#but i think given rey’s main training was from luke she picked up a lot from him (:

[raehs]

rey’s lightsaber fighting style is dependent on the verse. prequels she’s especially skilled in jar’kai, form iv (ataru) + djem so and has a lot more fluid motions (and add on any inspiration she takes from her master). in the sequels she’s self taught and is more chaotic, messy, adapts in the moment, less acrobatic + more aggressive, to the point and won’t wait for someone to attack her. she still ends up meshing her own fighting style with inspiration from the above forms but also takes a lot after luke’s fighting styles (which is modeled after anakin/vader).

[randomeditscreates]

The Force Awakens Breakdown

So I know no one gives a shit about my opinions on movies and my last post about the sequel trilogy [ST] But honestly I want to continue talking about these crap movies. So now that we got that through, lets start.

1) Jar Jar Abrams start this movie by basically ripping off the concept of the OT [Original Trilogy] The First Order [The empire] has taken over with a dark side user [Kylo Ren in this one, and Darth Vader in the OT] with a more powerful dark side user in the background pulling all the strings [Snoke and Creamy Sheeve respectfully] With an opposing side that happening to be small in numbers, [The Rebels and The Resistance(What they're resisting, no fucking clue, but it sounds nice)]

2) Rey Palpatine (I refuse to use the other name) is the protagonist of this story, and just so happens to live in a desert planet, you know like Luke. And happens to be the most laziest character Jar Jar and Kathleen Kennedy ever created. She's kind, and friendly and her only flaw is that she doesn't have any family. She's a scavenger, yet has so much proficient in the force, you would think she's been training for decades. She has great skill in flying ships and fixing them, that you would think, it would at least be a throwaway line. But nope, she has no reasoning for knowing how to fly or fix ships and the only reasoning we really have is that, Jar Jar wanted it, so he put it in. And throughout this movie and following ones, she picks up skills like their pokemon cards because fuck hard work. Now Rey pisses me off, not just because of her lazy character, but because during all the movies, nothing ever fucking happens to her, she doesn't get hurt to an extreme degree like Finn, She doesn't go through a huge revelation, all that happens is that Rey loses Han (someone she barely knows) then she magically beat Kylo,( who if you don't remember has years even decades over Rey in training) and then decides to find Luke. And that leads to the third problem...

3) The movie is too full. for being a movie that is 2 hours and 16 minutes, yes I fucking looked it up, this movie seems to drag on and not develop any of their concepts. Because while I fucking agree that Rian Johnson left fucking nothing for Jar Jar to work with, at least his story had some character development, and yes it dumb and breaks the world but I'll take what I can get. All the main characters in this movie all ends up the same as they start off with. Rey is a happy and kind character with no past, turns to Rey is a happy and kind character with no past and force abilities. Kylo Ren is tangled up Christmas lights drenched in yogurt and acid, and turns into a tangled up Christmas lights drenched in yogurt and acid, who ends up Killing his father. But if you remember is haunted by that death by TLJ [The Last Jedi] Poe Dameron is a self assured Spit-fired Pilot and ends up a Spit-fired self assured Pilot who's Not dead. Even the characters who do get develop, Finn and, oh my god, it's only Finn, get's completely rewritten in TLJ and gets the story arc redone just terribly. We can't even talk about Han, Leia or even Maz, because Han doesn't change and then dies, Leia doesn't get enough screen time to show anything about this character, and Maz is supposed to Yoda in a yellow and female clothing, and they do shit with that too because it leads to this..

4) Maz Kanata and holy fuck, she's literally the reason Han is dead. Maz yells very loudly to the entire cantina that Han Solo is here, which leads for the First Order to be notified. She somehow has Luke's lightsaber [It doesn't get explained, not even in the later movies] and somehow Rey is drawn to it, and leads to Maz giving advice, but you know the shitty type because it ends with Rey running away in the forest for her to get caught by Kylo. She tells Finn that he shouldn't leave, and that it turns makes him severely injured. And if you don't remember she does the same to Han, and he ends up dead. And her cantina gets fucking destroyed after being their for centuries, yet she couldn't give a fuck. and it shows the true issue, Jar Jar and Kathleen Kennedy in extent doesn't give a fuck about characters and just wants to to get from point A to point B with a lot of flashing lights.

5) Han Solo: Character Assassination. A character who developed into a man who was ready to risk it all for the rebellion. A character we loved in the OT is now broken down into his New Hope person all over again. Who apparently has scammed everyone in the galaxy? Um, Jar Jar, I know it might seem strange to you, but a smuggler needs people who trust him to get jobs and therefore receive income. But I guess I shouldn't expect much from the same man that think a Smuggler would want to be easily known or recognized. Also Leia and him are either broken up or divorced and that makes me feel really happy to know a couple that I loved are no longer together and one of this dead. Because Han Solo is just there for fan service and to shoot his gun, because that's what he's here for to go pew pew. Oh and to die, that what all the OT fans wanted, One of the main three characters killed by their own child.

6) Subtle doesn't exist in this movie, everything is given the delicacy of a hammer. We find out that Kylo or Ben, (I really don't fucking give a shit) is the son of Han solo, by Snoke just saying, the droid is in the possession of your father Han Solo, like no shit I assumed that when you mentioned the Millennium Falcon. Who would you think I thought Kylo was the son of, Chewbacca? Finn's story arc is the only one that makes you think, and brings a new aspect to the movies, and to the Stormtroopers. I just fucking wish we could do the same for the others Stormtroopers, because the other are killed with no regards that most of them, as Finn states were sold into this at a young age. Good job Resistance for killing all these people who was forced into this with no regards. How does a series that came like a decade before you (Star Wars: The Clones War Series) manage to develop the concepts that stormtroopers or clones are not mindless drones better than you. (The Rookie episode in the first season helps flesh out all the clones and they only have 25 minutes per episode, get you're shit together Lucas Films) And these are only the examples I could think of, off the top of my head.

7) Rey is a great example of Sexism, but instead it goes the other way around then usual. All the male characters are laughed at and or ridiculed, but all the females are perfect and don't need to change. One of the last scene is a great example of this, Kylo Ren, the one with years of training and two powerful masters who trained him, gets beat by Rey, someone who has no skill with a lightsaber and didn't even know she could use the force until Jar Jar decided to pull it out his ass. Even Finn who has at least close quarters fighting skills under his belt couldn't beat Kylo, and has to be saved by Rey. Now I will admit to being a feminist but Kathleen version completely differs from mine. Because while I believe both men and women are both capable of reaching the same level of skill, Kathleen think women should be able to do incredible things without working for it. And it clear by her stupid "The Force is female" Like shut the fuck up, the force was never given a gender, why the fuck are you doing it now? I also found out that most of the Crew in Lucas Film, happens to be female. and it's clear who's doing that. Again I am a feminist but I hate when people just have diversity for the sake of diversity instead of the person's capabilities. It's very vindictive of the Feminist movement, The Black Lives Movement and LGBT+ agenda as well, as we're trying to make people see them as just like everyone else which they fucking are (I will not stand for any form of bigotry and if you don't like something simply because of someone's race, gender or sexuality, you are shit human being) , they just so happen to not be a straight white man. And that they have the same struggles as everyone else. Also we already had strong female characters in the series without the big emphasis on the fact that they have a vagina. As from the basis, Star Wars was never about gender and because of this we got fully developed character we could relate to.

Now Dishonorable Mentions

A) This movie is fucking 2 hours and 16 minutes long, yet it feel so unfinished

B) Jar Jar Abrams deep seated love for mystery boxes and how it get more screen time then the actual Character it involves (Rey)

C) The movie could've been great, they're was definitely potential but it was dwarfed by mystery boxes and Visuals

D) Rey is not a Mary Sue in this Movie, she becomes one by the end of TLJ but she's not yet. So I guess it one positive.

E) Jar Jar inability for world Building, and doesn't even fucking tries to explain how the First Order even began to rise.

F) Poe Fucking Dameron, and the amount of time that is dedicated to him. I love him but come on, just make it someone like Han, as it could bring up the relationship between him and his son, which could then bring more emphasis when we reveal their relationship. But no lets bring up a character who we all assume is dead until about the end. And then does absolutely fucking nothing.

G) And Lastly when we see Han die, we don't get a scene of any of the characters we give a fuck about and who knows Han mourn his death, instead we just have two characters who had about 15 minutes of screen time with Han, and Chewbacca. And it doesn't get better because Rian Johnson decides in the second movie that we don't need a scene of Luke mourning over the man who fought side by side with him and is his Sister's husband. No Instead we get a scene of him drinking tit milk.

So that's it, well for now, I'll make another post for this if I have any more issues. But that it for now. I would also like to make it damn clear now, as I'll probably continue this, that me tearing apart a movie is based soley on the technical aspects of it. And that if you enjoyed this movie, you are entitled to it, but you cannot defend this movie's writing , because as I hoped I made clear, the writing is very much shit.

[weirdconnections]

On Finn, Poe and Rey(lo) - TROS aftermath

I’m writing this post because I’m a Reylo shipper and I’m tired of receiving hate from the Stormpilot/Finnrey shippers who say Reylos don’t care about Poe and Finn.

I’m gonna be 100% honest and tell you that I didn’t even ship reylo until after TLJ. My first ship for this new trilogy was Stormpilot and I was completely sold on it from The Force Awakens. And I also believed prior to watching TFA that Finn would be the new generation Jedi of this trilogy and the protagonist of this story.

I was not disappointed to learn that Rey was the new Jedi because I loved the idea of finally exploring a female Jedi, but I was kinda disappointed to learn that Finn had no apparent connections to the force.

This being said, the one thing I love about TROS is that they made Finn force sensitive canon, which is something TFA clearly set up and in The Last Jedi we didn’t get a chance to explore it much.

With that in mind, TLJ surprised me a lot, and even though Reylo was the surprise I loved the most, I hated how they made Rose Finn’s love interest as a way o putting Stormpilot on a grave once and for all. In spite of this, TLJ helped establish some great character arcs for Finn and Poe which defined their objectives and goals for the next movie.

Going into TROS I was totally sold on Reylo but I was still longing for Stormpilot. Even though I knew that Disney would not make it canon or even hint at a romantic relationship between the two,  I still had hopes that this would be a satisfying movie in terms of exploring the trio’s relationship, and that it would be interesting to see their dynamic now that Finn had a concrete purpose on the narrative which diverged totally from what we thought he had before. He was no longer in the game to either help Poe or Rey, he was in it for himself and he truly believed the rebellion’s cause.

I was excited to see the trio’s relationship grow and to see how profound their bond was now that over a year had passed after the events of TLJ. This was something that disappointed me a lot in TROS.  The first scene between the three of them is very good example on how this movie failed completely at making us invested in their friendship. Rey cannot stand Poe’s imperative and impulsive decisions and Finn is simply stuck in the middle because he had nowhere else to be.

Finn doesn’t have any agency in this movie, his sole purpose is to go along with everything Poe and Rey say. The scene where Poe makes him general is great but also makes me angry that Finn is only promoted when Poe has no one else to turn to. And here’s where I think JJ failed the most with these characters:

The Last Jedi established that Poe could be a great leader If he only put his mind into strategy instead of impulsiveness and if he allowed others to share their ideas for a better solution instead of following his own gut and blowing stuff up just because.

Finn on the other hand learned that war is a double edged sword and you can’t fight something without the purpose of saving what you love because then you are not better than the bad guys and you are simply participating in a system designed to exploit and inflict suffering on others, justified by whatever side you’re on.

Both of these characters had massive potential in becoming great heroes, alongside Rey, who finally becomes a powerful Jedi and who is now ready to fight for the Resistance. Finn should have been Poe’s voice of reason, advising him on battles and thinking of ways to enlist rebel Stormtroopers such as him to improve the Resistance’s numbers in the process. 

Honestly, I loved Jannah but I felt that she should have appeared much earlier in the story and that Finn should have been the one to introduce her and the other Stormtrooper defectors. A whole year passed and what had Finn been up to? Oh yeah, he was stuck in the middle of Poe and Rey’s childish spats.

As for Poe I believe this character was simply badly written and he could have filled the same purpose on TROS without treating Rey like rebellious child who wants to play with magic instead of picking up a gun. Not to mention and they could have had a great friendship, since Poe was basically Leia’s second in command and I do not believe for a second she wouldn’t have explained to him how important was Rey’s training and how they could have strategized the Resistance moves way better with that in mind.

The scene where Rey tells them she knows how to find Exegol could have been 10x better if Poe had given us an indication of having had previous conversations with Rey about the Jedi and how they always helped in saving the f*cking Galaxy from evil. So he would throw in a “May the force be with us” line and you would know that these characters not only grew closer during the year that passed but that they also understand and respect each other. And the scene where Poe wants to leave Rey behind would not have existed at all because both Poe and Finn would have been shouting her name, worried for their friend’s safety going up against Kylo Ren, and the only reason he’d wanna leave would be because Finn (as the voice of reason) would have told him reluctantly that they had no other choice but to trust she would be able to handle herself, so they could go back to base. It would have given the scene a lot more emotional weight. And it would have prevented Finn from seeming like a lost puppy by shouting Rey’s name whenever he had the chance to. 

So yeah I ship both Reylo and Stormpilot. I respect Finnrey. 

I think TROS was very dissatisfying in terms of how they handled Finn and Poe’s characters. 

Finn deserved so much better as a character that was set up to be one of the main protagonists. He simply was not written this way at all. It feels like they simply didn’t care enough to give him a relevant plot within the movie which is infuriating because it would have been goddamn easy to link him with Jannah. And if they were going to rub in our faces that Stormpilot could never ever happen might as well have given him a love subplot with her, and I would have been fine with it because at least it would have given his character more depth. Not to mention the great stormtrooper desertor’s cause that he could have been the leader of.

As for Poe, I would have loved to see him care more about Rey and to have more understanding of how the Jedi always influenced the previous and current wars. Leia was sister to Luke Skywalker, the myth, the legend. You cannot tell me Poe would not have been interested in knowing more about the force with blatant evidence to confirm that the Dark Side always represented the oppressive regime the Resistance/Light Side fought against.   It would have been great to see this as a part of their strategy not only because Rey was the one with the secret Jedi texts that led them to Exegol but because he also had faith in the force and learned to trust in it and much as in his X-wing canons. This would have made Leia so proud because it was exactly was she was trying to teach him in the previous movie.

That’s my take on the trio and TROS, guys.

 Let me know your own thoughts!

[thepilotanon]

Prelude xxii

...to the next chapter {masterlist}

I’m really happy to finally post the last chapter of this fanfic and share with you all. I really appreciate how everyone has been patient with me, and I know I have been somewhat quiet - a lot of stuff has happened within the last months of 2019 into 2020, but I’m proud to think that I had the time to finally finish this. I really love Kylo and I have grown to really find confidence in the Nova character I summed up for {reader’s} to play. I hope you enjoy and will let me know what you’ve thought!!

warning: depiction of death/violence.

It’s 34 ABY, approximately six years since that day at the Palace.

Many things have changed and she adapted, yes, but some things remain the same.

For example, even after all these years of having to endure harsh elements, she found a lot of peace with the rain. Perhaps it was the smell it gave off, once it coats everything in sight, or the sound it makes when it collides with a surface, but there was always something peaceful about it to her. Sure, she had to survive in the rain; kill others and search for food on her own more than once in this very weather, but she still remained at peace once she finished with whatever she was doing and stood still to appreciate the change in weather.

The planet itself seemed to have more rainy days than sunny, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything else. It felt more freeing to have the rain and fresh air than being cooped up inside the Supremacy.

Still, even with the rain pelting on her opened palm, forming the littlest puddle in the center, entertaining her with the idea to see how much she could fit in one hand, she was bored. Nova had been stationed on this planet for roughly sixty-six cycles (according to the logs picked up from the Supremacy and transferred), and she was bored out of her mind. Her task of bringing the Knights of Ren to this planet to oversee reconditioning training of stormtroopers had gone quick, and the units were then shipped back out to their designated places...while her orders were to remain, and wait for the Supreme Leader’s next order.

It wasn’t difficult for Nova to train and retrain thousands upon thousands of helmeted soldiers, thanks to organizing the Knights to mentor in special sectors of the training facility that was built here. How they constructed just vast, huge buildings where it was completely dry inside was beyond Nova’s thoughts! She would get up, check her list of specific ‘troopers that had to be “fixed” as soon as possible, go and deal with the problems, make rounds for the Knights, and then she was done for the rest of the day. Nova was left to her own devices at that point, becoming highly ranked enough that she didn’t need any escorts or have anyone keep an eye on her from distracting droids, or other officers and ‘troopers while they were working. Whatever she asked for was given, and the upmost respect was offered with a bow of people’s heads and salutes...although she would constantly remind them that it wasn’t necessary.

Although, even if she was given whatever she wanted to eat, or another blanket to wrap herself in her bunk, it never took place of when she would spend time with her husband to feel at her most peace.

The last time she was able to communicate with Kylo through hologram communication, she learned that he was on the search to find out where the scavenger - Rey, she remembered learning her name - had found Luke Skywalker. Nova remembered learning how the bits of maps she and her then-newlywed husband had found at the Palace on Coruscant were salvaged pieces to where the ex-Jedi Master was seeking refuge, according to Snoke. She remembered how she learned about this Skywalker man was relevant to the First Order years back, and how it would involve Kylo. It was to be Kylo Ren’s duty to find Luke Skywalker, although not much was directly told in front of Nova…

However, remembering how Kylo would return to the Supremacy, beaten and exhausted, she was always the first to welcome him back with open arms in their secretly shared quarters. When he obtained the scar from his battle with Rey on the destroyed planet of Starkiller, she was the first to help him with the bacta patches before he left to lead a small fleet of TIEs to go and attack the Resistance near a planet called D’Qar…

He gave her a kiss good-bye and an assuring smile, promising he would return as soon as he could to show her the planet himself. It was right after that she was given the task by Snoke to go with the Knights to a planet with an extremely tongue-twisted name that she never bothered to remember.

Nova wanted to leave some sort of note of her own assurance to him, although not knowing how long she was going to be, and it was now proving to get on her nerves when her supposed Master hasn’t contacted her on his routine schedule for over a week. The Knights were bored, too, too tired of “babysitting” other units and training on blood-stained mats and worn down sparring staffs that broke way too easily with their grips and hits. Although, Nova broke her own share of hand-me-down equipment within this facility’s possession, she grew bored of training and decided to take her spare time outside to play with the rain or see what the droids were up to.

Releasing a grumbling noise, Nova dumped her hand to release the small amount of rainwater collected into her palm and brought her drenched arm back under the rafter outside the bunk she and the Knights were given to live in. Flexing her fingers, Nova stuffed her cold arm under her thermal sweater while rolling up her other sleeve. With her dry hand, Nova then stuck that one out and faced her palm upward and focused.

The rain surrounding her immediate position froze midair, slowly collecting together in a sphere-shaped orb above her palm. Using her abilities, she formed one large, water-filled orb and a collection of other ones in specific sizes; others were more jagged-shape, more rocky and hovered in their own crowd while the small spheres orbited the larger one. It remained calm for a minute or so, then morphed to a different amount of moons and main planets - all from memory and books and scrolls that she had looked at.

Vardos... Batuu... Ryloth... Florrum... 

Resting her chin on the wooden railing, Nova kept listing off the planets she recalled learning by making them into water-formed examples, all while kicking her legs boredly and avoiding the rain by using the Force. She sensed someone coming her way, breaking into her hidden Force wall, nonthreatening and familiar, yet didn’t bother to halt her little enjoyment playing with the water.

It wasn’t until she heard a voice clearing their throat that she turned her head to see Hethrir, a Knight of Ren, helmetless and standing tall as he was taught, waiting for her.

“Madam Nova,” he spoke while she dispersed her collection of rain water, allowing the outdoor weather to soak her legs and outstretched arm again. “I apologize for disturbing you.”

Nova snorted with a grin. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” she told him. Knowing he wasn’t much for talking in comparison to the other Knights around her, she truly didn’t expect him to approach her by himself. “How are you doing, Hethrir?”

Looking away from her, ignoring her question, Hethrir took a moment to compose himself from embarrassment. Nova was gentle to slip into his thoughts, completely undetected, to see he was struggling a lot with communication, simply knowing how she is ranked in the Supreme Leader’s eyes. This made her frown, not liking how people treated her because of the tall humanoid creature…

“You are required in communication room number eight, Madam Nova,” he said, looking back to her with as much professionalism as he could. “You have a message from Supreme Leader Snoke.”

Frowning deeper, Nova pulled her limbs back under the coverage of the rafters and stood up. “He couldn’t wait to speak to me directly for you to find me?”

“It was a direct, pre-recorded message addressed to you, Madam,” Hethrir explained. “It’s a locked message, and no one else can open it. It’s addressed to you and only you.”

Making a face, Nova sighed and stretched her whole body. “Alright, I guess it can’t be helped. It must be requesting a follow-up about the stormtrooper units he wanted reconditioned.” Glancing once more back to Hethrir, Nova offered him a polite smile as she relaxed her muscles. “Thank you for coming to get me, Hethrir. Make sure you’re eating all the portions they give you, okay? I’ve noticed that your tray is the only one of the Knights that still has food leftover. It’s not good to waste it, even if it tastes gross - it helps you stay strong.”

“Yes, Madam.”

