#and I like certain prequels era expanded universe material

[the-far-bright-center]

For the last 8 years now, it’s been exceedingly lonely being a SW fan who is legitimately content with the Prequels and Original Trilogy as my only actual canon. The story is perfect to me as it is, and I simply cannot relate to people who constantly clamour for ‘more’.

[gffa]

One thing that I just came to realize about Star Wars in the wake of the end of TCW is that expanded universe stuff has expanded and humanized both the clones and the world in the CIS, making us see that it wasn't a black and white conflict, but rather that there good and bad people on both sides of the conflict and that the conflict itself was far more complex then we first understand and that everyone had a good reason to fight. (1)

And as far as I know, Resistance and some of the comics and such set in the Sequel era has shown that there were at least some good people in the First Order. I found it interesting that the SW crew hasn't fleshed out the Empire or the Stormtroopers the same way that they did the Prequel era. But then I realized that the conflicts actually were quite different and it really was a much more black and white conflict in the OT. (2) Rebels VS Empire is a fundamentally different fight compared to Separatists VS Republic. Because in the latter, it's people with genuine gripes and problems and people that are good but refuse to open their eyes to the corrupt that they wade through. While the former is freedom fighters versus racist oppressors and tyrants. Sure, there are people like Maketh Tua, which I would say is a pretty human portrayal of a nice Imperial, but for the most part. The empire is pure evil. (Last.)

There actually has been similar things for the Empire! It’s been along the lines of what we’ve seen in Resistance and other ST supplementary material--that there are good people within the Empire, who just don’t realize how bad it really is, and some people who just take awhile to make better choices. I would argue the movie Solo is a great example of this, where Han isn’t a bad person, but he joins the Empire because he needs a way off Corellia.  The Han Solo - Imperial Cadet comic shows that there are other decent people within the Empire, too. Lost Stars has Ciena Ree, who is deeply devoted to the Empire, despite being a really good person. From a Certain Point of View has a couple of short stories from the point of view of Stormtroopers, where they’re really not bad people, they just don’t see another choice. Alphabet Squadron showed us Yrica Quell as a reasonably late defector, who wasn’t a bad person, but found that the Empire offered more and she just never found the right time to leave, until it was almost too late. Servants of the Empire expands further on the Leonis family (from Rebels) who felt the Empire was putting food on the table and saw them in a good faith light and had no idea what they were actually doing on Lothal, that they are good people who just don’t know what their government is really up to. I think you could argue that Rae Sloane--at least in “Bottleneck” or maybe A New Dawn--was a decent person for awhile, at the very least she saw the Empire as something that should have been noble and hated what she knew of the dirtier aspects of it, and that she saw it as her only way out of a miserable existence on a dirt poor world. Resistance’s Imanuel Doza was part of the Empire and reasonably high ranked until his wife got him to defect. Battlefront II has Iden Versio is deeply loyal to the Empire, until Operation Cinder happens and then she defects to the Rebels because they attacked Vardos, her home planet. Bloodline had Ransolm Casterfo talking to Leia about how Riosa had been loyal to the Empire, despite the forced labor camps enacted on them, because at least it put food on the table, and a lot of worlds during the New Republic maintained at least something of an appreciation for how the Empire made the trains run on time. So, there’s definitely been a similar pattern of establishing that there are “good” Imperials who either don’t know what their government is up to or they’re just trying to make it through the day because they don’t see any other options for themselves. What’s interesting is that the movies rarely do any of this worldbuilding (aside from, arguably, Solo) and even TCW never really does much to actually show us good people in the Separatists.  There’s Mina Bonteri, possibly Onaconda Farr, and maybe Onderon would count?  Though, the latter two were forced into it, either by desperate circumstances or they were forced into it.  Did Rogue One establish that Cassian was a Separatist or was that in supplementary material?  I can’t remember now! The only reason we really know much about the Separatists’ legitimate gripes is that Star Wars Propaganda told us about it, it really hasn’t come up in many stories, has it?  While the pro-Empire and pro-First Order characters have had a lot more stories told in canon stories, rather than in guidebooks and such, which is fascinating, given that the Separatists have arguably the best case, if you ignore that their army was doing things that are just as evil as the Empire!

[tigerlover16-uk]

In a way its really wierd to me how angry people get over Super. It's clearly just trying to be a simple comedy action series aimed at kids. Though I suppose there is the ageold ruining my childhood thing. But it doesn't really strike me as very provocative to inspire such strong negative feelings. Im just mostly looking at what it's trying to be. It doesnt strike me as tryhard either. The most powerful being is a audience selfinsert that just wants to have fun. Its so selfaware on many levels.

A lot of people obsess over Dragon Ball and want it to remain this (In their heads) perfect, untouched work of art I think. I’ve never agreed with that sentiment, but Dragon Ball IS one of the most iconic and influential anime and mangas of all time and has a special place in millions of peoples hearts. With that kind of pedigree, I get a lot of people having very high standards for any kind of a follow up.

There are legitimate grievances to be had with Super, and plenty of things that can theoretically go wrong with continuing Dragon Ball’s story (Just look at GT for proof of that).

So it’s perfectly reasonable to have concerns… but, unfortunately the Dragon Ball fandom has the same problem as the Star Wars fandom, Sonic fandom, and really a lot of other major fandoms out there: They let their nostalgia and obsession with the series get completely out of hand, and treat every mistake, big or small, as a sign that the end times have come and that the series is ruined forever.

Some of this does come from nitpicky aspects of the series that only certain obsessive fans actually care about and the majority of viewers are actually casually ignorant to (Like power scaling), some of it does come from places of genuine concern (Animation issues and messed up production early on, stuff like the Future Trunks saga ending, the show running in circles with certain characters rather than letting them progress further, etc), but a lot of it is, frankly, people just wanting an excuse to complain because “It’s not like Z!”.

As someone who grew up with the Star Wars Prequels and 3D era Sonic games, and prefers them to both franchises earlier outings (Mostly… 06 WAS a complete mess, nostalgia aside), I tend to have little sympathy for people whining about how a flawed sequel has completely ruined their favourite series and thus their childhood forever. 

And while I do sympathise with more reasonable fans who have fair reasons for disliking it, I think people in general are being incredibly myopic if they think that Super can actually damage Dragon Ball as a whole.

Like, you want to know why I keep comparing it to the Prequel Trilogy? Because for all the handwringing from petulant manbabies about how their precious (Dated and somewhat overrated, FTR) sacred movies had supposedly been ruined forever… the movies didn’t actually hurt Star Wars much in the long run, let’s be honest.

The Original Trilogy still exists. They’re the same movies they’ve always been, and if you don’t like the Prequels you’re free to ignore them and enjoy the original three movies for what they are, since they do function as a self contained story. There’s still plenty of tie in material from the old and new EU for people who want MORE Star Wars content not related to the Prequels too.

And on that note, we’ve had PLENTY of good Star Wars content since the Prequels came out too, with the tv series Star Wars: The Clone Wars frequently being hailed as one of the greatest works in the entire franchise, if not one of the best cartoons ever made, with some Prequel detractors even arguing it SALVAGED those movies. And let’s not forget how the first installment of the sequel trilogy became the first franchise film to gross over $2 Billion at the box office.

That’s not even getting into the fact that the Prequels also brought in a whole generation of new fans and lead to their love of the franchise, myself included.

For whatever problems the Prequels had (Real, imagined or grossly exaggerated), in the long run… Star Wars was fine. 

Even now with the Last Jedi, which many argue is a horrible movie that hurts the overall story of the Star Wars Saga (Funnily enough, I’m actually in that camp this time), I think similar logic applies. I, and other fans may not like it or a lot of stuff the Sequel Trilogy has done, and with stuff like Solo the Star Wars franchise may be going through a bit of a rough patch in terms of public interest at the moment… but honestly, I don’t think things are going to be bad forever.

People will eventually move on with their lives. People who don’t like the Sequel Trilogy can move on and enjoy the old movies while pretending they don’t exist, and enjoying whatever other spin offs they like, while fans who do like the Sequel Trilogy and modern star wars content can look forward to more stuff they enjoy. 

I can complain about certain directions the series has taken, but as someone who’s endured having people tell me that my childhood favourites ruined their lives (To which I have to say… please go outside and get some air, for Christ’s sake), I have no interest in wangsting about the state of things when I have a lot of better things I should be doing.

