That's one thing the original KOTOR Got right it made you question the jedi willingness do what is right because reben yes broke the jedi code but he save billions of lies when he foght the Mandlorain war and you makes you question how arrogant the jedi masters were they thought they could see the future predict everything and we could see later in the franchise in the actual movies that led to their downfall but it started in the older public they thought they could predict what the man Delorean would do and Revan could just stand by and watch innocent people die he had to do something
Will you ever look at/review some more obscure scifi series? For example, the Spiral Wars and Lost Fleet series both have unique ship designs, and pretty detailed looks at sublight space combat strategy, especially Lost Fleet. One of the best hero ships in recent fiction in my opinion has to be the Phoenix from Omega Force. Think "The A Team" in space.
As Kreia said once : ''Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you ''. For me this is what makes this stories great . Your perspective of the story , your subjective perception on what is good and what is bad . There are no moral crutches , nobody is holding your hand. So you believe it.
Kreia was piece of brilliant story writing, she was also a excellent grey jedi. I find the moral of her story is is life in complicated, it is not black and white, it is nothing but shades of grey.
@@mariokarter13 Then KOTOR2 was a terrible subversion. I'd read it all before in the New Jedi Order series, where it was written better, from the mouth of Vergere. And here's the kicker. They're both wrong. Force shenanigans aside, relative morality systems always fail, and they are always used to justify evil. Kreia was no more grey than Palpatine, she was just more insidious and wrapped her poison in a candied shell. That was the great secret that she failed to hide: that her entire purpose was to gather Jedi and Sith teachings to a place where they would both be despised and lost.
@@Ryvaken but it's not moral relativity. It's the rejecting of morality. You don't decide what is right. You decide what you do. It just so happens that we agree to do very similar things and cooperate in shared deals. It's all business deals in disguise. Ethics is just negotiations to resolve conflicting goals in a group of people. Figure out what YOU want, what others want, where they match and conflict, and plan accordingly.
"That's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing? Well, it worked. And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. And all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain." Best. Moment. Ever!
Garak was the best.....always had the best dialog and always made the best point on a issue....that doesn't devalue other characters it's just Garak could talk about how orderly a landfill is and it'd be interesting and he'd find some artful way of framing it lol plus great voice....
I would have been perfectly content if all this channel did was talk about sci-fi vehicles, but I really appreciate the fair and nuanced analysis of science fiction this channel provides.
This is neither fair, nor is it nuanced. It is a very blatantly biased communication of the author's opinion. Take the Example of the "Evil Force" pushing you towards its agenda, leave out the words "the Force" from the Old Jedi's text and you immediately have what? Normal life. Yes, Actions can have unintended consequences down the line. Who would have thought... Yes, Eddington compares the Federation with the Borg. He is however not shown to be correct in any way shape or form. More than that, he is a rather blatant Terrorist attacking entire planetary populations in the name of his "Fight for Freedom". The end of his story arc, where Sisko commits what is essentially a warcrime, is a slap in the face of the character and a perfect example on how NOT to subvert expectations. "DS9 attacks Star Trek", "don't think about the Force duality too much", none of that makes all that much sense, nor is either part of the original source material in the way this video asserts.
@@Alexander_Kale But the Force exists in the Star Wars universe and it is practiced and almost worshiped by the Jedi, who believe all of their action must be done taking it in consideration. Besides you're missing the point of the force. In KOTOR it is treated as a power that is in control of everything and therefore no one is free, almost like fate, or a god. But the Jedi present it as something that is good, while the sith present it only as something to be controlled in the pursuit of true freedom, and Kreia doesn't agree to any of their interpretations, believing it to be evil and that it takes away free will. If fate exists, what would be your view on it? Is basically the beginning of the discussion in KOTOR. But that is not all that she thinks. She takes specific points about their belief that correlate to real-world pilosophical discussions about free will, ethics and even religion. Although I wouldn't say she goes very deep down the rabbit hole, the game does tackle the issue rather seriously. And during the whole story she Kreia keeps pressing how you can't judge a philosophy by reducing it to their most basis aspects because that's not truly understanding it and you can't rationally refuse it this way. By the way, although it's a rather polemic issue, the only difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is justification. We cheer the rebels in Star Wars because they're fighting space nazis, even though Luke blew up thousands of people with the death star and most certainly caused many deaths in the years that followed the fall of the empire because that's what always happens when political authority falls apart. It's not all a matter of perspective, but perspective influences this a lot, and deconstruction is, in part, seeing things from a different perspective.
@@slowmotionwriting8714 The way the force is originally portrayed is a mirror image of life itself. Being a bad person does not make you stronger, but it allows you to take some shortcuts. Being a good person meanwhile takes effort. It will not make you weaker, but it may take longer to arrive at the same point. Since then, the Dark side of the force has continuously been shown to be a corrupting influence. Everyone who ever fell to the dark side of the force eventually starts exhibiting what is generally perceived as evil tendencies. If a Dark side user opens an orphanage, you can bet your ass that he has unpleasant things planned for said orphans down the line. I did not miss the point of the video. I found the point of the video to be grossly misleading. And, to reiterate the original comment in this thread: No, this is not a good and neutral analysis. This is a blatant propaganda piece.
A proper subversion destroys the old paradigms, but then replaces it with something more nuanced and complex. This is the brilliance of Kotor, challenging the binary light and dark, and instead, introducing causality, and philosophical pondering where multiple philosophies can exist, and each can be just within its own framework, but also suggesting that they are all incomplete without each other.
I think this is really the key. Poor subversion is simply breaking something. Excellent subversion is making the audience look at the broken pieces and ask 'what does this mean?'
Wrong...and right...and in the process you contradict yourself. If a "proper subversion" *destroyed* the old paradigms as you say, then you cannot say "they are all incomplete without each other". As such, you are wrong at the "destroy" part, you are right at the "they complete each other". Take TNG and DS9 for example. They are the two series Trekkies love the most, almost equally. Why? Cause they are incomplete without each other. DS9 without TNG and TNG without DS9 would have been much less important and good stories. As such, "a proper subversion" not only does not "destroy" the source material, but instead it makes it stronger. Once more, take Trek. At TOS and TNG an "utopia" is described, but this by itself would have been vacuous. This is why there are episodes at TOS/TNG that "test" that utopia, in the process re-affirming it. The difference (when compared to DS9) is that this lasts only for 45 minutes, or 90 minutes if it is a two part episode, and at the end of it, the protagonists win the day without a scratch. DS9 took that to an "extreme" or it "subverted" the audience's expectations if you wish, by having that conflict and that challenge of the utopia for 7 seasons, and more (by implication). Also, in the end Sisko had to (partly) sacrifice his ideals. Key word here; sacrifice. He endured, he suffered, he lost in order for the society to keep its ideals. It''s Spock's sacrifice all over again; The needs of the many (society) outweigh the needs of the few....or the one (Sisko's). In the end the utopia not only endured, but also it can't be called utopia anymore, something that has the connotation of not being possible. As such, the utopic vision of the UFP became more real and more approachable. In that way, it got...stronger. In that light, "a proper subversion *challenges* the old paradigms". Whether they will be re-affirmed or the issue will remain open (and challenged) and to what degree either will happen, it doesn't matter. In essence the subversion will never "destroy" the old paradigms, cause without the "old paradigm" you can't have the "subversion". They need each other, they fuel each other, they complement each other. At Star Trek we see that, by Starfleet *adding* ships that are more militaristic, but Galaxy and Nebula class ships are still being made and Starfleet's primary mission doesn't change; They want to end this damn war to get back at "exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations". The Defiant is equipped for scientific surveys, it is not just a warship. The Galaxy class ships are made for diplomacy, exploration and scientific studies but they are powerful. Both functions (science/military vessels) exist at them both, just at different ratios and as such...they complement each other.
There is a reason why I don't like the term subversion much, it's not always completely correct. Deconstruction and Reconstruction are more clear in their objectives, with the second pointing out a flaw in it or a duality not considered before and apparently "breaking" the source, but does so in order to make It stronger and "deny" a possible deconstruction.
As I've said before, a lot of this modern "Subverting Expectations" does what it says. I expect something to be good and coherent... and they subvert that pretty darn well.
As someone who grew up watching DS9 and playing KotOR II countless times, you have perfectly summarized what I believed about both but couldn't quite put into words. Bravo, sir.
I felt that way when Robert Downey Jr announced, "I am Iron Man". The whole idea of a secret identity was such a staple of super hero narratives, it just felt awesome Toney Stark decided to go public.
I was, at best, ambivalent about movies based on comic books, or comic books in general, until that moment. Changed my entire perspective. Captain America's character did it again, later.
Read the Dune Saga, Herbert subverted expectations in each book, each sequel in many ways subverted the previous. Its a cycle, yes, but so is many things in life and this world. That's why I love Herbert's work, he would subvert, the subversion.
Expect this version of subverting expectations doesn't have that issue. These media instances are only subverting in context, and the regular expectation continues. It only becomes an issue when done badly when you starting wondering when the stupid twist will happen. There was no twist or trick in these media it was recognizing a hole in the philosophy and telling a story in it.
A lot of “subverting expectations” we’ve seen lately seems more like resentfully avoiding fan ideas, at the cost of coherent plots. I can appreciate the problem -if you’re writing any type of mystery, the first idea you come up with as a writer will almost certainly be guessed very easily by the audience. But the writer needs to stay true to the core concept, even if details evolve in the writing process. Endlessly second guessing what the audience might figure out and picking the least intelligible narrative through-line just frustrates everyone.
+Roj H That is a dangerous thing to focus on, and can only yield into failure. In the examples shown, it is not at all about subverting of expectations, but giving another perspective on what was prior established.
I agree with Tuning. Example: Everyone knows what a rock is, think of this rock as the established lore of any franchise, then one brave (or stupid) soul come along and breaks the rock, revealing small crystals inside. The smashing of the rock is the deconstruction of the established lore, the crystals are the undiscovered finer details due to the... normalized, day-to-day face we (the audience) were presented with, and accepted without question.
@@DarthBiomech um, not really. Any writer worth their salt will take an idea and make it their own. Furthermore, all the stories have already been told in one form or another, take the Odessy, for example, that story has been told in different ways over and over again, should the latest iteration sue all the others that follow after? No! Of course not. But if someone was to write some fan fiction and a scriptwriter clumsily ripped it off, then there might be some merit, but I havn't heard of such a thing happening.
Yeah but there were precedents. And I know that creators behind some shows are actually forbidden to go look up fan-created stuff by the contract, precisely because of the fears I outlined. "All the stories have already been told so plagiarism is impossible and you can't sue us" wouldn't fly as a defense in court, I presume.
In the middle of Last Jedi when hacker had the speech about both sides of conflict buying weapons and that war is just money no good or bad, no right or wrong. In that moment i thought - "Damn this gonna be good". And boy it wasnt
Except there wasn't two sides "apparently" the New Republic was a handful of planets that got blown away in the previous movie, so all that was left was the First Order and the plucky rebellion, sorry "Resistance" who couldn't even afford to refuel their ships.
He tried to deliver the punchline of Kotor 2 without any of the build up, nuance, or really even showing it. and it still messed up that key theme Kotor 2 added.
That was sadly me the entire film. I was enjoying the film the whole time. Then I asked if I enjoyed all the twists and I didn't have a solid answer. I've since realized I was actually waiting in vain for the movie to actually get good.
"No. I am your father." Arguably, the most iconic moment in the Star Wars franchise is a perfectly executed subversion of expectations. It didn't destroy what came before, but rather added a whole new level of depth and meaning to it.
I sort of disagree. There was no expectation during that time. No one was wondering who was Luke’s father before going into Empire. You say it didn’t destroy what came before, but I’m sure the fans who saw it for the first time back in the 80s would disagree at least at the time.
@@michaelmacias8 I was one of the fans that saw it in the theater when it first came out. I and everyone else I spoke to thought it was a brilliant plot twist. We weren't wondering who Luke's father was, but we certainly didn't expect it to be Vader. My expectations were subverted, and I thought is was awesome.
