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imagineyourworld · 3 years ago

Note

Hey there! Could I request g. with Luke Skywalker with an inquisitor reader? Congrats on reaching 100, can't wait to read more of your work!

Hi,

Thank you so much <3

That's a really interesting request, I hope I can do it justice.

Love, Charlie

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Luke Skywalker x Genderneutral!Inquisitor!Reader

g. "Sorry doesn't fix everything."

Warnings: Slight age difference (just a couple of years, not specified), kinda self-harm, but not really

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You didn't consider yourself anyone special. You were one of many, one of many children orphaned during the end of the Clone Wars or the beginning of the Empire, one of many cadets in the Imperial Academy, one of many singled out on your fifteenth birthday for 'special training'. It wasn't until you turned eighteen and were sent on your first mission, the only one of your squad to ever receive a mission at all, that you realized that maybe there was something special about you, though you only managed to put it in words once none other than Grand Moff Tarkin, the Grand Moff Tarkin, pinned a medal on your chest and congratulated you to your promotion. That's when you realized that you were special, you were one of only a handful of Inquisitors, chosen and trained to rid the galaxy of the few remaining Jedi or those who still had faith in the doomed order, those whose abilities were too dangerous to let them live. You were good at what you did, if not one of the best, and had countless medals to prove it. Maybe that's why your next mission came from very high up, from Darth Vader himself. The day you met the second most powerful man in the galaxy would change your life forever, though whether for better or for worse you would never be able to tell.

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Vader had sent you to what had to be the worst planet you have visited so far. Tatooine was nothing but a pile of sand, two burning suns and more criminals and low lives than you cared to count. Though for someone high up in the empire, who received a generous salary, it wasn't too bad. Rent and food were cheaper than other places, so you allowed yourself the rare luxury of renting a small suite in one of the better hotels the planet had to offer. The mission itself was simple, all you had to do was listen to locals and maybe ask a few inconspicuous questions to find out whether there were any Jedi sympathizers left in this corner of the galaxy. That's how you met him, and how your life changed once more. Luke Skywalker quite literally ran into you the first time you visited a place called Tosche station. He was just leaving as you were entering, and since he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and you had no space to move to the side the two of you collided. Luke managed to stay on his feet, but you began to stumble and fall, only to suddenly find yourself in his arms. Wow, that kid has fast reflexes, was the first thing you thought, but once you got a closer look at him you realized that he was no kid, at the most he was a couple of years younger than you, though his out of style clothes and long hair made him appear younger than is actual age. "I am so sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Are you alright?", he asked, his arms still around you and concern in his eyes. You didn't know what it was, but there was something about him that made you stare just a moment longer, and heat rise up to your cheeks. "I'm fine. But I might feel better if you bought me a drink", you replied. Your keen eyes noticed the blush that crept up his face at your words. His reaction, and the overall lack of young people, let alone attractive young people, on this planet made it obvious that he wasn’t used to flirting, which brought out a strange sense of accomplishment and possessiveness in you. “Just wait here, I’ll get us something to drink and I know a shady place to sit down”, he told you before disappearing in the crowd.

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True to his word Luke reappeared a moment later and lead you to what seemed to be an abandoned farm a short distance away. That’s where the two of you settled and only when the suns began to set did you get back up. You didn’t remember the last time you have had a conversation like this, talking about everything and nothing. In just one short afternoon you learned more about Luke than you knew about most of your fellow cadets back at the academy. He was an orphan, living with his aunt and uncle on their moisture farm and though the two of them were happy with that life, Luke wanted more, he wanted to see the galaxy, a sentiment you could understand more than he knew. Luke was all of the things the people in your life weren’t; open and honest, sweet and funny, warm as the two suns above and quite good looking on top of it. In retrospect you should have known that it wouldn’t take Luke long to find a place in your heart, and your frequent meetings that followed after your first day together certainly didn’t help. Luke was your first kiss, only a week after you first met him in the Tatooine desert with gleaming stars and a bright moon above. He was the first one you told about your past, at least a few basics. You told him that you were an orphan, that your parents had been killed during the last few days of the Clone Wars and that you have been on your own since you were a baby. You told him about the loneliness and fears you usually kept bottled up and your unrealistic dreams for the future. Luke was the first you slept with, back in your hotel suite, after you had treated him to a dinner nicer than any he has had back on the farm. It wasn’t like what your peers had told you sex was like, it was sweet and passionate and lovely. And even though you tried your best not to, Luke was the first person you ever fell in love with, the first you cared about, other than the memory of parents you didn’t even remember if you were being honest. Your relationship with Luke was both the only real thing and the biggest lie in your life. He had told you everything about himself, but you had no choice but to keep lying to him again and again, no matter how much it hurt. Maybe that’s why part of you was glad when, after once again reporting that there was nothing unusual on Tatooine, you were told your mission was over and you should report to the Death Star. When you told Luke that you’d have to leave the next day he kissed you in his unique sweet way and whispered the three words you have come to cherish against your lips. “In that case I think I should give this to you now. I had been planning to wait til our one year anniversary next month, but I guess that doesn’t matter now”, he mumbled, speaking more to himself than to you. Before you could ask what he was talking about he pulled a small box out of the messenger back he usually carried with him. Gently he opened the box to reveal the most stunning bracelet you have ever seen. “It was my mother’s, one of the few things I have of hers. I want you to have it.” You lifted the bracelet out of its box, admiring how the stones shone in the soft light of the candles around your suite. “Luke...”, you said, trying your best not to let your voice break. “I cannot accept this.” You lowered the bracelet to put it back in the box, but before you could Luke took your hand in his and used his other hand to close your finger on top of it. “I want you to have it, I really do. To remember me by. Besides, the colour really doesn’t suit me.” You couldn’t fight the smile that found its way to your lips at his bad joke, neither the tears that appeared in your eyes. It really was time for you to leave this planet, to leave Luke, if you didn’t do it soon you feared you never would. “Thank you. I won’t take this off, I promise”, you vowed as he gently fastened the bracelet around your wrist and then pressed a soft kiss on your pulse point. “I love you”, he said with a sad smile. Only then did it occur to you that he had said it multiple times now, almost every day ever since the first time he had said it almost seven months ago, but never once did you say the words back. Maybe it was fitting that the only time you told him how you felt about him was when saying goodbye. “I love you too, Luke.”

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Soon after your return to the Empire, and your first visit to the infamous Death Star, did you realize why you had been called back so suddenly. The war against the rebels was picking up pace and the Empire could use all the help it could get. The next year was busy, you were no longer sent on solo missions but rather trained with the elite forces, taught to fly and shoot instead of fighting with your lightsaber, and then it suddenly stopped. After the Battle of Yavin the Empire had to regroup, rethink its strategies, and fight a new opponent. “We have information about an old Jedi temple, you will leave tomorrow and destroy it”, Grand Moff Tarkin informed you in his usual clipped way. This caught your attention, and for the first time in a while your interest. Hunting Jedi, making sure no children strong with the force would ever find out about their existence and take care of them if they did was what you were trained for, what you often thought you were born to do. Suddenly it dawned on you that the last time you had actually been assigned a mission like this was before Tatooine, before Luke. “Why me? I don’t mean to question your decision, but there are many older, more skilled Inquisitors.” Tarkin simply nodded. “I agree. But Lord Vader asked for you specifically. You’re to leave for Dagobah tomorrow at 0700.”

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Your short research told you that Dagobah was basically a slimy mudhole, but upon arrival it seemed even worse than in the pictures on the holonet. “If that temple is inside one of those swamps I’m not even gonna bother, I’ll just set fire to the whole planet”, you mumbled as you climbed out of your TIE fighter, careful not to get your bracelet caught on the ladder. That had happened once during one of your first flying lessons and it had cost you almost a month’s salary to get it repaired, apparently the medal alone was worth more than you made in a year, from the stones you might even be able to buy a small planet. The second your feet touched the ground you felt something dripping down from the trees onto your arms, which you could only hope was water. Luckily, after just a few meters, you stumbled upon a path covered with mostly dry branches and pebbles. “I thought this planet was supposed to be abandoned, but this looks almost like someone made this path on purpose.” You kept walking along the path, checking your datapad every now and then to make sure you were headed the right way. After what felt like half an eternity of walking you finally reached a small hut, which your datapad assured you was right next to the temple, though since you couldn’t see anything other than the hut and a million trees you decided to investigate there first, who knew what you may find. A familiar buzz ran through your entire body, adrenaline and excitement preparing you for what was to come. With a slight smile on your lips you ignited your lightsaber, partially so you’d be ready for what- or whoever would be waiting for you inside, partially because from where you stood in the doorway you could tell that it was incredibly dark and the added benefit of a lightsaber was the soft glow that helped in situations like this. Inside the hut was larger than it had seemed on the outside, mostly meaning that there was more than just one room. In fact, there was a long hallway with open doors on both sides leading to different rooms. The first couple of rooms you checked, if they could even be called that, were pretty much overtaken by nature and rotting away. There was nothing that spoke of Jedi, or any other intelligent being, having been there in recent years. It wasn’t until you were closing in on the last rooms that you heard a low noise, followed by a gut feeling that told you that what you were looking for would be in that room. Though since you didn’t know what, or who, exactly would be in there you entered the room with your lightsaber stretched out in front of you, hoping the red sword would make any possible threat stand down before they could try anything while you would remain in the shadowy hallway to glance inside. The plan seemed to work, since you heard a small gasp from inside the room just a moment before you realized who it had come from. “Luke?” “(Y/N)?” Both your voices were astounded, shocked, and mournful. Of all the people in the galaxy, why did it have to be Luke Skywalker you found here of all places? “What are you doing here?”, you asked as you slowly entered the room. It was then that you noticed just how different Luke looked, how much he had changed since you last saw him. His hair was a bit shorter, his skin paler and his eyes darker. And he was wearing an orange flight suit, the outfit was completed by the helmet in his hand, with the familiar rebel symbol on the side. You turned your lightsaber off before fastening it to your belt, just in time because only moments later you felt your legs begin to wobble before they gave out underneath you. Luke, his reflexes fast as ever, quickly pushed a chair in your direction, so you would fall on that instead of the hard floor. “Luke... Please don’t tell me this is what I think it is.” You didn’t know what made you plead, hated the hurt and fear in your voice, but how could Luke, your Luke, not only be a rebel but be hiding right were an ancient Jedi temple was supposed to be. “If you’re asking whether I’m a rebel, the answer is yes”, he said after a moment of silence. “But judging by that red saber that’s not the only thing you’re asking.” Luke astonished you by sitting down on the small bed you only just noticed, one of the few pieces of furniture in the small room. How could he be so calm? “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re a... what do you call yourselves again? Inquisitors?” You couldn’t help the inappropriate laugh that escaped your lips. “Yes, Inquisitors. Also known as the only people stopping the Jedi from destroying the galaxy as we know it.” Luke simply looked at you, an expression on his face you’ve never seen. He seemed to be beyond angry, though there was no denying the sadness in his eyes. “Is that what you believe? That the Jedi, the few Jedi you and those like you haven’t slaughtered, are trying to destroy the galaxy?” Not knowing what made you do it you sat down next to Luke, though you did your best to put some distance between you on the small bed. “Luke, I know this might be hard to hear, I know some people, rebels and Jedi alike, probably told you more lies than either of us can count, but the Jedi are bad. They once controlled the galaxy, did you know that? And they used that control to gain riches and live comfortably while others suffered. They were selfish and deceiving and cruel and Emperor Palpatine was the only one who could stop them. You know that, don’t you?”, you asked. Of course Luke had to know that, know the truth. You spoke to him in a soft voice, careful not to burst his bubble too sudden, to give him time to adjust and acknowledge what deep down you were sure he had to know. “Is that what they told you? What they made you believe so you would go around killing innocent children, scared old fugitives and all those trying to live normal lives after a genocide? Wake up, (Y/N)! It’s not the Jedi that are bad, it’s the Empire.” Luke reached out to take your hand and for reasons unknown to you, you let him. “The Empire raised you, didn't it?”, he asked. To say you were shocked would be an understatement. You’ve never really told Luke anything about your past, you weren’t even sure whether you told him that you were an orphan, but certainly not what your childhood had been like. “How did you know?” He moved closer to you before he answered, reached for your face to lay a hand on your cheek. The sadness in his eyes was even more obvious now, so much so that it took over his entire face. “There’s no other explanation. If you had known life outside the Empire, if even just for a moment, you would know just how false everything you just said is.” You shook your head. Though doubt began to creep in on you, the bigger part of your brain knew that Luke must be trying one of his Jedi tricks on you. But as soon as that thought appeared you neglected it. This was Luke, your Luke. Sweet and kind and caring, he couldn’t hurt a fly, much less you, no matter how much time has passed. So was what he was saying true? At least partially? “They told you what they want you to believe, never let you make up your own mind. I know you, (Y/N), I know that deep down, somewhere underneath all those lies you’ve been told, you’re a good person, and that person doesn’t have to heart to be an Inquisitor.” There was an expression on Luke’s face you knew all too well. Hope. He squeezed your hand before lifting it up to his lips to press a soft kiss on the back of it. “Luke, I... I’m...”, you started, but with how much your lip was quivering you couldn’t finish your sentence. “It’s alright”, Luke said before pressing another kiss to your hand. “You don’t need to say it, you don’t need to apologize. You know, sorry doesn’t fix everything, but it’s a good start. And if you let me, I can help you. You could start a new life as part of the rebellion, I’m sure they’d be glad to have someone of your expertise.” As Luke kept talking your head began to spiral. Finally you came to a conclusion, and though you knew it was the right thing, you almost didn’t go through with it, knowing you wouldn’t be able to look Luke in the eyes afterwards. Slowly you began to loosen your hand from Luke’s grasp and removed his other hand from your cheek. “I’m not sorry. I’m not gonna say that I am when I’m not. Maybe what I’ve done was wrong, and if that’s the case your rebellion would never accept me, I don’t think I would accept me if what I have done wasn’t for the good of the galaxy, or maybe everything I’ve ever been taught was right and you’re lying to me. Whatever it is, I cannot say that I’m sorry, much less go with you, until I know the truth.” You took a deep breath and averted your eyes from Luke’s face. You couldn’t bear to look at him right now. “I know you won’t hurt me, even though you probably should. And I won’t hurt you, even though that’s what I’m here for. I’ll go looking for answers, to see whether I’m the villain you think I am, or the hero I was raised to be.” As you spoke the last words you got up from the small bed. You could feel Luke’s eyes on you, but knew that if you looked at him, at the face you’ve seen in your dreams ever since you first met, you wouldn’t be able to go through with your plan, instead you’d crumble and fall into his arms, knowing he’d always be there to catch you. Lucky for you, Luke didn’t say anything, didn’t try to stop you until you were almost out the door. “I still love you”, he finally said. “Maybe I shouldn’t, knowing what I now know, but I can’t help it.” Even though every bone in your body was screaming at you to turn around, even though your heart was aching to catch one last glimpse at him, you continued to walk out the door, out the hut and didn’t stop until you reached your TIE. And just as you were taking off, after you have ripped parts of your clothes and carefully cut yourself with your lightsaber to make it seem as if Luke had bested you in battle, you finally did turn around and looked for Luke among the trees. And though you didn’t see him, something told you that he was there, watching you. It was that feeling that made you whisper the words you should have said to him whenever you had the chance. “I love you too. And I’m sorry, for everything.”

