#because clone wars has so many intentional parallels to the original trilogy

[cozy-the-overlord]

Clone Wars makes this even funnier because in Slaves of the Republic there’s a scene that pays homage to the escape from Jabba scene (Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka all hide their lightsabers in R2 and there’s a whole setup where Anakin mirrors Luke, Obi-Wan mirrors Han, Ahsoka mirrors Leia, and Rex mirrors Lando) except it fails so miserably. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong and they all get violently captured and separated and it takes the whole next episode to escape.

So I get such a kick out of the idea of R2 being approached by Luke with this plan that almost exactly mirrors this absolute disaster from like twenty five years earlier, and just kind of shrugging like “eh can’t get much worse than last time” and going along with it.

Or even better, R2 being the one to suggest it, going to Luke like “hey so your dad was in a semi similar situation back in the day and tried out this crazy nonsensical plan that failed in literally every possible way, but I still think it has potential worth revisiting because it would have looked so cool if it worked” and Luke was just like “AWESOME LETS DO IT”

[friendly-eldritch-horror]

Proposed ROSW Rewrite

So... I was thinking. A lot of people have critiqued the new Star Wars film for a lot of rational reasons. Kelly Tran and Oscar Isaac and John Boyega deserved better, Kylo Ren... just Kylo Ren, and Disney’s executive meddling in the script was almost certainly not for the better.

But...people also critique the entire sequel trilogy for the fact that it undid a lot of the things that the first six films set up, and undid a lot of emotionally-impactful things. And I feel that’s a reasonable critique. And of these things, I feel like Luke and Vader not actually killing Palpatine is kinda a betrayal. Luke and Vader really deserved that in my mind. It was basically the main way Vader showed Luke he was serious about caring. And like, I get that maybe his intent counted, but I kinda did like thinking he succeeded.

But well, if you’re going to re-write things, you need to propose a plot. TLJ kinda nuked any chance of the final movie being about scheming about economic policy in First Order-Resistance preliminary peace talks which are not exactly intended to achieve peace but rather crush the Resistance slowly and legally. Maybe that’s for the better. I would read the heck out of that fanfic, but I’m not sure the writers would have been competent enough to pull that off in a movie, and probably that’s not a story natural for a movie. 

You could make the end to the whole series be an extended essay on droid rights, but that would 1) be something I’d have even less faith in the writers to do well, 2) cast basically everyone in an unflattering light and 3) have no buildup whatsoever. 

So you do really need a villain if you’re going not get a dumpster fire and you want to be to be true to the rest of the story.

So in conclusion, to really tie things together, you need to make the movie reflect the entire series and feel like a closure to nine movies. A tall order. So, probably, looking through the movies at least for inspiration would be good.

The first two movies of the sequel trilogy didn’t really have a single bad guy. Snoke kinda fit the role, but then ... well, he really can’t now. We use Kylo Ren to show that people, no matter who they are, who do not care about people and have power are dangerous. We could do a grand thing, drawing parallels to Anakin. But honestly, I feel that would be misunderstanding Anakin’s entire arc. Anakin went down the path of the dark side because he failed to save his parent. Ben Solo killed his. 

So we’re going to have to look elsewhere. The most iconic villains of the series are Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, and they’re both dead and their arcs ended, and disrupting those was the whole thing we were trying to avoid. 

The original trilogy doesn’t really actually have many villains that aren’t dead. Although this admittedly is Star Wars, ending your main movie series focusing on some minor character with three seconds of screen-time would be a very bold move, and not one that’s particularly warranted or emotionally satisfying. 

Okay, so what about the prequel trilogy? Again, err, most of the obvious villains are kinda dead or not really that important. You could have the villain be like, the cloners, and riff on the issues of personal autonomy, but it’s already been established that Finn wasn’t a clone. The cloners just aren’t that relevant anymore. One might think you could theoretically go with Watto, but Watto is unfortunately a collection of anti-semitic stereotypes, so let’s really not do that.

