Category: Commentary

Grimdark, Tone, (and Disney)

What’s happening to the Star Wars universe? I mean, yes, there are problems, and some of these are coming to the forefront, where the demand for increased throughput of the EFP (ie “content”) through the pipes of consumption exposes any flaws or imperfections in the infrastructure, and… to absolutely bury the metaphor… eventually the system buckles under the pressure and cracks…

Spewing stuff everywhere in full Technicolor with Dolby sound… ?

Anyhoo, this is an article on tone, mostly. Shades of grey and brown, apparently. Disney isn’t using the full color palette is what I’m getting at. But we’re starting at the end of the discussion, with burst pipes and a flooded basement. How did we get here?

It started with a re-watch of SW9:RotS on the streams a little while back. I was half interested, and hardly paying attention when the scene in the Emperor’s rejuvenation chamber came up… and it struck me.

The Grimdark.

The biomechanical rejuvenation chambers, the archaeotech, the fractured remains, the body horror.

These are not elements of a Star Wars movie.

They come from… elsewhere.

And I think this speaks to the recent disconnect [between the fans and the franchise].

As we’ve argued elsewhere on the Grimdark* , it is an essential feature of the Warhammer 40K universe.

(*check out podcast episode #… Whoops. Did I post that? One moment…)

And as we’ve argued at the outset of the Appendix W series, W40K was a hodge-podge of every science fiction trope from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, put in a blender, and with the mix pushed through the speakers turned up to 11. And early Star Wars (the original trilogy, plus some of the EU stuff available at the time, like the ongoing Marvel comic series and early novelizations) was definitely thrown in the blender like everything else.

Vader as an armored force-using, laser sword wielding transhuman cyborg super-soldier definitely counts as a proto-40K influence.

Of course, in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there’s a couple thousand like him working for the Imperium of man alone. In W40K, the dial that goes up to 11 increases exponentially. Darth Vader would be in for a very tough fight.

The other big influence that makes the Grimdark grim and/or dark is that fallen sense of technology. The “dying earth” subgenre of sci-fi, where the 20th century may be a distant memory. Often indistinguishable from fantasy, and drawing mostly from a couple strong influences like well, Vance’s Dying Earth and the Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer series**. And Herbert’s Dune, after a fashion. All of these are in the grimdark blender too.

** Did we post that up in the Appendix W either? No? Well then, shortly.

And while there is a pretty direct line between Dune and SW4:ANH, the grim dark filter hadn’t been built yet. So the appearance of the Grimdark in the SW universe in 2019 signified a rather significant shift in tone. And it’s appeared in the Mando-verse as well over on Disney+, notably in Season 3, with the Armorer and the mass jet pack fight.

Much like the emperor’s rejuvenation chamber in SW9:RotS, the overlap of the grimdark becomes readily apparent in Mando S3. Part of this is just the material there’s only so many ways to portray a massed group of faceless space knights, and the shift in focal point characters in SW from “space monk with laser sword” to “power armor space knight” will by necessity lead in certain ways. There’s just certain kinds of stories you can tell in that framework, and GW has managed to deliver an exterminatus to the concept with over 100 novels(?) in the 40K universe.

But I digress: when we see the jetpack assault by the massed Mandalorian army in S3E8, there has been no better cinematic visualization of an Adeptus Astartes assault company incursion. And Paz’s stand with the minigun (with it’s echoes of both Jesse “the Body” Ventura’s Blain in Predator (1987) and Jiang Wen’s Baze Malbus in the aforementioned Rogue One (2016)) could substitute for 35 years of a Terminator Astartes armed with an Assault Cannon facing off against innumerable foes. And that last image provides us a rather helpful clue.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment of inception, when the SW universe made the Grimdark turn. While there are elements of it throughout the sequel trilogy, Rogue One (2016) feels like a reasonable candidate. It too marked a dramatic shift in visuals and tone, standing apart from the “mainline” Star Wars films the way that it does, and with the generally positive fan and critical reception it enjoyed as well. Rogue One was still recognizably Star Wars, though darker in tone and “more mature”, appealing to an older audience that had fond memories of the original (and perhaps even the prequel) trilogies, and appreciated the mature take. In a post-AGoT era for genre on the big screen, the expectations of a more mature audience were met by Rogue One‘s screen presence.

