Star Wars is like an iceberg (Off-Topic)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Saturday, April 15, 2017, 02:11 (2562 days ago) @ cheapLEY

It just seemed so unnecessary. It wasn't a story that needed to be told.

Yup! Just like Halo: Reach.

And it has me scared for the Han Solo movie. Makes me think that all that will be is how he met Chewie, how he won the Falcon, etc, etc. I don't need the stuff we heard about in the OT explained to every detail. My perfect Han Solo movie would be after he met Chewie and already had the Falcon and are just doing their thing. Maybe some sort of heist movie--I don't want a biography of Han Solo movie.

I think perhaps there's some sort of mystical balance to be struck between story and backstory. A fictional universe needs to feel like an iceberg; that no matter how large it appears on the surface, even more lurks underwater that you can't see clearly.

Turning backstory into story I think does not work if all it is doing is changing the waterline. You need to hint at even greater depths still below, and even if you are able to do that, I think you hit a point of diminishing returns somewhere.

The comparison to fanfiction I think is apt because that's just what fan fiction communities do: they convert context into text.