29th March 2004, 12:51 PM
OB1 Wrote:Have you actually ever read The Odyssey before? I made that comparison because The Odyssey is an adventure story that at its core is pretty simple, but the book still possesses depth from the growth and voyages of the characters. Being difficult to understand has nothing to do with depth. There's a big difference between depth and complexity.
The Oddysey is basically about one man and his adventure. His character (and to a small extent, that of his wife) does experience some growth in depth. No, it's not a complex story. It would actually make a decent linear console RPG with some tweaks. But the difference is the character development. The Oddysey has less room for complexity because it focuses almost entirely on Oddyseus' adventures in getting home. The plot is singular and straightforward.
Star Wars, on the other hand, features more characters, and does not really develop any of them. Had the series focused exclusively on one or two characters, perhaps. The most the OT had to offer is the love story between Han and Leia, and who didn't see that coming anyway? The NT tries harder to deepen the characters, and they made an attempt with Anakin, but even with him, it didn't go far enough. It of course doesn't help that everyone knows what happens to him. The plot isn't complex, and the characters are not deep. Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
But, for instance, Xenogears' story is very complex and it's main characters are very well developed, so to compare the two on that criteria is simply wrong.
Quote:BTW Star Wars is not science fiction.
It's not? The heavy focus on technology and special effects are for what then?
Quote:Also, it's really amazing what kinds of double-standards there are out there. For instance, The Lord of the Rings has a ridiculously simple story with extremely simple and predictable character development, yet everyone claims it to be a deep character study. Now naturally it deserves credit for creating that sort of fantasy genre and for basically laying the groundwork for just about every fantasy story that came after it, but it (the movies at least) possesses both a story and character depth far simpler than even Star Wars. Not that simple is bad or anything, but it's still simple.
I agree totally. Most fantasy out there now is based on LOTR, but there is quite a bit that features more character depth and story complexity. Wheel of Time immediately springs to mind.
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