I'd argue that the condemnation of Star Wars ideology is exclusive to Kotor 2 rather than the first game. The first game is by no means bad, but it is definitely more interested in replicating the feel of a Star Wars story than critiquing the setup. And that makes sense given that it was released in 2003, the middle of the prequel era, and instead told an OT story with connections to the old republic comics of the 90s rather than during the clone wars. If anything Kotor 2 criticizes not only the tenets of The Force, but also the storytelling of Kotor 1. It reframes the story of Revan and Malak from a tale of maniacal evil despots into a complicated morality plot about extreme measures and preparing for a greater threat. Malak is criticized heavily in Kotor 2 for being a genocidal warmonger rather than a true strategist, and that he was heavily at fault for the Republic's near total economic collapse in the years following the Jedi Civil War. The fact that the Republic-Sith War is generally called the Jedi Civil War in Kotor 2 recontextualizes the first games conflict from the point of view of the average citizen. Sith as a species hadn't been seen for nearly a thousand years, so the concept of Sith as an organization was still new. Most people who remembered Exar Kun saw him as a fallen Jedi, so of course they'd see another war between opposing ideologies of force users as a civil war; they lack the context to view them as anything other than Jedi. Kotor 1 is by no means a bad game, but it does struggle with nuance when it comes to binary morality systems, and the player character dialogue is amateur at best. Kotor 2 thrives on examining the first games adherence to binary morality while also building on the themes the first game did well, such as the backstory to the Mandalorian Wars. That lets the second game also critique warfare in star wars in a unique way. It wasn't a galaxy ending threat that wrought so much misery, it was a long series of ugly border wars devoid of any Jedi/Sith conflict that acted as the catalyst for a near total collapse of society. And once again the Jedi failed to learn the lesson of all wars and the suffering they cause.
John Cole Those are a lot of very good points. The exile’s story illuminated Revan’s reasoning for participating in the mandalorian wars, which eventually led to his downfall. The passive approach of the Jedi basically necessitated a war-maker like him to deal with the danger at hand. And yet the very people who defended the republic were cast out like nothing. That’s why the council recording scene with the exile was so good. It represented the plight of the warrior Jedi and even the dark Jedi who fell in a way the surface level history of the first game didn’t.
I'd argue that the "subversion" of the Manichean binary presented by Star Wars begins with KOTOR 1's exploration of the Sith's philosophy. Once the villains of a binary morality tale are presented as a complex faction with an understandable world view you've shifted the moral dialog of the story from right vs wrong to more-right vs less-right. and forced a discourse over which is which.
I noticed this when I replayed the kotor games about a month ago, how kotor 1 was very basic in terms of story (gotta stop cartoony evil man with big bad space station) whereas kotor 2 was more of a journey of self discovery for the exile, finding out why the council threw him out and then seeing them do the same thing again, not learning from the mistakes and not seeing the threat that stares them in the face. Just like they didn't when the mandalorians fought the republic.
The first game DOES tackle the ideas, it just doesn't go all in until the second. One aspect the first game handles, but the second doesn't, is that the idea that being "Strong in the force" isn't a good thing. If anything I think the second game benefits greatly by what the first game sets up, the ground work lets the game sink its teeth into the material and wouldn't have been able to be made without it. (The KOTOR MMO, does play with the idea... that the Dark Side isn't about mindless slaughter, that in many ways that is as much of a perversion.)
Mind you the MMO if I had to get A GENERAL theme... it is about how people justify what they do (whether by choice or not) through a lens and what moral code truly means.
KOTOR II is made by Obsidian which is why it's so great. It's also why Fallout New Vegas is so great in comparison to what the Fallout series has become now under Bethesda.
KOTOR 1 was great too, Bioware was really good too back in the days. But so sad to see Bethesda and Bioware to become so bad in writing storys :/ Obsidian is the only Company i trust making a good Fantasy or Sciene Fiction Story nowadays.
@@Tevion1121 Obsidian has brilliant writing, but their games are just as glitch ridden, if not more so, than Bethesda so don’t pretend like they’re saints. Pillars of Eternity took 200000000000 years to load.
This video proofs my point about Starfleet´s ship design. ENT should have featured a vastly different hero ship than just an "upside down-Akira". It is ridiculous that no other species has added something visually to the melting pot.
Yeah, the ship design thing makes the Federation seem more like a colonizing power than an egalitarian one. Though I presume every member species has their own ships for local/trade/whatever purposes, that seems to have zero influence on Federation shipbuilding. One would think that having access to a huge variety of design principles and practices, the way forward would be to take the best from all of them and then standardize around that. Although it does make some sense that ENT used that eventually-stereotypical saucer type design because that's just how Earth thinks about ships, and it's just Earth and Vulcan in the early days IIRC.
I couldn't fail to notice the similarities between Malachor V, and, well... "if you come to Za'Ha'Dum, you will die". Also worth noticing, Babylon 5 could even be considered a retelling of Lord of the Rings (or a reaquisition of its themes and characters) in space.
@@Ennio444 I have to disagree. At its very basic LotR is a pretty simple good vs evil story. Beautifully told, in a vibrant world, but in the end good vs evil. B5 on the other hand pretends to be good vs evil until it reveals itself as chaos vs order story, without declaring one or the other as good or evil.
@@alfredkugler3043 True, but the narrative and tropes are all there. Some are superficial (like the Rangers being Aragorn's Dunedain) and some run deeper (like the attitude of the Vorlon and the Old races towards the new races being very reminiscent of the Valar in the Silmarillion)
@@Ennio444 Eh, I don't think it has too many links to LOTR. LOTR has so much lore you can link it to almost anything, and the Shadow war was the only part you can really draw comparisons. The conflict of the Narn and the Centauri, and the Civil war with Earth really don't draw too many comparisons.
The right way to subvert expectations: maintain the established assumptions, character traits, facts and values and have them play out in a new or unfamiliar context, leading to unexpected results that make the audience question said assumptions and values. The lazy and hacky way to subvert expectations: trample on the established assumptions, character traits, facts and values, leading the audience to question your motives and the logical validity of your deconstruction of "their" franchise. Instead of questioning the franchise, the audience ends up questioning the author.
This isn't why I initially subbed to this channel, but it's one of the many reasons that I stay. Beautiful analysis and I hope for more more thought provoking videos like this. Keep up the good work.
@Col. Commissar Ibram Gaunt Yeah, I imagine the production meeting was like "so, how do we make a better version of Wrath of Khan, that people won't expect?" "make Kirk die in the reactor - not for realises, obviously - and have Spock yell 'Khan' longer and weirder than Shatner did" "awesome, we've got the screenplay pretty much finished, and we've barely started on this massive pile of cocaine!"
Given Abrams has his hand in the new Trek and Star Wars, its no surprise they mirror each other. Abrams relied too much on callbacks and nostalgia, instead of actually subverting the franchises. Johnson said he was subverting expectations, but ended up being dumb and pointless, and in the end he still had Rey be good for no other reason than she is the good character. He teased the idea of greyness, but either he or Disney could not pull the trigger.
@Col. Commissar Ibram Gaunt It is crazy how much popular culture extends that scream. When you actually see that movie, he doesn't hold the yell for long time. It's actually fairly short, the build up of him shaking and twisting his face is longer.
To subvert expectations, you must first set expectations. The main problem with so many stories today is that they go in with the intention to have a twist, and so they intentionally mislead you earlier on. They don't present a situation and let you make your own assumptions, they tell you what assumptions you should make. So when they eventually pull back the curtain you don't feel any sense of shock or wonder, just a vague sense of disappointment.
Kreia is awesome but she's basically just Vergere in a different era. Vergere even teaches Jacen the exact same lesson that's cited in this video, that sometimes an act of kindness can have very harmful consequences. She goes onto expand our view of how the Force works, challenges Grandmaster Luke on his interpretation, and pretty much rewrites everything we took for granted in SW, and this was in 2002 which was 2 years before Kotor2 came out. Not saying you're wrong, just saying look up some quotes from Vergere, I'm pretty sure you'll love her too.
As much as I really love her character, Doctor Aphra is for me. Not just because I relate, but, because for the same reason Jyn Erso works when asked about seeing the Imperial flag above every world "it's not a problem if you don't look up".
@@JainaSoloB312 Vergere got retconned into "evillllll Sith lady who made Jacen bad man" by Denning though. Kreia mostly escaped that by not being referenced in anything outside of KOTOR II really.
@@KitchenSinkSoup Troy is one of my favourite authors, his work in LotF is incredible and he's become a friend of mine. But I haaaaate that retcon and I was rather hoping he didn't write that one haha
When subverting expectations is done well, people only talk about how great the story and characters are rather than the fact that their expectations were subverted. And there are recent movies that have done a great job of subverting expectations. Both Logan and Blade Runner 2049 subverted expectations. Everyone thought Logan killed the X-Men but it turned out to be Professor X. But no one talks about how that film is great for subverting expectations. People talk about the great character development and how emotional those scenes were. People talk about how it completely changes the previous scenes between Logan and Xavier. You think that Xavier is disappointed in Logan because of what Logan did when it turns out that Logan was only letting Xavier think that so he won't remember that he was the one who killed the X-Men. With Blade Runner 2049, the whole movie sets it up to make the audience think that K is Deckard's son. And that turns out to all be misdirection. But that only goes to reinforce the main message of the movie, that it's a person's actions that truly defines them, not the circumstances of their birth. That's pretty much the same reveal as Rey's parentage, except it has real meaning and significance to the theme of the story.
Maybe I'm very much a blade runner geek and made an effort to watch the original blade runner in the cinema in November 2019.... I thought 2049 was largely disappointing. Never once did I actually think K was Deckard's son. For me the clue was in the original blade runner. 'if we gift them with a past then we creat a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, subsequently we can control them better...' 'You're talking about memories' (roll demis rossos) It was the flash back to the orphanage that really made me think that he wasn't Deckard's son. (as I remember) I went into the cinema with quite low expectations of 2049... It wasn't disappointing but was an OK movie, but I wasn't massively impressed by it.... One thing that was fascinating in 2049 was JOI. What is love? Did she love K, is love just a pattern of reinforced behaviour or was it something that was able to emerge within something of any 'thinking system' Or was it just her programing Because it was 'anything you want to see, anything you want to hear' Did JOI say she loved K because that's what he wanted to hear and that's what her programing dictated? Though I watched 2049 once in the cinema... Compared to the original like 100's of times... So there might have been neuience I missed!
I don’t know about you, but I never once thought that Logan killed the X-men. I immediately thought that it must be professor X. Why else would Logan be suppressing his power?
@@Cailus3542 but at the very least is best to know killing characters by surprise or randomely changing a forshadowed event just for shock value isn't expectation subvertion
@@Cailus3542 I agree, the risk is real and what ultimately decides the end product is the quality of its execution. To mention the obvious crystal fox in the room, when even the actor stated "I fundamentally disagree with EVERY decision you've made about this character" to the writer -- well, we all know where that ended.
A thing that i love about DS9 and KOTOR2 is that even if they present you the flaws of the original source and give it a twist dont actually invalidate it. Just give you even more things to work with. The sequel trilogy as a whole just destroyed something without any good reason and replaced it with a mess that didnt go anywhere
I remember in the finale of the original KOTOR, after defeating Malak, he reminds you that it was actually Revan who drove him to the dark side, yet now he stands as a hero and Malak is the villain he defeated (if you play the light side of course). Really made me think how morally ambiguous this was. Decent writing if I've ever seen one.
KOTOR, especially KOTOR 2, dealt directly with a theme that was hinted at in the prequels and originals: the fallibility of sticking to one side. in the OT, the rebellion is morally right, but does many morally wrong things (blowing up thousands to destroy a weapon for example), while the Empire is morally wrong, takes morally wrong actions and loses. the PT shows how the morally correct Jedi Order takes what it thinks are morally correct actions and is destroyed by its own hubris. TLJ tried a more direct approach, but it was bungled and lost in a sea of stupid decisions and a failure to show this rather than just tell
Subversion is one of the most powerful tools in writing, and some of the most defining works in all of fiction were fundamentally subversive. The issue arises when the writer begins to use it in such a way as to make any meaning the plot has retroactively pointless. The issue isn’t that TLJ was subversive, rather the issue was that the gratuitous nature of said subversion.
Yeah, TLJ often have bad faith or nonsensical arguments in an attempt to subvert. Like if they wanted to explore the Jedi they should have given legit and nuanced arguments against them (kind of like the prequels). Instead Luke flat out says things are are untrue like the Jedi tried to own the Force, which the Jedi never did. And Rian's not presenting Luke as crazy here, he think Luke is genuinely saying the right thing and he wants the audience to believe Luke. So now the audience has a warped perception of the Jedi because many blindly believe what Luke said to be true even thought the previous films directly contradicting him. It also doesn't help that Luke Skywalker is the one delivering these criticisms, you know the guy who said "I am a Jedi like my father before me". Luke's just not the type of character to give up on the Jedi when being a Jedi is what saved the galaxy and it makes the delivery of the subversive themes illogical. I can buy a jaded ex-Jedi feeling this way (like maybe Kylo Ren) but not Luke himself. And then we have other "subversions" like killing Snoke with zero explanation to who is he was. There were just cheap plot twists to deliberately surprise fans instead of being in service to a subversive story. All of the Last Jedi's "subversions" are like this. It's either cheap shock value or misrepresentations of core Star Wars concepts, all of which is just bad story telling.
