Nothing Sacred

[Fapmaster5000]

"...the inescapable fact that the lumbering Post-Post-Irony Ouroboros of endlessly self-referential contemporary pop-culture is a monster of our making."

If nothing else he ever does is any good, at least Bob has given us this sentence.

 

[Nurb]

"I have altered the canon, pray I do not alter it any further"
.

 

[Scow2]

So, if Nintendo made a (possibly bad) parody of Super Mario 3

Already Done, sir: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108255/

This is not why people get angry, Yoda whoring out to sell mobile phone products in the UK is why we get angry;

http://www.starwars.com/watch/promo_ad_vodaphone.html

I know you are going on your whole "Nerds are whiny and entitled and the StarWars franchise is a good example of this" bend but you have to admit the lengths to which Lucas and his 'official' actions have bled all life out of the series are pretty extreme.

No, they aren't... other than his tinkering with the original trilogy.

It's moichendizing, and it's supposed to be funny.

 

[walsfeo]

Only thing funnier or more disturbing than the video causing all the outrage is the outrage itself.

 

[subtlefuge]

The problem with an argument that outrage should be more productive is that it completely invalidates your career choice. If everyone should focus their energy on stopping the evil in the world, why the fuck should anyone pay you to review movies and talk about miscellaneous topics?

That said, there is a bit of irrational ire towards anything that Lucas puts out that is not Empire Strikes Back part 2. There's always been an element of playfulness between the characters, and a lot of self-mockery being thrown around in the original trilogy. This doesn't directly fit in with the tone of the series, but then again, I don't think that anybody was expecting Star Wars Kinect to be a serious canonical entry into the Expanded Universe.

Also, this whole thing was done on a much smaller scale in a far more awesome game.


Edit: as a sidenote, the dancing minigame deserves to exist purely on the basis of the move names. Seriously.

 

[gim73]

ANY news is good so long as it's not that stupid zimmerman case. The only real crime committed there was the new black panther party putting a bounty on a citizen. What's next, are we gonna start letting Fox News put hit orders on people like Al Gore?

Star Wars is a great thing. I'm glad that lucas finally figured something out that worked, even if it was only a bit in a video game, the media that star wars has really been rising on in the last fifteen years.

 

[Therumancer]

A better analogy would be the LEGO Star Wars games and what they have gotten away with, rather than all the other referances. That said, there is a differance between seeing this kind of thing from an intentionally satirical/parody based source (pretty much everything you mentioned, or Lego Star Wars) and seeing it from an official/serious source. In part it can be argued that if the official souces cease to take themselves seriously the parodies and satires lose a lot of their own weight as well.

As far as how seriously this is taken compared to other "real" issues, that's more or less a pointless arguement as by that logic nothing should be taken seriously if there is something more important going on elsewhere.

 

[Aiedail256]

"It's a more than a little ironic (in the real sense) that the same Geek Culture that cries "Blasphemy!" at the desecration of Han Solo is ever at the ready to lay wreaths at the feet of South Park for going right up to the line of actual blasphemy in their various episodes poking fun at the absurdities of Christianity, Islam etc."

What would you estimate the correlation is between "geekiness" and religiosity? I would say "strong negative." If that is true, then the above isn't so ironic after all.

 

[Rawne1980]

Ahhh the Riding Solo parody.....

Someone beat them to it.....

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Maybe they should have made dancing the entire game instead of hyping it as a game where you play a jedi. Would have been better. People are more annoyed because they wanted to play a jedi kicking ass with their powers etc

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

"...Star Wars Kinect features a dancing minigame which depicts Han Solo, Lando Calrissian and various Empires Strikes Back background players busting a move to a parody of Jason Derulo's "Riding Solo" on the Carbonite Freezing Chamber set"

That's as far as i got before taking a break because i just HAD to see that right away.

Personally i think it's hilarious. If you're already busy steering a franchise off a cliff you might as well go down in style, and nothing screams style like Jason Derulo and flashing disco lights xD

 

[SonicWaffle]

ANY news is good so long as it's not that stupid zimmerman case. The only real crime committed there was the new black panther party putting a bounty on a citizen. What's next, are we gonna start letting Fox News put hit orders on people like Al Gore?

Wait, so some kid being murdered isn't a crime? So far there's been no proof behind the claim that Zimmerman was attacked by Martin, meaning he pretty much up and shot the kid because he was a paranoid nutjob who had been allowed to get a gun. In what way is that not criminal?