And, well, to give your film series a grand send-off, you need a sense of scale. You need a villain who can plausibly be revealed as working from the shadows, orchestrating events over long time scales, a puppet master who has everything planned. And so you probably guessed where I’m going. 

You need Darth Jar Jar Binks.

[jackiestarsister]

My thoughts on “The Rise of Skywalker”

I just saw The Rise of Skywalker with my friend @ewoking-on-sunshine. I’m still processing it, but I have many thoughts. Spoilers below the cut.

It’s not a perfect movie. But I enjoyed it and am, for the most part, satisfied. All I wanted was for it to be enjoyable and make sense and bring some resolution to the story. I think it succeeded overall.

I feel like I can’t complain too much, because the biggest things I wanted to happen did happen: we got Ben’s redemption, a freaking Reylo kiss, and Ben smiling. We even got beautiful things I wasn’t expecting, like Han’s scene, and the revelation that Leia trained as a Jedi for a time. I think it can stand on its own as a story in itself, though The Last Jedi may remain my favorite installment as far as story craft.

Here are my miscellaneous thoughts and opinions:

~ Much of it feels like fan fiction. Whether that is good or bad, I’m not sure. It could just be that the fans were particularly good at predicting possible developments and the general direction of the story.

~ Nothing was revealed about Kylo’s style/method of governing, or whether he did anything to expand the First Order’s power as Rey predicted they would do in TLJ

~ Palpatine’s return could have been set up better

~ The symbolism and significance of Kylo killing his abuser is changed, if not completely ruined, since Snoke was Palpatine’s puppet, and Kylo seems to enter Palpatine’s service after learning that he was the one who manipulated him throughout his life. Maybe Kylo thought if he refused he wouldn’t be able to get away alive?

~ Palpatine’s plans are as confusing as ever. Just how much he controlled, what he was aware of, and what his true intentions were is unclear. In particular,  I’m confused about the fact that Palpatine made Snoke, who seemed ignorant of Rey’s origins and told Kylo to kill her, and the fact that Palpatine told Kylo to kill Rey when it turned out he wanted her to come and kill him. Were Snoke and/or Palpatine using reverse psychology in giving Kylo those orders?

~ Palpatine probably had the means to prolong and/or restore Padme’s life the whole time Vader was trying to find a way to do so

~  It is unclear whether Rey ever told anyone about her bond with Kylo or how he killed Snoke (which is pretty relevant information for the Resistance).

~  It’s unclear whether Rey and Kyko have seen or felt each other through the Force at all in the past year. Each movie shows several Force bond connections in a short period of time (one or two days each), and that would add up to a lot in a year, so I’m guessing they didn’t have any for that interim. It seems that although Rey closed the door, Kylo opens it. I don’t really like what that implies.

~ The beginning revealed so much and moved from one set of characters to another so quickly that I wondered whether the story was going to continue following the hero/heroine’s journey(s). Eventually it did, but it felt like the strangest beginning for a Star Wars movie, especially compared to the brilliant opening sequence of The Force Awakens.

~ Rey and Poe’s bickering was fun to watch

~ They did pretty well using those bits of Carrie Fisher footage and making Leia’s death play a role in the story. I’m sure if Fisher were still alive they would have had more justice for Leia.

~ I wish Rose had played a bigger part in the story, and that her relationships with other characters had been clarified and explored more.

~ I wish Ben had interacted with other members of the Resistance. He and Finn had so many parallels in their arcs, and the two of them actually had a couple scenes together, but they were always distant, with Finn watching as Rey interacted with Ben.

~ What was Finn going to tell Rey? What was their relationship about when it came down to it? They had such a wonderful dynamic and intertwined arcs in The Force Awakens, but in this installment it felt like they were running parallel to each other.

~ Giving Poe a shady past as a spice smuggler contradicts his canon backstory revealed in Before the Awakening by Greg Rucka.

