General The Book of Boba Fett talk

Maybe marginally.

I always thought that scene in AotC was pretty dark, and the Tusken Raiders have been pretty humanized for a while (KOTOR, for instance, and Mando more recently). But as to TBoBF, this is probably the best and most thorough humanization of them.

I've always considered Anakin's Tusken Raider raid a bit too... early. Like, he basically commits a genocide that heavily foreshadows his killing of the Jedi in the next film, but he's back to quipping and making doey eyes at Padme fifteen minutes later, and the film seems to not really expect the audience to side against him after the one confrontation when he gets back to the Lars homestead. The whole thing is swept under the rug.

I almost wonder if that entire scene would've been better placed at the beginning of ROTS instead.

 

Cheering for Anakin is just as bad as cheering for Kylo Ren. Both evil characters were going to be redeemed eventually, which so many fans point out to no end, but that doesn't condone the fact that Anakin killed an entire village of Tusken Raiders, including the women and the children too.

Later, when he is a full blown Sithlord, he kills a room full of Jedi younglings... he killed his fellow Jedi in the Jedi temple, mass assassination, but he will be redeemed of course... oy vey.

Like GL said, people like the villains, for me, Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren are cold blooded villains. Kylo Ren killed his father, being manipulated by Snoke doesn't give him a pass for me, also, killing Lor San Tekka, an old defenseless man in cold blood.

Kylo Ren ordering an entire village cleansed by flame and blaster fire, almost killing Finn and putting him in a comma, He had a hand in the extermination of the entire Hosnian Prime system, he destroyed Maz's castle and all denizens within, yet in TROS he was quickly redeemed, all is forgiven... not quite for me. Cool characters, but villains in my book. Star Wars is about redemption... I know... People love Palpatine, so yeah I get it... Ian McDiarmid is a great actor.

 

TBOBF doesn't really convince me the sandpeople aren't savages. Acceptance goes both ways, if they accepted modern life, they could better their own people, instead they're hostile to everyone they come across. The sandpeople get along with mandos because they're both savages, but mandos just use modern technology.

I think it was understood the sandpeople in AOTC were people, with a civilization of women children and pets. Yeah Anakin killed an entire village, but they did kidnap and murder his mother. The sandpeople were unlikely to just let anakin take his mother and leave unmolested.

 

Actually I have even less of an opinion of sandpeople. Without spoilers. The children were no saints, and the women are no better either. While watching AOTC I assumed the women and children were innocent bystanders, based on TBOBF, they're just as savage as the men.

 

I'm really confused how you came to that conclusion, but I definitely urge you to reconsider- especially since it's clear that they're serving as a sort of proxy for real life indigenous peoples.

I can't help you sympathize with fictional characters, but at the very least I'd suggest reevaluating the language here, especially the word "savage".

 

Im sorry i don't have any sympathy for them. They kidnapped and enslaved boba fett. Dragged him across the desert, tied him to a pole to be beaten by children with clubs. Forced him into manual labor with no food or drink. Unprovoked. That's messed up. I really don't understand why people think they're nice now. Is it like Stockholm syndrom or something? They're bad people. Their bad reputation is warranted.

 

I think the second episode goes a long way as to showing why the Tusken Raiders might consider themselves at war with outsiders.

Perhaps a better evaluation of their character would come from how they treated Fett once they had a better idea of who he is. Keep in mind, they brought him to see the raid on that homestead in the first episode, possibly to judge his reaction to such an atrocity. Tatooine is a harsh world.

And hey, going with their real-world counterparts, I think this still tracks. A people that have been subjected to countless atrocities have good reason not to trust outsiders.

 

Sadly, we live in a world today where too many people villainize other people as 'bad' because they .... gasp!....don't share our POV (whatever that is.) God forbid we actually listen to one another rather than talk at each other!

