Vader dispatching those rebels was the one scene that made Rogue One’s existance justified.
That argument here was amusing though.
Oh good. We’ve cycled back to whether or not The Empire is Nazis.
I agree! I loved Rogue One, I like it almost as equal to RotJ. I don’t get the hate for RO. I can get the hate for almost all the Star Wars movies, but not RO. It’s almost a classic hollywood war movie, ala Guns of Navarone or The Dirty Dozen BUT set in Star Wars.
Also no matter what people say, Last Jedi will always be garbage to me … I don’t think Rian Johnson knows what the fuck hes doing.
Sucks, wish they gave the Gareth Edwards a chance to direct another Star Wars movie.
Darth Vader scene in Rogue One was great. It works because the whole movie is framed around the concept of normal soldiers/grunt level, not mythical heroes, so the scene represented what Vader supposed for people at their level, a seemingly unstoppable enemy to fear. And it was perfectly executed: he attacks only at the end of the story, his apparition in the darkness is great, how he is portrayed as a unrelenting force that advances a constant pace, like a force of nature, the mixed use of lightsaber and force was spectacular and well done, and even better: even if he was awesome, the writers knew it was better to use him sparsely, it isn’t his story, and his appearance is impacting but pretty brief.
This movie makes me concerned we’re going to get a trend of non-conventionally attractive actors. Every new side character here made me shift in my seat. It felt like I was watching a kids movie where everyone is deliberately weird looking.
My point is that the depiction of an iconic space opera villain exercising power is all that scene is.
It has no narrative function in the context of Rogue One. It’s not there to build dread for a future confrontation in the movie. It’s not there to make a thematic point about regular people vs regular Star Wars protagonists. It’s there to be a fanservice moment of Vader being Vader, killing people in a cinematecally pleasing way.
And if you actually break down what that moment means, it means Disney has taken a cinematic icon and gotten you to cheer for a moment that is morally repugnant.
I never really considered Star Wars to be anything other than somewhat childish fantasy, let alone some type of morality play. Are you suggesting it should be (I’m aware of Lucas’ inspiration re: The Hero of a Thousand Faces etc.)?
The suggestion that we are “supposed” to cheer for one side is somewhat morally ambiguous itself in the context of books like 1984 as well as the rest of the SW canon.
Your equivocation is the only thing morally repugnant here. Star Wars and the hero’s journey is fan service incarnate.
Sure it can be seen that way. It can also be seen as showing what happens in the SW universe when regular people go up against Space Wizards.
And I hope you never have a discussion with Freddy Krueger fans, it’s would escalate quickly…
Are you saying that you would cheer for the Darkside of the Force? Like… when you watch these movies you’re rooting against all the heroes? I ask because I think it’s very clear which side you would cheer for here. There’s hardly even a hint of grey suggested in this series.
Are you saying you have a hard time finding the moral line between the side that blows up planets, and the one who doesn’t?
They’re both the same, is that it? Really?
Star Wars is like the most basic white hat/black hat story and…you know what. I give up.
Man, I could spend soo much time on this argument… but I have to drive home. The SW universe has been around for a while; there’s a lot of nuance, especially if you include games like KOTOR in the canon (it’s not just about being “grey” or whatever… if you accept that game into the fold then the Sith aren’t exactly what you would expect from the movies and the Jedi… well, in Episodes I-III they were clearly blinded by power).
I don’t think Star Wars is meant to be a moral object lesson any more than say, Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien made it pretty clear he didn’t view his work of fantasy that way.
I disagree that the series is black hat / white hat. I mean, Luke trying to save his father is a pretty major theme in episode VI, but in doing so he also loses some of his own ground (foreshadowed in V in the tree scene).
Yes Darth Vader does objectively morally reprehensible things throughout the series, obviously. However, there’s a big difference between recognizing villainous actions and saying those actions should be stricken from the work entirely.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying a villain’s actions on-scene. That’s part of the reason we tell stories. Look at Shakespeare.
That’s… a novel way to look at SW. And by novel I mean frightening. We are most definitely supposed to cheer for one side. The good guys. The heroes, going around trying to save people and keep the Empire, AKA the bad guys from killing whole planets and enslaving people and the like.
Doesn’t mean the people cosplaying as 501 Legion are Nazis, and there’s always a bit of the “surely some people joined the Empire with good intentions, they had to do some good” game that fans play, but really, the Empire are Nazis. It’s not hard. You’re not supposed to go “Good, bad, these are made up words, it’s all the same”.
There is no way to read Lord of the Rings, or watch it, and come out on the side of Sauron and the Orcs. You might be able to plunge yourself into some pre-stories and after stories and talk about men and the evils elves performed long before The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but just like Star Wars, there’s a side of morality, and then there is evil as hell that destroys all light and freedom.
There’s one side we’re meant to support which doesn’t mean that side is perfect of course.
I respect how that might seem frightening…
However, for me it’s more frightening to suggest there is only one way to view any given work of art.
Right, however I would claim the SW universe leaves a lot more room to “cheer for the bad guys” so to speak (leaving aside the somewhat absurd notion that the Empire is meant as a literal metaphor for Nazis… absurd to me, anyway, although there clearly are some intentional symbolic parallels in TFA)…
I think it’s partly because SW is less of a “mature” fantasy than LoTR, perhaps. LoTR really dives into the problem of evil on a level that SW only scratches, relatively speaking.
Yes, the Empire is a murderous organization that’s out of control and yet somewhat bumbling, Episodes I-III however do add a little bit of nuance to the setup. Consider also that Vader is somewhat at odds with Empire; in episodes I-III he was only following his passions; is this intrinsically wrong?
Tell you what… this rabbit hole is too deep right now… but yeah, I would reframe the question somewhat by asking why do some people cheer for the Empire?
Are they cheering for the Empire or are they cheering for Darth Vader or Kylo Ren. Like who out there was like I sure hope the Emperor gets Anakin to finish off the rest of his family or were they more along the lines of he looks cool, he sounds cool, and I really want to walk around in a cape?
Was there someone out there really cheering for Snoke, like when they destroyed a half-dozen or 7 planets in TFA they’re sitting there saying hey wait a minute, you missed a couple… I’m so disappointed. Or were they interested in Kylo because he’s young, because they think he might turn like Vader did, maybe because some think he’s attractive, or because of who his parent’s are?
You think there is a whole mass of the fandom out there disappointed Luke won, end of original trilogy?
No, probably not. My main point is the big picture is a little more nuanced than would warrant striking one of the best scenes from RO for the sake of morality.
Before I go I also just have to point out the screaming irony that the cinematography at the end of Episode IV where the heroes of light are being decorated was likely inspired in part by a Nazi propaganda film, or at least very reminiscent of such (source: Everything is a Remix http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/)
This is widely know, I believe. But it has to do with technique. We don’t control who develops the best techniques and where. It has nothing to do with the Jedi being portrayed as anything related to Nazis. She did a lot of things that were later used by film.
You can view it any way you want, you only need to squint hard enough to make the view fit how you want it to.
Also, lest we forget, they’re kids movies. Not all of them, not anymore, but the ones that established the Universe. They’re for kids. Made in the 70’s and 80’s. They’re not subtle. They’re not “You know, both sides have a lot of valid points”. There’s the heroes and there’s the villains. They’re half made to sell toys.
But you keep enjoying SW as you prefer, in what I hope is a very idiosyncratic and rare way…