But this more mature audience isn’t necessarily the audience that the sequel trilogy was needing to court. Star Wars seems to be pointed at a mainline audience of “the eternal 12 year old”***, an archetypical audience that is seduced by tales of the hero’s journey and see themselves within it, as long as they have the merch to go with. And Disney loves getting new fans for their franchises.

***: I could be wrong; they could be as young as eight.

And this is where the tone comes back into the picture. Because the Grimdark is defined as a universe where everything sucks and there are no good guys. Star Wars is more famously a universe with a New Hope.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t room for darker tales within the Star Wars universe; there most definitely is. The challenge comes in crossing the streams, mixing the Duff with the Duff Dark and Duff Light. Bringing the grimdark aesthetic over from a one-off that was successful for a host of reasons (of which the aesthetic was only a small part) into the mainline film series risks turning off the fans that the mainline audience are geared toward, the ETYO that Disney craves. Star Wars is an umbrella brand, and not all components that contribute to the franchise need to be geared to every part. They recognize this with the merch (I’m sure there is some overlap between Grogu squishmallows, SW Lego builders, and Mando cosplayers, but y’know, different strokes rule the world).

So is this a problem? No, not really, not in the sense that we’re contributing to the “Problemitization of Everything”. And perhaps not in the sense of it’s connection to other ongoing issues. Just an observation, drawn from the images on screen, and the connections and linkages that exist. It’s part of a trend, perhaps, one that fits with some other things that are going on.

The shift in tone, may be a larger problem, long-term, for a multi-billion dollar corporation that is struggling with producing sustainable results while keeping the franchise afloat. But that’s a them problem, and possibly unrelated to this shift in tone.

But it might be, too. I feel like this bears looking out for over the coming years.

Credits:

  • Star Wars images copyright Disney 2019, 2023
  • Warhammer 40K images copyright Games Workshop 2023

Where is the line? AKA “Cuddlefication of Brutality”

Where is the line…
… when the joke stops being funny?
… between cosplay and copaganda?
… between parody and promotion?
… between representation and reinforcement?
… where the successive waves of Disneyization of the Star Wars universe have blurred the lines so much that we forgot what the original represents.
That those are indeed “the baddies”.
Because if we look at the subtext here, or perhaps even the literal text, it isn’t that subtle.

Then what we have here is objectively terrible:

A foot soldier of an authoritarian and fascist empire uses a war trophy taken as spoils following the extermination of a minority population and celebrates with the unboxing of a new weapon of war.

Did the above capture the essence of it?

Ah, it’s funny, it’s goofy, it’s relatable.
And through this cuddlefication of brutality*, the line continues to blur.

When we look back, can we tell when the line has been crossed? Or is that only something we can tell in retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight?
(Do we know we’ve reached the Rubicon, or are we informed after the fact?)

Where we can say this, this is the point where we became accommodating, where we become comfortable with fascism, with the fun-loving stormtroopers and their goofy antics, where the clear delineations of the original films become blurred and muddied, cuddly and coddled.

So if this is the line, when do we step back? Can we back away? Are we already too late?

(*Perhaps I’m being dramatic? Maybe, but I don’t think so.)

The genesis for this was a cutesy stormtrooper “unboxing” video that circulated on social media, most notably the ‘Tube and the ‘Gram, with the cover that I embedded above. (There’s other similar videos up there as well.)

If you need to see the originals, you can find them on the following YouTube channel:

I had thought about directly embedding them, but decided not to based on the subject matter.

It’s possible to recognize that a lot of skill, talent, and resources went in to the production of the videos on that channel. We’re trying to address the broader impact of the spread of this content, and the underlying ideology that it supports.

This also was (one of) the reasons underlying the Not Feeling the Fourth post from a few weeks back. More on the other reason will be coming soon.

Invent your own life’s meaning

Bill Waterston is the GOAT, of course, a cartoonist whose impact reached out through the newsprint and embedded itself into the zeitgeist, across all levels of society. He achieved fantastic levels of success for his syndicated Calvin and Hobbes strip.

…and then he walked away.

But this was not without precedent. Prior to starting his strip, he had been fired as an editorial cartoonist, and had to re-invent himself as an artist practicing his craft. He took a graphic design job, worked through it while developing his strip and left it once he found where purchase with his new career.

