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Ams Jendob
Moff


Joined: 14 Jun 2009
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Location: The Gala

 Post Posted: Mon, April 25th 2011 12:49pm    Post subject: WHAT IS IT?
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Seriously... it's practically a law that every animal has to be some weird fanciful creature, with a few real things from much older works. Hell, you can't even have "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," it's "a flarpblap in the tentacle is worth two in the coral" or something. Everything must be alien and weird... and some people prefer this. They find the occasionally reference to a real-world thing to be jarring and it knocks them out of the story. Others find it the opposite... but, if you use the current trend in SW writing, it begs the question... "WTF is a falcon?" :p
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Corask Slen'da
Solomon


Joined: 30 May 2010
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 Post Posted: Tue, April 26th 2011 08:57pm    Post subject:
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Honestly, I would have said that it's a translation between an English-speaking culture and an alien dialect, and a falcon is the nearest equivalent of the hunting animal the Millennium Falcon is supposed to represent.

* * * * *

Sorry to hijack, but I'm going to head off into a tangent here. I think the squabble over details in SW is an indication of how poor quality the writing is getting in SW. It was funny that you posted this.. I'm just rereading the "Left Hand of Darkness" by U. K. Le Guin, and she had a great introduction about how good science fiction works.

Speaking broadly, great science fiction is about presenting ideas that resonate with our current culture and values, but extrapolating conditions in our own world into a in a metaphorical future. By creating a what-if future in which those conditions or themes have taken hold or developed, you can present fresh ideas or create a commentary back on those conditions within our world.

I think the biggest problem as a sci-fi writer is to present those ideas into what is relatable to our own paradigms or cultural values, and as such, the details are there to help you imagine that world.

Whether by text or by the movies, the original 6 stories had great and relatable themes and commentaries, such as how fear can manipulate and corrupt a people (Ep I-III), the "David" freedom fighters battling against an oppressive "Goliath" authority (III-VI), or the rise and fall and redemption of Darth Vader (I-VI). And there are tons of other sci-fi books out there that can just blow you out of the water and make you change the way you think about things.

* * *

So in reply to that last sentence, I'm finding it hard to read most of the SW novels these days because most of them are pulp science fiction with cardboard characters and even thinner plots. And I think they've overemphasizing the SW "details" -making it more Star Warsy- to cover up the fact that there isn't much of a story going on.

Actually, there's a machine from 1984 that completely describes how they're coming out with this stuff today, and incidentally, puts a bow on my whole post. It's called a versificator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versificator_(1984)
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Kastor Antilles
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 Post Posted: Tue, April 26th 2011 11:00pm    Post subject:
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A-freaking-men.
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Ams Jendob
Moff


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 Post Posted: Wed, April 27th 2011 04:13pm    Post subject:
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Quote:
Honestly, I would have said that it's a translation between an English-speaking culture and an alien dialect, and a falcon is the nearest equivalent of the hunting animal the Millennium Falcon is supposed to represent.

Then... why isn't a "nerf" called a goat, cow, or goatcow, since that's what it most closely represents in SW?

Otherwise, interesting essay. I'll look up that book. O_o
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Corask Slen'da
Solomon


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 Post Posted: Thu, April 28th 2011 06:24pm    Post subject:
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Ah, that one is really good; it won in the same year both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best SF novel of the year.

As for nerfherder, I always thought that the key word was "-herder", and because of that we all know she was calling him a dirty peasant. Funny that you mention it, but both "nerfherder" and "Millennium Falcon" both have a bit of the imaginary (nerf and Millennium) and "real world" (-herder, Falcon) words. Perhaps it is to make the imaginary more relatable and understandable.

It wasn't like "Sithspit!", "Astral!", "Corellian Overdrive!" or "Hooted like a cloud ape!" where you have to think for a second to see what the heck they meant.

*As a side note, I'm actually surprised the EU novels haven't created or defined a "Millennium Falcon" animal species yet.
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Ams Jendob
Moff


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 Post Posted: Thu, April 28th 2011 08:38pm    Post subject:
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Indeed, that's totally wizard! And I still want to know... WHAT THE HELL IS AN ALUMINUM FALCON?
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