David Brin Responds to Star Wars Issues 274
himi writes
"After his articles on what was wrong with the Star Wars
movies were linked here, David
Brin's mailbox got flooded - as per usual. He's posted an interesting
reply to most of the points raised in those emails.
It's a good read, even if you don't agree with him. "
Why Emperor only has Vader (Score:1)
>he can't resist the emperor's power, that Luke too will be enslaved, but
>he has no choice but to bring him.
Not! For several reasons.
...
(d) Finally, if the Emperor can mind-control Annakin Skywalker (all fulla midichlorians!) then he can do it to anybody. If so, he is Isaac Asimov's "Mule" and can simply go from world to world, adjusting elites to adore him! Why be mean at all, then? Battlefleets are inefficient and much costlier than mental-suasion valentines! Why blow up Alderan when you can make Leia's Papa love you? "
Yoda does remark in the funeral scene at the end of TPM that there can only be 2 Sith lords at one time (the master and the apprentice), so perhaps the Emperor can't get more than 1 dark side henchman.
But exactly how the Emperor wins over Anakin will probably be one of the more interesting plot points in Episodes II and III, so hey, give Lucas some slack.
Re:He sounds like a middle aged english teacher (Score:2)
But they're NOT!! That's the point! You can't just rant and rave and say "George didn't tell us anything about their inner character because we were supposed to fill in the blanks with imagination". The characters ARE ARCHETYPES. The entire storey is ARCHETYPICAL. That's why it fits so easily into those literary slots. And that is Brinn's point! Real stories, good stories don't follow a formula. They challenge us, make us think, at the same time as giving us a kick ass story.
StarWars has no real story, no depth of character. That's not to say it isn't "a damn good yarn", but there's only so far down you can pear a plot before there's nothing left.
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"Psychos do NOT explode when exposed to sunlight, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are!" -DTD
We've got heroes - sort of (Score:1)
Anyway, I liked it.
Mark Edwards
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Proof of sanity forged upon request
patching up invisible holes with silly putty (Score:1)
That said, In Real Life (TM), it is important to acknowlege your mistakes, try to correct them if possible, and, most importantly, learn from them.
Re:My response to Brin (Score:1)
BTW, your comments about the emporor and Palpatine were quite interesting.
Re:SW vs ST? My only choices? (Score:1)
Heck, even being stuck on Jijo after the `shakeup' would be more fun than either SW or ST. Betcha they find some new way of FTL that doesn't rely on hyperspace and can cross the distances between galaxies (not necessarily in anything Brin writes).
We need our Myths (Score:1)
This is part of the reason why our society is ascendant. We have heros to inspire us.
ttyl
Farrell
Re:We need reality (Score:1)
ttyl
Farrell
Re:My response to Brin (Score:1)
Flame away.
...phil
Re:david brin is making sea quest dsv 2000 (Score:1)
...phil
Re:Brin misses a big point (Score:1)
Re:"Your lack of faith disturbs me." (Score:1)
Re:whoooooo caaaaares... (Score:1)
EXACTLY! It's only a film! And an average one at that.
Re:Whoa, slow down man...... (Score:1)
Um, not as such. From what I have been able to work out, Dr Brin's main objection began with an interview with GL who who blathered away at some considerable length about "the joy of benevolent despots".
It's the contempt that Lucas expressed for the entire nature of the democratic process, and the fact that this is the perspective that underlies the Star Wars movies, that is pissing him off.
So it's as much the publicly stated attitudes of the director, and the way that these have been presented, that Dr Brin is taking offense to.
Re:We need our Myths (Score:1)
Sure. But the question is - which type of hero?
Do you prefer a down to Earth kind of guy like Linus Torvalds ( or Han Solo ).
Or do you prefer aristocratic hero's like Bill Gates, ( or Luke Skywalker ) who, like the mitochondria enhanced Jedi, was "born to rule"?
I realise that I have posed this question in a deliberatly inflamatory manner, but this is exactly the point that Dr Brin is making.
The Jedi were born with "powers and abilities beyond those of ordinary mortals". Bill Gates was born with millionair parents.
Think about it for at least 30 seconds before you pick up your BFG9000 to flame me.
Childhoods End... (Score:1)
Hate to tell you this 'd00d', but your showing way too much attachment to your childhood here.
In case you haven't heard - Santa Claus is currently doing a twenty year stretch for the production and distribution of kiddy-porn. The Easter Bunny was terminated with extreme prejudice when it was positively proven that it was a vector for the transmission of BSE and the tooth-fairy is currently about to go to trial for practicing dental surgery without a licence.
And yeah, I remember when star wars came out. At the time, I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. I very quickly learn't to keep this opinion to myself as a result of all the people who shouted at me for doubting that it was the greatest art-work of modern civilisation.
What a pity it is that in the twenty odd years since then that so many of those idiots still haven't managed to *grow* *up*.
Hate to say this... (Score:1)
...but I agree. Hollywood directors arn't well known for their ability to deal with intellectual subtley. The Uplift stories will get mauled, and the viewing audience will sit there asking each other "are we supposed to laugh right now or this supposed to be serious?".
Hollywood - a great place to do nuclear testing.
Re:Hahahahahaha! (Score:1)
GL has gotten much sloppier. He doesn't even have to try anymore, he knows millions of fandroids will flock to the next SW even if it's two hours of still shots of gungan droppings.
Yeah, but maybe not as many times. I saw Episode IV and V about a dozen times each in the theaters, and ROTJ twice. But I only felt like seeing Phantom Menace once. Thought it was okay, but not enough to see again before video. Lucas's attempt to put DC Comics-style "science" into the story with those milimitawhatchamacallitochondria really grated on my nerves. The whole Luke storyline seemed to make clear that the Force was something cosmic, all-encompassing, and basically unmeasurable except in the vaguest way. Turns out everybody just forgot to bring batteries for their Force tricorder!
I'm seriously hoping at least one of the next two movies is comparable to Empire. This one gave me horrible flashbacks of the first Star Trek movie...
Oh wait, I just figured out what turns Anakin to the Dark Side. Red Kryptonite. Just wait. See if I'm wrong.
Starship Troopers (the film) (Score:1)
...one of the greatest satires ever.
Each time I see it it becomes more unbelievable that anyone could take it seriously. Everything about the film, from the perfect Aryan hero to the commercial style presentation and utterly dimwitted tactics, is a complete piss-take. While I was shocked by the ridiculous amount of gore the first time round, I find it hilarious now.
Oh, and the line "Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today..." is a classic.
Re: Aliens - symbolism or not, it's a fantastic action film, with the powerloader/alien queen face-off standing out as an all time great film moment.
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No, you miss the point. (Score:2)
The problem is that there are rather a lot of people who are taking the whole star wars series *very* seriously. For a disturbingly large number of people, it has an almost religious focus.