For me it all comes down to this: For the subversion to work, what you actually present needs to be more interesting and compelling than the expectation. That's the difference between a good twist and a disappointment.
Wrath of Khan is why I don't like the Kobayashi Maru scene in the Abrams movie. Because they took an iconic moment of Kirk's past and removed the context.
I don't take that scene as 'canonical' to the original universe. This was a different Kirk, one who grew up without a father. I feel like original-universe Kirk's "changed the conditions of the test so that it was possible to rescue the ship" was probably a lot less extreme - just giving himself a small edge rather than completely disabling the Klingons' shields.
+Drake Aurum Or something similar happened, but he was able to talk his way into a commendation, rather than being interrupted by Nero's attack on Vulkan.
@@DrakeAurum Yes, but the use of the "I don't believe in no-win scenarios" line in my opinion shows they kept the context of the scene, but not the spirit. Though to be fair, not having a father did likely factor into how much the scene failed to play out how originally conceived in Wrath of Khan. That scene was the biggest moment where you realized how different these characters were going to be in the Kelvinverse.
@@Janoha17 That's a thing Shatner said, but it works far better as a noodle incident. If I had to write the scene I would have him program the Klingon adversary to hesitate in response to a hail in Klingon claiming to be a Klingon agent. When Savik took the test the AI won through a scripted ambush in which it crippled her ship before she could maneuver or raise shields and making it hesitate might, given the failings of the M5 experiment years later, have allowed a talented commander who understood its idiosyncrasies to defeat it. Fast talking in Klingon is something that could actually be considered to deserve a commendation for original thinking and would tie in with Kirk's disbelief in the no win scenario in a way that even Shatner's version does not.
IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT is the highpoint of sci-fi storytelling in recent years. The sheer theater of it,most impressive,and Avery Brooks was the secret sauce holding the whole episode together. Thanks for having good taste in fiction.
How to "subvert expectations" correctly? Be a good writer. Hollywood has a severe lack of good writers right now. 3:42 I see what you're saying, but I believe Star Trek: Enterprise was meant to explain why this is. When humanity took to the stars they only found conflict. The Vulcans and the Andorians were on the brink of war and it would be discovered that Romulans were manipulating both powers from behind the scenes. Starfleet would be a neutral party which mediated peace talks between the Vulcans and Andorians. This is why Earth is the heart of the Federation instead of Vulcan or Andoria. 3:56 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country dealt with this issue long before Discovery was a thing. The Klingons feared that joining the Federation or losing to the Federation meant the annihilation of their culture. This is brought up a few times in the film.
I would add Hollywood/TV/Movies do not have good editors right now. I love the belated media guy's revision of the Star War prequels because he's a really good editor. He understands arc being more than just one movie. And that holes in arc cannot be fixed with books and comics. I wish people like Daniel and belated media could get hired on these projects.
To your second point: I would offer some of the dialogue from Star Trek IV. Adm Cartwrite: "They [the Klingons] would become the alien trash of the Galaxy." Klingon Cmdr [name unknown after death of Chancellor Gorkon]: "If we strike now, we cannot win, but we will die like Klingons."
KOTOR II and DS9 subvert expectations by just looking through the existing cracks of established logic in their respective franchises. TLJ tried to subvert expectations by taking a sledgehammer to it.
It is just bad storytelling in general to simply take the characters, who already went through their journey, and simply go "Well immediately after the story... they are all miserable awful people. You thought that was a happy ending? NooooOoooo we are basically going to rob you now!"
The dumb straight-line ship pursuit and fuel shortage issue aren't a sledgehammer. They are just really, really bad writing. Also, KOTOR and DS9 aimed to make the viewer think, whereas TLJ aimed to sell people on gender politics. Brainwashing isn't subversion of expectation because that's exactly what I expected of Disney Star Wars.
@@TheNefastor Destroying existing characters and plotlines and introducing concepts which create blatant plotholes in every previous story and every story that will ever come out in the future is what I'd call a sledgehammer
Jean Roch How about giving me one exampke of “gender politics” in The Last Jedi. Because a character having purple hair or a woman being of higher rank than men is not “gender politics!, it just means you’re a sexist who cannot handle women being as or more capable than men. Also, how are fuel shortages dumb? Did you forget part of the reason why Qui-Gon even landed on Tatooine was to repair and REFUEL the ship?
That's one thing I'll give Halo. I really like their 'why' for the insane Spartan III program. It was an elite soldier program for use in black operations, then when waste hit the rotary air impeller, they threw them at the problem and it was going so badly they turned them into PR darlings. Halo's UNSC/Covanent war was lost (in space) before it started and the focus the UNSC had on ground combat was part of why. Not to insult them, they had simply invested in the wrong kind of warfare, that happens all the time. 'Prepared to win the previous war.' is endemic.
And that directly contradicts one of the messages of this video, that these deep morally complex stories are seen as great only because they break a long-existing franchise that up to that point had a very simplistic morality Fall of Reach was literally the first entry in the Halo universe, coming out a month before the game
@@Sorain1 I thought the Spartan 3 programme was a 'hothouse' version of the Spartan 2 programme, to churn-out Spartans faster at the expense of not being quite as powerful as the Spartan 2s.
@@nicholassmith7984 The Spartan II program (Master Chief and co) were the child soldiers meant to fight (human) rebels. The Spartan-IIIs were the hasty replacements to fight the Covenant. The Spartan-IVs are the results of refinements allowing adults to be enhanced, and thus tend to be older, experienced, and psychologically more mature. On a pure physical level, the Spartan-IVs are inferior to the IIs (the survivng IIs would effortlessly wipe the floor with a IV), but the IVs use more advanced armour that makes up the difference. In other words, in the John-117/Locke fight in Halo 5, if they'd been out of their armour, Locke didn't stand a chance.
@@keith6706 I haven't played through Halo 5 yet (it's on the list,) but I was aware that Spartan IIs where the far-superior fighter, despite the difficulty in producing them.
Kotor2 also stands as a monument that obsidian takes time to understand the universe they are playing in and just how strong their writing staff is and how much they respect their players
If there's one problem with "Wrath of Khan", it's that it reinforced the myth of the Kirk who "never faced death". Kirk faced death all the time. When he was trapped by the Metrons and forced to fight the Gorn captain, he not only faced death but his own prejudices. When Spock and the rest of the Galileo Seven were missing, Kirk had to make the decision to leave them behind because the needs of the people suffering from a plague (the many) outweighed the needs of his own crew and friends (the few). When Trelane had his crew trapped, he could only free them by sacrificing himself, the same solution that Spock used to save the Enterprise in WOK. In each case, Kirk made the hard decisions, the *right* decisions, but not because he just trusted that everything would work out fine. If those experiences led him to eventually believe that he was living a charmed life and that he could always find a solution by the time of the movie, then Spock's death was certainly a harsh reminder. But the Kirk everyone "remembers" from the original series never existed.
It isn't ENOUGH to simply subvert expectations you also have to do something with it AND even then it has to be something the audience can accept. For example if they revealed that the Federation actually destroys any civilization that doesn't join within its boundaries, that would definitely "Defy expectations" and you COULD write a good story, but no audience would accept that twist. The best part of those two examples is it never perverted the ideas, the Federation is still good... the Light side is still "Goodish".
I'd have loved to have seen the federation build a small but effective wartime only combat fleet based on Andorian or even Klingon designs. So they keep their distinctive human general purpose fleet but when battle gets going they pull out the heavy hitters from the federations more martial like races. Not just humans.
I totally agree with you about DS9, it challenged the basic ideas of Star Trek, but without completely overturning them, or like on "Discovery" tearing apart those ideals for the sake of 'edgy' stories
During TOS Kirk was not just a falandeter in a space captains chair. He was surprisingly thoughtful, calculating and often included those around him in his decision making. Movie Kirk is when we see the space cowboy persona take over his character.
Daniel I agree with you whole heartedly about this take and I love this video! Your writing and delivery is absolutely top notch and so compelling! Amazing work sir I salute you. And also in he pale moonlight is one of my favorites for sure!
Thanks for not going for easy clickbait and just dump on TLJ the whole video, this was very well made with great points. Also, I'd like to point out that whenever people do compare TLJ with KotOR2 they seem to forget that one is a 2+ hour movie while the other is a ~40 hour game, one has WAY more time to introduce and explore complex concepts than the other.
Amusingly the flac JJ Abrams's star trek took with Into Darknes was what yo udescribed as' Kirk being a new character and the no-win scenerio' moment of death being given an undue amount of gravatas based on the bonds formed by other characters we're supposed to transfer onto these new characters... and the fact that sacrafice gets undone within the same movie.
Quark's description of root beer perfectly embodies the subversive nature of the Federation - root beer was "so bubbly and cloying, and happy... just like the Federation", also noting that "if you drink enough of it, you begin to like it - just like the Federation."
The thing about plot twists and subverting expectations is that it only works once. Once you've seen it, it will never shock you again. What makes great stories (at least in my opinion) is how well they hold up to repeat viewings and analysis.
I mean when talking about examples of bad subversion of expectation he did put up a picture from TLJ so he doesn't say it directly but he's definitely implying that TLJ is a bad example of subverting expectations
@@sammywhite5127 But he's very respectful about it, which is a rarity these days. It's no secret that there are elements of TLJ that Spacedock didn't like (I forget if he's ever stated his stance on the entire movie), but he's always spoken mildly and respectfully on the subject, instead of the flaming and raging you see on other channels.
themetalstickman does speaking harshly and loudly about something negate one’s complaints though? While there are some awful people railing against TLJ, the fundamental root of their harsh complaints is genuine disappointment.
gypster2004 It doesn’t negate their complaints, but it poisons the conversation. Genuine though it may be, it doesn’t justify the callousness and abusiveness of some people. I understand that there are people who genuinely see the film as bad or disappointing, but at the end of the day, these films and the discussion surrounding them are meant for entertainment, and angry, harsh, and abusive discourse is unpleasant for almost everyone.
I really enjoyed this video. As far as subverting expectations goes, the Babylon 5 TV series did that on a regular basis. There are many examples in the series of subverting expectations. I think that’s what made Babylon five so good.
I think the main difference is subverting expectations to tell a good story vs subverting expectations so you can have a gotcha moment and "prove" you're smarter than your audience.
I think the problem with new franchises "subverting expectations" is that they don't set any expectations before subverting them. They only subvert tropes, which, while not ineffective if done well, isn't really unique or striking. However, setting an expectation for the course and identity of a franchise, and then later tearing those assumptions down and analyzing them thoroughly, is a much more effective form of storytelling, even though it requires much more work on the author's part to achieve, and it can only occur after several previous works have properly established the world.
In the book where he beats the no win scenario (not JJ Trek) he changed the test to include reputation, the klingons fought each other for the honor to fight Kirk. I always liked that.
Not a long running franchise I think, but one that I liked, was Andromeda. I know I was just a kid back then when I watched it, but it had a certain theme that I like even to this day.
"No. Not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing." - Kirk
@@matthewtuckman5827 If that's so, then episode 7 was exceptionally poorly written. If you're going to introduce an already powerful character into a universe where it is firmly established that the power in question is accessed only through extensive training, then you also take on the responsibility to provide an explanation that was consistent with that universe's established rules. The backstory established for Rey in episode 7 was that she was an orphan child subsisting on salvaged space junk for her entire life. Possibly she was Luke's daughter, but the only indication we get of that was Luke's lightsaber "choosing" her, and that's only really evidence that she was force sensitive. Being force sensitive in established as a requirement to be able to learn Jedi/Sith skills, but without training it just gives you slightly better reflexes than a non-sensitive of your species. It doesn't give you expert combat piloting skills, and it most definitely doesn't allow you to effectively wield a light saber. You can explain the origin if you like. If it's a good one I'll consider it an "Oops, we should've done at least some of this in episode 7" retcon. In the meantime, Rey got shot while running from the New Order Tie Fighters and everything that follows is her fever dream as she bleeds out in the sand under the derelict Millennium Falcon ... or she can be a Mary Sue.
It's been at least 20 years since I last watched Wrath of Khan, and yet the instant that clip started, even knowing that movie inside and out, I choked up. I saw it in a packed theater on opening night, and it was very clear that absolutely no one there saw it coming. Dead silence during that scene, except for the quiet weeping. So yeah, when it's done right, it's powerful.
Kotor 2 was written and made by Obsidian, Kotor 1 and TOR by Bioware. Bioware thought the depth of the story and philosophy in Kotor 2 was too much for PG-13 audiance of TOR to handle, and tried to dumb it down. Obsidian's staff had said they wanted to make Kotor3 for a long time, without tight schedule and budget that plagued Kotor 2, and "talks of Kotor 3 comes up every few months in the company." But they couldn't get the IP, and now, with Disney holding it, it's probably impossible.
