Remember Lucas' Lesson! (Longish)

While I'll agree that there was gratuitous fan service (the other kind) going on in the Star Wars prequels which certainly took screen time away from the actual plot, I can't really point to that as the biggest problem with them. It's like blaming the last two inches on a door that's six feet too narrow. The prequels were relatively long, and they had ample time to get SOMETHING going, yet even that time is squandered on an inept script. If I saw this thrilling, captivating story written into them, but that was just not able to be fleshed out due to excessive unnecessary effects, I might concede that they were the problem. But the script did nothing with even the plot air time it had, so it really doesn't even get down to effects before it breaks down.

Now, on the other hand, I suppose you can argue that having lots of flashy effects could serve as a selling point, and Lucas might have decided to sell it on that and so not spend as much effort on the story. But in this case, I'd call that bad directing first and foremost. I happen to believe good movies are made by good EVERYTHING. Good plot, action and effects, not one or the other or the other still. Whenever a decision is made to cut one to benefit the others, that takes away from the merit of a movie, and I'm sure George Lucas had enough time and resources to focus on both effects and plot, and the prequels certainly had enough air time to forward it. It just seems like someone outright failed to do so.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It's pretty difficult to sympathise with someone who spouts IN MY OPINION THE JEDI ARE EVIL! after slaughtering an entire kindergarten because his new daddy-figure told him to.

To this day, I still don't know whether this is to show that Anakin is just a whiny nimrod, or whether it's Mr Lucas' failed attempt at a moral grey between Jedi and Siths. All things considered, I am closer to assuming the latter.

See, here's the thing about moral grey areas - they have to be morally ambiguous. You can't just take a complete monster (to give an extreme example) and try to give his actions justification. That just gets people to shout "You're insane!" in an overly dramatic tone, while he responds "I believe history will see things differently."

...I am such a nerd...

The point is, a character has to be convincing and his thesis believable to such an extent that the full horror of his actions seems somehow justified, or at the very least make the character committing them redeemable in some way. For instance, and to go back to topic, the sequels' Darth Vader is pretty much a very, very bad man crushes a man's neck like a can of coke as a matter of course, yet towards the end when we finally understand the full scope of the tragedy that is his life, he still sort of seems OK. But someone like the Emperor would never be redeemable no matter his rhetoric, because at the end of the day, he's still just a villain with an excuse, and though his plan is admittedly very clever, he isn't at all sympathetic.

And that's what it comes down to when you make "morally grey" characters - you need someone who remains sympathetic even after everything they do.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Morally grey characters are fun... and I think I've fallen in love with the morally grey taken to an extreme

Ultra utilitarian character that'll do basically anything (lie, cheat, steal, kill, brainwash, enslave, throw the entire world into war, etc) to accomplish their goals of a 'better' world/future/etc. I love it the most when they're the also the protagonist, being challenged by both the deontological heroes as well as the traditional villains (or even other ultra utilitarians). Also a plus to throw in a few Xanatos gambits (or roulette, or even speed chess for good measure

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

Right now I am just waiting for the New Shinyness to wear off. With the exception of red/black powers and this one guy's green lightning effects, the colors I am seeing are mostly a Catastrophe of Clash. Or of simple bad choices.

Bad choice #1: pink fire imps. Everyone thinks this is so cute and funny, irregardless that 50% of players I see seem to have pink imps. Its a cliche now. "Whee, I'm bucking the system, lookit my pink imps!"

*yawn*

However from a rp perspective this is great. My vampire /regen scrapper now occasionally refreshes her HP with a fine mist of blood these days. Big fun I am so happy regen is no longer green, I can't tell you. Altho my one quibble is with Intergration: no effects should mean you also lose the gorilla-scream and chestbeating. That's just unnattractive.

Now lets work on hasten, shall we...?

Two points: There is no such thing as "bad choice," only "choice I don't like." Sometimes it's safe to assume that our preferences are a little more universally appealing, making us a little more right, but under no circumstances would I ever consider going out on a limb and claiming that a person's character design is BAD. Ill-thought-out, perhaps, even random, but this is an evaluation of the perceived amount of effort (or lack thereof) that went in it, not of its final quality.

It really bothers me that this is a recurring trend in this game - "Your costume sucks!" People make what people like, and short of trying to convince them they like the wrong thing, there is no such thing as bad choices, merely unpopular choices.