Because of this, it is perfectly valid for Dr Brin ( or anyone else ) to critisise, since it presents an essentially elitist view of society.
His critisisms are not directed at those who regard it as being only entertainment - his critisisms are directed at those who regard it as "divinly inspired", and who seek to elevate it to such a level.
Neither is this irrelevent issue within our contemporary society. As we continue to develop more and more sophisticated methods for the manipulation of the human genome, the temptation to create the "Ubersmench" ( the Super-human ) is gradually leaving the realm of fiction and begining to emerge within the realm of actual possibility.
In this respect, Star Wars is very much a moral tale, and one which tells a very questionable lesson.
As someone who grew up in the early sixties, the concept of the Ubersmench was very much present for me. It's central position within Nazi ideology and their experiments in eugenics were very much within peoples minds.
Sadly, this is no longer the case. Recent surveys have indicated that many people today would utilise genetic modification on their own future children if such techniques were available, and that the traits that they would select for would simply be in accordance with their own particular racial and/or ethnic prejudices.
It has been said that those who do not learn the lessons of the past will inevitably make those mistakes again in the future.
My own suspicion is that the Ubersmench is very much alive and well, and living next door to George Lucas.
You need a spell-checker... (Score:1)
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
That's not necessarily true... (Score:1)
Would a government that upholds human rights deprive its citizens of land, of wealth, of their own lives without due process? Ours does. Don't believe me? We have "environmental impact" laws that forbid construction activity in an area because of "endangered species" even when those species are thriving or don't even live in the area. We have the RICO law which allows the FBI to seize anything you own even on the suspicion that you are doing something illegal--and they don't always return it either. Ask people suspected of cracking if they got their computers back even when it was proved that they were innocent. We have the careless disregard for life and property shown by the ATF and FBI. Remember Waco? Remember Ruby Ridge? I don't agree with what those folks believed in, but what they were doing wasn't necessarily illegal.
Ever hear what happened to the Mormons in the mid 1800's, courtesy of the US goverment which you so proudly hold up as a model to the world? The government drove them out of the US, refused to answer their cries for mercy as the citizens of Missouri and Illinois deprived them of life, liberty, and happiness. The government sent Johnstone after them with an army on false reports of sedition, and his soldiers did all sorts of cruel things to them.
What about the treatment of black people in this country by the US government? Abraham Lincoln might have "freed the slaves," but the "Emancipation Proclamation" only freed slaves in rebelling states--not loyal ones. There are more examples, if time would permit.
Don't get me wrong--I would still rather live here in the US and have the privileges of Citizenship here, but it isn't perfect, and just because it has the "western-style democracy" that you are so excited about does not in any way mean that it necessarily is more predisposed to human rights. Our politicians may spend a lot of time talking about human rights, but talk does not usually equate to action in our political system, as you well know.
To say that having a democratic system implies a greater degree of human rights and freedoms is a logical fallacy. It may be true in some cases, but it will not necessarily hold true in all cases, and it is conceivable that other forms of government if managed well could provide an equal or better degree of these freedoms than ours does.
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
I believe... (Score:1)
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
Re:I believe... (Score:1)
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
Anakin's Mother... (Score:1)
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
Re:R2D2's serial number (Score:1)
Which gives us a good explanation for this
Re:It's Just a Movie, Right? (Score:1)
In the mid-1970s, movies were decidedly non-saga-oriented. There were a lot of excellent movies out, but they tended to stay away from the grander themes. Star Wars revitialized the epic saga.
A lot of people criticize Star Wars and its sequels/prequels, because they are not good SF. But they never were SF! The Matrix is SF; The Martian Chronicles is SF; Star Trek is (borderline) SF. But Star Wars is not SF; it is a fairy tale that happens to occur on other planets and involves the use of space travel. And for what it is, does a pretty good job of entertaining. IMO.
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Palpatine's plan (Score:3)
First off, I'd like to summarily dismiss all of Brin's arguments that so-and-so must have planned for someone else to do something by acting like they wanted to opposite. This assumes that the characters are, in fact, demi-gods and have the ability to entirely manipulate every one's actions, taking into account that they can place barriers and assume that the foe will defeat the barriers. Brin says
and
VADER's the one who sent the secret plans to Leia's ship! He arranged for the droids to get away, and coincidentally land just a few miles from his hidden son! Remember how, a little later, he talks Tarkin into "letting them go so we can trace them"? Likewise, he's the only close-up witness to Obiwan disappearing, when he supposedly "killed" his master in that sword fight! (Maybe he actually helped Obiwan pull a vanishing act.) Note that the "fight" with Obiwan distracted the guards & helped let Luke get away!...
Brin goes on to suggest that Vader/Anakin planned the entire course of the movies starting from his escape from Tattoine just to overthrow Palpatine by arranging for Luke to distract Palpatine at a critical moment. Finally, Brin offers a quicker way for Anakin/Vader to meet his life-long goals and chides Lucas for not seeing this simpler method.
My complaint with this entire criticism is that people, no matter how powerful, simply don't plan that far ahead. Brin accuses Palpatine of planning for Amidala to escape just in time to win him the senate. He then wonders why anyone had to die if this was the plan all along. This is ridiculous. The reason these movies (at least 4-6) are fun, is watching how powerful figures react to unpredictable events.
Uh, wrong (Score:1)
Star Wars may or may not be "Science Fiction", a particular type of fiction. It has been too many years since I studied Sci-Fi (what a literature course), so I don't remember the definition (yes, there is on). My professor (author John Kessel) would have agreed that SW wasn't up to "Science Fiction".
I personally use "Science Fantasy" to cover SW and other things where the line between Magic and Technology gets blurry. This is a cop out on my part, but I've gotten over it.
- doug
Re:Brin misses a big point (Score:2)
Your average Jedi knights, perhaps. But these ones are *specifically* identified as ambassadors, and were empowered to negotiate.
Brin is incorrect in his assertion that "(a) Lucas never even tries to use this excuse [that Vader is completely controlled by the Emperor], so why concoct it?" But Vader clearly says "I *must* obey my master." in the scene where he meets Luke on Endor.
Re:Hahahahahaha! (Score:2)
Ah. Which explains why they show up in a brightly painted diplomatic vessel (according to the Star Wars Scrapbook) and immediately go talk to the leaders. Well, given the size of the galaxy, at least this is secret to the rest of the Senate. Point taken, particularly given that Valorum *is* weak and corrupt.
The victory at Naboo eliminates the Trade Federation as a vassal of Sidious's, which given the hundred (disappearing? Where did the others in the blockade go?) battleships they had was a significant force. So Sidous did lose something significant in that battle, although the Chancellorship for Palpitane was probably more than compensation.
>Luke made the Ewoks (spit!) fight the Empire?
