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ariainstars · 2 years ago

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Grogu's Choice

This is a scene that many fans of The Mandalorian, in particular the ones that follow the show mostly for the bond between the protagonist and Grogu, the child, dislike utterly: in The Book of Boba Fett (episode VI), Luke puts Grogu before a choice. He can stay with him and learn how to be a Jedi - which is symbolized by Yoda’s light saber - or he can go back to Mando, to whom, Luke has understood, Grogu feels very attached - symbolized by the mesh shirt Mando brought him as a gift.

Many fans argue that Luke did not have to make Grogu choose, that the child could very well become a Jedi and yet have attachments. But this is obviously not the route Luke takes.

The scene is so powerful and important because it sets up one narrative circle and finishes another. It emphasizes that Luke has decided to become a Jedi in the classic way, foregoing attachments, and that he will discourage his pupils, too, from having any. On the other hand, it puts a definitive stop to the question as to if and why Mando and Grogu are meant to be together.

Although a child, Grogu has already seen much and understands more than he lets on. But until now he didn’t have a choice; we know that the Jedi brought Force-sensitive children to their Temple before they could think for themselves. Grogu somehow survived when the Order fell and ever since was at the mercy of one shady figure or other, passed on merely for the sake of his mysterious powers.

When Din Djarin rescues and takes him away in Chapter 3 of Season 1, he makes a conscious choice: he does not want the child to remain in the hands of people who obviously do not have his well-being in mind and only want to exploit him.

Grogu, for the rest of the season and for all of Season 2, does not make a choice. He obviously trusts Mando and wants to stay with him, but even if he didn’t want that: he wouldn’t have a choice because he has nowhere to go. What Luke actually does is, for the first time, to make him choose what he actually wants to do with his life. Luke is powerful enough to keep Grogu safe; he is kind; he is a Force-user, too, so he can teach him. Grogu would have a good life with him. And yet Grogu chooses the mesh shirt, the bond with his adopted father, and a way of life that does not exclude attachments. This choice solidifies the father-son-relationship between the two for good.

Though a good teacher, Luke is not fatherly with Grogu; he does not let him be a child the way Mando does. This is emphasized by the final scene of Episode VII, where we see the two of them in Mando’s new ship, with Grogu wanting to fly faster. Grogu made a choice for himself, and also for Mando, knowing well that the latter is notoriously often in trouble and might need his help in case some wild beast or other might want to eat him. 😊

The non-attachment rule of the Jedi, knowing the prequels, was one of the reasons why their Order fell. Why Luke failed, as we see in the sequels, is something we were not partial yet and can only conjecture.

But now, since Luke and Grogu part and we already know how Luke’s temple will end, this probably foreshadows that Grogu’s life work will, by contrast be a success, and, most importantly, why: because Grogu has a powerful father figure by his side who teaches him the things he needs to know but that a non-attached Jedi can’t teach.

Luke’s eternal Achille’s heel is the fact that he doesn’t have and never had a father figure (Owen did not understand his nature, and Obi-Wan died after a short acquaintance), and, most importantly, that he always longed for one. This will, in the end, turn out to be not only a personal loss to him but the cause of the last Jedi’s ultimate downfall.

That Grogu actually has a father figure and chose the attachment with him might, though, mean that Force users will start anew and better through him.

#the mandalorian #the book of boba fett #tbobf 1x06 #tbobf 1x07 #mando #grogu #baby yoda #luke skywalker #this is the way #rancor #jedi order #sw #star wars

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burnt-ghost-toast · 4 years ago

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Prequel Trio HCs - How they comfort you when you’re sad:

Obi-Wan:

He is used to the glazed over eyes, he remembers them well from Anakin’s childhood, so he knows when you’ve begun to shut yourself off. In situations like this he’ll pull back. It isn’t his goal to push you into a corner.

Obi-Wan is quick to notice something is off. I mean, with Anakin as a padawan you have to be good at picking up mood shifts

Speaking of which: parenting training Anakin has taught Obi-Wan a lot about caring for another person, so when you’re ready to let Obi-Wan in he’ll be there with tea and advice

However he isn’t the most emotionally open person (let’s be real the Code and Order dominate this man’s life)

There are very few open and honest conversations. Attachments are bad and lead down a path Obi-Wan doesn’t want to follow, but on the rare occasion Obi-Wan can pull back from this black and white view of attachment you can see a softer side of him

His touch lingers longer than it should, his gaze soft and eyes full of longing. It would be so easy to reach out and capture his lips in a kiss.

Maybe this will be the day he allows himself to give into his desires. Maybe, just this once, Obi-Wan Kenobi can exist beyond the Jedi Order.

Because, despite his best efforts, Obi-Wan is someone with attachments and love in his heart.

In public you may not be able to expect much:

He places his hand on your shoulder and gives you a rare smile

“Good job today.”

But in private, if you ask, he’ll give what he can while still abiding by the Code.

He’s big on meditation. It gives you both a chance to clear your minds and enjoy each other’s presence without having to talk

If your sadness manifests more as anger then he’d suggest some hand-to-hand training so you can let out that frustration in a contained environment.

You’re never obligated to tell him something, but he makes an effort to listen and lend you strength when you need it.

Anakin Skywalker:

Anakin would probably take the longest of the prequel trio to figure out something was wrong

This boy is sweet and so intelligent, but he’s got a lot going on and between trying to prove himself at every turn and dealing with his own feelings of inadequacy it can be hard to notice the shifts in your own personality.

It would be hard for Anakin to believe that there was something about yourself that you didn’t like. To him, you are an incredibly competent and talented person. The thought of you feeling as inadequate as he sometimes does unsettles him.

No matter the problem he’d be the one trying to solve it:

Worried about training or class work? No problem, Anakin will train with you daily and help quiz you.

Someone is bothering you? He will not hesitate to get involved, whether it be speaking or fighting on your behalf, he’ll do it.

Insecure about your appearance? He won’t stop showering you in complements until you smile and say something kind about yourself.

Point is, if you are sad, cheering you up will become Anakin’s sole focus. His kindness and dedication to others knows no bounds.

He isn’t afraid to be affectionate with you if that’s what you need

And oh boy, get ready for the cheesiest lines in the galaxy. Anakin can’t flirt to save his life, but he’s so enduring you can’t help but adore him

“I’d walk through an ocean of sand if it meant you were my oasis.” “Um, when you say ‘ocean of sand’ do you just mean desert?”

“Your smile alone could fuel all of Coruscant.”

Your relationship with Anakin, romantic or platonic, would be one of mutual love and validation. You both prop each other up and help the other see what makes them special.

There is strength in love, and while the Order and cynics may disagree, the bond you share with Anakin does not ever subtract from who each of you are.

Padmé Amidala:

Padmé is a political leader. When she asks if you’re okay she’ll know if you weren’t being completely truthful. If she didn’t she wouldn’t have lasted very long in the Senate

“Are you alright?” Padmé would ask after noticing your dejected expression during a particularly long and fruitless meeting.

“I’m fine.”

She frowns, noticing how your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes, “are you sure?”

And at this point one of two things happen:

You break, giving way to the aches that have been plaguing you while Padmé listens carefully, and when the tears finally fall she’ll take you in her arms and just hold you until your breathing steadies.

Or you double down and Padmé allows you to have your way until you’re ready.

She isn’t one to share her own suffering, so if you’re not ready to talk she won’t force the issue, but she will make her presence felt so you know that you’re not alone.

Padmé understands what it’s like to feel helpless and like you have no control over your own life. When you’re feeling this way she’ll take you to a spa and rent out a private room just for the two of you.

She’ll go through all the bath oils and lotions with you, allowing you to smell each one as she explains the different properties each oil can help with. You add whatever you like and the two of you bathe together

Bottles of your favorite bath oils and lotions are sent to your quarters to enjoy whenever you feel like treating yourself.

Padmé hosts sleepovers for the two of you and her handmaidens to bond and de-stress. Those girls love Padmé and by extension come to love you because when you’re around Padmé her loyal handmaidens aren’t far behind

And it works out because your circle of friends just got exponentially bigger and that's just that many more people you can rely on

The group all love to pamper you.

If your hair is long enough, one of the other women would braid it, and then face masks are applied before bed.

Padmé is a gifted public speaker and diplomat. She is strictly against violence and always tries to settle issues peacefully. If someone was giving you trouble or just made you uncomfortable she’d do what she could to get them reassigned or offer to leave the room with you if you needed the space.

She also has no problem denouncing another senators' abhorrent behavior publicly. Padmé will use whatever power she possesses to make things right.

Her handmaidens are also there to back you up when Padmé can’t. If anyone was giving you problems you know you would have a force of badass women ready to back you.

If you feel unheard she’ll ask what you want to do about the situation and make sure you get a chance to speak your mind. Your voice matters to Padmé and she will lend you all she has to help you.

#fanfic #hcs #star wars #sw prequels #star wars x reader #obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi x reader #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #padme amidala #padme amidala x reader #x reader #sorry its not as nice on mobile

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joracalltrise · 4 years ago

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“The Mandalorian” and “The Phantom Menace” - I’ve just noticed how many beautiful simillarities and differences they have.

1) Truly magical night. A powerful Jedi is checking a powerful child’s potential. A concerned parent is watching from afar.

Same here, with Ahsoka and Grogu. In both cases we have this misterious mood, as if even nature is telling us: this child is important, this child can grow up to become someone special.

2) The Jedi and the parent discussing the child’s past and potential. In this scene Anakin’s darkness is not yet known, so the scenery is very bright. Anakin himself is not present in the conversation, he’s busy doing something else. Shmi and Qui-Gon stand together, which makes it obvious, they want the same thing for Anakin, they are contemplating, what they can do to make his life better (and, probably already thinking about the possibility of him being a Jedi).

Mando and Ahsoka also discuss Grogu, but it’s a bit different. The scenery is very dark (except the tiny light in the middle) and the conversation is also circling around dark subjects. Grogu sitting between the Jedi and teh Mandalorian kind of symbolizes two options for him, two different roads he can take - because, in comparison to Anakin’s case, it is not so obvious, that he SHOULD take the Jedi path, that everybody around him believes it is the best path it can be. Also, from this scene (and some signals before), we have learned that Grogu is not as “pure” as Anakin was at the beginning - he already has BIG darkness looming above him.

3) Saing goodbye scene.

Now, we are going according to “the Phantom Menace” timeline, but we know, that in “the Mandalorian” the scene number 4 will go first.

Anakin’s goodbye with his mother is both happy and sad, beautiful and a bit depressing. The bond between the parent and the child is very clear - neither of them want to part. However, Shmi (as every good parent) loves her son selflessly and altough she is sad, she is ready to let go of him, for his sake.

Anakin, on the other hand, is completely NOT ready to let go, to say goodbye and to choose between his mum and the Jedi. When I look at this scene after so many years, I realize, he SHOULD have had more time, none of this should be rushed.

But we know Qui-Gon and his group are in hurry. There is no time neither for Qui-Gon nor Anakin to think things through.

And so, Anakin leaves with the Jedi, leaves his mother with the relief, that her baby’s future is secured (or so she thinks).

If you look very closely at Mando in episode 5, you realize he is acting PRECISELY like Shmi. He is such a good parent here. It’s obvious he loves Grogu and doesn’t want to part with him, but he knows the best option for Grogu is to become someone like Ahsoka - someone who can defend himself from the Empire-like villains, using cool lightsabers.

It’s Grogu who is so NOT ready to part with Mando. Not the other way round.

(Remember, I’m talking about readyness to let go, not WANTING to let go - there is a difference!)

But this time, the outcome is different.

In this case, scenery is a bit darker in comparison to Anakin’s goodbye scene. And the Jedi does NOT take the child. However, it’s important to note, she doesn’t completely rejects the idea of him being a Jedi, like she does in the scene number 4 (but we’ll get to that in a moment).

4) Finally, the rejection scene!

Let’s start with Anakin.

First, we have a (VERY) succesfull Force test, then The Fear Talk, Yoda’s sad realisation and The Discussion.

And it’s all happening while THE SUN SETS (when they reach the decision, it’s already dark!). Remember, when I told you about the previous scenes? How almost all of them, in Anakin’s case, were happening in the light and nobody were talking about the danger of training him, nothing about the darkness looming deep from within him? Well, it certainly changes NOW.

As you can see, there are already quite a lot of similarities with Grogu’s case.

Again, we have (not so smooth, but) succesfull Force Test, another Fear Talk (although not so direct, and a bit more gentle) and the Discussion.

So, what are the differences?

First of all, the talk is very private, and the kid (Grogu) is probably not fully aware of what the adults are talking about right now. It’s not the intimidating Jedi Council meeting, where the kid is present and fully understanding the fact, that they are talking about HIM, and for some reason he’s not GOOD.

Another interesting difference is that we have the Civillian (well, the Mandalorian actually, but you know, what I mean) talking with The Jedi, instead of the Jedi Master discussing importantn thing with other Jedi Masters. Which should look very different, but in fact... doesn’t ;)

Both Mando and Qui-Gon based their arguments on emotions, and on knowing their kids better than anyone (it’s kind of cute) and being confident in their kids abilities.

“Whaat?! Hey, but look, what he can do!” - this kind of stuff.

From the other hand, both Jedi Council and Ahsoka (another funny thing about this situation, considering Ahsoka’s whole past with the Jedi Council, that she now thinks similarily to them) - they talk from the experience. They are being reasonable. Well, in Ahsoka’s case it’s a bit more personal with her whole experience with Anakin, but we must admit, that her arguments are not stupid or out of blue.

