#he literally handed us our goals and factions explained the structure and rules of the assembly and said go nuts fighting

[united-under-skyfall]

i'll never forget the time that a random girl from my history class came up to me after class twice in a couple weeks, introduced herself to me, then put her hand on my arm and told me i did really great in class and she was v impressed and i was SO DUMB i was like I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND but couldn't think of how to say it so i just DIDN'T BOTH TIMES and when i told my friends about it they said she was flirting w me and i didn't know how to break it to them that i don't think i was winning anyone over by roleplaying a kid with a vendetta in an ancient athens assembly post-the thirty's rule for three weeks

[mantra4ia]

NBC Debris, episodes 1-9: overview of high hopes and adjusted expectations

*Mild spoilers ahead*

I'm rooting for this show guys, really I am. The premise and the two main characters / actors are interesting, or at least try very hard to be. But this series has been slow off the ground despite my excitement during preseason teasers and here's why, in my view.

Pros:

An intercontinental alliance gives room / potential for some interesting spy craft, I just wish it was slightly more artful, less heavy handed.

Alien debris having potential to do good things is also a fantastic promise to expand on. George Jones talked about some terraforming level stuff (whether it goes right or wrong is another story), let's see more of that. Are tech giants fighting over the intellectual property rights to debris-based advances? How are money and favor between industry and the government changing hands (apart from a very literal briefcase full of cash on the black market when we first meet Influx)? How do different pieces of debris interact with one another, maybe it changes some of their properties in unpredictable ways.

Bryan and Finola have good amorphous lead chemistry. We aren't being force-fed where it is going to go, but we know it's a compelling relationship where they're both relying on each other to get through challenging emotional hurdles (marine special ops, family tragedy). And we see them together, riffing off each other from the beginning, and it works as both a personal and professional partnership.

Strongest debris-scifi-based episode was definitely 1x04 "In Universe" with the chlorine- respiration-based biome. To me it's the best of the season so far.

Strongest character episode so far is maybe 1x09 "Do You Know Icarus?" or 1x06 "Supernova"

Cons:

Episodic structure hampers the ramp of tension building. You don't get big payoff because you get short plot points. Yes there's the recurring "ball of light" and Influx references, but those are more phantom thread teasers than a long game of steadily developing insights.

No fully developed villain or antagonist to make the stakes seem tangible and priorities urgent or simmering: is it Influx, Maddox, Ferris, casually mentioned foreign government espionage, the guy who played Michael on The Vampire Diaries? I don't know, and worst of all nor do I really care because I don't feel their immenent threat or ideological purpose. I am more worried about the debris body count, but debris is a problem / quandary, not a viable adversary at this point. We've got a multi-front conflict, and 45 minutes with underwhelming writing complexity to try and meet the task. It's a struggle.

The ABCD action-based plot. I have to do this sequence in order to beat this level. Where's the character building?

Speaking of which, while I like Bryan and Finola's dynamic opposite each other, I can't say the same about their development as individual characters. Their depth and relationship to others has so far been terrible due to superficial telegraphing which tells us rather than a writing structure that shows us why we're supposed to care about them, their lives, or their relationships to others, like Finola and DeDe and George as a family unit, or Bryan and Maddox. Seeing an old family video of sisters dancing to a favorite song does nothing for me when I haven't seen them interact on anything more than a long distance phone call. Can we maybe get a flashback of them at George's memorial so that we can get a sense of how devastated the family was or see the consequences of DeDe's substance abuse habit as a crutch during an emotionally chaotic time in her life? No. We get hearsay. Maddox is supposedly so worthy of Bryan's trust, pulled him from the brink of a dark emotional abyss (1x07), but we get no sense of that bond off the clock like Bryan checking in on Maddox's family, or any sort of personal connection. Just a cold professional relationship with a few one liners.

