I did just that… and now I spend the same amount of time browsing Lemmy on Firefox…

Though there was like 4 days where I cut down…

So if a cheater wins hard enough, it can be called “fair and square”? Not sure what specifics could get me on board with that.

Perhaps, but with all of the voter suppression and election rigging that has been done by the Republicans, can you really say he won “fair and square” at this point?

Far be it from me to denounce some joy you found in the movie. We both obviosuly like StarWars (fellow geeks!), and if you liked TLJ’s take, you do you.

I agree whole heartedly that it would be uninteresting to make Luke “saint-like”. My issue isn’t with him having flaws and room for growth.

But I stand by the fact that his “mistake” in the ST runs directly contrary to the central theme of and lesson learned in his original arc. It may have been “in character” for ESB Luke, but by the end of RotJ, he had been shown that the goodness in a person can overcome the darkness, even in Vader.

And TLJ didn’t spend any time developing his actions, it just kinda said “well, his central arc wasn’t as impactful as it seemed”. Which I do believe is lazy/bad writing.

To blatantly plagerize Wikipedia.

A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. If a story has a character arc, the character begins as one sort of person and gradually transforms into a different sort of person in response to changing developments in the story. Since the change is often substantive and leading from one personality trait to a diametrically opposite trait (for example, from greed to benevolence), the geometric term arc is often used to describe the sweeping change.

Luke’s arc saw him learn to see and believe in the godness inside people, even when no one else could. Better writing would have pushed into his transformation, or found a previously unexplored flaw to examine. Having characters need to learn the same lessons over and over again is not only frustrating, it’s lazy writing and poor character development.

To that point, I once heard a youtuber recommend an alternative reason for Luke’s fall that would have leaned into this defining characteristic. They suggested that Luke still get the premonition regarding Ben, but believe the goodness in Ben could overcome the darkness. When Ben inevitably falls to the darkside, this could cause Luke to have a crisis of faith, fundamentally putting the plot in the same spot as the beginning of TLJ, but in a way that played off of Luke’s defining moment, as opposed to grinding against it.

Now you would have had to explain Ben’s turn to the darkside, but I think “my uncle attacked me” is also kind of a weak reason to betray his parents anyway (and kill his father, and attempt to kill his mother). And also fails to address his weird obsession with Vader, like that was just kind of glossed over.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Definitely could have gone a lot of different ways, and many of them would have been much better imho. That being said, no doubt JJ handed him a writing hard mode plot thread.

Make an interesting, compelling, convincing reason why a classic hero’s journey arch type would call it quits. Not an easy thing to do. And it definitely contributed to the problems.

(though when Mark Hamil was telling Rian he fundamentally disagrees with Rian’s interpretation of the character, it’s hard to say he didn’t have fair warning)

Nah, man. The scene people whine about is the equivalent of Luke wailing on Vader, getting that sweet, sweet hand vengeance, and then stopping to think about what it all means. In TLJ it’s just compressed into like 3 seconds. In-universe, it’s bad luck. In narrative terms, Ben was in a different point on his character arc.

If it worked for you, more power to you, I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind on this. But I can’t help myself when I see the apologetics for the “Luke ignited his light saber over a bad premonition scene”.

It’s not just “bad luck”, it’s bad writing. Luke didn’t just “wail on Vader” to get that “sweet hand vengeance”. He initially turned himself in believing he could convert his father back to the light. He only attacked after extreme emotional manipulation from one of the most powerful Sith Lords ever, during an active battle to determine the fate of all his friends, all they fought for, and the literal freedom of the Galaxy. That is a far reach from a moment of pure safety where he had a bad premonition and the “threat” was sleeping.

The whole explanation of this scene (and by extension the plot point that the core of the ST hinges on) assumes Luke not only learned nothing from successfully turning Vader back to the light, but actively learned the opposite lesson.

I get that people can change over time, and not always for the better, but this is just hands down terrible character writing. Making such drastic changes in such an iconic character, without spending any time developing those changes, having those changes be directly counter to the lessons the character supposedly learned during his primary arc, and then using this unexplained change as the catalyst to the entire ST is awful writing.

And we are not even touching on his new found love of “THE SACRED TEXTS!”, or how he completely gives up and goes hermit mode.

I’ll give Rian credit for actually trying to innovate when it was his turn at bat, but his handling of Luke was honestly some of the most egregious examples of not understanding the characters you are writing, and having them pick up the idiot stick just to move the plot forward.

Their not worried about it

Well, if they only got hard when we were actually hungry, and not just “bored hungry”, I assume the market for crunchy snack foods wouldn’t be as prominent.

Because Trump’s a piece of shit.

I’d go so far as to say anyone who supports genocide is a piece of shit.

Well you see, when a capitalist and a politician love eachother money very much, they engage in an act of love collusion. This gets both of them very much money. So much in fact, that they couldn’t possibly hold on to all of it. And the money that falls out of their pocket trickles down to every one! Thus, products are improved, and everyone gets their needs met!

This is the free market in action, and anyone who disagrees is a dirty Commie!

Everything is about US. That’s why we are called US!

/s

It’s really easy to avoid sentencing, I’ve done it all my life by following one simple rule: Don’t Do Crimes.

Yeah, sorry, I misunderstood this to mean, “not doing crimes == not being convicted”. Which sounded a lot like the “if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear from the police” mentality.

As much as Trump is obviously guilty as fuck, I’m not willing to adopt the “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from the cops law” mentality.

But in the end, they’d really only be cheating themselves.

1 vegetarian baby or?

Sorry pal, but I dont see the value in dropping a list of atrocities on a post about an old mans final days. Especially not to prove a point to someone who views the world as so black and white, and who picks fights only to act indignant when they find one.

I dont agree with the vitriolic comments thrown your way, but if you dont see how you asked for them, then you are as bad at self reflection as the Americans you are so quick to judge.

I followed up on your assertions, as I was wholly ignorant to them prior. And while I’m not terribly surprised, as it’s seemingly almost impossible to be the President and not get involved in our country’s sordid history, I am sad to find out Jimmy “sold his peanut farm” Carter’s legacy is tied to so many atrocities. It’s worth knowing about if we want to improve the world.

A bit of friendly advice though, attacking people for their ignorance is simply a terrible way to break their illusions. Unless you were just trying to be a dick for its own sake, your tact will accomplish little more than pushing people further down the path you so eloquently deemed “fucking pathetic”.

And to that extent, don’t be so quick to throw stones from your glass house. There are no countries that are wholly innocent. We need to push for solidarity, not division, if we aim to change that in the future.

True, but being anti genocide, anti colonialism, and anti war often are. Just so happens that these ideas and Palestinian statehood are simpatico at the moment.

I don’t see anything that they said about TikTok or ByteDance

Smfh, so then you didn’t read what they said, since they specifically said:

I acknowledge that TikTok is a problem.

And given that Whataboutism is a tactic to discredit the severity of an accusation by pointing to similar or worse behaviors by others, this not only isn’t “textbook Whataboutism”, it’s not Whataboutism at all. Their point was that the scope of the issue exceeds TikTok, and as such, attempts to solve the issue by focusing on TikTok are either misguided or of suspect intent.

In no way did they try to make the point that what TikTok does is okay, nor did they claim that TikTok wasn’t censoring content. I’d accuse you of trying to strawman their argument, but you just flat made up a different argument and pretended that was theirs instead.

They are saying the forest is on fire, and you are accusing them of Whataboutism because they aren’t focusing on your favorite tree.

Fuck dude… Really??? Did you even read what they said?