Philosophy in Storytelling

[Cognisant]

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, I just can't help talking about it because it's an endless source of perfect examples of good and bad storytelling.

I was watching the latest video from Overly Sarcastic Productions recently which ever so briefly touched on Anakin's fall (the episode was about tragedies) which highlighted one of the major fundamental differences between George Lucas' Star Wars and the Disney abomination. With the former there's a philosophical conflict between the Jedi and the Sith, the story doesn't go into what exactly their core philosophies are but the gist of it seems to be that the Sith believe "might makes right" which each Sith has their own interpretation of, likewise the Jedi Order seems to believe "with power comes responsibility" of which again each Jedi seems to have their own interpretation.

This is what makes these characters so entertaining, Obi-Wan is a very by-the-book Jedi who understands that personal attachments conflict with his Jedi peacekeeper ideals, which brings him into conflict with Anakin who revels in his attachments which I speculate is why he's so powerful in the force. Every time these two are in a situation they try to approach it differently according to their personal philosophies which makes each new situation an opportunity to examine those philosophies and we learn more about who the characters are as they adapt/refine their personal philosophies to rise to the challenges those circumstances present.

Anakin's fall was handled poorly but in broad strokes you can see the inevitability of it, sooner or later he was going to be forced to choose between his responsibility to the people he cares about and his responsibility to everyone and when that time came he would stray from the Jedi path. The loss of his mother reinforced this belief, the prophetic dreams of Padme's death reinforced it further, when he encountered Palpatine about to be killed by Mace Windu the distinction between Sith and Jedi no longer mattered to him, there was only the people he cared about and everyone else was a threat. His philosophy became a mix of "might makes right" and "with power comes responsibility", specifically his power gave him the right to decide his own responsibilities, to protect who he wanted to protect.

But what if she didn't want his protection, to see the universe burned down around her and in her name no less?

When every character has their own personal interpretation of their faction's philosophy (their like-minded philosophies being what brought them together as a faction in the first place) and there's multiple factions with conflicting philosophies and everyone has their own perspective on that conflict, then the plot of the story practically writes itself and it's this beautiful symphony of actions and reactions which all stay true to who the characters are and give them this sense of realism, as if they're real people with real thoughts feelings and intentions.

And then there's Disney Star Wars where the Jedi are always good and the Sith are always evil, and that's boring, the characters are just fucking boring.

Suppose Poe (is he the black one or the pilot I honestly can't remember, fuck it either will do) was in the Mos Eisley cantina with Greedo pointing a gun at him, how would he handle this? Who knows and frankly nobody cares because there's little to no consistency in his character, his actions in this scene or most any other scene don't tell you anything about who he is or what he believes, they just serve to advance the plot, a plot which seems solely focused on creating cinematic scenes rather than actually telling a story.

Just as no amount of CGI or A-list actors will make up for a movie having a boring story, no amount of anything is going to make a story interesting if there's no underlying philosophical discussion. With Rey I think they were trying to do the whole misbegotten lineage thing, like how Luke found out Darth Vader was his father after thinking he had a proud and noble linage of Jedi knights and so worried that he too will fall to the dark side. Indeed had he killed his father like Palpatine wanted he could have because it would have been a betrayal of his core philosophy, that his father and by extension the universe was worth saving and if he didn't believe he could make the universe a better place he would come around to the "might makes right" way of thinking eventually.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I love the character of Anakin, though I have to say the teenage angsty emo Anakin and his wooden acting made me realize that I hate Star Wars for more than one reason.

I do not think Star Wars universe really necessitates any deep analysis.
Georg Lucas created a massive would be world in tima and space that makes zero sense, but the problem is in his creation he made a story that is there to inspire wonder not necessarily explain shit.

It literally his main point in making up the stories is to make it suggestive and cool and yet at the same time leave all the crazy bits hanging out into nothingness and this is where kids and now adults are supposed to fill in the gaps.

Yeah he did write good stories, but cinema was redefined from the 2000s ... 90s cinema was still OK, but the shift is towards making money and the business model simply latches onto trends instead of trying to define trends.

IN other words in the good ol days when they were manufacturing movies they were busy making them quality, now today they are manufacturing quantity.

The movies push for impressive, but with little substance, because the substance is debatable, but impressive is good enough to make people buy tickets.
People are so addicted towards cinema these days they would watch anything anyway, it makes very little sense whether or not they like it. The actual money is in the turn around of people in cinema and if that is done, by controversy or simply pimping a ride on old folk tales who cares right?

You cannot buy a yacht from good story telling.... hence why so many good movies aren't really that popular.

 

[Cognisant]

Nonsense most of the money is in merchandising, you can trick people into seeing a movie but you can't trick them into spending money where it counts.

I think some fundamental understanding of how to tell a story has been lost.

So as I've established a story needs to be about something, I've been calling this something a philosophy but I suppose it's more like a belief that someone lives by (semantics I know) for example in Jurassic Park the paleontologist Alan Grant hates kids.

Spoiler

Now this is a story about a dinosaur zoo where the dinosaurs escape and go on a bloody rampage, why devote so much run time to a scene that has nothing to do with the titular park or its dinosaurs? Because it gives the story pathos, I can relate to Alan's fear oh having kids and because I can see myself in an aspect of his character I'm emotionally invested in the outcome of this subplot. Ostensibly this is a survival horror story but in actual fact it's a story about Alan thrust into circumstances where he has to look after Hammond's grand-kids, forcing him to face his fears about parenthood.

By contrast go watch the movie "Virus" if you haven't already, it's also a survival horror movie and despite its at-the-time cutting edge special effects and animatronics and A-list actors it bombed at the box office because it completely lacked pathos. There were characters and they were given enough screen time and dialogue for the audience to get to know them but the audience was never given a reason to care about them.

 

[Cognisant]

I think the first step to telling a good story is to come up with something to be the emotional crux of the story, something relatable, a reason to care.

For example just about everyone wants to be in love (happy brain chemicals!) so when one character shows a romantic interest in another (that makes a modicum of sense) that immediately gives people a reason to be invested in the outcome of any events involving those characters, at least insofar as those events have some bearing on their relationship.

Of course that's a really obvious example because its been done to death, the parenthood thing was done in Jurassic Park, Terminator 2 and Aliens which were all really good films, but I've also seen it done poorly.

The 2018 film "A Quiet Place" was alright but the drama seemed contrived, circumstances conspired to put the characters in danger like it was a Final Destination film which ruined my immersion. Also although the audience was invested in the parents looking after their kids I can't think of any way in which the characters were forced to change their philosophies. Consequently it felt like I was being told a story like "this happened, then this happened and then this happened" rather than watching events naturally unfold. In the end they find out how to defeat the monsters more or less by chance, which was a bit satisfying after the relentless tension but I think it would have been a lot more satisfying if that discovery came about by one of the characters overcoming some aspect of themselves.

 

[gilliatt]

Philosophy studies the fundamental aspects of the nature of existence. Studies everything that exists.

 

[gilliatt]

So, how did you survive to this day? You survived because you decided against quitting, when the battle wasn't much fun. A professional trader, etc., whatever, is simply an amateur who didn't quit. 'I see myself as an unquitting amateur'. I read that somewhere.

 

[Cognisant]

That's so completely out of context I suspect you may be a bot.