And the outcome of both meetings is actually... similar (again).

The Council and Ahsoka are giving a “no”, but it’s not a definitive “NO”. There is still a small hint of “hm... maybe... maybe yes”.

Conclusions?

Well, we know, what the conclusion was, at least for Anakin. But, what about Grogu?

And this is precisely the reason, why I’m talking about all of this in the first place.

I believe that Grogu’s story in Mandalorian is finally going to give us the confirmation of something I’ve been waiting to see in Star Wars franchise for AGES.

The paralell of Anakin’s story, but ending DIFFERENTLY!

Also, the study of attachment and the explanation of HOW can a Jedi DEAL with it and come out victorious.

We KNOW, from the canon, that it is possible for a Jedi to have predispositions towards the dark side (Luke), adapt the dark side into their combat style (Windu) or even leave the Order (Ahsoka) and still stay in the light.

But none of this Jedi had soooo maaanyyy similarities with Anakin, not even Luke (well, ok, Luke had many simillarities with his dad, but they were different similarities than Grogu).

To be honest, I’ve always wondered, how Anakin’s story would end, if the prequel trilogy was completed BEFORE the original trilogy. It may sound a bit odd, but I don’t really believe, that the Jedi Order treated Anakin wrongly. Well, they’ve made mistakes, of course, and it was difficult for them to approach him, since he was so very, very different than other Padawans. Obi-Wan, Padme and the rest of the Jedi Family sincerely loved Anakin and they did they best to make him a good man - they have just lost to Palpatine’s clever calculations.

But with Grogu it doesn’t have to be this way.

And I’m eager to see, how Grogu grows up to become a powerful, good, but extraordinary Jedi. And, how Mando ends up as someone much more than a simple bounty hunter ;)

The only question is - will they do it together? Because, well... episode number 6 from the second season gave me the vibe, that the FINAL GOODBYE between the two is waiting for us somewhere in the future. It will happen - it HAS to happen in order to prove that Grogu (unlike Anakin) is capable of letting go, of accepting the loss of the loved one.

Sorry about the possible mistakes. Unfrotunately, I don’t have an English beta.

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novaewalker · 5 years ago

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Clone wars has destroyed me. I've never been so emotionally invested in a series in my entire life. And I watched it just as a fan of Star Wars and the prequels. Excited to see more content but as I progressed I literally began to panic because I know how this ends but you see the struggles of the characters and you see how close they were and you see from their incomplete point of view how things began to wedge together to fit Palpatine's final plan. But you really dont want to accept it. You see them battling battle after battle, surviving crash after crash, bonding friendships after friendships and you see the Jedi as this ppl who srsly tried their best but in the end the war made them lose their way and you see that shift between the control of the situation to slowly getting out of hands until they realize too late that the Dark Side had been looming behind them all this time. And you see their desperation. The grief of the war. The deaths of the clones.

Man u get attached.

U see Anakin so charming and reckless, being a powerful and cunning warrior but weighed down by the pressure of his duties and other traumas in his life. And you see that development of his mind, how he starts as a young man warring a battle he's willing to sacrfice himself, for to doubt and fear and then just suffering. Losing Ahsoka being one of the strongest blows in his life. And you see the changes of his mood in season six. You see how Ahsoka's absence makes the war grimmer, more urgent, more real. And though he continued, you know there's a seed planted in him and that bitterness that he already had in his heart begins to spread in him like poison until it consumes him. The dragon in his heart as the rots novelization describes it. But at this point you're so attached you don't see Anakin slowly turning. You see him struggling but you don't believe it. Because he's always gotten back up, right? So he can do so again. You see it when he tells rex that echo might be alive but to embrace the possibility that he also might be dead. You see how much he's grown and you don't think he can turn. He matures, he becomes wiser. He's getting older as well and war ages you so you see him different.. He can't turn. But then you see order 66 and the fall of the republic through Ahsoka's eyes and since you don't see the consequences on Anakin you don't accept them. But then he appears walking in the snow, that tall cloaked figure heading to the the makeshift graveyard and he picks up the ligthsaber and he looks up and you see the mask and you realize that's him. The young man that smiled at obi-wan and surrendered in the middle of a battle, the young man that bickered with his old master and that then handed ahsoka her ligthsabers, weapons he himself had tinkered to colour the crystal different and make it similar to his and obi-wan's, and you know that that machine is him. The same young man who tried to save his wife but got consumed by the dark side. That's him. That man who got up so many times after stumbling but that decided not to stand up anymore and choose another path for him. A path that he was manipulated into. One that he didn't deserve because he was never a bad person. He was a good man and you see that. You see it in his actions that he never meant ill. But he changed. And you literally cannot accept it.

You just can't despite the fact that you knew the ending since episode one. A show that makes you forget about the future and makes you focus so much in the present that you forget what fate has in store for them. Something u knew it could have changed but didn't.

#Im crying goodbye #I cant #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #obi wan kenobi #the clone wars #sw tcw #star wars tcw #tcw s7 #tcw spoilers #tcw finale #star wars day #minwalker.txt

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doctordisaster · 5 years ago

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Okay, so about the space movie: it is not good. I haven’t come out of a star war feeling this disappointed since the prequels. It’s worse than revenge of the sith. I think it must be better than phantom menace, but I’m not sure. That’s how bad it is: I’d need to rewatch the worst installment in the series to confidently rank the newest.

I’ve seen some people say they enjoyed it in the theater but liked it less the more they thought about it — which was more or less my experience with Solo. That was not my experience this time. I was numbed, bored, or annoyed for most of the movie’s runtime. There are a few good moments, but it is by and large just not fun to watch.

It also appears to have been plotted by an angry mob of reddit incels. Bad fan theories, unwanted redemption arcs, and pointless throwbacks rule the day. Assholes drove Kelly Marie Tran off of Twitter; JJ Abrams drove Kelly Marie Tran out of Star Wars. Every moment of character development from the previous film was actively and loudly reversed. As a matter of fact, every status quo change in this very film was reversed, usually within seconds of screen time. At every point at which the movie ought to have turned right, it turned left.

Below the cut I’m going to list things I liked and things I didn’t. Don’t read it if you want to be surprised by the movie's disappointments live in the theater.

Good things in space movie no. 9:

The little goblin who works on droids is cute

Lando’s scenes are all very nice

Chewie trying to hide in a crowd was funny

Wedge! I love Wedge!

I loved the design of Kylo Ren’s space office

The moment where literally every spaceship that has ever been in a star war shows up. Also the moment where literally every person who has ever played a Jedi speaks a line. These are each a nice gimmick, although I am not sure both should have been used, and certainly not that close together.

I like the moment where Poe and The Female Person Poe Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Past have a whole conversation just with their facial expressions. It’s especially impressive because The Female Person Poe Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Past is wearing a metal helmet that entirely conceals her face.

The scene where Finn and The Female Person Finn Is Going To Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Future bond over the shared elements of their history was very nice.

The scene where force ghost Luke explains that he was wrong to isolate himself from the universe is nowhere near as good as any of Luke and Rey’s scenes in TLJ, but it’s definitely necessary considering how confused some fans seemed to be on this point.

Some of the banter between the main three is quite fun

The scene of young Leia and Luke doing Jedi stuff is lovely and I wanted more of it.

Bad things in movie 9 from outer space:

Everything about Palpatine. Bringing him back is stupid. His plan is stupid. His inexplicable motivations are stupid. The fact that he has apparently just been sitting on his ass for 40 years is really stupid. Not explaining how he survived being thrown down a bottomless pit, exploding, and then the station he was on also exploding is extremely stupid.

Speaking of stupid, Rey Palpatine is the single worst idea that has ever been in any of these films. One of the most obnoxious things about JJ Abrams “mystery boxes” is that the mystery he deems the holy grail of box mysteries and buries deep deep down at the bottom of the mystery box is consistently something obvious and bad and not even slightly clever. There were literally two dumb fan theories for Rey’s parentage — Kenobi and Palpatine — and Palpatine was the one that was dumber.

It’s worse than midiclorians, because now Palpy fucks. Palpy canonically fucks.

Gross.

The only potentially good thing about bringing back Palpy is getting to enjoy Ian McDiarmid’s gloriously campy performance again, but for some goddamn reason they trap him on an empty soundstage lit only by strobes, then color grade everything to pure gray so you can’t fucking see what’s going on.

I get that it’s supposed to be the heart of evil and darkness, but good production design can evoke that without making it impossible to see the actors and unpleasant to look at the frame

Speaking of which, how is this movie so ugly??? There are maybe three visually nice locations and everything else is just hideous. This is a complaint I’d never even consider leveling at a previous star war. Even the shittiest ones were beautiful to look at.

Every Star Destroyer has an onboard death star superlaser now. I started by booing, saw that the superlasers are just a metal cock and balls, and then laughed my ass off through the rest of the supposedly serious scene where it blows up a planet.

The way you kill a star destroyer now is you shoot it in its dick

The only people who will be pleased by this movie are Reylo shippers and that is a horrible thing to be true

The macguffin chase that constitutes the first two thirds of this movie is pointless and boring. I especially loved the multiple times when someone lost a macguffin only to go “oh I forgot I have a spare in the glovebox”

Can we even list all the times something supposedly momentous happened only to be reversed moments later?

chewie dies! wait it was somehow the wrong ship even though they were in the middle of a literal fucking desert and there was no other ship around

The Female Person Poe Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Past just got obliterated along with her entire planet by a different penis, this one attached to a star destroyer! oh wait she didn’t. no explanation she just didn’t die.

also the droid gremlin is with her

hux turned spy for the resist— oh wait he’s dead

Rey killed Kylo! But she feels bad so she heals him back

Palpatine just killed Kylo! Oh wait he didn’t. No explanation he just didn’t die, because JJ needed him to immediately reverse another supposedly momentous death.

Kylo smashed the macguffin! we’re doomed oh wait glovebox

Palpatine just electrocuted the entire rebel fleet to death! oh they got better

There’s absolutely no way to get across these waves! Oh wait Rey just... went across them

Well maybe it’s because she has the force and was able to oh wait Finn just went across them too

Well maybe that’s because The Female Person Finn Is Going To Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Future is such an expert at navigating the oh wait Kylo is there as well

If only this movie took place in a universe with vehicles that do not touch the ground, we could have skipped this entire stupid subplot

3po makes a massive sacrifice by allowing his memory to be wiped! oh wait he had a backup

I also hate that 3po’s memory wipe is treated, before it happens, with pathos and gravitas, and then the moment he actually loses everything about his life and all his friends, it’s IMMEDIATELY treated as a joke

I love the way Rey is briefly dead but then Kylo goes “oh no!” and uses the last of his life force to bring her back. I wanted her to go “oh no!” and then use the last of her life force to bring him back. And then he’d go “oh no!” and use the last of his life force to

When the emperor dies, they show a montage of star destroyers blowing up elsewhere in the galaxy. Including one over endor? Why did they have a star destroyer over endor. How did the ewoks blow it up? Did they tie a log to one of the other moons and another log to another other moon and then cut the vines and the logs went smoosh

At the start of the movie Palpy promises Kylo his throne and limitless power in exchange for the one thing he wants most desperately in the world, which is for Rey to be dead. Then Rey shows up and Palpy goes “ah good you are here, I need you to kill me so my spirit can transfer to you” as though these demands aren’t utterly contradictory on every level. Then when she refuses he’s like “oh well, I suppose I can suck your and Kylo’s life forces out and rejuvenate myself to rule anew” as though that isn’t vastly preferable to plans A and B from his perspective

why is he in this movie

Having the knights of ren in this movie really justifies Rian Johnson’s choice not to have them in TLJ.

Every time the knights of ren appear, the timpanist bangs out the music cue for the sand people, so I think John Williams just decided that they ARE sand people in different hats.

Remember the eerie moment in TLJ where Rey and Kylo were connected across a vast distance through the force and Rey was in a monsoon and when the connection closed Kylo found some raindrops on his glove? Remember when Luke used a similar ability, without any physical transference, and the strain was so great that it ended his life? Now do you remember when TROS turned that into a totally mundane effortless 3d fax machine so they could pass necklaces and macguffins and lightsabers back and forth constantly, and even have whole physically real saber duels even though the script was too lazy to put them in the same place? Hey that fucking sucked

Remember Rose Tico? JJ doesn’t

The scene of Poe “micro-jumping” the Falcon is awful on so many levels. First of all, it’s just a one-off joke from Guardians of the Galaxy, but played straight for some reason. Second, changing the setting of the chase every few seconds makes the action just as numbing and impossible to follow as Michael Bay’s worst. Third, it makes no sense that the TIEs are following them through the microjumps, and the fact that they can do so makes the microjumps completely pointless. Why are you even microjumping if they can just follow you? Then the characters spend several scenes going on and on about what a big deal microjumps are, only for no one to ever do it or refer to it again.

Rey asks “what was snoke’s deal,” as though reading off a card with questions from our most obnoxious audience members, and Palpy goes “Snoke was my creation” which makes sense, like he trained the guy and equipped him and pulled his strings from the shadows and no, wait, the camera is panning over to a literal Jar O’ Snokes that Palpy just has handy in his empty strobelit soundstage.