Well, she tried to strike a conversation with him. Perhaps another time. “And, take it easy today - it’s a great day to go play in the mud!”

xxx.

Entering the communication room, Nova was surprised to only find one officer standing by the hologram table that was typically used for major meetings between Nova, Snoke, Kylo, Hux and some other high-ranked officers and captains required presence. The officer was a small, thinly-shaped woman with curly blonde hair that was forced to straighten into a bun, green eyes and a dust of freckles; she jumped once Nova entered the room from the hiss of the door sliding open. Nova could sense she was just shy with anyone with an upper rank, which she was very used to, so she gave the woman a genuine smile and little wave.

“Hello,” she greeted the blonde officer, approaching her while she was struggling to pose properly for a salute. Nova was quick to ease her from tripping over her own feet. “It’s okay, you don’t need to do that when it’s just me. I’m told that there’s a message here that is addressed for me from Snoke?”

“Y-yes, Madam Nova,” the officer squeaked, nodding quickly. “It’s a confidential message for you only, but it’s programmed to only open when it’s just you present. I was just instructed to stay here until you came, so no one was tampering with it…”

Nova grinned and rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, majority of people here know I’m not the best for handling messages by myself. You must have been here when Hux was sending important videos to play for the units, right? Yes, I remember! You were there when I accidentally deleted them, instead to transfer, and I called him to have him resend it again. Oh, he was so mad, he looked like he was going red in the holograms. It was funny.”

The officer swallowed and looked down, and Nova softened as she approached the woman. “Thank you for watching out for me, but I know how to play the message from here. I promise I won’t be a problem,” she told her. The officer jumped and nodded, scurrying for the door and waiting for it to open for her to exit. “By the way, yes, Hux does import special Naboo shampoos and hair products. He’ll always say it’s given from standard shipments, but I’ve dug in his packages enough to know.”

She sensed the officer’s amusement spark in surprise, overpowering her shy nerves. The door finally opened and she tumbled out gracelessly, but Nova could tell that she was in much better spirits with her most popular gossip now resolved for her next canteen meeting with her colleagues. Nova knew she would most definitely hear about it from Hux, if she ever returned to the Supremacy with him remembering for that long, but it didn’t matter.

Stepping towards the communication table, Nova was about to bring up the inbox data under her name when a sudden scanning erupted - red coded lines scouted the room, making Nova halt in confusion. She didn’t recall ever needing to be scanned for confidential messages. She was used to voice-activations…

The holographic image of Snoke emerged from the table, his distorted image facing her as she recognized him sitting on his throne, hand on each armrest as she assumed he was waiting for whatever recording device to give him permission to speak.

“Nova,” Snoke announced, as if he was actually speaking to her in real time. She tilt her head as she took a step back with her hands on her hips. “State that you’re present and capable of understanding me, little one.”

An interactive message.

“I’m here and I understand,” she responded, emotionless towards him, out of instinct. This made his image smile and her want to twitch.

“If you are receiving this message from me, as of now,” the hologram went on, as if holding a usual Snoke-and-Nova meeting, “it means that I am dead.”

What?

An ugly twist in her gut made her exhale in shock and her eyes widen. The message went on accordingly. “This message was placed prior into the Supremacy system, using my tissue sample to keep track. Should I perish, this message automatically goes to wherever I had sent you, should you not be on the Supremacy.

“As it must pain you that the one who saved you from a life of slavery, all those years ago, has died, I must let you know that it was most possibly that I was slain,” Snoke continued, looking her way and seemed to watch her reaction, despite being a recording. “Fret not of my fate, my dear, brainless girl, for it’s not without success.”

Nova thought over as quick as possible of who or what could have killed Snoke - any possible natural causes, illnesses or possible assassins that snuck into the First Order (although it’s rare in the past few years). It didn’t make sense, especially when her last conversation with Snoke had been about how he was seeing improvement on his side, in the Supremacy.

It just didn’t make sense.

“As Supreme Leader, and your Master in teaching you the ways of the Force, I have carefully planned for the future to bring the First Order to win in this war against the wretched Resistance that aims to ruin everything we’ve built,” he explained. “This is my last Will and Testament, and I expect you, especially for all I’ve done for you, to fulfill my wishes.”

She recalled how Kylo was going to prove his worth to their Master, after failing to get Rey to join them. Nova remembered how Hux puffed his chest out and constantly reminded his assistance, and whenever she was around, how he gained Snoke’s favor in some tasks and planning he did. The higher-ranked officers and stormtroopers were adamant that they were enjoying serving in the First Order, since it had insurance sent to their families and they had decent breaks between shifts. Nova never sensed any sort of ill will from anyone aimed towards him - for murder, at least. It had to be a spy of some sort, but assassins were easily caught before they even reached the throne room. 

“I am giving the role and title of Supreme Leader to you, as my last order.”

Nova felt her heart flop down to her stomach, horror dawning on her as she stared at the image of Snoke. “As you are empty-minded, for all the years I have trained you, you have shown immense power and strategy that I haven’t seen anywhere else in the galaxy. Not even Kylo Ren showed as much growth in the Force or leadership in properly obtaining control of a team and succeeding missions.”

He’s lying. This is wrong.

“I have thought of you highly, and, given with the fact that your history has influenced many, I can’t think of a better successor to the throne and leading the First Order to victory than you, my little Nova.” Nova watched as the hologram of Snoke rest easy against his chair, a satisfied smirk on his oddly arranged face. “There will be no denial that you will make galactic history, my dear. Take stride in this promotion, and honor my dying wish by -”

The whole communication table imploded in a snap. Wires sprout small bolts and panels folded like cloths so easily with her anger, feeling so disrespected from all the times Nova had claimed how she never wanted such attention from Snoke. Smoke bled out from the wreck as the emergency doors forced open to let the vents carry it out and outdoors; custodial droids were quick to roll in and extinguish the electrical fire she caused, beeping erratically and looking to Nova with a mechanic stare.

However, Nova couldn’t acknowledge them, her fists too tight and her temple throbbing from rage, she spun around and marched out whilst officers and technicians came to see what the commotion was about inside their designated space.

All she could think and sorry about was what went wrong? Was everyone alright aboard the Supremacy? Phasma? What about her husband? She hasn’t heard directly from him in weeks, so something must have happened.

The Supreme Leader of the First Order was dead, and it was apparent that the deceased leader wanted her to take his place.

Standing still in the hallway, feeling numb from the nose down, her brain overworking beyond and over the fasted computer, Nova stared ahead of her with no direction. She heard voices and noises around her, yet she didn’t pay any attention to it while she was trying to just process.

It wasn’t until a hand gently pressed against her arm that she snapped her head around with a menacing glare. Coming face-to-face with the same blonde officer trying to shrink herself from her sharpened eyes, Nova took a second to collect herself to at least soften her expression. Nova grabbed the officer’s wrist, before she could pull away and make a run for it, giving her a more solemn look.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, “I didn’t mean to look scary to you. I was just given big news, and I’m having some trouble registering it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Umm…” The officer scuffled her feet, still a little bit nervous about something.

Nova smiled, more honest this time. “Was there something you needed?”

“Uh, another message,” she responded. “It was just sent from the Supremacy, ma’am, to the head command center for the ‘troopers.”

‘It must be from Kylo or Hux, or even Phasma,’ Nova thought with a bit of hope. She mentally grasped onto that hope and held on tight. She nodded to the officer, allowing her to continue. ‘If the message was meant to be sent as soon as he died, then his corpse must have been found.’

“The Supreme Leader is requesting your return to the Supremacy, immediately, Madam Nova. He’s requesting for your presence from General Hux, and it sounds fairly urgent. The hangar has prepared a ship with the coordinates given from the main observation deck.” The officer swallowed quickly, trying to offer a smile back to her. “Uhm, I will go over the preparations for your luggage to be transported back to you on the Supremacy as soon as possible.”

Nova stood still, processing all over again with the newfound information given to her. She wasn’t too sure how long she was left there, but as soon as a stormtrooper came to her aid, to escort her to the hangar to board the small shuttle, she remained confused and thinking over and over. Is Snoke really dead, or was there a malfunction with the system sending her that message by accident? It was extremely rare for First Order technology to act up that way - especially with actual DNA involved - but that bit didn’t bother her as much. If Snoke sees how that particular message was sent to her on accident, Nova was sure that there would be a lot of finger pointing and easily some punishment. And, again, that wasn’t bothersome to Nova.

What was really bothering her, was what Snoke was planning on doing with his death.

Being escorted properly into the shuttle by the ‘trooper, Nova took a deep, calming breath while the ramp closed, mentally preparing herself to have a long talk with her mentor.

xxx.

Hux was the first and only person present for her arrival, in the midst of what Nova could only describe as a chaotic mess. The hangar itself was a wreck; AT-AT Walkers were either knocked over or completely destroyed, clutters of metal and debris piled by sanitation ‘troopers and actual flames being put out. There were huge gaps on the ground, and Nova watched a couple stormtroopers nearly fall in before their companions would grab them by their uniform armor to yank them back to safety. Droids (or what would be left of them on their wheels) scurried like frightened tip-yips, not even stopping when they bumped into Nova’s foot like they usually tend to do. Nova sensed stress clouding over everyone’s best judgement, and irritating and fear radiating off of the General. Sure, she has seen wreckage and destruction at its finest, but this was not how the First Order presented itself with one of its grand Star Destroyers, even when they were flying in the middle of a battle.

Nova was about to open her mouth, to ask the question of ‘what the hell happened?’, until Hux grabbed her by her upper arm and dragged her away to the lift. “That ship was too slow, curse those mechanics for not being fast enough - damn communications, all this rubbish!”

Forcing her into the elevator, Hux punched the panel to direct them to the level of the throne room. Nova wiggled her arm a bit to try and get him to lighten his grip on her arm. “Hux,” she warned.

“Then, thinking he can choke me when I was gonna say it, that damn rodent,” he went on, the images in his head nothing but flashing lights with no coherent images or shapes. Nova tried again by swinging her arm, calling his name a little more loud. It failed. “Then, threatening me to come get brainless brat back from who-bloody-knows-where, not -!”

“Hux!” Nova snapped sharply, using her other arm to grab General Hux’s wrist, twisting it hard to the point that the redhead choked on his own spit as she pulled his arm under and behind his back. She pressed harder on his pulse points, digging into the pale flesh as he stomped his foot and shouted at her. “What the hell happened here? Everything looks like it’s falling apart!”

“Those damn Resistance scum, that’s what the hell happened! Drove their abandoned cruiser into hyperspace right into us! Casualties are piling up and people are losing their minds without proper order here, yet I’m instructed first to bring you back here, like some kind of errand boy!” Hux yelled back at her. Yet, seeing how Nova wasn’t faltering or shrinking herself away from his bewildered behavior, he stood with bated breaths with his slicked hair sticking to his face.

Wincing again at the pinch on his wrist, Hux struggled to get out of her strong grasp, as if she was really a restraint rather than human. “Let go of me, you damn woman!” he snapped.

Nova did so with grace, watching as he tumbled back against the wall of the lift and caught himself. “Was there a battle? Where is Phasma? What about Kylo?”

“Haven’t heard anything from the Captain yet. Everyone is everywhere, as far as I’m concerned,” he responded bitterly. “Can’t even find my usual officers to see if they can get the main deck under control. Since we got into this bloody system, it’s nothing but an absolute mess.”

“Where are we?” Nova made sure to keep her voice level, just to let him think that she would grab at him again, if he went off course again. Watching him drag his hand down his face, she tilt her head, at least trying to be patient.

“Crait system. Went on the planet, just came back and everything is still a chaotic mess.” Nova could easily tell that the man was running on fumes at this point, his usually put-to-order thoughts completely wrecked with images of explosions, the firing squad, Kylo going against an older man right in between the First Order fleet and a sort of fortress built against a rocky wall -

“Where is Kylo?” Nova demanded, accidentally sending a painful pinch to the General’s brow. Hux hissed at the pressure and rubbed the spot, but surprisingly didn’t chew her out for it. “He went against that Skywalker man. What happened?”

“You know that you can just ask him yourself,” Hux grumbled as the lift came to a halt. Once the door slid open, Hux rolled out of the elevator and Nova was quick to follow him into the throne room. “If you can actually get something out of him.”

What was always a clean, shined and plainly decorated throne room was now what Nova could recall her past slave owner’s homes after an overnight party with too much alcohol. Shattered metal and glass littered the floor, burn marks over the rugs and bits and pieces of armor were absolutely everywhere on the scratched tiles. Nova didn’t react much as she saw the remains of the Praetorian Guards pushed into a heap in one corner of the room, where a cleaning droid was pushing a decapitated limb over to join the collection. 

However, Nova did do a second glance at the sight of familiar, gold-embroidered clothes sticking out from the very bottom.

Looking down the aisle that lead to the throne, Nova stopped in her track with Hux standing a few feet behind her at the sight of Kylo’s back kneeled to the bottom of the empty throne. Smiling in relief, Nova felt her heart finally go to ease at sensing his strong heartbeat and lungs working as they should. He was alive, and that was enough to soothe the worst of her worries for now.

“Kylo!” she called to him, smiling so big and happy to see him.

He didn’t respond, remaining unmoving.

“He’s been like this ever since we’ve returned from Crait,” Hux explained. Nova slipped back a moment to see the memory of both him and her secret-husband returning into the throne room and how Kylo continued on until he came to the bottom of the stairs to the throne…

And Snoke’s dead body still sprawled on the floor of his great chair.

Nova watched Hux swallow and wait a moment, waiting for Kylo to do or say something. When it didn’t happen, the redhead cleared his throat. “What would you desire first, in order of repairs, Supreme Leader?”

“Get me Nova. Immediately.”

“Kylo?” Nova called out to him again, a bit more nervous at the sensation of a thousand voices overwhelming him in his head. The haze between Hux’s memory and the present bleeding together until falling apart, and Nova couldn’t help but take a deep breath by how powerful those many, many voices are, piling on top of his shoulders. Not even her own Force wall seemed to be doing anything to help him calm down, and it made Nova feel like there was an outside presence pestering and pushing onto him and under his skin.

“Kylo!” Nova shouted this time, trying to be louder than those many voices bugging him.

Hux, in the little sliver of help, took one step towards her. “Look, maybe he needs to have some space. Everything is out of order, and there’s a lot I can probably use your help wi -!”

“HUSBAND!”

Everything went mute. The voices disappeared altogether and Hux’s mouth snapped shut over the echo of Nova’s scream while Kylo whipped his head around. His eyes wide, exhausted - face drained of any healthy care that Nova knew him to be pretty focused on personal hygiene, and she felt herself already marching her way over. Kylo was then quick to stand on his feet, albeit stumbling to find his ground, and run the rest of the way with the remaining space. He was quick to wrap his strong arms around her body and lift her into his embrace, burying his face into her shoulder as hard as possible, releasing a shuddering breath.

“You’re back,” he groaned sorely against her. “You’re back.”

“I’m home.” Threading her fingers through his dark hair, Nova hugged him back as tight as she could to try and equal it out, just to let him know that she’s in his arms and will not disappear on him. Becoming overwhelmed with emotions from both him and within the back of her head, she felt her eyes swell with tears as it all connected to her.

Snoke was truly dead.

“I’m home, Kylo,” she whispered softly, feeling him move to kiss her neck and clinging to her like his life depended on it. He showed her everything that happened since they were separated, from encountering his mother’s presence while flying his TIE, creating a Force Bond with the Rey girl, to facing Snoke, the Praetorian Guards and then Skywalker…

Kylo claimed that it was the Rey girl who murdered Snoke to Hux, and claimed the throne as his own. Nova shut her eyes and clung to him.

“I’m home, husband. I missed you so much.”

“I swear I was losing my sanity each day without you,” Kylo confessed, his voice angry and tired and just wanting for it all to stop. “I want this war to end now.”

Slowly, gently, Nova took his face into her hands and brought his gaze to lock with hers. Despite her teary eyes, her nose starting to drip and wanting nothing more than to stay in his arms and lock them both away in their quarters (if it was still there), she knew that now wasn’t the time. Smiling to him, seeing him still reluctant from all that he showed her, Nova no longer resisted to bop her nose against his, ignoring the spike of shock emitting from Hux behind her. Kylo simply blinked in response, keeping his attention to her and only her. Nova wanted to tell him everything she went through, to distract him for the most part, but also tell him what the secret message the previous Supreme Leader sent her and his last command to her. 

No, now wasn’t the time.

“Start by helping put the Supremacy back in order, husband,” she told him. “Let me help you.”

Kylo watched her, listening intently while his hands pulled her even closer to him to the point that their chests were pressed together. He leaned his cheek into her palm when her thumbs stroked his skin, closing his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, there was a newly lit fire within them when he let out a breath.

“General Hux,” Kylo called, voice strong and sure. “Contact Captain Yago to establish control in the lower half of the decks. You’ll take the upper half, and begin communications to the nearest allied planet for docking and repairs; start with setting all the mechanics and engineers onboard to set up protective shields to the damaged cut of the ship to keep it together until then.”

Nova turned her head to see Hux twitch, attempt to regulate his breathing. She could hear his thoughts of how he was still adjusting to Kylo taking the role of Supreme Leader, but the previous encounter of being choked by the Force kept him quiet about that. Hux nodded before speaking.

“Of course, Supreme Leader.”

They made eye contact, Nova in Kylo’s arms while he kept himself standing. Nova was aware of Hux knowing that she was reading him and his deep thoughts, about Kylo’s new title claim, their marriage, yet he calmed down immensely when she leaned her head against her husband’s heartbeat. It was going to take a while for the General to understand the how, when and why, but he...appreciated how she was taking charge in consoling and keeping tame to Kylo’s temper.

There was a mutual understanding (albeit lacking friendliness, but Nova didn’t care about that), as Hux turned around and stalked to the exit, ready to take on his duties.

Feeling Kylo kiss the top of her head, Nova turned to look up to him as he began tracing details of her face with his gloved fingers. After being physically separated for so long, she melt into his chest with an honest smile and allowed him to hold her and touch and kiss her face all he wanted. Being patient enough, she was eventually rewarded with a kiss to her lips, which both of them sighed in relief at the first touch. It was sweet and made the galaxy so much more bearable for the both of them.

Breaking the kiss with only minimal distance between them, Nova happily nudged her nose against his, feeling blissful at feeling his lips pull back with a small, hidden smile and the rise of his heartbeat.

“I have to tell you what I’ve seen, before coming back,” she whispered to him, showing the image of Snoke’s hologram from the communication’s meeting room, but nothing else. Kylo wouldn’t push for more, knowing him and how he behaved with her. But, she did mention, in their hidden connection, that it was a post-mortem message, as it was vital at this point. Kylo made a disturbed face but soon smoothed his features once Nova massaged the back of his neck.

Nodding, Kylo turned his face back into her neck and took a deep breath. “Alright. In a while, my love,” he announced with the pet name without abandon, making her chest flutter. “As you’ve said, I need to start bring order back…I just need to hold you for a few more moments.”

Since he wasn’t pushing her for more information, Nova didn’t want to push on him. Even with his calming body against her and his big hands holding her with extreme gentleness, she could he was still paranoid of numerous things - of everything. It was giving him a headache, she knew, and looked at him with a slight worried pout. His eyes locked with hers.

“Please,” he pleaded.

“Okay.”

One of his gloved hands held her cheek, treating her like beloved treasure, then carefully cradling the back of her head to bring it to his chest. She held him as tight as she could, just because she now could and she was truly happy to be back with him again, feeling at home. His breathing calm, Nova turned her head to the side to see the cleaning droid halting in its place as it began signaling the larger ones to come and help with carrying the bodies out. Since being pulled into her husband’s hold, she honestly almost forgot about the dead Elites and Snoke’s own corpse hidden underneath. A part of her wondered if she should have felt ashamed of that, but then realized...that she didn’t really care anymore. 

She didn’t care about Snoke’s death. Rather, she was rather glad that he was finally gone.

Snuggling her face against where his heart was, Nova smiled when his hand wrapped around her back rubbed gently up and down her spine.

“Now, I can continue to work to make the galaxy a better place for you, Nova,” he told her with pride, catching her attention again when he smiled at her. Bending his head to kiss her forehead, he nuzzled her hairline affectionately. “I don’t need Rey to help me bring order and peace to the galaxy for you. I’ll do it.”

Kylo knew how she didn’t want power, how she didn’t want to do anything where she would feel like she was in control of anyone’s life. Kylo always took control for her when it came to ordering people around, whenever she would just look his way and didn’t want to lead an army. She would much rather guide and suggest to others, to ensure their survival over anything, than be given power over those who were below her. She didn’t believe in treating others in ranks, rather just wanting to be at peace with the ones she’s meant to work with, and Kylo was the one who understood that. Hux never did, Phasma simply never questioned it, and Snoke only reprimanded her verbally to stand and ‘take her place’...

The only place Nova ever wanted was to be by her husband’s side, and now she can.

Tightening her arms around Kylo, Nova smiled against him in the middle of the wrecked throne room that will no doubt be cleaned of bodies and debris, rebuilt to a more suitable taste - Kylo’s taste, and maybe let her help decorate - and have better memories for the both of them. The future was set by her husband for a better galaxy, just because he wants it for her.

“Thank you.”

