The thing that annoys me the most about star wars’ “deep lore” is that 99% of it is the most shallow and obvious shit imaginable. Greedo was a Rodian and a Bounty Hunter - so the Rodians are an entire alien species whose culture revolves around bounty hunting. Chewbacca was Han Solo’s friend and first mate - so every wookie you meet until the end of time is attached to some non-wookie by means of a life debt (which we will retroactively apply to chewie’s relationship to han as well). There was occasionally something interesting mixed in there, but almost all of it was sandblasted off in order to make the franchise as smooth around the edges as possible (a process that started with that fucking cgi cartoon long before the mouse bought the franchise).
The thing that annoys me the most about star wars’ “deep lore” is that 99% of it is the most shallow and obvious shit imaginable.
My favorite things about the deep lore:
Jedi are cops
Jedi are cops who cannot stop slavery in the Prequels for some weird reason
The horny bad guy who was supposedly killed in Episode 1, and then several times in Legends and disavowed by his religious extremist order actually succeeds in getting power over the Hutts, effectively proving that the Jedi Order with a prequel strength of 10,000 and quite literally the most magical space wizards ever at the time had the power to end chattel slavery all along, they just didn’t want to because…
Jedi are cops whose ranks are filled with blood tax child slaves, literal Jannisaries
Jedi are cops who in the Old Republic (~1000 years prior to the prequels) waged a war against the “Zygerrian Slave Empire” because slavery was bad back then, but in the Republic Era slavery was good again, btw the canon is really funny that the Jedi population always seems to be capped between 10,000 and 15,000 but you know the Hutts were super powerful. Also obviously child blood tax slavery wasn’t bad just the capitalist chattel kind
Jedi are cops who are the good guys you cannot debate this, their light sabers are blue and green which means they’re good and not red or orange which means evil (10000 retcons on what saber colors mean, one was invented for literally Samuel L Jackson’s portrayal)
Jedi are cops that everyone trusts to be negotiators even though they have mind control powers
Jedi are cops that everyone trusts to be negotiators because they do not care about things like workers rights, slavery, white collar crime, corruption, etc
Jedi are cops who have supernatural investigative skills which is why they constantly are bamboozled by the bad guy playing dress up in the building next door who they only suspected of being bad like 5 seconds before he put the final piece of his plan into motion also he kills the guy who figured it out and did nothing about it (Mace Windu) like immediately after he was set up by Anakin and Palatine
Jedi are cops who are extreme religious fanatics and cannot tolerate apostasy or not subscribing to their religion order
The entire plot line of the prequels to the original trilogy is:
cops steal child to fulfill the cop prophecy of the cop who will unleash unlimited genocide on all of the cops enemies, they call this balance
cop messiah whose options were slavery or religious slavery is too dang normal and loves his mom too much and is continually punished for it
cops fail to police corrupt politicians and to police the cop messiah child leading to the destruction of their police station and unlimited genocide on cops as the ironic fulfillment of the cop prophecy
son of cop messiah with no formal cop training teams up with the cop who mentored his dad
son of cop messiah realizes the cop messiah was his father
cop messiah fulfills the cop’s POV of the cop prophecy (not in the original canon, retconned ~10 times in extended universe or “legends”) by killing his boss because he loves son of cop messiah too much even though they met like 3 times
At least Frank Herbert had the balls to explicitly make Paul and Leto II Atraides bad guys to the reader.
The guys in the bar trying to start a fight with Luke do have multiple death warrants across the galaxy and are not just belligerent drunks bullshitting.
I read wooliepedia articles at work in a Palpatine voice as an ongoing work gag. I have have a deep sociological interest in the fans and the series as an ongoing phenomenon. The last time Sebulba is accounted for was on some planet which name escapes me signing autographs at 10:30am on a Saturday. This is accounted for and important
No?