I wish the camera had kept panning to show a Jar O’ Phasmas and a Jar O’ Huxes and maybe a Jar O’ Unkar Plutts so that all the characters from TFA could have an Offically Explained Back Story

If he put all the jars in another jar he could have a Jar Jar and the circle would be complete

I liked the part where they were having a lightsaber duel on a pier and the swings got slower and slower and finally they stopped and just kind of stared at each other like “wtf is even the point of this” because that was exactly how I felt at that moment.

tbh that was exactly how I felt for most of the movie

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padawanlost · 5 years ago

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I see these posts about love not equaling attachment and how Jedi WERE allowed to love but Anakin did it all wrong, and I agree that attachment and possession and obsession are all different things, all of which Ani was guilty of in the end, but. it seems to me that more than once, it is his attachment to Ahsoka that ends up saving her life, when those adhering to the Jedi ideal would have let her perish. so..eh? can there be (true) love without attachment? is that really healthy or desirable?

I think in the end it depends on how you define love and attachment, and if you believe it’s possible to have one without the other. People have been using the argument that Jedi were allowed love but not attachment to justify the Order’s worst instincts and, at the same time, condemn Anakin for doing the same. But here is the thing: there’s a huge difference between what the Jedi (and people and general) *should* be doing and that they *are* doing.

That’s the driving force behind every conflict in the PT. In-universe, the Jedi were not allowed to love. Not *our* kind of love, because our kind of love is expressed through relationships. Our bond to our loved ones is the defining element of our feelings. The Jedi weren’t allowed the bond. They were only allowed the compassion associated with the emotion (though one can argue that compassion without attachment is pointless, but that’s a whole different conversation). So, the Order lived on the idea that you should love everyone (compassion) without forming attachments (affection/relationship). In reality, how much you can believe their ability to accomplish this depends how you look at their relationship.

I think GL was, in part, of this issue when he recognizes that we are incapable of complete detachment.

““No human can let go,” Lucas would say of this scene. “It’s very hard. Ultimately, we do let go because it’s inevitable; you do die and you do lose your loved ones. But while you’re alive, you can’t be obsessed with holding on. As Yoda says in this one, ‘You must learn to let go of everything you’re afraid to let go of.’ Because holding on is in the same category and the precursor to greed.” George Lucas [ROTS’ making of]

We simply cannot live by the Jedi Code and that’s the point. Complete detachment might have been the goal but it’s not something them or ourselves – the flawed, flawed beings we are – can easily accomplish.

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth,” [George] continues. “They’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people - in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments.” George Lucas [ROTS’ making of]

You can see it’s something they Jedi SHOULD be doing, not something they are actually doing. I don’t think anyone who has watched the Prequels can believe for a second the Jedi LOVED the Sith. That Obi-wan cut Maul’s in half out of love. That Mace and Yoda tried to kill Palpatine with LOVED in their hearts. That they voted to expel Ahsoka out of compassion for her. That LOVE – not loyalty to the Jedi Order or respect for Yoda, his superior – was what motivated Obi-wan to stay back and watch Anakin burn alive.

So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.” George Lucas [ROTS’ making of]

Here’s the thing the fandom loves to ignore: the jedi had attachments. Yoda was attached to Order to point it physically hurt him to lose it. Mace was attached to Republic to the point he was ready to forsake the law and execute the Supreme Chancellor without a trial. Obi-wan was so attached to Anakin he spent years making excuses for him. They all were attached to something or someone. Anakin wasn’t the exception. They all wanted something and that led them all to a road of pain and suffering.

“Is Anakin’s way of being so compassionate wrong? Because on a certain level, you have to accept that the Jedi lose the Clone War. So there is something that they’re doing that’s wrong. There’s something they’re doing that doesn’t work and that the dark side is exploiting. If anything, it’s Luke’s overwhelming compassion and love for his father that in the end overthrows the Emperor because it’s something that he doesn’t understand.” Dave Filoni

“I’ve always felt that one of Anakin’s downfalls, like it’s never that Anakin was innately going to be evil, but the people around him, the Jedi, in their lack of compassion, in being so selfless that they almost forgot to care.” Dave Filoni

The Jedi Order believes they can love without forming attachments. That they love only thinking of the bigger picture. But what the narrative tells us is that they couldn’t manage this. In the end, they felt into the same traps we all do. They developed attachments – to people, to concepts, to rules, to the Order, etc – and that led them to a dark road.

Look at this way, they were given a choice to refuse to become generals and lose much of their power and prestige or they could compromise themselves by accepting a slave army. A truly detached person would be able to make this choice rationally, would be able to walk away from a potently harmful situation. But the Council, as we all know, was incapable of refusing the offer because they wanted to keep their position. That’s attachment. That’s the greed George was mentioned. Not something the make the Jedi villainous but something that makes them human. They were flawed, they were incapable of living by their Code and the irony is that if they had accepted this truth much of their troubles could’ve been avoided.

[The Jedi] sort of persuade people into doing the right thing but their job really isn’t to go around fighting people yet there are now used as generals and they are fighting a war and they are doing something they really weren’t meant to do.They are being corrupted by this war, by being forced to be generals instead of peacemakers. – George Lucas for E! Behind the Scenes - Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith

I believe George was going for a more heath approach. We can and SHOULD love everyone and care for everyone (the OT is all about this) but we can’t take it too extremes. Complete detachment (the way the Jedi do it) can be as harmful as obsessive love. Obi-wan’s inability/unwillingness to openly love Anakin caused as much damaged as Anakin’s obsession with Padmé’s survival. The Order’s refusal to let Anakin be with his mother was as harmful as their permission for Palpatine to have unrestrained access to him.Forbidding all relationships is not the solution, fostering heath individuals is. That’s why Luke succeeded when all others failed. He LOVED his father, he was attached to him but he didn’t let it become a problem. Luke took the healthy approach and he won.

Back to the fandom thing, I don’t get it how the people who argue the Jedi can love without attachment love to rant about how much Obi-wan love him in a cutesy, openly affectionate way. But… If Obi-wan was a good Jedi™ then he only loved Anakin without affection. He felt compassion without ever caring (the way WE care for our friends & family) and there’s nothing cute or openly affectionate about that. And if there was he would be, by definition, as flawed and obsessive as Anakin. IMO, it doesn’t add up.

There’s a difference between what the Jedi should’ve been – compassionate to the extreme, accepting, peaceful, neutral and detached – and what they became – attached to their Order, to their code and to their ideals, political, cold, militarized and judgmental. They should’ve been able to love without becoming attached, but they couldn’t. That’s not a inconsistence, that’s character development. This inability, that led to their treatment of Anakin and their eventual downfall, is explained by years of lore. The Code did allow emotions but after many internal wars the detachment rule was instated and over the years the Council became slowly became more strict. No negative emotions, became no emotions and that became no relationships, which would later became no attachments whatsoever. Detached love is not a paradox, it’s character development. It’s the gap between Luke and Yoda, between Luke’s Order and the prequels Jedi. One was capable of loving and expressing that love in a healthy, productive and compassionated way (including to his enemies), the other wasn’t.

#ask #anon #sw meta #jedi order #meta: fandom #worldbuilding #the force

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loopy777 · 5 years ago

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if you were tasked to rewrite all of anakin skywalkers backstory up until the clone wars started, how would you do it?

Well, I suppose it depends on my goals.

If I want to just make it align more with the Classic Trilogy, then we have a few parameters to go by. Before it’s revealed that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, it’s implied that Anakin was a contemporary of Obi-Wan’s in some way, perhaps both growing up on Tatooine; Vader was said to be a student of Obi-Wan’s, but not Anakin. And, moreover, Obi-Wan implies that Luke’s Uncle Owen knows Obi-Wan and spoke out against Anakin going off to save the galaxy with him. The Vader revelation retcons this, so that now Obi-Wan ‘discovered” Anakin and took him on as a student, creating a necessary age gap. It was cut from the final version of the movie, but Return Of The Jedi originally had Owen being Obi-Wan’s brother, who agreed to hide and raise Luke. This makes Obi-Wan either a liar for depicting Owen as disapproving of Anakin going off with Obi-Wan, or else Anakin was a friend of the family in some way and Obi-Wan the black sheep.

However, none of this says much about Anakin’s character. George Lucas had definite goals in crafting Anakin’s new backstory. Instead of creating a hero in the mold of Luke who was eventually overcome by a lust for power, the Anakin of the prequels is a perpetually disenfranchised figure whose needs are denied or ignored by the supposed good guys. It sets Anakin up on a fatalistic journey to villainy that some don’t like, but it also highlights the flaws of both the Republic and the Jedi in a way that results in the creation of the monster who destroys them, which is nicely poetic. So while the Anakin of the prequels doesn’t really align with everything implied by the Classic Trilogy, there’s something compelling in the character that goes beyond simple archetypes.

So I think I’d try to find a compromise- something that aligns with as many (canon) hints from the Classic Trilogy as we can, but still keeps the interesting bits of the Prequels.

First of all, I’d want to start the prequel trilogy with the start of the Clone Wars. So instead of some tax-based blockade plot, The Phantom Menace has the Jedi dealing with the aftermath of the blitz of the Separatists. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are doing something that involves protecting Padme and getting her to Coruscant, and it still lands them on Tatooine, and they still encounter Anakin. However, Anakin is Padme’s age. He’s still a slave in this version, but he has a brother, Owen, along with his mother. (There is no mention of a father in the story. Whether one exists or not isn’t addressed.) He bonds with Padme and Obi-Wan, and they wind up becoming an adventure trio; Obi-Wan is the older Mom Friend, Padme and Anakin are the troublemakers who wind up saving the day with their chaos. Over the course of the Tatooine adventure, Anakin and family are freed, but he chooses to go offworld to help Padme and the Jedi complete their mission. He promises his brother Owen that he’ll return once the matter is resolved. Owen is skeptical, but takes their mother to find a new life out of slavery.

Obi-Wan brings Anakin to Qui-Gon’s attention, thinking that he should be trained as a Jedi, especially with so many Jedi having recently died in the Separatist Blitz. Qui-Gon is convinced but opts to take Anakin as his own apprentice. Obi-Wan had wanted to be the one to train Anakin, thanks to their previous effective partnership, but relents. By the end of the movie, though, Qui-Gon ends up dead, and Obi-Wan goes ahead and steps forward to train Anakin. Anakin has seen the scope of the Clone Wars at this point and how much the galaxy is suffering, and is inspired by Padme to a life of service. He’s given the offer to join the Jedi, but he learns that he’ll never be able to fall in love or have a family, that Jedi forsake attachments. He’s torn, especially since it means being parted from Padme and never going back to his family, but eventually decides to go for it.

The second movie takes place several years into the war. Anakin has been trained, and despite his super-late start, he’s one of the best Jedi warriors around. He’s powerful and charismatic and clever, a true Hero. This movie shows the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and also has the reunion between Anakin and Padme. We get another adventure with the three of them being a battle trio. During the adventure, Anakin gets a vision of his mother dying. The trio detour to Tatooine, meet up again with Owen, find out about his mother’s kidnapping, etc. Owen blames Anakin for not being there for them. The adventure trio goes to rescue Shmi, but she dies when they find her. At this point, Anakin purposefully flubs the stealth rescue mission so that the Tusken Raiders attack and he has an excuse to do battle and kill. There’s no slaughter of women and children here, but Obi-Wan picks up on the fact that Anakin brought the fight about in order to get violent revenge. He doesn’t confront Anakin about it, but at a later point they meet up with some big-time Jedi, and the Masters detect the taint of the darkness on Anakin and give him some kind of punishment that he resents. Padme is never aware of what Anakin did, and at the end of the movie, she and Anakin have a secret marriage.

The Clone Wars cartoon can happen here, without much change in tone.

The third movie is the end of the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire. Anakin is a great hero amongst the newer Jedi, but the classic Jedi see him as too violent and reckless. Obi-Wan is stuck in the middle, seeing the good in Anakin but also the danger. Palpatine plays off the two Jedi factions against each other, making them each think that the other faction has come under the thrall of the Sith. As the Clone Wars wind down, the Jedi wind up in conflict, and Anakin has a vision (like his mother) of Padme being struck down by a lightsaber. Palpatine seduces Anakin to the dark side by convincing him to start taking down the old-school Jedi in secret. Palpatine uses this to help sell the idea of unstable Jedi, a Jedi takeover of the government, etc, and issues Order 66. Obi-Wan and Yoda survive. Anakin sees what happens, realizes how he’s been tricked, and confronts Palpatine. Palpatine defeats Anakin, but offers him both mercy and a chance to save Padme. This should replicate a lot of the dynamics of Revenge Of The Sith, but not as rushed.

Palpatine reveals that Obi-Wan and Yoda are both out there, and that prophecy cannot be averted, but that with the power of Plagueis, he can save Padme, etc. Stuff happens, Anakin and Padme and Obi-Wan wind up on Mustafar together. There’s a confrontation, Padme sees how dark Anakin has gone, and flees him. In anger, he strikes at Padme with his lightsaber. Obi-Wan defends her, they fight, Anakin gets burned, yadda yadda. Obi-Wan leaves with Padme. Palpatine arrives to save Anakin, both of them thinking that Padme is dead. Padme cannot fully recover from the lightsaber blow, but she manages to deliver her secret twin children. She cannot raise them. She gives Leia to her friend Bail Organa, and Luke to Obi-Wan, to raise in safety. Padme herself knows that her health is limited, that she won’t survive for more than a few years even with advanced medical care, so she goes with Bail Organa to at least help raise her daughter while she can.

I’m not sure I’m fully satisfied with this whole thing, but those are the basic ideas I bat around whenever I consider my ideal version of the prequels.

