Empty Calories & Male Curiosity, #25 🥃

Too Bad Jar Jar Binks Wasn't A Victim Of Genocide

GOING DEEP:

Too Bad Jar Jar Binks Wasn’t A Victim Of Genocide

First, a huge thank you is in order if you’ve made it to this sentence, because that title was, well, a lot.

In most major sci-fi franchises, the different worlds that inhabit that particular universe are uniform in population and geographic makeup. The world is urban, agrarian, rainy, or fiery. The people of that world are all city dwellers, farmers, bandits, or rapscallions. And they are all of the same race. 

Star Wars is the most obvious example. Here is a brief overview of some of the planets in that universe. (Not a Star Wars fan? Skip this section)

• Alderaan: Princess Leia’s home planet. Destroyed by the Death Star in the initial installment of the Star Wars films¹. It was a beautiful, mountainous planet whose people were sophisticated, cultured, and intelligent.

• Mustafar: This was the dark and fiery world where Anakin Skywalker travelled to as he transitioned into Darth Vader. The entire planet is a hot mess of lava flows and volcanoes. Come to think of it, hot mess might be the best description for George Lucas’s three prequels.

  

  This scene was straight fire though.

• Coruscant: Homeworld of the Galactic Senate, this entire planet was one big urban city. It was populated by species from all over the universe.

  Imagine how many Starbucks they must’ve had!

  

• Endor: The home planet of the Ewoks is a forest moon—yes, an entire moon covered in forests. These cute and diminutive little buggers should’ve counted their furry stars that they were the most intelligent beings in that place.

  

• Naboo: Queen Amidala’s home world. Stunningly beautiful, this world had one race of people (very cleverly referred to as the Naboo) as well as a race of horribly CGI-rendered animals called Gungans. Maybe you remember this guy?

Jar Jar Binks: Worst movie character ever?

Ok Henny, you’ve proved your point about the make-up of these worlds. However, what in the name of all things holy does that have to do with genocide? 

Well, we can assume that any planet in any universe would be initially populated in the same manner as Earth².  I.E., over a vast amount of land and sea, over thousands and thousands of years. This would lead to multiple races of people. 

The fact that all these worlds only have one race of people leads to the inevitable conclusion that the remaining race has killed off all other races. If you’ve ever read Stephen Hawking’s prediction of how any alien interaction with humans would go, you’d know he agrees with this conclusion:

How about AI worlds in movies?

Even in the Matrix, where the competition between AI and humans is basically over, what is left of humanity has been consolidated. The leftover remnants of mankind might be a United Colors of Benetton in skin tone, but they are definitely Stepford Wives in terms of groupthink. All the remaining humans are organized in an effort to retake the planet. The lone holdout is Joey Pants, who turns out to be a Judas….

What does the multiverse have to say? The Man in the High Castle was originally published as a book in the 1960s, but ran recently as a show for four seasons. It is about an alternate reality where the Germans and Japanese won World War 2. I’m pretty sure with a few hundred years of those Nazi bastards being in power we’d have been down to one race.

The Exception That Proves The Rule:

I love all of the Planet of the Apes movies. Even the bad ones. And even the one with that slappy Marky Mark.

Remember those movie marathons on public TV in the 80s, where they aired all day? Gen Z can have Tik Tok. I’ll take six hours with Roddy McDowell, a couple of bologna sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, and some Hydrox³ cookies all day baby.

Anyway, the apes in these movies are a very diverse group of, um, humanoids 🤷🏼‍♂️. But they have yet to master intergalactic travel, let alone indoor plumbing. One can envision the next iteration of this franchise being set 500 years in the future, with one master race of apes.

My money is on chimpanzees as they are the smartest of the apes. Their battles with the gallant warrior tribes of Silverback Gorillas would be epic.

Conclusion: This could all be the case. Or, Hollywood thinks its viewing public is too stupid to comprehend a universe where a planet populated by vastly disparate groups of people can get along to the point that they discover a means for interstellar travel.

Maybe I am just overthinking this.

Remember, they thought we’d watch this….

QUICK HITTERS:

1. Shout-outs to subscribers Jason, Moorea, Bill, Paul, & CK for engaging in a bit of political discussion earlier this week in response to my latest EXTRA POINT post (here).

2. The SilentPunt Podcast returns next week with a new format.

3. A new book recommendation is coming next week as well. In the meantime, here’s Darla and Maverick with some friends.

   

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1. Total dick move by the way, even for Lord Vader.

2. You know what assuming does, don’t you?

3. Oreos, for poor people.