Fun Fact: I am told...that Endorian tip-yips are SW universe’s equivalent of chickens, and I love them.

taglist: @ayatimascd @ymariejp @yippee-ki-yay-motherfucker460 @formerly-anonhamster @rosalynbair @redhairedfeistynerd @imyourdreamwife @kyloxfem @goth-pigeon @renthusiast

And, we are officially done with ‘Prelude’! I really, really appreciate everyone who has supported me since I started this fanfic, even if I’ve been very slow with updating and missing my goal to finish it right before tRoS came out. Despite the ending of the New Trilogy, I do plan on writing more Kylo x Nova/reader content, and a sequel to ‘Prelude’, once I’ve seen the film for myself!

Since I am advised not to see the film in theaters, any form of a sequel will probably take a while, until I get my own copy. I would like to write my own ‘version’ of tRoS, but I would at least like to see it completely before taking matters into my own hands and using Nova/reader as an important role!

Thank you for sticking with me so patiently, and I truly hope you have enjoyed your adventure playing as Nova. I hope to hear from you, either as a comment or opinion of what you thought of ‘Prelude’, and I hope to see you next time!

Lots of love - Kat

[badwolf-in-the-impala]

~The Edge of Heaven~

|| Chapter One || Chapter Two ||

Edited to add new chapter/Moodboard/Faceclaim swap

So I did a new thing lol I know like I don’t have enough of those already BUT, I got this wild Gatsby themed idea while listening to some Lana Del Rey and then I got the idea for the moodboard and it just kinda snowballed from there. ANYWHO, I’ll keep this short. I hope you guys enjoy, and if you would like to be tagged, please let me know! 

Word Count: 5,184

Pairings: Thomas Shelby x OC 

Face-claims: Emily Rudd as Aurora - Paul Wesley  Luke Evans as James))

Moodboard Credit: Myself @badwolf-in-the-impala

Rating: Mature/18+

General Warnings: Spousal abuse, verbal abuse, violence, general Peaky related things...I’ll trying and tag appropriately as I go! 

---------------------------------------

Arrow House - Warwickshire, England - 1925.

Many years had come to pass since Aurora had been back to England; namely, the small industrial district of Small Heath. It was the place that she had called home for the first fifteen years of her life, until the untimely death of her father prior to the start of the War; by four years. But despite the fact they didn’t having much money and despite his drinking habits, her father did his best to be always be part of her life. Teaching her how to love the life she had been given, no matter how desperately her mother tried to teach her how to hate it.

And when he had finally managed at last to drink himself into an early grave; that was when her Mother took her chance. Scraping together every last bit of money she had managed to save over the years and making the decision to move them to America in hopes of giving them both a better life. But at the stubborn young age of fifteen years old, Aurora had fought tooth and nail in protest of her Mother’s idea, even going as far to try running away in an attempt to stay behind. Not wanting to leave her life or her friends. She spent three days hidden away in Ada Shelby’s room at the Shelby family home before finally being discovered and taken back to her Mother.

A sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth at the thought of the memory.

The Shelby’s had been like a second family from the time she was no more than a mere babe; her father having been a dear friend to the family. She remembered spending all her time as a child and young teen, running the streets of Small Heath with the Shelby siblings. Aurora, Ada, and John -- being closest in age -- were always getting up to some kind of mischief, but once Thomas was thrown into the mix? Well, let’s just say it was a miracle that Small Heath was even still standing!

Aurora and Thomas were a lot alike in many ways, especially when it came to being hardheaded. Factor in the five year age difference between the pair and suddenly everything their group did was a instant competition to see who could do it better. There were many times over the years that Arthur would joke about not knowing who was more stubborn out of the two; especially when it came to the argument of who came up with the better plans. Aurora arguing the point that it be her, given that she was a girl and her plans and ideas were always more detailed and precise than any Thomas came up with. But in the end, Arthur would just laugh and call it a draw to make things fair. Knowing it would only add more fuel to the fires of competitiveness between the two.

But one thing was always for certain back then; no one messed with the Shelby’s, nor did they mess with the Calahan girl who ran with them. All else aside, they were thick as thieves back in those days. Back when times were simpler and their biggest worry was explaining to Aunt Pol how they got picked up for fighting that time some older boy punched John when they were ten. Aurora leaping in too defend him before Thomas or Arthur even had the chance to blink. That had always been something that they admired about her; Thomas especially.

And despite how much they butted heads and bickered over the most ridiculous things on a regular basis growing up, Aurora and Thomas had always been more fond of each other than either of them would ever admit to...especially when it came time for her to leave England. Not knowing when or if she would ever return.

Aurora had been heartbroken to say the least when she had been unable to convince her mother into letting her stay behind. Especially to be leaving behind Ada who was like the sister she never had. She could still remember how much she cried as she hugged each of the siblings as they said their goodbyes; but Thomas had been the one who held onto her the longest as she cried. Their last conversation still fresh in her memories like it had happened only yesterday.

~

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Her voice was muffled as she sobbing quietly against Tommy’s chest as the Conductor made his final announcement for the departure of her train. Her mother clearing her throat impatiently a few feet away, causing Tommy to tighten his grip on Aurora reflexively.

“Aye...then you don’t have to.” Tommy had replied softly as he pulled her away from his chest slightly to look down at her. “It’s not really goodbye anyways.” He reassured her whilst brushing a few dark curls behind her ear and away from her face. “Not forever a’least.”

“Aurora, we’re goin’ to miss our train.” Her mother sighed, tapping her foot loudly against the platform as she waited on her daughter. Making them the last two people to board before departure.

Aurora choked back on her sobs as she hugged Tommy tightly for the last time before pulling away and drying her tears. Her emerald green eyes filled with a sadness that he had never seen in her before, during all the years he had known her. A little piece of his own heart breaking as she forced a smile before addressing the siblings as a whole; though her gaze never left his.

“Till next time then…” Her voice wavered as she gave her final farewell before boarding the train alongside her mother and taking their seats. Tommy’s gaze never leaving hers, even as he held onto an inconsolable Ada as the train began to roll out of the station.

“Till next time…”

~

Aurora had kept in contact with the Shelby siblings for several years following her move to America. Faithfully writing each of the siblings letters as often as she could find the time; especially once she learned of the boys’ departure to War. She heard from Ada the most obviously, and would also receive the occasional letter from Aunt Pol. It was rare that she heard from John, or Arthur, but they tried their best. Thomas however would always write back, even while was away at War, he always made the point to write her whenever he had an available chance...and there were days where those letters she sent were all he had to hold on and look forward too.

Letters were few and far between after that as the years passed and eventually as their lives started to move in different directions; they soon ceased entirely. Though there wasn’t a day that went by that Aurora didn’t think about the Shelby family. Tommy especially. And now here she was nearly Fifteen years later, Thirty years old and married to a wealthy American businessman, about to enter the home of none other than Thomas Shelby himself.

Aurora and her husband, James, had been in England for only a few days when she finally got the chance to venture out and make a trip up into Small Heath. Visiting all her old favorite sites, her home, and checking out what was new and what had changed. She had been in the Library when she had the unexpected pleasure of running into Ada, and after a very emotional reunion, they sat and talked over tea for several hours. Catching up on what they had missed out on in each others lives since the last time they saw one another.

It was during this time that Ada invited Aurora and her husband to attend a party that was to be had that weekend in celebration of Arthur and his wife Linda’s anniversary. And while Aurora was insistent on not wanting to impose, Ada wouldn’t take no for an answer. Insisting that everyone would be more than excited to see her after all these years and reassuring that she was still more than welcome among the Shelby clan no matter the occasion.

It took a great deal of convincing on Aurora’s end of things, but she finally managed to talk her husband into attending. Insisting that it would be more than beneficial to his business dealings to befriend and get to know them. He had been less than willing to agree but eventually caved -- a rare occurrence -- when he realized she wasn’t going to give up on the subject.

“I still don’t understand what exactly so special about this family.” James griped as they pulled into the drive. Thomas’ house where the party was being held only a few miles away from their own.

“They all but run Birmingham, James.” Aurora gave a sigh as he helped her out their 1925 Bentley 3 - Liter. “If ye wan’ to make friends with anyone over ‘ere, it’s the Shelby family.”

“For your sake, Aurora, I hope that what you’re telling me is the truth.” He replied as he closed the car door behind her, grip tightening on her upper arm hard enough as he pulled her close that she knew for certain it would bruise. His breath was hot on her ear as he spoke to her in a low, menacing, tone. Making sure that his point was made clear.

“And if these people are as important as you say they are, than I expect for you to be on your best behavior tonight. Do not embarrass me. Am I Understood?” James added.

Aurora nodded stiffly in reply, breathing a quiet sigh of relief as he loosened his grip finally, allowing her to take his arm properly as they neared the main entrance to the house. Their pace slowing behind another group of couples who were entering the same time they were.

“Aurora fookin’ Calahan!”

A small squeak escaped her lips as she was suddenly swept up into a bone crushing embrace upon entering through the door, and despite not having even a second to glimpse who this person hugging her was; she would recognize that voice anywhere.

“It’s Turner now, actually.” Aurora chuckled softly as she was placed back on her feet, looking up to greet the eldest of the Shelby siblings. “And it’s very nice to see you too, Arthur.”

“My apologies.” Arthur gave a sheepish grin as he held her out at arms length, taking her in carefully with a shake of his head. “Christ, ye’ve ‘ardly changed one bit!” He added giving her one more hug before releasing her back to her husband. “This is my wife, Linda.” He proudly introduced the lovely Blonde woman standing beside him, Aurora greeting her with a warm smile.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Linda returned the gesture, giving a warm smile of her own as she shook both Aurora and her husband's hands in greeting. “I’ve heard many stories, and I’m so glad you an’ y’er husband were able to make it!”

“The pleasure is all ours.” Aurora turned to look up at her husband, who stood  beside her, waiting a little patiently for her to introduce him with a tight lipped smile. “This is my husband, James Turner. James, this is Arthur Shelby, oldest of the Shelby siblings, an’--”

“A pleasure, truly.” James cut her off as he stepped forward to shake Arthur’s hand. Arthur studying him carefully, gaze briefly falling to Aurora before speaking.

“American bloke, eh?” Arthur started to inquire, wincing as Linda jabbed him in the ribs sharply with her elbow before shooting him, ‘Don’t be rude’ look. Grinning as she caught Aurora stifling a laugh. “Wha’? I’s jus’ askin’.” Arthur grumbled.

“It’s quite alright.” James replied, his eyes dark and his tone just a little to friendly. “Any questions you have, I’m an open book.” He assured.

“Aye, see?!” Arthur gestured to him as he turned to his wife who simply rolled her eyes before apologizing for her husband's behavior, but they were soon interrupted as Aurora was suddenly blindsided by an enthusiastic Ada.

“You made it!” She exclaimed as she hugged Aurora tightly before taking a step back to look up at James. “And this must be your husband!”

“Yes, this is James.” Aurora introduced as he reached out shake Ada’s hand.

“Ada Thorne!” She introduced herself as she shook his hand with a smile. “Do you mind if I steal your wife for a few minutes?

“Oh, well, actually we were  jus’--”

“Of course not.” Aurora looked up, slightly taken aback as her husband cut her off and agreed to willingly let her go with Ada. The gesture causing a knot of anxiety to form in the pit of her stomach, but she smiled nevertheless as she reached up and kissed him quickly in return before turning to Arthur.

“Well, since tha’s settled,” She gave a soft chuckle as Ada looped her arm together with her own. “Arthur, would you mind keepin’ him company for a bit? Maybe introduce him to some people?” Aurora asked hopefully as Ada began tugging her into the crowd of people just a few feet away.

“O‘course!” Arthur hollard back as he clapped a hand on James’ back, giving Aurora a reassuring wink before he and Linda ushered him off in the opposite direction. Though Aurora could still feel her husbands stern gaze boring into her back; watching as she disappeared into the crowd alongside her friend.

~

After finding themselves each a few drinks, the two woman continued to make their way through the throng of party goers who mingled about the large home. And though it did little to quell the anxiety that twisted and tied her stomach up in knots, the Whiskey in her hand was welcome distraction as they moved towards an unknown destination that Ada was dead set on getting them too.

“Where exactly are we goin’?” Aurora questioned as they pushed through another set of doors and into yet another room that was slightly less crowded. Her question soon answered as she spotted Polly at the far end, standing alongside two youngman she didn’t recognize but was fairly confident she knew who they were.

“Christ, is tha’-- is tha’ Michael an’ Finn?!” Aurora asked in disbelief as they grew closer, Polly’s face lighting up as she turned and caught sight of her and Ada.

“Aye!” Ada nodded quickly in response before all but throwing her into Aunt Poll’s waiting embracing. The boys beside her exchanging a brief confused look amidst all the excitement of the long awaited reunion.

“God, look at you!” Polly beamed as she took Aurora’s face gently between her hands, taking her in. “Even more beautiful than the las’ time I saw you.” Aurora hugged her tightly, trying her best not to cry and ruin her makeup. “Oh how we’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too, Poll.”

“Well, don’ just stand there!” Polly turned around and waved the boys over. “Not tha’ you probably remember her, but, say hello--”

“Bloody hell, is tha’ our Rora?!”

Suddenly Aurora was being crushed into yet another bone crushing hug by one of the Shelby men as John came bursting through the crowd, all but shoving his sister and Aunt out of the way as he scooped her up and twirled her.

“I thought Ada was makin’ up shite stories -- Ow!” John yelped as Polly’s hand connected with the back of his skull, knocking his hat off in the process.

“Y’er overwhelmin’ the poor girl!” Polly scolded as she pointed her finger at John. “An’ don’t be rude, introduce your wife!” Aurora gave a laugh as she watched John turn red out of embarrassment, grumbling under his breath at Aunt Poll as he picked up his hat, putting it back on before turning and bringing a young dark haired woman forward in front of him.

“Esme, this is Aurora.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Aurora greeted and shook the hand that Esme offered. “An’ I am terribly sorry this is the one they made you marry.” She joked, earning an amused laugh from Esme and a very confused look from John as everyone else quickly dissolved into laughter along with them.

“Wha’s so fuckin’ funny?!” John demanded, still not getting the dig Aurora had just taken at him.

“Nothin’ love.” Esme chuckled as she began ushering John off in the other direction for more drinks, ignoring his protests. “Lovely ta’meet you!” She called over her shoulder to Aurora before disappearing.

“Still as dense as he was when we were children.” Aurora sighed thoughtfully with a shake of her head before turning back to the other two boys as Polly introduced them to her before allowing them to be dismissed finally.

“Some things never change.” Ada joked playfully in response. “‘Ave you seen Karl?” She asked Polly, who in returned pointed towards one of the other doors as she took a sip of her own Whiskey.

“Playin’ with the other children still, I assume.” Polly replied with a shrug, catching Aurora by the arm gently before Ada could drag her away entirely. “Come an’ find me again when she’s done draggin’ you aroun’?”

“Of course, Poll.” Aurora smiled, giving her one more hug.

“Good, we’ve got a lot to catch up on!” Polly called after her as Ada began dragging her from the room in search of her son, Karl, so she could introduce them; giving up after ten minutes of searching and coming up empty handed.

“They’re probably mucking abou’ the stables.” Ada gave a frustrated sigh as they checked the backyard, finding it absent of children. “I should go check, I’ll be right back?”

“Take y’er time!” Aurora called after her, letting out a relieved sigh once Ada was out of ear shot. Taking a moment to lean against the pillar beside her, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath as she relished in blissful silence for a moment. The knot in her stomach that had gone ignored after a few drinks, quickly returning as she realized how dark it had gotten and just how much time must have passed since their arrival. Remembering that her husband was still milling about inside somewhere, likely drunk by now and searching for her.

The thought alone was enough to make her dread going back into the party...she hadn’t meant to stay with Ada for so long, but they had gotten so wrapped up in this little reunion of sorts and conversation that she had lost all track of time. And while he would never show it in public, she knew James would be furious, especially if she didn’t go find him, and soon.

With that thought in mind, Aurora downed what was left of her Whiskey before turning to head back inside in search of her husband; her mission interrupted as she ran straight into someone else who had just come through the door behind her, causing her foot to slip off the top step. But instead of falling to the ground as she had anticipated, she was pulled backwards and away from the steps into a strong embrace that was quick to steady her.

“I am so sorry!” Aurora apologized profusely as she knelt down to pick up her clutch and the remnants of her whiskey glass that now lie shattered on the steps, but the other person beat her to it as their hand grabbed her clutch before she could. Aurora was about to apologize again as she gathered up the shards of glass when his voice stopped her.

“You’ve no need to apologize. Entirely my fault, not yours.”

Her green eyes quickly snapped up to meet his in an instant as she stood, nearly losing her balance again as she did so. The glass shards clattering back to the ground as she all but leapt into his arms, her excitement getting the better of her. A deep laugh rumbled through his chest as he hugged her back.

“It’s good to see you too, Rora.” Thomas added.

“Oh Christ, I’m sorry!” She quickly apologized for a second time as she realized just how ridiculous she was being, taking a step back and smoothing her hands over the front of her dress as she tried to compose herself. Failing, miserably, as she ended up hugging him again a second time, just a little more gently. “It’s just so wonderful to see you, Tommy.”

“You needn't worry ‘bout tha’, eh?” He assured her as he pulled away, giving her that signature half smile of his as he stared down at her, taking her appearance in carefully. Her dark curls were pinned up neatly, and she was clad in a long, elegant blue and black beaded evening gown. “I’m happy to see you too...was beginnin’ to think you were avoidin’ me, actually.” He teased.

“Of course not.” Aurora replied sheepishly. “Ada’s jus’ been a little...excited.”

“I know. I’m jus’ givin’ ye a hard time.” Thomas assured her before handing her back the clutch he realized he was still holding onto. “But speaking of our dear Ada, where’s she gone off too?”

“Out to the stables--”

“Lemme guess, lookin’ for the boys.” Thomas finished for her as he let out a sigh. Clearly this was somewhat of a regular occurance. “Suppose I should go help her…” He started down the steps, pausing when he reached the bottom and noticed she wasn’t following. “Care to join me?”

Aurora was more than reluctant at first, weighing her options as she turned to look over her shoulder at the party that was still going  full swing inside. On one hand, she really needed to be getting back to husband, but on the other she very much so wanted to spend a little time catching up with Thomas, and at most, this would only take a few minutes; returning to the party afterwards. Her lack of better judgement won out in the end as she gave him a smile and descended the steps, taking his arm as he offered it to her. Leading them down the path to the stables.

“So, how was America?” Thomas inquired curiously a few minutes into their walk, watching her closely out of the corner of his eye.

“Well…” Aurora drew in a deep breath through her nose before letting it rush out in a sigh past her lips. “Aside from Prohibition? It’s not entirely horrible…’least not all the time. It has it’s perks, jus’ like any other place.”

“Yeah? Like wha’?” Thomas teased.

“Like it doesn’ fuckin’ rain all the time.” She snorted sarcastically, earning a laugh from Thomas as he nodded at her answer.

“Mm. Suppose y’er probably right.” He chuckled as he patted her hand gently.

“Course I am. I’m always righ’.” Aurora teased back in a serious tone. “Or did ye forget tha’ while I was away?”

“Aye, well I haven’ had anyone to argue with on the subject in abou’, oh, fifteen years? So it’s quite possible.” He mused as they approached the stables, noting the dramatic eye roll she thought he hadn’t seen. “Still as stubborn as the day ye left.” Thomas shook his head lightly.

“An’ y’er still an arse...how’s tha’?” Aurora retorted as she turned up her nose, pretending to be offended by his comment.

“I’d say y’er not wrong.” He replied truthfully with a shrug of his shoulders, Aurora about to make another sarcastic comment when they heard Ada’s voice coming from inside the stables. And from the sound of it, she was fighting a losing battle. They picked up their pace a little and rounded the corner into the open archway, spotting Ada and small group of rambunctious boys who were hellbent on not listening to a word she was saying.

“Aye!” The boys stopped instantly at the sound of his voice, two in particular turning to face Thomas and whatever punishment was to be received. “Listen’ta Ada, ‘fore she tans tha’ lot of ya!” There was a chorus of ‘Yes Sir’s’ before a few of the boys started back toward the house, one boy staying behind with Ada, while another -- not much older than three or four -- came running up to Thomas with his little arms outstretched to be picked up.

“Stop givin’ y’er Aunty Ada such a hard time, eh?” Thomas stated firmly as he pressed his forehead against the little boys’, making him giggle as he nodded.

“Yes, Da.” The little boy replied quietly, the sound of his small voice making Aurora’s heart clench in her chest tightly, even though a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she watched the interaction between the two. The boys curious little blue eyes soon fixed to hers as he rested his cheek against Thomas’ shoulder. “Who’s tha’?”

“That,” Thomas turned so that they were facing her. “Is my friend. Ms. Aurora.” He introduced, the little boy picking his head up to study her closely as she smiled warmly at him. “An’ this, is Charlie. My son.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Charlie.” Aurora greeted softly, smiling as the little boy looked away shyly for a moment; burying his face in the crook of Thomas’ neck.

“She’s pwetty.” Charlie mumbled quietly before stifling a yawn and closing his little eyes, making Aurora chuckle softly.

“Aye, tha’ she is.” Thomas gave a soft laugh as she shifted the boy in his arms. “But more importantly, innit past y’er bedtime?”