#thekingofwinterblog

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solitarylurker · 5 years ago

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a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker

(Rey's failure as a Star Wars protagonist)

the key element of the Star Wars protagonist is a combination of compassion and love, specifically an altruistic, Christlike compassion/love

Anakin fails in the prequel trilogy to cultivate this aspect within himself, instead descending into a self-serving, possessive variant of love that is more root chakra level rather than heart/crown chakra-based; his example and his failure are meant to set the tragic stage for what he ultimately becomes: Darth Vader, Luke's main antagonist for the original trilogy

it's important to note that Anakin's failure isn't simply a moral failing on his part, although certainly he bears responsibility for that--it's also the result of the restrictions placed on him by the stringent jedi misunderstanding of the redeeming power of attachment, love, and connection, and this ties into the faint callbacks to Buddhist mysticism that Lucas likes to dabble in, and the potential drawbacks of taking that mysticism too zealously at the expense of life

this theme, of the jedi reacting with the inappropriate response to the natural call of the "dark side", returns in the original trilogy with Luke, who is tasked by his masters Yoda and Obi-wan with finishing what they started--taking down his disgraced father Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader

Luke is a rebellious character; much of his coming-of-age story is about pushing back against the restrictions placed upon him (an echo of Anakin before him), and he has a good heart and a sound instinct, even if he's clumsy in execution and petulant at the wrong moments

this good heart of Luke's is ultimately the source of redemption for his father, when he rebels against his masters and willingly submits himself to his father in order to call him back to the light

Luke does become deeply tempted by the dark side when Darth Vader begins threatening Leia (Luke's sister and first love), but he is able to overthrow this temptation with compassion for the sad figure of his father when he finds Darth Vader at his mercy

Luke's abstention from violence is the heart of Star Wars and the key component of why this story continues to resonate on a mythological level for so many viewers of all walks of life; Anakin's reverse trajectory, where love no longer reaches him and he resorts to depravity and violence, stands as a mirror image of Luke's compassionate pacifism, even if the easier solution would have been violence

Luke's example, along with the essence of the jedi code, sets up the moral foundation of the Star Wars protagonist, and this is the foundation upon which Rey is set at the beginning of her journey

the problem is, Rey doesn't have any compassion in her

oh, sure, she likes her friends well enough (when she can be bothered), and she's nice (when she remembers to be), but she's quick to anger and quick to hate and quick to rejection and quick to judgment

Rey, in other words, is far more akin to a sith than a jedi in the sequel trilogy

some of Rey's failings as a Star Wars protagonist are likely due to her being a creator’s pet to JJ Abrams as well as to the current climate surrounding how female characters are written--downplaying the feminine healing, nurturing qualities in favor of overemphasizing the violent/aggressive/masculine qualities

but a lot of it has to do with the structure of Rey as a character--she is meant to be someone who struggles with deep-rooted anger and trauma, who must overcome that anger by learning how to accept the reflection of that anger in the form of her villain--Kylo Ren

the dance between Rey and Kylo Ren works perfectly in TFA and TLJ, but flops in TROS because Abrams randomly decides that Rey's anger is perfectly appropriate and not a real issue to be addressed or overcome

instead, what we receive is a Rey who is overly antagonistic, who is quick to lash out, who can't even have a calm conversation with the antagonist she's supposed to love even if he's disappointed her, who acts more like a sith with each passing scene but never seems to sit down and deal with it, and when she does deal with it (realizing she's a Palpatine), nothing comes of it--no revelation, no understanding, no sudden compassion for the sufferings of those who have been drawn to the dark side

in other words, Rey learns nothing from her anger, learns nothing from her hate, learns nothing from her experience--she's "too pure" to even grapple with the realities within herself, or perhaps more accurately too "in denial" to accept the darkness that exists both within herself and Kylo Ren and all those who fall to the dark side--that perhaps they are not merely evil, but driven by passions over which they struggle to control and through which anyone can fall

the reason the finale of TROS is so deeply unsatisfying (even setting aside Kylo's death) is because Rey does not overcome her antagonist with compassion or love, nor does her victory come through love

it would be one thing if Rey's method of defeating Palpatine was to absorb his power via her dyad bond with Kylo, draining him of his power until he's merely a sad husk of an old man, and then gently telling him she pities him as she jumps down to rescue Kylo from the pit of doom, but instead the two have a passive and unenlightening battle to the death like in any lame super hero movie, which is a sith method of victory, not a jedi's

Rey's lack of compassion for either Palpatine or Kylo in the film is what makes the film ring hollow at the end

all the triumphs of the film are Kylo's--his love and compassion for Rey are what rescues her twice, not her love for him or her compassion for him/Palpatine

i realize most people will be content with the idea that she loved Chewie, Finn, and Poe, and that's all well and good, but loving your friends is not a higher level of compassion/morality--these are not the things that make a Star Wars protagonist great

Rey needed to demonstrate a higher level of consciousness than just "if a person is nice to me, they're good; if they're mean to me, they're bad" in order to fulfill her promise as a Star Wars heroine; she needed to forgive Kylo for his failings (and through him, herself), to help him see the light, and to find a way for everyone to achieve happiness without judging them

Luke didn't spend Return of the Jedi haranguing the Emperor about how evil he was and how bad he was--his focus was always on his goal, which was to influence his father and win him back to his side; Rey should have had a similar trajectory, whether that was trying to reach Palpatine's sad old heart (perhaps an impossibility) or to neutralize him in a way where he couldn't hurt anyone anymore but would have to pay for his crimes in another manner

it's just disheartening that Rey, for all that she's painted as some saintly being, can't seem to overcome the darkness inside her or even legitimately come to terms with it before the end of her story--in the end, it is Kylo's love and some miraculous jedi ghost intervention (which, by the way, neither Luke nor Anakin ever got) which save the day for her, rather than her standing on her own and winning with the strength of her compassion and love

[5/9]

#tros critical reflection #rey criticism #reylo criticism #sw criticism #sw spoilers #tros spoilers #sw tros

