Yeah. It's true. But the creator never intended it.

Cafe Society
1

The main characters are not human being. They are not, Full Stop.

Luke Skywalker? Not human in the least.

Why is that you ask? Because the first movie starts out saying “a long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away.”

Now, unless the entire star wars galaxy is a cross over with Doctor Who, humans did not colonize other planets plants in the far past. Thus, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and the rest are humanoid aliens.

Any conclusions that have been reached, that must have been true, but work against the intension of the author?

p.s. I will not be surprised if this topic dies out.
p.s.s. I would have searched for this having been discussed in the past, since I finally found the search button, down there on the bottom right hand side of the screen, under the forum jump menu, but being as how I am only a guest, and a poor one at that, can’t access it.

2

Except that you’re comparing historical fact with, you know, a work of complete fiction.

3

Except that you’re comparing historical fact with, you know, a work of complete fiction.

4

Of course Star Wars characters aren’t human beings, at least in the sense of “being real”. They’re fictional constructs.

As for whether they are human in context of that fiction, of course Luke and company are human. What, you say? Then how did humans … Stop! This is space fantasy. Don’t put so much thought into it. The whole pretext of this particular work of fiction is a bunch of humans and aliens “a long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away”. Nobody (nobody sane, anyway) seriously believes any of this really happened, so just go along with the story like the rest of us.

5

On reviewing this thread, I like RumMunkey’s explanation better.

6

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” isn’t intended as a literal set and setting, so much as it is meant to establish that the story is in the tradition of fairy tales.

Traditional fairy-tale preambles typically start like this:

Long ago, and far away…
Far away and just as long ago…
Long ago and far away, across the western sea…
Many hundred years ago in a country across the sea…
Once upon a time, in a time and place beyond measure…
Long, long ago, in a far-off kingdom…

This is a cue that what you’re about to hear is a fable, and that surprising and seemingly impossible things will take place in the context of the story. There’s going to be magic! And dragons! And never mind that there’s no magic and dragons to be had around these parts, child.

It’s kind of silly to take a phrase that communicates “This is a fairy-tale” and then use it to point out that elements in the story are obviously counterfactual. :smiley:

7

Ok, Mr. Doubleposter RumMunkey, sir, I’ll clarify this. What things are true of a series, if logic, the rules as demonstrated of a universe (aka, all the supervillians you wan returning from the dead) and what we know of history, and the laws of physics are followed, that the creator actually didn’t intend.

Another example is that in the episode Castrovalva, of the show Dr.Who, The Doctor sees a stick of celery and declares ‘definitely civilization’ and, at the end of the story pins an unreal sprig to his lapel. [Since his Enlightenment replacement is also unreal, this is why they don’t wilt.]

He then is seen with the celery in his lapel for the rest of the season. This is streaching it a bit, since I have no way of knowing weather the script writter forget that the celery was not real, and should thus vanish at the end of the episode or not, but he might have. I repeat, I am streeeeeetching it abit.

note: the above was pretty much copied from the bbc website.

8

Jeez, in in the time it took me to compose a reply to the first post, and awfull lot of “it’s just fiction” responces pop up. I wish there was some way to make this tread an “excessivly literal person only zone” I think I will get to the excessivly lavish wish thread and make that one of them. Then, I will wait for all the “it’s-just-fiction responces” to die down, then keep on bumping it with examples, till I get an on topic responce.

9

Heheheheh

10

Answer: Lucas has always said that the “long, long time ago” bit isn’t from our now, but from a time in the future looking back on these events. They could be taking place in our future at a point when humans have colonized the galaxy.

But I like this answer better: OK, they’re humanoid aliens.

Now that you’ve got that response, how does anything differ because of it?

11

[swishy pirate saunters in]

But, why is the rum gone?

[swishy pirate saunters off]

12

Now that I think about this, it looks like I am liable to turn this into a flame, if I let myself get angry so I will listen to Kate Bush for a second to get my mind of off this.

“Deeper Understanding”

As the people here grow colder,
I turn to my computer
And spend my evenings with it
Like a friend.
I was loading a new programme
I had ordered from a magazine:
“Are you lonely, are you lost?
This voice console is a must.”
I press Execute.