~ Hux’s death was disappointingly anticlimactic. Seemed like a waste of his character. I’m not sure how I feel about the twist of him being the spy. He seemed so much less the crazed man who fired Starkiller or the calculating menace who considered killing an unconscious Kylo. Before TROS, Hux’s motivations seemed more political and ideological, a contrast to Kylo’s motives which seemed personal.

~ In what capacity did Pryce serve Palpatine in the previous war?

~ The fact that Rey is a Palpatine raises all kinds of questions about her family. There could be a whole trilogy about what kind of relationship Sheev and his child had. I wonder if the mother of his child was Mara Jade or someone like her who worked closely with him. But the mention of cloning and other strange techniques for making or passing on life makes me wonder if his child was even “natural” or somehow made.

~ Rey’s Dark Side heritage makes her affinity with the light side even more ironic and miraculous. Or maybe the irony is that someone as dark as Palpatine could come from such an idyllic utopia as Naboo. Maybe they are trying to show that it is our choices, not our origins, that define us.

~ The fact that Rey is descended from a powerful established character takes away from the idea that Rey represented for me and many others, that a great person can come from humble, unimportant origins.

~ Finn’s arc was opposite of predicted stormtrooper rebellion. The stormtrooper paradox still holds.

~ The hunt for Sith clues doesn’t make sense. It makes even less sense than the search for Luke in TFA, which was full of holes and unexplained coincidences.

~ The way Ben stands on the Death Star looking out at the horizon was 100% Byronic hero, but also similar to Luke’s posture when looking at the Tatooine suns.

~ Seeing Kylo talking to Han and Rey talking to Luke underscored how Kylo and Rey are co-protagonists.

~ How long did Ben stay at the Death Star ruins contemplating his and Rey’s situation? Apparently long enough for Rey to go to Ahch-To, talk to Luke, and go to Exegol, because he arrives there later than her. Time and distance in these movies have never made much sense, but I wonder if there might be some deleted scenes involving Kylo at this point. Did he realize he had lost control of the First Order? Did he ever think about ordering them not to follow Palpatine?

~ Regarding minor pilot characters: Happy to see Wedge Antilles back, sad to see Snap Wexley die.

~ Poe could have had better resolution for his arc as an emerging leader

~ Finn tries once again to sacrifice himself despite what Rose said to him after he tried to do that in TLJ. (While I don’t think it was necessary, Ben’s death was in keeping with her words because he died to save what he loved.)

~ We finally got a Reylo music theme! If I’m not mistaken, it had the Force theme sort of underlying it but there were other things going on too. I look forward to hearing the What the Force podcast’s discussion on this.

~ Rose was right that they would win by “Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love.” Rey refused to even hate Palpatine. Ben came to save Rey and that enabled her to save everyone else.

~ My favorite moments of each sequel involve Rey, Ben, and a light saber passing between them.

~ Everything that was said to Rey and Ben about home, family, coming home, coming back ... it was all leading up to their teaming up. Palpatine was wrong when he said he was Rey’s only family. Ben became her family, and that was part of the reason why she took his family name. Whoever wrote the caption “The belonging you seek is in Ben Solo’s arms” was right.

~ We still don’t know what, if any, ideology Ben held, how he felt about political power and different forms of government. That pretty much reinforces my belief that for him this has never been about politics, it’s all been personal for him.

~  Ben’s death is problematic if he is supposed to represent people who have been abused and made poor life choices. It’s a beautiful sacrifice, but did Rey really have to die and necessitate it? She could have been mortally wounded, and he could have healed her without dying himself.

~ If passing his life force to Rey cost his life, Ben should have died before Rey kissed him.

~ Ben’s death is tragic, but not technically a tragedy in the literary sense, because it’s not about learning how to avoid making mistakes like his. For all his faults (narcissism, anger that manifests in violence), Ben didn’t have a particular fatal flaw. He fell because he was a victim of circumstances and forces beyond his control. He died saving the woman he loved, which sounds like a good thing.

