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From: ddern@BBN-UNIX@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies.sw
Subject: LIMITING FACTORS IN SW/ESB/ROTJ DISCUSSIONS
Message-ID: <3873@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Aug-83 12:38:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3873
Posted: Fri Aug  5 12:38:39 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Aug-83 02:01:58 EDT
Lines: 43

From:  Daniel Dern <ddern@BBN-UNIX>

Re discussions of background/universe/things hanging together in the logic,
facts etc of STAR WARS...I get the feeling people are trying to deduce the
existance of a coherent sub-structure which DOES NOT EXIST.  

My sense is that the SW gang did not attempt to think about and subsequently
resolve the contradictions either implied or shown.  Unless folks are trying to
come up with the sub-structure-as-it-should-be, hand-waving away whatever in
the actual movies contradicts these exercises, I'm at a loss to know what's
going on.  Come on, people -- these movies are NOT documentaries.  They're
entertainment.  I'm grateful they made as much effort as they did.  Ditto the
efforts in STAR TREK.  Resolving ambiguities at the print level -- was there
rain, and why; what happened to line of dialogue x; and so on -- strikes me as
an acceptable pastime, if one cares about these things.  But they're not going
to rewrite and reshoot just to make it hang together.

This is why many authors give up on series, or decide to ignore these problems.
Marion Zimmer Bradley has unabashedly not tried to retrofit old Darkover
stories to mesh perfectly with the newer, nor limit the new stuff with the
older strictures.  Conan Doyle tried to kill off Holmes, for god's sake.
(And the Baker Street Irregulars have scads of discussions locating and
resolving the logical problems in the Sacred Writings.

The comics world is also collapsing under the accumulated history of things,
and the desire to be consistent.  Some are doing better at resolving it all
than others (Marvel's four Captain America's, splitting off main and segregated
"universes", not counting Marvel-DC joint efforts in overall continuity; the
Earth-A/B/Prime/1/2/etc issue, imaginary tales, and so on...)  Unfortunately,
it is harder to purge the cast of characters than we would like.
(The issues of character aging, current era, and retrofitting character's
previous eras [e.g., moving Superboy up to the Sputnik era] is getting
increasingly messy.)

Back to the movies: If we're going to pick at this level of logic, what's to
stop us from asking even more central questions, like "What made them have
so-and-so do such a dumb thing," or "what--you call that acting".

Yours till VAL GALS OF GOR,

Daniel Dern

P.S.  If this is "sf-lovers" what happened to talking about sf?