“It’s past both their bedtimes.” Ada chimed in with sigh as she ushered her son forward, introducing him to Aurora before suggesting they start back for the house and get the boys up to bed. Charlie struggling to keep his little eyes open as they walked along the path, pausing when they came across Linda.

“There you all are, I’ve been lookin’ everywhere!” She breathed out a sigh of relief, hand pressed to chest. “Speeches.” She pointed between Thomas and Ada before turning to take off before stopping again as she remembered something else. “Oh! An’ Aurora, y’er husband has been lookin’ for you.” Linda smiled before taking off down the path ahead of them where she disappeared from sight.

“Husband, eh?” Thomas quirked an eyebrow as he looked over at her, watching her cheeks turn pink as she nodded, fidgeting with the ring on her left hand -- that he hadn’t noticed until now --  but remained silent on the subject. Suddenly absorbed in the throws of internal worry once more as they drew closer to re-entering the house, spotting James as they rounded the corner, standing near the entrance chatting with Arthur while they had a cigar.

“He a businessman, from America.” Ada piped up in answer with an excited smile. “Seems like a nice fellow. Haven’ gotten to talk to him much yet--” She droned on, going mostly unheard as Aurora remained lost in thought and Thomas watched her closely; noting that something seemed off, all of the sudden.

“There she is!” Arthur exclaimed drunkenly, shoving James lightly as they watched the group approach the stairs. Aurora forcing a smile as she climbed the stairs quickly to take her place beside her husband, avoiding his dark gaze that hadn’t wavered from her for a second, about to kiss him when he stepped past her and approached Thomas. Aurora felt like her heart was about to leap straight out of her chest, not knowing what James’ intentions were. But she did her best to keep her composer as to not give anything away.

“You must be the infamous Thomas Shelby I’ve heard so much about.” James extended his hand out in greeting as Thomas came up the steps, shifting a now sleeping Charlie around in his arms before shaking his hand. Blue eyes drifting briefly to Aurora who was breathing a sigh of relief.

“Aye, an’ you are?” Thomas answered dryly, eyebrow raised in an unimpressed manner as he looked James up and down, taking in the almost too perfect appearance of the man that stood before him; discreetly sizing him up as Thomas turned to pass Charlie off to Ada so she could take the boys inside.

“James Turner. Aurora’s husband.” He gave a tight smile and he took a step back, snaking an arm around her waist as he pulled her possessively into his side. “Isn’t that right, Darling?” Aurora nodded with a small smile, trying to contain her embarrassment as Thomas slipped her a skeptical look, but did his best to remain civil as they talked.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Thomas replied.

“Please, the pleasure is all mine. It’s nice to finally put a face to the man my lovely wife spends so much of her time talking about.” James insisted with a grin, his grip tightening ever so slightly as he turned his attention to look down at Aurora. “It is getting rather late though. We should probably get going.” Aurora gave an obedient nod, knowing that protesting would be an unwise choice as she caught the strong whiff of the alcohol on his breath as he spoke to her.

“Of course.” She replied softly, turning to thank Thomas for his hospitality as Arthur and Ada had already disappeared back inside. “Thank you so much for having us.”

“Any time.” Thomas gave her a smile. “In fact, the two of you should come over sometime. We’ve a lot to catch up on,” His eyes fell to Aurora briefly before locking onto James. “An’ I would be very interested to ‘ear abou’ y’er business ventures over in America.” Aurora could feel James tense beside her, jaw clenching as he forced another tight lipped grin and shook Thomas’ hand one last time.

“I’ll be in touch.” James assured, not waiting for a reply as he started down the steps. “Come along, Darling.”

“Goodnight, Thomas.” Aurora spoke softly as she looked up at him, giving him one final warm smile -- the one he remembered from their childhood -- before starting down the steps after her husband, not wanting to keep him waiting any longer, though she gave one final pause. “It really was wonderful to see you again.”

Thomas watched with a heavy heart as she hurried off into the night behind her husband. Gone just a quickly as she had arrived. Fifteen years he had waited, hoping that he would see her once more; and while a lot had happened in her absence, it didn’t change the feelings that seeing her again had suddenly brought rushing back...along with good dose of jealousy at the thought of her being married to that pompous prick he had just had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting.

Letting out an irritated sigh, Thomas pulled his cigarette case from the inner pocket of his Tux and placed a cigarette between his lips. Lighting it before tucking the small tin back into its rightful place as he took a long drag, leaning his shoulder against the pillar beside him as he exhaled; watching the smoke as it trailed past his lips into the darkness of the night.

Disappearing; just like Aurora.

------------------------------------------

Tagging anyone I think might be interested from my other Tommy Shelby fic ((which I’m hoping to get up soon...my ass is struggling.)) 

TAGLIST: @jacksonroth @liiv0urlifee @londoncharlotte88 @theworld-is-ahead @zazasblogxx @readsalot73 @ly--canthrope @harjumus @theskinofmyemotions @sympathyfortheblinderdevil @juuliaa-gooliaa @feyrearcheron44

[emeraldspiral]

Real talk, the only reason Anakin had to go to Jedi school to git gud is because he needed to be a kid when he left his mom and an adult when he began his romance with Padme. If the plot had called for it, he would’ve been a Master Jedi in a week because the needs of the story outweigh the need for “realism”.

Just look at Luke. His training lasted maybe a couple of days or weeks at most because it just wouldn’t make sense for Luke to stay out of the fight for years and years. He could only train for as long as it took Han and Leia to get captured by Vader, but he also needed to not instantly lose to Vader when they fought. Therefore, the amount of time it took for Han and Leia’s storyline to play out was the exact amount of time Luke needed to get good enough to face Vader.

Afterward, in RotJ, supposedly there’s a timeskip of a year, but you’d be forgiven if you thought, as I did, that only a few days or weeks passed, since there’s 0 mention of a timeskip in the film and no reason to think it would take that long to get to Tatooine or plan Han’s rescue. In fact, it seems out of character for a dedicated Rebel like Leia to take that much time off for one person, no matter how she felt about him. But I digress. Regardless of whether it was really a year or only a few days, the fact remains that Luke didn’t have any additional training during that timeskip. He only returned to Dagobah after rescuing Han, and upon arrival Yoda was on his deathbed telling Luke he was already ready, no additional Force training or lightsaber combat instruction required.

In any event, however much training he received, it was definitely significantly under ten years and, from what we saw, didn’t even cover lightsaber fencing, at least not nearly as much as lifting rocks and reading minds and other Force skills. Yet, he still managed to overpower Vader, the strongest Jedi/Sith to ever live. Because the story required him to be that powerful at that point so that he could complete his arc by rejecting the opportunity to slay Vader.

Now, let’s consider Rey’s skills, abilities, and accomplishments, starting with the dumbest of the dumbshit things people complain about when trying to use the “she’s too good at too many things/gets too good too fast” argument for why she’s a Mary-Sue.

First of all:

Why does Rey speak droid and Wookie (as if that’s a particularly uncommon skill)? Because she needs to befriend BB-8, so BB-8 can bring her together with Finn and because someone’s got to be able to understand Chewie once Han’s gone and that someone should probably be the one who’s going to be spending a lot of time alone with him co-piloting the Falcon when they go to find Luke. The better question to ask is why anyone cares about shit like that? Like, is that on some Mary-Sue litmus test somewhere? “Is bilingual in a world where most people are?” If you’re going to complain about something that stupid I have to assume you think character writing should work like Pokemon where you have to drop traits in order to stay under a certain limit, even if half the stuff filling up the quota is stuff like “can ride a bicycle” or “doesn’t burn the house down when they cook”.

Second:

Why is she an ace pilot (as if half the characters in Star Wars, both Force sensitive and non-Force sensitive aren’t also Ace Pilots, and also as if Rey has more than ONE SINGLE flying scene or had any trouble handing over the spotlight to any of the other THREE ACE PILOTS JUST IN THE SEQUEL TRILOGY)? Because she has to be a pilot because Finn can’t be, because he had to need Poe so that he could get his jacket, in order to catch BB-8′s attention, so that BB-8 could bring him and Rey together. Also, because it emphasizes Rey’s major character flaw; that she is the architect of her own misery. She has the means to leave Jakku but doesn’t, something directly acknowledged immediately after her one and only flying scene.

Third:

Why does she show Han up on knowledge of his own ship? Well, for one thing, she fucking doesn’t. She only knows about one thing installed in the ship after it left his custody. But even if you wanted to make the claim that this was supposed to demonstrate that she was some kind of Superstar Mechanic (as if mechanics are something rare and special in Star Wars) and that the reason for her being a Superstar Mechanic is just to get Han to like her, even that has a story-related justification that isn’t just about wish-fulfillment or using a cool character to shill for her. Having Han take a liking to her creates another opportunity for her to demonstrate her character flaw when she rejects his job offer in favor of returning to Jakku to wait forever for parents that don’t love her when there’s a man she already thinks of as the father she never had right in front of her. Also, having her bond with him makes his death at Kylo’s hands more personal for her, thereby creating a greater hurdle for her to overcome in order to come to have compassion for Kylo, making it more satisfying when she does.

Fourth:

Why does she have the Force when she’s already a pilot, mechanic, and proficient stick-fighter (as if any of those things are unique or special. Or more importantly, ever used at the expense of letting other characters shine)? Couldn’t she have been a Badass Normal? If this were just about beating bad guys and winning the war maybe. But it’s clearly not. This is about the old heroes passing the torch to the next generation. The main character was always going to be Force sensitive, always going to become a Jedi, and always going to replace Luke no matter what gender they were, who they were related to, whether they were a scavenger or a stormtrooper or secret royalty or Born of the Force or who, if anyone, they were going to be romantically partnered with. Rey needs to be Force sensitive because, as the main character, her ultimate purpose is to define what it means to be a Jedi for a new generation.

Fifth:

Why can she do things with the Force without training? Well, the only reason Luke needed a training montage was because the Force was a brand new concept for him and he was limited by his own ideas about his capabilities, and because the audience was going in blind as well and needed to hear the Force 101 lectures just as much as he did. Rey meanwhile, has no reason to think lifting rocks or picking up a lightsaber hilt is hard when she’s grown up hearing stories about Luke doing much crazier things. Between that, having Kylo demonstrate all those abilities to her beforehand, and also being able to access his training through the Force Bond there is 0 reason for her to need a training montage in-universe. But more importantly, because the audience has already gotten a crash course on standard Force abilities from the previous movies, a training montage would be redundant. We don’t need the same exposition given to us again anymore than we need to see Rey repeat the same character journey as Luke. The Force Bond and Rey’s preexisting fighting capabilities may be a convenient workaround to explain why Rey doesn’t need a training montage, but they exist because a training montage would be dead weight that adds nothing to the story. And that’s just the Force Bond’s ancillary purpose. Its much more important function is getting Rey and Kylo to stop fighting and start talking.

Sixth:

Why couldn’t Rey and Kylo at least fight to a draw or better yet, have her forced to retreat in their first battle? Why did she have to beat him at the very beginning of her journey? Doesn’t that make her too powerful with no room for advancement and him too weak, leaving no tension for future confrontations?

Because Kylo’s defeat isn’t about Rey at all. It’s not about making her look good. Kylo’s supposed to be at his lowest point going into TLJ. He’s supposed to look weak, not because the screenwriters think it’ll make Rey look stronger in comparison. They know damn well that the way to write a villain is to present them as an impossible obstacle to overcome. To hide any semblance of vulnerability in order to keep you in suspense as to how the hero could ever prevail against them. But that’s not Rey and Kylo’s dynamic. That’s Kylo and Snoke’s dynamic. Kylo isn’t the villain, he’s the “other half of the protagonist”. He doesn’t exist for Rey to be afraid of him. She’s meant to sympathize with him, which means he needs to appear vulnerable and human in front of her. They couldn’t build the romantic (or even platonic) connection the film clearly intended for them if Kylo actually did come across as threatening as people wanted him to be. The appearance of physical or emotional invincibility would be antithetical to the entire story they’re trying to tell.

Also, Rey isn’t even that good with a lightsaber. Kylo had been shot with a bowcaster, injured further and tired out by Finn, and handicapped himself by not aiming to kill or maim since he wanted to recruit Rey to his side and Rey still spent 98% of that fight running and only won because Kylo chose not to kill her when he had the chance.

Believe it or not, some dumbasses have actually heard all this and still tried to argue that Rey shouldn’t be in any fighting shape after hitting a tree hard enough to lose consciousness and that should nullify all the advantages she was given. If you make this argument, you’re being an anal contrarian fuck and you know it. Getting hit in the head is NEVER portrayed realistically in fiction. It is completely standard and in no way exceptional for a fictional character to awake from unconsciousness with no impairments. It has fuck all to do with trying to make characters look cool. It never has been and never will be a Mary-Sue trope.

In conclusion:

None of Rey’s abilities or feats are just there to make her look good. They’re either there to move the story along, or to add to her characterization and character journey, or to add to Kylo’s. Furthermore, they’re nothing special in the context of Star Wars, the stuff she learns quickly has in-universe justifications and it’s not even unprecedented for characters to git gud enough to match someone more experienced in a very short amount of time with no in-universe justification.

[elizas-writing]

How I Would Fix The Last Jedi

So it’s been a while since The Last Jedi premiered and with the initial hype and anger settling down, more people are looking at it through a proper critical lens. The more posts I see critiquing The Last Jedi, the more I’m starting to realize it’s got a lot more problems than I thought. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it and found certain elements the best of the franchise, but perhaps I focused a little too much on being positive just to drown out all the anger (which to be fair, most of it was unwarranted to begin with). And thankfully now that most of the more pissy fanboys quieted down, I can post this in peace.

This film’s biggest problem was the lack of a good editor to keep the pacing consistent and allot the right amount of character development for everyone. So I’ll be addressing some of the major concerns with The Last Jedi and analyzing where and how problems could be fixed.

1. Leia’s Fate

Given Carrie Fisher’s death, some fans were anticipating Leia would possibly be killed off during The Last Jedi. But since she’s still alive at the very end, now they’re going to have to find a way to do that off screen unless they have enough spare footage from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi to fill the gaps. To be totally fair with how much they filmed with Carrie, this was probably the best they could do without reshooting most of the film and pushing back the release date. Plus, this is the last time we’ll get to see her--- let me have Super Leia in Space. I think the only way they could work around this would be to record lines mentioning her depleting health given how long she was in space, even with using the Force to save herself. It’d at least give some foreshadowing that maybe she won’t make it to see the Rebellion win and drive our main heroes to follow in her footsteps.

2. No Memorial for Han Solo?

Yes, more than two years passed and the shock of Han Solo’s death faded for the fans, but for the characters, only mere hours passed. Leia lost her husband, Chewie lost a best friend, Rey lost a father figure, and Luke lost a brother-in-law. They should still be torn up about this, especially Luke given all his guilt on failing his nephew. It’s really hard to believe that there wasn’t even so much as a memorial for one of the greatest heroes of the Rebellion. Imagine how much more gut-wrenching the opening would be if they were caught off guard while mourning Han.

 I want more of Rey depressed and angry that the one father figure she’s known was offed by his own son without mercy. I want more of Luke’s guilt eating him which increases his reluctance towards training cause he doesn’t know if this will happen again and who else he’ll lose. Han’s death should still have a massive impact on the story and where the Resistance will go without a legendary fighter with such a special spark you won’t find anywhere else in the galaxy.

3. Admiral Holdo’s Reckless Shit

It’s really hard to gauge if I actually like Admiral Holdo because the film is back-and-forth between pulling the rug from under us with the character drama and forgetting the high stakes of their present situations. I get that Poe is hot-headed and needs to learn patience, but c’mon, you’re losing precious ships and lives the longer you stall and don’t just tell this trigger-happy nut what’s going on. She has no reason to be so secretive, and it’s just plain irresponsible given the small size of the Resistance. There’s no effort on her end as a leader to work together with some people, and unfairly talks down to them like children. And I know Leia does this too with Poe when she demoted him, but they have a quasi-mother/son dynamic where it works because they were working together longer than Poe has with Holdo. They might as well be strangers for almost two hours.

I definitely don’t hate Holdo as much as the rest of the fandom does, but we need more of her side with nuance on the divide and finding balance between fighting and self-preservation, especially as she leads in place of Leia and the two were close friends for decades. But you don’t get that connection and how much the Resistance means to her mere minutes before she dies. She comes off way too heartless than necessary for this side-plot. And it sucks because it’s a fascinating struggle between action and self-preservation in regards to rebellion and knowing when to do what to make actual progress, but it’s buried too deep in the subtext underneath the needless bickering between Holdo and Poe. Just show what she’s up to from the get-go, validate her reasoning, and allow her to be a likable character so her major sacrifice actually feels earned and not a last minute sympathy grab for Poe to learn a lesson.

4. What was Benicio del Toro’s Character Again?

Oh yeah, DJ.... I legit had to Google to remember the character’s two-letter name. And if that’s not enough to say he has no purpose in this movie, I don’t know what is. I get that he’s supposed to parallel Lando Calrissian when he tricks Han Solo back in Empire Strikes Back. But while Lando still had screentime afterwards to double-cross the Empire and join the Rebellion anyway, DJ just freaking disappears, and it’s never addressed what happens to him after turning in Finn and Rose. Honestly, if you wrote him out of the movie, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. And it sucks, because this side plot had great themes going on with war profiteering and the apathy towards both the Resistance and the First Order so long as one has something to gain from their deals.

If you’re going to parallel Lando’s arc from Empire, don’t cut it short when it’s getting good and have DJ consider the consequences of his actions, regardless if he joins the Resistance or not. Set up some foreshadowing for the next movie where DJ is completely working for the First Order or the Resistance and realizes how much picking a side does matter with rising authoritarianism. It has great potential for whether or not he’s redeemed with how long his apathy will take hold so long as he makes a quick buck.

Or better yet, just entirely replace DJ with an older Lando who lost his sense of hope with the rise of the First Order and hides away on Canto Bight waiting for age to catch up to him, living in blissful ignorance while the rest of the galaxy crumbles. He’s the decoder Finn and Rose were looking for all along and this was Maz’s way to coerce Lando back into the Rebellion. Much like Luke, Lando is reluctant to fight and see any hope, but upon hearing of Han’s death and Leia’s condition, regret eats him for all the years he spent away from his closest friends and just wasting his life on gambling and drinking. He finally agrees to help Finn and Rose, but they only get so far before getting caught by the First Order, just barely escaping with their lives and reuniting with the rest of the Resistance for the film’s climax.

5. Finn Overcoming Stormtrooper Past

I think this deleted scene speaks for itself on all the missed opportunity in developing Finn. That’s not to say he’s totally devoid of screentime as it’s still fun to see him with Rose exploring Canto Bight and getting caught up in their own misadventures. But many were hoping this would be the perfect time to explore his traumatic past and how Stormtroopers work in this world. Maybe he’d try to go back, save them from the brainwashing and help them realize they’re just senselessly murdering innocent people for nothing.

Holdo even has a line where she refers to Finn as a Stormtrooper almost in disgust, so you’d think there would be more time to show his change over to the Resistance and proving himself not just as a powerful ally, but someone who is more than their past. Someone who can finally break the cycle of children being taken away from their families to become disposable soldiers. But his battle with Phasma comes and goes so quickly and doesn’t leave as big of an impact as it should, and much like Force Awakens it feels like they’re playing great cards far too early. This deleted scene works so much better when you see the gears turning in the Stormtroopers when they realize their leader is just a massive coward, and it ends perfectly with Finn proudly calling himself “rebel scum.” It’s still beyond me why this scene was scrapped. They either needed to keep this  in or have Phasma survive and make a grand final battle for Episode IX.

I want that spark of rebellion to ignite in the Stormtroopers where they realize “wait, what the hell are we even fighting for?” and dismantle the First Order from the inside out by Episode IX. It’d make a great parallel to the prequels and Order 66 but completely recontextualized in a story of rebellion and redemption. Throw in some of the Resistance saving children from growing up into soldiers, tragically epic scenes of sacrifice, and boom, there’s a climax of Episode IX practically writing itself.

6. Shut up Ben Solo-Organa

Now, I like Kylo Ren as a villain-- he’s similar to Anakin Skywalker’s whininess in the prequels except made legitimately terrifying with the fragile toxic masculinity of wanting to be stronger and powerful by any means necessary. However, I can’t do the woobifying, both from large sects of the fandom and Rian Johnson. I would be a lot more forgiving of his character development in The Last Jedi if Johnson made Kylo Ren’s intents more clear without implying any romance between him and Rey-- fucking really (and sorry, not sorry, the only thing I ship Kylo with is a swift kick in the ass).

I get that we need temptations of the dark side as part of the classic Star Wars story, and I love the twist on it where Kylo turning to the dark side was ultimately his choice and not because Luke failed him-- especially as killing Snoke didn’t flip him back to the light like when Vader killed the Emperor. But the heart of that particular recontextualization should be on the student-teacher relationship between Rey and Luke and not Kylo Ren sniveling like an infant. It walks a thin line of making Kylo Ren almost too sympathetic and forgetting how he ended up with the First Order to begin with. I don’t care how many puppy dog faces he makes; as shown by the end of the film, he’s not ready for redemption, if it will ever be in his grasp. His excess screentime of what we already know undermines Rey and Luke’s relationship which should be the focus of the former’s arc in The Last Jedi. But unfortunately, it isn’t as strong as it was with Luke and Yoda or Obi-wan and Anakin because the film has to juggle with a dozen other plotlines and characters.