@@georgedang449 Well, no. Bioware suppressed KOTOR 2 and disregarded Meetra's story because Drew Karpyshyn disliked how KOTOR 2 treated his character, Revan. It's infuriating, but there it is.
I couldn't agree more with this video.(I just finished another DS9 watch through yesterday funnily enough) On the topic of "subverting expectations" I, as a massive Star Wars and Star Trek fan, have been quite dissatisfied with recent additions to each respective franchise. But one of the things I find annoying is the creators of these shows/movies using the, "oh, we're subverting expectations" excuse for their less than stellarly received additions. This was no more annoying than after The Last Jedi, when "subverting expectations" was used to explain away the nonsensical and inept decisions made by the writers/director. But, to me, this became a ridiculous excuse when months later another, little known, movie actually did subvert expectations and was overwhelmingly positively received by fans.(Infinity War) It just seems that, unlike DS9 and KotOR, most franchises trying to replicate their past successes are instead just changing things(even if they make no sense, either logically or in the context of the respective franchises canon), for the sake of changing them, just to say they did. As if that logic just makes it all make sense. DS9 is the best Star Trek, if anyone reading this hasn't seen it do yourself a favor and watch it. 😁
Love this breakdown. In it I see the biggest difference between the generation that made these IPs and the generation that inherited them. The death of American optimism. The disenfranchisement of GenX and Millennials. The harsh realities of a world that met American exceptionalism with skepticism or outright hostility after coming off of centuries of British colonialism. They don't seem connected at first, but when you really look at them, all of these nuanced stories are taking a long hard look at binary morality and utopia-ism and saying "No, people aren't actually like this." It's healthy to be critical of ones own culture and ones self. Dreaming about a future where everything magically works out without effort only leads to complacency and an acceptance of injustice now for the promise of justice later. The dreaded "some day". Have there ever been two more evil words in the history of language?
Spacedock should write the next season of Discovery too. Well, he wouldn’t have to so much write as shit all over the page and it’d still be an improvement...
Perfectly and succinctly put. I grew up watching the various Star Trek films, the original Star Wars films and TNG. I didn't need a critic to tell me how fantastic The Wrath of Khan is. I was blown away when I first saw it.
This is exactly what has been happening in Hickman's run for the X-Men. The way he built the next continuity step for the canon using cracks and opportunities in decades of lore is amazing
I think Battlestar Galactica (RDM) should be mentioned as well with the story of the fleet reuniting with the Pegasus for the first time. At first the audience thinks "Oh thank God more humans, it's a miracle" and we expect this to be the turning point in the war but it quickly gets flipped on its head with the unhinged nature of Admiral Caine and makes for one of the best arcs of the whole series with both Battlestars facing off against each other.
You're absolutely right. The episode _In the Pale Moonlight_ is an _excellent_ example that really illustrates your point well. Watching Sisko tumble down that dark and dreary rabbit hole of treachery in order to try and do some good, was very powerful and likely more so because up to that point we've grown familiar enough with the character to know that what he's doing is literally tearing him apart. It's probably one of the most disturbing and thought provoking episodes to come out of Trek, _ever._ :) It seems like writers today just expect us to have pavlovian "feels" when they create some convoluted situation where we just expected to care about what the characters on the screen are going through. Speaking of which, I've heard that one of the reasons why Star Trek Discovery sometimes comes across as so ingenuine is that apparently some of the writers come from a Young Adult fiction background. They are simply accustomed to forcing "the feels" on/from a younger audience. Like, "Oh, look! They are crying now! How sad they must be! Just watch as they hug and cry for five minutes..." I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. True "subversion" happens when you explore the cracks in the outwardly squeaky clean exterior of characters that seem to "have it together". It's not just created out of thin air. You can't just suddenly have a character say out of the blue, "You remind me of my father and I hated him!" (cry cry cry) or something like that. Where did that feeling come from? Did we know that that character had problems with male authority figures before that scene? Where there ever any previous hints that that might have even remotely been a potential stumbling block for the character? You simply can _not_ "insert emotional moment here" in your script and expect it to carry any actual weight. And _that_ is _exactly_ why scenes like Kirk and Spock in _The Wrath of Khan_ and Sisko drinking his scotch and deleting his log entry at the end of _In the Pale Moonlight_ were so gut wrenchingly powerful and _still are_ to this very day. So, I ask myself, are there _any_ scenes from the first two seasons of STD that will be seriously talked about _decades_ from now? Sadly, I think not. Trek's message should be timeless. And _that_ is the danger of writing what is basically immediately gratifying fluff. Even if it happens to actually work at the moment there's still nothing to it and people will quickly forget about it because it had zero impact on a genuinely gut level. Sorry to pick on STD, though, because it's just one example. It's happening in a _lot_ of the media we watch today. The artificially induced "feels" (ugh. I _really_ hate that term! :P ) thing has been slowly popping up (dare I say "subverting"? :P ) more and more over the last decade or two and it really sucks. :/ It would be interesting to explore why that is. I know that this might not be the right forum for a deep dive like that, even though this particular video was fine. But it would still be interesting if somebody did a video about it. ;) Anyway, thanks for sharing this, Daniel/Spacedock! It was a very nice exploration of the topic and I will certainly be sharing this video! :) And sorry for the long post! I'm just really passionate about the quality of the stories being told in my favorite genre! I simply want to watch something _meaningful!_ Is that _really_ too much to ask? :/ Take care and I look forward to all of your future videos! :D
This is actually my approach to writing fanfiction - I like to look at the story and the world, find the holes in it, the things that no one thinks of or no one questions, and delve into them to write about. For example, I did one in the Pokemon universe that shows how even with the best, well-meaning trainers, the idea of capturing and training pokemon is essentially slavery.
For me in Stargate SG-1 the Battle of P3Y-229 was a huge one. Whole series they established 2 things: you have a plan, you have a good chance of winning and Asgard tech is crazy overpowered. In that episode they had Asgard tech, a plan, and they had a lager amount of time to prepare and they got absolutely destroyed. That single battle changed the rules of the whole series from that point on.
Babylon 5 was good at this too with the shadow war its actual genesis and how it was solved, too bad it was rushed when they thought they would get cancelled.
That DS9 clip was so great. I miss that big, theatrical style of acting in sci-fi shows. Today, everyone is quiet, stoic, and boring. You can be serious without being cardboard.
Very interesting video - the reason that subverting expectations is such a big thing recently is that similar to what you mentioned, Game of thrones did the same thing to fans of fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings. It took the assumptions of that kind of world and turned it on its head. Then that got very popular and lazy writers just saw its success as an easy way to write good stories by doing things "that the audience doesn't expect".
Fantastic short! I've never thought of DP9 in that way but it's so TRUE!!! I am not that well versed in Star Wars but the point is well received. DP9 always hold a special place for me because it was so character driven in it's story telling from the other trek series (not that they weren't in they own way) but this subvert expectation is spot on - Thanks for sharing!
Regarding KotOR 2: Always keep in mind that Kreya's viewpoint is, at the very least, biased, and at worst, complete lies. That doesn't detract from the quality of the story, which is very good, but part of its quality lies in the fact that they leave the question of her veracity open.
Likewise, Edington is very clearly a crazy person who's decided that his committing a chemical weapons attack against a civilian population is the equivalent to stealing a loaf of bread, and anyone who's actually trying to take him in over this is clearly just here to persecute him. DS9 was great with characters who are absolutely deluded, but sell their delusion so completely, you almost lose track of what's really going on. Dukat, of course, was the crown jewel of this.
One of my favourite writers is Terry Pratchett. His Discworld novels in particular do the same thing as DS9 and KOTR2, just to our world views and beliefs, by viewing them from different perspectives. As someone who has always seen the world through a different lens, it's always appealed to me when writers and storytellers look at things from another angle. It reminds me of the object you get when you take a cylinder as tall as it's diameter and cut two slices off the sides. From the bottom it's cylindrical, from the side it's square and from the front it's triangular. It's all in the perspective...
One that comes to my mind is a clone wars-ish comic. It’s one where a group of clones have a negative perspective of their Jedi commanders. Like five seconds into a fight their Jedi gets knocked out cold from an explosion or something because she use Jedi tactics. You know the one where they charge full speed into enemy fire while using no cover or range force power. Kind of blew my mind since it always worked for Obi.
DS9 just did so many things right. The fact they took the Ferengi, who first appeared as space-goblins, and made them into a proper society that while a bit extreme in its leanings was believable. They finally achieved what they were meant to be, an antithesis to the Federation. But made it so it wasn't the black and white "Federation good, Ferengi bad." And even helped give an interesting outsider perspective of what the Federation was.
I just finished watching DS9 last week and I couldn't agree more, I think its great that they have Sisko act opposite to Picard in so many ways to show that everything isn't perfect
While this may not be the exact sort of answer you’re asking for, a series that really subverted expectations in its ending is Animorphs. After initiating narrative collapse by breaking the status quo, it started to put characters in situations they’d never encountered before in the previous 50 or so books, such as Jake, the leader, actually losing a mission and having lasting consequences from it. It’s a very well done subversion of assumptions, the chief of which is: the Animorphs will always come out on top.
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Still brings tears to my eyes.
That's one thing the original KOTOR Got right it made you question the jedi willingness do what is right because reben yes broke the jedi code but he save billions of lies when he foght the Mandlorain war and you makes you question how arrogant the jedi masters were they thought they could see the future predict everything and we could see later in the franchise in the actual movies that led to their downfall but it started in the older public they thought they could predict what the man Delorean would do and Revan could just stand by and watch innocent people die he had to do something
You should make a top sci fi boarding craft video
Will you ever look at/review some more obscure scifi series? For example, the Spiral Wars and Lost Fleet series both have unique ship designs, and pretty detailed looks at sublight space combat strategy, especially Lost Fleet. One of the best hero ships in recent fiction in my opinion has to be the Phoenix from Omega Force. Think "The A Team" in space.
The last jedi is a bright example of BAD subervert expectation
As Kreia said once : ''Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you ''. For me this is what makes this stories great . Your perspective of the story , your subjective perception on what is good and what is bad . There are no moral crutches , nobody is holding your hand. So you believe it.
Kreia was piece of brilliant story writing, she was also a excellent grey jedi. I find the moral of her story is is life in complicated, it is not black and white, it is nothing but shades of grey.
KOTOR would have made a great film series.
A good subversion makes you think about the idea, a bad subversion makes you think about the author.
@@mariokarter13 Then KOTOR2 was a terrible subversion. I'd read it all before in the New Jedi Order series, where it was written better, from the mouth of Vergere. And here's the kicker.
They're both wrong. Force shenanigans aside, relative morality systems always fail, and they are always used to justify evil. Kreia was no more grey than Palpatine, she was just more insidious and wrapped her poison in a candied shell. That was the great secret that she failed to hide: that her entire purpose was to gather Jedi and Sith teachings to a place where they would both be despised and lost.
@@Ryvaken but it's not moral relativity. It's the rejecting of morality.
You don't decide what is right. You decide what you do. It just so happens that we agree to do very similar things and cooperate in shared deals. It's all business deals in disguise.
Ethics is just negotiations to resolve conflicting goals in a group of people.
Figure out what YOU want, what others want, where they match and conflict, and plan accordingly.
"That's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing? Well, it worked. And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. And all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain." Best. Moment. Ever!
Plain Simple Garak 😉
My favorite DS9 episode ever!
DS9 was so good and so underrated. I actually don't personally know anyone else who has watched it.
Garak was the best.....always had the best dialog and always made the best point on a issue....that doesn't devalue other characters it's just Garak could talk about how orderly a landfill is and it'd be interesting and he'd find some artful way of framing it lol plus great voice....
Such as his interpretation of the "Boy who cried wolf".
I would have been perfectly content if all this channel did was talk about sci-fi vehicles, but I really appreciate the fair and nuanced analysis of science fiction this channel provides.
I am mainly here for these analyses, even.
@@DarthBiomech I'm here for all of it. It's all good
This is neither fair, nor is it nuanced. It is a very blatantly biased communication of the author's opinion.
Take the Example of the "Evil Force" pushing you towards its agenda, leave out the words "the Force" from the Old Jedi's text and you immediately have what? Normal life. Yes, Actions can have unintended consequences down the line. Who would have thought...
Yes, Eddington compares the Federation with the Borg. He is however not shown to be correct in any way shape or form. More than that, he is a rather blatant Terrorist attacking entire planetary populations in the name of his "Fight for Freedom". The end of his story arc, where Sisko commits what is essentially a warcrime, is a slap in the face of the character and a perfect example on how NOT to subvert expectations.
"DS9 attacks Star Trek", "don't think about the Force duality too much", none of that makes all that much sense, nor is either part of the original source material in the way this video asserts.