No, his actions were just a vital step in getting the Ewok involvement. Otherwise, Luke, Han, and Chewie were going to be eaten. There was no indication the Ewoks would have spontaneously attacked the shield generator, and Leia would have been hard-pressed to do it with just herself, the robots, and any help she could get from the Ewoks.
Apparently in early scripts the Ewoks were Wookies.
Another non-ubermench who plays a vital role is Wedge Antilles, who survives the first Death Star attack, takes out an Imperial walker, and leads the attack on the Death Star, talking out the main power coupling or something like that.
Re:Hahahahahaha! (Score:2)
I also wonder why, in a world where people can fly halfway across the galaxy in (what seems like) a few hours, there isn't anyone who will exchange Republic credits for whatever ones are used on Tatooine -- one would think the Hutts would arrange to for usurious rates if no one else would. And don't the Jedi have any secret way to wire for cash/aid? Clearly they had the potential of contacting Naboo (otherwise there was no way they could respond to the pleas for her return), so they should have been able to call elsewhere.
Apparently by the time of Star Wars, btw, those exchange problems must have been worked out by those efficient Imperials; Han didn't worry about the different credits he was getting on Tatooine versus Alderaan.
Last little note: Darth Vader apparently wasn't the only one to survive the explosion of the original Death Star. The same actor who plays the part of the guy who tells Grand Moff Tarkin that there is a danger in "A New Hope" appears in , I believe, "The Empire Strikes Back", again as an Imperial officer. So apparently he took his own advice.
Brin misses a big point (Score:5)
Oh, and Luke *did* matter in ROTJ; without his Force skills, the Ewoks would never have attacked the Stormtroopers.
Wait (Score:1)
No, it's not (Score:1)
Hahahahahaha! (Score:1)
2: Luke made the Ewoks (spit!) fight the Empire? Really? Not in the movie I saw.
Re:It's Just a Movie, Right? (Score:1)
After 16 years Lucas can do better than that! Or maybe he can't. Regardless, I really doubt I'm going to bother with Episode 2.
Re:It's Just a Movie, Right? (Score:1)
Droid Jedi (Score:1)
Always two... (Score:1)
This has been explained, I believe through official Lucas sources, as a strong rule of thumb, not as a law of the universe (like those of thermodynamics). A lone master would naturally seek out an assistant (and, I presume, someone with whom to gloat); but two apprentices (or an apprentice with his own sub-apprentice) would overpower the master and reduce the count to two (just as Vader offered to Luke in ESB). And of course two independent masters could not co-exist.
Re:Brin misses a big point (Score:1)
Exactly, and without them to tell C3PO what to do, the ewoks wouldn't have done anything but run and hide.
Re:We need our Myths (Score:1)
Bill Gates was born with millionair parents.
Really? He actually founded Microsoft with money won playing poker (a la Han Solo winning the Millenium Falcon playing Sabacc).
As for ESR being a hero, what's he actually *done* apart from make a lot of noise? He shouldn't even be mentioned in the same paragraph as the real "heroes" like RMS.
Re:A different sort of objection (Score:1)
Exactly, I also wrote about this in my review [geocities.com] of the movie. I felt totally cheated!
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
Re:Always two... (Score:1)
this actually gives credence to brin's "anankin master plan" then.
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
Re:Dont even bother. (Score:1)
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
Oh, This is a story about a guy named Al and he li (Score:1)
It's really only two-digits... (Score:1)
both r2d2 and the red droid originally purchased are referred to as "r2 units", which would lead one to believe that the r2 is a model or class designation, and d2 is the only component of "r2d2" that's a unique identifier.
You missed the moral (was:Re:whoooooo caaaaares..) (Score:1)
| written science fiction..I see the connection."
Except that Taco Bell isn't real Mexican food and Star Wars isn't real science fiction.
Re:It went over your head (Score:1)
Why do I get the feeling that you haven't even read the Cliff's Notes to Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism"? Fascism is about the supposed superiority of a government lead by single absolute leader rather than by an elected body. There is nothing there about the superiority of government funding over private enterprise; in fact the biggest supporters of both Mussolini and Hitler were the capitalist leaders of industry.
He is correct (Score:1)
Yes, Lucas sucks, he should've hired Tom Stoppard or something to write his movie. *That* would've been interesting.
Star Trek
Re:Someone slept through the phantom menace and RO (Score:1)
No, DM was there to kill QuiGon and Obi Wan specifically. Not to atack the queen.
didn't know about GR (Score:1)
Anyway - think about it - there will ALWAYS be scarce resources and people will ALWAYS "pay" more for them.
A "replicator" can make a perfect pound of 24 carat gold or a cup of coffee but can it give me a vacation on a beach in (real) Aculpoco? Something will always be "scarce", it is the nature of things.
Re:Ok, just curious... (Score:1)
Lucas has zero writing skills. Great with FX, zero with storytelling.
It's Just a Movie, Right? (Score:1)
StarWars was a little like Independence Day.
One of the best B rated films of it's time. It
had all the special effects, and a mediocre story
line. Good vs. Bad, not very complicated. But
hell most of us were 7 years old when we saw it,
and we had never seen anything like it. It was
just plain AWESOME!
Somewhere along the lines this was lost I think,
everyone started personally identifying with the
characters. Started getting into the books. In
such a way that now in our late 20's, Phantom
Menace comes along, and instead of a "cool" movie
with special effects, we expect some Oscar winning
epic on the lines of BraveHeart.
My best friend took his 5 and 10 year old to see
it, they loved it as much as I did StarWars... I
hope it stays that way with them.
Re:He sounds like a middle aged english teacher (Score:1)
> Archetypes are the bad ideas generally recycled
> by third rate intellectuals
Well then I guess you'd have to put George Lucas into that category. Lucas follows Joseph Campbell and Campbell followed Carl Jung. (inventor of the term "archetype") Now, you can call Jung (or Campbell, for that matter) a "third rate intellectual," but I'd like to see you back that one up...
You want big guns? (Score:1)
Try the "culture" universe from Iain Banks. Gotta love the power of those spaceships :-) they'd eat anything (in fact, everything all at once) in the trek or starwars universes for lunch - but they are too nice to want to :-/
Re:It went over your head (Score:1)
This, apart from your obvious misinterpretation of Fascism... Might consider actually reading Mussolini's writings on the subject.
Re:Is he nuts?? (Score:1)
The basic idea of that aside was that of SF movie trilogies, the first one is okay, the second is fantastic, while the third should nailed to the wall and set on fire. Highlander is a very obvious counter example.
Re:One comment... (Score:1)
I've always said that there is no subject on Earth that it's not possible to make a funny joke about, and that there's nothing wrong with making that joke. The obvious flip side is that if there's nothing you can completely seriously, there's nothing you can take completely lightly, either.