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I’m so sorry that this took ages, but I hope it was worth the wait. I really loved this idea and though I don’t think I really did it justice I have tried my best.

#luke skywalker x reader #luke skywalker x you #luke skywalker x y/n #luke skywalker imagine

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reylo-musings · 4 years ago

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The Stoicism of Chanel Boots Luke

I want to speak to the idea of Luke’s characterization feeling “off” or “not like him” in his appearance when he comes to answer Grogu’s call. People have stated that the “Real Luke Skywalker” would have spoken words of comfort, would have gotten down on one knee to speak with Grogu, would have been warm and open, not cold and stoic. My genuine question is this, “Where does this type of understanding of Luke’s characterization come from?”

In Return of the Jedi, Luke shows up in his killer black outfit with Chanel boots serving Straight Looks, speaking with a new-found confidence that is both attractive yet still quite awkward. Luke tells a still-mostly-blind Han that he’s “taken care of everything” and that they have no worries of dying in the Sarlacc pit, and Han’s response is just “Oh. *Rolls eyes* Great.”. Sure, he’s been frozen in carbonite for a while (and can’t see the killer outfit change) but it’s clear that, to Han, Luke is no Savior, no God. He’s just this kid who Han has grown quite attached to who likes to play with laser swords and is into some weird stuff at the moment. Even to those with fully functional eyes, Luke’s fighting style on Jabba’s cruiser is quite green, and not just because of the glow of his saber. He’s awkward, gets shot in the hand, and lacks what some would probably consider to be “Jedi Knight Fighting Finesse”. But completely in his defense, he only first held a lightsaber 4 years prior, and really has only been training for a year at this point.

Even when Luke is tied up in preparation to be a main course at an Ewok feast, he speaks with that same awkward confidence, one that he is honing into but still feels oddly out of touch at this point. You can see that he is beginning to view his purpose in this adventure with his friends quite differently. No longer is he just the kid kinda tagging along while Han is wielding a blaster and running full force into danger with Chewy. Luke is now the one that can use his connection to the Force to aid the adventure in a different way, to offer his own unique brand of help to his friends.

After they’re inducted into the tribe and Luke retreats outside for a quiet moment, Leia inquires as to what’s bothering him and he again speaks in calm measured statements. There is little to no emotion as he tells how he has no memory of his mother - how he fears he is endangering the mission of his friends because of his connection to Vader. These are things that Poncho Luke would have been hysterical over, but Chanel Boots Luke is discovering that his role as Jedi Knight is more than just slicing things with a lightsaber and lifting rocks. It’s about his calm and rationalized approach to his struggles as well as the struggles of the galaxy.

Luke’s first actual show of emotion in this film is when he is overwhelmed by anger, and at the Emperor’s taunting, summons his weapon in an attempt to strike him down. Vader stops the attack, but Luke’s true emotions have already been revealed. Later, the strongest display of this hatred comes from Vader’s taunts about turning Leia if Luke will not surrender to the Dark Side. This results in the most emotional display yet, culminating in the moment where Luke severs Vader’s mechanical hand and sends his saber falling out of sight. Upon rational realization of what he’s done and how he was hurt the same way before, he chooses to break the vicious cycle in that moment and break out of his emotional spiral.

Luke’s return to his friends and the heroes of Rebellion after their victory is one of joyous celebration. Handshakes and hugs with Leia, Han, and Wedge eventually brings him to reflection on those Jedi who have passed - Obi Wan, Yoda, and now Anakin - and the realization of what that means for his personal future.

When Return of the Jedi ends, it is clear to Luke that he feels responsible for restoring the Jedi Order and all that comes with it. This involves not only stepping up to fulfill the galaxy’s idea of what a “Jedi Knight” is, but also establishing and training those who will be the future generations of Jedi. It’s a hefty task, and one that seems quite juxtaposed to the sand rat in A New Hope that just wanted to go to Tosche Station to pick up power converters. But that’s how a literary “call to action” tends to work.

What is ultimately odd for us as viewers and consumers of this story is that we have not yet seen who Luke is in the time between his confrontation with the Emperor and when Rey finds him in solitude 30 years later. THIRTY YEARS! It only took 22 years for Anakin to be born and later turn to the Dark Side. 30 years is plenty of time for someone’s personality to evolve into something completely new!

Sooooo, coming back around to people’s issues with Luke in The Mandalorian. The main point I’m trying to make is that in our most involved interactions with Luke prior to his appearance on Moff Gideon’s ship - his time during Return of the Jedi - he spends most of it quite devoid of outright warm emotion. He speaks with an undertone that reflects his role as a Jedi, but he hasn’t quite figured out how to blend that timbre seamlessly with his own voice yet. It leads to something that feels somewhat awkward and definitely different, but the reality is that this change is not a “bad” one. Many have stated that Chanel Boots Luke is the Luke that sparked many a feeling in people. This is the Luke that is beginning to understand what his destiny is. It’s the Luke that would choose death over betrayal of the Jedi Order. It’s the Luke that is evolving and changing into what he believes the galaxy needs him to be.

There is now something around a 5 year gap between Return of the Jedi and when Luke arrives to find Grogu. We saw just how much Luke changed in the time between Cloud City and Jabba’s Palace, so it fully stands to reason that the change would be even more exaggerated over 5 more years of time.

Also, what DO we know has transpired in these 5 years? We know that Ben was born.

We are told that Ben’s strong connection to the Force was known even while he was still in the womb. For Luke, the bond that he shares with Leia and Han, one of newfound family and friendship forged through rebellion and victory, is now facing a new challenge stronger and more important than a looming galactic power struggle. Ben’s conception, coupled with the Palpatine/Snoke influence that Luke and Leia both feel, pushes Luke to understand the new struggle they are all facing. Full restoration of the Jedi Order is vital, not only to combat the always growing power of the Dark Side, but because he believes the power in Ben MUST be controlled and used in conjunction with the Light Side of the Force, lest the sins of the galaxy repeat themselves, and a new Vader is truly created.

So in preparation for building this new Order, Luke fully embodies what he knows to be the role of a Jedi Knight and Master. We as consumers of the story know what this role looked like at the height of the Jedi Order. There was measured stoicism, following of orders above all emotion, and strong emphasis given to letting go of attachments. It stands to reason that this information was continually passed to Luke through his connections with past Jedi such as Yoda and Obi Wan, the same way he gained experiences while training on Dagobah.

Suddenly, the Luke we saw tear through a battalion of Dark Troopers and calmly state that he is indeed a Jedi seems par for the course. He has been mentally and physically preparing to be what the galaxy needs him to be (and more importantly what Ben needs him to be) for the better part of 5 years. In his mind, and likely the mind of every Jedi he has consulted along the way, the best chance of restoring the Jedi Order to its former glory is through this mystical personification of an ancient religion. The mystery and awe surrounding the Jedi has not been lost from the galaxy in their absence, and it is up to Luke to embody that “god-like savior” that everyone expects him to be. And in that, he is successful - He is the one who saved the galaxy - He becomes a legend.

From Grogu’s perspective, he likely sees this demeanor of Luke’s as quite familiar. It’s not like Mace Windu was kneeling down at the Jedi Temple giving all the younglings fist bumps and hugs all the time. This stoic and rational mindset is what Grogu probably saw constantly during his young training, and that has a comfort to it, as “cold” as it might seem to us. As Grogu signals to Luke that he is ready to be picked up so their journey can begin, the brief moment they share together feels significant. There now exists a solid tangible connection between the Jedi of the past and the new order Luke is attempting to build, and the amount of knowledge that can now be shared is vast. Luke likely sees in Grogu the ability to find even better ways to bring forth this new Jedi Order, ultimately in service of the entire galaxy.

It’s difficult to know what happens in the timeline from here. Luke takes Grogu 5 years prior to Ben beginning his training, so we have to accept that some of the timeline doesn’t make total sense. In speaking to Rey during The Last Jedi, Luke states that he took Ben and a dozen other students and “began” a training temple. So either some form of training was already taking place with Grogu for 5 years prior to Ben’s training and it's just sloshed together in flashback context, or Grogu just tagged along for 5 years before official training began. I’m guessing it's somewhat closer to the previous of the two.

To recap our timelines, we have added two small glimpses of Luke between Return of the Jedi and the sequel trilogy.

1. The small glimpse with Grogu 5 years after ROTJ 2. The flashback of Ben’s turning 18 years after that

(There are pieces of info from novelizations, but I’m just sticking with visual media right now).

There is still a LOT we do not know in the gaps, but I think we can make some solid inferences as to the type of demeanor and disposition Luke possessed, and the types of beliefs he held about how to be a Jedi Master. We see in the final and true iteration of “The Fateful Night” flashback that, at Ben’s turning, Luke once again became emotionally overwhelmed at the idea of those who he loved being harmed by the Dark Side of the Force, exactly as he had on the Death Star when Vader threatened to turn Leia. But as Luke states, it was pure instinct - pure emotion - and as soon as he realized what he’d done, looking down at the mechanical hand holding his saber (a deliberate visual flashback by Rian to the cycle-breaking moment in ROTJ) he was filled with shame. But unlike the last time, he does not walk away from this moment a legend, but instead as a failure. A failure to his nephew, and as Ben turns to become Kylo Ren, a failure to the galaxy.

Ultimately, we know that Ben’s training was unsuccessful at keeping him from the Dark Side, not because Luke was a poor Jedi Master, but because a “Master” wasn’t what Ben truly needed. Instead what he needed was family. He needed love.

I would like to take a quick detour to speak on those who are very much upset about Din removing his helmet in front of a literal room full of people, one of whom is a complete stranger to him. I fully understand why many are saying he would never do something so expressly against his religious beliefs. And you’re correct. The Din Djarin we have seen for so much of this series is the one who put his religious beliefs above all else, despite comfort, desire, convenience, all of it. But at the end of this chapter of his life, the removal of his helmet to share this moment with Grogu is not about abdication from his religion. Rather, it is about his realization that the connection between himself and this child is more important to him than the religious beliefs he had been following without fault for his entire life. Whether you believe this choice he made was “right” or not, the moment is meant to show that this bounty hunter who never had attachment to anything except those beliefs has now found something even more important to him. He has had a change of priorities and is accepting his attachment to Grogu and validating it.

“Just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes” In this related moment, Vader pays the ultimate price to see Luke, he pays with his life, and willingly does so. Acceptance that what was so important before (being alive at the expense of being more machine than man) is no longer the most important thing to Anakin, and rather connection and love of those in our lives becomes the real goal and purpose.

What foreshadowing it might be for Din to set aside his strict religious beliefs and understandings to show just how much he loves and cares for this child. What a lesson that may have struck Luke in his years of solitude that perhaps, if he had just been more like Din Djarin, putting aside old religion in favor of loving and caring for those who are in your life right now, Ben may have never turned. Luke may have never failed.

So as I ramble on into the abyss, my thoughts are these: The stoic Luke Skywalker in Chanel Boots is not a strange “out-of-left-field” characterization. This is the Luke that the galaxy thought it needed, and exactly who Luke thought he needed to be for the galaxy. This progression falls directly in-line with his self-reflections in The Last Jedi, 30 years after his confrontation with Vader and Palpatine. To those who still struggle to accept Luke’s characterization in solitude on Ahch-To, I’ve got plenty more to say on that, but this has already gone on long enough. If anyone is interested in hearing it, I can certainly expound upon that as well.

Bottom line: We don’t know what happens next. That’s both the curse and the thrill of a saga that’s being built in 6 different timelines simultaneously. Here’s to the joy of finding out together.

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redeemed-wren · 5 years ago

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The world sucks, I'm tired and have a headache, it's time to watch A New Hope again.

The opening of a star wars movie never fails to make me smile

A) the stormtroopers slipping all over the place amused me, b) the stormtroopers checking the downed troopers gives me clone feels

I love how much history and world is just implied. "The princess won't get away this time." "We'll be sent to the spice mines of kessel for sure" "

Vader's voice bring me back to being 8 and watching star wars on our little box TV.

"I have traced the rebel spy to here" Ah, must have been very difficult, running directly from Scarif. The opening is very amusing after Rouge 1

Man I love Jawas

Gonk!

Ooh man the CGI dewbacks are kiiiinda jarring not gonna lie.

Sunshine child Luke! It my boy!

Luke: What's this? R2, instantly, knowing full well what he means: What's what?

I firmly believe that Luke and Leia, being twins, have some Force connection even before meeting.

"I guess you're too small to run away on me if I take this off" HA someone doesn't know R2. He instantly denies having the message as well what a troll.

"He won't. I don't think Obi-Wan exists anymore, he died about the same time as your father." hhh my heart

Obi-Wan living his best life being absolutely feral in the desert what a legend

I love how the two wise old Jedi we see in the OT are introduced by one of them making weird screaming noises to scare off tuskan raiders and the other being a feral gremlin in the middle of a swamp. Legendary.

Dang i always forget his first words are literally "Hello there"

Alec Guinness is such a good actor dang.

"I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid" R2: boi you what you know me I know you know me come on now I will fight you.

I can't get over how much emotion Alec Guinness has that fits with the story so well. Like, I know I'm probably projecting a lot onto him because I know the story, but the amount of emotion he conveys without knowing Obi-Wan's story is amazing

Luke be like "I can't go to Alderaan. I have homework"

Yularan!

