9 hours ago, IceManHG said:

It looks great. However the consumer base has been burned by flashy cinematic's before.

Thankfully there are tons of videos showing gameplay, as well as people talking positively about the game, specifically about what they couldn't record.

1 minute ago, ForceSensitive said:

Dead pan delivery is key to an unironic and fatalistic comedy. It's supposed to read like a highly emotional reactionary statement based on truth but only in stark contrast to its comedic stylization of presentation. That I pulled it off so successfully is quite bitter sweet pleasing really.

Unfortunately without streaming a video no one can see your dead pan delivery. Why have we not created a sarcasm font?

This is my sarcasm font.

No matter how good any of this looks, it’s EA and I’m waiting at least a month before looking at it. Wait a few weeks for them to make the usual adjustments after reviews are in. They treat their customers like scum and I’m holding out.
Look at Madden21 and the trash pile it has become. Last time I looked it had a meta critic score of 0.2/100. They gave the game away hoping to earn off of the micro transactions I’m guessing.
I digress. It looks awesome, but Joan of Arc was less burnt than I have been burnt by EA.

10 hours ago, IceManHG said:

It looks great. However the consumer base has been burned by flashy cinematic's before.

We have. Though in this case I rather like the mindset of the creators this speaks too. I can always get behind I'm-not-quitting characters. The framing here of "good" being defending your friends and colleagues and not giving up with "bad" being arrogance and complacency and thinking others should just give up speaks to story themes I am generally drawn too. I just hope that we don't have the Rebellion painted overall as being "bad."

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

And that class, is how the United States collapsed in the early to mid 21st century. With hero worship of villains in their vast fictional entertainment medias desensitizing them to their own self destruction of morality.

A future teacher, probably.

I'm not sure you're being that unironic with this.

The snark with regards to the Rebels blowing up the Death Star and such is more than tiresome at this point. I think there are more than a few that don't really understand what is supposed to be funny about labeling the Rebels as the terrorists.

That snark, in my opinion, seems to have covered over what the price of the "security" provided by The Empire comes at. One of the things I enjoyed about Rebels animated is they at least touched on those problems. It has become a bit edgy-cool to like the villains but it does seem to have come at a bit of a cost as to seeing what made them the villains in the first place. The civics lessons that underlie the Rebels good/Imperials bad dynamic of the OT seem to me quite lost sight of and no longer understood. "Cancel Culture" does not seem nearly repugnant enough to far far too many people for my taste for example.

If you apply the don't make racist jokes as that promotes racism, the same sort of thing could apply with making "terrorist" jokes about those fighting fascism. What sort of skewed view of "normal" has wormed its way in because of this. This is how the sequels lost the gooey moral center at the heart of Star Wars.

This trailer has "good" and "bad" directed the "wrong" way but it does in fact have a "gooey moral center."

I seem to have thought so strongly of my post I needed to put it up twice.

@Frimmel it has been my opinion for some years now that it is wholly true as a statement. I can only make that joke ironically. Comedy needs to be based in truth to work after all.

But before anyone gets it twisted, it doesn't just show up in the SW fans, it's in a ton of US fictional media. Dexter, The Punisher, Deadpool, Breaking Bad, Judge Dredd, and many more besides are all anti-hero, and anti-american value stories. And somehow people love them. But hey, I just live here. So I make my sarcastic comments the same as my serious ones because the chances are good that the Earth ecosystem will collapse before it matters what happened to any of the countries on it.

As for the actual trailer we're talking about, it is really odd in it's morals. Like sure, the guy tried to save his squadmate. That's cool, and heroic. But then we see the Empire casually and coldly abandon their own. Then while hiding in the debris he makes a fairly cowardly ambush out of an opportunity to surrender to what is only a rear guard searching for survivors or intel. So our 'hero' remains the hostile aggressor throughout.(flashback to Han "we're the hostiles" line in Solo) Then the rear guard gives chase, which is also odd past reasonable self defense without calling in backup, especially to the length they go.

Whatever man. Let the world burn and pass me another beer! I don't plan on being alive that long anyway 😆

14 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

... pass me another beer! I don't plan on being alive that long anyway 😆

My man! 😎 🍺

@Frimmel I've ALWAYS been drawn to villainy, based on purely aesthetic reasons - The Empire, and COBRA, for example have cooler looking stuff. While I don't condone the outlook these factions have, they are visually pleasing.