Telegraphing to ambiguity ratio: certain things the audience gets explained to us, like alternate universes visible in the molecular imperfections of glass or how they damaged George's hippocampus and impaired his memory (like they're just throwing out words to sound sci-fi impressive), and yet some basic details that would help build this world lore and make it believable are left up to off-screen imagination? Come on now, we all know the season one is for world building. Hop to it! Debris falls from the sky, worldwide, and you're telling me no one knows about it and it doesn't impact public life / culture in any way, it doesn't make the news cycle, nothing? You're an Orbital agent, and you're able to fly around in laboratory equipped jets and land in whichever airspace you please, and no one bats an eye? Terrorists are using debris against civilians, and we don't see government restrictions, curfew, lockdowns, etc, we don't get any minor glimpses into ramifications on ordinary life? No, because the focus is always trained on our "field agents" but not the playing field. It's mundane, small stuff questions that keep us grounded, which is a refreshing and needed balance in sci-fi, but apart from a conversation about stale Peeps I don't see attention to daily details of life as we know it.

We are literally told in the pilot by a title card (talk about expedient) that "three years ago images were captured of a wrecked alien spacecraft moving through the solar system" and for 6 months debris has been falling. Has it smashed through any cities causing panic? How is it spun by the media, or how is Orbital keeping it out of public attention? Is there a political power struggle over research access, and what do those higher up agency meetings look like? Where and how is the recovered debris being cataloged and stored when it is not used in active research? Who has clearance to it, what is that clearance called/what does it entail, which government retains agency of debris pieces, or does that depend on where Orbital recovers it? This is like first-five-episode-arc lore building and we are nine hit or miss episodes into the season! I need this show to level up if it's taking the route of being clever and cerebral, which it appears to aim at by focusing on the scientific part of sci-fi. If it's goal is to be a small scale, partner ride along weekly mystery with heavy synthetic sound cues, then it needs to pick a tone that takes itself less seriously.

The dialogue is so lackluster and expository. Please get some of the writer's room to focus on making it sharper, quicker, smarter.

The science of debris: George Jones, as some genius mind behind Orbital tech, isn't believable. We don't get to see any part of his professional life in Orbital in the three year lead up to when we meet our characters, he doesn't even have any dialogue when Finola first finds him captive. We have "science-aesthetic" scribbles on a chalkboard and Finola's word that George is a workaholic research savant. It doesn't ring true and by extension some of the "rules" of this Orbital technology seem murky (not as in we learn alongside the characters, but as in the concept seems under developed). George's biggest contribution thus far is a levity critique of Bryan's driving speed. At this point he's a plot device to further Fin's journey, as is DeDe. That's base.

Lack of interest in supporting ensemble: why should I care about Maddox's family crisis, or DeDe's addiction or George's suicide after he was shut out of his own research at Orbital, etc? Again this ties back to previous points of show don't tell, and build a world, maybe use some flashbacks. Make it personal — why is George's research (apart from a generalized better world) so singularly important to him that it breaks his family, what compelled Brian to transition from military service to Orbital? How are different factions within Orbital — like the research team and the field agents — getting along, who's at the very bottom of the barrel or on the very top of the hierarchy?

I want this show to succeed, but I don't get a clear read on what genre they want to be or more importantly what the characters want. Please increase the focus on dialogue, get the basics of want-obstacle-action done right, and then the debris and the conflict it creates can have a bigger impact.

[hussein-allam]

Plato’s Recipe for Disaster

In the “Republic”, Plato argues that a good life can only be achieved by living justly. Justice however is not a straight forward concept and it could mean different things to different people. This conundrum becomes apparent as Plato’s discussion with his companions reveals multiple and often starkly contrasting interpretations. Plato realizes the importance of clearing up the confusion and attempts to pin down exactly what justice entails in order to light the way towards a good life. He proceeds to do that by likening the soul to a city where the best soul will mirror the best city. The devil however is in the details. As Plato constructs his model hypothetical city bit by bit with the goal of structuring a just and virtuous society within it, he arguably puts forward a vision that, if implemented, would produce one of the worst and most powerful tyrannies ever conceived.

Plato’s city contains three distinct classes of citizens: the rulers (guardians), the auxiliaries (a professional military), and the working class (laborers, traders, agriculturalists, etc.). The rulers, who are highly educated and knowledgeable, correspond to the rational decision making component of the soul; the auxiliaries symbolize the spirited part which is responsible for anger and impulsiveness; while the working class represents the appetites and bodily needs that tug at the soul. The interplay between these three components and the delineation of responsibilities amongst them, if done in a balanced and harmonious way, results in a temperate city or soul.