Tarkin.

I love Tarkin but as a villian and as a horrible person to hate.

"Your sad devotion to that ancient religion..." said religion was destroyed not even 20 years ago.

Okay for real though I legit didn't realise there were skeletons of Owen and Bereu smoking outside the house for years. I don't know if we were told to look away at that point or if I just blocked it out of my mind but when I realised they full on showed their charred skeletons I was shooketh.

Everytime I see a stormtrooper with one of those orange shoulder things I think of Cody it'd be wild if the trooper Ben "These aren't the droids you're looking for"ed was Cody.

Cantina music is a BOP it's fantastic

Dang Luke just reaching across the bar and grabbing the bar keeper's shirt is just rude

I love all these iconic creatures whose designs haven't changed much really over the years. It's so cool how much you see them elsewhere and they're still basically the same!

R.I.P. Greedo.

Oh no CGI Jabba.

Oh but Boba's here also this makes it okay.

"Jabba, you're a wonderful human being" I love Han.

I did not realise Han was the first to say "this is where the fun begins" I love how many inside jokes the films have with each other.

Tarkin needs to stop touching people's face without permission. He did it to Ahsoka, he did it to Leia.

R.I.P. Bail Organa and Alderaan.

"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck" idk why that hurt me but it did because everything has gone wrong in Obi-Wan's life he's literally never been lucky in his life.

Mouse droid mouse droid I love mouse droids!

Han just casually leaning against Chewie is iconic

The way Luke leans in before saying "She's rich" is cracking me up.

Mouse droid! Chewie don't scare it

Yularan full on walks past while Luke, Han and Chewie are waiting for the elevator that's wild.

Which probably means he was in the Death Star when it explodes so rip him.

Han bluffing at the radio is fantastic "We're fine, we're all fine here, now, thank you... How are you?" and his face after he says it.

*blasts the radio* "boring conversation anyway." legit one of my favourite parts of the movie

"into the garbage shoot, flyboy" I love Leia

Everytime I see Leia's outfit I get mad at George 'There's no underware in space' Lucas the beginning of Jedi is going to send me into a RAGE. it's a shame cos the movies are so good otherwise, Carrie Fisher's treatment and they way they treated her costumes and her weight just makes me so angry and I'm gonna stop before I go on a big rant. But my flatmate refuses to watch star wars partly because of Lucas' treatment of Carrie Fisher and part of me doesn't blame her, even tho she's missing out on a fantastic story.

Anyway rant over let's keep going.

'donk' the fact that they added a sound effect to the dude hitting his head cracks me up. Also implies that he's a clone cos they made Jango donk his head when entering Slave 1 in AOTC and Rex donk his head in that one clones wars episode as a reference and that makes me Sad.

3PO thinking they're dying when they're celebrating not being crushed is iconic

I love how Obi-Wan has just been wandering around this whole time

Wilhelm scream!

Aaaand now I am getting Obi-Wan and Anakin feels again.

Honestly kinda looks like Obi-Wan is disassociating somewhat he has a very blank stare and I'm projecting emotions again but still this is the first time since Mustifar he's seen the person who was his brother he must have had many Emotions. Not to mention this all happened in like... a day, he's had his past thrown in his face in so many ways

Luke being more sad about Ben's death than the people who raised him. I mean like same, but I guess he's still somewhat in shock from all that's happened

I love R2's chuckle

"Whatddya think, do you think a princess and a guy like me-" Luke, instantly: no. What a savage.

Lookout guy on Yavin IV is me and my brother's favourite background character. I distinctly remember a conversation about throwing food up to him and him having an umbrella in case it rains.

"This will be a day long remembered" Funny that, it's the day the time is calculated from in the star wars universe

Ey! I wasn't sure if the Biggs reunion scene was in this version I feel like it's not in all of them? Either way I wasn't expecting it and it made me happy and also buildup for more sadness down the line

Lookout guy again! I love him

X-wings are legit one of my favourite ships

I really do enjoy the dogfight and all the chatter over the coms

Wedge my BOY I love him

You can see Vader's eyes a couple points in that dogfight

R.I.P. Biggs

And boom. I forgot how good that battle was.

Where's Wedge's promotion/medal tho?

Man. I forgot how good this movie is and that's saying something cos I've loved this movie for as long as I can remember. I haven't properly watched it for years and it's been long over due!

Now I'm very keen to watch Empire and Jedi again because it's been even longer since I watched those!

Imma go watch the deleted scenes cos I don't believe I've seen em and then go to bed.

Huh Red leader met Anakin, wonder if that's still canon and if so, when.

Man the cantina rough cut really does show how much editing and post production brings to it.

The Tosche station scene is awesome, seeing Luke's friends is cool. They're also kinda mean. It also gives more character to Biggs which is cool! I should have watched it ages ago.

"Listen to how quiet I am you can barely hear me" Luke you nerd

See the downside to that deleted scene is that now I'm even more sad about Biggs' death.

And that's all folks! Headache is gone and I'm feeling less depressed, so I think it worked! Hopefully Empire tomorrow night, if I'm on top of assignments.

#Star wars #A new hope #Darth vader #Luke skywalker #obi wan kenobi #Leia organa #Han solo #chewbacca #Wren watches stuff

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manjehaal · 5 years ago

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Ignite the Stars: Chapter 2

Read on AO3

My Lady…

Her steely pink eyes snapped open at the intrusion, bringing a halt to her meditative trance.

“Speak,” was all she said, tugging her consciousness away from the vast recollections she had set it on, but placing her focus on the commander's muffled voice instead. It was better this way. To not be distracted by colorful hindrances, but to focus on painless tasks, and the will of her malevolent Emperor.

Lady Mayura, the plans are not aboard the ship and no transmissions have been made. However, an escape pod was jettisoned during the fight, with no lifeforms aboard.

What a sly princess, Mayura marveled, holding her fist tight at her side. “She must have hidden the plans in the escape pod. See to it personally, Commander, that a detachment is sent down to retrieve them. The Emperor will be dissatisfied if the plans slip from our fingers.”

Yes, my Lady.

There was a moment of pause and then a hitch in his breath, just as Lady Mayura moved to silence him.

“Commander?” she asked, voice thick with indignation, having had enough of pointless conversation with hubristic imperial officers.

I’m receiving a transmission from his majesty, Emperor Papillion…

His voice came off as weak, much like the breathless drone of a corrected admiral. But he cleared his throat, evenly continuing. Lord Hawkmoth wishes to speak with you, My Lady.

“Very good commander, see to that detachment,” she said, voice hollow, as she ceased the sound of her communicator and presented herself to face her master. Her dedication to him was without question, but she knew the prices paid by her Emperor’s fury and the venom of his voice. News that a young princess had gotten the upper hand in their civil war was not the news she wished to present to her lord. Not while breath still remained in her chest.

“Yes, my Lord,” she said evenly, dropping herself onto the cold floor with her sturdy bow. “How may I do your bidding?”

* .

* '

* *

They move slowly through the Tatooine sands, leaving their trails visible to any creature that possesses eyes. Civilians pay them no mind, but the monsters of the desert are quick to follow their trails.

“How did we get into this mess? I really don’t know,” muttered the protocol droid. “We seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.”

The smaller droid ignored Threepio’s wailing, moving onward dutifully with a one-track mind for her majesty, Princess Marinette.

“I’ve got to rest before I fall apart. My joints are almost frozen.”

Bleep blip, was the only response he received, being willfully ignored by the steady persistence of Artoo, scouting out the land for the woman that the Princess had pleaded for. And so he turned, despite C3PO’s many protests, venturing into rocky land in search of settlements. Bleep blip, bleep blip, bleep blip…

“What mission? What are you talking about?”

Whistle, beep, beep.

“I’ve just about had enough of you. You’ll be malfunctioning in a day, you nearsighted scrap pile. And don’t let me catch you following me, begging for help because you won’t get it.”

And in his own malfunction, with the ignorance of a droid, Threepio parted ways with his companion, leaving each of them left lonesome, free for the taking of the night time monsters.

On the smooth path walked by the muttering See-Threepio, cloaked creatures with glowing eyes walk toward him silently, knocking him sideways and then quickly dragging him into the darkness.

Artoo, just a dome-shaped droid of blue and silver, rolls through as eyes peek through the jagged rocks. Though startled by the lit eyes of his attackers, he is defenseless against their numbers, being pushed to a halt and dragged backward into their transports.

Without defense, they have no choice but to let themselves be taken to the den of the monsters.

* '*

A line of dusty machines was spread out across the plane of dessert, being presented to Etienne and his handful of credits. Each model was unique in its own right, beaten and amuck with dirt, but of use, nonetheless.

Adrien paced his way beside his uncle, allowing him to bargain frugally while he pretended to observe the other models. His uncle had his focus on a red droid, and though it may do him good to pay attention, Adrien allowed his gaze to head back to the horizon, where the twin suns were ghosts of themselves, just two heavy moons that cooled off Adrien’s sunburnt cheeks.

Earlier, if he had seen it right, he swore a star destroyer had graced the air, leaving a streak of light across the northern sky. He had allowed himself, for the first time in many long weeks, to let himself hope. Even Nino had agreed, peering through the scope, that it was a rare thing to see. For something of that size to so closely touch the backwater planet of Tatooine. It often seemed like this was the only life out there, with no way in and no way out. People just didn’t leave. Not the ones who lived there, mind the bounty hunters and smugglers.

Adrien had seen the ship as a sign. A sign of an escape. A way out. A way to freedom. And he couldn’t keep himself from clinging to it.

“We’ll take the blue one,” his uncle said, placing a hand on Adrien’s shoulder and positioning him to look at the machine. Adrien just nodded, smiling at his uncle in approval as he began to inspect the droid for himself. Just as soon as he forced himself to focus, Etienne called to him, examining a gold-painted protocol droid, motioning for his nephew to come and follow. “Take these two over to the garage, will you? I want them cleaned up before dinner.”

He frowned, meeting his uncle’s eyes, but kept silent.

Adrien had hoped he would have time before nightfall to meet Nino at Tosche’s Station. It was a desperate attempt to gather the parts he needed to fly, to one day take off and leave the desolate planet. But more than that, it was Nino’s last night on Tatooine, being that he was sailing off at dusk to join the Alliance. Leaving Adrien behind in the confines of his protective Aunt and Uncle, as a useless farmer, with nothing to offer for the greater good of the galaxy.

He shouldn’t have ever hoped for anything else.

“You can waste time with your friends when your chores are done,” Etienne said gruffly, nudging his nephew toward the droids. “Now come on. Get to it.”

He sighed, turning to the golden droid beside him. “Alright. Come on.”

* .

* '

* *

He couldn’t help but feel as if he was running out of time.

The Empire’s steel grip loomed heavier each passing day, like a dark shadow on a once golden galaxy, stripping life and replacing it with oppression. For many years, the shadows didn’t reach the outer rim the same way it did the capital, but as all things did, even Tatooine was changing. Freedom was a myth. A place of safety was nonexistent. Everybody knew the Empire was corrupt, but nobody was brave enough to consider how to stand up against it.

Not until the Rebel Alliance.

Adrien had always been sheltered from the chaos of the infectious Empire since he had been a boy, being told not to ask questions and to focus on what he could control, like his work. But that was easier said than done as he grew older, being exposed to calamities he couldn’t disregard and news that he could never forget. Nino had been his first friend who had ventured outside of Tatooine, filling him in on many of the things Adrien would never have heard of otherwise.

The Rebel Alliance was one of those things.

Adrien burned at the thought of escape, to join such an Alliance, to have a cause. Moisture farming kept civilization going, but it hardly filled him with relief. Nor did it fulfill him the way it did his family. Not the kind of fulfillment he could find in blasting the Empire’s oppressive shadow to ashes all across the star systems.

Instead, he found himself scrubbing down a droid with a damp cloth while lowering another into an oil bath. “Very important stuff,” he muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow and setting the rag down on his workbench.

Clearly, all of this was much more important than freeing entire races and civilizations. At least, that’s how Uncle Etienne seemed to see it. As something that couldn’t be helped. As something that had to be ignored.

“It isn’t fair,” he said softly, crossing the workshop with a fresh cloth. “I’m never going to get off this rock. Nino’s right,” he said, clenching his teeth as he dug away at the worn dirt of Artoo’s countless missions. The droid beeped sympathetically, turning his upper dome to acknowledge the attention of Threepio.

“Is there anything I might do to help?” the man of gold intervened, still lowering into his oil bath.

“Can you alter time? Transport me to another system? Quicken the harvest?” Adrien asked with a sigh, tossing the rag to the side.

“I don’t think so, sir. I’m only a droid and not very knowledgeable about such things. Not on this planet, anyway,” he continued on. “As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure which planet I’m on.”

Adrien rolled his eyes, preparing himself for many hours of the droid’s rambling. Company is company, he decided, digging around for something more effective to clean Artoo.

“If there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that is farthest from it.”

“I see, sir.”

He was growing tired of the formalities. “You can call me Adrien.”

“I see, sir Adrien.”

“No,” he said, chuckling softly, comforted by the company. “Just Adrien.”

“Adrien,” the droid repeated. If the droid could smile, which he couldn’t, Adrien was sure he would have been now as he enthusiastically made his introduction. “And I am C3PO, human-cyborg relations. And this is my counterpart, R2D2.”

“Hello,” Adrien said casually, beginning to scrub yet again.

He liked droids a lot. Though he didn’t go around admitting it, he spent most of his childhood interacting with artificial intelligence, finding company in the likes of scrap metal and wires far more than he ever did the other children. He had always been so secluded from the other civilizations, being demanded to work long hours on the farm while the other children hung out closer to Mos Eisley. Nino was the only kid at school who would walk the trek to the Mars farm, and even then, he couldn’t do it often. So droids, though artificial, had served as good companions more often than not.

Beep, beep, blip ...was the blue droid’s greeting.

Adrien was making no progress with the droid. “You’ve got a lot of carbon scoring here. Have you two been caught in a lot of blaster fire?”

“With all we’ve been through sometimes I’m amazed we are in as good condition as we are, what with the Rebellion and all.”

Adrien paused, his hand slipping, eyes lighting up instantly as he turned to the talking droid. He blurted it out faster than he should have, nearly leaping to his feet at the droid’s words. “You know the Rebel Alliance?”