@@Alexander_Kale But the Force exists in the Star Wars universe and it is practiced and almost worshiped by the Jedi, who believe all of their action must be done taking it in consideration.
Besides you're missing the point of the force. In KOTOR it is treated as a power that is in control of everything and therefore no one is free, almost like fate, or a god. But the Jedi present it as something that is good, while the sith present it only as something to be controlled in the pursuit of true freedom, and Kreia doesn't agree to any of their interpretations, believing it to be evil and that it takes away free will.
If fate exists, what would be your view on it? Is basically the beginning of the discussion in KOTOR.
But that is not all that she thinks. She takes specific points about their belief that correlate to real-world pilosophical discussions about free will, ethics and even religion. Although I wouldn't say she goes very deep down the rabbit hole, the game does tackle the issue rather seriously. And during the whole story she Kreia keeps pressing how you can't judge a philosophy by reducing it to their most basis aspects because that's not truly understanding it and you can't rationally refuse it this way.
By the way, although it's a rather polemic issue, the only difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is justification.
We cheer the rebels in Star Wars because they're fighting space nazis, even though Luke blew up thousands of people with the death star and most certainly caused many deaths in the years that followed the fall of the empire because that's what always happens when political authority falls apart. It's not all a matter of perspective, but perspective influences this a lot, and deconstruction is, in part, seeing things from a different perspective.
@@slowmotionwriting8714 The way the force is originally portrayed is a mirror image of life itself. Being a bad person does not make you stronger, but it allows you to take some shortcuts. Being a good person meanwhile takes effort. It will not make you weaker, but it may take longer to arrive at the same point.
Since then, the Dark side of the force has continuously been shown to be a corrupting influence. Everyone who ever fell to the dark side of the force eventually starts exhibiting what is generally perceived as evil tendencies. If a Dark side user opens an orphanage, you can bet your ass that he has unpleasant things planned for said orphans down the line.
I did not miss the point of the video. I found the point of the video to be grossly misleading. And, to reiterate the original comment in this thread: No, this is not a good and neutral analysis. This is a blatant propaganda piece.
"Weaponize the expectations." -Daniel
I immediately wrote that down. That is solid storytelling advice. Thank you man!
same
Where is that from?
@@crackshack2 8:21
A proper subversion destroys the old paradigms, but then replaces it with something more nuanced and complex. This is the brilliance of Kotor, challenging the binary light and dark, and instead, introducing causality, and philosophical pondering where multiple philosophies can exist, and each can be just within its own framework, but also suggesting that they are all incomplete without each other.
I think this is really the key. Poor subversion is simply breaking something. Excellent subversion is making the audience look at the broken pieces and ask 'what does this mean?'
Wrong...and right...and in the process you contradict yourself.
If a "proper subversion" *destroyed* the old paradigms as you say, then you cannot say "they are all incomplete without each other". As such, you are wrong at the "destroy" part, you are right at the "they complete each other".
Take TNG and DS9 for example. They are the two series Trekkies love the most, almost equally. Why? Cause they are incomplete without each other. DS9 without TNG and TNG without DS9 would have been much less important and good stories.
As such, "a proper subversion" not only does not "destroy" the source material, but instead it makes it stronger. Once more, take Trek. At TOS and TNG an "utopia" is described, but this by itself would have been vacuous. This is why there are episodes at TOS/TNG that "test" that utopia, in the process re-affirming it. The difference (when compared to DS9) is that this lasts only for 45 minutes, or 90 minutes if it is a two part episode, and at the end of it, the protagonists win the day without a scratch. DS9 took that to an "extreme" or it "subverted" the audience's expectations if you wish, by having that conflict and that challenge of the utopia for 7 seasons, and more (by implication). Also, in the end Sisko had to (partly) sacrifice his ideals. Key word here; sacrifice. He endured, he suffered, he lost in order for the society to keep its ideals. It''s Spock's sacrifice all over again; The needs of the many (society) outweigh the needs of the few....or the one (Sisko's). In the end the utopia not only endured, but also it can't be called utopia anymore, something that has the connotation of not being possible. As such, the utopic vision of the UFP became more real and more approachable. In that way, it got...stronger.
In that light, "a proper subversion *challenges* the old paradigms". Whether they will be re-affirmed or the issue will remain open (and challenged) and to what degree either will happen, it doesn't matter. In essence the subversion will never "destroy" the old paradigms, cause without the "old paradigm" you can't have the "subversion". They need each other, they fuel each other, they complement each other. At Star Trek we see that, by Starfleet *adding* ships that are more militaristic, but Galaxy and Nebula class ships are still being made and Starfleet's primary mission doesn't change; They want to end this damn war to get back at "exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations". The Defiant is equipped for scientific surveys, it is not just a warship. The Galaxy class ships are made for diplomacy, exploration and scientific studies but they are powerful. Both functions (science/military vessels) exist at them both, just at different ratios and as such...they complement each other.
There is a reason why I don't like the term subversion much, it's not always completely correct.
Deconstruction and Reconstruction are more clear in their objectives, with the second pointing out a flaw in it or a duality not considered before and apparently "breaking" the source, but does so in order to make It stronger and "deny" a possible deconstruction.
I take a guess and say George would delete kotor 2 if he could XD
@@TurKlack Why do you say that??
Hilarious TH-cam algorithm incident: At the end of this video I got a tourist advert for Kotor, Montenegro.
LOL! YOU GET ADS?? OMG WHAT A NOOB!
@@DMSProduktions Oh look at me!, im so fucking cool beause i can install an extension in my browser. Idiot.
@@Xallisto1 while you seemingly can't
@@csehszlovakze And u seemingly cant follow a youtube thread, if u think i am the OP lol.
Nice perception there sherlock.
@@Xallisto1 nah, you're just too young for 2009 trolling
As I've said before, a lot of this modern "Subverting Expectations" does what it says.
I expect something to be good and coherent... and they subvert that pretty darn well.
As someone who grew up watching DS9 and playing KotOR II countless times, you have perfectly summarized what I believed about both but couldn't quite put into words. Bravo, sir.
I felt that way when Robert Downey Jr announced, "I am Iron Man". The whole idea of a secret identity was such a staple of super hero narratives, it just felt awesome Toney Stark decided to go public.
I was, at best, ambivalent about movies based on comic books, or comic books in general, until that moment. Changed my entire perspective. Captain America's character did it again, later.
Of course, the more we subvert expectations, those tropes become the new expectations and force us into a vicious cycle.
Read the Dune Saga, Herbert subverted expectations in each book, each sequel in many ways subverted the previous. Its a cycle, yes, but so is many things in life and this world. That's why I love Herbert's work, he would subvert, the subversion.
Expect this version of subverting expectations doesn't have that issue. These media instances are only subverting in context, and the regular expectation continues. It only becomes an issue when done badly when you starting wondering when the stupid twist will happen. There was no twist or trick in these media it was recognizing a hole in the philosophy and telling a story in it.
It becomes the "I know that you know that I know that you know....." cycle, so you have to drop all expectations and just enjoy the ride.
Hollywood?
A cycle yes. Vicious I dont think so. How can something that leads to great stories be vicious
A lot of “subverting expectations” we’ve seen lately seems more like resentfully avoiding fan ideas, at the cost of coherent plots. I can appreciate the problem -if you’re writing any type of mystery, the first idea you come up with as a writer will almost certainly be guessed very easily by the audience. But the writer needs to stay true to the core concept, even if details evolve in the writing process. Endlessly second guessing what the audience might figure out and picking the least intelligible narrative through-line just frustrates everyone.
+Roj H
That is a dangerous thing to focus on, and can only yield into failure. In the examples shown, it is not at all about subverting of expectations, but giving another perspective on what was prior established.
I agree with Tuning. Example: Everyone knows what a rock is, think of this rock as the established lore of any franchise, then one brave (or stupid) soul come along and breaks the rock, revealing small crystals inside. The smashing of the rock is the deconstruction of the established lore, the crystals are the undiscovered finer details due to the... normalized, day-to-day face we (the audience) were presented with, and accepted without question.
Not only because of that. If you use fan idea, that fan can sue you, and most of the time companies are unwilling to go to that risk.
@@DarthBiomech um, not really. Any writer worth their salt will take an idea and make it their own. Furthermore, all the stories have already been told in one form or another, take the Odessy, for example, that story has been told in different ways over and over again, should the latest iteration sue all the others that follow after? No! Of course not.
But if someone was to write some fan fiction and a scriptwriter clumsily ripped it off, then there might be some merit, but I havn't heard of such a thing happening.
Yeah but there were precedents. And I know that creators behind some shows are actually forbidden to go look up fan-created stuff by the contract, precisely because of the fears I outlined. "All the stories have already been told so plagiarism is impossible and you can't sue us" wouldn't fly as a defense in court, I presume.
In the middle of Last Jedi when hacker had the speech about both sides of conflict buying weapons and that war is just money no good or bad, no right or wrong. In that moment i thought - "Damn this gonna be good".
And boy it wasnt
Don't you just love that the person he gave that speech to immediately decides to double down on being a good guy
Except there wasn't two sides "apparently" the New Republic was a handful of planets that got blown away in the previous movie, so all that was left was the First Order and the plucky rebellion, sorry "Resistance" who couldn't even afford to refuel their ships.
He tried to deliver the punchline of Kotor 2 without any of the build up, nuance, or really even showing it. and it still messed up that key theme Kotor 2 added.
That was sadly me the entire film. I was enjoying the film the whole time. Then I asked if I enjoyed all the twists and I didn't have a solid answer. I've since realized I was actually waiting in vain for the movie to actually get good.
Kieral I was duped by this as well. My my, what a disappointment it truly was!
"No. I am your father."
Arguably, the most iconic moment in the Star Wars franchise is a perfectly executed subversion of expectations. It didn't destroy what came before, but rather added a whole new level of depth and meaning to it.
I sort of disagree. There was no expectation during that time. No one was wondering who was Luke’s father before going into Empire. You say it didn’t destroy what came before, but I’m sure the fans who saw it for the first time back in the 80s would disagree at least at the time.
@@michaelmacias8 I was one of the fans that saw it in the theater when it first came out. I and everyone else I spoke to thought it was a brilliant plot twist. We weren't wondering who Luke's father was, but we certainly didn't expect it to be Vader. My expectations were subverted, and I thought is was awesome.
I'd argue that the condemnation of Star Wars ideology is exclusive to Kotor 2 rather than the first game. The first game is by no means bad, but it is definitely more interested in replicating the feel of a Star Wars story than critiquing the setup. And that makes sense given that it was released in 2003, the middle of the prequel era, and instead told an OT story with connections to the old republic comics of the 90s rather than during the clone wars. If anything Kotor 2 criticizes not only the tenets of The Force, but also the storytelling of Kotor 1. It reframes the story of Revan and Malak from a tale of maniacal evil despots into a complicated morality plot about extreme measures and preparing for a greater threat. Malak is criticized heavily in Kotor 2 for being a genocidal warmonger rather than a true strategist, and that he was heavily at fault for the Republic's near total economic collapse in the years following the Jedi Civil War. The fact that the Republic-Sith War is generally called the Jedi Civil War in Kotor 2 recontextualizes the first games conflict from the point of view of the average citizen. Sith as a species hadn't been seen for nearly a thousand years, so the concept of Sith as an organization was still new. Most people who remembered Exar Kun saw him as a fallen Jedi, so of course they'd see another war between opposing ideologies of force users as a civil war; they lack the context to view them as anything other than Jedi.
Kotor 1 is by no means a bad game, but it does struggle with nuance when it comes to binary morality systems, and the player character dialogue is amateur at best. Kotor 2 thrives on examining the first games adherence to binary morality while also building on the themes the first game did well, such as the backstory to the Mandalorian Wars. That lets the second game also critique warfare in star wars in a unique way. It wasn't a galaxy ending threat that wrought so much misery, it was a long series of ugly border wars devoid of any Jedi/Sith conflict that acted as the catalyst for a near total collapse of society. And once again the Jedi failed to learn the lesson of all wars and the suffering they cause.
John Cole Those are a lot of very good points. The exile’s story illuminated Revan’s reasoning for participating in the mandalorian wars, which eventually led to his downfall. The passive approach of the Jedi basically necessitated a war-maker like him to deal with the danger at hand. And yet the very people who defended the republic were cast out like nothing. That’s why the council recording scene with the exile was so good. It represented the plight of the warrior Jedi and even the dark Jedi who fell in a way the surface level history of the first game didn’t.
I'd argue that the "subversion" of the Manichean binary presented by Star Wars begins with KOTOR 1's exploration of the Sith's philosophy. Once the villains of a binary morality tale are presented as a complex faction with an understandable world view you've shifted the moral dialog of the story from right vs wrong to more-right vs less-right. and forced a discourse over which is which.
