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Crowstep  1yr ago (theintrinsicperspective.com)   3036 thread views

What the heck happened in 2012?

theintrinsicperspective.com

Submission statement:

Erik Hoel argues that 2012 was a cultural inflection point. Just as 1968 signalled the peak of the 1960s cultural revolution that would set the stage for the next few decades of social change, 2012 represents the beginning of the (spoiler) smartphone era and a new round of social change.

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I think there is a hopeless/nihilistic/no-heroes streak in some parts of contemporary culture, but mostly surrounding climate activism. (It's a narrative that flatters my prejudices to suggest that it's a cautionary tale about distorting the truth for rhetorical power "for the greater good": the exaggerated claims that global warming will end the world, rather than just be very bad, didn't galvanise people to action but created a kind of numbing despair.) "Only we are the heroes" might be a better phrasing of the problem.

I've always thought that a sequel trilogy should be about Luke starting his own Jedi order that is less oppressive than the original one, but running into the same problems that those harsh rules were created to solve. (Kids missing their families, questioning the Jedi ways, potentially creating new Anakins.)

For what it's worth, the old Expanded Universe novels were exactly this. Luke's New Jedi Order is founded on a much healthier basis and succeeds in bringing together a new Republic and creating some of the greatest Jedi in history... and also runs into some spectacular disasters, because solving problems is hard actually.

Ooooh! I've only read the prequel trilogy novelizations. I didn't read any other EU stuff. Your pitch intrigues me, but my understanding is that specifics of how the Jedi order functioned and how it related to Anakin's fall weren't solidified until the prequel trilogy, and the New Jedi Order stuff predates it. Let me Google this..

Huh, they were published during the release period for Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Do the books directly reference the prequels?

The new Jedi order takes place after the refounding of the Jedi order and the EU books dealing most with the force and Jedi stuff are usually a) written before it and b) not known for their quality in relation to the rest of the EU.

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