Re:Jar Jar a masturbation toy? (Score:1)
I'm serious here, I saw it at Walmart. It was a lollipop, built something like a Pez dispenser, with a plastic Binks head on it. You were supposed to pry apart Jar Jar's lips and suck on the candy tongue inside.
Very disturbing.
And you could tell it was genuine Star Wars merchandise, too, cause it was like four bucks.
Re:david brin is making sea quest dsv 2000 (Score:1)
Is this true? Has someone bought the option? Are they doing anything with it? Even after Postman? Which book (Sundiver or maybe Uplift War, I should think)?
Re:Palpatine the Sith Lord? (Score:1)
Sidious comment that he would take care of the Senate can just be like the way he took care of Naboo.. He didn't do it personally but through a subject or other means under his control.. the Trade Federation, Darth Maul or.. Senator Palpatine.
Palapatine and Sidious look alike, but Sidious is clearly older than Palpatine. At least to me..
I am therefor one of those who believe that Palpatine is a clone puppet to Sidious. The fact that neither Jedi could felt any "presance" when close to Palpatine should indicate more clearly than aything that Palpatine _is_not_ Sidious.
Their voices aren't identical either.. bur neither was Padme/Amidala's.
Sidious plan is probobly one of manouvering Palpatine into power, and then take his place as Emperor to be.
But.. nothing is certain until we see Episode II. and perhaps not even then. If I'd to pick the one thing that makes SW so great is that nothing is certain.. not even when you've been presented with the facts.
- Henrik
Re:SW vs ST? My only choices? (Score:1)
Preferably after the worst of the Man-Kzin wars....
I dunno... The flatlander series was kinda cool. I kinda like the whole idea of a Fertility Board and contract marriages. Mother hunts and the 'recycling' of people who can't work within a society's bounds aren't really such bad ideas (at least in the context of that civilization, with its massive overcrowding and resource shortages), if one can step back and look at them without emotion. The civilization in the flatlander series took the recycling to an extreme, though. I think at its worst you could be executed for jaywalking. Laff.
It's nice to think that maybe we'll get out and explore the outer solar system a bit before first contact.
Downside to that period is that the Gil's time was before the development of the Autodoc (of course, if he'd had an autodoc he wouldn't have become The Arm). With the advent of the autodoc, there was much less incentive to chop up people for their parts. Instead, they just medicated the hell out of people. Remember the guy who went off of his meds so that he could brainstorm a way to fight off the first wave of kzinti?
I have a lot of respect for those who spend the time and effort to become a doctor for the purpose of helping other people (and not just so that they can pad their wallets), but dammit, so much of medicine still seems like guesswork. I want to plug myself into a machine and have it not only tell me what's wrong, but also have it fix me up. I don't entirely trust my financial software today, though. Realistically speaking, it's going to be a good long while before we see anything beyond primitive 'if it hurts there, and it's this color here, then take this' expert systems.
Eh. I'll be dead in 70 years, if not sooner. Hopefully we'll have at least put a colony on the moon by then. Prolly not, though. *sigh*
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A host is a host from coast to coast...
The Übermensch is nothing to fear... (Score:1)
The difference between genetic diddling and the third reich is that there is no german army and pals making Lebensraum für der Übermenschen.
If people want their kids to look like supermodels and have the intelligence of rocket scientists, why not, as long they can pay for it? Ain't capitalism great?
If you can't afford it, your kids might be ugly and stupid, and they'll get dropped out of the gene pool. Good riddance. If they're ugly but smart enough to get along, great! If they're stupid but pretty enough to be taken care of, great!
The only problem with this scenario is if there isn't enough effort put into getting rid of the need for jobs to keep the ugly and stupid people occupied. Hrm... Brave New World, anyone?
Seriously, though... I don't think that it's anything to worry about. And if it is, what're you going to do about it? Ugly People Unite!? "Morons who stick together, umm... Do stuff together!"
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A host is a host from coast to coast...
"Your lack of faith disturbs me." (Score:2)
In my opinion, it was still a good movie dispite the holes in the plot. Take Armageddon - did you really think for one second that a nuclear warhead that might have weighed maybe 300 lbs was going to blow a asteroid the size of *texas* in half? No, but that doesn't mean the movie sucked for that fact alone (it sucked for other reasons *g*).
And finally, comparing Star Trek to Star Wars is just *asking* for the geeks here to break out their light sabres and phasers and go get medival on your ass. Those two universes are seperate. For one, Star Wars has far more interesting aliens. However, bar none, the Enterprise has the bigger guns.
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Re:"Your lack of faith disturbs me." (Score:2)
Now, have you ever seen a storm trooper actually *hit* his target within a reasonable period of time? How about a whole group of them? Now, in the star trek universe, they actually teach you how to aim your weapon.
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Re:"Your lack of faith disturbs me." (Score:2)
On the other hand, it seems the star wars universe has no targetting systems at all - witness the imperial star destroyers - how many ships can zoom around those things without being shot? I mean, comeon - there's an entire fleet outside, and they can only get a hit maybe 1:150?
Atleast the Enterprise can do precision targetting ("Worf, disable their shields" *two shots later* "done.").
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Re:The Culture universe (Score:2)
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Re:This is nuts! (Score:1)
Your primary point seems to be that the goods we associate with modern government (human rights, education, lack of violence in everyday life) are not directly tied to democracy, but can exist without democratic government. I agree with that if human nature were perfect, but it is not, and therefore it is better to design systems of government to account for the fact that anyone wanting to rule is likely to be a rotter.
Given that, we need to ensure they are as accountable to the values they are meant to uphold (liberalism, human rights, etc) as possible. Democracies accomplish this quite well, by ensuring, as long as elections are held, that governments will be punished for spoiling people's sense of wellbeing, and another part of the elite will be put in their place.
I completely acknowledge your point about Athens. Some of the things they did were barbaric. What a democracy acheives is hugely dependant on the values of the electorate, and some western democracies show occasional signs of going wrong for just that reason. I'd only argue that the democratic barbarians of Athens were better off than the non-democratic barbarians who surrounded them.
I don't really agree that people need much political sophistication to participate in a democracy. Giving people direct control over government, or encouraging activism, might lead to some very misguided policies. It is better in many ways that the mass of the population answer the question "do they suck or not ? and do you care ?" every few years.
You seem opposed to elitism, so you probably won't agree with that last paragraph, but consider this: can anyone program a computer ? mend a car ? build a house ? Then why is there such a widespread idea that anyone can run a country ? You need a certain personality and certain skills. The best the rest of us can do to experts in any field is keep tabs on how badly they suck, and avoid the ones who suck the worst.
The Nazi government in Germany had very little democratic mandate. They were selected to form a government in a parliament that had no clear majority, while their power was in decline. Its pretty hard to argue that the will of the German people was a Nazi government. In practice the will of the president was to keep the Commies out, and he thought the Nazis were the lesser evil. An argument against a political head of state perhaps ?