I noticed this when I replayed the kotor games about a month ago, how kotor 1 was very basic in terms of story (gotta stop cartoony evil man with big bad space station) whereas kotor 2 was more of a journey of self discovery for the exile, finding out why the council threw him out and then seeing them do the same thing again, not learning from the mistakes and not seeing the threat that stares them in the face. Just like they didn't when the mandalorians fought the republic.
The first game DOES tackle the ideas, it just doesn't go all in until the second. One aspect the first game handles, but the second doesn't, is that the idea that being "Strong in the force" isn't a good thing. If anything I think the second game benefits greatly by what the first game sets up, the ground work lets the game sink its teeth into the material and wouldn't have been able to be made without it. (The KOTOR MMO, does play with the idea... that the Dark Side isn't about mindless slaughter, that in many ways that is as much of a perversion.)
Mind you the MMO if I had to get A GENERAL theme... it is about how people justify what they do (whether by choice or not) through a lens and what moral code truly means.
And thus is the beauty of great science fiction. Subverting your expectations and making you THINK.
KOTOR II is made by Obsidian which is why it's so great. It's also why Fallout New Vegas is so great in comparison to what the Fallout series has become now under Bethesda.
KOTOR 1 was great too, Bioware was really good too back in the days. But so sad to see Bethesda and Bioware to become so bad in writing storys :/ Obsidian is the only Company i trust making a good Fantasy or Sciene Fiction Story nowadays.
And it's also why Neverwinter Nights 2 is so gre- oh wait...
@@Jesion-kv9tu NW2 maybe not great, but Mask of the Betrayer sure is.
@@pantonearqm2791 yeah, Mask is fantastic
@@Tevion1121
Obsidian has brilliant writing, but their games are just as glitch ridden, if not more so, than Bethesda so don’t pretend like they’re saints. Pillars of Eternity took 200000000000 years to load.
This video proofs my point about Starfleet´s ship design. ENT should have featured a vastly different hero ship than just an "upside down-Akira". It is ridiculous that no other species has added something visually to the melting pot.
Yeah, the ship design thing makes the Federation seem more like a colonizing power than an egalitarian one. Though I presume every member species has their own ships for local/trade/whatever purposes, that seems to have zero influence on Federation shipbuilding. One would think that having access to a huge variety of design principles and practices, the way forward would be to take the best from all of them and then standardize around that. Although it does make some sense that ENT used that eventually-stereotypical saucer type design because that's just how Earth thinks about ships, and it's just Earth and Vulcan in the early days IIRC.
Chris Avellone the designer of kotor 2 said that Babylon 5 was a big influence in the story of the game.
Babylon 5 is a great sci fi series in owns right.
I couldn't fail to notice the similarities between Malachor V, and, well... "if you come to Za'Ha'Dum, you will die".
Also worth noticing, Babylon 5 could even be considered a retelling of Lord of the Rings (or a reaquisition of its themes and characters) in space.
@@Ennio444 I have to disagree.
At its very basic LotR is a pretty simple good vs evil story. Beautifully told, in a vibrant world, but in the end good vs evil.
B5 on the other hand pretends to be good vs evil until it reveals itself as chaos vs order story, without declaring one or the other as good or evil.
@@alfredkugler3043 True, but the narrative and tropes are all there. Some are superficial (like the Rangers being Aragorn's Dunedain) and some run deeper (like the attitude of the Vorlon and the Old races towards the new races being very reminiscent of the Valar in the Silmarillion)
@@Ennio444 Eh, I don't think it has too many links to LOTR. LOTR has so much lore you can link it to almost anything, and the Shadow war was the only part you can really draw comparisons. The conflict of the Narn and the Centauri, and the Civil war with Earth really don't draw too many comparisons.
The right way to subvert expectations: maintain the established assumptions, character traits, facts and values and have them play out in a new or unfamiliar context, leading to unexpected results that make the audience question said assumptions and values.
The lazy and hacky way to subvert expectations: trample on the established assumptions, character traits, facts and values, leading the audience to question your motives and the logical validity of your deconstruction of "their" franchise. Instead of questioning the franchise, the audience ends up questioning the author.
Oh God. I wasn't ready for the emotional surge watching Spock die again. Such good story telling.
Was it right to respawn him though? I feel that kinda cheapens the death.
@@Zergonapal yes we can question that, but at the same time the way it was handled was better than most resurrection stories are handled
@@trinalgalaxy5943 Fair point, and it was under special circumstances too.
Wouldn't have been half as good if Nimoy and Shatner hadn't been at the top of their game for it, but yes, brilliant writing and directing.
In the Pale Moonlight is not only the best episode of DS9 it's probably one of the top 5 episodes of television history.
This isn't why I initially subbed to this channel, but it's one of the many reasons that I stay. Beautiful analysis and I hope for more more thought provoking videos like this. Keep up the good work.
You know, showing those clips from Wrath of Khan just makes me really angry at Into Darkness all over again.
@Col. Commissar Ibram Gaunt Yeah, I imagine the production meeting was like "so, how do we make a better version of Wrath of Khan, that people won't expect?"
"make Kirk die in the reactor - not for realises, obviously - and have Spock yell 'Khan' longer and weirder than Shatner did"
"awesome, we've got the screenplay pretty much finished, and we've barely started on this massive pile of cocaine!"
"Won't that annoy fans? Especially since now we need a way to raise the dead?"
"Fixing that's super easy, barely an inconvenience."
"Oh, okay then."
Given Abrams has his hand in the new Trek and Star Wars, its no surprise they mirror each other. Abrams relied too much on callbacks and nostalgia, instead of actually subverting the franchises. Johnson said he was subverting expectations, but ended up being dumb and pointless, and in the end he still had Rey be good for no other reason than she is the good character. He teased the idea of greyness, but either he or Disney could not pull the trigger.
@@j.francisward1897 If we expected the films to be good, he subverted the fuck out of that.
@Col. Commissar Ibram Gaunt It is crazy how much popular culture extends that scream. When you actually see that movie, he doesn't hold the yell for long time. It's actually fairly short, the build up of him shaking and twisting his face is longer.
To subvert expectations, you must first set expectations. The main problem with so many stories today is that they go in with the intention to have a twist, and so they intentionally mislead you earlier on. They don't present a situation and let you make your own assumptions, they tell you what assumptions you should make. So when they eventually pull back the curtain you don't feel any sense of shock or wonder, just a vague sense of disappointment.
Kreia is the best character in all of star wars universe, canon or no.
She’s great, but I think Darth Bane takes that best character cake. Kreia is a very close second.
Kreia is awesome but she's basically just Vergere in a different era.
Vergere even teaches Jacen the exact same lesson that's cited in this video, that sometimes an act of kindness can have very harmful consequences. She goes onto expand our view of how the Force works, challenges Grandmaster Luke on his interpretation, and pretty much rewrites everything we took for granted in SW, and this was in 2002 which was 2 years before Kotor2 came out.
Not saying you're wrong, just saying look up some quotes from Vergere, I'm pretty sure you'll love her too.
As much as I really love her character, Doctor Aphra is for me. Not just because I relate, but, because for the same reason Jyn Erso works when asked about seeing the Imperial flag above every world "it's not a problem if you don't look up".
@@JainaSoloB312 Vergere got retconned into "evillllll Sith lady who made Jacen bad man" by Denning though. Kreia mostly escaped that by not being referenced in anything outside of KOTOR II really.
@@KitchenSinkSoup Troy is one of my favourite authors, his work in LotF is incredible and he's become a friend of mine.
But I haaaaate that retcon and I was rather hoping he didn't write that one haha
"Deep space 9 and Kotor... the best story telling in their franchises"
Oh, i see you too are a man of incredible tastes.
Ah, so you watched "the philosophy of Kreia" too huh?
That's one of the best damn videos on all of TH-cam. :D
When subverting expectations is done well, people only talk about how great the story and characters are rather than the fact that their expectations were subverted.
And there are recent movies that have done a great job of subverting expectations. Both Logan and Blade Runner 2049 subverted expectations.
Everyone thought Logan killed the X-Men but it turned out to be Professor X. But no one talks about how that film is great for subverting expectations. People talk about the great character development and how emotional those scenes were. People talk about how it completely changes the previous scenes between Logan and Xavier. You think that Xavier is disappointed in Logan because of what Logan did when it turns out that Logan was only letting Xavier think that so he won't remember that he was the one who killed the X-Men.
With Blade Runner 2049, the whole movie sets it up to make the audience think that K is Deckard's son. And that turns out to all be misdirection. But that only goes to reinforce the main message of the movie, that it's a person's actions that truly defines them, not the circumstances of their birth. That's pretty much the same reveal as Rey's parentage, except it has real meaning and significance to the theme of the story.
Maybe I'm very much a blade runner geek and made an effort to watch the original blade runner in the cinema in November 2019....
I thought 2049 was largely disappointing.
Never once did I actually think K was Deckard's son.
For me the clue was in the original blade runner.
'if we gift them with a past then we creat a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, subsequently we can control them better...'
'You're talking about memories'
(roll demis rossos)
It was the flash back to the orphanage that really made me think that he wasn't Deckard's son. (as I remember)
I went into the cinema with quite low expectations of 2049...
It wasn't disappointing but was an OK movie, but I wasn't massively impressed by it....
One thing that was fascinating in 2049 was JOI.
What is love?
Did she love K, is love just a pattern of reinforced behaviour or was it something that was able to emerge within something of any 'thinking system'
Or was it just her programing Because it was
'anything you want to see, anything you want to hear'
Did JOI say she loved K because that's what he wanted to hear and that's what her programing dictated?
Though I watched 2049 once in the cinema... Compared to the original like 100's of times... So there might have been neuience I missed!
I don’t know about you, but I never once thought that Logan killed the X-men. I immediately thought that it must be professor X. Why else would Logan be suppressing his power?
It's so simple in retrospect. Challenge the assumptions in an intellectual way, instead of randomly killing off characters.
It really isn't simple at all. This form of storytelling is astonishingly risky and very, very difficult to pull off.
@@Cailus3542 but at the very least is best to know killing characters by surprise or randomely changing a forshadowed event just for shock value isn't expectation subvertion
True
@@Cailus3542 I agree, the risk is real and what ultimately decides the end product is the quality of its execution.
To mention the obvious crystal fox in the room, when even the actor stated "I fundamentally disagree with EVERY decision you've made about this character" to the writer -- well, we all know where that ended.
@@coreyander286 But he didn't grow and didn't become an interesting main boss and most CERTAINLY not a threatening one.
A thing that i love about DS9 and KOTOR2 is that even if they present you the flaws of the original source and give it a twist dont actually invalidate it. Just give you even more things to work with. The sequel trilogy as a whole just destroyed something without any good reason and replaced it with a mess that didnt go anywhere
I remember in the finale of the original KOTOR, after defeating Malak, he reminds you that it was actually Revan who drove him to the dark side, yet now he stands as a hero and Malak is the villain he defeated (if you play the light side of course). Really made me think how morally ambiguous this was. Decent writing if I've ever seen one.
KOTOR, especially KOTOR 2, dealt directly with a theme that was hinted at in the prequels and originals: the fallibility of sticking to one side. in the OT, the rebellion is morally right, but does many morally wrong things (blowing up thousands to destroy a weapon for example), while the Empire is morally wrong, takes morally wrong actions and loses. the PT shows how the morally correct Jedi Order takes what it thinks are morally correct actions and is destroyed by its own hubris. TLJ tried a more direct approach, but it was bungled and lost in a sea of stupid decisions and a failure to show this rather than just tell
Happy to hear about 2004 Kotor II in 2019 :)
Fantastic Game !
@@Edd25164605 Obsidian games usually are, once you patch the bugs created by being rushed by their publishers.
See: Fallout: New Vegas.
Replaying
I have played Kotor 2 like atleast 100 times since it came out and it is my favorite game ever.
Subversion is one of the most powerful tools in writing, and some of the most defining works in all of fiction were fundamentally subversive. The issue arises when the writer begins to use it in such a way as to make any meaning the plot has retroactively pointless.
The issue isn’t that TLJ was subversive, rather the issue was that the gratuitous nature of said subversion.
Yeah, TLJ often have bad faith or nonsensical arguments in an attempt to subvert. Like if they wanted to explore the Jedi they should have given legit and nuanced arguments against them (kind of like the prequels). Instead Luke flat out says things are are untrue like the Jedi tried to own the Force, which the Jedi never did.
And Rian's not presenting Luke as crazy here, he think Luke is genuinely saying the right thing and he wants the audience to believe Luke. So now the audience has a warped perception of the Jedi because many blindly believe what Luke said to be true even thought the previous films directly contradicting him.
