Love that guy. They somehow made a Gungan look badass.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
When humans hunt for sport, many humans use bows rather than guns, and yet when the Nightsisters, am extremely traditional tribe, prefer to hunt with bow-like weapons, it's unrealistic and stupid?
I didn't use the word "unrealistic", but I would use the term "ill-thought out". Or "there for the sake of it". Probably both. In conjunction.
When we hunt for sport using bows, we hunt for sport. We still go in to battle and fight wars with guns, and bombs, and tanks, and all that fun jazz. For a people who have had what seems to be regular access to the wider galaxy, enough that they can obtain laser bows and laser arrows, and who also have Harry Potter magic coming out the whazoo, they still get depicted as being nomadic-style primitives. They're aliens using lasers and godly magic powers (which I despise far more, BTW), and the writers still felt like adding that little bit of old timey weaponry. Except they're made of lasers.
That little addition just reeks of a larger problem, which I went on about earlier. They had the notion of rehashing the cliched theme of the technologically and numerically superior invaders being driven out by the old-fashioned, primitive natives. To better underscore that, they gave them bows and arrows, Avatar style. Or Ewoks style. But because it's Star Wars and computer animated, they had to make it Star Warsy and flashy. So make them laser bows and arrows. There, good enough. Nevermind it comes off as a lazy and cheap attempt at creating a contrast and something of an insult to the viewer's intelligence (admittedly, it's a children's show, but that's never been an excuse for poor storyboarding or writing).
And that was just the one element of one scene from one episode from one season. And I only remembered it after seeing that picture. If I strain my memory hard enough, I'm sure I could find a ton of similar problems on a far more egregious scale. We b*tch about Lucas putting stupid, colorful, flashy shit in the Prequels, but the television show doesn't get a free pass just because it's still otherwise superior. Which is also really sad, actually.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Kay. Why do they have laser bows and arrows? Don't tell me it's for "hunting" or some shit, because that what you use actual bows and arrows for. You have advanced laserific technology, and you put in to primitive technology because... it looks super awesome bro. Totes cool.
Which actually sums up about half the entire mythos. Boring and stupid.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
It's not some make or break deal. Like I said earlier, it's just a symptom of a larger problem. You can throw any excuse imaginable as to those things' practical purpose, but they still look and feel ridiculous.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
True, but most of them felt like they fit in. Those little bows felt like something shoehorned unnecessarily for the sake of looking sweet. Doesn't matter what franchise or director does that, it would rub me wrong either way, so don't take it as some pre-conceived bias thing. I originally had high hopes for the show.
TCW isn't big on building up any characters to anything meaningful or worthwhile, and the Nightsisters are no exception. If they devoted time in that show (I mean, a lot of time) to establishing their culture, the people, their history, their technology, their beliefs etc., and incorporated those weapons in to a larger world that was more in line with a widespread style of semi-primitive, quasi-technology, then they wouldn't stand out so painfully.
Like how (and I can't believe I'm doing this) the water-world, bubble-esque, semi-primitive, quasi-technological Gungans had weaponry that deviated from the typical "Lasers! Lasers and metal everywhere!" The boomas felt a unique weapon for them with appropriate visuals and utility. Those little bows just popped out on screen as some writer's attempt to emulate that, but with little effort to make it gel. They weren't some creative way to introduce a new kind of gadget or weapon that stood out as unique and appropriate. It just felt like: take thing A, combine with Star Warsy thing B, thus C=teh coolz, brah.
And like I keep saying, that feeling of carefree wannabe Star Wars sensation permeates the entire show. Like it had all the set-up to be an interesting project, but in the attempts to be overly appealing to both every age group and the slobbering, mindless fanboys, it wound up just being blech.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
I disagree. The Nightsisters are pretty immediately established as a fairly technologically primitive race of Amazonian women/witches. Their energy bows harken to the similarly unsophisticated Wookiees and I don't see their presence as being anachronistic or otherwise out of place.
I do. Not saying you're not welcome to your opinions and you've certainly made convincing arguments against TCW, the prequels, KotOR 2, etc. in the past, but this one doesn't make much sense to me.
But for the record, when you say things like this:
...You do confirm that the pre-conceived bias exists.
I've never cared for those either, but they always had the look and feel of guns to them. As far as I can tell from Chewbacca's, it is a gun. It just looks like a crossbow. I never saw him nocking a laser arrow against a laser string just for the sake of adding more laser effects to the framerate. Make an episode of the Wookiees fighting the droids and show them swinging on laser vines or calling to one another with laser trumpets and it'd be just as shoehorned, pointless, and stupid.
And that pointless, jarring, incredibly overt Tarzan yell from Chewie in RotJ? Hated that shit for the same reason.
Yeah, against the films, which is what I was citing there.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Registered: Mar 2014
Location: The Misty Mountains
I don't like nightsisters. A society where the men submit to the women? Psht someone needs to introduce Dathomire to the backhand and the phrase "Make me a sandwich"
I like them, though, and I actually thought the zombies thing was really well done. Doesn't hurt that their destruction gave us one of the General's fairly uncommon good days.
May 21st, 2014 03:51 AM
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