Which leads me on to saying that Britain's system of government is hugely complex, but largely informal. In practice the monarch acts as a guard against illegitimate governments. Any government that tried to get rid of the monarch out of anything other than republican principle (in which case they'd want to replace the rest of the system as well) would lose the good will of large and important parts of the public. This is probably as good a safeguard as any bit of paper.
Finally, Kosovo. International law, and therefore the UN, is mainly concerned with interaction between states. Conflicts on this level are rare these days, and therefore many situations lead to conflicts within states. These are not covered by any kind of law, and are fairly horrifying to nice western couch potatos. Our governments therefore feel driven to do something about them - at least those that occur in Europe, in places that don't matter much strategically (ie. not Turkey) etc.
What this proves is that international law is woefully inadequate, not that NATO acted with anything but the best of intentions. We have nothing against the Serbs and very little nice to say about the Albanians (indeed most westerners would be hard put to tell a Serb from an Albanian or find Serbia on a map). There is no failure to acknowledge Turkeys behaviour (indeed the EU has pissed Turkey off over this very issue). Its just that Turkey matters too much. I think that sucks too, but the appropriate thing to do is strengthen international instituations to deal with Turkey without threatening NATO's integrity, not to cry "let the poor Serbs alone" while they rape and pillage minority areas of their own country.
Re: ERRRRR...try again 2 (Score:2)
Perhaps Marcvs is unfamiliar with how countries with parliamentary systems work. Generally speaking, there is a president whose powers are mostly ceremonial except for times where there is a change of governments. At that point, if one party has a majority, there isn't a choice: the leader of that party gets to be prime minister or premier or chancellor. If no party has the majority, the president has some choice who to appoint, but the appointment is only successful if the appointee forms a successful coalition. In this case, Hindinberg picked Hitler. While Hitler's own party didn't have a majority, he had allies in other parties. These allies thought they could control Hitler; they were about as wrong as they could be, but that's why they went along.
What this means is that Hitler gained power by standard constitutional means; dozens of other leaders of democratic countries gained power in the same way (e.g. the current chancellor of Germany, who also doesn't have a majority).
Hitler later managed to abolish democracy. But at the time that he did this, he was wildly popular.
Re:He sounds like a middle aged english teacher (Score:2)
If using the concept of archetypes is a sign that someone is an ass, Lucas is an ass. The source for the idea that Lucas is using concepts out of Joseph Campbell to construct Star Wars, complete with archetypical heros and villians, is ... Lucas himself.
As for your last question: the fact that you rebel against a despot doesn't mean you're a democrat. It may just mean that you believe that someone else has the right to be despot (e.g. you think Princess Leia should be the queen, with powers like those of Elizabeth I).
In the end, you're just defending illiteracy. Anyone who analyzes the sources of a film or book you dismiss as "a middle-aged English teacher".
Re:SW vs ST? My only choices? (Score:1)
Re:Hahahahahaha! (Score:2)
I mean there were plenty of other glaring inconsistencies, but that wasn't one. I for one was just disappointed in the really poor character development. Darth Maul looked sounded like one bitter dude "At last we reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge", but beyond that he did not get ONE SINGLE LINE, aside from some "yes master" nonsense. Like Brin said, a little speechifying while those forcefields were up, even some vague allusion to some blot on the Jedi's morality would have lent some depth to this character before he was sliced by Obi-Wan. Something to make people chew on before the next movie.
GL has gotten much sloppier. He doesn't even have to try anymore, he knows millions of fandroids will flock to the next SW even if it's two hours of still shots of gungan droppings.
Re:R2D2's serial number (Score:2)
Well, aside from the known fact that he was named for the reel of film he appeared on, the other explanation is that R2D2 was simply the designation for his class (Repair), and he was unit D2 on that ship (since A New Hope does refer to "R2 units" in general).
Going a little deeper and probably off the deep end, it would seem they were designed to deliberately be non-anthropomorphic, to have less interaction with humans and more with machines. They likely learned through interaction, and didn't want them getting cluttered up with social interaction routines -- thus no human comprehensible audible language. R2D2 got put around more humans than normal and thus learned to mimic some human expression.
That's the hindsight angle. Really he was just a cute squeaking sidekick named after the reel of film he was introduced on (then likely re-written to be put in on the first)
Re:Brin is too full of himself. (Score:2)
Re:Subsidized abortion?! (Score:2)
Poppycock
Balderdash
Kerfuffle
Jedi were *secret* ambassadors (Score:1)
Aliens comment (Score:1)
Re:Aliens comment (Score:1)
I have to wonder if you've actually read ST; I would describe it much more as commentary on the military, how the military mindset works, what a society based on the military would be like, etc etc. Your comment about xenephobia shows that you have actually read little, if any, Heinlein. His work is anything but xenephobic, and I really dont see that at all in ST. Some of the cultures he presents are extremely foreign to us; Glory Road, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, are the ones that come to mind immediately. Read those and then say that heinlein is a xenephobe.
I wasnt really even making that strong a statement on aliens; it just didnt interest me. But then, I read ST, and quite a bit of other sci fi before I saw it. I was more saying that in my opinion that trilogy doesnt fit in two well with brin's statement of how all trilogies follow that pattern. I think the political statements regarding a society based on war are far more interesting than the stuff about mans arrogance of mastering nature (or alien life forms) with technology, which I was watching on Doctor Who when I was a kid. I happen to think that "its been done before" does have some bearing on whether something has value, especially if its been done a lot or better before. However, the statement "everything is based on something so it doesnt matter whether its been done before" seems a bit silly to me. Quite simply, aliens bored me (except for the fight scenes etc etc)
Sad that one of the other responses to my post thought I meant the ST movie.
Blech...rant...
Re:He sounds like a middle aged english teacher (Score:1)
Though I suppose "archetype" is in and of itself one of those "big unfamiliar words [used] as labor saving devices," unless you've taken some of those english classes. Anyways, arent big words by definition labor saving devices, used so that you dont have to use a larger collection of smaller words? Seems like it is just straight big words you object to.
Course I'm just getting upset cause Brin is one of my favorite sci fi authors, a field where he writes some fascinating (though overly optimistic) novels, with the occasional big word sprinkled in...
Whoa, slow down man...... (Score:1)
As much as I love Star Wars (jez its all i talked about for two weeks befor phanton menace was released) I think Mr Brinn needs to get out a little more ( this coming from me, whos sits in front of my terminal for 12 hours a day). He may be taking these films a bit to seriously and fallen into the trap of reading TOO much into these films (as Ive seen so many ppl do over the last two months).