Okay, that is better, now, where was I. Oh, yes, I turned to Usenet, expecting to find a bunch of flame wars, and found that occasionally someone brings up a fact the fact that long ago and far, does not seem to be a framing device, but instead an actual dating, as when Stephen said:

"But are there any real homo sapiens in Star Wars? This is all
supposed to have happened a long time ago in a Galaxy far far away.

Unless you think us Earthlings did not evolve here then the “humans”
we see in Star Wars can only be a species that looks a lot like us but
isn’t human. They also appear to be by far the most common species in
their galaxy.

Is there a “human” home planet in the Star Wars universe - do they all
come from one original home? Palpatine is a Naboo-ian but did his
people evolve on Naboo or was it colonised some time ago? Coruscent
seems to be very heavily populated with “humans” - is it the home
planet of the “human” species? "

On Jun 2 2002, 7:36 am, in alt.fan.starwars, in a discusion wither or not the empire is a human only club .

Judging from the non-reaction, this seems to come up quite often, only to be ignored. Oh, well, any other examples what-so-ever of thing the creator never intended?

13

Yeah, well, we thought of attacking you for your crappy spelling, but figured that was just too low. :stuck_out_tongue:

14

As it happens, it’s a traditional swords n’ sorcery tale, a retelling of Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress, and a martial arts movie, all rolled up into one. So playing gotcha and sayin they’re nearly identical aliens is sort of pointless.

15

Nothing, that was just an example. I am looking for things like how almost al televison show in the recent past, are actually the dreams of a helpless little autistic kid somewhere. A longer article explaining the issue can be found here . I am sure peole have noticed other examples of simular things.

P.s. here is a great quotes from the end of the above article.

“So what does this prove, other than the fact that I’ve got too much free time? Well, my point and I do have one (I can steal this catch phrase because, as I’ve already proven, Ellen never existed), is that while guest-shots and crossovers can be fun, obsessive, cross-series continuity is silly.”

It’s silly in comics too. Relax and enjoy the show.

16

Okay, I’ll play.

In True Lies, Arnold’s daughter isn’t his. And they’re all going to be dead soon anyway.

How do I know?

Arnold goes to work almost every day, which involves passing through a gigantic X-ray machine. There’s no big white spot around his crotch when he goes through, which means he’s not wearing lead underpants. That means his jewels are getting a healthy dose of radiation every day; since he’s been employed there longer than his daughter is old, that means he’s been sterile for long enough that she can’t be his. I wonder whether he’s just in denial about it…

And at the end of the movie, they happily watch a mushroom cloud form a couple miles away from them; while they’re not vaporized by the blast, they’re subjected to lethal amounts of radiation that are going to kill them after the movie ends.

Daniel

17

Sheesh, next you’re gonna tell me that Frodo and Sam weren’t romantically involved in Lord of the Rings!

18

Two examples that aren’t mine:

  1. Monte Cook, a game designer, put forth a compelling theory that Gilligan’s Island consists entirely of hallucinations in Gilligan’s head as he lies dying of thirst on the beach of a desert island.
  2. Another author whose name I forget suggests watching TJ Hooker as the fantasy of an overweight middle-aged desk-cop burdened by relentless regulations and a loveless marriage: he wishes life were simpler and more glamorous, and in his head it is.

Daniel

19

Kind of like S Elsewhere being all in the mind of an autistic child.

Or the dream season of Dallas.

Let’s forget some great Trek episodes, such as TNG’s Inner Light and the original pilot The Cage.
Thing is with SW, tho, it isn’t SF, not by a long shot. It’s Fantasy, plain and simple.

20

Ho-ray!

Ok, I just thought of another example, it has no real consequence, but it connects together movies that were never intende d to be connected.

In Leon: The Professional, Jean Reno (Ruh-No) plays a hitman, of the title’s name. He also plays an almost identical charector in other films, the only one I can remember being the video game Onimusha 3. Indentical down to:
The coat worn by Jean Reno is the same coat he wore playing Victor in NIKITA (1990). Luc Besson has stated that the Leon character and Victor character in NIKITA (1990) are actually cousins.
from http://www.celebritywonder.com/html/jeanreno.html although, I remember noticing that as well.

p.sGuinastasia, you can count on me to back you up on the Frodo thing, and furthermore, no amount of ribbing from my friends has ever convinced me that Heero is not romantically involved with Duo, on the anime “Gundam Wing”