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Why are alien races in Star Wars(or sci-fi in general) so horribly generic and one-dimensional?

CaptSpaulding

CaptSpaulding

Banned
Jul 13, 2019
393
I think this is one of my main complaints about Star Wars and it's something that frequently ruins my feeling of "immersion" in the universe. It's how horribly generic and un-fleshed out all the alien races are. They are all stereotypes, with maybe the exception of Twi'Leks.

Mandalorians are all bounty hunters
Jawas are all scavengers
Wookies are all warriors
Bothans are all spies
Mon Calamari are all great pilots and admirals
Twi'lek females are all hot
Sand people are just uhm...sand people.

I mean maybe Star Wars isn't the only sci-fi universe that is guilty of this, even Star Trek is sort of guilty of that to a smaller extent.
For me it really ruins the immersion because of how unrealistic and lazy such generic characterization is. Why are humans the only race that can be free to be anything they want?
 
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NekoFever

NekoFever

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,009
This is the sci-fi universe where every planet is a single uniform biome (desert planet, ice planet, jungle planet, lava planet) so it's not that surprising that the inhabitants follow the same template.
 
Strangelove_77

Strangelove_77

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,392
Star Wars itself is horribly generic and one-dimensional. That's why.
 
Loanshark

Loanshark

Member
Nov 8, 2017
1,637
What really annoys me is how they keep throwing in new ones instead of fleshing out whats already there. It feels very inconsequential.
 
The Unsent

The Unsent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,438
The Kotor games do a good job with the diversity of aliens, like Bao-Dur, Juhani and Mission having their own personalities.
 
kittens

kittens

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,237
Star Wars is shallow, normative, and status quo as fuck. Over all I find it unimaginative and empty.
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
Sabine is not a bounty hunter, Pre Viszla is not a bounty hunter, Satine is not a bounty hunter, Bo-Katan is not a bounty hunter, none of the Mandalorian characters who appear in TCW or Rebels are bounty hunters, and Boba and Jango Fett are not Mandalorians.
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,173
the mundane world building/lore of star was is 3rd grade reading level when you whittle it down. and i say that as a hardcore fan

modern sci fi generally takes it in reasonable directions but how do you 'properly' project alien beings when the concept itself is alien
 
NekoFever

NekoFever

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,009
The human planets are pretty monocultural, despite there being some variation between humans as a whole. All people from a certain planet seem to have the same traits.

Mandalorians are all part of the same masked warrior culture. Corellians are all pilots and engineers. Naboo are all artists and intellectuals. And so on.
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,865
I've never seen such as objectively wrong star wars OP on this site.

And that's saying something.

I can think of numerous examples off the top of my head of members of those alien races that are not like the OP describes. Prominent characters as well like Chewbacca.
 
CenturionNami

CenturionNami

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,230
Except your blatantly wrong about Mandalorians. Clone Wars went to great lengths to depict them as very varied.
 
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GenTask

GenTask

Member
Nov 15, 2017
2,666
Mandalores have a pretty cool history imo, literally 24,000 years of it in that universe almost coinciding with the history of Jedi/Force. Once an actual race and then simply passing on a set of ideals and politics to humans and other aliens willing to adopt the legacy of it.

Alright I'll stop nerding out now after watching the Mandalorian Documentary.
 
Ishmael

Ishmael

Member
Oct 27, 2017
671
OP needs to attend a Life Day festival to appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Star Wars universe.

Most of the time I can wave away how broadly defined alien races are in pulp adventures like Star Wars. However, the one series that leaves me with more questions than answers is the Predators. If it had been a one-off movie the Predator would have been fine as a mysterious monster. But all those sequels have shown there's an entire race of those clowns. How does their society work? Is their entire economy based around flying off to other worlds and shooting the locals? Or are there Predator truck drivers, Predator grocery store clerks and so on?
 
OP
OP
CaptSpaulding

CaptSpaulding

Banned
Jul 13, 2019
393
BDS said:
Sabine is not a bounty hunter, Pre Viszla is not a bounty hunter, Satine is not a bounty hunter, Bo-Katan is not a bounty hunter, none of the Mandalorian characters who appear in TCW or Rebels are bounty hunters, and Boba and Jango Fett are not Mandalorians.
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Its not surprising to me that they would try to rectify this in the filler or extended universe material....they have a lot more time and different writers. But seem to me Lucas never bothered to do this in his movies.
 