Temperance in the soul Plato defines as a sort of order in which rationality gains friendly mastery over the base pleasures and appetites. In this, rationality is aided by the soul’s spirited component which steadfastly upholds and empowers it despite the urges of the appetites as they go through pains and pleasures (131). When this happens and rationality is able to maintain a clear perspective about threats and fears a person is said to be courageous. In the context of the city, this translates as the ruling class securing consensual control over the auxiliaries and the workers. The rulers, exercising their fortitude and wisdom, are able to hold the appetite of the masses in check and rule the city to its collective advantage. In this they are aided by the auxiliaries who’s impulsiveness and propensity to lash out is transformed (by their training and education) into courage that is directed against legitimate threats or terrors (115), who’s presence is a force against chaos and rebellion, and who serve to defend the city against outside aggression. The working classes recognize the competence and wisdom of the ruling strata and willingly submit to their authority.

With the three classes thus interacting harmoniously together, not meddling nor encroaching on the others’ roles and responsibilities, justice is achieved (119). This just and harmonious situation guarantees that factions are non-existent within the city allowing its inhabitants to advance together and effectively act in concert (31). Within the context of the just soul, rationality is in control keeping the appetites at bay (neither starving them nor allowing them to run wild) and harnessing the power of the spirited component towards good and temperate actions. The just person is free from internal contradictions, strife, or guilt and is able to function well as an effective and useful member of society. He is able to keep his body healthy by physical exercise and his soul engaged by music and art safeguarding it from mental illness and depression (133). Other benefits accrue as well for the just person: friendship with the gods (which would presumably result in reward on earth and the afterlife); happiness; fulfilling the virtue of the soul by effectively carrying out its duties to rule, deliberate, and take care of things (34); and generally avoiding poor conduct such as theft, betrayal, adultery, and disrespect for elders (132). As a result he will be esteemed by his community and will enjoy a good reputation (293) as his friends and neighbors look up to him as a role model. Furthermore, the just person will, by virtue of the personal balance and harmony he has achieved, will be able to enjoy “the best pleasures and — to the degree possible — the truest” (289). The ‘good life’ is now at hand.

This contrasts sharply with the unjust person who is ruled by his passions and is unable to restrain his spending which causes him to fall into debt and bankruptcy; is abusive to his parents and puts his lovers before them; is driven to steal and expropriate the property of others; and who eventually betrays his country by seeking the aid of its enemies to enslave it (275). Such a person would be the furthest away from happiness and will lead a paranoid and wretched life. This is mirrored in the unjust city which falls into illiberality with all but a few of its citizens becoming enslaved and impoverished (277). Furthermore the unjust city lives in fear (whether imagined or real) of uprisings or raids from neighbors and wars from just cities.

If Plato’s creation of this mythical city had no other purpose than to illustrate the complexities of the soul and how justice might come to be within it, we might be contented with his analysis and accept his methodology. However, in creating this city, Plato laid out a plan for an allegedly superior political system that others may seek to implement literally or that he himself was promoting as a new alternative for Greek society. It is therefore important to dive in and explore the details of this system to establish whether it is indeed harmonious and just.

Plato begins by painting a portrait of normal people working and going about their lives in an urban gathering. As they grow in numbers and seek to improve their quality of life, they begin to expand their territory and possibly take over areas belonging to neighboring towns. Consequently he creates the warrior class to defend the city and aid in its expansion. To do so, he sets up a program of indoctrination that targets children at an early age to mould them as desired. To ensure that his program is successful, he expropriates the cultural heritage of the city and brings it under state control. Traditions and legends that are judged to be inappropriate or stand contrary to the state’s goals are abolished. Only narratives conducive to the creation of a fierce and courageous warrior class are allowed. This is Plato’s first ingredient in his recipe for disaster. He stifles free expression and the arts and allows what amounts to government-directed propaganda to dominate. Additionally, he actively stops talent and creativity from settling in the city and opts instead to “employ a more austere and less pleasant poet and story-teller” one whose “stories fit the patterns we laid down at the beginning, when we undertook to educate our soldiers (79).” Young children with as yet uncritical minds have no choice but to sponge up the official programming which is now devoid of anything that is not consistent with a single minded warrior: “For the young cannot distinguish what is allegorical from what is not. And the beliefs they absorb at that age are difficult to erase and tend to become unalterable” (59).