~ I’m surprised the Lars homestead was still standing after it seemed to have burned to ash in A New Hope, and I find it difficult to believe that on a planet like Tatooine someone else would not have claimed it.

~ The title refers to both Ben and Rey, since Rey becomes a Skywalker

~ From a certain point of view, Reylos and Rey Skywalkers were both right, and both wrong.

~ Why didn’t Ben become a Force ghost like Luke and Leia? Can he become one in the future? I find the matter of whether a Jedi/Force-user leaves behind their physical body or fades away to become one with the Force, and whether they become capable of manifesting as a ghost, sketchy and inconsistent.

~ What is Rey going to do now? Was she moving into the Lars homestead? Will she raise a family of her own? I think it unlikely that she would fall in love with anyone as deeply as she did with Kylo, and I think she might be hesitant to have biological children who would inherit her (Palpatine) Force abilities, but I can picture her adopting and/or mentoring children.

~ The theme of IX seems to be “You’re not alone,” the way 8’s was “Failure is the greatest teacher.” It is the lesson Rey, Finn, Poe, and Ben each learn. But in the end Rey does seem alone.

~ Rey’s greatest fears were being alone and being insignificant. Is the takeaway supposed to be that she is okay with being alone? That would go against the movie’s overarching theme. Similarly, Star Wars is about family, and while that theme definitely comes through, it would have been so well punctuated if the story ended with the main characters starting families.

~ Nothing was resolved regarding the government(s) of the galaxy. Is it in a state of anarchy now? Were they able to learn from the mistakes of the past two republics?

~ Did Rey, Ben, the Jedi, and/or the Resistance bring balance to the Force? Is the corresponding rise and fall of the light and dark finally over? Will this peace last? Will Rey be the last Jedi or will she pass on their legacy?

~ What was the point of this trilogy as a whole? What message are we supposed to take away from it? Is it still a Prodigal Son type of story?

Now I’m going to spend time thinking about how this will impact my fan fiction and my essays on the Christian themes of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. I will look forward to reading the (apparently expanded edition) novelization and having good quality screenshots and one more Shakespearean parody by Ian Doescher.

[these-words-like-violence]

Okay, so Star Wars has been my primary special interest since I watched The Phantom Menace for the first time when I was barely five years old, and I will never turn down an opportunity that wasn’t actually given to me to info dump my unsolicited opinions about it...

Anon’s first question really speaks to me because as a little kid I watched TPM and promptly followed it up with the Original Trilogy since the rest of the Prequels didn’t exist yet, and that was the question that baffled me about Star Wars from the beginning...  How did this adorable, precocious, pod-racing child I could imagine being friends with turn into the terrifying monster machine that is Darth Vader?  How does something like that happen?  Could it happen to anyone?  Could it happen to me?  That is genuinely what drove my intense interest early on, because I had to understand Anakin’s transformation. 

It’s true that there are polarized views about Anakin, and I confess now that I lean toward the Stanakin crowd, and by that I mean that I do think he is still a sympathetic character and that his development and actions make sense.  People who grew up with the OT took issue with Hayden’s performance because their introduction to his character was the monster machine, not the human.  It was weird for them to imagine this super badass villain as a “whiny teenager,” but that is literally how George directed Hayden to portray this character, and there’s a reason for that.  We were never supposed to think of Darth Vader as a cold and respectable villain, but as someone who is actually pretty pathetic and has made literally every wrong choice so that they have almost nothing left of their humanity.  He is to be pitied.  He is to be seen as a warning of what happens when you indulge the worst parts of yourself--your anxieties, pride, and anger--even with good but misguided intentions.

