Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: Geek Culture (Page 1 of 5)

I Unabashedly Love “The Last Jedi’s” Cranky Hermit Luke

November 5, 2019 /

Many TLJ haters are the sorts of knuckledraggers incapable of seeing any woman or minority in a sci-fi movie without launching into a spittle-flecked rant centering upon the ess jay dubyas punctuated frequently by assorted herps and derps.  Their opinions can, needless to say, be ignored and mocked without anything significant or intelligent being lost from the discourse.  Still, there is a surprising amount of people who I consider to be rational and intelligent who do not recognize that The Last Jedi was a brilliant film and that Luke’s journey is why.  Needless to say, these people, however well-meaning are wrong.

This film begins where The Force Awakens left off, with Rey handing Luke his own lightsaber.  He immeidately grasps the enormity of the situation and…. no, I’m kidding, he immediately chucks it over his shoulder.  This is, of course, a source of great outrage for a great many Luke fanboys, who pissed their padawan vestments when Luke turned out to be anything less than the epic warrior we last saw.  This outrage overlooks that, when we first met Yoda, George Lucas spent ten minutes trying to convince us he was actually just comic relief.  In truth, the parallel is clear – Luke’s place in TLJ is Yoda’s in TESB.

Yes, Luke is a hermit now, as was not only Yoda but also Obi-Wan before him.  Both of those warriors effectively retired and went into hiding at the height of their powers and abilities.  So did Luke.  Luke abandoned his role as a Jedi with the transformation of Ben Solo into Kylo Ren, rather than fight him, allowing the First Order to emerge.  This may seem uncharacteristic of Luke, but it eerily parallels Obi-Wan and Yoda doing the same when Darth Vader and the Empire emerged.  Which when you think about it, seems like a bizarre dereliction of duty for everyone.  What’s going on here?

There are some differences.  Luke is a hermit, sure, but unlike Obi-Wan, he has no interest in taking a new student.  This may seem wacky, but remember, Yoda was in no hurry to teach Luke either, proclaiming Luke to have ‘no patience’ and to be ‘too old’.  Still, Luke seems to have gone from being a paragon of hope to Debbie Downer.

Luke hermitage seems even more extreme than Yoda or Obi-Wan.  He cut himself off from the force entirely – which means it’s entirely likely he didn’t see Rey as a potential force sensitive, but rather as a message for his sister to reengage with the fight.  He has no interest in that.  He made it clear he came to Ahch-To for one reason – to die.  Why is that?  What turns a Jedi into a hermit so severely?

One clear answer is guilt.  Luke thought he could raise up an entire Jedi order.  Instead, his actions resulted in the death of all of his students, and the rise of Kylo Ren and the First Order – and the loss of his Sister’s son.  Entire star systems would be extinguished by Luke’s hubris.  Similar guilt is also hinted at by Obi-Wan, who said of Darth Vader, “I thought I could instruct him just as well as Yoda.  I was wrong.”


And then there’s the guilt of what he almost did.  The man who had such faith in his ability to turn his father that he went on a suicide mission to redeem him in ROTJ saw visions of such horror that he could find nothing to redeem in his nephew.  In a moment of weakness – possibly kindled by Snoke’s machinations – he ignited his lightsaber, and immediately realized his mistake.  But that moment – that horrible failing – was the one that turned Ben into a giant rage baby.


The second answer is recognition that the Jedi Order created its own villains.  As Luke says, “The Legacy of The Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris.”  Palpatine and Vader arose at the height of the Jedi’s power, and to some degree with their unwitting aid.  Similarly, Kylo Ren learned to use and hone his powers from a Jedi.  Would he have been so terrible a villain if he had, much like Leia, never been taught to hone his force sensitivity?  


If the Force always pushes the galaxy towards Balance, doesn’t it stand to reason that great Jedi will always result in great villains to counter them?  If so, is it irresponsible to create great Jedi if there are no villains to fight?

The third reason is more interesting, and centers upon how Luke differs from Yoda.  Luke is terrified of himself.  Here, a good parallel to consider is The Lord of the Rings.  One of the central themes is the recognition by people like Galadriel and Gandalf that they, of all people, cannot carry the ring.  They are too powerful, and the risk that they will be corrupted and therefore agents of evil is too great.

