Post by spidershinobi on Jan 6, 2018 13:53:50 GMT
So, this week I watched a video that inspired to come here and share a few things with you.
These last weeks I have noticed a big division in opinions when it comes to The Last Jedi, but more importantly that what bothers people isn't the quality of the movie, but rather what it means to the Star Wars franchise and its lore. Right now it's not in my interest to discuss Star Wars canon, though; I'm actually trying to talk about canon itself.
The truth is that canon isn't important for the industry.
I'm not talking merely about the publishers and the investors, I'm talking about writers and developers too. Just hear me out here.
I think the best example I have is the Tales of Xillia mini-series. They are 2 games, and while I haven't played the second yet, I have read enough in terms of complaining that a few characters act in unexpected ways, and that world building suffers one (or more) big hits in terms of differences from the second game to the first, in that things that were true in the very basics of the world in the first game (take them as the physics themselves) were changed for the second with no time skip or world changing event to justify them. The same world was just written to be a different thing in the second entry.
How does this help me explain my point?
Well, both are good games, and both are said to contain a reasonable story, so if you were to evaluate them individually, you wouldn't be able to point story flaws (save for inherent minor issues already discussed in Imperial Khador's topic).
And that's the first minor aspect of it: if you were to take a technical approach and review sequel products that are inconsistent with their predecessors, many of those are still internally consistent, and thus can't be criticized for their plot.
But then you're going to come at me and say "What about The Legend of Zelda timeline? That one is a mess!". Well, guys, here's the thing: The Legend of Zelda, even more than any series you may think about, consists in games made to be standalone products. The people developing those games rarely include hints of when a game takes place because the developers themselves have never defined those details while creating the scenarios! Of course that there are the hints to the Hero of Time in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, but even then the Hero of Time showing up in Twilight Princess isn't important to the story, meaning it could very well have been included because fans demanded external consistency too much.
Hell! Whenever Nintendo releases an encyclopedic document telling about the history of Hyrule, it's always a trap for nerds who think Nintendo cares about piecing all the stories together.
An additional trapping is that while the tutorial skelly was made to be the Hero of Time, and that's the spirit that they had while producing Twilight Princess, he might as well get retconned in the future if Nintendo decides to introduce another game that perfectly fits right before that one.
Wanna know another? My favorite location in the Mario series is Toad Town. I have been in there TWICE, and the second time I was there it looked absolutely nothing like the first! You can argue that they depicted a different block, or whatever, but that is a good sign that developers don't care that much about canon and consistency. Hell, if they wanted to make a similar Toad Town in future games, they'd have to allocate resources to studying past layouts, remixing them, and them modeling whatever they found as a result, which is harder than just creating another similar themed town and giving it the same name and function.
All I'm trying to say here is that you should try to calm down when it looks like a product in a series you enjoy isn't consistent between itself and the previous entries, because the people creating these worlds aren't really trying to find this type of consistency, it's just a very low priority for them. Now I'm not telling you what to do; if even knowing all of this you feel that The Last Jedi was completely disrespectful and you can't enjoy Star Wars anymore, then just cease to enjoy it!
PS.: in case you are curious about the video.
These last weeks I have noticed a big division in opinions when it comes to The Last Jedi, but more importantly that what bothers people isn't the quality of the movie, but rather what it means to the Star Wars franchise and its lore. Right now it's not in my interest to discuss Star Wars canon, though; I'm actually trying to talk about canon itself.
The truth is that canon isn't important for the industry.
I'm not talking merely about the publishers and the investors, I'm talking about writers and developers too. Just hear me out here.
I think the best example I have is the Tales of Xillia mini-series. They are 2 games, and while I haven't played the second yet, I have read enough in terms of complaining that a few characters act in unexpected ways, and that world building suffers one (or more) big hits in terms of differences from the second game to the first, in that things that were true in the very basics of the world in the first game (take them as the physics themselves) were changed for the second with no time skip or world changing event to justify them. The same world was just written to be a different thing in the second entry.
How does this help me explain my point?
Well, both are good games, and both are said to contain a reasonable story, so if you were to evaluate them individually, you wouldn't be able to point story flaws (save for inherent minor issues already discussed in Imperial Khador's topic).
And that's the first minor aspect of it: if you were to take a technical approach and review sequel products that are inconsistent with their predecessors, many of those are still internally consistent, and thus can't be criticized for their plot.
But then you're going to come at me and say "What about The Legend of Zelda timeline? That one is a mess!". Well, guys, here's the thing: The Legend of Zelda, even more than any series you may think about, consists in games made to be standalone products. The people developing those games rarely include hints of when a game takes place because the developers themselves have never defined those details while creating the scenarios! Of course that there are the hints to the Hero of Time in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, but even then the Hero of Time showing up in Twilight Princess isn't important to the story, meaning it could very well have been included because fans demanded external consistency too much.
Hell! Whenever Nintendo releases an encyclopedic document telling about the history of Hyrule, it's always a trap for nerds who think Nintendo cares about piecing all the stories together.
An additional trapping is that while the tutorial skelly was made to be the Hero of Time, and that's the spirit that they had while producing Twilight Princess, he might as well get retconned in the future if Nintendo decides to introduce another game that perfectly fits right before that one.
Wanna know another? My favorite location in the Mario series is Toad Town. I have been in there TWICE, and the second time I was there it looked absolutely nothing like the first! You can argue that they depicted a different block, or whatever, but that is a good sign that developers don't care that much about canon and consistency. Hell, if they wanted to make a similar Toad Town in future games, they'd have to allocate resources to studying past layouts, remixing them, and them modeling whatever they found as a result, which is harder than just creating another similar themed town and giving it the same name and function.
All I'm trying to say here is that you should try to calm down when it looks like a product in a series you enjoy isn't consistent between itself and the previous entries, because the people creating these worlds aren't really trying to find this type of consistency, it's just a very low priority for them. Now I'm not telling you what to do; if even knowing all of this you feel that The Last Jedi was completely disrespectful and you can't enjoy Star Wars anymore, then just cease to enjoy it!
PS.: in case you are curious about the video.