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SamAlbro

SamAlbro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,352
Dwarves are all craftsmen
Elves are all nature-based philosophers
Orcs/Goblins are all raiders.

It's just an extension of old fantasy tropes in new settings.
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,046
Ishmael said:
OP needs to attend a Life Day festival to appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Star Wars universe.

Most of the time I can wave away how broadly defined alien races are in pulp adventures like Star Wars. However, the one series that leaves me with more questions than answers is the Predators. If it had been a one-off movie the Predator would have been fine as a mysterious monster. But all those sequels have shown there's an entire race of those clowns. How does their society work? Is their entire economy based around flying off to other worlds and shooting the locals? Or are there Predator truck drivers, Predator grocery store clerks and so on?
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It's weird that of all things, Dragonball went and provided an answer for this. They had a one-dimensional race of genocidal space pirates, and showed that, yeah, they actually have some dorks back home who handle the science and food processing and all that.
 
Sulik2

Sulik2

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,168
hippopotamus said:
Star Wars is not science fiction.
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Except when it is and that's when it gets good. That's why Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie.

GenTask said:
Mandalores have a pretty cool history imo, literally 24,000 years of it in that universe almost coinciding with the history of Jedi/Force. Once an actual race and then simply passing on a set of ideals and politics to humans and other aliens willing to adopt the legacy of it.

Alright I'll stop nerding out now after watching the Mandalorian Documentary.
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The old EU in the legacy of the force series set up the Mando's as the triumvirate of the Galaxy. They are balance for the Jedi and Sith. I miss that from the old EU and the mando stuff was the best part of Legacy of the Force. Especially Jaina training how to hunt force users with the mandos.
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
CaptSpaulding said:
Its not surprising to me that they would try to fix this in the filler or extended universe material....they have a lot more time and different writers. But seem to me Lucas never bothered to do this with his movies.
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Lucas was responsible for everything Mandalorian in the Clone Wars. On the contrary, it was the old EU that made a bunch of random Mandalorian bounty hunters who got overwritten by the Clone Wars when Lucas and Filoni started cleaning house.
 

Deleted member 60295

User requested account closure
Banned
Sep 28, 2019
1,489
Sulik2 said:
Except when it is and that's when it gets good. That's why Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie.
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Ah yes, the movie where those random dudes from the cantina that don't like you very much, somehow were on the same planet that they tested the death star on, and ran into the protagonists of the movie merely a couple days before the ended up on Tatooine and ran into the protagonists of the first Star Wars movie. In a galaxy populated by literally trillions of sentient life forms spanning hundreds of planetoids.
 
CesareNorrez

CesareNorrez

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,522
L Thammy said:
It's fantasy and pulp adventure fiction in space.
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Not only that, but it's a fairytale and mythology. It (The Star Wars Skywalker Saga, anyway) isn't designed to be analogous to our world. If you come at Star Wars criticizing it for being shallow, you've already missed the point. It's a simple story designed to teach simple lessons. This is what Lucas means when he says it is for children. He's not saying it's "kiddie" but that the story is there to teach lessons at a level that children understand. So you have archetypes. This is the whole point of mythology. You want your lesson to be easily and quickly identifiable. Luke is in white, Darth Vader is in black, good versus evil, simple.

Now when you start an expanded universe, you can reach into different genres. You can introduce nuance and different kinds of storytelling beyond the mythological archetypes of The Skywalker Saga. But if are coming at Episodes 1-9 and complaining that it doesn't match the grey morality and justice systems of our world, you are coming at it unfairly. It's like saying a comedy isn't scary enough.
 
Saucycarpdog

Saucycarpdog

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,353
Mass effect at least knew to introduce only a few alien races and flesh those ones out. Not like Star Wars where you keep introducing new aliens and then dispose of them.
 
JiyuuTenshi

JiyuuTenshi

Member
Oct 28, 2017
836
How do you even get to this conclusion from the few members of those races that are featured in the movies?

Jango and Boba aren't even Mandalorians btw.
 
Duane

Duane

Unshakable Resolve
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,442
Because they're big space battle action stories, so the characters you meet are going to be the warriors. Once you start getting into the novels, comics and tv shows, you start meeting the grandmas and the kids and the diplomats and civilians, etc.
 
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