Secondly, just because something is cliché doesn't make it bad. Unless we want to write up a list of things that should never be used again, or a timeline as to how soon something can be used again, we can't really claim using clichés is bad, specifically since so many of them exist in the official content, and indeed in real life. A cliché is only as bad (or indeed, as good) as the quality of its enactment. If it's just plopped in there with seemingly no reason other than because it's the latest fad, then I can see how this might be less than appealing, but merely HAVING a cliché is in no way a sign of a poor idea.

Clichés are the building blocks of art. Yes, you can go down to basics and manufacture your own soon-to-be clichés, but even if you use other people's, the question is what you do with them, not what you use. Back in the day it was said that black trenchcoats were cliché, yet mine was still cool and stylish regardless of what other people were doing at the time.

One small note: "irregardless" is not a word, it's the negative of a negative. The word you want is "regardless," i.e. "without regard."

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I wouldn't really call those characters morally grey, though. They're pretty much magnificent, alluring villains, so as such are more a shiny black character. A morally grey character is someone who can be a hero just as easily as a villain, and the distinction where he crosses from one into the other is not clear. If you make the character a VILLAIN, then you can still make him likeable, and indeed I feel this way for a variety of well-written villains, but it doesn't make him any less villainous.

In a nutshell, there is a distinction between a morally grey character and a likeable villain, most notably in that morally grey characters are much more rarely likeable.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

DEONTOLOGIST!

I call those morally grey because depending on your moral foundation, they're either moral or immoral characters.

The three predominate theories of moral ethics are place their emphasis on three different aspects: the virtue of the character (think of it somewhat like the intent), the specific actions themselves, and the consequences. Immanuel Kant (Deontologist, action ethics) would say (most of) those actions are flat out unacceptable (a perfect duty not to do them), regardless of the consequences or the intent. Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarian, consequantialism), on the other hand, would say that if the consequences were good enough, those actions would be morally good (and if it was the course of action that resulted in the best outcome over time, it'd be immoral not to do it!). Aristotle's Virtue Ethics would put it on the person's character (virtue), and not on their actions or the consequences, so it could go either way depending on the character.

In one of the examples I was thinking about, the protagonist purposely made himself out to be the ultimate villain in the end (although he was pretty much a standard grade *** hole throughout the entire thing, but that was mostly unrelated to his plans), intentionally designing his convoluted plans to require his own scripted death.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

And you're right on both points

GG

You're thinking with your hormones again

I enjoyed Episode One just as much as Two and Three

Ep 1

pluses: Qui Gon Jin, Darth Maul, Padme's wigs and make-up routine

Minuses: Jar Jar Binks, kid who could've been replaced with a cardboard stand-up

there were more pluses in Ep 1, you should've enjoyed it

Well, when we get to the subject of morality, especially morality in fiction, I become a pretty intolerant individual. I can accept a lot of things in the name of good plot, but calling things I see as immoral because they may be perceived as moral by someone else's (even the author's) understanding of it is not something I'm prepared to do. This goes back to the previous discussion elsewhere about the relativity of morality and the existence of an ultimate moral good. I don't happen to feel one exists as an integral part of the fabric of reality, but over the years I've developed a sense of my own ultimate morality that I have never had the slightest desire to compromise on. I may be wrong, I may overlook actions contrary to it, but I will NOT concede to morality I do not agree with.

With that in mind, I see what is moral and what is amoral a certain way. That doesn't mean I'll chastise authors for creating characters that break morality, but I WILL lose pretty much all suspension of disbelief when I see a CLEARLY amoral character being passed as a moral one. Once I switch from watching a movie and absorbing what it is saying into shouting at the TV that "How the hell does that make any sense?!?" that is very much lost altogether, and I can't help but play the Nostalgia Critic for the rest of the duration.

I spent a good deal of time last night trying to think of an appropriate morally grey character last night, and I couldn't actually think of many. I think Red X from the Teen Titans cartoon would be a good example. He is quite clearly a thief and a criminal who has actually stolen from the Titans before, but when the chips are down, he does the right thing and saves Robin even though he didn't have to. He's not a hero, by any means, but when compared to someone like Slade or the Brain or Trigon, his crimes are actually pretty forgiveable. They ARE crimes, mind you, but they're not enough to diminish his character into plain villainy, yet he isn't actually a hero much at all.

As for the different types of morality, I really don't think I would draw as distinct a line in this case. It's not a matter of actions, consequences or the person, but rather a question of presentation. A lot of characters who pass for anti-heroes or morally grey characters are, in my opinion, actually appealing villains. As City of Heroes has taught us, villains do spend a good bit of time fighting each other, and it's quite possible for a villain to shape his career such that he mostly fight other villains the majority of time and avoids the truly sickening evil. By comparison, this makes him less of a villain than the really nasty bad guys, but it doesn't actually make him morally ambiguous. Not just on its own.