“That’s how we came to be in your service, if you take my meaning, sir.”

Adrien’s hands pulsed, turning to face the droid completely. “Have you seen any battles?”

“Several, I think. Actually there’s not much to tell. I’m not much more than an interpreter and not very good at telling stories…well, not at making them interesting, anyway.”

He chucked, letting his eyes dim slightly at the droid’s reluctance to tell him more. Usually, droids were more forthcoming than humans, which is one of the reasons he valued them so much. But due to humans, droids often had restrictions on what they could and couldn’t say, and details of a revolution such as the Alliance were things not meant for the eyes of a young farmer.

So he tried to let it go and focus on his work.

Adrien’s hand was getting sore from digging, wiping away at the worn machinery. He was fed up with the dirt lodged in the droid's mechanics, making it difficult to access his inner structure.

Pulling abruptly on one of the Artoo unit’s bolts, a sudden flash of blue light passed over his fingers, causing him to stumble backward. And then, lifting his eyes to the configuration, just a flickering silhouette of a girl, with eyes wide with dread, but yet hope. With strength, her voice carried a sweet spirit.

A girl.

A beautiful girl.

Help me, Caline Bustier, you’re my only hope...

. . . *

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#Ignite the stars #miraculous ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Chat Noir #marinette dupain cheng #Ladybug #Adrinette #Ladynoir #marichat #ladrien #Miraculous Love Square #love square #star wars #miraculous fic #fanfic

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youremyonlyhope · 5 years ago

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The Last Jedi

Here we go. The most controversial Star Wars movie ever (unless Rise of Skywalker has reviews that are just as mixed. I haven’t read any so I don’t know how it’s been received yet.) I actually really really enjoyed the Last Jedi, but I haven’t rewatched it since I saw it in theaters.

Also, unrelated, but literally just a few hours ago I met Oscar Isaac. I was doing a caroling event where I work, and he came by with his son to watch. During one of our breaks, he asked if his son could try the microphone and he held him up so he could whisper and sing stuff into the mic. It was adorable.

I seemed to be the only person who recognized who he was, though one of my co-workers said he had thought so too but he wasn’t sure until I confirmed it. So I went up to Oscar and said hi, asked if he was Oscar Isaac, shook his hand, and thanked him for coming. He says that it was great and that his son loves to sing.

I always joked that I’d bump into Oscar one day since he lives in Brooklyn, but I didn’t think it’d actually happen. And not while I’m wearing a Star Wars shirt and Star Wars socks (which he obviously couldn’t see since I was bundled up in a coat and a scarf and boots but whatever). And definitely not the day before I’m supposed to see the Rise of Skywalker.

I’m still freaking out oh my god. Ok. Time to rewatch the Last Jedi.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... This was the first Star Wars movie I’d seen in theaters in like 12 years at this point. Seeing those words on a giant screen again was amazing. “Certain that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker will return and restore a spark of hope to the fight.” I love that line. I love any and all comparisons of Luke to hope. Yes I am biased. But also, restoring the spark is exactly he does in the end so yes, I love it. It’s just now hitting me that we’re picking up exactly where we left off. Having 1 night between the two movies is every different than having 2 years. ...Was that whatsherface from Game of Thrones, Catelyn’s creepy sister? (IMDB says yes) *BB8 beeps* “Happy beats here buddy, come on.” BB8 sort of said the thing! Also, OH MY GOD I JUST MET OSCAR ISAAC AND NOW HERE HE IS ON MY SCREEN WHAT THE HELL. Was today even real? Oh General Hugs. “Skinny guy. Kinda pasty.” Knowing Oscar and Domnhall are friends makes this better. Oh BB8. Very honorable of Billie Lourd’s Lieutenant Connix to make sure she’s in the last ship leaving the base so everyone else leaves before her. I forgot about the chain reaction of bombs destroying their own Resistance ships... You know, Paige dying while dropping the last of the bombs was already emotional. Rewatching it after you know she’s Rose’s sister makes it worse. First Binary Sunset of the movie. General Hugs has a very good upset face that makes me not feel bad for him at all. More like I want to punch him. Snoke can use the Force across the galaxy... forgot about that. I realized I didn’t mention this in the last one, but I remember the crew complaining that when they filmed the end of Force Awakens it was a cloudy day, but then when they went back to the island for TLJ it was super sunny. And now that it’s been pointed out, I noticed it immediately. Luke throwing the lightsaber. I can’t remember if I was spoiled for this but I feel like when I watched it, I wasn’t that thrown off by it. Something else I didn’t mention at the end of Force Awakens is that I LOVE this set. The stone houses are amazing. Oh porgs. Also, that porg looking into the lightsaber always gives me anxiety. The first words we hear Luke say in 40 years are an annoyed “Go away.” which at least is less whiney than the Tosche Station. Oh Chewie’s like “DUDE. WE NEED YOU.” “Wait... where’s Han?” Awww. Throwing in a little Vader’s theme in there. More temper tantrums. People getting mad at Luke calling a lightsaber a laser sword (in a purposefully mocking way) even though George Lucas himself called them that in some interviews. Yes, it’s not a laser sword, but Luke is trying to show how ridiculous he thinks the idea of him taking down everything is by calling a lightsaber that. I remember being like “Luke... no let’s not just milk that thing... oh ew” I do love the shot of Luke using the giant stick to cross to the other cliff and kill the fish. God that’s a steep hill. “No one’s from nowhere.” “Jakku.” “Alright that is pretty much nowhere.” That’s funny. “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Remember when that line in the trailer made the fandom literally break down? I love knowing that behind the scenes, Carrie had to slap Oscar a billion times. Also, I do not blame Leia at all. So many people were mad about Leia and Holdo demoting Poe, but Poe was too fearless in that moment. Yes, he destroyed the ship and it worked out, but they lost so many people and they already didn’t have many to begin with. It was worth it, but at a very high cost. So I don’t blame her. Heyyyyyy it’s that girl from that Black Mirror episode and what was that other show? Chewing Gum or something? (IMDB says yes it’s Michaela Coel) See and Poe’s already learning a little by asking permission. Of course... later on he doesn’t ask permission... but whatever. Leia’s Theme... causing me pain. Oh, Kylo didn’t kill his mom. We’re supposed to be happy about that? The bar is on the ground. The utter horror I felt the first time the control room was destroyed and Leia was pulled into space. Oh I love the moment when Leia flies in. Because I’d heard that in the books and comics, we get to explore Leia’s Force abilities and stuff but we don’t get it in the movies besides “I feel that Luke’s in trouble.” Which sucks, because she is the “other” if Luke didn’t work out, so she’s just as strong as Luke if she got trained. They should have just trained both kids honestly, why did they pick the boy? Not saying Obi-Wan and Yoda are sexist... but they’re probably sexist. Also, foreshadowing. I actually noticed the hologram of the ship and Leia flying through this time. Oh Chewie. I like the porg that literally has his jaw dropped in horror. Knowing now that the dice were kind of a symbol of Kira (was that Emilia Clarke’s character?) and Han’s relationship makes me not like them as much. Still, cute throwback that they’re still on the Falcon. We can just ignore they weren’t there in Force Awakens (I kept an eye out and didn’t see them) The way Luke laughed when he said “R2!” I just... my heart. “Nothing can make me change my mind” *R2 plays the Leia hologram* I literally just went “AWWWW” out loud because I forgot that that’s why R2 started playing it. Oh my heart. That hurt the first time. Luke standing over Rey, but offering to help her. Parallels. Oh Admiral Ackbar. I love Holdo’s dress. I love the draping. Someone teach me how to make it. “Thank you for making me aware.” Yeah Poe, she already knows. Stop mansplaining. This is literally a case of mansplaining, why would Poe think he’d have to explain to a commander that there’s no fuel? Yeah it’s a little harsh, but is Holdo wrong? All of these fanboys complain about Canto Bight, but forget that it was Poe’s idea. Then they go and say Holdo was too mean should have put Poe in charge. Guys. Poe’s impulsive. We love him, but he’s the ultimate Gryffindor with no fear and will just do anything without considering consequences. I do wish Holdo had been more open like “I have a plan. You don’t need to know all the parts of it. Just let me do what I need to, ok?” instead of “Just follow my orders.” but still. Oh poor Rose. “Doing talking....” Oh she’s so cute. “I’ve had to stun 3 people trying to use this escape pod.” We love a girl who can fight. Yeah. Once again. Not mad at Rose. Finn does have some selfish tendencies, he’s well meaning but ultimately selfish (or at least, only thinking of Rey). So I do not blame Rose for stunning him.

And now I will take a nap since I have to go to a show tonight. And then I will finish the last 3/4-ish of the movie when I get home later.

Annnnd I’m back!

See. Rose has good reason to be mad at deserters. Ok so it wasn’t Poe’s idea to go to the Star Destroyer it was Finn’s. I will give him that. But still Poe went along with it. “That... wasn’t exactly my...” Oh 3PO. I wish Maz had had a bigger scene. More Lupita please. I have one question: from what angle is this hologram filmed? And how does the camera follow her? I guess it’s multiple hologram cameras, but still, it followed her as she rolled and ran around. Also, did Finn call Maz or did Poe call her? Because as far as we know, only Finn knows her. It seemed like they both had the idea to call her, but that Poe had it first. Did Finn tell Poe about Maz? I’m glad they showed Finn handing Poe the binary tracker thing, since for a second I was like “What if Rey had popped up next to Finn on the Star Destroyer?” I’m glad Rey’s first instinct is to shoot Kylo. “Can you see my surroundings?” “You’re gonna pay for what you did.” “I can’t see yours.” Why do I remember that line so vividly? Why does it make me feel so unsettled? Rey, my sweet Rey, I wish you had just told Luke that you saw Kylo. I love Luke’s explanation of the Force. And him messing with Rey was funny. I love when Rey’s reaching out and feeling life, death, peace, violence, etc. And I love Luke saying the Force doesn’t belong to the Jedi, because it doesn’t. The Jedi failed years ago. “You didn’t even try to stop yourself.” Luke’s horrified. But also, Rey’s just like an extreme version of Luke. Yoda knew that Luke’s emotions could make him vulnerable to the dark side, Rey’s already vulnerable. Yeah, I don’t blame Luke for being scared of Rey after he feels like this is Ben all over again. Oh my god. I love the porg that has a metal piece over its head. That actually made me laugh out loud. Poor Chewie.

I just had to refresh tumblr because my draft wasn’t saving. It brought me back to my dashboard. Where there was a spoiler for the new movie and it wasn’t tagged. PLEASE tag your spoilers people.

The water hitting Kylo still confuses me. Say what you will about the Canto Bight plot... the costumes are AMAZING. The costumes literally make the whole side plot worth it to me. Literally I was just in awe by all the costumes during every single scene. And the set! The set’s fantastic too! I literally just paused every single second to take in all of the costumes. Do I care if the Canto Bight trip ended up pointless? Nope! Because it gave me some of Star Wars’ best costumes. Oh... to be an extra in the Canto Bight scene... Just show up... And put on a beautiful outfit... And do nothing else but pretend to drink, talk, and gamble... That’s the dream. Oh hi Mark Hamill! That was cute that they let him voice that little thing. I remember noticing the thing and being like “...is he important?” and nope, it’s just Mark doing an extra voice. Oh I love the Fathiers. Aww and it’s the little Force sensitive boy. I have thoughts about that kid that I can get into later. The way BB8 jingles with the coins. I love it.

Rey: *Does a move with her stick* Rey: *Does the same exact move with the lightsaber* Fanboys: She’s too good too fast! Mary Sue!

As I said throughout all of the Force Awakens, she’s just applying the skills she already had. If anything, a lightsaber’s easier since it’s half the length and she doesn’t have to worry about the back of it hitting her. LOL, remember when we thought this shot was an epic shot of Luke training her? Good times. Oh that poor fish nun. Everything Luke says about the Jedi is true (also did I not say they failed earlier in the post? Luke agrees with me). Rey’s right that a Jedi got Ani to come back from the dark side, but the Jedi’s system enabled him to turn in the first place. Soooooo yeah. Oh Luke. Don’t blame yourself. Kylo was already basically gone. Sure, seeing his uncle standing over him with a lightsaber definitely didn’t help... but it’s not the only thing that made him turn. Who is this captain of the medical ship? He looks familiar. (IMDB says he’s Danny Sapani. I probably recognized him from the Crown) Oh BB8. Finn, did you learn nothing from Rey? Put the cover back on the vent! Awww the Fathiers have such sad eyes... I love the Resistance ring. Can I buy one? Ok. The shot of the bubble egg lady singing felt like it was much longer the first time, but it’s really only a split second. I. LOVE. THE. CANTO. BIGHT. SET. I know it’s a real town in like Italy or somewhere near the Mediterranean. I want to go. I love it. I love that the first thing Luke does when he decides to use the Force again is to seek out Leia. Oh poor Adam became a meme after this. He just has a very wide and bulky body, ok? God Luke looks so scary in Kylo’s flashback. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” That reflection scene is so visually stunning. So in a way, it’s like Luke is failing Rey like he failed Ben. He’s not helping her in the way she needs, so she’s being lured by the dark side instead. I love the walls falling around Luke. “Did you do it? Did you create Kylo Ren?” Rey, he already told you earlier that he believes it’s his fault, so the answer from him is yes. I can’t remember if we hear this story of Luke and Kylo one more time after this or not. “Then he’s our last hope.” Ok ew. No. Kylo is not allowed to be compared to hope. Only Luke, Leia, or Obi-Wan can be. Oh for a second I thought that torch was a lightsaber. YODA!!!!! I think I had been spoiled for Yoda showing up. It was definitely still exciting though. “The sacred Jedi texts!” Oh Luke. Oh memes. Not as whiney as I remembered. “But that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess.” Because Yoda knows she stole the books. Oh Yoda. I love Yoda. Oh Rose. Ok, so I will give it to Poe that at this moment it doesn’t seem like Holdo has a good plan. Abandoning ship isn’t necessarily cowardly, but on the surface it does seem like it puts them in more danger. Literally earlier today I watched a video about the layout of the Millennium Falcon, and the escape pods were mentioned. And I thought to myself, wow that must be something from the novels since we’ve definitely never seen that in the movies. Welp... I was wrong... Rey’s in one now. I was about to be like “Do they not care that an escape pod just docked?” before I saw Kylo. LOL the iron coming down like a ship. I feel like I remember being completely terrified when Rey stepped in front of Snoke. Oh BB8. Bumping into stuff. I remember being super relieved that DJ (has he told us this is his name yet? I can’t remember) gave back the medallion. Captain Phasma! Hey girl hey! Leia shooting Poe is still funny to me. Also Lieutenant Billie Connix is smart. I love the scene of Holdo and Leia saying goodbye. Also, Holdo’s purple hair with her bright blue eyes is super striking. Good choice. Snoke puts down the lightsaber. Unknowingly sealing his fate. Literally when Snoke reveals he connected their minds, I was like OF COURSE. Because the whole time I’m like neither of them are strong enough to do this. “She was more interested in protecting the light than she was seeming like a hero.” See. And that’s the flaw in both Poe and Finn. And Rey to an extent. They’re thinking about the big picture, but in context of smaller things like seeming like a hero, saving Rey, saving Kylo, etc. But Holdo’s thinking of only the big picture. I knew DJ betrayed them, I just forgot how badly.