Turians are by the book strait-laced soldiers, while garrus is a punisher/thin blue line maverick type. The asari are diplomatic, social and “seductive”, while Liara is an anti-social shy nerd. The krogans are dumb violent brute & mercenaries, while wrex is introspective, war-weary and loyal. And lastly the quarians are characterized as lazy polluting vagrants, while Tali is resourceful, values her home and is constantly working in the engine room.
Turians are hierarchical, Spartan, and disciplined. Garrus is all those things but he’s mad that Citadel cops have to obey rules and he prefers being in the much shallower hierarchy of the Normandy following a Spectre around. Asari spend their youths exploring, learning and picking up influence, which Liara does. Being social and seductive is a stereotype other asari openly deride sometimes. Wrex loves a good fight, he’s just tired of krogan-on-krogan violence specifically while Grunt is all about fighting anything with a pulse, much more like the stereotype. The quarians are a straight standin for the real Roma and stereotypes of them being lazy vagrants is pulled from real world racism. Tali isn’t different from other quarians because every single one of them is a hard worker and keeps the fleet operating. In at least one of the games you learn about how quarians will dip out from the fleet to search for resources in small groups before returning. That’s how you run into Tali, twice.
The thing that annoys me the most about star wars’ “deep lore” is that 99% of it is the most shallow and obvious shit imaginable. Greedo was a Rodian and a Bounty Hunter - so the Rodians are an entire alien species whose culture revolves around bounty hunting. Chewbacca was Han Solo’s friend and first mate - so every wookie you meet until the end of time is attached to some non-wookie by means of a life debt (which we will retroactively apply to chewie’s relationship to han as well). There was occasionally something interesting mixed in there, but almost all of it was sandblasted off in order to make the franchise as smooth around the edges as possible (a process that started with that fucking cgi cartoon long before the mouse bought the franchise).
My favorite things about the deep lore:
At least Frank Herbert had the balls to explicitly make Paul and Leto II Atraides bad guys to the reader.
The guys in the bar trying to start a fight with Luke do have multiple death warrants across the galaxy and are not just belligerent drunks bullshitting.
You ever become so alienated you need to use an old rascist trope to explain the process of friendship and or trauma bonding?
I read wooliepedia articles at work in a Palpatine voice as an ongoing work gag. I have have a deep sociological interest in the fans and the series as an ongoing phenomenon. The last time Sebulba is accounted for was on some planet which name escapes me signing autographs at 10:30am on a Saturday. This is accounted for and important
Mass effect 1 did that better, usually the alien squadmates are the opposite of their respective species stereotype.
Are they? They’re all more paragons of their species traits
No? Turians are by the book strait-laced soldiers, while garrus is a punisher/thin blue line maverick type. The asari are diplomatic, social and “seductive”, while Liara is an anti-social shy nerd. The krogans are dumb violent brute & mercenaries, while wrex is introspective, war-weary and loyal. And lastly the quarians are characterized as lazy polluting vagrants, while Tali is resourceful, values her home and is constantly working in the engine room.
Turians are hierarchical, Spartan, and disciplined. Garrus is all those things but he’s mad that Citadel cops have to obey rules and he prefers being in the much shallower hierarchy of the Normandy following a Spectre around. Asari spend their youths exploring, learning and picking up influence, which Liara does. Being social and seductive is a stereotype other asari openly deride sometimes. Wrex loves a good fight, he’s just tired of krogan-on-krogan violence specifically while Grunt is all about fighting anything with a pulse, much more like the stereotype. The quarians are a straight standin for the real Roma and stereotypes of them being lazy vagrants is pulled from real world racism. Tali isn’t different from other quarians because every single one of them is a hard worker and keeps the fleet operating. In at least one of the games you learn about how quarians will dip out from the fleet to search for resources in small groups before returning. That’s how you run into Tali, twice.
The cgi cartoon is peak.
It’s mid grade slop for children.
Synthesis: It’s peak slop for children
All star wars is slop for children. Of that slop, the cartoon is third best after OG and Andor.