Hopefully with J.J Abrams back in the directing chair, maybe he can steer the focus back on the films and what the fans really want. Granted, I don’t think The Last Jedi deserved nearly the level of vitriol it got within the last year, but even I couldn’t ignore some of the major problems and missed opportunities to get its themes across.

If you enjoyed this fix-it and what I do here, consider buying me a ko-fi to show your support!

[aion-rsa]

Why Star Wars Trilogy Editor Marcia Lucas Hates the Sequels

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The divisiveness of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy remains powerful nearly two years after its conclusion. Yet, as topically wide-ranging—and, in some cases, strangely political—as debates over the Disney-dealt follow-ups to the sacred Original Trilogy became, the cold-hard metric of box office grosses confirms their status as Star Wars’ least-lucrative mainline movies (excluding the anemic Solo). Now, the camp of sequel detractors has apparently gained a surprisingly authoritative ally in film editor Marcia Lucas, who, besides being the ex-wife of George Lucas, was a crucially grounding visionary in the franchise’s formation.   

One of Star Wars’ early guiding forces, Marcia Lucas (born Marcia Lou Griffin), has offered some scathing criticism of Sequel Trilogy films The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), rife with the kind of adjectives that don’t beat around the bush. The stinging words stem from Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life by J.W. Rinzler, a recently-released biography on the legendary, Lucas-collaborating film producer. In the book’s foreword, Marcia delivers a devastating rebuke (via Inverse,) of the franchise’s most recent films and their stewardship under veteran producer Kathleen Kennedy—albeit with the rhetorical analgesic of a complimentary preamble.

“I like Kathleen. I always liked her. She was full of beans. She was really smart and really bright. Really wonderful woman. And I liked her husband, Frank. I liked them a lot,” says Lucas. “Now that she’s running Lucasfilm and making movies, it seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and J.J. Abrams don’t have a clue about Star Wars. They don’t get it. And J.J. Abrams is writing these stories—when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, ‘You don’t get the Jedi story. You don’t get the magic of Star Wars.’”

Interestingly, Marcia Lucas’s role behind the scenes of the original Star Wars Trilogy—and the George-penned, Steven Spielberg-directed Raiders of the Lost Ark—as an editor and informal story consultant has only recently started to become widely known from a handful of tell-all books and behind-the-scenes television specials. However, it does seem clear in hindsight that the world-altering pop culture groundswell that was 1977’s original Star Wars was a gestalt effort that saw George’s early, allegedly-vague Flash Gordon-esque serial sci-fi designs refined by personnel such as producer Gary Kurtz and, most notably, Marcia. Indeed, as alleged, Marcia—as his wife—primarily possessed the clout to criticize George’s wilder, unfeasible ideas and constructively refine them in a way that bore pathos on the screen; the Apollo to his Dionysus, if you will.

Lucasfilm

However, the acrimony in their marriage metastasized beneath a public façade in 1982 during production of the trilogy closer eventually titled Return of the Jedi. In hindsight, this arguably affected the flow of the film, which is widely believed (an admittedly anecdotal qualification,) to be the weakest and most out-there entry of those first three films. Unfortunately, the chemistry that conjured some of the most beloved and influential movies of all time unceremoniously dissipated upon their divorce and professional split, which was announced shortly after Jedi’s 1983 release. In fact, a frequently-cited reason for the also-divisive direction of George’s eventual tenure on the 1999-2005 Prequel Trilogy was that their production occurred against an untenably hierarchical situation, in which George bore unchecked power as director, writer and studio bigwig. Indeed, notwithstanding today’s newfound nostalgic love conveyed to the prequels, conventional critiques frequently point to convoluted plots, generally dry performances and artificial green screen aesthetics—aspects that conceivably could have been neutralized and/or salvaged by the splicing and advice of Marcia.  

Contextually, Marcia’s Star Wars excoriation, is being made nearly a decade in the aftermath of Disney’s 2012’s acquisition of Lucasfilm (and the Star Wars franchise as a whole) in a $4 billion deal that notably saw George capitulate any control he had over the franchise, business-wise and creatively. So, this is hardly a case of decades-preserved sour grapes being spewed onto an ex-spouse. Rather, it can be perceived as the case of the franchise’s de facto mother watching from afar as her child makes what she believes are terrible choices. In fact, she doesn’t mince words when addressing the elephant in the Sequel Trilogy room, Daisy Ridley’s Rey. While her status as the trilogy’s clear protagonist meant that she was destined to become a powerful figure, even proponents of the films have to admit that Rey’s rise was, in the very least, unnaturally quick, going from solitude as a scrap salvager on desert remote planet Jakku to besting the powerful scourge of the galaxy at his own game—something that took Luke Skywalker three films to achieve.

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Regarding Rey, she sounds off, “And they think it’s important to appeal to a woman’s audience, so now their main character is this female, who’s supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don’t know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is.” Marcia’s criticism is obviously destined to be met with opposition from the segment of the fandom that connected with Rey in a meaningful way. Yet, it is worth noting that Rey, by the end of 2015 sequel opener The Force Awakens, showcases an inexplicable preternatural ability in the ways of the Jedi, notably in the film’s climax, in which she—without any lessons whatsoever—picks up a lightsaber for the very first time to duel and defeat Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, who—having been depicted as skilled and powerful throughout the film—had been trained in the Jedi arts throughout his entire life before his Dark Side turn. In conjunction with that, the scenes on the Millennium Falcon in which she is giving Han Solo advice on how to repair the ship has also facilitated claims of her being a “Mary Sue,” which refers to a know-it-all character without any substantive flaws, who is often a vicarious manifestation of the author.

However, the Sequel Trilogy initially seemed destined to laugh its way to the bank with the J.J. Abrams written/directed The Force Awakens going on to gross $2 billion worldwide, having tapped the well of nostalgia hard—so hard, in fact, that film’s structure arguably renders it a remake of the original Star Wars, a.k.a.  A New Hope. Yet, as one could expect from a sequel that’s 32 years in the making, the movie manifested as a passing of the protagonist baton from returning heroes like Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 to a trio of new heroes in Daisy Ridley’s would-be Jedi Rey, John Boyega’s side-jumping former Stormtrooper Finn and Oscar Isaac’s heroic-but-cocky pilot Poe Dameron, along with a rounder-built droid in BB-8.

However, the trilogy’s follow-up films would suffer from storytelling that went in disparate directions, first with 2017’s The Last Jedi, which saw writer/director Rian Johnson make bold, but controversial changes in tone and plot developments, specifically regarding Rey, who, in that film, seemingly had her Chosen One status revoked when she learned her parents where just ordinary people. Tellingly, that film yielded a box office decline, which saw it gross $1.3 million worldwide. Consequently, upon the abrupt removal of the third film’s appointed visionary, Colin Trevorrow, Disney brought Abrams back for 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which retroactively rescinded those developments in lieu of a hastily-concocted climax that revealed Rey to be the granddaughter of a clone-resurrected Emperor Palpatine, who had been hiding behind the scene manipulating events the whole time. Additionally, she was given a pedantic, quasi-romantic connection to Kylo Ren as part of a “Dyad” of the Force. The result was a final box office whimper of $1 billion, cementing a steady decline that led to much soul-searching over at Disney.

“It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me—J.J. Abrams, Kathy Kennedy—talk to me,” says Marcia with an emphatic stamp. Yet, whatever one might think of the Sequel Trilogy, Rey or even Daisy Ridley’s performance, the bizarre malleability of her arc certainly boosts the point Marcia conveys about the weakness of her backstory. Indeed, the accelerated skills of a protagonist across multiple films (akin to Luke’s unexplained upgrade between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi,) can be a forgivable offense if said skills drive the story forward. However, in Rey’s case, it seems to be an example of a character being driven by what’s expedient to the story.  

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

For now, though, the Star Wars franchise is taking a break from the big screen as the recent success of live-action Disney+ television series The Mandalorian will soon yield subsequent offerings like The Book of Boba Fett (which will arrive in time for Christmas), Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor. However, a monumental comeback is set for the far horizon when the Patty Jenkins-directed Star Wars: Rogue Squadron eventually hits theaters, the first of more films on the docket.  

The post Why Star Wars Trilogy Editor Marcia Lucas Hates the Sequels appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[dauntlesssubconscious]

The Last Jedi and the resolving of Gray

We’re on the home stretch, yo! The Last Jedi is opening in cinemas in little over a month and I’ve wanted to make this post for a while, as a sort of conclusion for the last two years of waiting and theorizing.

I’m not a fan of taking things for granted, especially when discussing someone else’s creative process (Lucasfilm, in this case); but now that all the trailers are out and taking into account the tidbits of information we’ve been given throughout these two years, the bigger picture has become clearer and cemented some beliefs/theories for me. So, without further ado…

The starting point: day and night

Star Wars has explored the concept of the Force time and time again; we’ve seen Darkness and Light playout in different combinations. Makes sense, since the Force is the stuff of legends in a saga that leans heavily on myth in its storytelling and an intrinsic trait in the Skywalker family. The Force isn’t all there is to Star Wars, but it is a main component and lead thread, and arguably, the rest of the subplots march at its beat.

The Prequel Trilogy begins with a democracy---the Old Republic now---and a Jedi Order acting as its protector. Both institutions had been around for millennia and they seemed steady at face value, which wasn’t the case as we later learn. This trilogy focuses on the corruption of the government, the lack of foresight, the complacency of the Jedi, and how they fail when faced with the Dark Side. The Original Trilogy follows the same basic structure: the change in the established regime is brought down by a relatively small group that gains momentum as the movies go, but in this case, the Empire the Sith had built is the one to crumble and the Light wins the day in the end.

Pretty neat.

And then Disney came along and the question surfaced: where is this new trilogy going to go?

Alan Dean Foster, writer of the The Force Awakens novelization, starts the book with a quote of the Journal of the Whills. This journal appears as a plot device in George Lucas’ first drafts of Star Wars (the Whills were basically scribes and they would serve as narrators as they compiled the story of the Skywalkers), an idea that was later replaced by the concept of the Force in subsequent rewritings, and that our dear ADF made canon when he included it in the first novelization of the ST, the jump start of this trilogy.

@and-then-bam-cassiopeia wrote an extensive meta analysis on the evolution of the Journal and how it lived in and out of canon throughout Star Wars’ history. You can find it here.

First comes the day,

then comes the night.

After the darkness

shines through the light.

The difference, they say,

is only made right

by the resolving of Gray

through refined Jedi sight.

---Journal of the Whills (7:477)

I love this quote (even though I’m not an ADF fan, sorry); I found it fitting to start this new trilogy, and perhaps a new path as well.

We’ve seen the day in the Old Republic and the night in the Empire; Luke Skywalker’s light shone through the darkness of the Sith.

So what’s next? Well, the difference needs to be made right, resolving the Gray through refined Jedi sight.

The ST begins with only one Jedi left and he is missing. The opening crawl establishes right off the bat that the representation of the Light is nowhere to be found. We do have a very much present Dark Side in Snoke, Kylo and the Knights of Ren, but they aren’t Siths (Pablo Hidalgo confirmed that ages ago via Twitter).

Throughout TFA, the Dark Side seems to take the lead, but in the end, Rey defeats Kylo Ren and finds the hidden Jedi. A case of “almost, but not quite”.

There’s no established regime either: the New Republic gets blown out of the sky by the end of the first hour of the movie, well before the third act. The First Order gains the upper hand, but only until the Resistance in turn wrecks the Starkiller base.

When we compare TFA to episodes I or IV, the difference becomes obvious. Episode VII ends and we don’t know who comes on top. “But TFA is a copy of ANH!”. True, there are a lot of callbacks and parallels, but at the end of ANH you know the Empire is still ruling, even without the Death Star. Tell me, who’s ruling the galaxy after TFA?

We don’t know.

By the end of TFA, we’re left wondering who controls what in the political map of the galaxy; the ST tells us right away that the distribution of power and the rise and fall of the Darkness and Light won’t follow the pattern the previous two trilogies did. We’re not on the same starting point, and in consequence, we’re headed into a new direction and thank the salt gods for that.

Unsurprisingly, the protagonists share the nuances of the main plot, they start black and white and stay anything but. Finn shows us that there’s more to a Stormtrooper than their armor and terrible aim, that beneath the plastoid there’s a person with feelings and choices to be made. Rey, the ultimate loner and survivor, learns there’s more to life that counting the days in portions and braves her way through danger to find a belonging that won’t find her. Kylo isn’t the plain, uber-villain that descends from that gorgeous shuttle in Jakku; he’s conflicted, torn apart and it’s painfully obvious once the mask comes off.

The Force Awakens develops towards a place of ambiguity, of political and moral uncertainty; and this is where The Last Jedi picks up.

The Balance and two sides of a protagonist

The Last Jedi teaser was a dream come true. I’ve spoken about it in this post, but I’d like to revisit the general idea of it: the balance. What is balance and what does it mean for Star Wars as a whole?

If the first two trilogies show us something, it’s that extremes won’t do the trick; and while on the political aspect of the story the writers may go towards another democracy because it is portrayed as the lesser evil among the forms of government; I think that the Force and its plot will follow another path. The middle ground will be found in the Force, the literal mortar that binds the galaxy together.

Flawed as it is, something The Force Awakens did very well was introducing the new characters, establishing interesting dynamics without giving away much of how future interactions between them might develop.

I will focus on Rey and Kylo here, since they are the new generation of Force users. As the ladies of @starwarsconnection mention in their video about The Last Jedi first trailer, it seems Finn will find his niche as an undercover agent of the Resistance during this episode and I agree.

While I’d have loved if Finn turned out to be a Force sensitive, now that there’s no evidence that will be the case, I’m actually glad that Finn will have his own arc instead of being Rey’s sidekick. The journey the hero undertakes in their path to self-discovery must be done on their own at some point. I think TLJ will nail it on that aspect both for Rey and Finn, hopefully for Kylo too.

Kylo Ren is the darkness in the story, an unhinged guy with selective memory when it comes to his family legacy and that has committed many crimes in his path to the Dark Side, patricide included.

Rey’s past is, on purpose, left almost untouched. We only learn what we need to in order to understand her motivations. She’s a great character, too; a girl that on the face of adversity managed to survive without losing her hope and her compassion.

At first glance, they are as different as two characters can be, but as TFA advances, the parallels between the two appear. It all comes to head during their battle in the Starkiller: at that moment they are counterparts, equals and not only in strength. They are two lonely Force users in a galaxy where their kind is rare, both casted away from their families, seeking belonging.

We know there’s light in Kylo as there’s darkness in Rey and The Last Jedi is going to blur their duality even further; the conflict will deepen before they achieve a cathartic moment.

We see Kylo destroying his helmet, and while some may argue that it’s his way of fully embracing the Dark Side, the Kylo I saw in the trailers didn’t strike me as a man that has finally gotten rid of his doubts, so much so that doesn’t need his shield anymore.

Kylo’s helmet is a representation of his persona, the Master of the Knights of Ren capable of holding a blaster bolt for a full conversation without so much as a blink. It’s made to hide what his over-expressive face can’t, the remnants of Ben Solo. Kylo also knows by now that the Dark Side isn’t the answer: if killing his father didn’t manage to do the trick, he must wonder what will and how far is he willing to go.

Rey has no training with the Force, it all comes by instinct to her. Reactions based on instinct are fueled by emotions like fear or anger. It’s how she survived this long, so she trusts it.

Training someone like Rey---set on her ways and with such huge potential---has to be a challenge. Add to the equation a teacher with a bad record when it comes to gifted students and of course Luke is going to backtrack, leaving Rey without knowing where she fits or if she does at all.

The trailer infers that they both have that “raw power” that Luke has learnt to fear and Snoke covets. It has been discussed ad nauseam if Snoke is talking about Kylo or Rey, if Luke refers to Kylo or someone else… It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it could be either of them, that they are equals.

The difference made right: the refined Jedi sight and resolving the Gray

“It’s time for the Jedi to end,” Luke says in the TLJ teaser. Sounds like a man who has seen and been through a lot, only to realize something must change in order to move forward.

There was a lot of talk in the fandom about the Gray Jedi, a concept that used to be canon in the old EU, but Lucasfilm has already stated that they wouldn’t revive that idea. I think there will be no explicit mention of Gray Jedi, but that the new generation of Force users will aim for balance, for a more integrated take on the Force.

In any case, I believe the Gray refers to something else: it’s the difference that needs to be settled, the huge inbetween in the Force not the Jedi nor the Sith care to acknowledge.

To resolve means to convert or transform by any process; it means to settle, to reach a conclusion. When we talk about something refined, we refer to something in its pure state or that has been purified.

Resolving the Gray through refined Jedi sight could then be to settle the question of where does the balance lie through a purified view of the Force itself, to end the partiality of the extremes through a new, wholesome understanding of it.

Final thoughts

There’s a lot of fans out there already complaining on how The Last Jedi will be a copy of Empire Strikes Back. There will be callbacks; we will see Rey training, the FO will fight the Resistance… This is Star Wars, after all, and there are heroes’ journeys to be told.

Personally, I’m not worried that The Last Jedi is going to be a rehash of Empire. Why? Because the main characters aren’t plain hero vs. antagonist. Because we have, in Rian Johnson’s words, two halves of a protagonist placed on opposite sides. I wouldn’t call Luke on Empire Vader’s equal. Would you?

After hearing the actors speaking on how character driven this movie is, I will be walking into that cinema confident that Rian Johnson has done right by the saga, that he took JJ Abrams’ introduction and had the guts to tone up the ambiguity, forcing us to reevaluate what we know about the characters. Hopefully, we will also get to revisit topics that had always been centric to the saga, such as forgiveness, compassion and redemption.

I’m sure that all of this sounds familiar for the Reylo community, we’ve been discussing and theorizing over these aspects---and many others---since December 2015. Having two sides of the same coin, Rey (the light with a bit of darkness) and Kylo (the darkness with a bit of light) makes a blatant representation of the YinYang, the ultimate symbol for balance.

By now, it seems a little too much on the nose; but then again, The Force Awakens hinted that there was way more in Kylo and Rey’s dynamic than a simple hero/villain connection and still wasn’t enough for many people to see it. Maybe the general audience needed blatant.

All I can say by now is that if the ST doesn’t seek the middle ground, the balance of the Force through Rey and Kylo, then I will be vastly surprised and perhaps I should stop watching trailers or analyzing the myths and tropes behind the movies I see.

Only forty days to go!

[meeedeee]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Warning: total spoilers for The Last Jedi.

After weeks of frantically speed-scrolling through my various social media feeds when anything that looked like a Star Wars spoiler appeared, I’ve finally managed to get out and see The Last Jedi. Despite my diligence, I didn’t go in completely unspoiled: I knew the general shape of the fan discourse surrounding the characterisation, which means I had some context cues and a smatter of details to work with, but not the major plot points. Now that I’ve seen the movie, however, I’m electing to write my own review before catching up on other people’s opinions, so if I touch on something that’s already been dissected at length without referencing said discussion, that’s why.

In broad-brush strokes, I enjoyed The Last Jedi. Assessing it purely on its own merits, there was a lot it did right: the cinematography, special effects and original creature creation were wonderful, I loved Rose Tico, and there was a pleasing balance of drama, emotion and humour, the requisite scenery-chewing deftly subverted by moments of self-aware comedy, especially in the opening exchange between Hux and Poe Dameron. Mostly, it was solid.

Mostly.

But.

The thing is, no Star Wars film is an island. The Last Jedi is the second film in a trilogy of trilogies, one whose core trio were clearly and intentionally mapped to the heroes of the (original by creation-date, second by internal chronology) series in The Force Awakens: Finn to Han, Rey to Luke and Poe to Leia. This being so, it was easy to mark the other narrative similarities between The Force Awakens and A New Hope – most notably, the parallels between the Death Star and Starkiller Base, both of which were destroyed in the respective finales, but not before their destructive power was unleashed. Which makes comparing The Last Jedi to The Empire Strikes Back not only reasonable, but – I would argue – necessary, if only to determine whether the decision to parallel the new with the old has continued beyond the first film.

The short answer to that is: yes, The Last Jedi is structurally akin to Empire, but not always to useful effect. The long answer, however, is rather more complex.

As a writer, there’s nothing that makes me crave a metaphorical red pen quite like a story where, for whatever reason, I can see the authorial handwave of Because Reasons gumming up the mechanics. If The Last Jedi was an original film, detached from the Star Wars universe, I’d be able to tell you that the problem stems from the poorly-forced sexist clash between Poe and Holdo, and that would be that. But because The Last Jedi has borrowed certain key narrative structures from Empire, there’s a clear template against which to measure its narrative choices, which makes it easier to infer the hows and whys of various changers.

A quick refresher in Star Wars, for those who haven’t watched the original trilogy lately. The Empire Strikes back begins with the Rebel forces being ousted from Hoth in a massive battle. After fleeing the planet, Luke goes to Degobah to train with Master Yoda, while Han and Leia spend some time dealing with a broken Millennium Falcon and the pursuit of Boba Fett, kissing and bickering and generally cementing their chemistry before finally going to track down Han’s old buddy, Lando Calrissian, in Cloud City. Frustrated with Yoda, Luke has a premonition of danger and goes to rescue his friends, as Lando, who’s been strong-armed by Darth Vader, hands Han and Leia over to the Empire. Han is frozen in carbonite after Leia declares her love for him, Luke loses a hand and learns Vader is his father, and the film ends with the pair them, plus Lando, escaping as they resolve to rescue Han.