And here’s another annoyance (which I was sorta trying to touch on earlier). Everyone hates the Canto Bight plot, yet they complain about Holdo trying to take charge. If Poe just let Holdo take charge and ignored Finn and Rose’s idea, then her plan would have been a complete success. No Canto Bight, no DJ to betray them, all the transports make it to Crait unnoticed, and the First Order eventually destroys a ship that’s empty except for Holdo. They complain about Holdo, but don’t think about the fact that Holdo could have prevented another plot they hated if the main characters had just listened to her.

And then Snoke hits Rey and literally puts the lightsaber back to where it will kill him. Ok literally I just misread a caption that said “Lord Vader” as “Lord Voldemort” and I was very confused. Taking a second to say that I love this set of Snoke’s throne room. Been thinking it forever, but Kylo picking up the lightsaber off the ground and seeing the reflection in the smooth red floor is amazing. Kylo igniting the lightsaber through Snoke is amazing. Also, I typed “Ben igniting” before literally freezing for a second and being like “...ok that’s a lot to unpack” I guess when he does something good my brain thinks of him as Ben instead of Kylo. ALSO, arm #16 and #17, I love that Snoke’s arms were cut off too in true Star Wars fashion. And I am VERY excited to see this fight scene again. I told myself not to pause at all during the Kylo and Rey team up fight, but I paused literally a second into it because Binary Sunset yes.

And my idiot brother and my mom are texting in the family group chat so it’s popping up on my screen throughout this scene. Ugh.

All of these red knight weapons are so cool. And I forgot about the one that gets chopped up... Oh my god one is a sword that transforms into a whip. LOVE. IT. And I love the quick lightsaber ignite through the head. Love it. Woah how is there still 44 minutes? I remember this battle being much closer to the end. I was wondering when the red walls went away, but I rewinded and saw that they had been slowly burning away after Rey made something hit them. Nice touch.

Ugh my brother and mom will not stop texting.

“You have no place in this story.” Wow Kylo, harsh. Oh shoot I forgot about the lightsaber breaking until they started their Force tug of war with it. I’d always wondered what would happen if someone lightsped through something... I want to say that I realized what she was doing before they told us, but now I realize that they basically told us what she would do when the First Order guy said “they’re preparing to hyperspeed.” so I guess I just caught on to the obvious hints.

God that moment still gives me chills. The silence. The way it sort of goes black and white. The multiple angles. So good.

I know for a fact that I spent the rest of the movie from this point on with my hands over my mouth in a constant stake of shock/fear/anxiety. Oh BB8. Some people thought this was ridiculous. But I had just spent the last few months rewatching the prequels before seeing this, and compared to the stuff R2 does, BB8 clumsily controlling a walker is nothing. Oh how I love Gwendoline Christie. I FORGOT THAT WE SAW HER EYE IN THE MASK. I hope Phasma survived. She’s so awesome. Ok my quality is like horrendous right now so I’m gonna refresh. LOL I FORGOT ABOUT GENERAL HUGS NEARLY ATTEMPTING TO KILL KYLO. Oh I forgot how much I love Crait as a set location. OH AND THE ICE DOG THINGS! LOVE THEM! Poe petting BB8 when he comes back kills me. I like those space age two person laptops. “People believe in Leia.” *Binary Sunset plays* My heart. Ok for a second I was like “This first person camera is like a war movie” and then it turns and we see the trench and I’m like “...ok... ok fine but that was very literal.” The red footsteps. Just... guys this set is so AMAZING. Ugh, these red streaks of dust behind them are so amazing. And when Finn passes in front of the camera, it gets covered in the dust and blurs part of the lens. Just like the Rathtar goo in the Force Awakens. I wonder if that’s going to be like... the thing of the sequels. One shot that has the camera lens partially covered by something. Also, I just wasted time trying to figure out if there’s an official name for that or not... oh well. The winding stripes left behind as they weave around... just... amazing. YEAH! GO CHEWIE! GO REY! Oh my god I forgot about the porg roaring. “Oh, they HATE that ship!” I’M DEAD. Look at the salt and how it forms the crystals in the trench. I love it. I FORGOT ABOUT THIS SHOT OF THE CAVE FULL OF THE RED SALT. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. I remember when the trailer had the first shot of the gorilla walkers, and I didn’t notice at first that there were normal AT-ATs next to them, and then I realized these things were twice as big as AT-ATs and I was horrified. See, and now Poe has learned that you can’t always be a hero and is making a good decision. I forgot about Finn’s speeder literally melting as he gets closer. I don’t understand the people who were mad that Rose stopped Finn. I for one was HORRIFIED at just the thought of Finn dying this way and thankful she stopped him. “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” The kiss is pointless but I love the line and sentiment behind it. Oh god. Ok. Here come the emotions. Binary Sunset is playing. I was a wreck. And a little of Han and Leia’s Love Theme as she sees the dice. I remember actually noticing that in the theaters and half-sobbing. Oh god the forehead kiss. Oh and he winks at 3PO as he walks by. My heart. This is the specific shot of the gorilla walkers and the AT-ATs in a line that freaked me out. That shot of Luke standing up against all the First Order walkers and ships. Amazing. That shoulder brush though. Kylo’s so dumb, he literally just watched that lightsaber get destroyed, he HELPED destroy it. He should have known something was up, it couldn’t have been repaired that quickly. Purposeful shot of Luke’s feet not moving the salt. That Matrix back bend though. “I will have killed the last Jedi.” He said the title. Also, is that the only time it’s said? Because they say it a lot in Force Awakens but I don’t think so yet in this movie.. “And I will not be the last Jedi.” Ok so now it’s said again by Luke. Purposeful shot of Kylo’s shoe leaving a footprint as he runs to Luke. I’m pretty sure I probably shrieked when he tried to slice Luke in half.

I just now remembered that I’d actually kind of wondered if he’d be a Force projection or something when he first showed up. Because I’d just watched Return of the Jedi like a week earlier and saw Obi-Wan do it, so I wondered if Luke was doing it too. Especially when Poe said Luke was distracting the First Order. It passed my mind and was confirmed when Kylo couldn’t hit him. And here’s where I started to feel like my world was crumbling...

Oh god. My eyes are wet. It hurts. But when I watched it the first time, I really felt like my world was absolutely falling a part and ending forever while I watched Luke die. With the stupid binary sunset in front of him just like when he was a teenager and when he was a baby. One of the first things he ever saw was the binary sunset. I was like “This is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I’m not completely in pain and dying.” That shot from above of Kylo with the stormtroopers, mirroring a shot from the prequels of Ani. Nice. So do they still have that connection even if Snoke’s dead?

HEY! Hey. Those dice were still visible to Kylo even after Luke was dead... was Leia Force projecting them to Kylo? It wouldn’t take as much work as doing it to everyone else at once from lightyears away. One person, your son, would be easier. So maybe... maybe Leia’s the one continuing the projection of the dice. I’m gonna stick with that theory thanks.

Awww BB8 asked Rey about his antenna, just like when they first met. Remember when people were like “Are Poe and Rey gonna be a thing?!?!?” and of course I’d much prefer that over Reylo thanks. The books! Somehow, that obvious shot of the books goes over so many people’s heads. So many complaints about the books getting burned, when they literally show us that Rey saved them. I had never noticed the bunks in the Millennium Falcon either until I saw that video earlier, and I’m glad I got to actually see one in use since Rose is sleeping in one.

Oh GOD the entirety of the Resistance can fit on the Millennium Falcon... that is NOT good.

I LOVE the scene of the kids retelling the story of Luke. I must have already gone in depth about this 2 years ago, but I love it. Luke became a legend in the end. He didn’t necessarily want to be one, but he’s become one. It was exactly what was in the opening scroll, he restored the spark of hope. That subtle use of the Force by that little boy. With Binary Sunset playing. And I love that last shot of him holding the broom up like a lightsaber.

I nearly forgot that they put in “In loving memory of our princess, Carrie Fisher” at the end. That’s what got me to finally cry. 40 straight minutes of covering my mouth in anxiety, then feeling like my world was crashing down around me as Luke died. Having it dedicated to Carrie made me just start sobbing so hard. Watch that happen again tomorrow.

I remember when I left the theater, at first I was like “What if the boys is Rey’s brother?!” but then... I realized that a huge point of the movie went over my head for a second there.

The fandom got so caught up in figuring out who Rey’s parents are, whether it’s Obi-Wan or Luke or Leia or even Palpatine, that they were mad when Kylo said they were no one. But like... guys... not every single Force user is related to the Skywalkers or anyone else we already know. There were hundreds of Jedi in the prequels, because anyone can be Force sensitive. Obi-Wan’s parents were nobody, Qui-Gon’s parents were nobody, Mace’s parents were nobody. They didn’t come from long lines of Force users (at least in movie lore), BECAUSE THE JEDI WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE KIDS. The Skywalkers aren’t even a long line, it’s just 3 generations at this point. So literally none of the Jedi of the past came from powerful Force users (or at least from ones who got the chance to become Jedi) since that literally goes against the code.

Luke found at least 11 other Force sensitive kids to train alongside Ben, their parents were all definitely nobodies since he’s the last Jedi. Ben is an anomaly, Luke and Leia are anomalies, the Jedi don’t have kids! The fandom got so caught up in figuring out who Rey could be related to, that they forgot that for millennia the individual Jedi were not related to anyone.

Anyone can be Force sensitive. Anyone can be a Jedi. Rey is an example of that. That little boy is an example of that. That’s why I love that the little Force sensitive boy was the final shot of the movie. He was meant to reassure and remind us after the Rey parentage reveal that anyone can end up Force sensitive. They don’t need a famous/powerful parent. They can come from anywhere and be anyone. And I love that that’s the final note of this movie.

Some people were not reassured. Some people couldn’t handle the idea that Rey’s powerful just because she’s Rey, not because she’s someone’s daughter. She HAS to be related to someone to be that powerful, right? But every Jedi before her who was just as powerful wasn’t related to anyone, so why does she have to be?

ANYWAY! I was actually worried over the last 2 years that I’d rewatch The Last Jedi and not like it as much as I did in theaters. I still like it a lot. Even the Canto Bight scenes get redeemed by the costumes and the set being so amazing. But I love the message of don’t be a hero, this is bigger than just you. And I love the message that even if you’re “nobody” from “nowhere” you could still be Force Sensitive and you could still be a Jedi. I love Luke’s send off, I love that he does end up reigniting the spark and being a beam of hope again. I love it.

And I’m excited to see the Rise of Skywalker tomorrow.

#hope rewatches star wars #ignore me if you want

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emeraldspiral · 6 years ago

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Part 4 of my Thor rewatch thoughts:

The Jotenheim incident:

Heimdall says “You’re not dressed warmly enough”, but setting aside the fact that Loki and Thor can change their outfits into whatever they want, I always assumed they weren’t really affected by temperature since they don’t end up bundling up when they do go to Jotenheim, and can survive in the vacuum of space.

Did they pitch-shift Heimdall’s voice down? Why would they do that when Idris’s voice is already pretty deep?

Honestly, what even was up with Loki freezing in front of Heimdall? Was it part of his plan to make himself seem like Thor’s reluctant accomplice, or was he worried Heimdall had caught on to his plan?

Also, Heimdall doesn’t know for sure Loki can conceal himself from him until he goes to Jotenheim alone and Heimdall knows exactly where to look but doesn’t see him. But if Loki’s had this ability for a while, then surely Heimdall’s noticed that there have been times he tried to spot him and failed. So it’s not unreasonable for him to put two-and-two together and figure out that if Loki could sneak around behind his back, he might be able to conceal others from him as well. So I don’t think it’s fair to suggest, as I’ve seen others do, that Heimdall’s just always been prejudiced against Loki.

Really tho, the entire plot of this movie could’ve been averted if Heimdall had actually done his job. Imagine if the son of the South Korean president just waltzed up to the border and told the guards to open up the gate so he could punch Kim Jong Un in the face. Like, couldn’t they have had Loki do a Jedi Mind Trick or forge Odin’s signature on a fake permission slip or something to make Heimdall look like less of an irresponsible jackass?

The bifrost dome gives me deep body flashbacks to playing Riven in the 90s.

IMAGINE the conversation Heimdall would’ve had to have with Odin if his warning actually came to fruition. “Yeah, I knowingly transported your sons and their friends into enemy territory against your wishes and in violation of the tenuous truce you have with Laufey and they all died a horrible frozen death because I couldn’t bring them home without risking the security of Asgard. Hope Frigga’s baby-maker is still working because you’re gonna need a new heir ASAP to take care of Hela once your crusty-old ass kicks the bucket. You can handle delaying your Odinsleep and inevitable death another millennium-and-a-half until they’re old enough though, right?”

LMAO. One of the warriors says “We shouldn’t be here IMMEDIATELY upon landing. Like, doesn’t even wait for things to go sour. He got all the way down the bridge and through the trippy-space tunnel and then suddenly had second thoughts about 30 seconds too late.

“Your father is a murderer and a thief”. Wow, they were setting up that reveal since the beginning.

“You long for battle. You crave it. You're nothing but a boy trying to prove himself a man.” Okay, but Laufey’s not wrong tho.

