its catspaw makes it seem less palatable to me than the other faction, which is nevertheless fine with casually performing an extrajudicial execution on the duly elected executive for religious reasons, which extrajudicial execution persists from episode III until episode VI.  less a matter of objective determination than a dispute about political opinion, the question thus becomes whether an unequivocal undemocratic assassination is justifiable tyrannicide or unwarranted terrorism.

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1 hour ago, sologdin said:

dunno, LV.  the crawl can say what it wants--in law, we designate this as 'conclusory allegation.'  unilateral moral declarations are hardly objective, but are submitted plainly as one advocate's position.  in this case, we have a religious dispute between two sets of fundamentalists. that one set of fundamentalists is happy to start a civil war using anti-democratic capitalists as its catspaw makes it seem less palatable to me than the other faction, which is nevertheless fine with casually performing an extrajudicial execution on the duly elected executive for religious reasons, which extrajudicial execution persists from episode III until episode VI.  less a matter of objective determination than a dispute about political opinion, the question thus becomes whether an unequivocal undemocratic assassination is justifiable tyrannicide or unwarranted terrorism.

I'll remind you that according to the said religious leader he is the entire legislative body of the former Republic. Furthermore, per the words of an allegedly deceased adversarial religious person, "he has control of the courts and the Senate." Therefore, I'm not sure how much merit your law argument has when one faction has taken full control of what should nominally be an independent body. 

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2 hours ago, sologdin said:

dunno, LV.  the crawl can say what it wants--in law, we designate this as 'conclusory allegation.'  unilateral moral declarations are hardly objective, but are submitted plainly as one advocate's position.  in this case, we have a religious dispute between two sets of fundamentalists. that one set of fundamentalists is happy to start a civil war using anti-democratic capitalists as its catspaw makes it seem less palatable to me than the other faction, which is nevertheless fine with casually performing an extrajudicial execution on the duly elected executive for religious reasons, which extrajudicial execution persists from episode III until episode VI.  less a matter of objective determination than a dispute about political opinion, the question thus becomes whether an unequivocal undemocratic assassination is justifiable tyrannicide or unwarranted terrorism.

This is fiction and the work itself tells us who is what in that fictional work. There is only one advocate here - the narrator - and he speaks plainly.

Star Wars (and especially the OT) isn't some complex and subtle piece of art where morality lies in the eye of the beholder, where you are supposed to or can make a case that the bad guys aren't that bad, that there are multiple layers, grey characters, and all that stuff.

That's just not the case. We know who is good and we know who is evil. And that's how that story works.

Not considering the Galactic Empire is the same thing as doubting that Snow White's stepmother is evil - they are defined and introduced in that manner, and the actions they commit in the story do not contradict it. If you do that, you ignore key facts given in the work you talk about.

That doesn't mean this cannot be fun, but it doesn't change the fact. It is a 'what if...' interpretation. Like in 'What if the Evil Queen wasn't actually evil?' or 'What if the Galactic Empire wasn't actually evil?'

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I'll remind you that according to the said religious leader he is the entire legislative body of the former Republic. Furthermore, per the words of an allegedly deceased adversarial religious person, "he has control of the courts and the Senate." Therefore, I'm not sure how much merit your law argument has when one faction has taken full control of what should nominally be an independent body. 

In context of the transformation from Republic to Empire, my view is that the Galactic Senate was pretty happy with Palpatine taking power. The vast majority at least. Nothing indicates that the people applauding the declaration of the Empire were forced to do this.

There was a clear coup/break of law when Palpatine used the clones to kill all the Jedi ... but it is far less clear that the creation of the Galactic Empire was an illegal act in-universe. We don't know what the emergency powers he was granted entailed - they could have included the right to transform the Republic. We definitely know that the emergency powers didn't come with a time limit - he promised to lay his powers down when the crisis was over, nobody said anything about the Senate having the right/power to take them back against his will.

But, of course, this doesn't change that the Galactic Empire was evil.

On 4/10/2022 at 11:05 PM, DMC said:

I suppose Vito Corleone would be the template for a "good" crime boss.

I agree with that ... but only to a point. The guy is still a bloody mobster. And the most chilly scene of the movie are 'The Godfather' scenes in the beginning of the movie - where you see how people fear this man and how he exploits them. Of course, in contrast to Michael his dad is a better man ... but that is because Michael is so much worse.

In my opinion, the guy actually shows that the mobster system just sucks no matter who runs the show ... because the only people profiting from it are criminals or people who sell their souls to criminals.

But I'd agree that a Boba modelled more on Vito could have made the show work better. That's why the execution of the story sucks. A Vito-like Boba could have worked, but would have still not been a good guy ... rather a guy who pretended to be good but didn't realize that he was the bad guy. That is basically the core story of 'The Godfather' ... shown pretty well, I think, both in Michael's transformation as well as in Vito's rise to power in the second movie.

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21 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We definitely know that the emergency powers didn't come with a time limit - he promised to lay his powers down when the crisis was over, nobody said anything about the Senate having the right/power to take them back against his will.

"Our allegiance is to the Senate, not to its leader, who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired" strongly suggests the Senate had the power to remove him from a technical/legal standpoint.

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