That’s not to say no one should complain of course, there are legitimate failings to the Sequel Trilogy and Last Jedi in particular and people have every right to complain (As long as they’re not the toxic fanbrats whining about the “SJW AGENDA!” And bulling the cast, those people can jump off a cliff along with the people who bullied Jake Lloyd and drove Ahmed Best to contemplate suicide). In fact, it’s a good thing for people to be critical since actually constructive criticism is necessary and good feedback for studios responsible for these pop culture franchises.

Going back to Dragon Ball, I personally enjoy Super. I think it’s done a lot of good things, though also had various missteps along the way. But despite those issues and while I hope future works take steps to fix and improve on things, I’m fairly happy with the current state of the franchise and eager for more.

I do think you have a point too, anon. Super itself isn’t honestly trying to be anything revolutionary or even on Z’s level. If you actually examine the show as a whole, it’s basically extended filler that mostly serves to expand the universe, create a big sandbox for future stories to possibly build on, and further develop several characters. The only time it really tried to do anything particularly ambitious was in the Future Trunks saga, where we had villains who questioned the state of humanity and there was an ideological battle going on between them and our heroes, mostly Future Trunks.

Other than that though? We got two movie retellings that were basically self-contained conflicts, a small-stakes tournament that mostly served to introduce a bunch of new recurring characters, and a multiversal tournament that, while it did do some interesting thematic stuff here and there… was mostly an excuse to introduce EVEN MORE new characters, give old ones a chance to shine and develop some more, and have a lot of cool looking fights.

Super isn’t really trying to be Z. It just wants to be a fun show for kids and which nostalgic fans can hopefully enjoy. If anything, I think it was mostly a test run to see whether continuing the franchise with more stories beyond the occasional movie was viable.

There’s certainly gripes to be had, but really Super’s status as a fill-in for a time gap in the Z anime to me just makes it feel a lot more low risk than an immediate sequel to the end of Z, since things do still end the same way they did regardless at the moment. It exists for fans to enjoy if they want to, but it can be easily ignored for fans who don’t and prefer the previous series.

And personally, I don’t think it’s really possible to truly “Ruin” Dragon Ball because the story already got an ending. The original manga, and the two anime adapting it, are a complete story on their own. One with a very open ending that leaves the door open for future stories, yes, but it’s a complete story nonetheless. Whatever directions future series may take, good or bad, it’ll never truly change the story as it originally was, because that manga and it’s anime will always exist for people to enjoy as it was intended.

I hate GT and I’ve complained about it plenty, but while I have very personal reasons for why it annoys me… at the end of the day, it’s irrelevant now. We got a different continuation that ignores it, it’s divorced enough from the original canon that I can just go about my days pretending it doesn’t exist, and I got my closure over it with that last re-watch sorting out my feelings on the series. 

So, really, flawed as it is there’s nothing to be REALLY mad about, is there? It exists, but it doesn’t do me any real harm, and it’s there for people who do enjoy it (For whatever weird reason, lol) to watch at their leisure. So in effect, it’s harmless… or at least it will be once we get another post-EoZ series to prove it didn’t completely close the door on those being made.

Dragon Ball’s kind of lucky in that way. It got to a point where it had a satisfying resolution where it can hopefully stand the test of time as a classic work of fiction, but people who want more still have the opportunity for that. 

And people who don’t think it should continue, or just don’t like those continuations, are free to not watch those works and enjoy the series the way they want to. Or, even if they don’t like Super, it’s still possible a better series or other products like movies can be made down the line that they can enjoy better.

Just like with Star Wars and the Sonic games.

I may have issues with Super from time to time, but overall I think it did a lot more good than bad, and most of it’s faults could be improved on in future series. The worst thing it actually did was destroying the original future timeline, but even that’s fixable if they just have another story with Future Trunks coming back and have somebody go “Hey, maybe we can use the Super Dragon Balls to bring your timeline back”. 

I get having personal attachment to the series and it’s characters, I do too. And I get people getting emotional when they feel something they like is being disrespected in any way. If people think the show handled Goku’s character badly or did something to hurt the overall ongoing story, then they’re within their right to complain and be upset about that. TO A REASONABLE EXTENT.

I do also get the feeling a lot of people just can’t handle Dragon Ball having a flawed follow up, aswell. Given that Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z are influential classics, it makes sense that a lot of people would be unhappy with anything that didn’t live up to that quality. But I think some people do get overly worked up about it.

Fact is, all franchises have both flawed installments, and a number of duds to show for them. Star Trek has bad movies and the bad series here or there (Enterprise). Doctor Who has had bad seasons. Marvel and DC have had plenty of bad comics and media adaptions. Mario and Sonic and Pokémon and lots of others have had bad games or adaptions. But that hasn’t ruined everything that was good about those series, or stopped them from putting out good new content.

Every piece of media has it’s flaws to be frank, and every franchise will inevitably stumble here or there. Dragon Ball has had plenty of duds before Super. The Broly movies, GT, Return of Cooler, Episode of Bardock, a bunch of bad video games most people don’t even bother to remember, FREAKING DRAGON BALL EVOLUTION. And plenty of stuff about the old series themselves has aged terribly (Especially in early Dragon Ball). But none of that has managed to kill the franchise.

We’ve had bad, mediocre and decent though heavily flawed Dragon Ball stories and products in the past, and we’ll have plenty more in the future. And while there’ll be stuff that is worth griping about, really at the end of the day it’s not the end of the world, and people who do get legitimately angry thinking it is need to relax now and again.

I get people thinking that things should have just stayed the way there were, thinking that Dragon Ball shouldn’t have been continued if that continuation wasn’t going to live up to it’s predecessors. And I’m never going to argue that people shouldn’t complain about things (I certainly do).

But realistically, Dragon Ball was going to have follow ups sooner or later. It’s the biggest franchise Toei and Shueisha have, and one of the most iconic series of all time. Whether I or anyone else thinks Dragon Ball needed a follow up or not, it was bound to happen because we live in a world where milking popular franchises is the name of the game. 

People can complain about it, people can and should have issues with flawed products. People can insist on Dragon Ball’s legacy needing to be preserved. But like I’ve said... the series as you loved it isn’t going anywhere. No one is obligated to support everything the franchise does. So I don’t think getting overly angry or worked up about Super or GT or whatever not being everything they wanted them to be is something to freak out over.

Fact is, for all the complaints... a lot of people still love Super and enjoyed it. A lot of people still love Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Super has brought Toei nothing but monetary success, and interest in the franchise is at the highest it’s been since Z finished airing in the West over a decade ago and the franchise went truly dormant for the most part. If anything, I think Dragon Ball actually gets more respect these days than it did for most of the latter half of the last decade, where it became sort of an internet laughing stock in the West.

We’re still getting plenty of high profile and quality products, like FighterZ, which along with Super itself and the movies preceding it has helped draw in a lot of new fans and brought back a good chunk of lapsed ones. There’s a generation of children the world over that are going to have grown up on Super as their first Dragon Ball series, and it’ll be an important part of helping them get into the franchise and the previous series, much like Kai before it. 

And we’ve got a new movie coming out that’s generating a lot of hype and which looks to be giving the franchise a much needed and exceptionally positive visual overhaul, which it’s needed for a while now.

For all the ups and downs, and there have been plenty... Dragon Ball is doing fine. Regardless of what any individual person thinks of Super, Dragon Ball’s legacy isn’t in any danger. The franchise isn’t collapsing, and the overall story and all of it’s characters haven’t been completely ruined beyond repair.

Things could be better. But Z and Dragon Ball could have been better in a lot of places too. It’s okay to be unsatisfied about the current state of things and to voice complaints, as much as it’s okay to be loving the thrill of having Dragon Ball really make a comeback.

Things will be fine. With Super currently off the air, I think now’s the time for everyone to just take a chill and relax. The world didn’t end, and it’s not going to any time soon. (Well, unless Trump throws a hissy fit and launches nukes at everyone but, you know, hopefully that won’t happen).