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gffa · 4 years ago

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Last time I went about five months between doing a set of STAR WARS fic recs, this time it’s only been three months! Hurrah! It helps that, as always, this fandom puts out an incredible amount of excellent fic, so I feel like I’m never hurting for fics I want to yell about and shove at people, which is something I continue to appreciate as it often feels like so much of the world is such a huge tire fire. It helps to be able to find fics to retreat into, to have fun with, to express joy and creativity with, and so many of the authors in this fandom are just so good at this! To the point that these sets sometimes take awhile because there are always more fics I want to add, until the post starts threatening to be overly long instead of a decent length–in my defense, no seriously, you guys are just too good! Also, I forced myself to stop at 69 fic recs, because yes I do think it’s funny. (Nice.) STAR WARS FIC RECS: PREQUELS RECS: ✦ a comedy in four acts by jesuisdeux, obi-wan & dooku & yoda & qui-gon & cast, time travel, 4k This was what time-travel is: staring at the dark sockets of skulls everywhere your gaze lands on. Being haunted by ghosts long gone. The apprehension of the slow yet sure approach of the inevitable which is sending chills down your spine. ✦ No Rest for the Weary by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & jedi & ocs, 61k Needing a break from life at the Jedi Temple, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, visit a Jedi AgriCorps settlement on the Midrim planet of Helia. There they encounter new friends, new enemies and have new adventures, all while attempting to navigate their sometimes turbulent relationship as Master and Padawan. ✦ Stars of Tatooine by Be_Right_Back, ahsoka & kanan & mace & rex & obi-wan & cast, 10.5k After the end of the world, Ahsoka more or less kidnaps a child, has to air some old grievances, and tries to find whatever peace the universe can still offer. All paths in the Force lead home, eventually. ✦ Festival of Light by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & rex & cast, 8.7k During his first year at the Jedi Temple, Anakin learns that even the Jedi celebrate holidays. ✦ the master, the padawan, the Force by skatzaa, depa & caleb, 1.4k Caleb expects things to be different after Master Depa takes him as her padawan, but really, it feels like nothing really changes. ✦ desecrate my lungs by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme & cast, 16k wip Time-travel fix-it in which Mustafar haunts Anakin decades after it happened and years before it would. ✦ Grace by dismantlingsummer, obi-wan & anakin, 2.3k Shortly after Mustafar, Anakin realizes what he has done. He finds Obi-Wan to beg for death. ✦ Fifth Migration by wrennette, yoda & mace & obi-wan & ki-adi & yarael & coleman & plo & palpatine & cast, 2k How about an AU where the Sith’s Grand Plan accounted for everything -everything that is, except the fact that the Jedi temple is actually an very ancient spacecraft and the second word got to the Jedi about there being clones on Kamino, all Jedi are called back inside and they take off immediately? Just imagine the dear chancellor’s face… ✦ fill pages with scribbled ink by magneticwave, obi-wan/padme & sabe & mace & quinlan & cast, 9.8k A year after the Invasion of Naboo, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is invited by Queen Amidala to return to Naboo and participate in a rite known as the Night of Fireflies. Things kind of snowball from there. ✦ Mind Your Words by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin, spanking, 7k Obi-Wan reminds Anakin that there are consequences for careless behavior for young Jedi on missions. ✦ (you taught me) the courage of stars by grumpyhedgehogs, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, 5.1k wip Ahsoka Tano flees after a warrant for her arrest is issued, but not before receiving aid from an unexpected ally. (Ahsoka proceeds to go on a road trip filled with a bunch of strangers who all say the same thing: Obi-Wan Kenobi is much more than he has ever appeared to be.) ✦ they faked it (guess everything’s complicated) by katierosefun, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 4.5k Ahsoka temporarily loses memories of the events of Obi-Wan’s fake death. To help with the healing process, Anakin and Obi-Wan have to pretend that they’re okay. ✦ programed to dream by ghostwriterofthemachine, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, body horror, 1.3k The spaceship Comet-rider is the fastest, most efficient vessel in the galaxy, and is crewed by Separatist-funded pirates. Anakin Skywalker is missing. Unfortunately, these two things are connected. ✦ Unpleasant Truths by hellowkatey, obi-wan & anakin, 2.1k Obi-Wan and Anakin are stuck in a room with one another while waiting for truth serum to wear off. ✦ moment’s silence by skatzaa, obi-wan & owen & beru & luke & leia (pre-obi-wan/beru-owen), 2k Owen had long since resigned himself to trouble, whenever Beru got that particularly stubborn set to her jaw. ✦ hold gently and let go by shatou, obi-wan & anakin (pre-slash?), 1.7k A troubled Anakin comes to Obi-Wan to discuss attachments. ✦ sun child by Ro29, obi-wan & anakin, 2.1k (or; sometimes being so tied to the Force causes problems, Obi-Wan helps his Padawan as best he can) ✦ A Dinner Out by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & cast, 1.6k Obi-Wan can’t get his young Padawan to eat much, so he tries something new. But trying something different has unintended consequences. ✦ Shades in the Desert by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin & luke & owen/beru, 10.8k Not even from a certain point of view did Darth Vader kill Anakin Skywalker. He wished he did, but the specter of the Jedi’s light escaped before he could finalize his fall to the dark. Meanwhile, Anakin is raising his son on Tatooine. ✦ somewhere along in the bitterness by CallToMuster, obi-wan & anakin, major character death, 3.8k It was probably the twelfth day floating alone in space that Obi-Wan and Anakin realized no one was coming for them. ✦ Songs for Little Jedi by soft_but_gremlin, mace & younglings, ~1k The initiates are having nightmares, so Mace sings a lullaby to comfort them. ✦ atmosphere level by softredscrunchie, obi-wan/satine & qui-gon, 1k As a joke, Satine tells Obi-Wan she thinks Mandalore is flat. He doesn’t take it well. ✦ on sith holocrons and misunderstandings by billowypants, obi-wan & anakin & mace & yoda & cast, de-aged!obi-wan, 7.2k or, de-aged!Obi-Wan has the same Force bonds as adult Obi-Wan, and he does not react well. ✦ Perseverance & Resilience by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin, 1.1k In the aftermath of Naboo, Obi-Wan realizes he needs strength to protect his new Padawan. Growing up, Anakin needs peace. ✦ A Delicate Balance by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & yoda & jedi, spanking, 9.6k As Anakin’s skills grow, so too does his penchant for getting into trouble. After a training mishap, Obi-Wan struggles with his role as Anakin’s master. ✦ mirror, mirror by CallToMuster, obi-wan & anakin, 5.4k Obi-Wan has been rescued by Anakin after being rather embarrassingly kidnapped on the remote planet of Ilnuria during his investigation of rumored kyber crystals deep beneath the planet’s surface. …But is all as it seems? ✦ Mace Windu Appreciation Week by Redminibike1, mace & obi-wan & anakin & ponds & cody & jedi & cast, 12.5k Set of unconnected ficlets for Mace Windu Appreciation Week, because he deserves it :) ✦ begin again as a quiet thought by skatzaa, obi-wan/quinlan, d/s, ~1k Cool, smooth leather touched his jaw—gloves. Because of course Obi-Wan had thought of that as well. ✦ Drunken Lullabies by Siri_Kenobi12, obi-wan & anakin & siri & quinlan & aayla & garen & bant & ferus, 6.5k “Do I really have to go to this thing?” Fourteen year old Anakin Skywalker dramatically sighed. “It’s sooo boring!” ✦ heaven knows how I love you by the_13th_battalion, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 1.2k Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka are stranded on an unfamiliar planet overnight. They spend their time exploring the community- and maybe they get a little closer to each other along the way. ✦ A Reckless Padawan by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, spanking, 3.9k When Ahsoka upsets Anakin with an act of reckless disobedience, it falls to her grandmaster to help her see the error of her ways. OBI-WAN/ANAKIN RECS: ✦ Too Hot by secretsolarsystem, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 4.8k Too Hot: A game where two players kiss without stopping and without touching each other. If one player touches the other, that player loses. The winner gets to do whatever they want to the loser. ✦ Nostos by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin & padme, NSFW, 17k Or, how Obi-Wan and Anakin discover that there are many ways to come home. ✦ to touch the light, darkest by treescape, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 1.9k Obi-Wan begins to fuck Vader back to the light ✦ encode by loosingletters, obi-wan/anakin & padme & handmaidens & cast, 26.3k wip Instead of being accepted into the Jedi Order at the age of 9, Anakin Skywalker became a ward of Naboo. ✦ Hunting the Homeward Light by GreenQueenofClubs, obi-wan/anakin & mace & ahsoka & shmi & padme & cast, 31.9k wip When Anakin Skywalker was nine, he left his whole life and mother behind to follow Qui-Gon Jinn to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple. When Anakin Skywalker was twelve, he left his whole life and Master behind to follow Mace Windu to the Outer Rim and away from the Jedi Order. When Anakin Skywalker was twenty… ✦ use my body to break your fall by tennessoui, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 44.7k wip Obi-Wan Kenobi is too good at being a Sith Lord general of the Separatist army. The Jedi Council approaches Anakin with an offer he can’t refuse. These things are, actually, related. ✦ Over and Over by obiwanobi, obi-wan/anakin, 1.4k “I love you,” he blurts out, loud and impossible to miss. Obi-Wan blinks once, twice. And freezes. The first time Anakin tells him is a mortifying experience. ✦ Exceptions by rinverse, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & mace & quinlan & cast, NSFW, modern au, 23.4k Young and brilliant, Anakin is the mind behind JEDI Tech’s latest innovation. Obi-Wan is the company’s perfectly composed Director of PR & Marketing. And last night, they were just two strangers at a bar, looking for something quick and easy. But life had other plans when it crossed their paths again the very next day. ✦ Here There Be Dragons by Ghost_Owl, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, 10.1k Anakin knows why he can’t shift into his animal form like every other Jedi. It’s because he doesn’t want to, it’s because he’s had a vision of what he would become, and he doesn’t want it. ✦ Waiting in a Sea of Stars by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan/anakin, ~1k Stranded in deep space, Obi-Wan and Anakin wait for rescue. ✦ Tristitia by JSwander, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 5k An alternate timeline where Palpatine focuses his attentions on Obi-Wan Kenobi instead of Anakin Skywalker after the attack on Naboo. ✦ Prompted - Chapter 11: Communication, What Communication? by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, modern au, mobster au, 7k a 7k obikin PWP that is somehow a prompt mashup of a mobster au, an accidental sugar daddy au, with a soupçon of an anakin never left tatooine au, and a pinch of qui-gon was anakin’s dad au ✦ who a person truly is cannot be seen with the eye by RexIsMyCopilot, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, d/s, spanking, 3.6k Anakin purposely avoids doing what Obi-Wan tells him to do. ✦ Prompted - Chapter 12: Potidaea, 432BC, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, historical au, 4.3k Here is a short smutty scene inspired by all those classics asks, Alcibiades praising Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, and this vase c.490-480 B.C. depicting standing, face-to-face intercrural intercourse between a bearded man and a youth, which as far as we can tell was the most common and accepted position for it in Ancient Greece. ✦ Prompted - Chapter 13: Minikin and Tiny-Wan by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 5.4k Happy May the Fourth! In honor of this happy day, I have written the fluffiest, crackiest, vanilla-flavored smut imaginable. Based on long discussions on discord with tomicaleto about her adorable Tiny AU. ✦ to hold until brightness by treescape, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 1.4k Obi-Wan feared that it drew out the darkest in him, to bring Vader to these flashes of light, but it was a trade he would make again and again without hesitation. ✦ May Be Found, If Sought by ghostwriterofthemachine, obi-wan/anakin & mace & quinlan, magical academy au, 2.3k In which Quinlan, Mace, and Obi-Wan teach Non-Traditional Magical Philosophy in an institution rampant with academic snobbery and discrimination, something dark is stirring in the nearby forest, and no one is ever prepared for Anakin Skywalker. A small story about first meetings in magical academia. ✦ infinitely varied by loosingletters, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, modern au, 2.2k Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. ✦ recipe for disaster by tennessoui, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, modern au, 9.8k When Ahsoka tells Anakin she doesn’t want to learn piano anymore, Anakin is heartbroken. He doesn’t care about the instrument, obviously, but he’s practically in love with her teacher. Obi-Wan offers up a solution to their impending separation, and it’s not dating like any normal person would suggest. Instead, he’s gonna teach Anakin how to cook. Except Anakin’s a pretty well-known chef, and Obi-Wan is absolutely awful in the kitchen. ✦ Pretty Kitty by GayCheerios, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 2.2k “Master, you always take such good care of me,” Anakin says, a little chirp coming after his sentence, as his thumb rests on Anakin’s plump bottom lip. ✦ As One, Into Eternity by Pseudonymoose, obi-wan/anakin, force ghosts, 3.1k Death comes, but the man who was, and is, and will be Anakin Skywalker is not gone. And in the Force, he will never be alone again. ✦ does he make you laugh? by y0u_idjits, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, fusion fic, 3.6k “Tell me it’s not about screwing the guy who’s screwing your husband.” ✦ Rotten Work by secretsolarsystem, obi-wan/anakin, 2.8k Obi-Wan: I’ll take care of you. Anakin, with bloodshot eyes and a broken back from hours of terrible posture: It’s rotten work. Obi-Wan, who needs to bathe this man for his own sanity and health: Not to me. Not if it’s you. ✦ afterimages by shatou, obi-wan/anakin, 1.3k Mustafar is nothing but a bad dream. ✦ understanding is honoring the truth beneath the surface by RexIsMyCopilot, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, d/s, 7.3k Anakin asks Obi-Wan to take control. ✦ The strongest stars… by Tomicaleto, obi-wan/anakin & beru & cast, NSFW, 7.4k The war’s end seems to be close, with everyone looking forward to it. And when Anakin is doubting himself the most, an unexpected visit arrives at the Temple. ✦ home has a heartbeat by izazov, obi-wan/anakin, 5.6k Or: Anakin and Obi-Wan are together, but there are still some things left unsaid between them. ✦ turn back now (i’m haunted) by tennessoui, obi-wan/anakin & padme & quinlan & ahsoka & cast, modern au, ghosts au, 25k wip Anakin Skywalker’s house is haunted. Luckily for him, Padmé knows a ghost hunter. Unluckily for him, it’s the hottest, most english-professor ghost hunter he’s ever seen. And extremely unluckily for him, he’s starting to get the feeling he understands maybe ten percent of what’s actually going on here, not to mention what’s at stake. ✦ game plan by treescape, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 11.2k Or, Vader keeps capturing Obi-Wan during the Wars. Obi-Wan keeps escaping. It’s kind of a thing. ✦ Provocation by ToolMusicLover, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 4.9k Or: Obi-Wan and Anakin attempt to navigate their complicated relationship with barbed words and wilful ignorance. It wasn’t going well. ✦ Languages by Crowgirl, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 6.5k So Anakin pulls out a map and makes a list. REBELS RECS: ✦ The Scent of You by ambiguously, kanan/hera & cast, a smidge of nsfw, 2.9k Everything changes after Malachor, and Kanan has trouble finding his balance. ✦ Heard It in a Love Song (Can’t Be Wrong) by ambiguously, zeb/kallus, 2.7k Kallus can’t quite figure out what makes Zeb tick, but he keeps trying. ORIGINAL TRILOGY/MANDALORIAN RECS: ✦ A Discussion of Choices by Peppermint_Shamrock, luke & mace, 2k Mace Windu has traveled the galaxy since the fall of the Republic, keeping out of the Empire’s sight and teaching where he can. Upon the request of a ghost of an old friend, Mace finds himself instructing Luke Skywalker, who is still reeling from the truth of Vader’s identity. ✦ staring down the barrel of the hot sun by magneticwave, luke/din & obi-wan & grogu & mace & cast, 25.7k “Gone to a Child of the Watch, the Darksaber has,” Grand Master Yoda announces in his creaky little voice. “Peace, there is not, and yet peace, there must be.” ✦ Released by Peppermint_Shamrock, cody & rex & luke & cast, 6k Nearly two and a half decades late, Cody’s chip is finally removed. Adjusting to having his mind returned to him after so long takes time, and Cody struggles with questions of his purpose of the past, present, and future. Fortunately, he does not have to struggle alone. ✦ A Tatooine Rainstorm by skatzaa, leia & luke & shmi, 1.7k Leia meets a ghost. ✦ Dealing with the Darksaber by Peppermint_Shamrock, din & bo-katan & cara, 1.3k After her recovery, Bo-Katan contacts Din to challenge him for the darksaber. Din is still very much not interested in the whole affair. FULL DETAILS + RECS HERE

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #mace windu #obikin #fic recs #star wars fic recs #long post

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ariainstars · 4 years ago

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Will Din Djarin and Grogu Have to Part?

Since this question has been discussed quite controversially in the fandom since the second season of The Mandalorian, here are my two cents about it.

Luke and Anakin

A subject my husband and I can’t agree upon 😉 is the character of Luke Skywalker. I always liked him, while my husband finds him annoying. But consider: Luke’s hotheadedness, his naivety, his obstinacy, are perfectly normal for a young man of nineteen or twenty. Given A New Hope’s roots in classic Western, Luke is the typical greenhorn, who tries to man it up but doesn’t know how to do it yet. Luke is a normal adolescent with dreams and ambitions. Remember how we see him playing with a toy skyhopper at his uncle’s homestead? He obviously feels safe there. His aunt and uncle later even sacrifice their lives rather than revealing to the Imperial stormtroopers where R2D2 is, because they know that Luke went in search of the droid, and they don’t want them to find him. Luke is a good boy though raw and green. In the end, his story is a success because he chooses to use his powers to save the ones he cares about, even when it’s a father who, except for saving his life at the last moment, never did anything good for him.

Now compare him to Anakin Skywalker, his father, at the same age: many fans define young Anakin as a whiny, arrogant brat and they’re not so wrong with that. Anakin comes over as an irritating person, much more so than his son, because he is emotionally stunted, having spent the last ten years being told to stifle his emotions and not to allow any personal attachment. Which blatantly failed: we see right away that his bond with Padmé is still intact although they didn’t meet in the meantime, and we witness him getting mad with fury and hatred when his mother has to die in that cruel, meaningless way when he could have saved her had he arrived just a little sooner. Young Anakin is unbalanced and frustrated because by now he knows his enormous powers but is not allowed to use them in a way that actually makes sense to him. Anakin is a family man: his instinct is to protect. But at age nineteen, thanks to the uncompassionate mindset of the oh-so wise Jedi, he already is a ticking bomb.

Now to Our New Heroes…

While the first season was about Mando’s redemption and hero’s journey, the second one thematizes the development of the child. Until now he hardly wielded the Force and most of the time he’s just being cute and getting into trouble, but that’s not simply bothersome, nor is it unfitting for the narrative: it’s normal. Grogu is being a child at last, because he can, and he can because someone is looking after him and genuinely caring for him.

Look at him: the little cookie monster is having a blast. He’s meeting people and making friends. He’s enjoying life (including food). He can let go, because he knows that “daddy” has his back. Literally!

Which is why I don’t believe that Grogu will choose to join some Jedi or other: it would be pointless for his story. Grogu has the chance to be the child he could not be until now, and since he thankfully ages slowly, he’s taking that chance. Like with his predecessor Yoda, there is more to Grogu than meets the eye: he understands more than he lets on. He’s making experiences, and he’s learning from these experiences. Instinctively, he wants Mando because he wants belonging. My take is that he will learn how to have healthy attachments, and that if he is to be the future Yoda in some distant new tv show or new trilogy, he will be very different from this one in that he won’t discourage Force-sensitive children from learning how to love other people in a proper way. Also, Yoda lived mostly at the Jedi temple, which from the outside reminded of an ivory tower and indeed did shield the Jedi from seeing many of the ugly things happening outside. Grogu is travelling: he witnesses the injustices in the galaxy with his own eyes.

One of the crucial messages of the Star Wars saga always was how wrong it is to separate families. Palpatine’s greatest villainy was making people who belonged together mistrust one another until they resorted to violence. What’s worse, he enjoyed it.

To remain in balance, children need to grow up serene and protected. Anakin, the Dark Father, was the most blatant example for this: his mere existence was a living proof for the Jedi’s failure. Terrified of his former padawan’s turn to the Dark Side, Obi-Wan set the seal on his fate right when Padmé was succeeding into making him go away with her. The Jedi was aware that Anakin was a husband and future father at this point, but the convictions of the Jedi had been so deeply ingrained into his mind since he was small that he believed them to be more important than Anakin’s role not as a Jedi, but as a human being. Still twenty years later, he tried to trick Anakin’s own son into killing him. Anakin’s soul was saved, though only by a hair’s breadth, due to his son’s stubborn compassion. Anakin had been willing to sacrifice everything to save his wife; Luke chose to rather give up his life than his integrity, which is why the moment when he throws his light sabre away before Palpatine is so significant, setting him apart from Anakin.

None of the surviving Jedi would have lifted a finger for Anakin: to them, he was a damned man. Which he was, but that was largely also due to the Jedi’s sins and not only his own. They never showed regret or assumed that they might have wronged him. The aim of both the prequel and sequel trilogy was not to excuse Darth Vader’s / Anakin Skywalker’s or Kylo Ren’s / Ben Solo’s terrible deeds, but to demonstrate that their fate could have been avoided; that they were not alone with their guilt but had been for a large part pushed into their role by their environment, instead of being, as the cliché runs, “mad guys who choose to be evil because they want power”, like e.g. in a James Bond movie. (Except of course for Palpatine, but even he got a second chance through Rey, equally powerful but much more well-meaning than him.)