It also doesn't help that Luke Skywalker is the one delivering these criticisms, you know the guy who said "I am a Jedi like my father before me". Luke's just not the type of character to give up on the Jedi when being a Jedi is what saved the galaxy and it makes the delivery of the subversive themes illogical. I can buy a jaded ex-Jedi feeling this way (like maybe Kylo Ren) but not Luke himself.
And then we have other "subversions" like killing Snoke with zero explanation to who is he was. There were just cheap plot twists to deliberately surprise fans instead of being in service to a subversive story. All of the Last Jedi's "subversions" are like this. It's either cheap shock value or misrepresentations of core Star Wars concepts, all of which is just bad story telling.
@@Obi-Wan_Kenobi Abso-freaking-lutely! I couldn't have said it better myself.
For me it all comes down to this: For the subversion to work, what you actually present needs to be more interesting and compelling than the expectation. That's the difference between a good twist and a disappointment.
Wrath of Khan is why I don't like the Kobayashi Maru scene in the Abrams movie. Because they took an iconic moment of Kirk's past and removed the context.
I don't take that scene as 'canonical' to the original universe. This was a different Kirk, one who grew up without a father. I feel like original-universe Kirk's "changed the conditions of the test so that it was possible to rescue the ship" was probably a lot less extreme - just giving himself a small edge rather than completely disabling the Klingons' shields.
+Drake Aurum
Or something similar happened, but he was able to talk his way into a commendation, rather than being interrupted by Nero's attack on Vulkan.
@@DrakeAurum Yes, but the use of the "I don't believe in no-win scenarios" line in my opinion shows they kept the context of the scene, but not the spirit. Though to be fair, not having a father did likely factor into how much the scene failed to play out how originally conceived in Wrath of Khan. That scene was the biggest moment where you realized how different these characters were going to be in the Kelvinverse.
@@DrakeAurum The 'edge' was having the Klingons awestruck to be in the presence of the legendary Captain Kirk.
@@Janoha17 That's a thing Shatner said, but it works far better as a noodle incident.
If I had to write the scene I would have him program the Klingon adversary to hesitate in response to a hail in Klingon claiming to be a Klingon agent. When Savik took the test the AI won through a scripted ambush in which it crippled her ship before she could maneuver or raise shields and making it hesitate might, given the failings of the M5 experiment years later, have allowed a talented commander who understood its idiosyncrasies to defeat it.
Fast talking in Klingon is something that could actually be considered to deserve a commendation for original thinking and would tie in with Kirk's disbelief in the no win scenario in a way that even Shatner's version does not.
IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT is the highpoint of sci-fi storytelling in recent years. The sheer theater of it,most impressive,and Avery Brooks was the secret sauce holding the whole episode together. Thanks for having good taste in fiction.
How to "subvert expectations" correctly? Be a good writer. Hollywood has a severe lack of good writers right now.
3:42 I see what you're saying, but I believe Star Trek: Enterprise was meant to explain why this is. When humanity took to the stars they only found conflict. The Vulcans and the Andorians were on the brink of war and it would be discovered that Romulans were manipulating both powers from behind the scenes. Starfleet would be a neutral party which mediated peace talks between the Vulcans and Andorians. This is why Earth is the heart of the Federation instead of Vulcan or Andoria.
3:56 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country dealt with this issue long before Discovery was a thing. The Klingons feared that joining the Federation or losing to the Federation meant the annihilation of their culture. This is brought up a few times in the film.
I would add Hollywood/TV/Movies do not have good editors right now. I love the belated media guy's revision of the Star War prequels because he's a really good editor. He understands arc being more than just one movie. And that holes in arc cannot be fixed with books and comics. I wish people like Daniel and belated media could get hired on these projects.
To your second point: I would offer some of the dialogue from Star Trek IV.
Adm Cartwrite: "They [the Klingons] would become the alien trash of the Galaxy."
Klingon Cmdr [name unknown after death of Chancellor Gorkon]: "If we strike now, we cannot win, but we will die like Klingons."
KOTOR II and DS9 subvert expectations by just looking through the existing cracks of established logic in their respective franchises. TLJ tried to subvert expectations by taking a sledgehammer to it.
It is just bad storytelling in general to simply take the characters, who already went through their journey, and simply go "Well immediately after the story... they are all miserable awful people. You thought that was a happy ending? NooooOoooo we are basically going to rob you now!"
The dumb straight-line ship pursuit and fuel shortage issue aren't a sledgehammer. They are just really, really bad writing. Also, KOTOR and DS9 aimed to make the viewer think, whereas TLJ aimed to sell people on gender politics. Brainwashing isn't subversion of expectation because that's exactly what I expected of Disney Star Wars.
@@TheNefastor Destroying existing characters and plotlines and introducing concepts which create blatant plotholes in every previous story and every story that will ever come out in the future is what I'd call a sledgehammer
@@Lazypackmule nah, it's more like projectile diarrhoea. Sledges are useful tools, there's nothing useful in TLJ.
Jean Roch How about giving me one exampke of “gender politics” in The Last Jedi.
Because a character having purple hair or a woman being of higher rank than men is not “gender politics!, it just means you’re a sexist who cannot handle women being as or more capable than men.
Also, how are fuel shortages dumb? Did you forget part of the reason why Qui-Gon even landed on Tatooine was to repair and REFUEL the ship?
Halo:Fall of Reach, Spartans were not men who were enhanced.They were children who were trained and enhanced to fight terrorists, not aliens.
That's one thing I'll give Halo. I really like their 'why' for the insane Spartan III program. It was an elite soldier program for use in black operations, then when waste hit the rotary air impeller, they threw them at the problem and it was going so badly they turned them into PR darlings. Halo's UNSC/Covanent war was lost (in space) before it started and the focus the UNSC had on ground combat was part of why. Not to insult them, they had simply invested in the wrong kind of warfare, that happens all the time. 'Prepared to win the previous war.' is endemic.
And that directly contradicts one of the messages of this video, that these deep morally complex stories are seen as great only because they break a long-existing franchise that up to that point had a very simplistic morality
Fall of Reach was literally the first entry in the Halo universe, coming out a month before the game
@@Sorain1 I thought the Spartan 3 programme was a 'hothouse' version of the Spartan 2 programme, to churn-out Spartans faster at the expense of not being quite as powerful as the Spartan 2s.
@@nicholassmith7984 The Spartan II program (Master Chief and co) were the child soldiers meant to fight (human) rebels. The Spartan-IIIs were the hasty replacements to fight the Covenant. The Spartan-IVs are the results of refinements allowing adults to be enhanced, and thus tend to be older, experienced, and psychologically more mature. On a pure physical level, the Spartan-IVs are inferior to the IIs (the survivng IIs would effortlessly wipe the floor with a IV), but the IVs use more advanced armour that makes up the difference. In other words, in the John-117/Locke fight in Halo 5, if they'd been out of their armour, Locke didn't stand a chance.
@@keith6706 I haven't played through Halo 5 yet (it's on the list,) but I was aware that Spartan IIs where the far-superior fighter, despite the difficulty in producing them.
Kotor2 also stands as a monument that obsidian takes time to understand the universe they are playing in and just how strong their writing staff is and how much they respect their players
If there's one problem with "Wrath of Khan", it's that it reinforced the myth of the Kirk who "never faced death". Kirk faced death all the time. When he was trapped by the Metrons and forced to fight the Gorn captain, he not only faced death but his own prejudices. When Spock and the rest of the Galileo Seven were missing, Kirk had to make the decision to leave them behind because the needs of the people suffering from a plague (the many) outweighed the needs of his own crew and friends (the few). When Trelane had his crew trapped, he could only free them by sacrificing himself, the same solution that Spock used to save the Enterprise in WOK. In each case, Kirk made the hard decisions, the *right* decisions, but not because he just trusted that everything would work out fine. If those experiences led him to eventually believe that he was living a charmed life and that he could always find a solution by the time of the movie, then Spock's death was certainly a harsh reminder. But the Kirk everyone "remembers" from the original series never existed.
It isn't ENOUGH to simply subvert expectations you also have to do something with it AND even then it has to be something the audience can accept. For example if they revealed that the Federation actually destroys any civilization that doesn't join within its boundaries, that would definitely "Defy expectations" and you COULD write a good story, but no audience would accept that twist. The best part of those two examples is it never perverted the ideas, the Federation is still good... the Light side is still "Goodish".
I'd have loved to have seen the federation build a small but effective wartime only combat fleet based on Andorian or even Klingon designs. So they keep their distinctive human general purpose fleet but when battle gets going they pull out the heavy hitters from the federations more martial like races. Not just humans.
I totally agree with you about DS9, it challenged the basic ideas of Star Trek, but without completely overturning them, or like on "Discovery" tearing apart those ideals for the sake of 'edgy' stories
During TOS Kirk was not just a falandeter in a space captains chair. He was surprisingly thoughtful, calculating and often included those around him in his decision making. Movie Kirk is when we see the space cowboy persona take over his character.
Daniel I agree with you whole heartedly about this take and I love this video! Your writing and delivery is absolutely top notch and so compelling! Amazing work sir I salute you. And also in he pale moonlight is one of my favorites for sure!
Thanks for not going for easy clickbait and just dump on TLJ the whole video, this was very well made with great points. Also, I'd like to point out that whenever people do compare TLJ with KotOR2 they seem to forget that one is a 2+ hour movie while the other is a ~40 hour game, one has WAY more time to introduce and explore complex concepts than the other.
"In the Pale Moonlight" is my favorite Trek episode overall. So freaking amazing.
The federation adopted more from the vulcans than the vulcans adopted from them. have we forgotten this?
A video of "subverting expectations done badly" would be pretty good too!
Amusingly the flac JJ Abrams's star trek took with Into Darknes was what yo udescribed as' Kirk being a new character and the no-win scenerio' moment of death being given an undue amount of gravatas based on the bonds formed by other characters we're supposed to transfer onto these new characters... and the fact that sacrafice gets undone within the same movie.
Quark's description of root beer perfectly embodies the subversive nature of the Federation - root beer was "so bubbly and cloying, and happy... just like the Federation", also noting that "if you drink enough of it, you begin to like it - just like the Federation."
Saw Kreia in the thumbnail, instantly knew this would be a good video. Glad that that expectation wasn't subverted too!
The thing about plot twists and subverting expectations is that it only works once. Once you've seen it, it will never shock you again. What makes great stories (at least in my opinion) is how well they hold up to repeat viewings and analysis.
Me before seeing the video: *Oh No pls tell me is not a TLJ video*
Me after: *Oh so you CAN discuss this trope without talking about TLJ*
I mean when talking about examples of bad subversion of expectation he did put up a picture from TLJ so he doesn't say it directly but he's definitely implying that TLJ is a bad example of subverting expectations
@@sammywhite5127 But he's very respectful about it, which is a rarity these days. It's no secret that there are elements of TLJ that Spacedock didn't like (I forget if he's ever stated his stance on the entire movie), but he's always spoken mildly and respectfully on the subject, instead of the flaming and raging you see on other channels.
It seems like your expectations were subverted
themetalstickman does speaking harshly and loudly about something negate one’s complaints though?
While there are some awful people railing against TLJ, the fundamental root of their harsh complaints is genuine disappointment.
gypster2004 It doesn’t negate their complaints, but it poisons the conversation. Genuine though it may be, it doesn’t justify the callousness and abusiveness of some people. I understand that there are people who genuinely see the film as bad or disappointing, but at the end of the day, these films and the discussion surrounding them are meant for entertainment, and angry, harsh, and abusive discourse is unpleasant for almost everyone.
I really enjoyed this video. As far as subverting expectations goes, the Babylon 5 TV series did that on a regular basis. There are many examples in the series of subverting expectations. I think that’s what made Babylon five so good.
Star Wars subverted my expectations. I was expecting a fairly entertaining move written with some amount of competence. Instead I got the Last Jedi.
The Wrath of Khan is just superb. It transcends genre.
I think the main difference is subverting expectations to tell a good story vs subverting expectations so you can have a gotcha moment and "prove" you're smarter than your audience.
I think the problem with new franchises "subverting expectations" is that they don't set any expectations before subverting them. They only subvert tropes, which, while not ineffective if done well, isn't really unique or striking. However, setting an expectation for the course and identity of a franchise, and then later tearing those assumptions down and analyzing them thoroughly, is a much more effective form of storytelling, even though it requires much more work on the author's part to achieve, and it can only occur after several previous works have properly established the world.
In the book where he beats the no win scenario (not JJ Trek) he changed the test to include reputation, the klingons fought each other for the honor to fight Kirk. I always liked that.
Not a long running franchise I think, but one that I liked, was Andromeda. I know I was just a kid back then when I watched it, but it had a certain theme that I like even to this day.