His next step is to brainwash the citizenry into believing a monumental lie of his own creation which he justifies by stating that he does so for their own good. Using state propaganda he explains that the gods created three kinds of people: those with gold mixed into their souls (the rulers), those with silver (the auxiliaries), and those with iron and bronze (the workers) (100). He thus cements his three-class society into a socially immobile, brainwashed, stratified monstrosity built on falsehoods. Rulers are suddenly ordained by the heavens to rule by virtue of a god-given gilded right to which all the people must submit owing to the inferior metals coursing through their souls.

To ensure that his design is as resilient as possible, Plato decrees that children with potential are selected at a young age and separated into an encampment where they will lead a communal life of training and studying to become auxiliaries and rulers (101). In one fell swoop, gifted children are deprived of their parents. What impact will such an upbringing have on them? Will this create psychologically disturbed adults? It seems that Plato is creating a whole class of orphans – for better or worse. In fact, he goes further and abolishes the nuclear family altogether mandating that “friends share everything in common” (108). Love therefore is eliminated and the union of man and woman is reduced to a superficial fleeting moment arranged with the sole purpose of begetting children. This is a regimented emotional desert-scape that leaves no room for one of the most fundamental forces that define what it means to be human. How could this loveless state-dominated deprivation result in anything but stilted monolithic dysfunctional soldiers? How will just rulers emerge from this aloof class if they have been isolated since childhood from the majority of their people and simply cannot identify with their daily struggles?

Fans of the Republic may counter these arguments by maintaining that Plato’s city is only a model (or in platonic terminology, a form) with its wise benevolent rulers ensuring that the model is adequately insulated against the possibility of devolving into real world historical tyrannies. This position is unsound. A model must take reality and human nature into consideration. It must have in-built checks and balances that safeguard against the all too common tendency of humanity to slip into downward spirals of totalitarianism and malevolent dictatorship.

Plato realizes that his model is not fool proof and is vulnerable to deterioration and cycling into other forms of rule. This vulnerability however results from the rulers’ deviation from the laws that the model has set out for breeding and procreation when “they beget children when they should not” (241). He does not recognize that the rulers together with the system itself are the problem. He does not realize that he has created a blue print for a supercharged puritanical tyranny that is based on an ideology of superiority where the rulers actually believe that they have exclusive monopoly over truth and wisdom. No room is made for any self doubt or questioning voices. No room is made for critical art or journalism that can promote different points of view and expose mistakes.

Given a choice, we should opt to live in a bumbling democracy that makes frequent mistakes yet has the courage (enshrined in its institutions of plurality, professional journalism, and mass education) to confront and correct itself over time than be trapped in Plato’s sterile dystopian elitist city that has no practical chances at establishing long term durable justice. We should rather have our lives be based on difficult truths than on convenient lies; for it is better to be blinded by the sun than let Plato pull us down into his dark ideological cave of ignorance, subservience, and lies.

و كما قال الشاعر في أغنية "هنا القاهرة" لفنان المهرجانات الصاعد مصطفى عنبة:

أنا مجنون مجنون

بس عمري ما كنت زبون

فكك يلا من شغل الهمج

أنت وقعت مع إبن البلد

ابعد مالشمس احسن تتسلق

هنا القاهرة

لينك الأغنية https://youtu.be/2AFqG8xXSSg

لكن يحتسبله انه فتح الموضوع و استفذ التاريخ و بدأ سلسلة من الردود و الردود المضادة المستمرة الي وقتنا هذا

[nirikeehan]

Power, Politics and Star Wars: Armitage Hux Edition

I read this article that tried to explain what Hux did in TROS and justify it and I was just not feeling it so I wrote a whole thing about it. So I thought, why not post it.

https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2019/12/22/star-wars-tros-general-hux/

I just wanna start by saying yes, I understand the logic of what happened in the film as explained by this article. I'm just here to challenge exactly what happened, why, and the article writer's attempts to justify it, because I don't find them to be an accurate summation of Hux's character. 

"It’s not hard to miss that the way The Last Jedi framed his character was very different from what we saw in The Force Awakens. At first, it almost felt as though he was a completely different character, having gone from Nazi-like general to an officer everyone refused to take seriously."

Right, and I think it's worth trying to examine why that shift in portrayal happened – behind the scenes. The writing changed hands from TFA with Lawrence Kasdan & JJ Abrams to Rian Johnson. So, clearly Johnson decided to go in a different direction with Hux. But why? Was it a continuing ploy to "subvert expectations" like he did so much in TLJ? Hence, if Hux was big and scary in the first film (obvious Nazi parallels in imagery and speech, commits literal genocide while hordes of stormtroopers look on), he had to be... silly, ineffectual and easily mocked in the second? Why?