Conclusions

The message of Star Wars is not about the all-powerful Jedi and the significance of their order: they are not some kind of superheroes who will return and save the galaxy. I daresay that who hopes to see Luke Skywalker, e.g. instructing Grogu, will be bitterly disappointed. If Luke would enter the narrative, the story would become about him, making the show’s set-up and title pointless. His story, the Hero’s Journey, was accomplished with Return of the Jedi, which is why George Lucas never wrote a continuation. Luke himself developed his capacities instinctively, both Obi-Wan and Yoda had little time to train him. (So much also for Rey being “a Mary Sue who knows how to wield her power without training”.) It obviously does not take years and years of learning at a Jedi temple to learn to wield one’s Force powers: it appears that what padawans are taught there, more than anything else, is how to control their feelings. Which is unrealistic on the long run, because every living being wishes for personal fulfilment and even the greatest Jedi can’t live solely for others.

Will the child’s Force abilities fade in time without training, the way Ahsoka said? They won’t. The show is set some 25 years after the fall of the Jedi Temple, and yet Grogu managed to make a mudhorn float in the air with his power. He was exhausted afterwards, but he managed. In another episode he healed Greef Karga from a mortal wound and he is the first Force-sensitive whom we ever saw with this capacity. In the next episode he rejected a fireball with his bare hands. The Force is strong with this one. He does not need a Jedi master to train him. What he needs is to develop a good judgement about what he should use his powers for, and when he should not.

The saga as a whole always showed a clear structure where the puzzle pieces fit together, adding up to one final picture: life is not about power but about love and belonging. Power can win, but that victory is always short-lived. Who chooses power over compassion in the end will always lose and have to look back on a destroyed world where there are only losses and bitter memories.

Ever from the first episode, The Mandalorian lived from the dynamics between the gruff but kind bounty-hunter and the innocent yet powerful child. At its core, it is a father-son relationship: tear them apart and the whole story ceases to make sense. By the beginning of season 2 Din Djarin and Grogu have grown so close that you could hardly fit a sheet of paper between them. Their story is not about rebuilding the Jedi order, it is about healing together, overcoming loneliness and trauma, starting a new life together.

Maybe they will be separated at the end of the second season, e.g. by Moff Gideon who wants the child for his despicable experiments: but if that happens, I can foretell what the next season will be about:

Mando will move heaven and hell to get “his” child back under his protection. Because contrarily to both Luke and Anakin, he is a father, and a good and devoted one at that.

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fuzz1912 · 5 years ago

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I have a bad feeling about this

My thoughts leading up to the (hopefully) final film in the Star Wars / Skywalker saga. No spoilers beyond what’s in existing promotional material.

No one delivered this trade mark Star Wars line in The Last Jedi (though director Rian Johnson claims that it was beeped by BB-8 near the start of the film - the less said about this explanation the better).

I’ve grown up on Star Wars, and in particular its transitions across the decades. I was born between Empire and Jedi and the fallow years of the 90s were my adolescence, when the only new morsels of content were (great) books and video games and the bright lights of the Special Editions. The world building of the prequels were my entry into adulthood, answering the mystery of how it all began, providing a lesson in how heroes and utopias can be subverted from within - and showing how the flaws of a parent can be redeemed by their children.

And now as a father myself, Star Wars continues to be particularly meaningful to me - for example, despite its sequel trilogy setting, the mere hints of original and prequel trilogy lore have made Galaxy’s Edge at Disney Parks a bucket list item for me to share with my kids.

Recently in preparation for this final chapter of the “sequel” trilogy, rather than rewatching the two current entries (each of which I’ve only seen twice and once, respectively) I sat down and read the pieces I wrote musing on my expectations and reactions for each of Disney’s attempts at telling a Star Wars story. I’m linking them below for posterity, because reading through them tells an interesting story of expectations, trepidation, and abject disappointment:

Reawakening the Dead

Going Rogue

The Penultimate Jedi

Return of the Penultimate Jedi

I’ve got an okay feeling about this

On reflection, while they’re not perfect, they’re some of the more personally meaningful bits of writing I’ve done - because I care about this story a lot. I’ve genuinely hoped that Disney, the current Lucasfilm story group, and JJ Abrams can find a way to deliver a story that does justice to what Star Wars means to me (and millions of others) - bearing in mind that I was mostly positive about Rogue One and Solo. And while I’ve not forced myself to rewatch the “saga” films for confirmation, there’s very little in those pieces that I feel doesn’t still hold up to this day and affect my current hopes and expectations for the final film.

I wrote each of the preceding pieces either immediately before or after watching the midnight premieres of the respective films, at hours long stretches into the wee hours of the morning to ensure I captured my unfiltered and uninfluenced perspective on what I’d just seen. I simply don’t have the energy or inclination to expend that kind of intense energy on this product any more - I’ll watch it, but I no longer care enough to respond to it.

For me, there is nothing about the “sequel” trilogy that in any way represents a true sequel or meaningful continuation of the story that previously ended with Return of the Jedi. It’s not just that George Lucas’s vision for his own creation was blatantly ignored, or that I have a soft spot for the prequels. Those personal reservations could have easily been overcome by a genuine attempt at telling a new story that built on what had come before. I may have strong feelings, but I’m open to change for the better - I was hesitant when Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale and Heath Ledger first became attached to yet another reboot of Batman, but have come to admire and cherish each of their work as definitive adaptations (still haven’t seen Joaquin yet, so maybe the jury’s out).

Instead of changing for the better, this trilogy hasn’t changed at all - it’s been about as blatant a short-term cash grab as possible. The Force Awakens didn’t continue the a “not-so happily ever after” story (see: the end of The Graduate) that would have resulted from the Rebels’ victory in Return of the Jedi but instead slavishly retreaded A New Hope. Even within the sequel trilogy itself, each film has appeared to entirely reject any constructive plot or character progression put forward by its immediate predecessor. While The Force Awakens may have ignored the outcome of Return of the Jedi, it did create mysteries around Rey’s lineage and Snoke, only for The Last Jedi to outright dismiss them. Where The Last Jedi claims the past should die, decimates the Resistance and sets up a galactic uprising, Rise of Skywalker appears to bring back Palpatine and resurrects the Imperial and Rebel fleets.

So Luke’s stand, Anakin’s redemption, Yoda and Obi Wan’s sacrifice, and the Alliance’s victory were ultimately futile? None of the Pandora’s boxes originally in the first movie of this trilogy meant anything either? When was that “another day” that Maz Kanata promised would reveal the stories telling the significance of certain events and objects? And let’s not even start on how the development of the characters we actually do know and love was tossed away like an old laser sword.

The real tragedy is that they could easily have found a way to meaningfully extend the story - the set up for Finn’s character was fantastic. There is absolutely a way in which a remnant of the Empire could build to becoming a galactic threat. The New Republic should absolutely have issues in holding the peace, and the power gap should leave plenty of scope for the underworld to flourish. And there’s so much to be told about how the ever-optimistic Luke might struggle to rebuild a better, more humble Jedi order. But we got none of that - the story and everything the characters had built themselves up to was completely ignored or in some cases photocopied precisely from the original trilogy - and as each chapter has progressed, we have had progressively less to look forward to.

Back in 2005 on the premiere night of Revenge of the Sith, the movie I’d been waiting decades to see, I remember coming across a fan-fiction blog written by someone taking on the persona of Darth Vader, explaining his thoughts and musings leading up to the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi through the lens of what we now knew about the character’s history in the prequels. It was both thrilling and heartbreaking, and really got me into the headspace to enjoy the movie to come. It’s one of the reasons I started this obscure little blog myself, to try to have a record of my thoughts and feelings in relation to popular culture that is meaningful to me. Sadly, I don’t feel the same desire to know what the hell Galactic Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is thinking in the lead up to his eventual demise and third beat-down from nobody-but-actually-somebody Rey.

So to cut a long story short, I just don’t have the energy to break down my feelings on what works or doesn’t work in these movies in almost-real time any more. Maybe it’ll interesting or bold (or dare I say, good) enough to warrant some thoughts at a later stage. But I plan to get a good night’s sleep instead and turn the page on another year (and perhaps catch up on The Mandalorian, very much a step in the right direction - baby Yoda and all).

PS: Apparently “they fly now” - which pretty much sums it all up. Thankfully, people like John Boyega are finally starting to be honest about they really feel.

[EDIT] I’ve now seen the film, and was entirely happy to sleep than to write. I guess it was a fitting end in all respects to this tremendously disappointing, directionless “trilogy”. That’s all I have to say about that (for now).

[EDIT2] One interesting note I couldn’t resist coming back to. The opening of the crawl is “The dead speak!” - terrible for so many reasons, but interesting because it’s somewhat similar to the title card opening the James Bond film SPECTRE (“the dead are alive”). Just as that film retconned the plots and antagonists of its preceding series to suggest that there was a plan and one big villain behind it all that was always directly connected to the protagonist (“the architect of all your pain”) so too does this movie do the same to the Disney trilogy (and by implication the entire series). It feels as hokey here as it did there.

#star wars #rise of skywalker

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jhwdrawsthings · 8 years ago

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The Last Jedi Teaser Poster Anyalsis

Worth a Thousand Words

An Analysis of The Last Jedi Teaser Poster

Having just returned home from Star Wars Celebration: Orlando, I am filled with emotions, excitement and anticipation for the next installment of the Skywalker family saga. I was fortunately enough sit in the The Last Jedi panel, after 20 hours of sitting on a concrete floor, and an additional 10 hours before hand, queueing outside. However, that panel was worth every second of the wait time. And while most people will say the long anticipated teaser trailer stole the show, as an artist and illustrator, for me, the star of the show was the teaser poster, that was also revealed.

My jaw literally dropped as I stood in stunned silence as the crowd cheered around me. In fact, my line buddy, a member of the 501st by the name of Matt, repeatedly asked if I was okay as stood agape at the poster, amazed in it’s brilliant design as well as very clear and intentional use of visual story telling. I was flabbergasted at the bold choices made by Lucasfilm in this teaser poster, and I do believe that this is more of an indicator of the film’s story, rather than the trailer. This poster tells us, the viewer, everything we need to know about the direction of the upcoming movie, as well as helps dispel the rumors that The Last Jedi will be nothing more than a carbon clone of The Empire Strikes Back.

Before I go into detail I just want to say that it’s no secret that I ship reylo, however, for the purposes of this discussion, I am setting aside my implicit biases and talking about the facts stated in this poster, rather than fan speculation and conjecture.

First and foremost, what stood out to me is the simplicity in the poster’s design. We see only three characters, Rey, Luke and Kylo Ren. After doing extensive research, I found that this is the ONLY poster with just three characters. All previous Star Wars posters depict the main ensemble of cast members, as far back as 1979’s A New Hope. Never before has a Star Wars poster depicted only three members of the cast, and it is a clear statement that these three characters are the most important in relation to the story. There is also a not so subtle nod to Luke Skywalker in the original promotional theatrical poster for A New Hope. Both Rey and Luke are positioned in almost the same spacial area, in the same pose, with an ignited light saber raised up. For Luke, this symbolized his acceptance of his heroic journey, and the inherent power he possessed. For Rey, however, the meaning is vastly different. The sequel trilogy is very much about passing the torch from the old generation to the new, and unlike in The Force Awakens, Rey is present and accepting of that power, physically and metaphorically, in The Last Jedi, the second installment, rather than the first. Rey is our new hero, now heroine, embarking on her own heroine’s journey.

Now I know not many fans like Kylo Ren, and in fact they perceive him as a whiny emo cry baby, trying his best (and failing) to emulate Grandpa Vader, but his importance in the story cannot be overstated! He is the descendent of Darth Vader, and Leia Organa, and as much as most fans dislike him, that’s just simply a fact! The Star Wars trilogy movies are about the Skywalker family, and he is the new Skywalker of the trilogy. He is important to the cinematic universe as a whole, and characters from the The Force Awakens who easily had double the amount of screen time as him, such as Finn, were purposefully omitted from the poster in lieu of Kylo Ren. Regardless of how much fans like his character, he is going to play a very impactful role in the film to come. I know that he is not the most important character or the focal point of the poster, however, given the overly negative response he solicits from fans, I felt that it is important and necessary to make my position, and the poster’s narrative clear; even if you don’t like his character, Kylo Ren is a key player in the Skywalker family saga, and the cinematic universe as a whole.

When analyzing any piece of artwork, regardless of the the medium, the best jumping off point is the focal point. In The Last Jedi teaser poster, the viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to Rey, brought forth by the strong contrast of the blue halo of light emitting from her lightsaber. In terms of visual hierarchy and storytelling, she is the most important element to not only the poster, but in the movie it represents. Her position, in the lower center of the foreground suggests that she is the most grounded of the three characters, and thus the one that we, as the viewer, is meant to relate to the most. However, she is removed from both Luke and Kylo, positioned below them, which indicates that she was not a initially part of their conflict. And originally, she wasn’t. Rey was just a scavenger, abandoned by her parents on Jakku, struggling each day to survive. At that point, Rey didn’t know or care about the Force, Resistance or the First Order. Her primary goals and motivations were pure and simple, survival.