Re:Hahahahahaha! (Score:1)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:"Your lack of faith disturbs me." (Score:1)
Not really fair... (Score:1)
I also have to comment on the midi-chlorians argument. Everyone is always complaining about this without looking for any depth. The first time I saw TPM they bothered me a bit. The second time I saw the movie I got an entirely different impression. I viewed it as cruft in the jedi system much like the beaurocracy in the senate.
The jedi have become so complacent that all but the wisest of them feels that they can "measure" someone's force ability with a blood test. I think this is a sign of the decay of the jedi.
So far the biggest whole that I've found, that can't be easily explained by an attempt at some literary depth, is the fact that the droids (C3PO for sure at least) later have no recollection of Tatooine despite having been their previously. Hopefully, this will be "repaired" in the next two movies.
When I go back and watch "A New Hope", I'm really amazed at how much back story was revealed through subtle hints.
Re:Brin is too full of himself. (Score:1)
This is what passes for intelligent commentary on the internet?? The best you can say to repudiate Brin is to say that your "take is that Brin is simply jealous"??
Yes. Jealousy is a very simple, and natural, human emotion that does not need complicated explanations. Brin obviously thinks he can write better than Lucas, and he attempts to prove it by writing obfuscated opinion pieces that nobody can understand. If I put my mind to it, I'm pretty sure that I can put together long-winded diatribes that are just as convoluted. If you won't be able to understand a word of it, would that mean that I'm smarter than you?
Then you offer jealousy (since you either can't, or won't, invalidate his argument intellectually)
What argument would that be? There's apparently some trouble finding anyone who can coherently explain what Brin was trying to say in that Salon piece.
or proof that we should all keep our heads in the sand and just listen to the rich guy, because he's got all that money and thus must be doing something right??
Who said that we should all listen to the rich guy? It's just a movie, for God's sake, and a damn good one. It's not the Bible, or the Torah. It's "Star Wars", not "The Ten Commandments". Liam Neeson doesn't look anywhere like Charleton Heston.
Brin is too full of himself. (Score:2)
I read Brin's original piece in Salon, as well as his follow-up.
My personal impression is that Brin is simply too full of himself. The Salon piece was the most long-winded, arrogant, and condescending drivel I've read in a long, long time. Parts of it were completely unreadable because, I guess, Mr. Brin wanted to impress the reader with his extensive vocabulary. After reading that dissertation a couple of times, I still can't figure out what he was saying. Picking apart popular sci-fi movies and books is a popular past time on Usenet and the web. It goes on all the time. Yet, Brin takes this to ridiculous extremees.
I've read some of Brin's novels. They didn't impress me much. My take is that Brin is simply jealous of George Lucas's success, that's all.
Re:He sounds like a middle aged english teacher (Score:1)
This is a joke.
The Culture universe (Score:3)
That's an interesting suggestion in terms of Brin's argument.
On the one hand, the Culture is held up as some sort of endpoint for the rational questioning of all things in society and the ultimate permissiveness of individual tastes: the egalitarian utopia which Brin asks us to struggle toward. It has no money, no laws, no violence or coercion, no secrecy outside your own head. (Plenty of values and social norms, though.)
On the other hand, the gap in power between the Minds and the human population is effectively disenfranchising. Most of the humans give their lives over to the one thing where competition with machines doesn't mean anything: having a good time. One could argue most of the machines are up to the same, but where the moral exercise of power requires the most complete understanding of the consequences of your actions, the important decisions must lie with the Minds. More to the point, the stories always focus around the experience of a single protagonist, often a person to some degree outside the human norms of the culture. A "throwback" or a "barbarian". These characters act as demigods to the societies the Culture intervenes in, usually by natural talent, other times by technological or ethical fiat, but they are also shown to have been instruments of the Minds that are the real movers behind the plot.
What little is described of the Culture's origins says they developed from a splinter group of humans who started a somewhat radical society and left the mainstream when it got unfriendly. (secessionist fandom anyone?) From isolation it grew into one of the dominant civilations in the galaxy, either by luck or the strength of its open development model. Presumedly they still work this way, because the Minds see it as the most efficient way to run things. Indeed, it seems to be be their evolution, not that of the humans, that's keep to society stable for millenia. Marain, the language the humans speak was designed by the Minds, and humans tend to drift into less utopian modes of thought when they stop speaking it. Witness the "almost inhuman detached passion" required to prosecute antagonists in a way least damaging to both sides, or the common occurence of characters gone native in "primitive" (meaning less egalitarian) societies. Perhaps this is an unfortunate 'way out' a la LeGuin's Disposessed.
How-we-get-there-from-here aside, I'd like to ask, "The best way to keep things running compared to what?" We're led to believe it's "compared to everything", like RMS's contention that open development makes sense from a rational point of view [tuxedo.org] without an appeal to ideology. This has always rung false to me, like Star Trek's claim that the the android Data has no emotions. I think the Vulcans got it right: logic tells you the consequences of your actions, but it doesn't tell you with of those consequences you'll prefer. That comes down to values, or feelings, or something we don't understand from a technical point of view yet.
The message I've always taken from the Culture novels is that it's the values the society is based on, the values the Minds grew up with, that make it what it is. The consequences of our power to affect each other, which has only been magnified by technology, can't be avoided. Our only hope is to find ways of dealing with each other that improve our lives and avoid the miseries of the past for all of us. And that's what David Brin is talking about.
He sounds like a middle aged english teacher (Score:2)
That is, they figure out a way to say pretty much nothing in as many words as possible with as arrogant a tone as possible, doing their best to imply that they're in the know because they can categorize everything into a bunch of made-up cubby holes.
Guess what, vader may have been more than a 1-dimension cardboard cutout. So might luke. And Han. And Chewie. And C3PO. And every damn character in the movie. Lucas could have been telling a story about people. Genuine, multifaceted people.
Did you notice that just about every one of the main characters in the SW trilogy was responsible for saving each other at least once? Did you notice that every one of the main characters was saved by someone else at some point?
The problem with Brin wasn't that he used big words. Big words are just accedents of the fact that human beings only tend to pronounce so many sounds, and to get more words than sounds we have to string the words together. Unfamiliar words are just side effects of the fact that we're not all the same person, and we don't all live the same life. Noone objects to those. What people object to are people who use big, unfamiliar words as labor-saving devices. Instead of coming up with something worth saying, they just use a special cant that's readily appliable to any situation because the can't is fairly similar to the cant of newspaper psychics - so broad that it always describes everything without exactly seeming to.
I don't think that Brin is jealous of Lucas. I just think that he's talking about him to get publicity. Talking about big issues is a way to get attention, especially if you show opinions contrary to popular belief.
I think that most people will be intereste din listening to Brin when he doesn't sound like a highschool english teacher. It takes most of us a long enough time to recover from that crap and regain the ability to appreciate good literature, we don't need another dose of mindless elitist drivel.