Once again Thor, really not endearing yourself to me by telling Loki to shut up in just about the most disrespectful manner possible when he and Laufey are being completely reasonable.

I feel like I recall Laufey being pretty cold-blooded, and I guess he’d have to be to abandon Loki to die, but he’s honestly acting about as sensibly as Odin was before. He’s choosing to let Thor’s insolence slide to avoid war, rather than being eager to slay his enemy’s son even when it wouldn’t be the best thing for his people, as you’d expect a villain like him to do.

So here’s where it gets a little murky on what Loki was trying to accomplish. Like, he clearly set Thor up to go to Jotenheim and stir up trouble. But could he have predicted what happened after they arrived? Did he plan for Thor to start a fight and then chicken out and try to dissuade him when he realized they were outnumbered, or was he counting on being able to talk Thor down, thinking just the fact that they went to Jotenheim against Odin’s wishes would be enough to get him in trouble with their dad? At first I thought maybe the giant could’ve been an illusion Loki created to goad Thor into fighting. But no, that was a real giant, and Loki’s “damn” was a genuine reaction.

Also, Thor starting a goddamned war after Laufey very graciously offered to let him go scott-free because someone called him “Princess” is the epitome of not endearing me to this character. Neither does the line “At least make it a challenge for me!” Like, I thought it couldn’t get any worse than Superman beating the shit out of an ordinary human first thing after regaining his powers in Superman II, but Thor’s taking it to a whole other level. Like, he caves a guy’s face in with his hammer and says “That’s more like it!” Like, this isn’t a bar room brawl. People are dying and he’s loving it. He’s like a full-blown sadist. Also, Chris’s delivery of these lines sounds so much like “But I was going to Tosche station to pick up some power converters!”

Odin was absolutely right when he told Thor “You are unworthy of the loved ones you’ve betrayed”. Thor’s friends should hate his guts after this incident. He nearly got discount Westley from the Princess Bride and the rest of them killed. It makes no damn sense that they’re still all over his dick lamenting the unfairness of his punishment and trying to get him back when they have no evidence of Loki being up to anything.

Honestly, even if Loki felt bad about goading him into going to Jotenheim, Thor was still the one who chose to pick a fight instead of leaving peacefully. If I were Loki, I wouldn’t have even tried to speak up, cause Odin was saying nothing but the truth. I can’t tell if it’s a testament to Loki’s character that he loves his brother so much that even when he proves him entirely correct about not being ready for the throne (which was his whole plan all along) he still feels compelled to defend Thor, or if it’s a testament to how poor the writing is that they actually think Loki should feel bad and try to defend Thor, as if what Thor did wasn’t completely indefensible and he brought Odin’s reprimands upon himself. Loki may have provided the bait, but Thor didn’t have to take it.

I feel like 90% of the reason I, and everyone else, hate Odin is because of TDW, not this movie. Like, he seems level-headed enough with the wisdom he tries to bestow and he’s clearly distraught and on the verge of tears as he prepares to banish Thor. You can tell he’s disappointed and reluctant, but has to do his duty as king by giving Thor the punishment he absolutely deserves for his crimes. But in TDW he’s suddenly making a lot of bad decisions regarding how to deal with the Dark Elves and is absolutely stone cold toward Loki. He doesn’t show a hint of heartache over what his son has become or what he is duty-bound to do to him, and even seems to relish letting Loki know he’s essentially dead to him and he’s going to make the rest of his life as miserable as possible. I feel like this might’ve been done because they wanted Frigga to be the only one who hadn’t given up on Loki, so it’d be sadder when she died. But it had the side-effect of making it seem like Loki’s perception of being less-loved was a lot more valid than I think it was intended to be.

Thor has no way of knowing about the enchantment Odin put on the hammer because he wasn’t present for it, so how does he know later that the reason he can’t pick it up is because he isn’t “worthy” rather than just because he’s now mortal? Also, could anyone have picked up the hammer before, or was the enchantment always there and Odin just changed the conditions of what “worthy” was? Or could Thor have picked up the hammer before because he had his powers, but then couldn’t because he was stripped of them and reduced to mortal strength and only got the godly strength he need to be able to lift the hammer when the hammer deemed him worthy?

Also, how does making Thor mortal work exactly? Do Asgardians have some equivalent of the heart-shaped herb from Black Panther that gives them their superpowers or are they actually born that way and Odin can somehow suppress their super strength and other magical powers?

#thor #loki #heimdall #odin #thor 2011 #marvel #marvel comics #mcu

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lotorhasabuttcape · 7 years ago

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Star Wars Theory: Tosche Station

We all know the pivotal line from the beginning of the first Star Wars film, Episode IV: A New Hope, released Dec 27th 1977. It’s the first line Luke speaks, and one that’s stayed in our hearts forever: “But I was going to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”

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After this Luke’s Uncle Owen says Luke can “waste time with his friends later.” Now then. If Tosche Station was, as we’re supposed to believe, perhaps some sort of trading bazaar, why would Luke be “wasting time” if he was picking up some valuable electronics, like the mentioned power converters? But what if Tosche station was more than it appears?

What if Tosche Station was.... a gay bar? Hear me out: What even is a power converter? And why doesn't Uncle Owen want any? What if “power converter” was just slang for a hot gay man? The kind of person you’d pick up in a club.

I think I’ve made my case.

#luke sywalker #star wars #gay luke skywalker #tosche station #star wars a new hope #pick up some power converters #star wars theory #the truth #conspiracy #space is gay #uncle owen

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toschestationserver · 1 year ago

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TOSCHE STATION FIC EXCHANGE CLAIMING

In order to claim, please email [email protected]. First come, first serve. You can also DM us on Twitter over at @toscheserver or you can send us an ask here on Tumblr.

There is one slot for a writer and one for an artist.

Each individual may claim a prompt once. If any prompts remain open when claims have closed you may apply to be a pinch-hitter. Furthermore, you may only take on a second prompt if you've completed the first prompt.

You may begin claiming now. Claims will close at 11:59 PM BST on September 27th.

For a full list of rules, please click here.

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FULLY CLAIMED

Prompt: Finn teaching Poe how to use a lightsaber

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: General audiences

Comfortable with NSFW content: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Bickering

Deal-breakers: N/A

Claimed by a writer: Yes

Claimed by an artist: YEs

2. Prompt: Post-TROS, Rey sets up a home on the most lush-green planet she has ever seen.

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Teen and up audiences

Comfortable with NSFW content: No

I particularly enjoy: Fluff! Quaint slice-of-life type stories.

Deal-breakers: Cross-overs with another universe

Claimed by a writer: Yes

Claimed by an artist: No

3. Prompt: First interactions of Mace & Depa/how he became her master

Prompter age: Younger than 18

Rating of fic preferred: General Audiences (G): Suitable for all ages. Contains little to no disturbing, violent or sexual content, and no or mild bad language., Teen and Up Audiences (T): Suitable for those aged 13+.

Comfortable with NSFW content: No

I particularly enjoy: Queers (canon or hc), shatterpoint lineage, high republic, angst

Deal-breakers: One-sided jedi characterization, modern au

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

4. Prompt: After an exciting day where Luke was offered by multiple Knights/Masters to be their padawan, Luke has chosen. Luke experiences his first night as Mace Windu's Padawan in the Old Order. (The Jedi Order never fell and Palpatine is just dead for some reason, nobody cares about him)

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Overpowered Luke Skywalker, Master-Padawan Fluff

Deal-breakers: Jedi Bashing, Luke Bashing

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

5. Prompt: a character switches to the other side of the conflict they are in (ie. a nihil alles with the republic, an imperial defects to the rebellion, a loyalist becomes a separtist)

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: General audiences

Comfortable with NSFW content: Yes

I particularly enjoy: imperial defectors, mon mothma/tay kolma, the high republic (yes, all of it), anything to do with mon mothma ever

Deal-breakers: i will read literally anything so long as it is tagged properly

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

Prompt: Spot has been defeated. Due to extensive multiversal traveling because of cleaning up the last of the Spot’s shenanigans, Miguel O'Hara ends up in the GFFA and meets (Living Legend) Luke Skywalker. Miguel is immediately smitten and feels very hopeful in finally opening up to someone in a romantic interest again, something that Luke also shares 💖💖

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Mature (M): Suitable for those aged 18+. ..., Explicit (E): Only suitable for adults.

Comfortable with NSFW content: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Miguel being absolutely down bad for Luke, please. Feminine AFAB he/him Luke, if you can 💖💖

Deal-breakers: No gore, No Anti-Jedi bs, No Miguel being unnecessarily mean to Luke or treating him like a “Well, why not?” side chick, and top Miguel/bottom Luke preferable please.

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

Prompt: Han and Leia take little Ben to visit his grandparents (Ani n padmé) for the first time, both are a little nervous but everybody has a good time

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW content: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Alternative universe Modern day Au’s but cannonverse is cool too !

Deal-breakers: I’m not sure I have any? Not including Luke? He’s gotta be there too bc family

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

8. Prompt: "The stars have never looked so bright." Character views the world in a different (better) way when they embark on a new path.

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: General Audiences (G): Suitable for all ages. Contains little to no disturbing, violent or sexual content, and no or mild bad language.

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: Redemption

Deal-breakers: 1. Y/N 2. Whump 3. Excessive violence 4. 1st person

Claimed by a writer: Yes

Claimed by an artist: No

Prompt: Chewbacca takes Han to Kashyyyk to visit what remains of his tribe and family. Shenanagins ensue as Han has to navigate the cultural and social barriers set up as a human among wookiees.

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: Han adopting Chewie's mannerisms and body language as a result of living with him; any references to the Holiday Special (The Bacca household basically just being a '70s house cracks me up)

Deal-breakers: Chewie and other wookiees being treated like animals or pets, Han being written as an overly insensitive asshole, Han bashing in general

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

10.

Prompt: Each member of the Ghost crew's new beginnings with the crew... so perhaps flashbacks to Kanan's first mission with Hera, Kanan meeting Zeb, Sabine meeting them, etc...

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Teen and Up Audiences (T): Suitable for those aged 13+. ...

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: soft found family themes, kanan pining for hera, different perspectives

Deal-breakers: anything that has to be tagged with ao3 content warnings

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

11. Prompt: Scenes from Anakin and Obi-Wan early on in Anakin's training...Obi-Wan just out of the Trials, his master dead, and a little boy he has to take care of, and Anakin's struggles

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Teen and Up Audiences (T): Suitable for those aged 13+.

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: mentions of Qui-Gon, fluff and light angst, obi wan and anakin being silly

Deal-breakers: NO obikin or lead up to it or anything

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

12. FULLY CLAIMED

Prompt: Hera finds Leia alone on Home One in caged-off disquiet in the wake of Alderaan's destruction and the victory over Yavin 4. Family is a sensitive subject for the two of them, but for different reasons too.

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: Leia's connection to her parents and home on Alderaan being contrasted with the strain and disconnect Hera feels for Cham and Ryloth; acknowledgements of Leia's appearance in s2 of SWR

Deal-breakers: Han/Leia being portrayed as a toxic relationship, "Space Mom" being Hera's only defining personality trait, Jacen Syndulla's existence (sorry)

Claimed by a writer: Yes

Claimed by an artist: Yes

13.

Prompt: A brutal ending for a soft beginning

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Angst, can be Hurt/Comfort or No Comfort i prefer Anakin/Vader-centric or Luke-centric

Deal-breakers: If NSFW : Public Sex, Public Humiliation

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

14.

Prompt: Sometimes, new beginnings aren't for the best, even when you truly believe that it is

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Angst, can be Hurt/Comfort or No Comfort, prefer Anakin-centric (or Vader-centric) or Luke-centric

Deal-breakers: If NSFW : Public Sex, Public Humiliation

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

15.

Prompt: Moving to a new home and starting to bond with the community

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Found family

Deal-breakers: Non con, incest, underage relationships with adult, fantasy racism, homophobia, transphobia

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

16.

Prompt: Rey, Rose, Finn and Poe building a life together after the fall of the First Order; can be a (queer-)platonic situation or a ReyRose & FinnPoe one

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: (domestic) fluff, hand kisses, Jedi!Finn, found family, trans and/or genderqueer characters, Rey & Finn sibling dynamic, low-stakes action/adventure, mild wlw mlm hostilities

Deal-breakers: all archive warnings, cancer, podfic,

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

17.

Prompt: Finn/Poe pivotal relationship moment (e.g., declaration of love, proposal, wedding) in the style of the Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner wedding in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (i.e., big relationship milestone in the heat of battle) - movie scene for reference - https://youtu.be/EGE1Y_RwhPA

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Mature (M): Suitable for those aged 18+. ..., Explicit (E): Only suitable for adults.

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: angst, SW-universe

Deal-breakers: reylo

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

18.

Prompt: Rogue One survives AU. Luke is fascinated by Chirrut and views him as a source of answers to all his questions about the Force. But the wounds of Obi Wan’s death are still fresh, and he’s left with conflicting loyalties between his old teacher and a potential new one.

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: Chirrut/Baze, The exploration of faiths other than the Jedi, Rogue One and the Golden Trio becoming something of a “blended unit”

Deal-breakers: TBH I’m not sure what problems would arise from this aside from Luke maybe being portrayed as too naive. Other than that go nuts

Claimed by a writer: Yes

Claimed by an artist: No

19.

Prompt: Through some Force juju, General Anakin Skywalker and Commander Luke Skywalker switched places during the height of their wars. They now have to lead their new troops to victory, with Luke literally building a new beginning with all that he knows from his era, and Anakin forging a new end. Luke faces everything that was lost to him (the Jedi Order, his mother, a Republic - no matter how flawed), and Anakin faces the monster he becomes.

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Overpowered and highly competent Luke Skywalker, Luke-clones fluff, Luke-Jedi Order fluff, everybody loves Luke Skywalker tbh

Deal-breakers: Anti Jedi rhetoric, Luke bashing, babying Anakin

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

20.

Prompt: Han and Luke do some surveying around Echo Base. Trouble is, Luke’s first encounter with ice made the task a bit difficult. Han wished he had a holocam to capture some of his scrambling.

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: Banter. Lots of banter.

Deal-breakers: Skysolo (No hate if you ship, I just really like platonic bonding), treating Luke’s inexperience with other climates as stupidity

Claimed by a writer: Yes

Claimed by an artist: No

21.