I'm perhaps the only one who kinda dislikes the whole "Oh...the Empire are the real good guys idea." I'm sure there are, but Star Wars' basis is heavily in mythology with clear good and bad heroes.

Darth Vader wears black armor (associated with death in most cultures) and has a helmet that has skull like motiefs. When I look at him my first thought isn't "yeah...here comes the hero in this story."

That being said, I fully admit there are good and bad people both sides if we get into the nitty gritty of it, but in general: Empire bad, Rebels good.

48 minutes ago, Ebak said:

I'm perhaps the only one who kinda dislikes the whole "Oh...the Empire are the real good guys idea." I'm sure there are, but Star Wars' basis is heavily in mythology with clear good and bad heroes.

Darth Vader wears black armor (associated with death in most cultures) and has a helmet that has skull like motiefs. When I look at him my first thought isn't "yeah...here comes the hero in this story."

That being said, I fully admit there are good and bad people both sides if we get into the nitty gritty of it, but in general: Empire bad, Rebels good.

While a black and white view is fine for a brief dive into a cinematic outing, it falls apart when any type of world building is implemented. It makes no sense that only evil people join the empire. Yes, they did horrible things, but as an analogy, the death star is akin to the atomic bomb.

But we have seen imperials that aren't moustache twirling evil in Vaarko here, Ciena Ree from Lost Stars. Even Iden was a loyal imperial until ordered to go along with burning a loyal imperial planet, if not for operation cinder, I'm sure she would have stayed with the empire.

Also from a certain point of view.. if the empire won, the rebels would have been vilified in history books. History is written by the victors.

@Ebak even better, Vader's helmet is modeled after the Nazi German Army 'Stahlhelm' design for military helmets in WWII. Back in the 70's when the film was made it was supposed to be a clear call back to that imagery still so strong in the viewers eye of a decidedly evil military group. In the immortal words of M. Hamil upon seeing a certain Droid, you look at it and immediately think NAZI!

I don't think it his with the same impact as time goes on though because the Stahlhelm design was so successful and functional it was eventually adopted by armed forces around the world and modern combat helmets all use its main features with only a little tweaking. That and the simple truth that the German helm designs is also popular among motorcyclists, and not coincidentally notably among some biker gangs. Including the pointed tip on the top used by the Germans in WWI in many cases.

However, keep in mind that Lucas envisioned the Empire back then as "the USA 15 years from now", as it can be seen in his production notes. An the whole conflict was mirroring the Korean War. The good guys are a ragtag of farmers and idealists defending a jungle planet from a cold military machine.
In that sense, one could say that Star Wars does have some anti-American message, at least from the point of view of those that are fine with the idea of the USA being the Empire, both back then or right now. And so, it's not strange to call the Rebels terrorists if they indeed aim to bring down the established system. I mean, they of course are not going to call themselves terrorists, because their cause is noble to their understanding. But I don't think there has ever been a terrorist group that didn't believe their cause to be noble.

But this was back then.

Interestingly, in the OT, the narrator obviously sided with the Rebels, making them clearly the good guys, and the Empire the bad guys. And the bad guys did Bad Guy stuff, of course. And they looked like Bad Guys, of course.

However, from the Prequel Trilogy and on, it's not so clear that the narrator totally sides with the good guys anymore.
The Republic isn't depicted as an ideal regime, neither the Jedi are portrayed too kindly.

I don't know whether Lucas grew cynical or disenchanted with his previous political ideas, but I remember interviews from the 90s where he stated that "Democracy isn't the perfect government system. Instead, a benevolent dictatorship would work much better."
At the end of his prequel trilogy, he has the incarnation of evil himself, Palpatine, look at the camera and say "and at last there will be Peace".
What? So that was Palpatine's entire motivation to seize the power? To end the star wars ?
He's an ******* but... were his goals noble?

Indeed, the Republic is depicted as an ineffective system incapable of stopping wars, injustice, and slavery throughout the galaxy. Then, one senator carries out a plan to turn the Republic into a regime much more effective at keeping peace, by making it a dictatorship with, apparently, benevolent intention. Exactly what Anakin tells Padme. Exactly Lucas' own ideas, as stated above. This can't be coincidence.

From a certain point of view, the goals of the Empire weren't that evil, even if the means were. But all nations have their dark pages, and many if not most national heroes were villains to someone else.

Now, there comes the Rebels, who kill the Emperor and threaten to restore the Republic, the old, corrupt, ineffective regime.
It's not unreasonable that those loyal to the ideal of the Empire (if not the reality of the Empire) would try to fight that back, and do so with noble intention. You know. Those that think that things can be improved without tearing the entire system down.