On the other hand, I think that Brin is right that we are all part of a community. I just think that it's strange that he thinks that star wars has anything to do with the idea that democracy is bad. After all, weren't 4-6 about the goodguy rebels defeating the badguy despots?
Dont even bother. (Score:2)
Bowie
R2D2's serial number (Score:4)
Here's one curious thing I have noticed about R2D2, C3PO and droids in general. Droids appear to be very common (the tiny Naboo ship had at least three of them). There's probably thousands of worlds, hundreds of thousands of ships and perhaps hundreds of millions of droids in the Star Wars galaxy.
So why is R2D2's serial number so short?
If we assume that a droid's serial number can consist of any combination of four letters and/or numbers, then there are only 36 ^ 4 combinations, or 1,679,616 different serial numbers, which would barely cover the number of droids found on a small, backwater world such as Tattoine.
On the plus side, R2D2, as always, has a lot of hack value. He is also clearly running Linux: R2D2 did not bluescreen once in the whole of the Star Wars series. The only times R2D2 failed that I can recall were hardware failures such as an external electrical overload (Jawas, Endor) or being shot in the Death Star trench.
Re:These are just movies after all... (Score:2)
This is nuts! (Score:3)
1. That individual rights can exist under a non-democratic government, and are unrelated to democracy.
2. That history is changed only by elites.
This statement is bizarre. These things cannot exist but in a democracy. If there is no way to hold leaders accountable, then you can not stop them from silencing speech or making people "disappear".
And how do you suppose these rights become law? In the US, they were voted on by ratifing the Constitution. What do you think is more credible and more likely to endure: rights declared "inaliable" by those who choose them and with the power to ensure their protection through the process of democracy, law, and public criticism, or by rights granted abirtrarily by a dictator or ruling elite? Consider what happens when power is transfered to another elite. The most enlightened king can have a tyrant son.
With a significantly reduced reign and less power. And they can be removed from power without bloodshed. And anyone can become a politician.
But being able to criticize that government, and select that government from the most qualified canditates DOES mean you get good government, or at least the best available.
That is circular reasoning. Any example of someone who has changed history is automatically had the "spear-carrier" status removed. But the fact is many people who had humble beginnings have gone on to change the world. Martin Luther King, Jonas Salk, and Albert Einstein are just a few examples.
Or look at this way. Of all the people born to be elites, how many have turned out to be mediocre? Certainly more than those who haven't!
And what did that party do as soon as it had power? It outlawed other political parties and silenced public criticism. There was no democracy when almost all of the atrocaties were committed. The German people and their rulers were at fault, not the democratic model of government.
Besides, this is a pathetic argument against democracy, considering the number of autocratic governments which have committed atrocities throughout history.
Offtopic sidenote: The fact that you prefix "supposed" in front of "ethnic cleansing" says about your bias. I assume you get news from the international wire services in Greece. Whatever you think of NATO's intentions, or the indepndance of the media, the fact is that thousands were murdered by the Serbian army. I've seen mass graves on TV, and heard survivors describe how the entire adult male population of villages were rounded up and shot. It happened. You can't fabricate stuff like that and get away with it, at least not in countries with competing news services and laws against censorship (ding ding, only in democracies!). The only part that people don't agree on is the accuracy of the estimates of the number killed. Some claim that the numbers are being inflated to help justify NATO's bombing, but that does not mean it didn't happen.
These are just movies after all... (Score:2)
The fact that he has done such an admirable job to date is a testament to the guy's sheer ability - who really cares if he messes up on a few minor details, he tells a good old fashioned "yarn". Great escapism that takes us away from the sometimes awful reality of the world we live in.
Often in a good story it is not what is said, but what is left unsaid, that makes the story most plausible - and the fact that so much debate has been able to be raised over so many of these unspoken aspects speaks volumes about Lucas' talent as a storyteller.
Re:Palpatine's plan (Score:3)
I argue that Vader/Anakin is not the boy wonder Brin makes him out to be. I argue that he is simply responding to the events around him, just like most people do.
Putting aside all fanaticism, one has to agree that Lucas asks way too much of his audience by feeding them this "I'm so special that I BUILT A VERY COMPLEX AND EFFICIENT AIRCRAFT ALL BY MYSELF AT THE AGE OF 6" (or whatever age the kid has).
Ok, some of us have built robots (whithout any intelligence, of course but--- hm, hold a second, that's just like 3PO...), thinkered with computer peripherials or programmed (or all three), so why wouldn't young Skywalker be able to put together the droid?
But how many of you out there not only compete in your local F1 team, BUT are also able to build one from scratch utilizing stolen spare parts, AND make it so good that it beats the hell outta Ferrari. And DON'T say it's not an overstatement about the kid being The One (tm).
What's my point? Just that there is a thin but very noticeable line dividing a resource used to underline a character's "uniqueness" and using cheap tricks to force you to accept that same special quality of his. And Lucas made a huge leap over that line. Just as he does with several other elements.
IMHO, and I think many may agree on that, the third colon on the movie title should be "Could Have Been A Lot Better".
I loved the special effects, the plot yet I cannot find. But, while it is true that SW's got more holes in the plot than a Grouyere cheese, it is also true that it's vastly changed the way movies are made since the very first one. So, let's learn to accept and excercise criticism.
End_Of_Preaching.
- (Virtual)Raider of the lost BBS.
Palpatine's plan (Score:2)
From what we've seen, it's been mostly to force Naboo to sign a treaty with the Trade Federation. And after that either come back and say this wrong or simply use it to build is power base and pile up the atrocities.
He took advantage of having Amidala arriving in Coruscant but this is not necessarily what he wanted and what he had originally planned to do.
We have the choice between someone who can either see the future, or someone who is forced to act earlier and takes advantage of it.
And the main reasons why the Jedi were not presented as proofs of the atrocities, I would guess that several of the senators would not have trusted them. I mean, they have quasi-magical powers, they are pretty much independant from any temporal power. And being all-good does not really inclines rulers to try to trust you (I doubt a lot of them have clear consciences, at least from a Jedi's POV).
Of course, there are holes in the scenario, but that doesn't mean that this excuse should be used whenever you don't understand (or course the reverse is also true).
And as for what matters or not, the point is that everything matters. Everything you do changes the outcome for the better or for worse and usually for both. But you can look at pretty much every events and see how it could have turned better or worse depending on what happened.
And not to forget that one of the lessons there is to always try to do what you should be doing, not to tell yourself that it doesn't matter, because you never know when it's going to matter or not.
Re:Whoa, slow down man...... (Score:2)
A different sort of objection (Score:3)
One objection I've never heard, and this surprises me, is that Star Wars is a wonderful missed opportunity.