[the-far-bright-center]

Well said! I actually have greatly enjoyed aspects of both shows, my only problem arises when other fans want to treat them as 100% canon on the same level of the PT x OT films. My own approach to anything that isn’t the Prequels or Original Trilogy has always been to view it as optional supplementary material — whether it be Lucas-era Expanded Universe or current Disney stuff, I don’t just accept it point-blank as part of canon. Like you say, I’m inclined to absorb the aspects of these things that align with the Lucas canon (or even enhance it, in some cases!), but then will reject anything that is too silly/OOC or that outright contradicts the themes of the saga. I guess the issue is that some people don’t notice or care if certain portrayals/scenes/dialogue is OOC, and are therefore happy to just accept everything that is now labelled by Disney as ‘Star Wars’ as being on the same level of canon. It didn’t used to be that way — even the Expanded Universe in pre-Disney era had ‘tiered’ levels of canon. The core canon always being the main Lucas films, and the animated tv series being next level down, followed by the books, comics, etc. Disney has actually made things more confusing (and destructive) by insisting that everything g they label as canon is all on the same level. It’s just not possible or fair to insist on that — imo, they only do so to encourage fans to consume as much SW content as possible. It used to be something that was understood as optional and secondary to the main story. Whether people like it or not, the Skywalker saga (PT x OT) is the story that the entire world-building of the Star Wars universe revolves around, and unless the various creators who have come after Lucas respect the saga and it’s characters, any other additions will fall flat. We as fans can’t control what the current SW writers do, but we can still pick and choose what we personally accept as canon, rather than just sit back passively and assume we’re required to believe something is canon just because Disney says it is.

Anakin: stubs his foot and gets angry about it.

The Clone Wars cartoon: CUE THE VADER THEME!!!!!!!

[aion-rsa]

Terminator 2 and Why the Summer of 1991 Was a Great Time for Movies

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For more than a minute there, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s metallic exoskeleton appeared unstoppable. With a glowing red-eye that became the stuff of nightmares and then action figures (we’re serious), the T-800 entered the ‘90s like a wrecking ball. No matter what they threw at him, and no matter what obstacles got in his way, the cyborg did not pause, it did not rest, and it seemed to be everywhere.

Ironically, this also applied to more than just the Terminator’s onscreen antics. In the summer of 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day was an indestructible money-sucking machine that conquered the box office four weekends in a row in July, and then miraculously hung on to its boffo target long enough to also become the number one movie in America for a weekend in September.

It was an R-rated entertainment that was technically a sequel, yet also a standalone science fiction thriller that captured the imagination of adults as readily as teenagers. In other words, you could say they don’t make them quite like that anymore. And when looking back 30 years on to the era that birthed director James Cameron’s action masterpiece, I cannot help but somewhat envy the year’s wider definition of “summer movie entertainment” (or “content” in the modern parlance).

To be sure, Terminator 2 was king for a reason. Seven years after the release of the original sci-fi thriller, which made Cameron a go-to genre director, T2 hit audiences like a ton of bricks, with many to this day considering it superior to its predecessor. Here was a movie which pivoted away from Linda Hamilton’s scared survivor in The Terminator and ran toward her embodying a shotgun-wielding matriarch who became an instant feminist icon. The movie was also a sincere spectacle for an audience unaccustomed to computer imagery; Cameron blended groundbreaking CGI with in-camera stunts in a way that is still nifty three decades on.

In retrospect, T2 was both a harbinger for things to come—a sequel borne out of a brand name and nascent special effects—as well as a monument to an impulse that has gone largely extinct in Hollywood: to push the envelope in unexpected directions.

Terminator 2 might’ve been the unrivaled box office champ in summer ‘91, earning $204 million, but the same summer also saw the releases of Thelma & Louise, City Slickers, Boyz n the Hood, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, What About Bob?, Jungle Fever, Point Break, Backdraft, and The Rocketeer. Each multiplex was a rich ecosystem of competing genres, niches, and audience interests. And with the exception of The Rocketeer, every single one of those aforementioned films was a major box office hit, with nearly all of them going on to have legacies ranging from the profound to the cult.

For instance, consider Thelma & Louise, the R-rated buddy film about two women (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) who go on a road trip-turned-crime spree. It opened in fourth place that Memorial Day weekend, grossing less than Hudson Hawk in the same frame. The picture never topped the box office charts once, but it was able to do steady business the entire summer, nearly tripling its $16.5 million budget. On those meager week-to-week numbers, it even found a large enough audience to enter the zeitgeist and become a significant cinematic touchstone for a generation of audiences who embraced a fable where women kill an abuser and refuse to bend to society’s demands. It also made Brad Pitt an instant movie star, despite being in a third billed part.

Thelma & Louise was able to carve that legacy despite being dwarfed by the likes of T2 throughout the summer, and before Arnold there was City Slickers, which is itself one of Billy Crystal’s best comedies—this one about middle-aged New Yorkers playing cowboys. City Slickers, in turn, became an Oscar-winning crowd-pleaser despite spending most of its release in the shadow of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which was the second biggest blockbuster of the year. And for all its faults, the Kevin Costner Robin Hood is still fondly remembered as a grand adventure by millennials of a certain age range, despite it never setting up a sequel, prequel, or expanded universe. It even had an unusually dark soul for a blockbuster romp meant for the whole family.

These are just a handful of examples of what was then considered box office material. Perhaps most striking though is John Singleton’s groundbreaking Boyz n the Hood, which became a surprise hit when it opened in second place among original releases on July 12 (behind Terminator 2). It went on to be one of the 20 highest grossing movies of the year. Today, its bittersweet subject matter about young Black men growing up in South Central would instantly consign the film to streaming or being placed in an arthouse box, which would mean it’d need to premiere at Sundance or several other high-profile film festivals in order to secure distribution and an awards campaign that could draw speciality audiences’ attention. In the ‘90s, Columbia Pictures bought Singleton’s script while he was still in school.

When looking at this three decades later, it would be too easy to fall into golden age thinking or pretend things were strictly better “back then.” Nostalgia is a dangerous delusion, especially for an era you weren’t really there for (I was technically around in ’91, but too young to see The Rocketeer, much less Terminator 2). And yet, when studying recent anniversaries from that era, I’m struck by the variety of stories being told. There’s a genuine sense of diversity, in the classical sense, with numerous audiences, age ranges, and even genres being serviced. Yes, there are the big action spectacles, but there are also adult-skewing thrillers, small budgeted Black dramas selling a significant amount of tickets, and even the long-lost romantic comedy.

Of course nowadays, the industry and (more crucially) audiences are striving to see a greater sense of inclusivity and ethnic diversity be embraced by talent in front of and behind the camera. The success of Singleton’s Boyz is remarkable, and in the same summer as one of Spike Lee’s best films, Jungle Fever, no less. Kathryn Bigelow, meanwhile, showed up her then-newly ex-husband James Cameron by helming one of the brawniest action movies ever made, Point Break. However, almost every other box office draw and mainstream Hollywood release in ’91 was directed by a white man, and starred nearly all-white faces.

In many ways, the opportunities for who gets to tell what stories have and are continuing to dramatically improve. But when it comes to what kind of stories the culture at large wants to see, the options appear to be shrinking by the day. There is a greater diversity of voices in front of and behind the cameras, particularly in the niche-focused market of streaming where films come and vanish into the aether every week. But unless your picture stars someone wearing a cape, or features the word “Fast” and/or “Jurassic” in the title, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get audiences to show up—which in turn limits our options every summer as studios seek safer bets that open big and earn most of their mint in the first weekend.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

In a recent Indie Film Hustle podcast, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves director Kevin Reynolds talked about how the attitude of the industry has changed, then and now.

“In the ‘90s, the studios were healthy, we were still shooting on film,” Reynolds said. “People saw it as a golden time, anything was possible. There’s a lot of fear now. There’s a lot of fear because things are not as lucrative as they once were. Sadly, I think theatrical cinema is dying. You can pretend that it’s not, God bless Chris Nolan and his adherence to film as a medium, real film. But it’s going away, the digital age is here.”

And the way corporate-owned companies that are merging into ever greater oligarchal behemoths have reacted to that is to rely increasingly on preexisting material, previously established brands, and familiar content until that’s all there is.

Ignoring the two most recent summers, which have been impacted by the pandemic, the last “normal” summer at the box office was 2019. In that season, nine of the top 10 highest grossing pictures were sequels, spinoffs, remakes, or video game adaptations, including Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Hobbs And Shaw, and Detective Pikachu. Several were actually remakes of ‘90s movies—The Lion King and Aladdin—and the one original film to just barely crack the top 10 only got a Hollywood budget and eight-figure marketing campaign because of the legacy of its middle-aged director: Quentin Tarantino.

When you widen the prism for the whole year of 2019, the only other film among the year’s top 20 highest earners that isn’t a sequel, Marvel movie, or remake is Jordan Peele’s Us.