Maybe it fits into a larger theme with Rian Johnson's writing, like... it seems like authority figures can (and should, maybe?) not be taken seriously? Think of all the authority figures in the Last Jedi. With the notable exception of Leia (who has such an iconic history) and Holdo I guess (random insert without much substance in my opinion), every single character who is, could be or once was in a position of power is cut down to size in some way. 

Luke Skywalker - crotchety old man. 

Poe - too hotheaded, needs to learn his place. 

Kylo - emo boy in a mask. 

Hux - butt of yo mama jokes. 

Snoke - literally cut in half. 

While I like this technique in some ways (I think I'm in the minority as someone who actually liked Luke being a disillusioned asshole lol, I thought it made him more interesting; and pointing out the obvious that Kylo is a conflicted try hard made him way more human and relatable to me), doing it to this extent was excessive. Especially in a film series that is supposed to have clearly defined villains. While I like the murder of Snoke because it was unexpected and it let Kylo actually have some agency to try to take over the galaxy on his own, you can't do it with every villain, or the audience isn't going to think anything is at stake anymore. So it always played really weird to me that Hux was taken from General Genocide to the target of slapstick humor. Which brings me to the next point...

"Looking back, it’s possible to interpret this as the result of how other characters viewed and treated him from that point forward, rather than an actual drastic change to the way he was portrayed. It’s possible that after Starkiller Base, the masses lost great respect for him — on both sides. He is no longer a man to fear. He’s General Hugs. He doesn’t scare anyone."

I just don't see how this is possible, to be honest. Like yeah, Starkiller base was lost, but surely not before it destroyed the entire Hosnian system, which, from what I understand, contained the entire seat of New Republic government. So I assume that means the president, vice president, whoever else was in the executive branch, all of the Senate, etc etc. Like imagine some terrorist leader called down a laser from space and obliterated all of Washington, D.C. while the President and all staff were in the White House, Congress was in session and the Supreme Court was hearing cases. We'd be like, oh my god, everyone's gone, we have no federal government, what the fuck. Even if the American army managed to destroy the weapon that did it, there'd still be basically irreparable damage to the very structure of the government and its ability to function. (Sounds like the plot of a future Michael Bay movie, but I digress.) 

The point is, whoever was responsible for the attack would probably still be pretty fearsome to the masses. And in Hux's case, considering his goal in TFA seems to be to usurp the New Republic and replace it with the First Order, at the end of the first film, he seems to be in a perfect position to do exactly that... which is why I was super confused as to why he spent TLJ chasing down like 30 rebels, who were already basically defeated?? Like, now would have been the time to take over! Don't just leave that power vacuum sitting there, buddy! Someone else is gonna fill it if you don't! (More proof I don't think Rian Johnson has cracked many history books, but the lack of coherent political framework is a major failing of the sequels in general, so it's not all entirely on his shoulders. He did seem like he was trying to engage with some of these ideas i.e. Canto Bight illustrating the evils of the military industrial complex, but they fell so flat because he just wasn't that informed about the socio-political commentary he was trying to make.) 

"This is further evidenced by the way Kylo Ren treats him the moment he becomes Supreme Leader of the First Order. Kylo quite literally begins pushing him around, constantly putting him in his place, belittling him, and making him look incompetent and expendable."

LOL this is such a fundamental misinterpretation of Kylo and Hux's relationship at the end of TLJ. Kylo didn't start pushing Hux around because everyone had lost respect for his authority. Kylo starts pushing Hux around because Kylo killed Snoke and took the Supreme Leader role himself, giving himself a BIG promotion over Hux. He went from like, army commander to freaking king. He's on a power trip, trying to assert his authority not just over Hux, but literally everyone in the First Order. The dialogue (handily linked by the article above) between them after Snoke's death very clearly states this:

Hux: Who do you think you're talking to? You presume to command my army? Our Supreme Leader is dead! We have no ruler!

Kylo: *starts choking him* The Supreme Leader is dead.

Hux: *choking* Long live the Supreme Leader. 

