

Are E.T. and Star Wars in the same universe? - ruuki
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/6558

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hrkristian
I've always been intrigued with how many people treat IPs as "real".

For my part, I'm always in the mindset of "Whatever. If something in fiction
isn't conclusive, then the existence of an answer is _simply not there_ and
completely irrelevant."

Meanwhile, I see a lot of people whose wording implies they think questions
about fictional details are entirely consequential (to their lives.)

Merely some musing as a result of some of the answers the question got.

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Vaskivo
Well, people love what they love. And love thinking, talking and discussing
what they love. Is this any different from the sports fan who talk about old
team lineups, why such and such tactic was wrong in a game, why they lost a
game because of bad luck/refereeing.

Think also about common programming discussions: dynamic vs static typing,
goto is the root of all evil, etc.

We love this IP. Having nothing more to explore about it, we start dissecting
it to find more stuff. And finding easter egg and little details like this
show us that the creator really had a lot of love for it's creation. This
helps us acknowledge that our love is well deserved.

And, in the end, it's fun! Why would we do this if it weren't fun?

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logicallee
No, this is like a literary critic finding a baseball score, let's say 3-0,
mentioned casually in dialog in a Hemmingway short story that does not have a
date or mention of teams, and, _then_ talking about what the team must have
been (okay, let's say we can guess). And the season. Let's say they can guess.
Okay, and _then_ talking about the lineup, tactics, what the innings must have
looked like, and whetehr there was any bad luck or refereeing or questionable
ump calls involved. You know, based on the fact that score _was_ 3-0, and, you
know, it seemed important enough for the character to mention. Maybe due to
some bad ump calls. Probably. I mean, it's pure rank speculation but why else
would the character mention it??

You see the difference? The only true answer is because, f--, hemmingway liked
baseball and he needed some dialogue. there's no play by play action behind
it, absolutely nothing for us to guess about because it just didn't happen. :)

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Vaskivo
The author isn't the point. Maybe he thought more about the game than he put
in the story. Maybe not. But in the universe of that story, the game existed!
And that's what matters.

In fiction, especially fantasy and science fiction, the universe is as much
important as the main narrative. And we like exploring the "how do they"'s and
"how can it"'s of these universes.

I understand your position. I have people in my family that don't read/watch
fantasy or science fiction because "it doesn't have real stuff" and some only
read historical novels or "based in real events" books because "if it isn't
true, it's not worth it".

I, on the other hand, can't read historical novels, because I don't know what
is "real" and what is "not real". If I want a story, I get fiction. If I want
to know stuff, I buy a technical book about it. And if I'm reading for a great
story, I might as well read one set in a fictional universe. Two for the price
of one! I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi nowadays.

To end it all, you have to see that fantasy/sci-fi/comic book/etc fans love
exploring these worlds. And in a corner of our minds, they're almost as real
as our world.

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logicallee
There is a third route between made-up and technical: real stories without any
'novel' or fictive aspects. You are making a serious conflation when you say "
Is this any different from the sports fan who talk about old team lineups, why
such and such tactic was wrong in a game, why they lost a game because of bad
luck/refereeing[?]"

I am saying: yes, it's _very_ different! It's like the difference between
discussing Napoleon and discussing Darth Vader. One is not a discussion about
a made-up world, but the real world. Instead of speculation about the made-up
world, we can examine real facts. Likewise, for real games that actually
happened, we can look at real facts.

I also consider lots of made-up stories to be very interesting. On the other
hand, I am also interested to an extent in real stories as well, without any
creative aspects other than the author's (and scoiety's) interpretation, the
order in which events are told, what events are told, etc.

Imaginative realities are certainly interesting - but don't for a minute
confuse them for being similar to real events.

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precisioncoder
Eh if there's no reference in the original 3 movies (The only ones I
acknowledge as star wars) it's not a good enough link for me!

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cperciva
ET has a kid in a Yoda costume, and the Yoda/Force leitmotif is quoted in the
ET score at that point. There's your SW:OT connection -- the extra references
written into the new episodes are just overkill.

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precisioncoder
I don't actually have a comment regarding E.T. ... to be honest I just wanted
to complain about the new star wars

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Nice find.