The conventional wisdom is that nothing but franchises will make money now, and whether true or not that fear makes the chance for something as diverse as the summer of 1991 ever coming to mainstream multiplexes again remote.

Considering all of that on Terminator 2’s 30th anniversary is ironic since that movie itself is a sequel, and one which Hollywood returns to time and again, hoping to draw yet more blood from the stone. However, Cameron tellingly knew when to stop. He made a sequel that stunned the industry and finished his story, then walked away, spending the rest of the decade preparing more original projects that linger in the culture decades later: True Lies and a little movie called Titanic. Between film and television, the industry has meanwhile produced five different versions of “Terminator 3,” with none of them having a residual impact after opening weekend or season 1.

But then that’s also the danger of only looking to the past: You never see the risk of diminishing returns in old things, especially while in the absence of anything new.

The post Terminator 2 and Why the Summer of 1991 Was a Great Time for Movies appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[the-far-bright-center]

eventually, even stars burn out

“Sometimes there are things no one can fix.”

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve become increasingly concerned that my days in the SW fandom (or at least, the tumblr side of it) may be numbered.

I very much hope I’m wrong about this. So, on the slight chance that it might help somehow, I’ll try to explain why I feel this way right now.

As most of you know, I have an extremely fraught and complicated relationship with Disney’s so-called ‘new canon’ material, which all began when TFA left me so heartbroken that I’ve been unable to trust anyone at all with Star Wars ever since. I struggle to believe that the Skywalker saga will ever be treated with the adequate respect and care that it requires, and I fear that new material will only attempt to further erode its original mythic meaning....just so the ‘story’ can be continued on indefinitely. It is therefore difficult if not impossible for me to be excited about ‘new canon’ content, because ever since TFA I view every single piece of SW media released by Disney with (imo warranted) mistrust and skepticism.

After a certain SW animated series ended earlier this year, I had thought I would finally be free from the strain of constantly worrying about ‘new’ content. My blacklists covered most of the major things I didn’t want to see, and tumblr’s filter feature seemed to take care of the rest. It still took some careful navigating not to run into sequels-related crap and other random shit, but it was not impossible. I’d breathed a sigh of relief, and carried on minding my own business, living in my SW happy place where the things that distressed me didn’t exist.

But then some news broke, and suddenly, my hard-won calm was shattered. It felt like someone had kicked the heart right out of me. My carefully constructed safe space felt safe no longer. I’d thought the PT and TCW era would be safe from Disney, at least for a while. But I was wrong. It was like all the faint hope I had left for my ability to withstand the current Disney!SW onslaught fled from me in a single instant, and have been in a state of anxiety, depression, and despair ever since.

I’ve been so scared, because the last time I felt this despondent was after TFA, when I honestly thought I would never feel anything warm and light and beautiful about Star Wars ever again. And it ended up taking me YEARS to move beyond that, and to reclaim my feels and to get into the headspace I needed to be in to truly enjoy it again.

And I just... don’t know if I have that kind of energy anymore. The last three years have taken a huge toll (in RL I mean, not just in fandom). On top of my seemingly never-ending mental health struggles, I’ve had some physical ailments that went un-diagnosed for a long time and for which I’m only just starting to receive treatment. I’m always tired, mentally, physically, and emotionally. All of this makes the prospect of going through that same process all over again seem daunting, if not completely impossible.

Because back then, after TFA, when I felt that I’d ‘lost’ the Original Trilogy, I still had other places to turn. I was able to go back in time, and re-ignite my passion for SW again by re-watching the PT and TCW. But now? will those be taken from me too? have they already? is too late ?

(Have I just been delaying the inevitable, all this time?)

Horrible thoughts like this keep coming into my mind. Despite this, I haven’t given up totally...not yet. I’m still hanging on, or at least ...trying to. But in the midst of all this, I’ve been attempting to figure out what exactly is going on here. Why do these things upset me so badly that it causes me such intense emotional reactions? To the point that I can hardly converse with friends online anymore, without fear what they will say? To the point that I can’t even talk to my (very supportive) husband about Star Wars anymore without freaking out about spoilers?? To the point that I even end up feeling suicidal at times? Why does it feel like my whole world is collapsing?

Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that, when I was growing up, ‘Star Wars’ was always, from as long as I can remember, something that was ‘finished’. Complete. It was over. And its completeness was a source of comfort to me from the start. Here was a story that contained darkness and struggle, but which had an ending. And an uplifting, mythic, and spiritual one, at that.  And even later, when I was a teen and in my early 20s during the release of the Prequels, it was still something that had an end in sight. From the beginning of the PT, we knew that once those three episodes were over, the saga would be complete.

And that’s just the thing. With Disney’s Star Wars, there is no end in sight. It is something that, for all intents and purposes, could be dragged on indefinitely. And that thought is terrifying enough to make me start feeling panicky all over again. Years and years of feeling like this, all the time?? Dear Force, make it stop. D:

It’s becoming clear to me that it’s not just about one particular piece of media that I want to avoid. It’s not just the fact that something so close to my heart has at times been treated disrespectfully or even threatened with annihilation, and that I’ve felt helpless to prevent it. It’s not about my various and sundry issues with Disney’s version of SW. It’s not even that I believe that all of Disney’s SW output is inherently ‘bad’ or bound to be terrible just because it’s under the brand of Disney. I mean, I’ve been willing and able to ignore the aspects of ‘new canon’ that I loathe, and pick and choose from the bits that I do enjoy (which are few and far between, but do, occasionally, still exist). And law of averages would suggest there would have to be some decent or even, gasp, quality content at times (see: Rogue One, for instance).

So what, then, is *really* causing me so much pain and anguish on an almost daily basis? What is making my continued attempts to be part of the ‘fandom’ feel so incredibly futile?? It’s not the additions to canon themselves, but rather the frequency and sheer number of them, along with the fandom reception of these potentially infinite ‘additions’ that are causing me so much turmoil.

In the years since TFA, I’ve attempted to deal with this by viewing Disney’s ‘new canon’ as just another version of an Expanded Universe—in other words, as something optional that is not required in order to understand and appreciate the original, and that only needs to ‘exist’ in my mind and as a part of my headcanon if I wish it to. So, despite how much some of this material hurts me on a personal level, and despite the fact that the sheer amount of it makes it difficult to navigate around, up til now I’ve been able to continue as at least a semi-functional SW fan in its wake.

But lately, I’m beginning to be concerned that this method is not an adequate way of dealing with this. Because, even though *I’m* perfectly capable of ignoring the ‘new canon’ material that I don’t want to see, my need to ignore it makes it almost impossible for me to interact with 99% of the rest of the fandom.

And without interaction, a major component of fandom itself is missing. And it’s that sense of isolation and alienation that is killing me.

While tumblr as a platform has changed the face of online fandom for many (and made it unrecognizable to me in so many ways), I am still very old school in that I believe that the main purpose of fandom is to a) enjoy what we love to the nth degree, b) share what we love with each other, and c) through discussion about our shared fictional passions, create transformative fanworks, such as fanfiction, fan art, edits, fan vids, metas, etc.

This may seem like I’m stating the obvious, but unfortunately for a vast majority on tumblr, “fandom” has become less about the above, and far moreso about keeping up with actors’ and creators’ social media accounts, using fiction as a platform for ‘performative’ social justice in which people show off how ‘woke’ they are, and, worst of all (for me), constantly fixating on announcements, trailers, and news about ‘the next big thing’. It seems like, for many fans, speculation about upcoming releases is more important than enjoying the content that already exists. It’s what they LIVE for. And the minute those new pieces of media appear, everything else that came before is just... forgotten, or cast aside, in favour of it. This leaves me feeling like I’ve been left in the dust. Because, for me, the mere idea of ‘the next big thing’ fills me with nothing but extreme anxiety, depression, panic, as though I have a giant black hole in the pit of of my stomach. I live in utter DREAD of SW news. So my ability to relate to other fans and to interact with them on any meaningful level has greatly diminished due to this factor alone.

In a smaller fandom, where announcements maybe happen once or twice a year at most, I can often weather it. For example, several years ago, I left a fandom for a certain popular tv series, but remained semi-active just for the sake of one particular ship from it that I still loved. I was able to avoid most news and spoilers because it was just one show with one season per year, and that was it. But with SW in its current form, with Disney’s need to pump out new content on what seems like an almost weekly or even daily basis, it’s becoming too much for me to bear.