I personally love that TBoBF is reintroducing audiences to those "crazy-looking savages" first introduced to us in ANH from a different perspective. Seeing some of them and their beasts of burden murdered -- unprovoked -- by people passing by on a speeding train causes many of us to begin viewing them and their actions -- in the words of Old Ben Kenobi -- from a different point of view.

 

The homesteaders probably lived there for generations, peacefully collecting water from I assume the air, since they're called vaporators. They're not taking anything from the sandpeople. The village of mos Pelgos in the mandalorian was attacked unprovoked by them. The villagers have a right to protect themselves and their property.

In the case of the train, yes that was an unprovoked attack on the sandpeople, but there must have been a reason. What it comes down to is, it's a war. An unwinnable war for the tuskens. They could accept modern society and stop kidnapping murdering and raiding innocent people. That would go a long way in their benefit. Maybe people would respect their claimed land.

Boba fett is a strong warrior they can use. Boba respects them because he comes from a warrior culture. I get that part, but as a viewer, they don't really have any redeeming qualities.

 

They treated Boba Fett, merely as a slave like others would a conquered kingdom of people. Yes! Both women and children where both savages as well. Their ignorance and tribal ways stopped them from progressing as a race. They could barely defend themselves against a train at high speeds.

I at first believed they where monsters unable to be redeemed but we now know there are different tribes throughout the regions to Tatooine.

 

But that's exactly what the sandpeople are doing. They paint all outsiders as savages and brutally kidnap murder enslave and pillage them. A lot of innocent people were killed by their prejudices. That's okay, because a few wronged them? Maybe they're all wrong.

I like the story too, I just am not sympathetic for the Tuskens. I get that they in their own minds feel justified in their actions, but it's still wrong any way you slice it.

That's the problem with warrior cultures, they eat sleep drink war. It would be great if two opposing warrior cultures could just fight each other endlessly, but that's not how it works. Innocent people get caught in the crossfire. Warrior cultures have to fight someone constantly, because their value comes from the amount of people they kill and land they conquer. Tusken and mandalorians are both warrior cultures that really instigate a lot of problems. I know it's STAR WARS, but objectively they're wrong. Look at warrior cultures throughout history. They always end up on the losing side of history, because of their obsession with war.

 

Personally, I tend to think that in situations like this- violent conflicts in which there is a significant and obvious imbalance of power- I tend to think that it's the responsibility of those in power to show compassion, rather than those oppressed.

 

If the other side is willing to cooperate. In a killed or be killed situation, I wouldn't be so compassionate.

 

I'm not the one comparing tuskens to natives. Im looking at the story objectively, and yeah both sides are wrong, that doesn't make the tuskens right. At the end of the day there's a lack of communication and stubbornness on both sides. Either one of them could extend an olive branch but they refuse to. It doesn't seem like the Tuskens are willing in the slightest to negotiate. Like I said it's an unwinnable war for them. The settlers aren't going anywhere. If I was in the Tuskens situation, I would at least stop murdering and pillaging people. That's just me.

I was more sympathetic to them in Mandalorian chapter 9 when they were at least ready to negotiate. And that's where the story is heading, but it's not there yet.

 

Remind me not to accidentally walk across your lawn. You might enslave me and have your kids beat me with clubs.
They're nomads, they claim everything is theirs, but who did their ancestors have to kill to stake that claim?
War is ugly.

 

It's difficult to discuss this without getting political, because the show has drawn such a direct parallel between the Tuskens and real-world indigenous peoples.

And the truth is really, really complicated.

Colonizers have committed great violence against indigenous people. Does that give indigenous peoples a free check to commit violence back? Where is the line between defending your home and committing massacres? Does the fact that they took the land from other tribes give us a right to take it from them? If so, doesn't that give someone else the right to take it from us?

Those questions are way beyond the scope of a Star Wars forum discussion, but Mandalorian and Book of Boba have raised them.

So at least, let's be sensitive, respectful, and humble as we approach this subject, because it goes far beyond the galaxy far far away.

 

start a thread called tusken ethics