Comments on: The Anxiety Of Binksfluence https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence Lollards in the high church of low culture Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:51:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-2055958 Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:51:22 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-2055958 At 3, I wrote: ‘the other thing that is unrecoverable is the licence to tell a whole story in one movie – although Lucas may have had a multi-generational epic in his mind (if a muddled and ever-changing one, according to Peter Biskind), Star Wars works a fully self-contained story with a beginning, middle and very clear ending.’

…Or maybe not so unrecoverable, via the expanded universe option. Which is to say that a number of people have told me that high among the many things they enjoy about Rogue One is indeed the fact that though it clearly belongs in the Star Wars continuum (to the point of borrowing footage from the original film), it tells a story that, yes, has a beginning and an ending, and is thus more satisfying.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1779912 Tue, 08 Mar 2016 21:46:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1779912 Re17: Clearly just to fuck with everyone, the Coens have the actual Krumholtz with lots of facial hair in Hail, Caesar!

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By: Kit https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1702705 Wed, 30 Dec 2015 00:58:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1702705 But I’m betting a fair few people who see him in TFA are still going to think he’s David Krumholtz from 10 Things I Hate About You/Numb3rs in any case.)

I didn’t recognise Isaac from Inside Llewyn Davis while watching Ex Machina, and kept calling his character “this Krumholtz-looking motherfucker” in my head until the closing titles.

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By: thefatgit https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1702263 Tue, 29 Dec 2015 12:14:24 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1702263 Sekrit New Republic theory:

Lucas’s “tiresome” Trade Negotiations from the prequels made the old Republic seem ineffectual, bogged down with So Much Talk And Very Little Action, also by association made the Jedi seem like an influential pressure group, lobbying the Republic with handwavey magic. Old Chancellor Vellorum usurped by Palpatine, because WE ALL KNEW WHO PALPATINE REALLY WAS, GEORGE! No sting in the tale in Ep III, just a boring showdown with Obi Wan phoning it in vs Emo Anakin. So Old Republic swept away by Evil Empire. Anakin becomes Vader, yada, yada etc.

Then after Evil Empire is destroyed by plucky rebels + ewoks, New Republic fills power vacuum, with reinstated democratic principles and more trudging through negotiations, Jawa focus groups, spin doctors from Bib Fortuna’s homeworld…peace across the Galaxy (yawn!). So First Order formed as a kind of Dark Side UKIP, can’t get a toehold in the New Republic’s democratic process, so wander off and under the guidance of Nigel Snoke, form a collective of like-minded smoking-in-pubs-none-of-your-foreign-muck types, dress up in black/white a lot and wish for the good old days of the Empire, when they strutted about in tanks with legs and blew up planets.

You know, we had a sense of purpose back then and we always looked slim and dangerous in that white Kevlar armour, didn’t we? Should have learnt a bit more about marksmanship, mind…but we were part of something. And along comes this Ren fellow, and his good buddy Hux and suddenly we’re building bigger, better Death Stars out of planets and learning how to shoot straight, which is novel. And before long nobody will take any notice of the New Republic and their boring democracy and Deathstick tax, because the First Order’s going to make the Old Empire look like a dress rehearsal for the road production of Caravan Of Courage! I sure hope some meddling young ‘uns and their pet Wookie aren’t going spoil it for us…

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By: Pete Baran https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1700536 Sun, 27 Dec 2015 16:19:22 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1700536 From a intergalactic geopolitics point of view, the New Republic appears to have not yet learnt the lesson of Germany post WWII, and clamping down on Nazi / Dark Side-fetishism, allowing it to fester, get fanboys, amass giant slave armies, build Sundraino Deathplanets… There is a question about intergalactic astro-geography however, if the remnants of the Empire – you know the home planet bits – were never occupied, and demilitarised by The New Republic, then there is plenty of gear and who knows, natural resources to rebuild. I bet loads of people are buying the First Order’s oil.

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1700443 Sun, 27 Dec 2015 14:16:13 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1700443 I believe this someone is SETH MacFARLANE with his upcoming coarse parody sidesplitter R2Dted

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By: Ed https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1699667 Sat, 26 Dec 2015 20:45:39 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1699667 Back to TFA…. (Massive spoilers ahead.)

I agree that Kylo Ren is great, and the characters of Finn, Rey and Ren are the best thing about the film. Their battle at the end provided what was for me the film’s one true “oh wow” moment.

They are very well cast, too. I liked the echo of Moses from Attack the Block in Finn’s journey from villain to hero, and in his realisation of a whole universe beyond the circumstances of his upbringing. And Kylo Ren basically is just Adam from Girls, sent into space. His hand-crafted artisanal Vader mask is exactly the kind of thing Adam would have spent months making.

On the other hand, as Tom suggested, the plot is a lame warmed-over effort that is about as appealing as turkey hash on December 29, and the world-building is even worse. If the Republic is the legitimate government, what is the Resistance resisting? And if the First Order are a movement of neo-Imperialist insurgents, where do they get the resources to build a planet-killer about 30 times the size of the Death Star?

This must be the first time anyone could walk out of a Star Wars movie, as I did, wishing there had been*more* political exposition.

So basically Abrams gets right everything Lucas got wrong, and vice versa. It’s almost as if Abrams and Lucas were two opposing principles of the universe, forever competing for dominance. If only there were someone who could bring them into balance…

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1697117 Thu, 24 Dec 2015 00:37:11 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1697117 Re11: Well done for establishing the facts of the case – a white dude then, though not a WASPy one.