This coincides with the backstory indicated in not only The Force Awakens but also in Claudia Grey’s novel, Bloodline. There are no indication that either men knew who Rey was or her origins until she found BB-8 and became tangled in fight with the First Order. Luke and Kylo have a contentious and tumultuous past, filled with conflict and anger, as they stand on opposite sides of Rey’s light saber. This is a visual metaphor for the Force, and where Luke and Kylo represent the Light side, and Dark side respectively. Separating them is Rey, and the light of her saber. Although she is removed from their history, Rey has been flung into the foreground of the struggle between opposing sides of the Force. She is part of their present, and thus their future. In short, the resolution of Luke and Kylo’s conflict rests on Rey’s shoulders, both metaphorically and visually in the poster.

The struggle been Kylo Ren and Luke is an interesting and important to the story, but what is more important is what it represents! At its core, Star Wars is a fairy tail, and was intended to tell stories and teach children about the human condition and morality. Understanding every detail of Luke and Kylo’s past is less important as what their struggle represents. It is the timeless struggle of good vs. evil. If the timeline in Bloodline is to be trusted completely, and there are no extra twists and turns in the interum, Kylo Ren turned to the Dark side of the Force approximately six years prior, and has been unable to locate or confront Luke since his disappearance. What has changed in that time? Why will Kylo suddenly be able to locate his former master on Ahch-to? The answer is right in the poster, Rey!

This of course opens the doors to a whole new set of theories, such as a Force Bond, or Snoke obtains a copy of the map and so on. But there is practically no solid evidence to substantiate any of these claims, and at this point, they are pure conjecture.

I also find Rey’s placement in the middle quite interesting in the wider context of the history of the Force itself. One of the central themes Star Wars has always been finding balance. In the prequel trilogy we saw this through Anakin’s development from the heroic Jedi knight, to the Sith Lord, Darth Vader. And yes, Anakin is responsible for choosing his actions and must therefor accept the consequences of such actions, however, the biggest contributing factor to his descent into darkness was the Jedi Order and their absolute refusal to acquiesce to the basic human nature of love and attachment. In fact, one can argue that the Jedi Order is even more barbaric and cruel than the Sith. Companionship and attachment is one of the hallmarks of humanity, and by denying them, they are essentially denying being human. But the Jedi Order in both the prequel and and original trilogy was the personification of the Light side of the Force, while the Sith representing Darkness. Too much of either side’s influence causes the Force to spiral out of balance, and thus the galaxy is thrown into chaos again. This was demonstrated numerous times on both sides, such as Anakin’s betrayal, or the New Republic unknowingly creating the groundwork for the First Order.

In short, the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Both light and dark must be present in order to achieve balance, and Rey’s placement, directly between the light and dark, makes her the fulcrum, or the point of equilibrium. In essence, it is Rey who is who is going to bring about that balance.

Another interesting observation I made was that all three characters, Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren are all colored in red. I cannot stress this enough, the psychology of color is important! Specific colors invoke particular and subconscious imagery and responses. Color theory and its use in marketing and illustration is a universal language. In fact, color tells just as much, if not more, of a story as the composition! There are two primary colors in the poster, red and blue. Red is the color of darkness, evil and passion. Blue on the other hand conveys serenity and tranquility. Why is Kylo’s lightsaber red? Not because he uses the Dark side of the Force, but because the color red has a strong visual impact and the human brain automatically associates red with darkness and power. It’s no coincidence that the color red is associated with the Sith, while blue is attributed to the Jedi! Everything you see on screen or in print was designed to create a specific response from the viewer and convey as much information as possible with no words.

Further more, in both The Force Awakens and the teaser trailer for The Last Jedi, it’s made quite clear that our heroes and villain are all experiencing a crisis of faith in the Force. Rey had her entire existence turned up on its head looking for guidance and training. Luke, it is suggested, fell into despair and solitude after the death of his acolytes because his teachings and philosophies failed to save his own nephew. Kylo, who just recently murdered his own father in hopes of committing himself entirely to the darkness, felt more weak and confused than ever before (this is said nearly word for work in The Force Awakens novelization). Because the color red is frequently associated with the dark side of the Force, and I find it quite compelling that all three figures are bathed in red. To me, this suggests that the trio are all going to be struggling with their inner demons, which often implies the temptation of the dark side. In fact, the only beacon of light and hope comes from Rey’s light saber. Some have argued that the light comes from Rey herself, but when you compare her upper body to her lower body, you can observe that just like the figures above her, Rey’s form is red, and the blue reflected in her face is emanating from the lightsaber, rather than Rey herself. This coincides with Rian Johnson’s choice to make the Episode VIII title font red, and maintains visual continuity. The most logical conclusion one can extrapolate is in The Last Jedi is going to delve into much deeper and darker overtones and story lines than it’s predecessors.

The positioning of Luke and Kylo in relation to each other is another aspect to this poster that I find intriguing. Luke and Kylo’s heads are above Rey; in this poster they are literally watching over her, and her choice to accept the Skywalker lightsaber. However, they are on opposing sides of the saber, as described above, representing the light and the dark. As a viewer, this design illustrates a sense of tension and conflict in both Luke and Kylo, but also in how they view Rey, and her choices. This image is clearly setting up the overtone that Rey has to struggle between choosing accepting either Luke or Kylo. In other words, it’s another iteration of the never ending struggle between the light and the dark.

Looking back in The Force Awakens for a moment, we remember that Kylo Ren extended the offer to teach Rey, “You need a teacher. I can show you the ways of the Force!” We all know the choice Rey makes at the end of the movie, but what about Luke? Will Luke even want to teach Rey after his previous failings at reviving the old Jedi Order? The following does begin to tread into the territory of conjecture and theorizing, however I do believe there is solid evidence to back up what I am about to speculate, or else I would have omitted it form this analysis. At The Last Jedi panel, Daisy Ridley, under the watchful eye and ear of Kathleen Kennedy, did reveal some very interesting information. We, as the audience were MEANT to know this information prior to viewing the poster, or else the CEO of Lucasfilm would never have permitted that information be divulged (like the Rogue One mishap at Celebration Europe 2016). Summarized, Daisy stated that Rey indeed does meet her hero, Luke Skywalker, and like in real life, how we (Rey) envision our heroes does not always coincide with the reality of our heroes. This very clearly sets up the idea that Rey and Luke are going to have a less than harmonious relationship in The Last Jedi. This is also backed up by some previous leaks and spoilers from MakingStarWars.net, however until we know the veracity of those rumors, I do not treat them as fact, like I do the things said directly from the people at Lucasfilm. The statements from Daisy Ridley at the panel, however, were purposeful in sparking ideas and igniting the flame of this idea that Luke and Rey will not have a peaceful mentor/mentee relationship in the same light as Yoda and Luke’s relationship.

Mentorship has always been another key themes throughout the Star Wars saga, from Anakin’s tutelage under Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, to Luke studying with Yoda. There is every indication that those reoccurring themes will continue, but in a different fashion. It’s been made pretty clear that Rey is going to struggle with Luke’s training, and we already know of Kylo Ren’s unrelenting conflict within himself, stemming from the teachings of Supreme Leader Snoke. Snoke ordered Kylo to kill his own father, an act that he did follow through with, but the novelization has proven that that act made him more conflicted than ever before. Where it should have brought him strength, instead he found weakness and doubt.

And all of this ties back to Kylo Ren’s original offer to Rey to teach her. It is my belief, based on the evidence above, that Rey is going to struggle between the teachings of Kylo Ren and Luke. You may ask “how will Rey learn from Kylo? They aren’t on the same planet?” Well even that is partially answered in Episode VII, and confirmed in tweets made by Pablo Hidalgo. Pablo definitively said that Rey learned so much so quickly at Starkiller Base because she extracted the information from Kylo Ren’s mind during the infamous interrogation scene. So in a way, Kylo has already become her first mentor.

Both the Light and the Dark are justified in their beliefs and teachings. Adam Driver previously stated in an interview that Kylo Ren vehemently believes he is and was justified in his actions, and it’s quite clear that Luke fully intended to disappear into the galaxy as a frizzled old hermit. What will happen if Luke does not agree to initially train Rey? She has all of these newly awakens powers, and no way to control them. Just like Kylo stated, she really does need a teacher. But which teacher? The Light or the Dark? Or, at what this poster suggests, something in the middle!

By placing both of Rey’s mentors above her, two Force users who are much more skilled and honed than she is, it indicates that both mentors are going to be fighting within Rey’s psyche. Luke will be teaching her one method, while Kylo and his Dark side influence will be pulling Rey in the opposite direction. This is wiring and character growth done right! The setting and characters have been established in the first film of the sequel trilogy, while the second installment places challenges and obstacles in their path. Without those challenges, characters will not grow or develop. Even more evidence for this is Rian Johnson’s prior statements that the characters in The Last Jedi are going to be tested and pushed beyond their limits. What would challenge Rey more than knowing she is can identify and relate to the person she hates the most, Kylo Ren? That would force the characters into a position where they have no choice but to adapt and evolve into something that spans beyond the juxtaposition of the Light and Dark side of the Force.

In other words, Grey Jedi!

Most likely it won’t be in so many words, but the concept behind it will remain the same. A world of Force users that are not bound by the narrow dogmatic codes of the Jedi or Sith! And while I do find both of their ideologies absolutely fascinating an an integral part of the Star Wars canonical universe, by constricting Force sensitives to Jedi/Sith, Good/Evil, Light/Dark is extremely limiting and grossly inhibits the idea of character depth, subtlety, progression and nuance. Maz Kanata and Ahsoka Tano are prime examples of Force sensitive individuals in the Star Wars universe who are canon and are Force sensitive, but do not fall into the dichotomy of Jedi and Sith. There has never been a main hero character in the films (which are the primary story telling means in the entire franchise that reaches the most viewers and has the biggest impact on mainstream pop culture). Luke Skywalker was seen as universal good, the epitome of the Joseph Campbell’s hero, who embarks on heroic journey on behalf of goodness and justice. The passing of the torch from Luke to Rey indicates a paradigm shift in the understanding of the Force for not only the characters but the viewers and fans as well.

The light saber in the poster is another piece of evidence for this! There is no partition between red (Darkness) and blue (Light). Instead there is a gradient emanating from both ends of the lightsaber, further emphasizing that this story will not be so simply as “kill the monster, save the world” but instead of dimensionality and gradation. There is middle ground to be found in the Force between the Light and the Dark, and Rey is the key to unlocking it. Or as Rey quite simply puts it in the trailer “balance.”

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On a personal side note, I do believe this teaser poster does further add fuel to the Reylo fire, and it makes be believe even more fervently that Reylo will eventually become canon in some iteration, but I wanted to keep my personal biases and theories out of this analysis. If anyone enjoyed reading this and would like to read my views on The Last Jedi teaser trailer and how it relates to Reylo, I’d be more than happy to comply. But I wanted and needed to get this poster off my chest first. My mind has been boiling over, wanted to put these thoughts down in some sort of organized fashion because as someone who is fluent in the language of illustrations as a medium for visual story telling, this poster blew my mind. I stood just flabbergasted at how blatantly the story implications were, but when I asked people about their thoughts they all came to different conclusions. And yes, that is the point of this poster, to get people talking and theorizing about what it all means, however visual story telling generally complies with a set of rules that are universally, albeit often subconsciously, understood by the viewer.

Whew! I wrote this entire analysis in a single sitting. I apologize if there are any immediate grammatical errors, but I proof read this a number of times, so I am pretty sure that it’s correct. EDIT: Thank you to @sleemo who helped me fix the grammatical errors in this!

#the last jedi #star wars #meta #reylo #episodeviii

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miasanmuller · 5 years ago

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A few thoughts on ‘The Rise of Skywalker’

Not that any of you asked me to do this, but after watching the movie yesterday I felt compelled to write something, most likely to organize and register my thoughts and feelings about it and this ‘New Trilogy’ as a whole. If (for some reason) you feel like reading it, be warned that the whole post is filled with spoilers.

I remember when the first teaser to ‘The Force Awakens’ was released back in 2015 and the impact it had on me. Star Wars was a huge part of m me growing up - I’ve never been one of those die-hard fans, obsessed with the Expanded Universe and theories and basically living the franchise 24/7, but still, it was one of my favorite movies overall. I always felt very passionate about it, particularly about the mythology, a few outstanding characters and about the overall universe created by George Lucas and the way it has impacted science fiction since 1977. Of course, there were a lot of mistakes a long this ride, a lot of storylines and characters that could (and perhaps should) have been handled way better, but still - the plot was great, the development was great, and even after the weak and (let’s be honest, sloppy) start of the Prequel Trilogy, it still was able to develop what was promised and gave us a decent origin story to one of the most iconic characters of the science fiction genre.

Back to 2015, when the first teaser to TFA was released, I remember feeling thrilled in a manner I find difficult to explain. As I said, I was never obsessed by the EU and honestly knew very little about its mythology, but I have always been curious to what could happend to that franchise, how those characters could be developed further and what more could be told about that galaxy far, far away. And when more news about the movie came out, my excitement only grew - there’s no hero, there’s a heroine! There’s a POC who’s not a mere supporting character! Leia is there! Han if there! It felt like a dream come true, if I can be this sappy. And when the movie came out, boy, I wasn’t disappointed. The new storylines were great, the characters were interesting and complex, and even though the original characters didn’t stand out in this new movie (and even after Han died) I felt like the movie did what it needed to do: introduced new possibilities, new stories to develop without harming what was done before and (from my point of view) not relying too much on what was done before, something that was really important to me back then. The message I got after watching TFA was “This is a new story. It’s not about Luke or Leia or Han or Vader or the Empire. It’s a sequel to that, but it’s new”. And I was excited to see what was coming next.