Prompt: Luke in the early days of the rebellion

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Teen and Up Audiences (T): Suitable for those aged 13+. ...

Comfortable with NSFW: No

I particularly enjoy: Aunt Beru <3, Han and Luke (as friends), OT trio hurt & comfort, Luke and Biggs (as friends)

Deal-breakers: People acting like Owen Lars was a good father figure and minimising the fact he was abusive, people acting like Luke was a perfect guy, but also I hate Luke bashing. Nuance please!

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

22.

Prompt: Luke trying to be a teacher for the first time despite not having had a model teacher himself (Owen was an abusive ass, Ben died soon after they left Tatooine, and ESB Yoda was ESB Yoda.) Particularly his relationship with Ben Solo.

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Teen and up

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Angst, Han and Luke (as friends), OT trio hurt & comfort

Deal-breakers: People acting like Owen Lars was a good father figure and minimising the fact he was abusive, people acting like Luke was a perfect guy but also I hate Luke bashing. Nuance please!

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

NSFW PROMPTS BELOW THE CUT OFF POINT - DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE NSFW PROMPTS

NSFW PROMPTS

23. Prompt: Former Senior Padawan Luke (Trans/Genderqueer) is pregnant and has to adjust to a new life outside of the Jedi Order after he left his training. He decided to have his child in Naboo with his family, the Naberries. He's adamant not to reveal the father of his child (your choice how to resolve or why - either it was complicated or it was a Mamma Mia AU and he doesn't know who the father is among Boba, Din, and Paz lol)

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Mature (M): Suitable for those aged 18+. ..., Explicit (E): Only suitable for adults.

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Dinluke/Bobaluke/Pazluke or Luke Harem, Humor, Breeding Kink, Smart and Competent Luke, Besotted Mandalorian lover, marriage proposals

Deal-breakers: Jedi/Luke Bashing, OOC Luke (you know), Bottom Mandalorian/Top Luke, Bobadin/BobaPaz/Pazdin

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

24. Prompt: Din Djarin and his son Grogu (human or alien) is on the run from a dark past and bad guys. They seek sanctuary from (Trans/Genderqueer) Jedi Luke Skywalker who keeps them safe and gives them a new life in his Temple. Din and Luke quickly realize they have an undeniable attraction to each other and acts on it, but Din wants more than just a casual relationship.

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Mature (M): Suitable for those aged 18+. ..., Explicit (E): Only suitable for adults.

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Mommy Luke, Besotted Din Djarin, Overpowered Luke Skywalker, Dirty Smut lol go ham!!

Deal-breakers: Bobadin, Bottom Din/Top Luke, Thinking Love equals Attachment, Jedi/Luke Bashing

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

25. Prompt: Boba Fett and Trans/Genderqueer Luke Skywalker (or Luke Fett ?) prepare for their first baby. Boba is an excited father-to-be. (Can be AU.)

Prompter age: 18+

Rating of fic preferred: Mature (M): Suitable for those aged 18+. Explicit (E): Only suitable for adults.

Comfortable with NSFW content: Yes

I particularly enjoy: Obsessive/Besotted Boba Fett, breeding kink, Trans pregnancy, Mommy Luke

Deal-breakers: Anti Jedi Writer/Jedi Bashing (in-character sentiments are understandable to an extent- seeing it's Boba), Bobadin, Bottom Boba/Top Luke, Luke Bashing

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

26.

Prompt: the clones after the war in a no Order 66 AU suddenly finding themselves at the beginning of the rest of their lives; I love all clones (including the Bad Batch), take your pick; clone ships I like are Codywan, Rexwalker/Rexanidala, Quinfox

Prompter age: 18+

Comfortable with NSFW: Yes

I particularly enjoy: (domestic) fluff, found family, trans and/or genderqueer characters (including genderfluid/non-binary/etc.!!), clones accidentally acquiring pets, sweet gentle (and maybe a bit kinky) lovemaking

Deal-breakers: all archive warnings, cancer, x reader or x oc ships, podfic

Claimed by a writer: No

Claimed by an artist: No

#fic exchange #tosche station: new beginnings

8 notes · View notes

esandcasg · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 5 – River of Ice

The Godwin Antwi glacier spills down from the high range of the Karakoram mountains in the Himalaya. The snow and ice which flow from the mountainsides collect on the valley floor, forming a colossal, slow-moving river of ice, five miles wide at its widest point. By turns it is a cauldron of heat in the midday sun, reflecting light back upwards from its pure white colour; and relentlessly cold at night, a frozen wilderness. It was here, ten years ago, I had begun my slow trek home, shattered mentally and physically from my ordeal on Kangleong.

Ten years later than ten years ago, I never expected to be back here. Aside from Primark, it was the last place on earth I wanted to be. And yet, here I was, trekking poles in both hands, 120L bag over my shoulders, Step Into Christmas piped inappropriately into my ears via the rip-off Beats wireless earbuds I’d picked up in Nepal some years earlier.

Over a beer at the bar in Gerudo Town whose name I should look up in the last chapter but can’t be bothered, Adam and Ifan outlined the logistics of their plan. Their proposal was simple; find the missing section of the sixth route, the crux pitch, as we might have called it. The clear aim of destroying Kangleong was to prevent anyone from accessing the route, but Ifan and Adam had one advantage; they’d already found the Kangleong section anyway. The question was, where it went from there. In fact, you could even argue that there were two missing sections; one which led from Kangleong to the edge of the Himalaya and another which led into the Himalaya. But you can’t have two crux pitches so for the purposes of keeping my metaphor viable I’ll just pretend there was one missing section and deal with the other bit later somehow. Maybe you’ll forget it exists, or more likely I probably will.

Anyway, where was I? I was on the Godwin Antwi glacier, that’s where. But I was also delving back into the mists of time to that bar in Gerudo whose name I should look up.

I don’t know what was motivating me to follow Ifan and Adam on a trip that I fully expected to be dangerous or, even worse, uneventful. Maybe it was concern over Adam’s mental health; maybe it was a chance to help Ifan solve the mystery of Adam’s own disappearance. Maybe it was to help capture Sir Henry Craven, apparently known affectionately as ‘John’ by his family. Or maybe it was a chance to find something I’d lost.

But in truth I’d given up searching for my old iPod Nano years before. I had established a good life for myself in Nepal. My spartan wooden hut, one floor, two rooms and a roof, had provided me with the serenity that I did not know I needed. The balance with my environment was something I had only even found on climbs. Despite the various routes I had pioneered on rock, I hadn’t realised why I climbed, believing that, as I mentioned in a section of Vertical Summit definitely not stolen from the 2003 drama-documentary ‘Touching the Void’, I climbed because it was fun. In truth, I now knew I climbed to find some sort of balance with the world. That balance had only even become apparent when I moved to my Nepalese hut.

Shortly after they had laid out their plan, I returned to the hut. I knew it could be for the last time. As I went downstairs to my basement and opened the chest which contained my climbing gear, I had a flashback to wearing it on Kangleong. I could also swear I heard a voice saying “Andrew; these are your first steps”. Carefully I laid out all my gear, meticulously checking over each inch to ensure it was all in top condition. Methodically I began to pack my 150 litre backpack, slowly placing in each item of my inventory which it is probably wise not to itemise here in case I need to change it later on. Lastly I placed what I called my ‘Juju’ box in the small pocket of the bag’s lid. This was a metallic box containing things close to my heart; a rib, a layer of cholesterol and the 4k reissue of Leon/The Professional.

My bag packed, I sadly took one long last look at my home before switching on the alarm and locking the front door behind me. Generously I had turned over stewardship of my vegetable garden to the rest of the village; they would soon enjoy a bumper crop of patty pan squashes and kohlrabi, as well as cut and come again salad crops.

I’d agreed to meet Adam and Ifan in the centre of town, next to Tosche Station, where we’d begin the long journey to the Karakoram. I hopped onto my moped, donned my helmet, and looked back at the hut behind me. I just had the strangest feeling; like I wasn’t going to see it again. Reluctantly I turned my back on my home, switched on the moped, listening for a moment as the 120cc beast ticked over, before opening up the throttle and roaring away from the village at a breathless 17mph.

Eight hours later I had covered the twelve miles to Tosche Station; ironically it was somewhere I’d always intended to go to pick up some power converters. Adam and Ifan were waiting for me there.

“You’ll have to sell your moped,” said Adam.

“That’s okay,” I said, trying to project some enthusiasm that I didn’t feel. “I’m never coming back to this town again.”

The local cantina wasn’t too far away and it didn’t take me long to find a punter willing to part with hard cash or pastry goods for my moped. Given the amount of money I suspected we’d need I was horrified I couldn’t get a better price. I showed the paltry amount to the other two.

“He says it was the best he could do. Since the XP-38 came out, they're just not in demand.”

“It’ll be enough,” said Ifan. I noticed what seemed like some tension between the two of them, but decided against saying anything. There would be plenty of time for chat on what I knew would be a long and arduous journey.

The traditional well-trodden route to the Karakoram range was now a simple one. Would-be climbers and trekkers would fly into Kathmandu and then take a bus to Ja’hansell Skwair outside Gerudo Town. There, at the local airfield, they would normally charter a plane to take them on an hour’s flight before an easy parachute drop to Broad Peak base camp.

We would be doing things differently, however. Flights and bus journeys require manifests, passports, travel documentation; all would be logged on databases. Whilst Adam and Ifan would be able to use assumed names, it would be difficult to use assumed faces; therefore running the risk that someone, somewhere, would realise they weren’t dead and pull down the large statue to Ifan in Princes Risborough, as well as potentially letting Craven know. If he didn’t already.

So we would have to travel on foot; normally a thirty day journey across valleys and mountains, though we were hoping our high level of physical fitness would let us get it done in only twenty-nine. Each of us carried a 230lb backpack over our shoulders; we could not rely on Sherpa help for this, and were too snobbish to recruit High Altitude Porters as we’d only ever heard bad things about them on check-a-trader. It would be us, and us alone. Having gathered our things together, hoisted our bags onto our backs and had one last fry-up in the Saucy Sailor, we set off, away from the town and into the hills. In front of us was a magnificent vista, although this would soon give way to Windows 7. We could see a deep, lush green valley laid out in front of us, patches of smoke rising from smallholdings dotted about the hillside. Local yak herders tended their flocks. The Goraks, Himalayan ravens (as well as being the name of the covers band I had been in for the last two years), flew lazily above our heads. Lifting our eyes we looked beyond the valley and the hills to the horizon, where the edge of the Himalaya mountain range could be seen, rising majestically above the greenery, like field mushrooms behind baby spinach in my fridge’s salad drawer.

We headed north-west, towards a small group of hills I christened a small group of hills. We knew that on the other side was a less well-known pass into the mountains; one ignored by the trekkers due to the severity of the traverse, known locally as the traverse of the gods. The path would take us down into the valley, to a mere 3000ft above sea level; then back up another 4000ft; down a further 2000ft and then up to a dizzying 24000ft where we would encounter our final port of call before the Himalaya proper: Ha’ow Bazaar. As tradition would demand, we would make an offering at the Buddhist Temple and ask for a blessing, assuming someone was in.

Although we had a long journey ahead of us, and therefore plenty of time for classic bants, I again got the impression there was some sort of tension between Adam and Ifan. Adam was striding ahead, impatient to be at our initial destination as quickly as possible. This in fairness wasn’t new, but there was something unspoken about the way he had marched ahead without a word. I hung back a little, hoping to chat to Ifan, but he wasn’t in the mood either.

I walked on my own, a little distance from both of them, alone with my thoughts. It was easy to be consumed with the path ahead of me. And not just the metaphorical path, I had to be careful as it had rained recently and was muddy. But the metaphorical path was my main focus. Ever since I had returned to my hut there had been a melancholic finality about all my actions. In truth, I knew I was saying a long goodbye, though to what I didn’t know. Everything I was doing felt like it would be the last time. In a sense, I felt this journey was closing a door behind me. Whatever happened, I knew that I would no longer be able to return to the life I had.

I looked up at the distant, snow-covered peaks on the far horizon. For so long they had dominated my destiny. For a while I had resisted, pretending there was another life for me. But I knew that I had been fated to return. I knew that there was a circle I needed to close, a hole I needed to fill, a bathroom wall I needed to grout. Whatever answer I was missing, it would be there, in the Karakoram. I was drawn inexorably to these mountains, my destiny entwined with theirs. I started to realise what it was I had to do.

Suddenly I realised both Adam and Ifan had stopped in their tracks.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

And then I saw.

A vast plume of smoke was rising lazily above a hill ahead of us. The hill looked close – maybe six or seven miles away – but was probably further.

“Ha’ow Bazaar?”

“Ha’ow Bazaar.”

The temple was clearly aflame. We couldn’t be sure what had happened, but it was clear that in Adam and Ifan’s collective hive mind there was an obvious culprit. Craven. Without another word they turned and started heading upwards, to the west, away from the valley and the route we had planned to take.

“Does he know we’re coming?” I asked as I traipsed behind them.

“Don’t know,” came Ifan’s terse reply. “It may be a coincidence.” He looked at Adam; it was clear neither of them believed that.

We walked for an hour, heading steadily upwards, until we reached the top of the main ridge overlooking the valley. The night before, Adam had shown us the possible routes we could take towards the Karakoram and had listed potential places we could stop. We knew that at the top of this ridge there was a Subway, so we each got a footlong and sat underneath a rocky outcrop. From where we were seated we could see the plume of smoke even more clearly.

We sat in silence for a while, as Adam and Ifan ate unhurriedly and I caused myself unnecessary indigestion by wolfing my food down as soon as possible. Finally I broke the silence.

“What now?”

Ifan shook his head. “We can’t use the pass. That much is crystal clear. We can’t use anything known to anyone, it doesn’t matter how hipster and obscure it is.”

“What does that leave us with?”

Ifan shrugged his shoulders.

I took a swig of my bottle of Fanta Zero. “So what do we do now? Turn back?”

“Turn back!” scoffed Adam. “There’s no turning back. We’re through the looking glass now people. Black is white and white is black. We have to assume Craven knows we’re coming.”

“But how?”

“The first thing you should know about him is he has people everywhere,” explained Ifan. “The network is vast. This is someone who has been operating out of this part of the world for decades, provided employment for thousands. This is his back yard. There’s huge loyalty to him.”

