Mando season 3

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We just caught up on the last two episodes. Boy, there is really a wildly swinging pendulum in terms of quality in Star Wars.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When the Ugnaught said the droids were not malfunctioning, I thought for a second they were going to say "we programmed them to do these things to raise attention to the unfair situation here."

Yeah, a better written episode would have explicitly tackled slavery, classism and racism (insofar as we can call droids a race). But Star Wars isn't ready for that conversation, even playing it for laughs in Solo (before then stripping that character of all agency and making them into the Falcon's guidance system).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's a perfect, thoughtful sequence.

I read it more as the folks shooting the sequence slipping something past Disney.

Because if droids are slaves -- and it's hard to say that they're not, given that the prequel-era battle droids have clear personality and emotions -- the whole Star Wars society needs to be burned to cinders.

 

[MarkB]

I read it more as the folks shooting the sequence slipping something past Disney.

Because if droids are slaves -- and it's hard to say that they're not, given that the prequel-era battle droids have clear personality and emotions -- the whole Star Wars society needs to be burned to cinders.

Yeah, it's definitely problematic, and while the attitude of the droids in the bar - "they created us, and we'll be around much longer than they will, the least we can do is help them out" - is sweet and all, it's the same "well, they actually want to be slaves" cop-out as the House Elves from Harry Potter. Having a convenient workforce that doesn't protest their enslavement does not fundamentally address the moral bankruptcy of choosing to enslave someone.

Andor managed to bring some attention to this with B2 being actually treated as a family member and people taking consideration of his feelings, but it does still feel like something that needs to be addressed more comprehensively.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Yeah, a better written episode would have explicitly tackled slavery, classism and racism (insofar as we can call droids a race). But Star Wars isn't ready for that conversation, even playing it for laughs in Solo (before then stripping that character of all agency and making them into the Falcon's guidance system).

Star Wars is never going to be ready for that conversation. At least some droids absolutely are slaves. While you can perhaps reasonably interpret the intelligence of an R2 or a BB-8 as somewhere between a high-functioning dog and a personal computer, the only way any of the major protocol droids we've spent time with don't qualify for personhood is if someone bizarrely programmed them all with a subroutine to needlessly complain, back-talk, etc. for show just to make them seem more person-like. It's really obvious that they have their own needs, wants, desires, etc. because they kind of talk about them all the time, and also having a programmed in acceptance of slave status does not make someone like that not a slave.

But if Star Wars fully acknowledges this all their heroes become slavers, and its too late to redeem most of them on that front. At this point I think the best to just basically never broach the subject the same way Star Trek basically never contends with the fact that the transporters are almost certainly horrifying cloning murder machines.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But if Star Wars fully acknowledges this all their heroes become slavers, and its too late to redeem most of them on that front. At this point I think the best to just basically never broach the subject the same way Star Trek basically never contends with the fact that the transporters are almost certainly horrifying cloning murder machines.

Eh, Star Trek's issues are more freshman philosophy questions. Is identity interrupted is the same identity? Is the interruption of a transporter is somehow different than the interruption of sleep? Are you the same person who went to sleep the night before, just because you have that person's memories?

Star Wars' issue is a lot more concrete and serious. But yes, it's probably something they can't ever address. Even if they had a big time jump and had a post-robot slavery era they used from then on out, that still condemns all of their prior material to being the heroic adventures of slave owners and traders.

That said, it's a great starting point for the right RP group or a fanfic writer who wants to get a ton of hate clicks.

 

[MarkB]

the same way Star Trek basically never contends with the fact that the transporters are almost certainly horrifying cloning murder machines.

They aren't unless the plot suddenly needs them to be. Canonically, you aren't just broken down into information and a copy assembled elsewhere - your actual atoms, with their interrelationships intact, are beamed from one place to another.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They aren't unless the plot suddenly needs them to be. Canonically, you aren't just broken down into information and a copy assembled elsewhere - your actual atoms, with their interrelationships intact, are beamed from one place to another.

Which, even for Star Trek science, is crazy. Sending them as information to a replicator at the other end makes far more sense.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Eh, Star Trek's issues are more freshman philosophy questions. Is identity interrupted is the same identity? Is the interruption of a transporter is somehow different than the interruption of sleep? Are you the same person who went to sleep the night before, just because you have that person's memories?

I mean I do not find it a freshman philosophy question, because that is how one charactarizes a question of seemingly great but really little consequence with no clear answer. I have a clear answer. My answer is resoundingly that the only way I can interpret them is as disintegrating a person and creating a clone with their memories at another location, and no amount of techno-babble will convince me otherwise or quell my revulsion to the implications of that when the heroes of the franchise are constantly using the things. I actually find it much easier to accept that every Star Wars droid we've met who seemed like a person simply appeared that way due to faulty or eccentric programming than I find it to accept that transporters aren't murdering and duplicating people, because that's clearly what they do.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

They aren't unless the plot suddenly needs them to be. Canonically, you aren't just broken down into information and a copy assembled elsewhere - your actual atoms, with their interrelationships intact, are beamed from one place to another.

Which is not consistent with what the can do on any level, and makes no sense, which is why I am so confident that they are disintegrating cloning machines.

And even if after disintegrating a person they did create a duplicate of the same person out of the same atoms that happened to be in them at the time of disintegration I really don't see that as any less of a horrifying disintegration and duplication process.