Luke knew he had the darkness in him.  He knew the Skywalker curse was in Ben’s blood — but his as well.  He almost succumbed.  If he had struck down Ben, he would have himself fallen into darkness.  In a fit of fear, likely with the help of Snoke messing with his mind, Luke had a moment of doubt, before he realizes how close to the abyss he came.


If Luke had gone to the Dark Side at the end of Jedi, it would have been one thing.  He was a barely trained Jedi of limited power then.  But Luke in TLJ is a full-blown master now, capable of incredible acts of force manipulation spanning the galaxy.  Him becoming a Sith would have been disastrous for the forces of light.  He is angry, he is fearful, he is full of all of those emotions that Yoda trained him would lead to the dark side.  He believed, deep down, that maybe he was the monster that Palpatine once saw in him. So rather than risk himself falling into darkness, he did the only responsible thing: he cut himself off from the force entirely.

And so then he sees Rey and Kylo playing Force Footsie, which prompts Luke to freak out.  Far from being an overbearing helicopter Dad playing cold blanket, Luke is freaked out on multiple vectors.  Not only is there concern that Kylo might be manipulating her directly, Luke can see a budding romance.  The Jedi teaches against having strong emotion, and against having strong emotional bonds.  The Order used to recruit force users while young specifically so they wouldn’t have familial bonds.  Anakin, for example, was turned partially due to the tragedies involving his mother and wife. Luke’s judgment about Ben/Kylo was undoubtedly clouded by his familial relation to the boy.  In his mind, the bond between the two lovers could only lead Rey to the dark side.

It’s worth noting that that’s why Snoke forged those bonds.

And then we get to the final fight.  Many TLJ detractors were disappointed that Luke didn’t finish TLJ with a huge fucking Michael Bay style fight where Luke takes on the whole First Order.  They forget that the Luke’s pivotal moment in ROTJ was THROWING AWAY HIS LIGHTSABER.

(He would throw away another lightsaber at the beginning of The Last Jedi, and don’t tell me that parallel isn’t significant).

“A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack,” was the core of Yoda’s teachings. “Wars do not make one great.”  Whether this pacifism was a core teaching that the Jedi as a whole took seriously (we see a lot of eager warrior Jedi in the prequels, for example), it clearly was the path that Luke took to heart.  It was his own path to the Light Side at the end of Return of the Jedi.  How significant, then, that Luke found a solution that saved Leia and the resistance that embraced the pacifist path of Yoda’s teachings that saved him in Return of the Jedi.

Yes, instead of letting rage consume him and plunging into a fight, he found his inner calm and peace – and in doing so showed a new, truly awesome aspect of the force.  We’re talking Astral Projection convincing enough to mindfuck an entire army.  This is, by far, the most powerful display of the Force we’ve seen in a Star Wars movie, and one that allows Luke to reconnect with the Force and save the day without risking falling into darkness. 


After that, Luke stares into the suns.  His theme plays, as he reflects on his life and his path through it.  He is now smiling for the first time in the movies.  He has reconnected with the Force, on his own terms, and now without fear, allows himself to become one with it.  He disappears, surely destined to help guide our heroes through the next chapter as his master did for him.

The Last Jedi is a top three Star Wars movie.  It’s not without its flaws (the ponderous gas chase, the overly Disneyesque stampede scene), but Luke’s journey is one of the best character arcs of any Star Wars film, and that alone elevates it.  This plotline adds something very real and deep to the psychology of the Jedi.  It dares to ask the question: why did these great Jedi exile themselves from the fight? How do they carry the price of failure?  How do they deal with the knowledge that they are latent superweapons waiting to happen?  

And the answer is ‘poorly’.  Jedi in the Star Wars universe that reach old age do not remain productive members of society.  The Last Jedi gives you an understanding of why that is.  And I’ll admit, as someone who watched Star Wars as a child in the drive thru and am no feeling the effects of age, Luke’s journey speaks even more to me. So all you young kids who think that this was a bad movie, or that somehow it diminished Luke Skywalker, get the fuck off my lawn and go learn to Star Wars.

Politics in Nerd Media Part I: The ‘Politics’ of People Who Don’t Look Like You

December 12, 2018 /

So yesterday, I tweeted a throwaway tweet.  It… got some attention.  Let’s break this down.