"No. Not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing." - Kirk
and that is how you break a character down to rebuild them
It's also something you will *never* hear Rey utter.
That's because Rey is a Mary Sue, she doesn't have any character to break or expectations to subvert.
@@benjaminnelson5455 Rey isn't really a mary sue reasons why she's been successful do far at what she does has not been explained to many people
@@matthewtuckman5827 If that's so, then episode 7 was exceptionally poorly written. If you're going to introduce an already powerful character into a universe where it is firmly established that the power in question is accessed only through extensive training, then you also take on the responsibility to provide an explanation that was consistent with that universe's established rules.
The backstory established for Rey in episode 7 was that she was an orphan child subsisting on salvaged space junk for her entire life. Possibly she was Luke's daughter, but the only indication we get of that was Luke's lightsaber "choosing" her, and that's only really evidence that she was force sensitive. Being force sensitive in established as a requirement to be able to learn Jedi/Sith skills, but without training it just gives you slightly better reflexes than a non-sensitive of your species.
It doesn't give you expert combat piloting skills, and it most definitely doesn't allow you to effectively wield a light saber.
You can explain the origin if you like. If it's a good one I'll consider it an "Oops, we should've done at least some of this in episode 7" retcon.
In the meantime, Rey got shot while running from the New Order Tie Fighters and everything that follows is her fever dream as she bleeds out in the sand under the derelict Millennium Falcon ... or she can be a Mary Sue.
It's been at least 20 years since I last watched Wrath of Khan, and yet the instant that clip started, even knowing that movie inside and out, I choked up. I saw it in a packed theater on opening night, and it was very clear that absolutely no one there saw it coming. Dead silence during that scene, except for the quiet weeping. So yeah, when it's done right, it's powerful.
Such a pity that they then seemed to go out of their way to undermine KOTOR 2 later on.
Kotor 2 was written and made by Obsidian, Kotor 1 and TOR by Bioware. Bioware thought the depth of the story and philosophy in Kotor 2 was too much for PG-13 audiance of TOR to handle, and tried to dumb it down. Obsidian's staff had said they wanted to make Kotor3 for a long time, without tight schedule and budget that plagued Kotor 2, and "talks of Kotor 3 comes up every few months in the company." But they couldn't get the IP, and now, with Disney holding it, it's probably impossible.
@@georgedang449 Well, no. Bioware suppressed KOTOR 2 and disregarded Meetra's story because Drew Karpyshyn disliked how KOTOR 2 treated his character, Revan. It's infuriating, but there it is.
"It's easy to be a Saint in Paradise"
Another great line from the show, maybe even that episode.
You had me hooked from the moment you said DS9 and KOTOR in the same breath...
I couldn't agree more with this video.(I just finished another DS9 watch through yesterday funnily enough) On the topic of "subverting expectations" I, as a massive Star Wars and Star Trek fan, have been quite dissatisfied with recent additions to each respective franchise. But one of the things I find annoying is the creators of these shows/movies using the, "oh, we're subverting expectations" excuse for their less than stellarly received additions.
This was no more annoying than after The Last Jedi, when "subverting expectations" was used to explain away the nonsensical and inept decisions made by the writers/director. But, to me, this became a ridiculous excuse when months later another, little known, movie actually did subvert expectations and was overwhelmingly positively received by fans.(Infinity War)
It just seems that, unlike DS9 and KotOR, most franchises trying to replicate their past successes are instead just changing things(even if they make no sense, either logically or in the context of the respective franchises canon), for the sake of changing them, just to say they did. As if that logic just makes it all make sense.
DS9 is the best Star Trek, if anyone reading this hasn't seen it do yourself a favor and watch it. 😁
It's because they don't feel true to their series's respective underlying concepts.
Love this breakdown. In it I see the biggest difference between the generation that made these IPs and the generation that inherited them. The death of American optimism. The disenfranchisement of GenX and Millennials. The harsh realities of a world that met American exceptionalism with skepticism or outright hostility after coming off of centuries of British colonialism. They don't seem connected at first, but when you really look at them, all of these nuanced stories are taking a long hard look at binary morality and utopia-ism and saying "No, people aren't actually like this."
It's healthy to be critical of ones own culture and ones self. Dreaming about a future where everything magically works out without effort only leads to complacency and an acceptance of injustice now for the promise of justice later. The dreaded "some day". Have there ever been two more evil words in the history of language?
This is hands down my favorite Spacedock video.
I'm a simple man, I see Kreia, I click on the video.
KOTOR II is my favourite Star Wars game and one of my best loved games of all time, especially with the restored content mod.
Maybe Spacedock should write the next star wars trilogy
It'd sure as shit be better than anything in the Rian Johnson trilogy
Adam Schultz Star Wars Theory would do more than enough
That would be an awesome trilogy to see. A lot better than the current sequel trilogy.
A monkey hitting random keys on the keyboard could write a better story than Disney era star wars.
Spacedock should write the next season of Discovery too. Well, he wouldn’t have to so much write as shit all over the page and it’d still be an improvement...
Perfectly and succinctly put. I grew up watching the various Star Trek films, the original Star Wars films and TNG. I didn't need a critic to tell me how fantastic The Wrath of Khan is. I was blown away when I first saw it.
This is exactly what has been happening in Hickman's run for the X-Men.
The way he built the next continuity step for the canon using cracks and opportunities in decades of lore is amazing
This video subverted my expectations in all the right places
I think Battlestar Galactica (RDM) should be mentioned as well with the story of the fleet reuniting with the Pegasus for the first time. At first the audience thinks "Oh thank God more humans, it's a miracle" and we expect this to be the turning point in the war but it quickly gets flipped on its head with the unhinged nature of Admiral Caine and makes for one of the best arcs of the whole series with both Battlestars facing off against each other.
This might be your best video. Thanks for existing Spacedock.
Quark informing Nog about humans and how the people he idolized can become as ruthless as Klingons. Another great moment.
I really love storytelling analysis. Thank you for these insights!
You're absolutely right. The episode _In the Pale Moonlight_ is an _excellent_ example that really illustrates your point well. Watching Sisko tumble down that dark and dreary rabbit hole of treachery in order to try and do some good, was very powerful and likely more so because up to that point we've grown familiar enough with the character to know that what he's doing is literally tearing him apart. It's probably one of the most disturbing and thought provoking episodes to come out of Trek, _ever._ :) It seems like writers today just expect us to have pavlovian "feels" when they create some convoluted situation where we just expected to care about what the characters on the screen are going through.
Speaking of which, I've heard that one of the reasons why Star Trek Discovery sometimes comes across as so ingenuine is that apparently some of the writers come from a Young Adult fiction background. They are simply accustomed to forcing "the feels" on/from a younger audience. Like, "Oh, look! They are crying now! How sad they must be! Just watch as they hug and cry for five minutes..." I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. True "subversion" happens when you explore the cracks in the outwardly squeaky clean exterior of characters that seem to "have it together". It's not just created out of thin air. You can't just suddenly have a character say out of the blue, "You remind me of my father and I hated him!" (cry cry cry) or something like that. Where did that feeling come from? Did we know that that character had problems with male authority figures before that scene? Where there ever any previous hints that that might have even remotely been a potential stumbling block for the character?
You simply can _not_ "insert emotional moment here" in your script and expect it to carry any actual weight. And _that_ is _exactly_ why scenes like Kirk and Spock in _The Wrath of Khan_ and Sisko drinking his scotch and deleting his log entry at the end of _In the Pale Moonlight_ were so gut wrenchingly powerful and _still are_ to this very day. So, I ask myself, are there _any_ scenes from the first two seasons of STD that will be seriously talked about _decades_ from now? Sadly, I think not. Trek's message should be timeless. And _that_ is the danger of writing what is basically immediately gratifying fluff. Even if it happens to actually work at the moment there's still nothing to it and people will quickly forget about it because it had zero impact on a genuinely gut level.
Sorry to pick on STD, though, because it's just one example. It's happening in a _lot_ of the media we watch today. The artificially induced "feels" (ugh. I _really_ hate that term! :P ) thing has been slowly popping up (dare I say "subverting"? :P ) more and more over the last decade or two and it really sucks. :/ It would be interesting to explore why that is. I know that this might not be the right forum for a deep dive like that, even though this particular video was fine. But it would still be interesting if somebody did a video about it. ;) Anyway, thanks for sharing this, Daniel/Spacedock! It was a very nice exploration of the topic and I will certainly be sharing this video! :) And sorry for the long post! I'm just really passionate about the quality of the stories being told in my favorite genre! I simply want to watch something _meaningful!_ Is that _really_ too much to ask? :/
Take care and I look forward to all of your future videos! :D
That commentary was, perfection.
This is actually my approach to writing fanfiction - I like to look at the story and the world, find the holes in it, the things that no one thinks of or no one questions, and delve into them to write about. For example, I did one in the Pokemon universe that shows how even with the best, well-meaning trainers, the idea of capturing and training pokemon is essentially slavery.
well it's bad as chicken or dog fighting
One of your best videos.
If only Disney could take inspiration from KOTOR II......
For me in Stargate SG-1 the Battle of P3Y-229 was a huge one. Whole series they established 2 things: you have a plan, you have a good chance of winning and Asgard tech is crazy overpowered. In that episode they had Asgard tech, a plan, and they had a lager amount of time to prepare and they got absolutely destroyed. That single battle changed the rules of the whole series from that point on.
Babylon 5 was good at this too with the shadow war its actual genesis and how it was solved, too bad it was rushed when they thought they would get cancelled.
That DS9 clip was so great. I miss that big, theatrical style of acting in sci-fi shows. Today, everyone is quiet, stoic, and boring. You can be serious without being cardboard.
Very interesting video - the reason that subverting expectations is such a big thing recently is that similar to what you mentioned, Game of thrones did the same thing to fans of fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings. It took the assumptions of that kind of world and turned it on its head. Then that got very popular and lazy writers just saw its success as an easy way to write good stories by doing things "that the audience doesn't expect".
Fantastic short! I've never thought of DP9 in that way but it's so TRUE!!! I am not that well versed in Star Wars but the point is well received. DP9 always hold a special place for me because it was so character driven in it's story telling from the other trek series (not that they weren't in they own way) but this subvert expectation is spot on - Thanks for sharing!
Regarding KotOR 2: Always keep in mind that Kreya's viewpoint is, at the very least, biased, and at worst, complete lies. That doesn't detract from the quality of the story, which is very good, but part of its quality lies in the fact that they leave the question of her veracity open.
Likewise, Edington is very clearly a crazy person who's decided that his committing a chemical weapons attack against a civilian population is the equivalent to stealing a loaf of bread, and anyone who's actually trying to take him in over this is clearly just here to persecute him.
DS9 was great with characters who are absolutely deluded, but sell their delusion so completely, you almost lose track of what's really going on. Dukat, of course, was the crown jewel of this.
One of my favourite writers is Terry Pratchett. His Discworld novels in particular do the same thing as DS9 and KOTR2, just to our world views and beliefs, by viewing them from different perspectives.
As someone who has always seen the world through a different lens, it's always appealed to me when writers and storytellers look at things from another angle. It reminds me of the object you get when you take a cylinder as tall as it's diameter and cut two slices off the sides. From the bottom it's cylindrical, from the side it's square and from the front it's triangular. It's all in the perspective...
One that comes to my mind is a clone wars-ish comic. It’s one where a group of clones have a negative perspective of their Jedi commanders. Like five seconds into a fight their Jedi gets knocked out cold from an explosion or something because she use Jedi tactics. You know the one where they charge full speed into enemy fire while using no cover or range force power. Kind of blew my mind since it always worked for Obi.
DS9 just did so many things right. The fact they took the Ferengi, who first appeared as space-goblins, and made them into a proper society that while a bit extreme in its leanings was believable. They finally achieved what they were meant to be, an antithesis to the Federation. But made it so it wasn't the black and white "Federation good, Ferengi bad." And even helped give an interesting outsider perspective of what the Federation was.
Points very well made. Great insight. Thank you.
How big was Vitiate's Sith Empire's military and how many ships did they have in their navy during their peak strength and advancements?
I just finished watching DS9 last week and I couldn't agree more, I think its great that they have Sisko act opposite to Picard in so many ways to show that everything isn't perfect
Star Wars also has NJO. Which came out around the same time as KOTOR, it really questioned everything that was happening in Star Wars.
Fantastic analysis. I agree with everything you just said.
While this may not be the exact sort of answer you’re asking for, a series that really subverted expectations in its ending is Animorphs. After initiating narrative collapse by breaking the status quo, it started to put characters in situations they’d never encountered before in the previous 50 or so books, such as Jake, the leader, actually losing a mission and having lasting consequences from it. It’s a very well done subversion of assumptions, the chief of which is: the Animorphs will always come out on top.