What makes Anakin Skywalker sympathetic as a character is both his desire to do good and all of the environmental factors that have made it difficult for him to make good choices.  TPM is a fairly kid friendly movie, and because of that we don’t really process how serious it is that Anakin is a literal child slave.  His introduction to life established him as property.  He lived under the threat of physical violence and death every day of his life on Tatooine, and he also lived with the knowledge that his mother could be subjected to violence and death at any moment.  Just consider the type of damage this does to a child’s development.  His insecure attachment style should come as no surprise.  It is pretty obvious to me that much of Anakin’s teen angst stems from the unhealed trauma of not seeing yourself as a real person.  Anakin is insecure and clingy and constantly needs reassurance, but he is simultaneously the biggest and most arrogant brat because he is constantly struggling with his identity... struggling to see himself as something other than a slave.  This struggle is touched on a few times in The Clone Wars series, and it really sheds light on his unresolved issues which only get compounded by the other major tragedies he experiences throughout his life (i.e. losing his mother, his apprentice, and the threat of losing his wife and child).

Regarding anon’s second question, I think Lucas’ intention was that we sympathize with Anakin’s negative feelings.  It is normal to be sad when you face tragedy.  It is normal to be angry.  It is normal to be attached to people.  However, many fans often take a surface level view of Jedi philosophy and fail to look deeper.  I don’t quite have the bandwidth here to break all of it down, but one of the best illustrations for how Anakin could have stayed on the right path if he had properly internalized the Jedi Code is the way that Obi-Wan’s experiences parallel Anakin’s.  Obi-Wan loses his parental figure, the woman he would have married, eventually his apprentice, and ultimately his entire family, and he is able to discipline his emotions and does not stray from the light side.  (He struggles for a bit, but he deals with it in the proper way.)  There’s even a time in the Clone Wars where he was also taken as a slave.  I do not believe this is meant to be a direct comparison to Anakin, but I interpret it as paralleling Anakin’s suffering and showing the other path.  Obi-Wan isn’t without feeling, and he displays these emotions as any human would.  He suffers with regret and anxiety and sorrow and all the other negative emotions, because those aren’t inherently evil, but he is able to control them rather than allow those emotions to control him (as Anakin does), and that’s the message I get from it.  George Lucas said that this sort of emotional discipline was the thing that Anakin never mastered, and that’s why he was vulnerable to committing the great evils that eventually lead him to become Darth Vader. 

I disagree with anon’s suggestion that Anakin’s fall is sudden.  If it happened overnight and with no warning, then yeah, it wouldn’t make sense.  However, Anakin’s struggle with negative emotions and the dark side is apparent the moment Yoda says he senses Anakin’s fear.  Setting aside his rage induced genocide in Attack of the Clones, there are many lesser instances throughout the Clone Wars where he taps into that dark place he has so much trouble disciplining himself away from.  He did want to do good, and he did often do a lot of good, but the potential and temptation to do bad followed him from the very beginning.  When he fell, he not only betrayed everyone he loved, but he also betrayed himself and whatever was good in his nature.  That’s where it started, and once Anakin was finally dead (or at least in a very deep sleep), the dark nature he had always had took over, and he was able to do those unspeakable things.

There’s an episode of TCW, in Season 6 where Yoda has to face his dark nature, and I love it because it illustrates the potential everyone has to do evil if they do not confront their pride, anger, and fear and keep it in subjection the way Jedi are supposed to do, and the way Anakin, even at his best, never really does.  This is Anakin’s fault, and nothing about his atrocities can be justified, but his trauma, his being manipulated by Darth Grandpatine, the natural disconnect he would have with other Jedi who simply could not relate to his struggles, and the broken trust between him and the Order definitely help illustrate what encouraged him along his descent.  It all makes sense.  It’s all very tragic.  And if nothing else it’s an excellent cautionary tale in ensuring you find the right therapist and actually put the work into dealing with your issues.

I don't feel too bad about gently making fun of these two asks because I really, really tried to answer them back when I got them (and also the asks are two years old. so.) but they have been kinda cracking me up for a very long time.

What did you want from me, anons??? Those are like the most polarized questions around the entire franchise, and it's like... what the movies revolve around and leave you to decipher?? It's not like I could just condense the entire Star Wars movies in just a few paragraphs 😂😅