I find the idea of good imperials perfectly plausible. You don't have to be evil to believe that an authoritarian regime is not worse than the anarchy and chaos that comes from having a thousand different factions killing each other for resources while a senate does nothing but bureaucracy. Sure, that is not the most democratic ideal, but that is not enough to be evil.

And then, even more interestingly, there comes the sequel trilogy, and not only it doesn't attempt at all to depict an ideal New Republic. All the opposite, it goes and makes it almost as bad if not worse than the original Republic, to the point that is looks almost laughable how little power it has and how little it lasts.
Is the sequel trilogy saying "You know, Palpatine was right all along"? (I am not counting Rise of Skywalker here because that story made no sense at all).

14 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

much more effective at keeping peace

Citation needed.

8 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Citation needed.

Number of Clone Wars under each regime

• Republic: 1
• Empire: 0
  

I'm kidding. It's not important that the Empire really was more effective at keeping peace or not, but if they could sell the idea that it was.
People in the Empire could think stuff like "Sure, having stormtroopers everywhere sucks. But remember when any armed commercial federation could come with tanks and knock your door and invade you without anyone doing anything?"

Essentially, this is the same as the funny dialog in Life of Brian "What did the Romans do for us?"

Many barbaric tribes willingly joined the Roman Empire because it meant peace. Before that, they would have frequent wars with their neighbors for territory. After that, sure they had to pay taxes to Rome, but at least they knew they weren't going to be wiped out by some power-hungry neighbour.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

Number of mass rebellions under each regime

• Republic: 1, the Seperatist
• Empire: 2, the Rebel alliance in the civil war AND the Resistance against the First Order which was still headed by the not-dead-yet Emperor.

Fixed it.

🎶 Anything you misrepresent, I can do better! I can accurately present anything better than you 🎶 😜

I love how this thread runs the entire spectrum from "haha, Bush jr. Era politics in my space fantasy" to deep philosophical discussions of the merits of authoritarianism.

In short though, pointy triangle ship good, much fast, and very shooty.

5 minutes ago, Nyxen said:

I n short though, pointy triangle ship good, much fast, and very shooty.

If A-wings were made in Canada, they'd be called "Wings-Eh?"

Yoda would be proud.

3 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

If A-wings were made in Canada, they'd be called "Wings-Eh?"

Yoda would be proud.

Nah, they’d be called arrows, and made by Avro.

1 minute ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Nah, they’d be called arrows, and made by Avro.

So that means their equipped with Avro Arrow guns. Does that make them only AA guns? They shoot AA, eh?

8 hours ago, Ebak said:

I'm perhaps the only one who kinda dislikes the whole "Oh...the Empire are the real good guys idea." I'm sure there are, but Star Wars' basis is heavily in mythology with clear good and bad heroes.

Darth Vader wears black armor (associated with death in most cultures) and has a helmet that has skull like motiefs. When I look at him my first thought isn't "yeah...here comes the hero in this story."

That being said, I fully admit there are good and bad people both sides if we get into the nitty gritty of it, but in general: Empire bad, Rebels good.

The biggest mistake anyone can make about war is that there are good guys and there are bad guys. There is only your side and their side. Both sides can do good and evil things.
Your examples are tied to our psychology so the film maker doesn’t have to waste time explaining the characters. Look at any 60’s western, the good guy wears a white hat, the bad guy wears a black one. You instantly know who the villain is.
For me, the CIS are the good guys, breaking away from a corrupt system. But because Jedi, people think the Republic are the good guys.

18 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

The biggest mistake anyone can make about war is that there are good guys and there are bad guys. There is only your side and their side. Both sides can do good and evil things.
Your examples are tied to our psychology so the film maker doesn’t have to waste time explaining the characters. Look at any 60’s western, the good guy wears a white hat, the bad guy wears a black one. You instantly know who the villain is.
For me, the CIS are the good guys, breaking away from a corrupt system. But because Jedi, people think the Republic are the good guys.

To sum up

"From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

2 minutes ago, Nyxen said:

To sum up

"From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

Exactly my point. Thank you for making it again for me.

1 minute ago, Archangelspiv said:

Exactly my point. Thank you for making it again for me.

I'm a simple man; I see a point that can be summed up in a meme, I make a meme

5 minutes ago, Nyxen said:

I'm a simple man; I see a point that can be summed up in a meme, I make a meme

It's a simple life.