For a character to be morally ambiguous or morally grey, he has to have a host of damning characteristics, as well as a set of redeeming characteristics to balance them, and all of these need to be of the same type. A Dr. Doom character, for instance, is clearly a villain, though he could be painted as noble and his ability to think big make him endearing. However, his likeability does not offset his evil. On the flip side, a hero who is a complete jerkass and everybody hates him, yet he always does the right thing in the end isn't morally grey, either. He's a hero, despite not actually being likeable. Personally, I'd only ever see a character as morally grey if I can't decide for myself whether he should be a hero or a villain, which I've found very few characters that fit.

I will admit that I may place actions with more importance than intentions and consequences, but that stems from a combination of the path to the dark side (appropriately) and the notion that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as well as that a person is defined by their actions, not by their words. When we start down the path of "the cost justifies the means" motion (and into consequence trumps action), I guess you could say we enter into a more relatively grey area, but that's not actually as grey as it seems, because it's fairly easy to spin this into the ludicrous and still sound at least a little justified. That is to say, cost justifies the means is a fairly cheap excuse that has lost a lot of its value in fiction over the years. If played right, it could, at most, lead to a dramatic, character-defining moment of decision, but than anything else, it's usually either the final step over into evil, or the final step out into good.

Maybe I'm biassed, I don't know, but it usually takes a LOT for me to buy that a clearly, horribly evil act is justified because it is necessary. It has just been played as the excuse for the WRONG choice far too many times in fiction. Maybe I'm biassed, of course, because I am NOT a forgiving person and I have a very evil, very long memory, but I've never seen acts of even just about evil balanced out by acts of pretty much good. To my eyes, a single act of evil forfeits a life of good, and redemption from it requires SERIOUS effort. You can't just flip-flop over the line.

As far as valuing the person over their actions and the consequences thereof, I cannot and will not buy into that. I'll give some leeway to the belief that the person, as a self-contained entity, is often quite different from what others perceive it as and often contains notions that can never be understood by others. But at the end of the day, "the person" is irrelevant unless it affects the world around it, and it is in the consequences and actions of this process that a person actually "matters." So even if a person is good and kind-hearted in his mind, if his actions are cruel and wrong, THAT is what the person is in reality. That can actually be played for sympathy in stories - a person who strives to be kind and good, but ends up doing bad things. But that doesn't really make the person morally ambiguous or grey. It just makes the character into a tragic villain.

Again, and to end - I am not against villains who are likeable. That's half the fun of playing one. But I don't believe they can pass for morally grey JUST because we, the self-professed good people, are capable of liking them.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Except you didn't really say much. What, are models better than SG or something?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I feel that way, maybe it's just me? It's the simple feeling of authenticity and genuineness that came with the original 3 movies.

But maybe it's just me.

But what ISN'T me is the damn midichlorians! Seriously, George Lucas! Bad! BAD DIRECTOR for trying to explain the force through mitochondria-like things!

I am trying to convince no one. I am merely stating that I am 99% allergic to silliness for silliness' sake, and pink imps are silly. Even the people trailing them around think they're silly, I've seen what they say in team-chat and the whole thing is a great big joke to them.

If you think this joke is funny, fine. It makes ME yawn, as well as being visually displeasing and on this point we differ. Now I will sit back and wait for the flames coming from all directions about the utter seriousness of pink imps, not to mention there may well be one person in the game whose imps are pink for reasons of SRS BZNZ and this invalidates my entire scenario! *ho-hum* Par for the course.

I dislike only ugly cliche s.

Of all possible ways to score a point with me, this right here is the least likely to work. Just a little head's-up.

EDIT: Irregardless is most certainly a word: its right there in black and white in my text edition of Webster's New World College Dictionary. Just sayin', so you'll know next time.

The reason I said "one small note" is because it IS a very small, minor note. If you want to read a put-down into it, that's your prerogative, but you might want to be more open to corrections in the future. And unless I missed something and an incorrect word was recognised officially, "irregardless" is no more a word than "rediculous" or "nucular." I've seen them used a lot, and some even consider them literary words, but I've neither seen that officially, nor really agreed with it.

The closest I could find is the word's definition on various online dictionaries. MSN Encarta's dictionary has this to say:

I guess if enough people use a word, it'll start popping up in dictionaries sooner or later, but even they advise against using it.