By comparison, The Last Jedi follows a fairly similar arc. The film opens with the Rebellion being ousted from its base and pursued in a space battle. Rey attempts to persuade Luke to help her, while Poe and Finn are left dealing with a fleet that’s low on fuel as they try to outrun Hux and the First Order. As Leia lies injured, Poe clashes with Holdo over command, which results in him sending Finn and Rose on a secret mission to find a codebreaker who can help sabotage the First Order’s ship. Unable to the codebreaker, Rose and Finn return instead with DJ, a stranger who claims he can help them, but who ends up betraying them to the First Order. Unaware of this, Poe mounts a short-lived mutiny against Holdo. Meanwhile, frustrated with Luke and experiencing an odd connection to Kylo Ren, Rey goes to try and turn him to back to the light, only to find that Snoke was the source of their connection. Kylo kills Snoke and his guards with Rey’s help, reveals the truth about her lost parents, then betrays her in turn. In the final battle, Rose is injured and declares her feelings for Finn, and the film ends with the rebellion united but still fleeing.

Based on this, it seems clear that The Last Jedi is intended to parallel The Empire Strikes Back, both structurally and thematically. All the same elements are in play, albeit recontextualised by their place in a new story; but where Empire is a tight, sleek film, The Last Jedi is middle-heavy. The major difference between the two is Poe’s tension-and-mutiny arc, which doesn’t map to anything in Empire.

And this is the part where things get prickly. As stated, I really love Rose Tico, not only because she’s a brilliant, engaging character superbly acted by Kelly Marie Tran, but because she represents another crucial foray into diverse representation, both in Star Wars and on the big screen generally. There’s a lot to recommend Vice-Admiral Holdo, too, especially her touching final scene with Leia: I still want to know more about their relationship. I am not for a moment saying that either character – that either woman – doesn’t belong in the film, or in Star Wars, or that their roles were miscast or badly acted or anything like that. But there is, I suspect, a truly maddening reason why they were paired onscreen with Finn and Poe, and that this logic in turn adversely affected both the deeper plot implications and the film’s overall structure.

Given how closely The Last Jedi parallels the main arc of Empire, it’s narratively incongruous that, rather than Finn and Poe heading out to find the codebreaker together, the pair of them are instead split up, decreasing their screen-time while extending the length of the film. But as was firmly established in The Force Awakens, Finn and Poe map to Han and Leia – which is to say, to a canonical straight couple. Even without the phenomenal on-screen chemistry between John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, that parallel is clear in the writing; and in Empire, Han and Leia’s time alone is what catalyses their on-screen romance.

That being so, I find it impossible to believe that Finn and Poe were split up and paired with new female characters for anything other than a clumsy, godawful attempt to No Homo the narrative. Rose and Finn’s scenes are delightful, and their actors, too, have chemistry, but every time we cut back to Poe and Holdo, the story flounders. Everything that happens during Finn’s absence is demonstrably redundant: not only does it fail to move the plot forward, but in trying to justify the time-split, writer/director Rian Johnson has foisted a truly terrible mini-arc on Poe Dameron.

Specifically: after Leia is incapacitated, Holdo is given command of the rebellion. Seeing Holdo for the first time, Poe looks startled and states that she’s not what he was expecting. When Poe, recently demoted by Leia for ignoring orders, asks Holdo what her plan is, Holdo dismisses him as a hot-headed “flyboy” who isn’t what they need right now. Not only doesn’t she tell him where they’re headed, she apparently doesn’t tell anyone else, either. This failure to communicate her plan to her people is, firstly, why Finn feels he has to light out on his own, which is how he meets Rose, and is secondly why, once Finn and Rose come up with a plan to infiltrate the First Order, Poe decides that they can’t risk involving Holdo.

As we eventually learn, Holdo does have a plan – and a good one. There is literally no reason why, given the steadily escalating fear and anxiety of her crew, who are watching their companion ships get picked off one by one, she doesn’t share the full details with the rebellion. Instead, she leaves it to Poe to figure out that she’s refuelling the transport ships to evacuate – and when he panics, pointing out (correctly) that the transports are neither shielded nor armed, she likewise doesn’t elaborate on the fact that they’ll have a cloaking device to shield them and a destination close by, one where they can land and take shelter while the main ship acts as a decoy.

Because of Holdo’s decision to withhold this information, Poe thinks that she’s given up and is leading them blithely to their deaths, and so stages a mutiny – one in which he’s supported by a number of other, equally worried crewmembers. Happily, Leia recovers from her injuries in time to reclaim control, and only then does she let Poe in on Holdo’s plan. Poe suffers no further consequences for his actions, and even when they talk privately, both Holdo and Leia seem more amused by his mutiny than angry at what he’s done, rendering the whole arc moot. Except, of course, for the fact that Finn and Rose, on their mission from Poe, bring DJ into the mix – and DJ, who knows about the cloaking device, betrays this secret to the First Order, who promptly open fire on the transport ships.

Hundreds of rebellion soldiers die because Poe and Holdo so disliked each other on sight that neither one trusted the other with vital information – and for the rest of the film, this is never addressed. But of course, Johnson can’t address it, not even to hang a fucking lampshade on it, because the entire scenario is manufactured as a way to justify Poe’s protagonist-level screentime while Finn is away – which is also why, contextually, their antagonism doesn’t even make sense. The film begins with the premise that the entire rebellion, who’ve just been flushed out of their single remaining base, is on the run together – so why the fuck haven’t Poe and Holdo met before now? Especially as both are shown to have a close, personal relationship with Leia, it rings utterly false that they’d not only be in the dark about one another, but start out instantly on the wrong foot.

As such, the coding around Poe’s surprise at Holdo – that she’s not what he expected – is a lazy misstep. Traditionally, when hotshot male characters say this about a new female commander, it’s a sexist dogwhistle: oh, I didn’t know we’d be getting a woman. But why would Poe Dameron, son of Shara Bey and devotee of General Leia Organa, be surprised by Holdo’s gender? He wouldn’t, is the answer. Flatly, canonically, he wouldn’t. But if there’s some other aspect of Holdo that’s meant to ping as unusual besides her being female, it’s not obvious. It would’ve made far more sense to write the two as having a pre-existing antagonistic relationship for whatever reason: instead, we get Poe cast as an impatient, know-it-all James Bond to Holdo as Judi Dench’s M, who doesn’t have time for his nonsense when they first meet, but who ends up forgiving it anyway.

It’s like Rian Johnson looked at the Poe Dameron of The Force Awakens – a character universally beloved for being vulnerable, funny, charming, honest, loyal and openly affectionate – and decided, Hey, that guy’s an awesome pilot, which means he’s a COOL GUY, and COOL GUYS don’t play by the RULES, man, especially if it means listening to WOMEN – they just A-Team that shit in secret and to HELL with the bodycount! And anyway he’s HOT, so he’s ALWAYS forgiven.

Dear Rian Johnson, if you’re reading this: I like a lot of what you did with this film, but FUCK YOU FOREVER for making Poe Dameron the kind of guy who gets a bunch of his friends killed, then has a mutiny, then indirectly gets even MORE people killed, and never shows any grief about or cognisance of his actions, all because you wanted to avoid fuelling a homoerotic parallel that you openly queerbaited in promo but never intended to fulfil anyway. GIVE US OUR GODDAMN GAYS IN SPACE, YOU COWARD.

Anyway. 

The point being, the entire plot of The Last Jedi suffers because of a single, seemingly homophobic decision – unnecessarily splitting up Poe and Finn to avoid further Han/Leia comparisons – and the knock-on consequences thereof. Which is where I bring out my metaphorical Red Pen of Plot-Fixing and say, here is what should’ve happened. Namely: Poe and Holdo should’ve had a pre-existing antagonistic relationship, but one that didn’t prevent them from sharing information like grown-ups. Rather than Rose being part of the rebellion, she should’ve been the codebreaker they were sent to retrieve on Holdo’s orders (because two plans are better than one, and why not try both gambits?). This voids the need for DJ, who barely appears before disappearing again, so that Rose-as-codebreaker retains her status as an important, well-fleshed character who interacts with both Finn and Poe, and whose introduction works to map her onto Lando Calrissian. If you really must keep DJ because Benicio del Toro and thematic betrayal parallels (more of which shortly), he can be the dubious guy with First Order secrets that Rose has been trying to recruit for the rebellion, which explains why she’s with him on the casino planet in the first place, and how he’s so easily able to cut a deal with Phasma. BOOM! You’ve just saved a solid 20 minutes of redundant screen-time without degrading Poe’s character or undermining Holdo’s for no good reason and without dumb sexism creeping in. You’re welcome. 

(Also. ALSO. Not to take away from how lovely that Finn/Rose kiss was, but let’s just take a moment to peek into the other timeline, the one where Stormpilot gets to go canon the same way Han and Leia did in Empire. Let’s imagine Finn and Poe bickering in the casino, getting all rumpled during the escape while Rose and BB8 exchange Meaningful Looks and scathing droid-beeps about the two of them. Let’s imagine, during that final battle on Krait, that it’s Poe, not Rose, who stays behind to forcibly knock Finn out of that self-sacrificing dive towards the enemy gun; Poe who grabs Finn and kisses him because they should fight for what they love, not against what they hate, before passing out injured, thus completing the parallel of Han going into carbonite after kissing Leia. Let us gaze upon that world, that glorious thematic act of completion, subversion and queer recontextualisation, and then quietly wish a pox on everything in our cruddy Darkest Timeline that conspired to make it unhappen.)

And now, with all that out of the way, let’s address the Rey/Kylo issue.

As I said at the outset of this piece, I tried my best to avoid spoilers before watching the film, but no matter how quickly I scrolled through feeds or closed my tabs, I still knew that a lot of people had come away rejoicing in the idea that Rey and Kylo were being set up romantically, while an equal number had not.

And I just. Look. While I’m not going to stand here and tell people what to ship or on what basis, both generally and at this historical moment in particular, I find myself with an intense personal dislike of narratives, canonical or otherwise, which take it upon themselves to woobify Nazis, neo-Nazis, or the clearly signposted fictional counterparts thereof, into which category Kylo Ren and the whole First Order falls squarely. I don’t care about how sad he feels that he killed his dad: he still fucking killed his dad, and that’s before you account for the fact that he demonstrably doesn’t give a shit about committing genocide. In the immortal words of Brooklyn Nine Nine’s Jake Peralta: cool motive, still murder. Except for how the motive isn’t actually cool at all, because, you know, actual literal genocide.

From my viewing of the film, I honestly can’t tell if Rian Johnson wants us to think of Kylo as a genuinely sympathetic, redeemable figure, or if he’s just trying to improve on the jarring, horrible botch the prequels made of Anakin’s trip to the Dark Side by showing us his complexity without negating his monstrousness. Or, well: let me rephrase that. In terms of the actual script and what takes place, I’d argue that, even if Kylo is given a final shot at redemption in Episode IX, he’s still not being primed as Rey’s love interest. It’s just that the question of how much Johnson wants us to care about Kylo as a person, regardless of anything that happens with Rey, is a different question, for all that the two are easily conflated.

Yes, Rey and Kylo touched hands. They did! And Kylo killed Snoke instead of Rey! This is what we might call a low fucking bar for romantic compatibility, but hey: it’s not like white dudes in cinema are ever really called upon to jump anything higher. More salient in terms of the Star Wars universe is the fact that, after they defeat Snoke’s guards, Kylo’s appeal to Rey to join him and rule the galaxy together is an almost word-for-word callback to the offer Anakin makes Padme in Revenge of the Sith, right before he force-chokes her into unconsciousness, leaves her pregnant ass for dead and turns into Darth Vader. The fact that Anakin and Padme are also sold as a tragic romance prior to this moment is not, I would contend, the salient hook on which to hang the hopes of canon Reylo. Aside from anything else, Rey is mapped to Luke and Kylo, very clearly, to Darth Vader: with clear precedent, Rey’s desire to turn Kylo back from the Dark Side can be heartfelt without being romantic.

(Also, I mean. The connection that Rey and Kylo had was deliberately forged by Snoke to exploit their weaknesses, which is why they each had a vision of converting the other. Though we’re given a hint that the link remains in the final scenes, it ends with Rey shutting the door – both literally and figuratively – in Kylo’s face. I’m hard-pressed to view that as destiny.)

As for Kylo himself, his characterisation reads to me as deliberate, selfish nihilism. Kylo is conflicted over his murder of Han Solo because it impacts him, but at no point does he hesitate to reign down destruction and death on strangers. His desire to turn Rey to the Dark Side is likewise covetous, possessive: she is powerful, and he wants a powerful companion in the Force, but one who, by virtue of being his apprentice, will be subordinate to him – not a judgemental superior, as Snoke was. This is reflected in the way DJ’s betrayal of Rose and Finn is paralleled with Kylo’s decision to first help Rey when it benefits him, and then to turn on her afterwards. Like DJ, Kylo is mercenary in his allegiances, helping whoever helps him in the moment, then discarding them when the relationship is no longer useful.

The death of Snoke itself, however, is rather anticlimactic. He was a looming, distant figure in The Force Awakens, and while there’s an established tradition of Star Wars villains showing up and looking cool without their origins ever being satisfactorily explained at the time, this is vastly more annoying in Snoke’s case. Unlike General Greivous, Darth Maul or Boba Fett, Snoke isn’t just the random antagonist of a single film, plucked from obscurity to thwart the heroes: he’s the reason Ben Solo turned to the Dark Side and become Kylo Ren. Presumably, the hows and whys of Snoke manipulating the young Ben could still come out in Episode IX, but if it never gets addressed onscreen, I’m going to be deeply irritated.

On a more positive note, I enjoyed what the film did with Luke’s arc, for all that it’s not what I’d expected. To me, one of the most fascinating arguments in Star Wars discourse is the question of the Jedi, their morality, and how it all set Anakin up for failure. The Jedi ideology put forth in the prequels is the kind of thing that sounds superficially deep and meaningful, but which looks increasingly toxic the more closely it’s examined. The ban on children, marriage and close relationships outside the Order; the extreme youth of those taken for training combined with a forcible, protracted separation from their families; the idea that fear necessarily leads to anger, and so on. Luke describing the Force to Rey as something that existed beyond the Jedi, an innate aspect of the world, felt both refreshing and intuitively right, even given the necessity of respecting the balance between light and dark. The appearance of force-ghost Yoda felt a little pat, as did his ability to call lightning, but he still had one of my favourite lines in the whole film, delivered in support of Luke’s choice to step away from the Jedi teachings: as masters, we become the thing they surpass.

There were other, smaller niggles throughout than my issues with Poe and the no-homo restructuring of the plot: the handwaving of distances between Luke’s world and the main fight in a story that hinged on fuel supply; the sudden appearance of trenches and tunnels into the caves on Krait when everyone was meant to be trapped inside; the random appearance of an Evil Ball Droid to play momentary nemesis to BB8; the on-the-nose decision to show a random white slave boy, holding a broom he Force-summoned like a lightsaber, at the very end of the film. And as wonderful as it was to see Billie Lourd on screen, the knowledge that Carrie Fisher will be absent from Episode IX – the film that was meant to have been her movie, just as Harrison Ford had the The Force Awakens and Mark Hamill had The Last Jedi – rendered both her presence and her mother’s all the more bittersweet.

  Ultimately, The Last Jedi is a successful-but-frustrating mess, which is kind of how you know it’s a Star Wars movie. I’ll be forever angry at the carelessness with which Rian Johnson treated Poe Dameron and Vice-Admiral Holdo, but even if I could’ve wished for a different plot structure, I’m always going to stan hard for Rose Tico, who was warm and kind and intelligent and who stole every scene she was in. LESS REN, MORE ROSE – that’s my new motto.

Here’s hoping that Episode IX delivers.

  from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2CThaaG via IFTTT

[kylostantrums]

I’ve seen The Last Jedi three times now, and I think that I’m beginning to understand the film. Rian Johnson took Star Wars in a completely different direction than the previous nine films, and audiences were not ready for it. I certainly wasn’t ready for it. I saw it opening night, in IMAX 3D, and frankly, I was overwhelmed with everything the film threw at me. It is the longest of the Star Wars films, and those two and a half hours were chock full of information, and it was difficult to process it all immediately.

I usually allot my first viewing of a film for pure enjoyment, to take in the film as an experience. I walked out of the theatre on that high you get from seeing an action film in theatres — you know the feeling — and I felt like The Last Jedi was absolutely incredible. After a couple of hours at home, I began to pick out bits and pieces that I realized that maybe I didn’t like. The internet certainly helped me with that. Reviews spanned from high praise to butthurt fanboys petitioning to remove The Last Jedi from Star Wars canon (a completely real thing, I discovered). The second time I see a film, I force myself to analyze and pick out continuity errors, plot holes, cinematic parallels, and interesting elements of the score. I walked out of the theatre after my second viewing almost disappointed. I had only focussed on the negative, over-analyzing even the smallest details. The third viewing, however, I told myself that I was going in to enjoy the film, to pick out elements that I liked, and to objectively question the parts I didn’t like. I rather enjoyed that third viewing of the film — partially because I went with one of my best friends who shares a lot of the same opinions as I do on the Star Wars cinematic universe and had a good discussion about the film before and after.

I contacted some of my friends whose judgement I trusted, asked them what they thought of the film, and came to the consensus that the film was good. Not great, but good. It had some good ideas, some bad ideas, and some good ideas that were executed in bad ways. It deviated from what we believed to be canon. It challenged us to rethink what we knew about Star Wars — the light, the dark, the Force, the Rebellion. I loved that. Turning the tides so that the Rebellion to be at its most desperate challenged the characters of Leia, Poe, Holdo, Finn, and Rose. Reflecting on the history of the Jedi’s failure changed Luke in a way nobody was ready for. We saw a darker side of him we only caught faint glimpses of in the original trilogy. We all expected Luke to be the Jedi we saw him as in Return of the Jedi, but Rey was the shining light in this film. In Empire Strikes Back, Luke believed in the Force, the light, and that Vader could be turned. In The Last Jedi, Rey takes on that role. She believes strongly that Ben Solo can be turned from the Dark side, that Luke can be the hero he was before.

The Force Awakens was a direct parallel to A New Hope. It revived beloved characters. Its plot line was very much the same. The introduction of new characters and the death of Han were the only signals that this was something new. Rian Johnson took the liberty of making it painfully obvious that The Last Jedi is indeed new. We have not seen a Star Wars film like it, and that’s the beauty of it. Of course it has its flaws, but we finally have been given a Star Wars film that is fresh and original. It directly addresses the theme of change, of moving on — as Ben Solo says to Rey, “let the past die.”

What I Would Change

Although I loved the originality of the film, a lot of it simply did not work for me, and for several others. Personally, I believe a lot of the film shouldn’t have made it past the editing room. Below are the parts of the film that I would have cut or changed.

Leia, and Holdo’s Takeover

I understand the need to remove the majority of the commanding officers, to allow for someone new to take charge. However, the scene of Leia floating in space was painful to watch, considering Carrie Fisher’s death, and also a little tacky. I don’t see the point in blasting her into space, and then her using the Force to bring herself back to the cruiser. We know she’s Force-sensitive. We’ve seen that in previous films. We don’t need a reminder. Just knocking her out with a particularly strong blast could have put her into a coma. There are several ways Rian could have written that scene that would be less tacky.

I loved that Vice Admiral Toldo is a woman in charge. Laura Dern played the character wonderfully. However, the character, who Leia was supposed to have taught well, was not very efficient as someone in charge. Poe expressed his frustration with her and she simply insulted and dismissed him without any explanation. No wonder Poe was under the assumption that they were losing hope quickly — Toldo gave him absolutely no reason to believe that she had any sort of plan. If she was a better leader, she would have informed Poe of her intentions. Of course, that would have saved Rose and Finn the trouble of heading off to Canto Bight, but honestly, I wouldn’t miss that scene.

Canto Bight

Okay. Canto Bight was a fantastic political statement, and it helped us get to know the new character Rose. I appreciated Rian’s approach to creating a place where the rich dwell as they capitalize on the war. I loved the costuming and makeup. I loved the music that sounded ever so slightly like Cantina Band. But it was too long. Too much screen time was allotted for this subplot. I would have much rather had Finn and Rose go with TJ — they were desperate, after all — and run into BB-8 with him. The four of them would then steal the ship together. Completely erase the Fathiers scene. Setting them free was a lovely sentiment, but that scene took way too long and put the plot on pause — something you can’t do in a film where time is running out quickly. We understood Rose by the time they were thrown in jail. We don’t need it spelled out for us.

Luke and Ahch-to

I completely agree with Rian Johnson’s choice to change Luke so that he is almost unrecognizable from the Luke we know and love from Return of the Jedi. J.J. Abrams put him alone on an island, removed from the Rebellion and the Force. Rian wrote Luke in the only way that made sense to, given the material. However, what Rian failed to address was the literal map that showed the way to Luke Skywalker which was a main plot point in The Force Awakens. We were given the assumption that the map was to Luke, not to Ahch-to. The remaining piece was even stored inside R2-D2, presumably the last contact Luke had before disappearing. If that is true, why was Luke so angry that he was found? What did he mean by saying that he came to the island to die?