As I said in a previous post,

 “.....one of my many problems with Disney’s current treatment of Star Wars is that there is such a thing as ‘too much canon’. In the days of the EU, it didn’t matter how much of that was released, because any and all of it could be dismissed at a given time, because it was never official canon. But nowadays, EVERY DAMN THING has a film, book, show, comic series, animated short, video game, etc. about it. And this actually angers and distresses me, because it begins to leave less and less room for headcanons and for fans’ imaginations to run free. When there is SO much ‘official’ canon that it covers all the backstories and little ‘in between moments’, where is the freedom for writing fic and just…imagining things? Star Wars is not Marvel-verse, and should not be treated as such. Not all canon is (or even SHOULD BE) considered  ‘equal’, and this is something that, in pre-Disney times, was understood and respected. The main saga films were canon. That was it. The rest of it fell into various gradations of ‘sub’-canon. And imo, that is how it should, ideally, still be.” 

To have constant ‘additions’ to a canon that is as long-established as Star Wars feels completely disingenuous to me. So each time something new is announced, it feels like a breaking of the fourth wall. A chipping away at my ability to continue *believing* in Star Wars. It feels like someone keeps bursting into a completed story to try to mansplain it to me, saying, ‘ha, just kidding!! it’s been 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, 5 years (etc) that you’ve loved this and believed in this, but ACTUALLY the story is not REALLY over! look over here, we want to make money off you so we’re pretending the story is continuing even though it’s fake and forced!! haha!!!’  

Most of my Star Wars ‘feels’ are predicated upon a very simple premise, and that is the fact that the Skywalker saga (aka the PT and OT), AS IT EXISTS IN ITS ORIGINAL STATE, is the story of Anakin Skywalker, and that it is a complete and coherent myth, and an ultimately uplifting and redemptive tale. Everything I love about Star Wars comes back to Anakin Skywalker, his cosmic role as the Chosen One, and his eventual redemption. The fact that he, through the power of his son’s unconditional love, returns to his True Self, breaks free of his chains and sacrifices himself for his loved one, setting himself and the galaxy free. Everything depends on it, and revolves around it. My love of Anakin and Padme, my love of Obi-Wan and Anakin. My love of Snips and Skyguy, my love of Luke and Vader. My love of the Skywalker family, and their entire PT and OT storyline. And of course, my love of Anakin himself.

And what is more, all of the above is likewise dependent on the fact that the OT generations’ tale is an unequivocally heroic one, and that its heroism is complete and lasting, on both familial and galactic scale. It is not something left unfinished for the subsequent generation(s) to ‘complete’. The original saga as *I* know it does not require the ‘next generation’ in order to make it truly heroic. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the tragedy of the Prequels is completely redeemed by the end of Return of the Jedi. It is NOT carried forward as some kind of ‘curse’ onto the next generation. The Skywalkers are representative of the state of the galaxy, and, through Anakin and Luke’s story in the OT, both they and the galaxy itself are  reconciled and made whole again once and for all. That is the entire point of the Chosen One prophecy, and of the metaphysical, galaxy-freeing role that redemptive love plays in the (original) Skywalker saga. If that seems ‘unrealistic’ to contemporary audiences, well, you know what?? Too freaking bad!! Star Wars is not supposed to be ‘realistic’, it’s supposed to be a MYTH.

Take that away, and there IS no Star Wars for me.

And yet, that is exactly what TFA attempted to do. It attempted destroy this basic long-held truth, and with it my ability to love and feel even anything remotely positive about Star Wars,  its story, and its characters. And so it is understandable, I would hope, that ever since then I would greet new ‘additions’ to the original canon with extreme mistrust, skepticism, and even outright despair.

But despite my (imo) perfectly legitimate and justifiable reasons for feeling this way, I still realize that having such, erm, extreme reactions to even the mere prospect of new or additional content is not ‘normal’. ‘Normal’ fans are happy when they get new ‘canonical’ content right?? Unfortunately, I am not and will likely never be able to be a ‘normal’ fan in this way. When it comes to Star Wars, I will never be able to feel even the remotest bit of excitement for any such new canon content. (Which, in this case, more often than not simply means ‘officially sanctioned by a giant corporation, created under a set of confusing, disjointed, and entirely arbitrary standards, and deemed permissible for you to consume and ‘believe in’ as a real version of characters and events’, but I digress...).

Everything I love and understand about Star Wars existed before Disney ‘did’ anything to it, and everything that I still value about Star Wars to this day is likewise not dependent on whatever Disney might try do to it in the present or future. But even though I know this on an intellectual level, whenever there is new content coming out, it nonetheless still feels like a mortal threat, looming on the horizon. It feels like it’s going to try to take away everything I love all over again. And I fall into despair because I honestly lack the strength to fight it.

(Or at least, I lack the strength to fight it alone.)

And so unfortunately, from my perspective (even though I know that of course people don’t intend it to come across this way), when other fans get so excited about the new stuff, and when it seems like they so readily just accept it without question, it ends up leaving me feeling as though I’ve been left behind. As though what *I* love is, in their eyes, not enough. That somehow, the original Skywalker saga is not enough. That loving Lucas-era canon, but not Disney’s, is just me limiting myself or ‘missing out’ somehow. Whereas, from my perspective, the original material IS ‘enough’. It feels complete. It IS complete. Believing it’s not complete seems to me to be exactly what Disney wants people to think, so they can justify all of their never-ending additions, re-writes, retcons, and continuations.

And thus every time Disney churns out more content, and I see people around me acting like this content is not just a fun (and entirely optional) addition, but is rather something essential that all fans ‘deserve’ and need (despite having been perfectly fine without it for years, if not decades), just makes me feel even more alienated than I already do. Again, it’s not merely the existence of the constant stream of ‘new’ content that is killing me, but rather the fact that this content is greeted with elation by what seems to be the majority of fans these days. Yeah I know this makes me sound like I’m just resentful and bitter that other people are happy. Please know I don’t begrudge others’ happiness. Rather, I’m just struggling with the fact that while others are excited, I cannot be, thus leading me to feel isolated and left out.

But since the last thing I want is to rain on anyone’s parade, I try to be sensitive to this. Other than my various early anti-TFA rants (which I got out of my system years ago), for the most part (with the occasional exception), I’ve been keeping mum on these matters. But more often than not, in order not to be a source of negativity to others, I just end up hiding away, not talking to anyone, retreating further and further within myself  to the point that I wonder what I’m even doing here anymore.

The level of pain and anxiety and stress that all of this—from the constant stream of new content, to fans’ reception of it, to my own desperate attempts to avoid and ignore it—causes me cannot be adequately summed up in just a few words. I struggle to convey how I feel to most people because I honestly don’t know how to explain it. I feel ridiculous for even writing it down. It sounds so silly when I type it out, even though in my heart and mind, this is a very real and debilitating issue. Every time something new is announced, I become sick to my stomach, I can’t eat or sleep, I have intrusive, racing thoughts, and I feel that I have to hide out for days, weeks, or even months. I have to limit who I can talk to, and WHAT subjects I can talk to them about. And each time, it begins to feel more and more futile to even bother trying to avoid everything. Like trying to swim upstream, or to remain upright in a tidal wave. It is a constant onslaught, and I’m not sure how much longer I can weather it.

(Yes, there are some underlying mental health issues going on here that no doubt contribute to things on some level. However, it’s a complicated situation, because for many years I have been turning to fandom as a sort of therapy for myself. My most beloved fictional universes, characters, relationships, and stories are a safe-space for me, a refuge I can retreat into when my existence becomes unbearable. A coping mechanism. I don’t use that term lightly either... some days, it literally keeps me alive. And so when that coping mechanism feels like it’s being ripped away, my downward spiral into the abyss is terrifyingly swift indeed. But this is an extremely personal matter, which I won’t go into any further here, because I don’t want to diminish the topic at hand, which is a legitimate and very real struggle of mine, and is something that affects me regardless of the state of my mental health at a given time.)

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to worry anyone. I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet, and hopefully not for a while. This blog is too important to me. The people I’ve met here are too important to me. Star Wars, such as it exists in my heart, is too important to me. Despite the fact that I’m struggling emotionally, and despite the fact that it’s increasingly difficult for me to find content for this blog, I have been determined not to abandon it, and have made sure that I have a queue ready for the days when I don’t feel up to posting.