But ‘The Last Jedi’ came out two years later and my expectations were smashed. The brand-new feeling I got after watching TFA was gone, the complex characters I fell in love with were turned into abnormal, weak, nonsense versions of themselves. The plot had barely any link to the plot of TFA, it basically didn’t feel like I was watching a sequel to that movie. It felt like I was watching a sloppy attempt to reconnect the sequel to the original movies and fill it with stupid, unnecessary twists that bring nothing to the story or the development of the characters and are simply there to provide shock value. I understood the intention Disney had to subvert the common sense regarding some concepts and characters in order to produce a different, new approach to a Star Wars movie. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that: it just wasn’t developed in a way that made sense. And I’m not talking about making sense in regard of the original movies - I’m talking about not making sense regarding TFA, released only two years prior. What happened to the bond between Finn and Rey? Why is Poe acting like a drunk, low-witted heteronormative straight man? What the fuck did they do to Luke Skywalker? Why Kylo Ren (arguably one of the most interesting and complex chaarcters introduced in TFA, who had a great potential to be developed into one of the most memorable characters of this new trilogy) was turned into a whining, spoiled toddler who acts as if he was just told he cannot have dessert before dinner by his parents?

Anyway, I’m writing all of this just so you’ll understand the mixed feelings I had when I entered the movie yesterday. Part of me knew nohing good could happen after that mess called TLJ, but a part of me was still too attached to TFA and wanted an ending that fitted and made justice to everything that was promised back then. But well, that first part of me wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately.

It is clear to me now that this entire trilogy was simply develop so Disney could fill their already full safes with a bit more million, billion dollars. Yes I know that’s not surprising and all and honestly we all knew that was (and still is) their intention, but as long as I am aware, it is possible to conciliate both approaches - the greed and a decent storyline, or at least the intention of developing one. But after TROS, it is clear to me there was never a central plot connecting these new movies, there was never a story to be told, there was never anything. Or at least that’s the impression that was left on me. The new movie is rushed, truncated, badly developed, filled with more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. The atmosphere of freshness that existed in TFA was completely obliterated only to be susbtituted by an overeliance on the original trilogy. Damn, the movie itself was advertised as ‘the end of the Skywalker saga’ as if it was a good thing! The Skywalker saga finished 36 years ago, in ‘Return of the Jedi’. I didn’t want that ending to be reimagined and retold. I didn’t ask for it. I wanted to see the story that began in TFA expanded, developed, finished. But what did I get? A reeling chimera, a mindless Frankenstein monster constructed through fragments of the other eight movies.

It’s like Disney suddenly remembered that Finn and Rey existed in the same space and decided they needed to interact agaun, but had forgotten completely they tried to build something between Finn and Rose (was that her name? I don’t know, and apparently Disney doesn’t either), a character that barely had anything to say in the entire movie. And now suddenly Finn has a new friend, a forgetable character that contributed very little to anything. I’m not even gonna comment on the Finn/Poe relationship and the blatant heteronormativity regarding both because that would need a whole other post. Poe, on the other hand... I don’t know what they did to that character. I think Oscar Isaac and John Boyega are better qualified than me to discuss these issues regarding their characters - and, well, they did. If not even the actors who play the caracters you invented are satisfied with what you made of them, well, that’s a big red flag.

And the remaining of the characters? You don’t bring Lando Calrissian back for nothing like that. What happened to Maz Kanata, one of the most interesting characters in TFA? I mean, you don’t bring Lupita Nyong’o to the set only so she could record four sentences and then go back home. General Hux was a spy? Okay, but give me more thoughts on that. Oh too bad he was already blasted. Where is BB8? Why isn’t it doing anything?

And then we get to Kylo Ren. Such wasted potential. This character could have developed in SO MANY WAYS only to become exactly what everyone knew (and nobody wanted) he would become: the once-evil-turned-good-guy-that-saves-the-girl-then-kisses-here-and-dies-and-she-is-sad. Jesus fucking Christ. Disney, I thought the entire point of TLJ was “we’re taking everything that was convential and smashing that and creating something new’ but I’m story, this boring trope has already been used and reused and reused again thousands of times. It’s not new. It’s not interesting. You could have done so much with this character, but in the end, you did nothing. And that’s frustrating.

Finally, we get to the part that frustrates me the most: the return of Palpatine and imminent rise of the “Final Order”, or, as I prefer to label it, “Return of the Jedi re-imagined by a straight, low-witted white guy who had nothing better to do”. I’m not even gonna comment on the complete nonsense of this entire storyline because I think the movie talks by itself in this matter. The thing is: this entire plot was unnecessary and had approximately nothing to do with what was developed back in TFA, but since you chose to use it, the least that could be done was DO IT RIGHT. Do I need to say it wasn’t?

It’s frustrating, you know. To see something that was so promising once become such a waste of potential, waste of character development, waste of opportunities, waste of innovation. I’m not gonna lie - I was expecting the movie to be WAY WORSE than it actually was, but that’s most likely because I already was with the lowest expectation possible. In the end, TROS was a fitting end for the Sequel Trilogy, because it symbolizes and summarizes it in a very simple and true manner: it is forgetable. It’s is superfluous. Just like the appendix attached to the large intestine: it contributes nothing and most of the time you forget it exists, and when you remember, you wish you didn’t. And, to me, that’s the worst thing a Star Wars movie can be: forgetable.

#star wars #long post #this was a mess I am aware but I simply wanted to take somethings off of my head #see i'm not mad nor sad nor anything like that #i'm just... idk frustrated about what could have been #it's not like i was expecting this to be a good movie or a good ending lmao i knew all along this would be shit #but it's sad to see i was right

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ariainstars · 6 years ago

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Rogue One or Why I (Probably) Won’t Watch This Movie Ever Again

It’s not as if I disliked “Rogue One”. I found it excellently made, from the political, philosophic, psychological point of view as well as with regard to settings, action scenes, acting, music, effects etc.

But why didn’t anyone tell me how deeply sad this story is?

“Rogue One” tells the story of a group of persons who all, for different reasons, have nothing left to lose and thus sacrifice their lives to help the Rebellion against Palpatine’s Empire. There is no reason for us viewers to get attached to the members of this crazy suicide mission: it is their destiny to die and we can sense that right from the beginning. Personally, I never felt compelled to root for them, I only felt terribly sorry for them.

It sure is interesting to be confronted with the reality that so many heroes gave an important contribution to the end of the war but never got anything good from it; also, how bleak and dangerous their lives in this totalitarian Empire were, constantly on the run, always oppressed, losing another piece of themselves over and over - family, health, mental sanity, safety, integrity, in the end life.

The only character I could feel with a little was Cassian, who stayed by Jyn’s side to the bitter end so she wouldn’t have to die alone. Jyn on the other hand never requited his feelings; her entire being was set on doing her father’s will, and Cassian, like everybody or everything else, was just a meaning to this end for her. (Though, in all honesty, she never compelled or manipulated anyone.) She may have been meant as a strong female character, but I didn’t find her in the least compelling or admirable. Jyn did what she had to do because she did not know what else to do with her life.

Jyn’s fate is a somewhat sarcastic take on the bond between child and father emphasizing that a father may give his child’s life direction and purpose but that this must not necessarily make him (or her, in this case) happy.

What baffled me most, in retrospect, was the reaction coming from most Star Wars fans. Long before I had watched the film, I had heard respectively only read of enthusiastic responses, usually culminating in “A real Star Wars film again, at last!”

Of course setting and design remind very much of “A New Hope”, because the story is set shortly before; and for brief periods we see the Death Star, Governor Tarkin, Leia and Darth Vader.

So then, this is what fans want, this is allegedly “real Star Wars”? Excuse me, depressing? Not the aesthetics and the message of the Prequels, the energy and drive of the classics or the new impulses and hopeful glimpses of the Sequels? Does it only depend on cosmetics whether a film is defined “real Star Wars” or not?

This whole story is a tragedy. It’s not a call to adventure with a happy ending like “A New Hope” or “The Phantom Menace”, a Greek-style drama like “Return of the Sith” or anything of the sort. It’s supposed to bring home that there is nothing wonderful about war and that everyone involved will lose much more than they win. This also fits to one of the Sequels’ themes, when we meet the old heroes again; they had won a war and founded a family - but before that, Luke and Leia had lost their old families, Luke had to give up his dream of becoming a pilot, and all of them suffered through tremendous physical and psychical horrors. And, as we learn, after a period of peace they had to watch their victory go up in smoke again as the embodiment of their hopes, their son and heir, nephew and pupil, turned his back on them and devoted himself to becoming evil like his grandfather, the very person they had fought against respectively tried to rescue and redeem all of these years before.

Yes, in a way “Rogue One” is “real Star Wars”. There is a person with father issues at the center, it’s an authentic, honest story, the characters are well-developed and the narrative is well thought out. But I was left almost in tears thinking how the hope Leia expressed in the last scene was founded on the absolute lack of hope of the protagonists of the crazy Death Star mission. I felt depressed for two days after.

Even “Revenge of the Sith” doesn’t make me feel that bad when I watch it, though the outcome is so terrible. There is Padmés funeral scene that leaves the viewer space to mourn, and the scenes with the twins and their surrogate families announcing that not all is lost. “Rogue One” just makes a quick cut when all is said and done and that’s it.

No one will ever think about these persons ever again, no one will mourn them, no one will be grateful to them or call them heroes. A brutally honest take on war and rebellion, opposite to the end of “A New Hope” where the heroes are celebrated and seen as such, though they are responsible for the death of everybody who lived on the Death Star. (Not that I’m blaming them, in that situation it was either destroy them or be destroyed.)

Luke Skywalker, hero of the first classic film which directly follows after this one, never knew his parents, lost his foster parents and his mentor during the course of a few days, but he joined the Rebellion and thrived on it. For Jyn, the loss of her family is a dead weight which hangs on her shoulders until it leads to her death. Jyn merely survives, making one heavy step after the other; she never rebels and goes her own way like Luke did.

I was also surprised since I had heard that Jyn was supposed to be a strong-willed woman, designed to be a role model to female spectators. I wouldn’t want any girl to choose Jyn as a personal example to go by: she is a cold, cynical person whose life never knows fulfilment, not a symbol of hope but of relinquishing of life, hope, happiness.

Her characterization is particularly bitter when we compare her to Han Solo, to whom Star War’s second spin-off was dedicated two years later. Though Han has a sarcastic streak, he remains generous and humorous, and he always cares and is cared about by someone. Despite his name, he is never really alone: he bonds with Qi’Ra, Chewbacca, Lando and Enfys Nest, while Jyn never is close to anyone. (Is it a coincidence that the names “Han” and “Jyn” are so alike, I wonder?)

Also contrarily to Jyn, Han turns his back on his father figure Beckett, deciding to go his own way. And in both cases, this attitude is not heroic in the conventional sense, but personal; Jyn does her father’s will because she feels committed to him, not to some greater cause. Han, too, rejects Beckett when he feels personally betrayed and let down by him. No wonder Han, as we get to know him in the classic films, is the most independent and worldly-wise of the characters. He initially had no father figure, then he found one but in the end, he chose to do without him. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence, when Han kills Beckett in self-defense, that his last words are “You made a wise choice”.

The difference between Han and Jyn, or also Luke, Anakin and Rey, to name other Star Wars heroes, is that he doesn’t have a father figure but he also doesn’t look out for one. He gladly befriends Beckett who is more experienced than he, but when he finds he can’t trust him he turns his back on him, with regret but not mourning him for long.

Han never knew where he came from, but with that also came the freedom to make his own choices; and as we know, contrarily to Jyn he still had a long and fulfilling life and found real friends, a home and a purpose. Very fittingly, “Solo - a Star Wars Story” is a feelgood film and not in the least depressing.

In both cases, we have a very realistic and not at all starry-eyed outlook on what “heroism” and “fighting for a just cause” means. Star Wars remains true to itself by hammering home all over again that it is not at all gratifying to be a lonely hero, and that on the other hand having a family may be a good thing, but being defined by them is a crushing burden. Picking up that burden and doing what you believe you have to do in order to feel connected to them may lead to the desired end, but then the question arises whether that end is really so desirable if the cost is so high. Again, Star Wars is not about the good guys blowing up the bad guys, but about growing up.

Luke Skywalker never knew about his family for a very long time, and after he had learned about it his father died, leaving it to him to repair the damage Vader had caused together with Palpatine; and as we see him again in “The Last Jedi” his character shows a bitter parallel to Jyn - lonely and disillusioned. This also follows the line of the Prequels: even if you have the best intentions you may still err, and deciding to give your life to what you perceive as a higher cause may literally become your, not exactly happy, fate. Becoming a Jedi master Luke became emotionally detached, which brought to the downfall of his temple; only when he communicated with someone again - Rey, Yoda, Leia, and also with his nephew a little - his existence gained new purpose.

In his last moments, Luke announces that he will still be there as a Force spirit; and after death he is remembered by many people in the galaxy, whether they knew him personally or not.

Jyn and Cassian die in the blaze of the Death Star fire, giving up what little they still had or were; Luke’s death is illuminated by the light of the twin suns which this time rise instead of setting. He loved and was loved, that is why he will never be truly gone. Jyn, Cassian and the other members of the Rogue One mission are forgotten, despite the invaluable service they did to the galaxy at large. This is what “Rogue One” ultimately is about: complete, utter and inescapable loneliness.

So, thank you for the food for thought, “Rogue One”. But I don’t think I will watch you ever again.

#star wars #rogue one #jyn erso #cassian andor #han solo #death star #film analysis

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