Kylo is subduing Hux by violence and coercion and filling the power vacuum himself (see, that's what happens to power vacuums, usually the most brutal asshole around arrives to fill it!). That's not something Hux brought upon himself in any way; it's something Kylo took by force. Hux isn't the only one following Kylo's orders by the Battle of Crait, the rest of the First Order army is also because they're all too terrified of Kylo to question him. Somehow making this only about Hux and Kylo as individuals is a really narrow-minded, boring interpretation of pretty much my favorite part of TLJ. 

"And here lies the deep change within Hux that leads us into The Rise of Skywalker. General Hux knew he would never regain anyone’s respect. He knew that Kylo Ren would continue to publicly humiliate him. He knew his chances of ever being able to regain power in the traditional sense were lost."

I still don't see how this is possible, especially since as far as I know there's no supplementary canon material to back this idea up. The article writer is grasping at straws trying to make sense of TROS's nonsensical character choices for Hux. There's all sorts of ways Hux could still regain power. I don't even know what "in the traditional sense" means? Hoping for a promotion, maybe? Sure, he could suck up to Kylo and make himself invaluable to Kylo's continued status as Supreme Leader (this is the route I took in my fanfic, since it seemed pretty plausible; Hux is set up to be the brain to Kylo's brawn). He could have Kylo assassinated and take over himself. He could recruit a whole faction of people to mutiny against Kylo. He could even sell out Kylo to the Resistance, sure, which I guess is what he was doing in TROS, but all of that is still in service of regaining power for himself.

"Hux is so angry with Kylo Ren, and filled with so much rage toward all he is and all he stands for, that he decides it does not matter which side of the war wins as long as the Supreme Leader isn’t on the winning team."

Again, I don't think this has shown to be true at all before TROS. By all appearances, Hux's goal has always been obtaining power, and the supplementary canon with his backstory seems to support this. There's so much with his father being an old Imperial and Hux growing up with the old imperial ideology and the belief that returning to some semblance of the Empire would be the most ideal outcome of the First Order's war on the New Republic. And by this logic, shouldn't Hux be thrilled by the (totally outlandish) possibility that Emperor Palpatine himself would come back to rule? Imagine all the Nazi holdovers after World War II finding out Hitler had RISEN FROM THE DEAD. They'd probably be pretty excited, no? 

But this is why reducing Hux's character to some petty asshole who has no personal values or larger ideology and just "wants to see Kylo Ren lose" is so dumb and boring to me. It means he literally no longer cares about his own personal ambitions or that of his larger ideological ones. Everything he worked for his whole life, countless hours of blood, sweat and tears, deciding to commit genocide of billions of innocent people to get the galaxy to fall in line with his vision........ amounts to literally nothing. As long as Kylo loses their little schoolyard tiff. 

Nah, I don't buy it. 

But this just speaks to generally larger problems in the sequel trilogy with the writers not having a strong grasp on the mechanisms of political power in the universe they're working with. In the films, who's fighting who and why has always been painfully vague and often confusing (why wasn't the Resistance just the New Republic army in TFA? etc), but while at least Rian Johnson used TLJ to try to engage with some of these questions of politics and power – albeit at times with cringeworthy naïveté  – TROS abandons it completely. It never once clarifies who's actually in charge here. Ostensibly it should be Kylo since he’s still got the title “Supreme Leader” in the opening scrawl, but he's running around chasing zombie Palpy! And the First Order is still very obviously still just a military operation focusing on the Resistance, so are all of the galaxy's sectors just... self-governing right now? If so, why? 

TROS's complete abandonment of the notion that anyone in this universe could even want power was completely baffling to me. It's always about power. The original trilogy was about power. Even the prequels were about power (to a micromanage-y, super boring degree. Embargoes! Trade disputes! Senate meetings with votes of no confidence!) To bring Palpatine back from the dead to make him some weirdo with a death cult who just wants the whole galaxy to die (I guess?)... none of that's compelling to me. And it seems to completely misunderstand (or willingly sidestep) any kind of interesting real world parallels, of which the original trilogy had plenty (and the 90s era EU/Legends novels in particular were really good at engaging with, probably why they're my favorite entries in the whole franchise). Which does play into my cynical suspicion that TROS was deliberately sterilized of any potential political commentary by Disney to appease the increasingly authoritarian governments in their international market. Can't have those pesky human rights cutting into their profits. :/