That being said, I do feel the need to be honest here about just how much of a struggle it has been to hold on, and just how alienated I have felt from so much of what is considered the normal fandom experience. And to express my anguish and despair over the fact that I can never, ever be innocently excited about new content being released in this Disney era. Doesn’t matter what it is, or who makes it. Ever since TFA, I am simply unable to ever feel happy that it even exists in same world that I inhabit. And this makes me fear for my longevity in a fandom that seems to thrive on the very thing that I abhor most and that fills me with constant dread.

While I’m uncertain these days as to whether ‘happiness’ is even possible for me in this physical existence, I do feel that my fandom experience ought to be, at the very least, a source of comfort. But as more and more of my SW safe-spaces are eroded, as more and more words must be blacklisted, as more and more tags become ‘off limits’ to me, I have fewer and fewer corners of this fandom to which I can turn.

I wish things were not like this. I wish *I* were not like this. It would be so much easier if I could just be happy like everyone else. But sadly, it seems that when it comes to being able to participate in and enjoy SW fandom in its current form, something in me is fundamentally, irreparably, broken.

What I hope to accomplish by writing and posting this, I’m not entirely sure. Obviously, I am not trying to make anyone feel bad for enjoying what they enjoy. Nor am I even seeking ‘validation’ on this matter. Because, while there are no doubt others out there who feel similarly (and *big hugs* to them if they do), I am not actually looking for commiseration or to ‘wallow’ in misery at this time. For some reason that just makes things a hundred times worse. Because...I’m still trying to hold out hope that even someone as damaged as myself can nonetheless continue to love Star Wars and even be part of an active online community.

So for now, I just needed to get this off my chest in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, by doing so, I can find a way back from this.  

[the-far-bright-center]

Definitely my target audience—thanks for responding! :')

As you can probably tell, I’m an Anakin fan and thus focus on Prequels/Clone Wars era a lot, but I’m also a lifelong OT fan and die-hard believer in its happy and transcendent ending. I personally don’t have any interest in continuing the story beyond RotJ (because I view the Skywalker saga as Anakin’s story, and once he dies and brings balance to the Force, the story is over). That being said, I’m cool with things like Han and Leia’s kids from the Expanded Universe, and prefer that infinitely to anything in the fake-sequels.

I totally understand that a lot of fans have things they can handle when it comes to Disney SW, and then things they can’t, and we all have to find our happy place. Even though I had major problems with Disney’s interpretation of SW ever since TFA, I didn't immediately forgo all Disney material right away. I’d already been watching Rebels for a year before TFA came out (at the time, I’d assumed that Rebels was the only way we’d ever get resolution for certain Clone Wars characters), and I stuck with it until midway through the final season (when I became too annoyed by certain elements and quit). In contrast, Rogue One was something I’d dreaded initially as it was the first live-action entry post-TFA, but Carrie Fisher’s death led me to watch it as I needed some kind of closure (especially after the horrible memory of TFA), and thankfully I didn’t regret it. Rogue One worked so well for one simple reason: it respected the saga. It even incorporated themes from the iconic RotS novelisation by Matthew Stover—the entire film was one big riff on the famous ‘in the heart of its strength lies its weakness’ and ‘love can ignite the stars’ lines. In this way, it acted as thematic link between the PT and OT. If anything, Rogue One should have been the film that Disney started with, imo. And they should have made it into essentially an ‘interquel’ trilogy of films (followed by Rogue Two and Rogue Three). That way, they could have had their precious ‘nostalgic’ Dark Times aesthetics without having to reset the entire galaxy and destroy two whole trilogies of storyline and character arcs just to have an excuse to use the throwback visuals they wanted. Sigh…

But everything else since those two things I have completely ignored. I won’t get into detail here about why, but ultimately I just can’t trust Disney with ANY part of SW anymore, and it makes me physically ill whenever they co-opt yet another favourite character or story element into their fake version of events. So, unfortunately at this point I can’t handle any of it, and that includes the Obi-Wan show and Mandalorian. If others enjoy those, great, but for me…the more that the Disney content messes with my fave characters, the more I need to stay far away from it. I’ve refused to watch a single piece of Disney SW media since early 2018 for this reason, despite multiple people practically begging me to, and honestly I think it’s the best decision I’ve ever made for my own sanity.

The downside is that for years now I’ve been almost completely alienated from the SW fandom, but I’m trying to remedy that a bit by more actively reaching out to likeminded fans. Thanks for reaching back. :)

Looking for fellow non-Disney SW blogs

Tumblr is getting very lonely these days, and I'm looking for Star Wars blogs that don't post the non-stop stream of Disney content (and/or that only post it minimally and tag it well enough that it can be filtered easily).

I crave fandom interaction but it's almost impossible these days to find SW blogs that ignore Disney. Since this year is the 40th (!) anniversary of Return of the Jedi, it would be nice to be able to celebrate with fans who share my view of it as the true ending of the Skywalker saga.

[aion-rsa]

Star Wars: How Shadows of the Empire Became a Gritty '90s Epic

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In the 1990s, Lucasfilm decided to take Star Wars in a much darker direction with Shadows of the Empire.

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Feature

Games

Stephen Harber

Star Wars

Mar 4, 2019

Star Wars Games

LucasFilm

This Star Wars article contains spoilers.

Star Wars in the '90s

The ‘90s were the dark ages of Star Wars. George Lucas’ happy cinematic accident was still a beloved pop culture tentpole, and the entertainment industry was still busy learning from its business model. But it was also a time of relative quiet for the franchise. Another film with the main cast was implausible, and the excuses for new merchandising were slim to none. So Lucasfilm started brainstorming new ways to capitalize on the Star Wars brand and ensure all of its media channels were fully functional before the arrival of the Prequel Trilogy.

Enter Shadows of the Empire—a mad scientist’s experiment in cross-promotion that would make editors at Marvel weep at the complexity of its moving parts. This multimedia initiative was designed to tell one large narrative across various mediums, with each platform contributing an important piece of the story. To get the full Shadows experience, fans would have to read the novel and the comic books, play the video game, listen to the soundtrack score, buy the toys, collect the trading cards, etc.

When Shadows was conceived by Lucasfilm heads Howard Roffman and Lucy Wilson in 1994, it was intended to be set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. This era has always been a “safe zone” for expanded universe material to play around in. In fact, it’s still mined by Marvel and Disney for tie-in material to this day. Shadows would join the ranks of the classic Marvel comics with the giant talking rabbit (who was never considered canon, sadly enough) as an expanded universe story set during the actual trilogy itself.

After the pitch was tossed around the Lucas subsidiaries, a memo from LucasArts designer Jon Knoles changed their minds. He suggested setting the Shadows project after The Empire Strikes Back instead of before it, as this was a.) fertile ground for storytelling. and b.) way more intriguing. And he wasn’t wrong. This new setting made the task of telling a huge movie-like story a way to test the boundaries of the franchise before its inevitable rebirth for Episode I.

Post-Empire was a sweet spot for Star Wars to hit at the time. If you couldn’t already tell by its name, there was a push to make Shadows “dark”—which basically translated to “’90s as fuck.” This slick new edginess would keep Star Wars relevant in a time of geek culture dominated by the over-muscled caricatures of Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane and the low-tech barbarism of Mortal Kombat. Instead of behaving like it was still the early 1980s, it was time Star Wars hit puberty and toughened up some.

Even in today’s climate saturated with spin-offs, webisodes, and other ancillary materials, telling one big cohesive story across different media formats is still a highly experimental undertaking. There had to be a center to all the tales that would be told under this umbrella, an axis on which all peripheral events spun around. This anchor point was the bestselling Shadows novel published by Bantam in 1996.

Writing the Book

For all intents and purposes, Steve Perry’s Shadows of the Empire was to be considered “the movie.” It had what everyone was craving—a new adventure with the core characters the audience loved and the promise of mature themes and content.

Steve Perry was hand-selected to be in the Shadows talent pool by Bantam editor Tom Dupree as payback for writing a quick and dirty novelization of The Mask for free. Perry’s background writing for Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, and Spiral Zone made him a shoo-in for the job. Designing the core narrative of an intricate brand opera would be a collaborative process best suited for a writer with a background in television. (That he’d written novelizations for Dark Horse’s Alien graphic novels might have also helped.)

