watching the original star wars after watching the prequels is Good, specifically because everyone’s suddenly acting like the jedi are these ancient cryptids even though they were the Wizard Cops less than 20 literal years ago.
this is kind of reasonable in the imperial context (where there are probably strict orders from above that the Jedi Never Existed And Anyone Who Thinks Otherwise Will Be Unpleasantly Re-Educated) and for Han Solo (man’s probably never read a newspaper in his life).
but Motti.
Motti calls the Wizard Cops a “sad ancient religion” when there are like full-on reports of them collapsing buildings with their brain in living memory, to the face of a former Wizard Cop who demonstrably doesn’t have a sense of humour. and he’s totally shocked when the dude chokes him out. that’s just amazing honestly.
Okay so something that amuses me deeply is the idea that Motti is just a massive idiot. It’s not that nobody remembers that they live in a universe where wizards with laser swords exist, it’s that Motti personally doesn’t have object permanence. It’s not even that he was too young, he had to have been like 20 when the Jedi Purge happened.
The general populace looks at Vader and goes “yeah, that’s… that’s definitely a witch.” They know he’s got magic powers; they can use, like, context clues. This is a universe where combat is accomplished primarily with firearms, and Vader’s whole job is to do martial engagement with only a laser sword: they get it, they can infer. Motti’s just the odd one out: he looks at this walking nightmare and goes “oh well I’m an admiral and he doesn’t have any bars on his uniform, I can tell him his stupid religion is fake.” Motti, you huge dumbass!
My favorite thing abut Motti is the short story “An Incident Report” by Mallory Ortberg in which Motti writes a strongly worded letter to his superiors objecting to the whole situation.
“Whatever conclusions you ultimately draw about the incident taking place between myself and Lord Vader during yesterday morning’s briefing, he was wrong, and trying to crush someone else’s windpipe doesn’t make you any less wrong, if you’re wrong to begin with. Which he was. I do not concede the argument.“
Vader force chokes Motti and the first thing the man can think to do is COMPLAIN TO HR!
Oh, it is an absolutely splendid story and that one paragraph does not even begin to cover the weaseling he does in trying to explain himself and get Vader in trouble.
I feel like probably Vader has more HR complaints against him than every other member of the Empire put together
i'll apple your turnover 