The Porgs. They were obnoxious, and only served as something cute to mass merchandise for children. Their screams were heard throughout the Ahch-to scenes, disrupting what would have otherwise been a serious moment (Luke and Rey’s first lesson). Cut the Porgs.

Luke’s milking scene. Why in the world was that necessary? I understand that, yeah, Luke has to live off the land somehow, and introducing new species to the Star Wars universe is always fun, but that scene made the entire theatre uncomfortable. Cut.

Luke and Rey’s lessons. I loved that Luke decided to give teaching another chance. However, I am disappointed in the lack of it. The Falcon was on the island. Luke even sneaks into it at one point. Why not train Rey with the helmet and probe Obi Wan trained Luke with? We saw it in the Falcon in The Force Awakens. Showing us Luke’s X-Wing in the ocean, and not having Rey lift it with the Force, was a tease.

The dark cave scene with Rey was just odd. I understand what Rian was trying to do with that scene — tempt Rey with darkness, continue the mystery of her parentage — but the execution was all wrong. Rey’s voiceover should have been less spaced out, shortening the scene. The lineup bit was just weird. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. I don’t know if I would completely cut that scene or rewrite it to be shorter. The cut to her talking to Ben, rather than Luke, was tasteful, though. We all assumed she’d console in Luke but that twist was nice. I did appreciate that. Showing us that Luke still closing himself off is dangerous, because the only other person that can be there for Rey is Ben.

Finn and Rose

Rose and Finn were a lovely pairing. They were excellent counterparts to the other. I understood everything about their relationship up until Rose kissed him. I thought that the two of them helped each other realize their place in the Rebellion, as they supported one another through their journey. However, Rose professing her love for Finn and kissing him was completely unprecedented. There was no build-up to it. There were no hints of romance in the entire film. Her speech before the kiss was nice. Without the kiss, it would have had more emphasis, honestly. It would have taken it to a loyalty level, rather than reducing her character to just a girl in love, which I am very tired of seeing in films. I am hoping that in the next instalment, J.J. Abrams gets rid of any Rose/Finn relationship.

The Ending Scene, and Cinematography

Okay, yeah, Luke isn’t the last Jedi, there are still Force-sensitive people out there that believe in good… But ending on the group is a Star Wars thing. The final shots of Star Wars films have always been group shots. The film was set to cut to credits as the camera panned out to show the Rebellion on the Falcon. I do understand that Rian Johnson is again, creating a film unlike other Star Wars films, but there’s a formula to a Star Wars film that’s in the cinematography. What makes a Star Wars film, well, Star Wars is John William’s brilliant score (I’ll be addressing that later), the iconic animated cuts between scenes, and the general cinematography. The Last Jedi included Williams’ score, so it sounded like a Star Wars film. It did not look like one, though. It had familiar images and characters, but the camerawork and editing was not Star Wars. The transitions were few, and when they did appear, they were too quick to notice. The transitions became elemental of the Star Wars films, used in both the original and the prequel trilogies. Even The Force Awakens and Rogue One used them, and they worked wonderfully to remind us that they were Star Wars films. The lack of transitions in The Last Jedi was disappointing.

What I Would Add

Training

As I said before, I was fairly disappointed in the lack of training between Luke and Rey. Rey is evidently a skilled fighter, as demonstrated in The Force Awakens. I would have loved to see Luke train Rey in lightsaber skills. They share one fight, but it is quick and out of Rey’s frustration. I would have rather seen him training her than fighting against her. Luke could have guided Rey towards the light side of the Force, helping her as she explores the darkness, but he walked away at the first hint of danger. Make Rey lift the X-Wing, dammit.

The Trio

Finn and Rey shared lovely moments together in The Force Awakens. Finn remains fiercely loyal to his friend, attempting to run away in order to keep her safe, and worrying about her throughout the film. However they only share a moment together onscreen in The Last Jedi. In addition, Poe and Finn had fantastic chemistry in The Force Awakens. We did not get to see much of that in this instalment, as Finn left quickly with Rose, leaving Poe on his own on the cruiser. Rose takes Rey’s place at Finn’s side — which I have no complaints about, an Asian woman as a lead character is fantastic. However I was surprised to have what I thought to be our main trio separated for a major portion of the film.

Captain Phasma

I love Gwendoline Christie. I love her on Game of Thrones. I loved her in The Force Awakens. Her resurrection from the last film was short-lived and terribly disappointing. She became a token character cameo. Phasma is a leading woman of power in the Resistance, and deserved a better fight scene than the short one with Finn. Of course we want and need Finn to win, but I would have allotted a much longer screen time for that fight.

John Williams

I’m a third year undergraduate music major, so I can confidently say that I have no right to critique the genius of John Williams. However, I have found something missing from the last two Star Wars scores, a sound that I associate with Star Wars almost as much as the force theme: atonality. The original trilogy’s score is peppered with moments of atonality, and gives it a flavour of Otherworldliness. The best example is the scene where R2D2 and C-3PO are lost in the desert on Tattooine:

Or the opening bit of “Luke and Leia”:

We don’t hear anything like that in the new instalments. I miss that. I feel like those sounds are what really create the feeling of Star Wars, aurally sending us to a galaxy far, far away from here.

Because I’ve Been Complaining Thus Far, Here’s What I Liked

The First 20 Minutes

God. I loved the opening scene, right from the piccolo lick John Williams brought back from the opening of A New Hope. Poe’s conversation with Hux was hilarious, right on par with Han Solo in the detention centre of the Death Star.

The representation of characters in the fighter ships was stunning. I was not ready to see that many people of colour in fighter X and A-Wings. The fighter pilots of Star Wars have been painfully male in the past, and having female fighters in the cockpits was wonderfully refreshing as well. That first 20 minutes set up the rest of the movie nicely. The pacing was good, the action captivating, and the visuals were stunning.

Ben and Rey

There have been mixed reviews on the relationship between Ben Solo and Rey. There are several people out there that maintain the idea that they are going to end up a couple. I strongly disagree with those people, because Ben is a manipulative monster that tortured Rey. But to each their own. The Force connection Snoke established between the two was fascinating. We got to see an intimate side of Ben that we had only seen as a glimpse of when he killed his father. More importantly, we got to see how strongly Rey is with the light side, despite Luke’s fears. She is completely adamant about turning Ben back to the light. Whether it is because she firmly believes in good, or she feels as if she owes it to Leia, she is stubborn and strong. Even her going directly to Ben is in hopes that she can turn him, on Snoke’s ship, essentially the First Order headquarters. We expect Rey to do exactly what Luke did in Return of the Jedi, to turn Ben from the Dark Side. Like Vader, Ben kills his mentor/abuser Snoke, but does not redeem himself. For a few minutes, Rey and Ben fought at each others’ sides, defeating Snoke’s Praetorian Guards. Next was the plot point I was most pleased to see: I had no hope for Ben to turn from the Dark Side, and — although he came close — he did not. His heart was in the right place: kill his abuser, destroy the past, move towards something new. But Rey could not follow him, not while he was still full of darkness. That was precisely what I had hoped for. We couldn’t have a third movie in this trilogy without it.

The Return of Yoda

I did not expect Yoda to return to the big screen. I had hoped that perhaps Ewan McGregor would make an appearance as Obi-Wan. But Yoda made perfect sense in the narrative. Not only did he impart necessary wisdom to Luke, but he was the Yoda we know and love from the original trilogy. The prequel Yoda was too smooth, CGI’d to hell. Frank Oz’s puppet Yoda, crazy laugh and all, was absolutely wonderful to see again.

“The Force does not belong to the Jedi”

I am so glad Luke addresses this in this film. “The Jedi must end” was a huge shock to the fanbase when we first heard it in the trailer last year. I developed a theory — that turned out to be quite close to the events in the film — that the labels “Jedi” and “Sith” are hard to maintain. The Force is a fluid thing, the balance coming from both light and dark. 

“THE JEDI MUST END” THEORY

The “balance” between light and dark has too long been divided between the two sides of “Jedi” and “Sith.” Having to choose between the two opposing ideas is unrealistic to expect from a person. Look at what it did to Anakin. We’re probably going to see what it did to Kylo Ren. I think that Luke has come to realize that the “so much more” to it is a balance within an individual; in my opinion, closer to the likes of Mace Windu, mastering all kinds of fighting style – “light” or “dark” – without succumbing to the Dark Side. The books shown in the trailer, are most likely Luke’s, and in my theory would be handbooks/histories for all kinds of ways of the Force. Perhaps early Jedi books that contradict the current ideals of the Jedi. Luke must have realized in his years in seclusion that these labels of “Jedi,” “Sith,” “light,” and “dark” cannot be the only options. He must believe that no person can fully commit themselves to just one side, there must be a grey area he believes in, a full understanding of the Force – from both sides. To truly become a master of the Force it is unfair to limit which parts of it a person can study. I think that Luke has realized this, and like Yoda has decided to be ridiculously cryptic about it.

Rey’s first lesson confirmed my theory, and the fight scene in Snoke’s chambers further affirmed it: there must be balance, but it does not necessarily have to fight one another. Rey and Ben fought as if they had trained together for years, attuned to the other’s movements. That was a beautiful fight scene.

The Score

I know I complained about the lack of atonality earlier, but there are still several aspects of the score that I love. Rose’s theme is perfect for her character. The expansion on the “Jedi Steps” theme in “Ahch-To Island” was beautiful. Revamping “March of the Resistance” became even more epic than before. Williams expertly saturates this film with huge orchestral forces, strong horns, soft and gentle winds, all in the right places. The integration of classic themes — Leia’s Theme, “Han Solo and the Princess,” Yoda’s Theme, the Force Theme — reminded us of the originals. Best of all, in my opinion, was “The Spark” that accompanies Luke’s return. It begins softly, and uncertainly, then enter the Force theme we know and love, flowing right into the rich, aching theme of “Luke and Leia.” Then, “Han Solo and the Princess” returns as Luke gives Leia Han’s dice from the Falcon. By now, we’re all crying, but suddenly — a lick we sort of recognize. Is that the Imperial March? We’re aching for that pulsing note to drop to the tonic then the fifth, as the Imperial March goes, but it denies us that resolution. IT SURE AS HELL SOUNDS LIKE IT. But it’s something different, something new, something… epic. I LOVE IT. John Williams has constructed a piece that reminds us that Luke is the son of Vader, the one who redeemed him, about to face a Vader-wannabe. Will Luke be able to redeem his nephew as he did his father? This music cues us to raise these questions. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

  To conclude, I maintain that The Last Jedi was a good film. It lacked certain Star Wars-esque elements, and it carried out some ideas in odd ways, but overall, it was good. Rian Johnson told a story of change and growth, and I very much appreciated that. He challenged the Star Wars canon. He challenged characters in unexpected ways. He challenged the audience. For that, I respect him. I am sure that J.J. Abrams will be able to bring the franchise to a fitting conclusion, as his work on The Force Awakens was more than satisfactory.

Here’s to two years of waiting.

  Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi – Review I’ve seen The Last Jedi three times now, and I think that I’m beginning to understand the film.

[tearlessrain]

Okay. So. I watched TLJ a second time because I took my mom to see it (visiting for the holidays) and I have Opinions. Because in all honesty I did not like it as much the second time.

For spoiler reasons, and because most of it is just me complaining (and/or being pointlessly confrontational and defensive about what I did like), said opinions are quarantined safely under this readmore.

Also just for the record I know I state things like facts as if I think I have answers and should be listened to but this is 100% personal feelings and opinions and I know nothing.

The main takeaway is that I’m okay with how things ended up, I just don’t really like how they got there. If they do a really good job with episode 9 I will feel better about this movie and not be too annoyed that they got a bit lost on the way. That being said, they really did get lost on the way and it was frustrating to watch once I actually knew where they were going with it. I’ll give almost anything a ludicrous amount of grace the first time I watch it. I liked the second Hobbit movie the first time I watched it, let that sink in. My already questionable taste in media becomes vastly worse when I’m watching something for the first time in a theater.

On Luke’s characterization/arc: I’m okay with the concept of it, but the execution was lacking. Responding to a traumatic event by fucking off to a deserted island to sulk melodramatically for years is kind of a very Skywalker thing to do, so I don’t have much issue with that. The logistics of how the Kylo Fiasco actually went down is neither here nor there for me, it’s all being relayed years later by two people who were both not in the best place emotionally at the time of telling so I think taking it with a grain of salt is wise here. And I don’t think his apparently newfound post-Yoda-epiphany snark was inherently bad, I feel like he’s always had the capacity for sass and would fully expect that side of him to emerge with age, but I understand how it felt wrong to people (especially with the transition we got) and I think it would have read better if they’d just had more time to establish act 3 Luke and balanced it with the characterization we’re used to from him. Which brings me to my main complaint about the Luke arc: I didn’t like how they paced it. What I would have liked to see is for the Yoda scene to happen much earlier while Rey is still on the island, then follow that with some scenes of Luke actually being more himself and training Rey (because realistically she has an awful solid mastery of the Force for the two halfassed lessons she got). He can still be opposed to going off to find Kylo on the grounds that Rey really doesn’t know what she’s doing yet even if her intentions are good, thereby prompting her to leave on her own (I mean he did the same thing and then he learned a horrible truth he wasn’t ready to hear, lost his hand, and jumped off a cliff, so I can see him not being jazzed about this).

As an aside, I really don’t like the throwing away the lightsaber thing. It felt too much like the emotional bait-and-switch thing Marvel does a lot and it’s a huge pet peeve for me. I just really hate it. Give me a damn genuine emotional moment for fucks sake. There were ways they could have conveyed the same thing that wouldn’t have felt so jarring and lazily written.

As another aside, and this is totally personal bias, I really love the Yoda scene, just full stop and without shame. It resonates with me in particular because in addition to being a very Skywalker thing to do, wanting to fuck off to a deserted island and hide for a decade because of one failure is also a very me thing to do. So that whole scene was just kinda cathartic on a personal level. They got lazy with Yoda’s dialect, though, which was mildly irritating to my pedantic obsession with keeping one’s lore consistent. It wouldn’t have been that hard to rearrange those sentences.

I also love the end with the twin suns callback. I know people feel like it was cheesy and trite. It is. I know this. I know. But I wholeheartedly love it anyway and I teared up both times I saw the damn movie and I will defend that scene with my life. Fight me.

Oh and shoutout to Actual Fashion Icon Luke Skywalker taking the trouble to astral project himself a stylish new all-black ensemble and perfectly trimmed beard to face Kylo in. Our boy’s still got it.

On the whole Finn/Rose plotline: .... why? Why did it happen at all? There was basically no payoff aside from what I guess was supposed to be a kinda heavy handed resolution to Finn’s personal arc but was ultimately just a waste of Captain Phasma as a character. They introduced Rose and gave her skills that should have been useful for what they set out to do but never got around to having her actually do anything, so while I enjoyed her character, it felt kind of hollow because there was no clear reason for her to actually be in the movie. Same with the casino planet, I loved the aesthetic and concept and atmosphere and that they did something new, but there wasn’t any point to it, they could have gone literally anywhere to find the guy they ended up with. If they’d actually picked up Space Dorian it would have been interesting because he’s not an archetype we’ve seen as much in Star Wars. We’ve seen plenty of grungy outcasts, let’s take advantage of the cool new setting you just presented. It even potentially could have made the eventual betrayal better, if they still needed to do that.

Thinking about the social climate and attitude toward rich people right now, if the betrayal had been a filthy rich arms dealer being let off by the empire because of his own privileges/connections and leaving Finn and Rose behind, I think you’d get a strong emotional response to that in a good way. Instead we’ve got... some guy who happened to turn out to be an asshole. And who could have come from literally anywhere in the galaxy and is not really bringing anything new to the table. He didn’t change as a character at any point, and his presence didn’t say anything that hasn’t been said or change Finn or Rose in any way in the end, so why is he here. I mean the whole casino planet was fun, but the way they did it they could have cut almost the entire thing out and the movie overall would not have been affected.

I just generally feel like 90% of what Finn and Rose did during this movie was only for the sake of giving them something to do and once again splitting up the main three and I’m sad about that because I adore Finn, and he has fantastic chemistry with Poe (whether you ship them or not, that’s irrelevant, I just mean they play off each other well but they’re never in the same place for more than five minutes and it feels like such a waste).

Also not liking that they had to throw in romantic tension with Rose, you want to make it a thing in the next movie fine, but it’s too soon right now, we only just got to know her character, can we maybe chill.

On Poe: I like his arc, I don’t much like the context, it was a bit contrived and of course tied in with the entirely pointless Finn/Rose shenanigans. But in a vacuum, I like where they took him and I like where he’s at now.

On Kylo: honestly? They have my attention and my interest. They didn’t after TFA, but he’s turning into an interesting character and I think I like where this is going so far. As long as they keep doing a good job in 9, I can definitively say that I like Kylo as a villain and as a character. If not as a person. He’s a dick. But it’s a good thing. And I’m sorry but I’m endlessly entertained by his entire uncomfortable relationship with Hux, I desperately need some people who can both cosplay and sing to perform What Is This Feeling from Wicked with these two (I propose Kylo on Elphaba’s parts, Hux on Glinda’s, seriously someone do this). Hux is just so pitiful and Done and it’s great. I usually don’t really like when a movie/show makes one character into a designated punching bag, but he’s inherently so damn punchable that I can’t even be mad. His actor did a fantastic job.

I think those are the main points I came away with, anything else is just nitpicking (porgs are the Jar Jar of the new trilogy, not nearly as bad but they still aren’t cute enough to carry the weight Disney has given them). My strongest feelings are regarding the Luke situation and it’s mostly because in my ill-advised hubris I feel like I know exactly how to fix it and could personally have done it better (that’s almost certainly not true but it’s how I feel). I don’t know what to do about Finn or how to better contextualize Poe’s character growth. I dunno.

But hey, at least Reylo isn’t canon and that’s really all I ever asked for.

[roguewn]

The Mindfuck Awakens

Ok, I'm officially mind-fucked.

First of all, this article reveals???? so??? much??? They basically confirmed all of our theories.  Like either Disney doesn't care about spoilers anymore or what they're revealing is actually just 1% of what actually happens in the movie, and given that they basically revealed the whole of Luke's storyline and a huge part of Rey's... WHAT MORE THERE IS TO KNOW??? This question is fucking me up.

What we can get from the article about Rey and Luke is that:

•  as predicted, Luke has no intention to fight anymore and is much darker than we remembered •  this decision has a lot, or everything to do with Ben (we're still not sure if he actually killed the padawans or not, but his simply turning to the Dark Side would be enough to justify Luke's decision) •  WE'RE ONCE AGAIN CAUGHT UP IN THE OMINOUS SPYRAL OF THE 'CHOSEN ONE'. I can't believe we're in this shit again and I can't believe Ben's storyline actually resembles so much that of Anakin. A boy who was put so much weight on his shoulders, only to find out he's been lied to and betrayed all his life. FUCK ME UP. •  Luke pushes Rey away. LUKE PUSHES REY AWAY. And Daisy said Rey is not there to become a hero, just to bring him back. This means that either she eventually convinces him to train her, or she trains on her own or in some other way. Because clearly if Luke doesn't want her there, why would he train her to become a Jedi? He doesn't even believe in the Jedi anymore at this point! •  We're probably gonna get deeper into Rey's issues, as stated here:

“Luke definitely does not give Rey the warm welcome he received when he went in search of Alec Guinness’ Ben Kenobi in 1977’s original Star Wars. She is warned. She is given an explanation. Nevertheless … “She’s so hopeful to everything,” Ridley says. “And obviously there’s a hint of, ‘What the hell?’”

This rejection hits Rey’s abandonment issues. Hard.”

Can you hear my heart breaking? Rey was already an abandoned child, imagine how hurt she must be when she finds the one person after Han Solo that she might look up to as a fatherly figure, only to see this man doesn't want her around.

•  Talking about Rey's family... 

“I don’t think one girl, who he doesn’t know, turning up with a lightsaber is gonna make him go, ‘Oh, s—, yeah, of course I’ll get back into the action,’” Ridley says.

“But does he not know her?” Hamill says in his separate interview.

That’s a question Star Wars fans have been debating for two years. Soon they’ll learn the answer.

A big part of Rey’s future will be uncovering her own past: Who is connected to her? Where did she come from? And why was she cast away?

As she tries to pick up her own pieces, she may find they fit together well with the remnants of Luke Skywalker. Working together, they may become whole again.”

Now, I know what some people might be thinking. “REY SKYWALKER IS ALIVE!!”... but I truly don't think so. First of all, there's the whole issue of “why did Luke leave his child alone to die on a desert planet if HE KNEW she was there?” So my theory is that Luke might know Rey, but it's from other sources. And I have two options in mind: -- Ben had visions of her since he was a child, therefore Luke recognizes in Rey the girl Ben has told him about. -- Luke knew Rey's parents. Maybe he didn't know who Rey was when he first met her on Ach-To, but then as they talk and grow somehow closer, he realizes the girl is the daughter/nephew of someone he knows. And given the line “she may find they fit together well with the remnants of Luke Skywalker”, my guess is that Rey's parents really are Kenobis. Maybe not Obiwan himself, but someone from his unknown family. 