Before long, Perry found himself writing down page after page of notes during a lengthy creative meeting with all creative stakeholders at Skywalker Ranch in the fall of 1994 to keep track of the many different needs every licensee had for the story. Each medium demanded their own set pieces, action scenes, and settings to be interesting. Perry would think up ways to sew these into the pockets of his overarching story.

Further Reading: Star Wars Timeline Explained

Armed with his reams of notes, the author banged out a 25-page outline detailing all major action beats for the primary story arc with suggestions on how they could cross over. The outline was well-received, even if it came back with a ton of notes. But the cooks in the kitchen found it agreeable, and that was all that was needed to move the crazy Shadows train forward. Perry got to work at tackling the manuscript at the beginning of 1995, making his own version of a missing Star Wars movie from his home office in Oregon.

The storyline of Perry’s Shadows book follows the adventures of Luke, Leia, Lando, and Chewbacca in their efforts to locate their carbonite encased buddy Han Solo. Their quest takes them through the galaxy’s criminal underworld, where they meet gritty new ‘90s characters that either try to kill them or help them out. In the process, Luke becomes a badass, Darth Vader gets a new nemesis, Chewie gets a haircut, the droids get to drive the Millennium Falcon, and Princess Leia gets to be sexually objectified like crazy. Okay, that may be an oversimplification, but basically, Shadows is a story about Star Wars that’s not quite told like a Star Wars story—but it is an entertaining page-turner. Yet the risks Shadows takes are really just recycled moments from the Original Trilogy, a classic symptom of being a media tie-in novel.

However, the book did intrigue readers everywhere with certain storylines it juggled, like the attempted assassinations of Luke Skywalker, the details behind the “many Bothans” tragedy hinted at in Return of the Jedi, and the Empire’s dealings with the Black Sun crime syndicate. Reading about the hijinks of the Skywalker twins and friends during a mysterious era is always intriguing, and Perry did as much justice as he could to the voice of the characters.

Prince Xizor

If Shadows of the Empire has a main character, it’s probably Xizor himself. After all, this villainous character was being fleshed out long before any official creative meetings had been held. The Dark Prince was the mascot for the grim darkness of Shadows and the underworld it would explore.

Based on the plot outline he turned in, Steve Perry received notes with very specific instructions from Bantam on how they wanted Xizor to behave, citing the Godfather films as a tonal guideline. Bantam wanted an evil clone of Aristotle Onassis, the infamous Greek tycoon that married Jackie Kennedy. They wanted a villain who was corrupt, crafty, and had enough hubris to take on the franchise’s most beloved big bad: Darth Vader himself.

When creating this major expanded universe villain from scratch, the creative team at Lucasfilm approached the task just like they would for any creature you’d see in a Star Wars film. Xizor’s design process fell somewhere in the middle of thoughtfully crafted and painstakingly conceived. Xizor was meant to have an “exotic” flavor to his appearance, which designers translated as looking vaguely Asian. Yet Prince Xizor was more than just a vehicle for bizarre cultural appropriation. He was the powerful leader of Black Sun, a criminal syndicate functioning on the Outer Rim.

Further Reading: Star Wars Movie and TV Release Date Calendar

His reptilian style inspired a new race of beings for the Star Wars universe: the Falleen, who lived on a planet called, ironically enough, Falleen. As a Falleen, Xizor could breathe underwater and secrete pheromones to manipulate the opposite sex, which were so strong that even our favorite tough cookie with the hair buns fell under his thrall. His olive skin tone also changed according to whatever mood he happened to be in. And that iconic claw pose of his? That was inspired by the unused concept art of Bib Fortuna.

Meanwhile, Xizor’s seduction of Princess Leia—or, rather, the quasi-Asian lizard dude’s date rape of Star Wars’ headlining female character—was awkward. In this sequence, Xizor uses his pheromone powers to roofie Leia into submission after forcing her to wear a revealing outfit. Shadows went beyond the humiliation of tricking Alderaanian royalty into wearing a kinky slave outfit for a giant slug. This was technically assault. When Perry received feedback on his story outline asking for Xizor and Leia to go all the way, he refused. He didn’t want to deal with the backlash from the fans, as such an event would incite the same emotional reaction as killing off a main character. So instead, Leia gets out of the situation by kneeing the Falleen studmuffin right in his iguana dick, then dashes off (pun intended).

Perry handled Prince Xizor’s character incredibly well considering all of the creative suggestions he received. He knew the Dark Prince wasn’t just a character, he was a test for each member of the Skywalker family. Xizor spent literally all of his time and energy obsessing over Luke, Anakin, and Leia, discovering their weak points and pressing their buttons. In this respect, Xizor is an embodiment of the novel’s central theme: vulnerability. The vulnerability of each member of the Skywalker family.

Dash Rendar

A new protagonist was also introduced—Dash Rendar, aka ‘90s Han Solo. Although Dash was conceived by Perry himself, that didn’t mean he had any more creative control over his character than he did with Xizor’s. Lucasfilm and Bantam both made it clear they didn’t want an exact carbon-copy of Kylo Ren’s dad to fill the void he left behind. They did, however, want a substitute space pirate to act as a guide through the wrong side of the interplanetary tracks.

Dash was the macho middle ground between Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise—a smuggling mercenary that traveled around the galaxy in his Outrider (aka ‘90s Millennium Falcon) with a droid named Leebo riding shotgun. He held a lifelong vendetta against the Emperor for ruining his family after his brother crashed his freighter ship into Palpatine's private spaceport museum. Rendar helped Rogue Squadron fend off the Empire’s forces during the Battle of Hoth. He even helped the “many Bothans” that died steal the new Death Star plans! Despite all of this, Luke still thought he was kind of an asshole. Hmm. Maybe that’s because the Force told him Dash was secretly made out of cardboard, old issues of Youngblood, and testosterone.

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If Dash Rendar were to be described by one word only, it would be “functional.” He doesn’t serve a function for the Shadows narrative per se, but boy does he ever for the multimedia campaign. After all, Dash was the star of the video game component of Shadows of the Empire, which featured his participation in the Battle of Hoth. I wouldn’t say that Dash is a person, but more of a Frankenstein’s monster of pastiches culled from Star Wars and its imitators, stitched together with Harrison Ford’s casual cockiness. Basically, he was an endless library of “shit Han Solo says.”

Guri

The real fan favorite of Shadows turned out to be a character that still doesn’t have a decently sized action figure to this day: Guri, Prince Xizor’s deadly fembot bodyguard. She was the only replica droid trained to be an assassin—a hybrid of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct and Sean Young in Blade Runner. Compared to Princess Leia, Guri was a lightning rod for pent-up sexual tension in the Star Wars universe. In fact, Xizor took advantage of her more built-in “intimate” functions whenever he could, which only amplified the rapey nature of the crime lord.

Much like Han Solo’s sugar-free counterpart, Dash Rendar, Guri the sex assassin was a Steve Perry original. The femme fatale was conceived as a character who would be loyal to the paranoid Falleen leader, someone he could trust. Since Xizor could never trust another living being with his life, he bought a synthetic humanoid for nine million credits to be his lieutenant, enforcer, and information gatherer. Basically, she was like having a ninja as your personal assistant, which further reinforced the vaguely Asian motif surrounding the Dark Prince. But it was strongly suggested that he used her to run everything, and probably couldn’t handle the weight of his responsibilities on his own.

Luke & Leia

Core characters were subject to redesign as well, specifically their wardrobe. Lucasfilm wanted to visually convey to the audience that their heroes were in between two very distinct eras (Empire and Jedi.) While Chewie and Leia got “extreme” disguises to play dress-up in, Luke Skywalker’s wardrobe was meticulously reconceptualized.

Lucasfilm’s Lucy Wilson would send notes to Dark Horse’s cover artist Drew Fleming on the Jedi knight’s garb, asking him to “please dress [Luke] in the same black outfit he shows up in RotJ…the same black long-sleeved top, pants, and boots…but make his tunic a khaki color and give him a utility belt with various tools/etc. hanging off of it…”

But playing with Luke’s fashion choices wasn’t the only way that Shadows of the Empire illustrated that Luke was in a transitionary phase. Jon Knoles wanted the overarching narrative of the project to tie up a loose end that had been bugging him since the early ‘80s—where did Luke get his new green lightsaber?

Thus another plotline to juggle was born, one of Shadows’ most interesting: Luke’s quest to build his fancy new weapon. Watching young Skywalker learn how to build his own based on Obi-Wan’s instructions was fascinating for aspiring Jedi everywhere to read, but there isn’t as much symbolic weight behind this act as there could have been in a film made by Lucas. At least it was treated as a pivotal step on the protagonist’s figurative journey to becoming a Jedi Knight and not just another MacGuffin to scratch off the list. (Or was it?)