 

[The Grim Ace]

So, if Nintendo made a (possibly bad) parody of Super Mario 3

Already Done, sir: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108255/

Ow. Just ow. I meant if it were a bad videogame parody, however. Still doesn't change the fact that that movie was made *shudders*.

 

[Sylveria]

I swear Bob must get whiplash with as frequently and rapidly he jerks back and forth between "Michael Bay is the worst thing to happen to man-kind!" and "Ugh hey nerds stop complaining about stuff, there's real life atrocities going on!" Heck, my neck gets sore from just watching him do it.

I find it especially funny that he would say this considering he has admitted the only reason he doesn't care about what horrible things Lucas does to Star Wars anymore is because he's spent a decade raging about it and has run out of steam..

Also, I'm pretty sure Christians and Muslims cry "Blasphemy" at South Park rather frequently. There's more than one interview with Christian group leaders condemning them to hell or other such horrible things for what they've done (Religion of forgiveness) and they received numerous death-threats from Islamic Extremists for their depictions of Muhammad (Religion of peace). In fact, the very first episode that was "pulled" was the Bloody Mary episode because some of the bigwigs at Comedy Central's parent company were devout Catholics and didn't like what they saw which then set a precedent for Scientologists to start demanding the same.

But I don't worry, Bob'll bounce back to saying how Transformers 2 was worse than Hitler or some such totally reasonable criticism of the movie industry next week and completely forget everything he wrote today... till he his Bi-Polar disorder kicks in again and he suddenly starts damning nerds for not being excited enough about Prometheus or something cause they were busy following election news.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I can´t really agree that the dancing is funny, atleast not the way they handled it. The music is horrible, and the lyrics are lazy. I would probably laugh if they had used music from the movies (music that exists in the universe, like the Moss Isley cantina song and the ewok song from the ending). I´m not against the idea of a Star Wars dancing game, but the humour here is just not doing it for me.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

You are getting your panties in a twist? Over that? That shit's hilarious! The parody songs, the settings, the name of the moves, it's all solid comedy gold. I would pay money to see someone do these moves in a dance club. Not much, mind, but at least one drink's cover for the person in question. This is awesome.

After all, is not the creed "Nothing is sacred, everything is permitted"? No? Well, it should be. Get off your damn high horse and have some fun.

 

[cassiebearRAWR]

I have a feeling people wouldn't be nearly as outraged over this if Lucas hadn't spent the 90's and 00's mishandling the franchise to the point where it almost seemed intentionally bad. At this point, it's possible that the only Star-Wars-related thing Lucas could do that would not upset a good chunk of the fans is if he released the unedited original trilogy on Blu-ray.

That being said, I think I would love this part of the game :3

 

[Something Amyss]

I do think the culture of taking things too seriously has gotten a touch out of hand with all the hate this seems to be getting.

Honestly, I wonder how much of the hate is specifically about this. It's a game with very little substance to begin with, so I can't help but wonder if it's only getting so much attention because the game's...Not that good.

I think once you've made "the second most defining dramatic moment of the entire saga" into a toy for 5-year-old boys, complaints about sacrilege are bound to fall upon deaf ears.

Plus, it doesn't even look like Han! I am SO writing Kenner!

>.>

I admit it can't be defended in any rational sense, but it's perfectly alright for everyone else in the world to make fun of Star Wars, but not LucasArts. That said, they can even get away with the silliness of Lego Star Wars, but this Kinect thing bristles. There may be an uncanny valley effect at work.

But haven't they spoofed the saga before? Through their intros and minigames? Weren't there some weird ones already?

So, if Nintendo made a (possibly bad) parody of Super Mario 3, would Bob still be fine with it?

He'd rail against it, but not because it was sacrosanct. No, it would be...Because ponies?

All that being said, Star Wars shouldn't be sacred. None of these entertainment franchises should be. I will still be annoyed when people do something stupid though.

I just don't find this one bad enough to even complain about.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wait, so some kid being murdered isn't a crime?

I've noticed that, especially on the internet, there tends to be backlash if a story's overexposed and it will lead to anything to get it gone. In this case, people are tired of hearing about Treyvon. However, thanks to the glory of the internet, reactions are much harsher due to the lack of actual personal contact and the complete lack of manners generally involved. This is why we have phrases like "fuck off and die" and "die in a fire." things that, while sometimes used in public, will not be used as freely or as widely.

So due to overexposure, people are getting really hostile and in this case, turning that hate right towards the victim.

Of course, much of this can be explained more succinctly by the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19