Years later, giving a commencement speech at a college, he imparted some words of wisdom, and they’ve stuck with me over the last 10 years since I first encountered them:

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed… and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.

Bill Watterson

I tacked this up on the wall behind the monitor at the tiny cubicle the university provided the grad students when I started my PhD research. I kept it as the desktop on the same computer too, just to remind me of the goal, that the reason I was there was to do something different, to engender a change in the processes of life that had left me aimless prior to embarking on that journey.

(It had happened at least twice before, but more on those stories at some future date. Bientot!)

I had encountered this quote in the panels draw by the artist Gav at their zenpencils blog in 2013. I probably found it via a link on Slate or Twitter or some such, as the post gained some traction. The panels in question are here:

All credit to the artist. You can follow the link back to the full comic and the story behind it.

It’s remains one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve encountered in the last decade or so, and it’s stuck with me. And so, in case you haven’t heard it, or needed the reminder, I’m passing it on to you.

You can invent your own life’s meaning. It is allowed.

Balenciaga AI

Since March of 2023, a virus has been loose in the mediasphere, drive by an AI art generator, and reaching across all media franchises.

Like other AIs, it is relentless, remorseless, and it will not stop until all franchises have been co-opted,

by Balenciaga.

(Of course it didn’t start with 40K, as that is a niche of a niche, but it’s meme-ification speaks to the reach and pervasiveness of the Balenciaga AI).

Know your meme has the deets. What started as a Harry Potter themed AI video on YouTube went viral, fast, and imitators doing the same for other media franchises soon followed. The full history is here. The W40K ones came a few weeks after, but seeing as they don’t normally get mainstream inclusion, their presence stood out as a marker of the pervasiveness of the spread.

What I’m not sure is why.

Is it simply the internet being the internet, or is it a PR stunt or image reclamation project after the recent cancellation controversy. Or controversies. 2022 had a rough landing for the French fashion house. But 4 months into 2023, and the image has improved, driven by a pervasive AI-driven meme.

I’m inclined to think that the first post was just the internet doing what the internet does, but is it beyond the realm of possibility to imagine a savvy team pouring some gas on the meme and helping it spread like wildfire? The inclusion of 40K is a little too nerdy for the savviest image consultant, but that could simply be fans hopping on the trend of the raging inferno.

If it was planned, then kudos. Well done.

The challenge is, as with the conspicuous non-consumption posts, is in discussing Balenciaga without promoting or spreading Balenciaga.

There are still a few more threads to tie together, and with fashion on the mind at the Met Gala, there’s more to review there as well.

Conspicuous non-consumption

What do vegan cordcutters who used to play D&D have in common?

Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. (And so will I.)

Because otherwise, how would you know?

Let me introduce you to the idea of conspicuous non-consumption. It can be seen as the antithesis to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption, where people will buy certain brands or products to show off how awesome they are, but what do you do if that brand sucks?

Well, much like the Road Dogg Jess James, you better call somebody. And tell them, obviously, because how else would they know… how awesome you are, for not buying that thing.

It’s the paradox of non-consumption, that the absence of an action doesn’t communicate the intent. It goes hand-in-hand with things like brand boycotts, where the option to not buy, or experience, or engage, for reasons, as opposed to preference, like I’d watch The Flash if I had the money, or time, or wasn’t sick of superhero movies, but I lack the means.

Conspicuous non-consumption is the vocalization of the un-uttered “I’d prefer not to”, that oft-repeated Zizekian aphorism.

But it goes much further than Zizek takes it in our social media driven, Instagram and TikTok influencer kind of age, where every post is an advertisement (some paid, some not) for that particular brand or product.

So, if you want to send a message to Hasbro, or DC, f’rex, you’d have to do more that just not buy those products, you’d have to let people know.

Conspicuously, of course.

For a point of reference, I’m drawing from the following article on CN-C: Conspicuous non-consumption in tourism: Non-innovation or the innovation of nothing? – Elin Brandi Sørensen, Anne-Mette Hjalager, 2020 (sagepub.com)

I’ll be building out this idea shortly, but in the interest of publishing, and not letting the interminable and never-arriving perfect drive out the immediate good, I’ll post this up for now and we’ll come back to it in a moment or three.

Right now, there’s a handful of threads floating about that I need to bring together…