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What’s frustrating about this sidequest is that it takes the place of a solid character arc for Luke, which is a shame. Dealing with the fallout from Vader’s reveal at the end of Empire would make Anakin Jr. the most captivating character in the dramatis personae. But no, learning his father’s secret doesn’t seem to affect Luke’s inner world much at all. Why wouldn’t we want to know what our hero’s state of mind was during this mysterious stretch of time?

If Shadows didn’t give us insight into its most pivotal character, it did give us a glimpse at Leia’s emotional landscape following the loss of Han. The first loss of Han, rather. If anyone was at their “most vulnerable” here, it would be the Princess—someone who fears showing weakness. SotE’s journey into the seedy Star Wars underworld caused all of her issues to rise to the surface, making Leia the heart of Perry’s book.

Despite the third-person take on her inner-monologue, Leia was treated as a character best handled from a distance. When she’s not being objectified, harassed, or protected from objectification and harassment by Chewie and Lando, she’s busy pulling up her sleeves and getting to the nitty-gritty of propelling the novel’s major plotlines. As such, Princess Leia comes across as the Skywalker that’s the real hero here.

The only real worthy piece of continuity from her storyline was how she got the Boushh disguise she wears in Jedi, a detail that most fans probably never wondered or cared about.

The Story

The attempted Han Solo rescue, which is the driving force early on in the story, obviously turns out to be the MacGuffin that leads the Skywalkers and their friends on other adventures. The video game tackles the earliest part of this mission, when Dash tracks down the bounty hunters who were originally tasked with capturing Han. Fighting his way through the planets Ord Mantell and Gall, Dash finally locates Fett and his prized slab of carbonite. Leia, Lando, Luke, and the Rebellion launch a rescue mission that sparks the Battle of Gall. It fails and Fett gets away again.

Fett’s struggle to get the frozen Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine is the major subject of the Shadows comic. On his way to the desert planet he is attacked both by the Rebels and rival bounty hunters Bossk and Zuckuss. Ironically, he even has to hide out in an asteroid field at one point to fight off his assailants. Ultimately, Fett proves why he’s the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, outsmarting his pursuers and getting the payday.

Things get more intricate from here. Prince Xizor, who vows to avenge his family after they’re killed by Darth Vader before the events of the book, plans to destroy Vader by killing his son and replacing him as the Emperor’s right hand. Xizor tries to have Luke assassinated several times in Shadows, only to be thwarted at the last minute every time by Rebels or Vader’s own bounty hunters. Vader, on the other hand, is still trying to find Luke and turn him to the Dark Side, which brings him in direct contact with the leader of Black Sun. The only reason Vader can’t Force choke Xizor out of an exhaust port is because the Emperor needs the crime lord to finish the construction of the second Death Star.

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Which brings us to the mission to steal the Death Star plans. Dash and Luke are informed by Bothan spies that the plans are being transported in a fertilizer freighter called the Suprosa. The Rebels launch an intercept mission. You can actually play through this mission as Dash in the Shadows video game.

After some maneuvering, Xizor has Luke captured on the planet Kothlis, where the plans are being decoded by the Bothans. Luke manages to escape Kothlis with a little help from the Force, Lando, and Dash. Vader, who arrives on Kothlis too late to pick up Luke, is informed by his bounty hunters that there’s a rival group of bounty hunters trying to kill young Skywalker.

Meanwhile, Leia is kidnapped by Xizor, who tries to seduce the Princess in his palace on Coruscant. Shadows of the Empire is in fact bookended by rescue missions, as Luke and his friends infiltrate the Imperial capital to save Leia from the evil crime lord. The story climaxes in spectacular fashion in a space battle above the city planet between the Rebels and the Empire, as Xizor attempts to escape but is stopped by Vader, who shows absolutely no mercy.

Shadows of the Empire ends right before Return of the Jedi begins: Luke, Leia, and friends prepare to go on a daring rescue mission to save Han Solo from the clutches of the dastardly Jabba the Hutt, their latest adventure ultimately only a detour. 

The Sequel

Dark Horse gave Steve Perry a shot at telling a follow-up story in 1998 with the Shadows of the Empire: Evolution miniseries. Without so many requirements and stipulations from different Lucasfilm branches, Perry was given the freedom to tell a snappy, focused, personal story about Guri. The underappreciated badass got her time to shine in the Star Wars limelight, and although there may be too many panels (and pages) devoted to her posing around suggestively, the story did give her character a sense of resolution. As far as Perry was concerned, Guri was the only loose end from Shadows that needed to be dealt with (or the only one he felt the most inspired to tackle, anyway.)

What’s interesting about Evolution is that much like Shadows itself, it’s built around the absence of a pivotal character. It’s Prince Xizor, this time. His spirit still permeates throughout Ron Randall’s gorgeous panel art, much like Han Solo’s did in the Shadows adaptation. In fact, Evolution is loaded with so many references to Xizor that you expect him to show up during its final moments. But no, in the true spirit of Shadows of the Empire, this turns out to be one big tease.

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Instead, we get a highly convenient Dash Rendar cameo at the very end. Guri runs into him at a bar after she gets reprogrammed and loses her memories. Diet-Han looks alive and well to me, so the end of the N64 game was definitely canon (Rendar fakes his death during the space battle above Coruscant). But the romantic overtones of their chance encounter suggest that the two run off into the sunset together, which is a patronizing fate to give a character whose independence you just spent five issues celebrating, is it not?

The Legacy

Because Episodes I-III tainted Star Wars for a good long while, Shadows of the Empire became an instant obscurity. After all, it was an outdated snapshot of a dormant brand waking up after a long nap to get back to work. Maybe bored gamers may have dusted off their N64 cartridges on lonely Saturday afternoons to play through the Battle of Hoth again in the early 2000s. But that was the only way anyone interacted with this brand experiment again.

Filling a movie-sized hole in the public’s imagination without a movie was a great opportunity to begin the process of redefining Star Wars. Yet even after taking in all Shadows related materials (not including the Sourcebook, sorry folks), I don’t feel as satisfied as I do when I actually see a Star Wars film—even when it’s a bad one. There’s an aura of incompleteness that haunts Shadows, that attitude of “hey kids, you need to read x to understand y” that I found so distracting. Even Perry’s novel, the supposed focal point, suffers from the inclusion of characters like Dash who are obviously shoehorned in for other purposes that are counterproductive to telling an already crowded story.

For a book that was advertised as being so dark, Perry’s Shadows shied away from going too deep into Luke’s psychological scars from the events at the end of Empire. That’s it’s biggest problem: for a “personal” story, Shadows is impersonal, prioritizing shallow action over emotional complexity. In fact, there’s more “darkness” in Empire’s surreal Dagobah cave scene than there is in 300 pages of Shadow’s novel and ten hours of its video game combined.

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What Shadows most prepared fans for in terms of Star Wars’ future was the business side of the galaxy far, far away, introduced through Black Sun’s shady dealings with the Empire. While I was reading these scenes, I couldn’t help but flashback to countless scenes of council meetings to discuss tariffs or something. Granted, Shadows’ meetings between Xizor, Vader, and the Emperor were far more engaging, but the signs were there.

The Shadows initiative garnered enough success that it later served as real time inspiration for the Clone Wars marketing campaign in the early aughts. The concept of telling a movie-sized story in the negative space between film installments was ahead of its time, and couldn’t be pulled off in a pre-gaming era. Which is why the mid-90s (a literal negative space for Star Wars) was the perfect time to pull off a crazy stunt like this.

As a whole, the Shadows experiment may have added an extra slimy texture to Star Wars that hadn’t been there before. Exploring the darker corners of its universe through various media formats defined its nebulous gray area in ways the older films couldn’t. This was the most important lesson Lucasfilm learned from Shadows of the Empire, as it helped change Star Wars from a lost movie franchise into the rich multimedia brand experience it is today.

SOURCES:

Secrets of Shadows of the Empire by Mark Cotta Vaz

StarWarz.com

Star Wars Interviews

Bombad Radio

Believe it or not, Stephen Harber is actually Supreme Leader Snoke. Follow him on Twitter at @onlywriterever or visit his website for updates on more Ewoks movies that will never happen.

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