Think about it: the remnants of Luke Skywalker. Clearly a reference to the old Luke, the OT Luke. Aka the Luke who was trained by Obiwan Kenobi, who looked up to him and wanted to be like him (“I think he probably looks out on the horizon and wishes that he could be more effective, could be what Obi-Wan wanted him to be”). If Rey were a Kenobi, not only this trilogy would end with a Skywalker (actually two Skywalkers, but Rey's main antagonist is Kylo, always) and a Kenobi, but maybe through her, Luke might find a bit of his old self again, a bit of what Obiwan taught him, a bit of what Obiwan wanted him to be and believed that he could be. I don't think there would be a more beautiful connection. 

As someone said, it's time for a Skywalker to help a Kenobi, but it's also true that it's always the other way around in Star Wars and therefore, it would be amazing if this time, the help wasn't one-sided, but mutual.

__________________________________________________________________

(follow-up about Rey and Kylo’s relationship)

[thornsickle]

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - WHAT DOES IT MEAN??? (And actually, do we even know what The Force Awakens means?)

Ok, so this post was inevitable and I'm sure there are thousands of people writing the exact same post I am, but I thought I'd just you my two cents.

Star Wars titles typically don't really give us much as far as the stories go - most of the time they have been blunt and - dare I say it - rather crude. The Return of the Jedi was even considered a weak title back in the day and was changed to Revenge of the Jedi before reverting back once more to 'Return'. For the most part, the titles have been exactly what we expected - they say exactly what’s on the tin.

But this time, there's a hitch.

I always considered the title, The Force Awakens, to be rather vague compared to the others. Even now I am still apprehensive about naming one specific individual as the so called catalyst for the awakening of the Force. On first viewing I thought it was Rey. And yes, she is to some extent. But then again, when Snoke speaks of an awakening, it's not very clear whether it's referring to Finn or Rey (especially as she hasn't experienced the force vision yet at this point). I suspect that the 'awakening' goes beyond the individual characters and actually refers to the interaction and collision of the main characters with one another which causes the Force to awaken. For me this largely has to do with the interaction between Kylo, Finn and Rey, their conflicts with one another and the repercussions of that (right from the very beginning when Kylo notices Finn and chooses to ignore his deception). TFA on the whole was a very ambiguous film when you really think about it, and I think the The Last Jedi will continue that trend, right down to the title. I don’t think we will be able to pin point what it means, even after seeing Episode VIII, judging by what has come before.

The crucial difference here is the fact that the titles for the sequel trilogy were not chosen by George Lucas but by JJ, and in this case, Rian Johnson. And while they would obviously what to keep up with the trend, in many ways, it’s unavoidable to not include their own influence and subconscious thinking as well. A title gives that away because it is such a definitive part of the film and it involves giving a definitive decision, a cover design for a book. So I much as I would like to think the obvious, which, to be honest, it most likely is, [it’s obvs Luke cough] I cannot ignore the fact that The Force Awakens is such a nebulous title, a question we can’t even make our minds up about even now. So I have to contemplate the possibility that The Last Jedi is also going to reveal itself to be also a very nebulous title.

Number One: It’s Luke.

Self explanatory. He is referred to as such by both Snoke and Vader, and there have already been a tone of jokes about the fact that Snoke has already named two titles within one film. This is actually true, and there is no speculation required. No one can argue with this one, so I think the question is whether the titles will have multiple meanings, like The Force Awakens does.

Number Two: It’s Rey [and Luke]

Again, pretty obvious deduction. She is going to be trained by Luke, but I almost feel like this is actually unlikely, especially given my current thoughts over how I think this trilogy is going to go. I don’t think Rey is going to become a Jedi, but who knows, this is still a likely possibility.

Number Three: It’s Kylo Ren [and Luke]

I was watching a lot of Youtube news about this title and I was surprised to see just how many people actually picked up on this and agreed that it was possible. It seems like after two years, most folks have become a little bit more lenient over how Kylo Ren’s journey is going to map out. For me, the key point here is the color scheme for the title. Yes, I know, it may seem stupid, but I have long thought that the idea of Rey and Kylo switching sides to be a compelling one [see my previous post on dark Rey for more]. Episode III and Episode VI both used this color scheme, and in both incidences, a force sensitive changed allegiance from one side to another. Take from that what you will. If Kylo Ren turns out to become the Last Jedi [he is a Skywalker after all] then this title would suddenly take on a much more dramatic meaning and sense of unease, not to mention nebulousness, since we would be apprehensive over whether Ben Solo can truly become a Jedi. But hey, if Darth Vader could do it, couldn’t his grandson? This would allow a redemption arc for Ben, but also make sure that it wouldn’t be a rehash of RotJ, since this would take place in the middle episode, as apposed to the very end.

Number Four: It’s the Knights of Ren [and Luke?]

Again, this is a real stretch, and I think highly unlikely, but since we know so little about the massacre, I think it’s possible that the Knights of Ren are Luke’s padawans who defected. And if Kylo Ren turns to the light side, the Knights of Ren could do the same. But I put this one out there for the sake of covering all possibilities. I highly doubt this will actually be the case however.

Number Four: It’s not Luke.

Rewatching RotJ, I was really surprised when Luke refuses to kill his father, he turns around and says to Palpatine “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Props to George Lucas here, because the key word in that phrase is father, not Jedi.

When Luke says he’s a Jedi, he’s not referring to Yoda or Obi Wan. He’s referring to his father, a man who struggled between the light and dark, and given the chance, may have succeeded in becoming a wonderful force sensitive, if he had only been allowed to remain in between the two. Luke actually defies his masters, and finds his own path. So it made me think. Especially after what happened with the ‘massacre’ [we still don’t know what really went down there], perhaps Luke is a force-sensitive but does not regard himself as a pure Jedi, not like Obi Wan and Yoda anyway. Perhaps he even believes the Jedi system to be a failed system [he wouldn’t exactly be entirely wrong there cough - prequels - cough]. If this is the case, and Luke actually says this directly through dialogue, then the question becomes, well then who are the Last Jedi??

Now we are going to enter new territory. The following must be seen under the assumption that Luke is not a Jedi but has forged his own path after the massacre.

Also, RUMORS ABOUT EPISODE VIII IN HERE SO SPOILER ALERT.

Number Five: It’s referring to Jedi we know from the past [Obi Wan Kenobi].

We know that Episode VIII will involve flashbacks. We also know that there is a huge possibility that Yoda will be featured. So, I wonder whether The Last Jedi, refers to Jedi from the past, like Anakin and Obi Wan Kenobi. As far as Obi Wan is concerned, I speculate that he will have a massive role to play in Episode VIII. It’s possible that Rey could be a Kenobi, or that Ben Solo got his name because he was named after his ‘other’ grandfather [YES I AM SAYING THAT IT’S POSSIBLE THAT HAN SOLO’S FATHER IS OBI WAN KENOBI FEEL FREE TO TEAR THAT THEORY TO PIECES].

Either way, this is also a logical assumption to make. The next one however is very speculative.

Number Six: It’s referring to the Whills. And, perhaps, Snoke and possibly Rey.

Okay, this is a huge jump, but it ties in nicely, because it would become a reference to every single force sensitive in the current trilogy and create a double meaning.

If you have read my previous post about Snoke, Rey and the significance of Rogue One, then you will know that I have suggested that the Whills will play a major part in the next two episodes. The Whills are said to be the first ever force sensitives in the galaxy, predating even the Jedi. I suspect that Snoke is actually a Whill [again, see my previous post to see exactly why this is kinda likely] so that doesn’t make him a Sith. The Jedi descend from the Whills, so Snoke could, through that perspective, be seen as the Last Jedi, if Luke is killed off, which I think is unlikely at this point.

Yes, I know, he refers to Luke as the Last Jedi, but the question I think, is how does he view himself? Clearly not as a Sith. If so, then what?

On the other hand, this could refer to the Whills, and if Snoke is not a Whill, then Rey possibly could be, esp as I don’t see her becoming a ‘Jedi’. But I digress.

In all honesty, the only clear thing we can say for now is that ‘The Last Jedi’ refers to Luke, but over the course of the film, I think this will change. I like the idea that it refers to folks like Obi Wan and Yoda, but for continuity purposes, as Yoda says Luke is the Last Jedi, I like the idea of the mantle passing, not to Rey, but to Kylo Ren. It makes for compelling story-telling, not mention, it would explain the reason behind the red titles.

But what do you guys all think? Let me know. Please like, comment and reblog :D

[jwgammuto]

The Good, The Bad, and the WTF for WWE Fastlane 2019

The Road to Wrestlemania leaps over its final PPV hurdle in the often forgettable Fastlane. What did we get in 2019? Onto The Good, The Bad, and the WTF: All The Swerves Edition

The Good: The WWE Title match. The confused Cleveland crowd reacting to the announcement of a triple threat, assuming it would be a battered Kofi (more on that later), gets swerved when Mustafa Ali’s music hits. The crowd, predictably, does not receive poor Ali well. Fortunately for him, he worked his absolute ass off in this match and won them back fairly easily. WWE should be ashamed of themselves for not making this the main event. Not that the Shield return match was offensive, but this was deserving. So many incredible spots. Bryan was at peak heel with screaming “you don’t deserve to be here” while slapping Ali. Mustafa had too many insane moves to name them all here and everybody sold perfectly. The ending with Bryan hitting Ali in mid air looked insane. A number of near falls made this fun and the specter of how much more insane this might be if you added Kofi in four weeks was too hard to ignore. Aside from Recyclable Rowan’s awkward spinning heel kick on Owens, this was near perfection. Bravo.

The USO Penitentiary vs McMiz for the SD tag titles. Finally. They picked a perfect spot for this McMahon turn. I have faith that Shane’s explanation will be fully ego driven and worthy of the family name. I kind of wish the attack would have been more brutal or Shane would have employed Luke Harper to do this, but it still worked. Shane, true to his brand, caught Jey mid/air with a drop kick that looked totally insane. The Cleveland crowd ate up the heel turn in favor of its Favorite Son, but I am a little worried about what you do with babyface Miz after Mania.

Fatal Four Way for the US Title. Rey Mysterio is truly a legend. This dude is still innovating moves at this stage in his career. When he’s in the ring, every move feels reversible in some epic fashion. It’s a joy to watch and they cherry on the cake it how well these other guys sell it for him. This was exactly as high impact and the exciting as we’ve come to expect from these four. Truth’s continued nods to Cena are still hilarious, Joe’s power game melds so well with the other guys’ skill sets, and it really makes for entertaining tv. Glad Andrade didn’t take the loss here because he continues to impress and needs the momentum. As far as I’m concerned, Joe should be the champion until at least SummerSlam.

The Revival vs Power and Glorious vs BlackOChet for the Raw Tag Titles. Another great match that was given the proper time and storytelling. Everyone looked strong at one point or another. Ricochet predictably did insane things that only this guy is capable of, Aleister Black blew people up with kicks and knees, Gable continues to be as fluid as anybody in the company in the ring, and The Revival played their part perfectly by selling brilliantly and taking advantage when the perfect moment came. SHATTER MACHINE! 1-2-3. And still. The melee after included a visibly frustrated Roode hitting the Glorious DDT and Black/Ricochet eventually standing tall after clearing house but Dash and Dawson still have the belts. Not sure I could have booked this better myself.

HugBoss vs Samoan Pain Train for the womens’ tag titles. This makes the Good column for exactly one reason and that’s Bayley. I tweeted this last night and stand by it. Bayley is an absolute workhorse and has been on fire for about three months. She really shined in this match. I don’t know if they’re protecting Banks given her injury history or they’re purposefully booking her like this for an angle, but Bayley is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for this team. Pretty good match though with the champs retaining and Nia not hurting anyone. Win/Win. After the match, the situation devolved and ill discuss that later because it’s not “good”.

The Shield vs The Legion of Mediocrity. We all knew this was going to be a Shield/Roman lovefest so I was prepared to roll my eyes for 25 minutes or so. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. I maintain that Baron Corbin, while a dick, is really a very talented and smooth performer in the ring and it showed in this match. This thing was all over the place and honestly a little overbooked but was still enjoyable. Plenty of big moments from Ambrose, Rollins, and even *vom* the BIG DOG (my god I hate Cole). Rollins leaping out of the stands was nuts. Reigns looks like he’s about back to what we’ve come to expect from him ring wise. And Dean still wrestles like his hair is on fire. If Ambrose is to leave the company, that will be sad because I like Dean, but on the bright side, we’ll never have another Shield Bros reunion. Everyone involved in this feud is a capable individual performer, split this nonsense up and give them all some direction. This thing has particularly hurt McIntyre.

Elias owning the Cleveland crowd all night with mic drops.

The Bad: NakaRusev. There is 100% no reason to have these guys together as a team just to lose. Remember when Nakamura won the Royal Rumble and was fighting for the WWE Title for months? Or when Rusev was arguably the most over performer on Smackdown with Rusev Day? At minimum they should be winning pre show matches against the New Day.

Lacey Evans/Rando RKO/AJ spot. This really felt like an attempt to cram some shit in and give some small stories some face time just for the sake of doing it. AJ and Randy could have waited until Tuesday and Lacey’s bit would have been better served during the Asuka/Rose Title match.

Speaking of which. A show with so many great things going on really left a bad mark on Asuka’s legacy and the SD women’s title here. Rose is nothing special in the ring and it showed. Asuka looked pretty sharp but didn’t get much besides the insane spinning heel kick that won it. I can’t imagine Creative thinks anyone is terribly interested in a Rose/Deville split. All I can gather is that they want to push Deville and get Mandy some more heat but they can do that outside the title picture. The deepest fear here is a WM triple threat with these three. *Snooze*. Asuka tapped out Becky Lynch just a couple months ago. Do better.

The WTF: Lynch vs Flair. What a colossal waste of time and energy. I can’t wait for this to be over. While I did enjoy Flair taunting Becky in classic heel fashion, watching Lynch hobble around and believably have a chance to win anything is pathetic. Everyone knew this would end with some sort of Rousey interference that led to a Lynch win. It felt unnecessary. Also, is Lynch just going to be miraculously healed by April? Because she’s been limping since the Royal Rumble and it only seems to get worse since, you know, she constantly being kicked in the knee. Ronda simply coming down to get Charlotte DQ’ed was lazy. Ronda would have been better served to just come down, knock out the ref, destroy them both, and leave Becky lying on Charlotte’s fallen corpse for the “win”.

Kofi in what equates to a wrestling hate crime. I don’t really get the compulsion to make Kofi look like a desperate character who overcame all the odds. They have that story barely hanging on by a thread with Lynch. He’s already crazy over with the crowd and positioned to get a shot. The only reason for Vince to book him in a complete destruction of a handicap match like this is to get heat on himself. Is that the point? Does anyone on earth not know what a huge dick Vince McMahon is? We’re all assuming Kofi is going to be in the title picture at Mania. This isn’t making that journey more fun or interesting. The guy already earned it. He’s over. Doesn’t need your help, Vince.

Nia and Tamina pick a fight with the Glamazon and eventually Natalya too. No.

Overall this was a wonderfully surprisingly good PPV. Not everything was great but holy cow was the good stuff great. Particularly given its proximity to the biggest show of the year, this was well done and I’m ready for the final push to the Granddaddy of Them All. 4.25 Hogan Belt Whips. I think the pre show starts in a couple of hours. Who’s ready?

[markormoviegoer]

Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi

I don't understand people who go into a movie wanting it to be bad. Why would you even bother spending money on something if you're looking to hate it? Why can't people just go in open-minded and just watch what is put before you? I understand that if the characters suck, it has poor acting, major plot holes, or if it's just boring you're not going to like it. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about going to see a movie based on something you love and care about while actively trying to pick out reasons throughout the film to hate it. I have a friend that does this without him even realizing it. He's a big comic book fan, we saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on opening night and he came out spewing nothing but negativity while saying how much better Suicide Squad was. After I put myself through the abomination called Suicide Squad I wanted to slap him. I'm put in this mind set once more because I saw Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi and once more he hated it. In his words he “hated 80% of it” and went on a rant about all the things he hated and they were all so petty. These movies will never have the same effect on you now as they did when you were a child. It's not fair to compare them to something you saw when you were in such a different place. Think back then to when you had first watched a Star Wars movie compared to now. As someone who didn't really grow up on Star Wars, I watched it but I never went crazy for it, I am really enjoying where they're going with the new movies. But when you talk to most Star Wars fans they have strong disdain for it. It's incredibly baffling.

This was the first Star Wars film written and directed by Rian Johnson, who was recently given the reins for a whole new trilogy based on the reception of this film, which should say enough by itself. J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy produced it, music by John Williams and cinematography by Steve Yedlin. I mention all these names because they deserve all the recognition they get. The cast is insane as you would expect. I'll just mention the ten of the most recognizable names. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern. A few of them had some really good performances while others were just OK. You can't expect everyone to steal the show. That should work for the run down of that stuff.

With this being such a new movie there will be a few spoilers but I will mark them with bold so that you can avoid them if you choose. The basic plot continues the story established in the first with the rebellion on the run from the first order. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is now on the island with Luke (Mark Hamill), Finn (John Boyega) is still healing, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) continues trying to live up to his hero Darth Vader and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) struggles to keep the rebellion held together. So here come the spoilers. I will make another bold point once they're done. The plot of Rey trying to convince Luke to train her was really nice. Luke is afraid that he will fail once more and she will fall to the dark side. He's still reeling from what he both did to Kylo Ren and what Kylo Ren is doing now. That brings about a lot of conflict between the two where Rey even begins to doubt Luke because of a connection she has to Kylo Ren. But that is just a small portion. When looking at the First Order you have Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) manipulating whatever he could, General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) is still a conniving worm who has a way to track ships through light speed which was really cool. That brought about a plot where Finn and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) try to slip onto the main ship to destroy the machine that allows them to do that. This is probably the weakest sub-story. Sadly it felt like something they threw in just to give Finn some more screen time. Even worse, this is the only time that Benicio Del Toro showed up. They could have cut this plot line out and easily worked around it. The only reason I can see why it stands is so that they could have Finn and Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) face off but that could have easily been explained another way. I'll stop with any spoilers now. As a whole, apart from the Finn and Rose plot, I felt invested in all of them. It ended in a fairly weak way as I'm not really sure what is left for me to care about though. A whole bunch of critical characters died which leaves me very interested to see where they go from here.

The actors played a great part in making me invested in the story as well. The Star Wars series was never really known for its acting. In the original trilogy the best performances came from already established actors such as Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, and James Earl Jones. While the newcomers played their parts well but never really stood out, apart from Harrison Ford. This time around nearly all of the actors had great performances. The actors who stood out the most to me were Mark Hamill, Domhnall Gleeson, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac. Mark Hamill pulled off the best performance of his career here. Luke at this point in the series is a broken man. His biggest failure is now helping to take down everything he has worked for. He's incredibly hesitant to take Rey on as a student because he's afraid that she will turn to the dark side as well. On top of all that he's lost all faith he had in the force and the way of the Jedi. His story follows his acceptance of his failure and revitalization in his beliefs in the ways of the force. It was easily the most interesting character arch I remember seeing in a Star Wars movie and Mark Hamill pulled it off wonderfully. General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) is an absolute snivelling worm. He is conniving, easy to anger, and will do whatever he has to do to achieve his goals. Every time he was on screen I was enamoured by his performance. He looked horrible, acted worse, and he was everything I want for a villain in a space opera. Adam Driver was able to flesh out Kylo Ren much more then in The Force Awakens and actually made him a very interesting character. His constant desire to be like Darth Vader pushes him to do terrible things and when he's reminded that he could never be what Darth Vader was, he snaps and it's great. He's evolved from a pitiful, angsty man-child to a proper threat. The interactions he has with Rey are fascinating to watch and he plays them very well. There were times were I was questioning his motives and ended up being caught off guard with what happened. I eagerly wait to see what he does next, both in episode nine and with his career. The last actor I want to look at is Oscar Isaac. I'm a sucker for him since I first saw him in Sucker Punch and Drive so Poe Dameron is one of my favourite characters. He's brash and headstrong but over the course of the movie he has to learn that he can't rush into everything when they have so few supplies and rebels left. I enjoyed his transition and thought that Oscar Isaac is really doing a good job of portraying Poe. Once more it was another movie where it had a very strong cast bringing the world to life right before my eyes.

Even if the cast wasn't as strong as it was the cinematography and music created a beautiful atmosphere together. John Williams was on point with his music as always. Just hearing the music alone threw me head first into the world from the opening credit sprawl. Combining that with the wide and epic shots, I was completely immersed in the world before me. The battles had me on the edge of my seats and I loved it. It was a beautiful movie both visually and audibly. The sound effects and CGI were crisp and clear to only add to the immersion. The creatures, landscape, space scenes, and battles looked great. I'm not really sure what else I expected though.

If you've been following what I've been putting out you should realize that I'm going to recommend this movie. It is exactly what I want in a big movie like this, that is I want it to be an experience. I was drawn into the world, I cared about the characters, and any complaints I had about the movie are small and passable. The more I think about it the more I realize how much I enjoyed it. I will be seeing it again myself at some point, it's just a matter of when I can squeeze it in with Christmas coming so close. I'm perfectly OK with Star Wars being part of my pre-Christmas tradition every year as long as they maintain some level of quality. Rogue One was a disappointment in my eyes but now I look forward to Solo in May of 2018. My final thought is this: People need to stop wanting to see the same things over and over again and accept that things change. Life moves on and grows. If it didn't, it would be boring. If you want Star Wars to remain the same, just keep watching the original trilogy and let other people enjoy the new ones.