The Star Wars universe is a huge and well developed context in which many different, interesting tales could be told. Unfortunately, because they're marketed to kids for toy sales, the movies, books and comics are juvenile. I enjoyed Phantom Menace once I remembered it's directed at ten year olds, and concentrated on the special effects.
The fallout from that marketing angle is througout all the movies. The force is no longer a mystical element of the universe; it's a microbe that people have in greater or lesser quantities (leading, however, to the tantalizing possibility of bottling and freebasing it). The wars aren't fought with blood and bone, but with plastic aliens that get knocked down and don't get up. The insulting caricatures of other cultures were used for comic effect, with little thought to how adults might interpret them.
Surely I'm not alone in feeling cheated of what could happen if those movies were directed at adults. Whatever mythic quality they have is diluted to uselessness by the action figures that follow.
Star Trek movies make the same mistake, to a lesser degree. In Insurrection, Federation shuttlecraft come with a karaoke machine as a standard option, and the Enterprise can be flown with a Sidewinder joystick. I nearly puked in the theatre when I saw that.
So what if Lucas is kicking democracy? (Score:5)
This being an opinion I currently hold, I would like to offer a couple of comments. Brin seems to be confusing several of the underlying concepts of American society and over-generalizing about how your political system works.
Democracy is not a cut-and-paste solution. Democratic governments vary greatly, and the principle behind democracy is elected government. A lot of other things that exist in American democracy and various other types of government in the Western world, such as human rights, international law, freedom of speech and expression etc. have little to do with democracy in itself.
I am not an American. I am Greek, and I live in Athens, the place where democracy was born. I would like to point out that the ancient Athenian democracy came with little of the sprinklings and egalitarian human-rights laws that come with most modern forms of government. And it didn't work well. It didn't work well at all, and it could be argued that democracy was largely to blame for Athens' fall and decline after the Pelloponesian War.
I've also read the Iliad and the Odyssey as well as several plays by Evripides (in the original, no less!) and would like to wonder about how they differ with the kind of stories Mr. Brin advocates.
For one thing, Mr. Brin agrees that a story must have heroes. And, believe it or not, this is the way history works. I'd like to see someone come up and disagree with me when I say that a handful of people have made an incredible impact on the history of human civilization while most people did indeed play the role of un-named spear-carriers. Especially in the case of war, the decision to go to war is usually taken by a small group of leaders to whom many have sworn allegiance by one means or another. It was the American government's decision to start the war in Kosovo over supposed ethnic cleansing just as it was Agamemnon's decision to start the war in Troy over the abduction of Helen.
The only moral objection that Mr. Brin brings up is how the elite is selected. The only difference he really sees between the Homerian demi-gods and everyday-Joes-cum-heroes is that one is selected by fate / hereditary rights / genetics while the other is selected by a handful of people around him. For Mr. Brin, the deciding difference between Agamemnon Atreides and Bill Clinton is that Agamemnon was king because he was the son of Atreus, while Mr. Clinton is president because of the small percentage of the American public that actually voted, more than half chose him over the other candidate.
The fact that he's at least partially responsible for bombing the houses of people in Serbia, half way around the world from the Oval office, is not the problem. Supposedly, our beloved democracy would have struck him down in his place if his action was morally reprehensible.
Please get me straight. Although I do take interest in these matters, I do not wish to debate the moral right of this or that leader to wage war against another nation. That is a matter of a different discussion. What I am debating is Mr. Brin's point that all the good in society comes from the fact that our leaders are elected.
Let me tell you something you might have forgotten. The Nazi government was elected, through due democratic process. The public loved them. For the average German in the 30s, a government that promised freedom from the economic hell imposed by the winners of WWI and getting rid of the Jewish commercial elite that they believed was the source of all their problems (there, another elite creeps into place). HITLER AND THE NAZI PARTY HAD A DIRECT MANDATE FROM THE GERMAN PEOPLE, AND YET THEY ARE STILL THE CAUSE FOR SOME OF THE WORST ATROCITIES EVER COMMITTED .
Mr. Brin supports that power corrupts, and that despots invariably become egotistical and power-hungry, incapable of acting in the best interests of their people. Just because a (relatively small) bunch of people picked an elected president over his opponent does not mean that the above cannot apply to him as well!
Democracy is, IMHO, just another way to pick an elite. But the way the world is governed at the time being means we NEED an elite. We just switched from passing the crown down from father to son, and are now passing the mandate from politician to politician.
The average citizen might have an opinion, and even a valid and just way of thinking about how the country should be run. But he might not. Putting the decision of one political party over another in the hands of the public does NOT mean you get good government.
This is Slashdot, a site for geeks, people who see ourselves as an intellectual elite. Saying that if more people pick a Democrat over a Republican (or the other way around) means we get good government is like saying that having people pick Windows over Linux (which they do, mostly, and the reasons, though bad, apply equally to democracy: lack of choice, lack of support, bad media coverage, lack of education and awareness, lack of interest) means they get good computing.
If George Lucas wants to thrash democracy, let him. You might disagree with him (and me), but it's a valid point and not unethical or morally reprehensible. Mr. Brin's point about GL thrashing a culture that has been good to him is invalid. GL is thrashing ELECTED GOVERNMENT, not the institutions that allow freedom of expression and opportunities for financial success. The two do not go together hand-in-hand. You can have one without the other. And in ALL forms of government to date, be it monarchy, aristocracy, communism, tyrrany, democracy or anything else, (perhaps not socialism? But the examples are few and far apart, and hard to judge) an ELITE has governed the masses, who have had little say in government except when they rebelled or went to the polls to exchange one elite for another. The question here is how an elite is selected. Elected government might be the best we have so far , but it is not close to being a good and effective system. You can judge individual elites (e.g. Nazis were bad, JFK was good, Agamemnon was bad, Pericles was good etc.) but you will find that the way they were brought into power has little to do with their effectiveness. Mr. Brin's objection to this I find appalling.
Re:Brin is too full of himself. (Score:3)
This is what passes for intelligent commentary on the internet?? The best you can say to repudiate Brin is to say that your "take is that Brin is simply jealous"?? Yet you start out by saying that you're out of your league, both because his vocabulary baffles you, and you can't follow a relatively straightforward, albeit complex, dissection of trends in comtemporary science fiction.
You dismiss Brin's argument because you can't understand it. That doesn't disprove it: deriding him for using ten-dollar words says NOTHING about whether his criticisms are valid. Then you offer jealousy (since you either can't, or won't, invalidate his argument intellectually) as... what? Proof that he's wrong, or proof that we should all keep our heads in the sand and just listen to the rich guy, because he's got all that money and thus must be doing something right??
Gee -- too bad you didn't take the time to get a dictionary, or a more intelligent friend and have them explain what Brin was talking about. Because your response merely proves most of the points he was making.
But hell, what do *I* know? I'm just jealous of Lucas' billions, right?