Again, if you want to imagine me trying to "score points" or insult you, feel free, but this isn't anywhere close to the truth. I saw a misused word, I pointed it out, specifically because it bothers me more than most, like the phrase "could care less."

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It's not just you, but that has as much to do with crappy directing as it does with special effects. Older movies from the 70s and 80s have a style and class all their own, representative of both the trends and preferences of the time, as well as the culture of it. As far as I can tell, the late 70s early 80s is the time when war movies, specifically movies about WW2, are giving way to more fiction and fantasy, but movies in general retain the old military tradition. If you watch Episode 4 with a critical eye, you'll notice the Imperial Storm Troopers being led like a proper army with proper discipline and rank. It's sci-fi, but it has a more realistic approach.

By comparison, the prequels feel like Lord of the Rings IN SPACE! Sci fi as a genre isn't just defined by having space ships and aliens, it's a genre with a specific approach to fiction, and the newer sci-fi movies are actually a lot more like futuristic, space-faring sci-fi stories. I first spotted this in the step from Pitch Black into the Chronicles of Riddick, steeping from what was an Alien-esque survival sci-fi setting into faux fantasy land of ancient empires, prophecies and adventure. The Star Wars prequels suffer from the same thing, in my opinion.

This is, obviously, a question of both taste and interpretation and, more than anything else, feel, but the Star Wars sequels felt a lot more like a cross between Indiana Jones and Kelly's Heroes, whereas the prequels feel a lot more like a mix between Willow and Labyrinth, but with sword-fighting. Everyone is larger-than-life and either utterly sinister or broodingly good, and anyone who has even a bit of a REAL personality is treated like comic relief.

I could never quite follow the logic behind that one. Space alien bugs gave people Force powers? Yeah, if that's what that meant, I am not impressed. The cultist mysticism behind the jedi was one of the key driving forces of the sequels, contrasting faith in technology and superior firepower with faith in the person and superior skill, drawn very well with the parallel between Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. I don't believe that needed an explanation, because it takes away from the mystery of it all. And trust me - I'm a person who likes knowing and understanding everything, and even I recognise that that just makes things dull. Non-vital, non-pivotal explanations aren't needed and, indeed, often aren't even wanted.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Star Wars, isn't, and never was, sci-fi - it's always been a science fantasy - princesses, warrior monks, a black knight, a dark lord, an evil empire, magic swords, a wise old wizard, a humble farm boy, a quest, mystical powers - and that's just A New Hope

Of course, the newer films with things like midichlorians, clones and a much bigger role for robots did add more tech stuff to the story, but the addition of things like a queen, a prophecy and a chosen one helped keep them true to the fantasy roots of the originals

Take the The Operative from Serenity (I'm not sure I'd call him morally gray, but he does make a good example for my point ). He was trying to hunt down to kill a young girl because he was trying to create the world a "better place" which he believed he could do. In a conversation he had with Mal at one point, Mal tried to make him question himself by saying that what he was doing was evil so his entire plan was contradictory, and the Operative responded by saying that he knew quite well he was a monster, and had knew full well that he can never live in the world he's trying to create. He actually somewhat reminds me of what Scirocco attempts to accomplish in his patron arc (unfortunately I forgot the details), which I really enjoyed (I didn't want to betray him, either!).

The main example I was thinking of before remarked how he'd already 'signed a deal with a demon', and referred to himself as a demon on occasion. He never had any sort of (non-temporary) changes of heart about what he was doing, although the means shifted. If he did redeem himself, it was only through making the entire world see him as a demon, so that the immortal ideal would be able to arise again and slay the demon. I see him as a morally gray character (I can't really decide if I'd call him a hero or not) because of his utilitarian nature: he acted selflessly in the interest of the common good. It wasn't that the end made the means okay, it was that the character accepted what their actions were wrong or even evil, but they were willing to accept their fate in exchange for what they believed was the good they could bring about.

My point was mostly that they don't have to attempt to redeem themselves (I could have just written this, but all that other stuff was more fun ).

Even though I'm really not familiar with Red X, that's actually a great explanation of what exactly you meant and definitely quite different than the way I meant it. They're definitely better than the cliche pure evil or pure good characters that'll alway do what is evil/good regardless of the situation (unless an editor decides they should arbitrarily switch sides), it's just far more realistic and human, something a lot of the popular western media has been sorely lacking (instead, they'll do the conflicted hero that still does pure good unless an editor says otherwise, or something similar but still safe).

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!