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By: Alba https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1696890 Wed, 23 Dec 2015 17:55:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1696890 Here ya go:

ROLAND: What’s the N stand for? Lou N. Davis.
LLEWYN: It’s Llewyn, L-L-E-W-Y-N. It’s Welsh.
ROLAND: Well, it had to be some stupid fucking name like that.
ROLAND: You don’t look Welsh
LLEWYN: My mother was Italian …

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By: Alba https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1696888 Wed, 23 Dec 2015 17:51:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1696888 He specifically tells John Goodman he’s half-Welsh, half-Italian in Inside Llewyn Davis. Which doesn’t mean he’s necessarily white, I guess, but y’know.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1694425 Mon, 21 Dec 2015 09:17:46 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1694425 Re8: Greenwich Village folkies certainly came in a range of ethnic flavours: Latino (Joan Baez, and as you say Fariña), Jewish (Bob Dylan) and (from a slightly earlier generation) African-American (Odetta). I’m indeed assuming that Llewyn Davis is a white dude because of his name, which I think we’re to take as his real name since his father, the fisherman, is called Hugh Davis. If you’ve worked out his mother’s background, let me know.

So much for The Force Awakens…

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By: Matthew K https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1694165 Mon, 21 Dec 2015 03:04:05 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1694165 #3 Mark – Isaac is brilliant in Llewyn Davis but there’s no reason to think that’s a “white” role other than the character’s name I guess. Other than Dave van Ronk, the obvious counterpart to the fictional Davis would be (Cuban-Irish) Richard Fariña whose persona has some similarities. Although not his end – pancaked his motorcycle aged 29, the day after his novel was published, on his wife’s 21st birthday.

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1693399 Sun, 20 Dec 2015 15:00:02 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1693399 (and an old white giffer, in fairness)

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1693398 Sun, 20 Dec 2015 14:59:40 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1693398 Even in the US, Hispanic is officially seen as a category within, rather than an alternative to, whiteness though (and in practice the opposition is v dependant on whether you’re Mexican, as I understand it). He’s certainly white enough for Tom’s point – a film with Poe Dameron as the main character would have made some Guetamalan-Americans very happy, but it’s by no means the same as a film largely built around a black man and a woman.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1693186 Sun, 20 Dec 2015 10:59:26 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1693186 (Re4: Sorry, that (2) was actually just meant to mark that it was the second postscript, not to refer to your point as separate from Tom’s on Isaac’s ethnicity or to imply a lack or otherwise on your part of knowledge of his career so far. But I’m betting a fair few people who see him in TFA are still going to think he’s David Krumholtz from 10 Things I Hate About You/Numb3rs in any case.)

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By: Alba https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1693162 Sun, 20 Dec 2015 10:36:22 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1693162 I know! But given that his character’s ethnicity isn’t directly mentioned in Star Wars (and God knows how it would be) I guess Tom felt uncomfortable referring to him as a “white dude” and changed it to “straightforwardly heroic dude”. But I was wondering whether that then undermines his original point.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1693132 Sun, 20 Dec 2015 10:06:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1693132 ‘Only one element of Star Wars (1977) is genuinely unrecoverable – a sense of lightness that was lost with the Oedipal turn taken in Empire and never reversed.’

Well, no, the other thing that is unrecoverable is the licence to tell a whole story in one movie – although Lucas may have had a multi-generational epic in his mind (if a muddled and ever-changing one, according to Peter Biskind), Star Wars works a fully self-contained story with a beginning, middle and very clear ending. Such a clear ending, indeed, that no one working on the films either in the ’80s or now seems confident to better it.

I’m enjoying Tom’s take on Star Wars (now and then) because it starts off from such a different position from mine: I’ve never had patience for the type of storytelling used in fantasy, some sci-fi and superhero comics that requires readers/viewers to constantly remember who was whose great uncle ALONG with a whole complicated set of rules about what can/can’t happen in that universe etc. Tom has referred to Star Wars as being comparatively low-entry cost as far as things that attract this kind of fandom go, and I’m definitely all about the low-entry cost entertainment in those terms (I don’t want to have to do homework).

I enjoyed The Force Awakens to a point. JJ Abrams delivered exactly what he was hired to do, which is to make something true to the spirit of the first three films in way the way the prequels blatantly weren’t. (Including – anybody who cares about spoilers has stopped reading long ago, right? – by showing a glimpse of one of shiny CGI places seen in the prequels and then instantly blowing it away). I did like some of the nods to the past – it was when it became clear where we were going for the ending that I (audibly, I fear) groaned. And as my brother-in-law said, just because you get characters to say ‘Oh, this again’ doesn’t give you a free ride to indeed do the same bloody thing again.

(Incidentally, one of the reasons you (Tom) might have missed who TFA’s Kenobi figure was going to be is that there has already been a more immediately obvious one early in the film. You know, the cinematic great who you might have forgotten by the time you get to the end?).

(Incidentally (2), Oscar Isaac has played plenty of ‘white dudes’ – his most famous role was as the 1960s Greenwich village folk singer title character in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis.)

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By: Alba https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1692717 Sun, 20 Dec 2015 01:38:15 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1692717 When I heard JJ Abrams interviewed on the radio, he mentioned Oscar Isaac as one of the faces of a more diverse cast. At the time I thought: “Oh, that’s interesting, I guess he must be Jewish” and had vague thoughts about Jewish people being considered white or not. Didn’t realise he was Latino till you posted that. Not sure that part of your blogpost works now you can’t call him a “white dude”!

“It wasn’t about who I thought it would be about” is a great line. For all the film’s generic conservatism, the seeming effortlessness with which it redresses the gender (and, to a lesser extent, racial) imbalance is quite an achievement.

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By: Tom https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/12/the-anxiety-of-binksfluence/comment-page-1#comment-1692170 Sat, 19 Dec 2015 15:15:42 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=29362#comment-1692170 (I made edits to this, most notably my misidentifying Oscar Isaac, the Latino actor who plays Poe Dameron, as a “white dude”. Sorry about that!)

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