For a long time, there has been a contingent of people demanding that we ‘get politics out of games’.  This was a cornerstone of GamerGate, of course, but these diseased outrage junkies have attacked creators in almost every genre of popular culture you can think of.  Right now, the pathetic manbabies that populate the ranks of Comicsgate gets the most attention, but they’ve also attacked movie directors and studios, television creators, and in gameing, communities around Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering and Board Games in general have had to deal with this simpering fuckwaditude.

The outrage junkies are peddling falsehoods, of course.  Politics have been inherent in all of these media since their early inception.  The first megahit movie was basically a Klan recruitment video.  The first issue of Captain America had him punching Hitler in the face, and his best runs have been about the line between patriotism and nationalism.  Radio’s finest moment may have been when the Superman radio serial humiliated the Klan.  I could go on.

But then again, the same people who rant about ‘politics infecting my media’ aren’t mad about V for Vendetta being an ode to anarchy.  They somehow manage to love both the Winter Soldier and the Dark Knight despite the fact that the two movies give pretty much opposing views to the concept of citizen surveillance.  They have no problem with the fact that most realistic shooters have a political message being ‘the only solution here is to kill brown people’, or the fact that winning a game of many flavors of Civ often requires you to embrace ecological responsibility.

What bothers them – the thing that gets them riled up – are putting a woman in the battlefield in World War 2.  Having the two leads of the new Star Wars films not be white.  Making Thor a woman.  Giving Iceman a gay kiss.  Making Heimdall black.  Having a female Doctor Who.

They’ll criticize these as decisions driven by ‘politics’.  They aren’t, really – in most cases, they are decisions driven by a desire of media creators to leverage diversity to reinvent their brands and expand their markets.  But the results ARE political, and by attacking these as bad politics, the outrage junkies are making it clear which politics they prefer – one that leads to a world where straight, white males are the only significant movers and shakers.

Gee, what political movement does THAT sound like?

On the Topic of the Avengers 2

May 7, 2015 /

Shortly after the launch of Avengers 2, Joss Whedon decided to take a break from Twitter.  This prompted the Outrage Machine to spin up and announce that Joss’ departure was based on the shrill response he got from feminists based on the depiction of Black Widow in the movie.  Joss has since replied that this notion is ‘horseshit’.

“I saw a lot of people say, ‘Well, the social justice warriors destroyed one of their own!’ It’s like, Nope. That didn’t happen,” he continued. “I saw someone tweet it’s because Feminist Frequency pissed on Avengers 2, which for all I know they may have. But literally the second person to write me to ask if I was OK when I dropped out was [Feminist Frequency founder] Anita [Sarkeesian].”

For the record, I didn’t see Anita say anything on twitter personally, but I did see her partner Josh McIntosh wonder why the Avengers 2 has so much darned violence in it.  The answer is simple: because it’s the FUCKING AVENGERS.  You don’t make a movie starring the Hulk, for example, and then have him not smash things in an orgy of violence the whole time.  Unless you’re Ang Lee.  Note: this is probably something that most directors consider a cautionary tale.  I sure do. Continue reading

DC Fixes a Diversity Snafu, Angry Nerds Attack the Creators

March 17, 2015 /

Just as a follow-up to my earlier missive about diversity in geekdom, particularly comics geekdom.  Today, DC Comics released a Batgirl cover they had planned.  The Batgirl cover was meant as an homage to the joker, and in particular his role in paralyzing Barbara Gordon – the original Batgirl, in The Killing Joke.  Unfortunately, the cover was largely tonally dissonant from the new more fun, less dark Batgirl.

DC Cancels Controversial Batgirl Variant, Cites Threats of Violence (And Forgets to Say They Were at People Who Criticized Cover)

Anyway, the internet did not respond well to this. 

The “Batgirl” #41 variant quickly received criticism for highlighting a dark period in the character’s history, especially when juxtaposed with the current youthful, more optimistic direction of the series under the creative team of co-writers Cameron Stewart & Brenden Fletcher and artist Babs Tarr. Multiple websites ran editorials critical of the image, and the hashtag #changethecover drew dozens of posts on Twitter and Tumblr asking DC to not release the variant.

Continue reading

Why Diversity Will Win the Geek Culture Wars

March 15, 2015 /

As has been mentioned before, I’m no puritan when it comes to sex in my entertainment. I love me a good chain mail bikini, and I think it’s possible to love Bayonetta as much as one loves Batgirl’s new outfit.  I’m a sex-positive lefty that’s perfectly happy with my entertainment containing a little jiggle factor, and I’ll fearlessly add it to games I work on as well if I think it’s right for the audience.

And therein lies the rub.  It’s quite one thing to say that its okay for a game with a Porky’s attitude towards sexuality combined with a Vallejo sensibility towards what women should look like.  It’s quite another to visual realize that it seems to many women that that’s the only thing that’s available on the shelves.  It’s not just games – witness the sudden realization one father had when he took his daughter to the comic book store.

Geekdom is shifting, and it’s shifting fast.  Two years ago, DC Comics was mocking and stumbling over issues of diversity in their lineup at the time that the Hawkeye Initiative was picking up steam.  Marvel, on the other hand, has been crushing it, earning platitudes for its Muslim Ms. Marvel, its black alt-universe spiderman, its black Captain America, and most recently Thor’s recent gender-bending exercise.  Some not-very-observant observers called all this the ‘ruin of a cherished art form’.   Meanwhile, people who actually know the space observe that Marvel is absolutely crushing it on all fronts right now, including the popularity of the aforementioned experiments, and now DC feels compelled to follow suit.

Why?  It’s not because these companies suddenly became altruistic and decided to pursue world peace and an end to the patriarchy.  No, it’s because of money.  Larger markets means more books and more movie tickets sold.  Marvel is currently reaching for markets that have been ignored for years.  If DC doesn’t wake up, Marvel could own these spaces for a nerd generation to come.

The truth of the matter is that the champions of diversity are going to win for one simple reason – money.  As technology advances, the cost of creating the content for your average video game is simply going to keep going up, faster than the size of the audience that will buy that game.  It’s not just games – Joss Whedon doesn’t get $220 Million to make the Avengers unless he can figure out how to put women and children butts in those seats as well.

On the flip side, more women are playing games than ever before.  And yes, many of these women are playing facebook and mobile games, but what is capturing the eye of many game executives and designers is that that is shifting as well – MMO audiences used to be predominantly male, whereas now that split is narrowing, and at least one major single player hardcore geek genre – the RPG – reportedly at parity tipping towards the ladies.  Yes, console ownership still slants heavily male, and many genres still are dominated by men – League of Legends, for example, is 90% male.  However, progress in other genres has raised eyebrows and questions – could a MOBA with a less threatening environment and less revealing character art carve off its own niche?

So it’s not only about fear of rising budgets – although reducing risk has a lot to do with it.  Just from the greed side alone, potentially doubling your audience (or greater, once you factor in reaching for other marginalized groups!) starts to turn into big rewards.  And if you can reach that audience without making decisions that trample over your core artistic vision or alienating your existing baked in userbase, why wouldn’t you?

None of this is to say that the best old stuff is going away any time soon.  There is at the movies, always room for Porky’s, not to mention all the films by Tarantino– and thank God for that!  Similarly, the stockholders of Take Two, EA and Activision aren’t going to be happy if GTA, Madden and Call of Duty all suddenly turn into interactive versions of the Notebook.  But if we can get a wider breadth of variety out of the rest of the games, and also increase the visibility of those games in marketing and the media, then perhaps we can actually broaden gaming’s reach even more, invent some new game genres, and actually add some stability to what is a very turbulent place to work.

Corpse Run

January 25, 2009 /

I get a lot of mail from people asking me to pimp this thing, that thing and the other, most of which I ignore – I post as little as it is nowadays without what things I do post being blatant PR manipulation bullshit.

That being said, Corpse Run looks like it could be pretty cool.  From the informative mail:

This was a tiny movie, that we made mostly by pulling favors, and are trying to get any notice on any blogs we can! And keep up with the awesome blog!

 

I promise: more updates, soon, on this awesome blog.

Mooses and Figurines

December 5, 2007 /

Boy heroically saves sister by taunting the moose, then feigning death, “Just like you learn in level 30 in World of Warcraft”.

Comment from a random mailing list of MMO players: “Maybe the moose was bugged, the sister should have still been on the aggro list.”

Don’t know what to get your friendly WoW addict who has everything? Perhaps a figurine of his own character. Yeah, yeah, its $120 bucks but… well… damn, I wish my character wasn’t so ugly.

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