“He clearly knows something is going on,” continued Adam. “He’s levelled Kangleong and now is trying to stop access to the Karakoram. Whether he knows we’re after him specifically is irrelevant, really. We’re going to have to find another way in.”

“But won’t he have got all the passes covered? If he’s got most of Nepal loyal to him like you said, it wouldn’t that difficult to have someone watching.”

Adam nodded, but there was a far-off look in his eyes that I remembered from ten years previously.

“The Gasherbrums.” He said, finally.

Ifan’s head turned sharply.

“What?”

“The Gasherbrum traverse.”

I felt a chill sweep over me. Suddenly, I realised I was only wearing a string vest and quickly took out my microfleece from my 260lb backpack before being able to contemplate what Adam had just said.

“The Gasherbrum traverse?” I repeated pointlessly.

Ifan shook his head ruefully. “That’s insane.”

Adam grimaced. “Can you think of another way?”

Like other keen students of mountaineering, I’d heard of Messner and Habeler’s famous traverse of Gasherbrum I and II in 1984. It was a huge feat of climbing prowess by two climbers at the top of their game. What I didn’t understand was how repeating this traverse would help us at all. These two mountains were nestled in the middle of the Karakoram range and wouldn’t afford us a way in.

“I’m all for a new challenge,” I said, “but how’s that going to get us into the mountains in the first place?”

“Not that traverse,” replied Ifan, still shaking his head. “Traversing the entire Gasherbrum range. Nine mountains. All above six thousand metres. It’s a knife edge ridge, running up and down for, I dunno, thirty miles? Think Crib Goch, but with worse parking.”

“Has it been done?”

“Never. No-one has even tried.”

“That’s why it’ll work,” said Adam. “It won’t even be considered a route. Or at least a safe one.”

“Well it’s not safe is it? There’s a reason it’s not even been tried. They’re not exactly easy peaks; maybe a couple of them are. The rest are technical climbs. Nine in a row? And, add to that, we know that someone working for Craven is able to send avalanches down at least one of the slopes of Gasherbrum Four.”

“Well if anyone has any better ideas, feel free.”

“There’s got to be another way in, surely?”

There was a moment of silence, before Ifan spoke again.

“There isn’t,” he said.

I felt the metallic taste of adrenaline in my mouth. Looking down, I realised I’d accidently bitten off the zip to my fleece. I spat it out, watching it tumble down the slope and inadvertently set off a mudslide which killed seventy farmers.

Was I really about to embark on another perilous mountaineering undertaking, one that had never been achieved previously, in the company of two sexy men who I didn’t even know I could trust? The deep sense of fatalism which had settled over me unsettled me, if that makes any sense. I still wasn’t convinced with either Adam or Ifan’s motives, but I was already getting Air B’n’B bookings for my hut now and didn’t want to forgo what looked like a tasty income stream. So I was all in.

I slotted a round into the chamber of my rifle and slammed the bolt home. “Let’s do this,” I said.

We packed up our items, making sure to separate our lunch waste into the appropriate rubbish bin, hoisted our 140L backpacks over our shoulders and set off. After three miles of walking along the top of the ridge, we stopped at The Drunken Clam for a cheeky pint, a wee, and to put on our crampons. Ahead of us was a turn to the north-west. We had reached the snowline.

I put on my belay jacket, overtrousers, double boots (plastic outer, foam lined inner) and all the rest of the crap I can’t be bothered to list here, and watched silently as Ifan and Adam did the same. I started to shiver, put on a woolly hat and then stopped shivering. But the shaky feeling remained. Within a short while we were dressed as we were ten years before.

Here I was again. Facing my demons on the snow and ice, though it was probably unfair to describe Ifan and Adam in that way. But facing them I was, as they were walking in front of me. The crampons of my right boot crunched into the snow. I stopped and looked up. I knew that the next step I took would be a point of no return. I knew I was following them into the abyss. I knew that I needed another metaphor to complete this paragraph.

But on I went anyway. Into the abyss.

#Vertical Summit 2

0 notes

junker-town · 5 years ago

Text

We drafted basketball teams made up of ‘Star Wars’ characters. Which is best?

Was the Force with any of us as we made our picks?

A short time ago in a galaxy very close to here, the Skywalker saga reached its conclusion with the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Episode IX maybe the finale of the series’ third movie trilogy, but it’s far from the end of Star Wars as we know it, thanks to the limitless runway Disney+ offers and the overwhelming desire for nostalgia that is Hollywood today. (Give it a decade before we get the beginning of another movie trilogy). But it still marks a pivotal turning point for those of us invested in the saga.

So to celebrate, five diehard sports and Star Wars fans came together to do something (long pause) truly special: draft a five-man basketball team to take down a crew of alien ballers hiding out in the Unknown Regions.

There will be a substantial reward for the team who defeats these invaders. Managers were free to use any draft methods necessary, but we want this to be a fair fight. No superteams.

So, we laid out some important ground rules:

Only one Force-wielder — i.e. Jedi, Sith, etc — per team.

Only one droid per team. (Though one of the teams doesn’t have a droid).

Each team must possess at least one sentient alien. Unlike the Empire, who looked down on non-humans, we don’t discriminate.

All Star Wars canon can be considered, and by all, we mean all. (No Legends canon, though). Because of that, we made use of lots of characters from the many animated shows, The Mandalorian, and other side projects. We took this very seriously.

We’re building an actual basketball team, so chemistry matters. As the old basketball saying goes, there’s only one thermal detonator.

Those guidelines — particularly the one limiting everyone to just one force user— made for a fascinating draft. Here’s how it played out.

Allow everyone to explain themselves.

The Slamdoshans (Tyson Whiting)

PG: Ahsoka Tano (Force user) SG: L3-37 (droid) SF: General Grievous PF: Bossk (alien) C: Sarlacc COACH: General Armitage Hux

With the guidelines in place for the draft, I wanted to make sure I picked a team with players who would bend the rules as much as possible.

Some might find it “unfair” that I have two lightsaber-wielding players on my team. To be clear, Grievous may have lightsabers, but he is not a Force user. Plus, though he is mostly machine, he is technically of the Kaleesh race, therefore making him an alien pick. (My masters degree in Star Wars is already paying off). His four arms and ability to turn into a weird spider thing has the potential to surprise opposing players.

I was criticized at the time for choosing Ahsoka Tano over a Skywalker as my Force user, but she was trained by Anakin Skywalker, so she knows all his moves. She’s a great leader and showed her craftiness in tight situations during the Clone Wars.

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L3-37 and Bossk are my sleeper picks of chaos. L3 will-trash talk you into submission, though I might have a problem with her on Twitter. I picked up Bossk’s nasty 7-foot-tall ass because he will walk through you, hissing and spitting while he does. I also assume he has incredible ball control with those three-finger hands.

So the Sarlacc. I know what you’re thinking: yes, I AM a genius. Sure, he (it?) can’t move, set a pick, or really leave the ground in any way. But stick this bad boy under the net and you’ll never surrender a layup or rebound EVER AGAIN.

Also Coach Hux will hit you so hard with those pregame speeches that you’ll have no choice but to win.

Tosche Station Power Converters (Caroline Darney)

PG: Cassian Andor SG: Lando Calrissian SF: The Mandalorian PF: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Force user) C: Chewbacca (alien) COACH: Orson Krennic

Look at this perfect squad. Getting Chewbacca with my first-round pick (No. 2 overall) was clutch, and his big frame will dominate in this league. Anakin/Vader was a steal in the fourth round, and this is Rogue One peak-condition Darth Vader. His rage may lead to some bad fouls, but he’s been instructed not to force choke the refs.

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I decided to lock down a pair of sharpshooters on the wings in the form of Lando Calrissian (Solo’s Donald Glover version) and the Mandalorian (affectionately known as Mando). They can run off of screens set by either big man (seriously, the screens are going to be so beautiful), and are both catch-and-shoot players. Mando’s inability to take his helmet off could get in the way at times, but his support of Baby Yoda makes it all worth it. Also, imagine the fits Lando will wear walking into the arena before the game. The capes! So many capes and furs!

To bring it all together, I needed the ultimate team player running the point. Enter Rogue One’s Cassian Andor. Quick, resourceful, and full of the intangibles coaches love, Andor is the perfect distributor for this squad. He doesn’t care about personal stats, but he will come through in the clutch if he has to get a last-minute bucket.

I know there may be questions about Director Krennic running the squad, but he’s here solely for the perfect quotes. Just imagine: when the defense is lacking, Krennic can hit them with “Are we blind? Deploy the garrison!” When my team wins the title, you can already hear him saying, “As we stand here amidst MY achievements.” Or, if his job is in question, hitting ownership with “your concerns are hardly warranted.”

But let’s be real. Vader is the player-coach of this team.

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Dooku Blue Devils (James Dator)

PG: Yoda (Force user) SG: Greedo (alien) SF: Boba Fett PF: K2-SO (droid) C: Rathtar COACH: Watto

How did they sleep on this roster? The fools. The intergalactic fools. I’ve got Yoda running the point as my Muggsy Bogues-esque hero and distributor. I wanted my Force user touching the ball every single possession, and this was the best way to do it.

From there, I wanted to lock down the paint. I have some big basketball beasts as my enforcers. K2-SO is 7’1, and Rathtar has as astonishing 20-foot wingspan thanks to its tentacles, which will be too much for most teams to overcome.

The secret to my team is Greedo. I needed offense, and everyone knows his love of shooting first. (Editor’s Note: Please strike the end of that sentence from the record). If he needs to be kept in line, I have complete faith in Boba Fett’s “game respect game” bounty hunter familiarity.

Finally, I picked Watto to be my coach because I want a merciless cheater.

Project Harvester (Mike Prada)

PG: Bo-Katan Kryze SG: Sheev Palpatine (Force user) SF: IG-88 (droid) PF: Captain Phasma C: Jabba The Hutt (alien) COACH: Grand Admiral Thrawn

My toughest decision came in the first round. Do I wait on picking my Force user and build up the rest of the team, or do I just bite the bullet and take the most powerful being in the galaxy, personality issues and all? In the end, I gave in to my hate. Talent trumps character.

After that, I couldn’t take any good guys because there’d be obvious philosophical clashes. Jabba’s ego makes him a risky pick, but I’m gambling that he’ll be fine protecting the paint if Palpatine gives him a few post touches. IG-88 and Phasma are quality 3-and-D wings that’ll take on the tough assignments, and Thrawn is a master tactician who has the star’s trust. Point guard was tricky, but Bo-Katan has the versatility to play a secondary role while not being afraid to challenge the star if he steps slightly too far out of line. (I hope she has more respect for Palpatine than she did for Maul in Clone Wars).

Palpatine will take all the shots, which isn’t ideal. But hey, it works for the Rockets.

The Bombads (Russ Oates)

PG: R2-D2 (droid) SG: Rey (Force user) SF: Jar Jar Binks (alien) PF: Cara Dune C: Wampa COACH: Admiral Ackbar R2-D2 is the true hero of the Star Wars saga and always knows what to do in a tight spot. He’d be an excellent floor general on the court. While she is new to the Force, Rey keeps picking up points and has been able to disrupt the First Order’s offense. Cara Dune is a former New Republic shock trooper, so yeah, she’s going to grab all the rebounds. Better watch out for the claws on the Wampa, or you’ll be sorry. Admiral Ackbar can spot a trap by the opposing team.

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Y’all can hate on the Jar Jar Binks pick if you want. I’ll accept the creative destruction he will cause on the court.

Which team are you taking to address this looming threat in the Unknown Regions? Vote in the poll below. The winner gets the full bounty. The loser is stuck with a bunch of useless tracking fabs. (Click here if you can’t see the poll).

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flyguy · 7 years ago

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New Images & Details For Star Wars The Black Series 6″ X-34 Landspeeder and Luke Skywalker figure...

Hasbro updated their site with this info:

Luke Skywalker was just a farm boy from Tatooine before beginning his training to become a Jedi. Though he would eventually sell his X-34 Landspeeder in order to buy passage aboard the Millennium Falcon, for much of Luke’s youth, this civilian vehicle was his only transport between his homestead and outposts such as Tosche Station and Anchorhead, as well as the Jundland Wastes, Dune Sea, and beyond.

Imagine Luke cruising across the barren deserts of Tatooine with this 6-inch scale X-34 Landspeeder and Luke Skywalker figure. Designed for ultimate collectability and display, the X-34 Landspeeder and figure feature movie-real design and detailing. The Luke Skywalker figure features multiple points of articulation, while the X-34 Landspeeder vehicle includes a clear stand for display. Collect all Star Wars The Black Series figures, vehicles, and more to expand and enhance any Star Wars collection! • Includes: figure, vehicle, stand, and 5 accessories. • 6 -inch-scale, Star Wars The Black Series X-34 Landspeeder and Luke Skywalker figure • Collector grade quality figure and vehicle with authentic, movie-accurate detail • Includes 5 character-inspired accessories and artifacts • Premium packaging and design • Includes clear stand for display • Expand and enhance Star Wars collection • Figure scale: 6 inches Item will be available to order on 8/14/2017. Limit of 2 per household

H/T to Yakface for the link

#star wars #black series #six inch #luke skywalker #sdcc #landspeeder #FLYGUY #FLYGUYtoys

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gloriousgwendolinechristie · 8 years ago

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Definitive Preview

VANITY FAIR – Star Wars devotees who can’t wait for December need look no further. With exclusive access to writer-director Rian Johnson, plus interviews with Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, and others, V.F. presents the ultimate sneak peek at The Last Jedi—and Carrie Fisher’s lasting legacy.

I. “We’re Going Back?”

The first trip to Skellig Michael was wondrous: an hour-long boat ride to a craggy, green island off the coast of Ireland’s County Kerry, and then a hike up hundreds of stone steps to a scenic cliff where, a thousand years earlier, medieval Christian monks had paced and prayed. This is where Mark Hamill reprised his role as Luke Skywalker for the first time since 1983, standing opposite Daisy Ridley, whose character, Rey, was the protagonist of The Force Awakens, J. J. Abrams’s resumption of George Lucas’s Star Wars movie saga. The opening sentence of the film’s scrolling-text “crawl,” a hallmark of the series, was “Luke Skywalker has vanished.” Atop Skellig Michael, at the picture’s very end, after an arduous journey by Rey, came the big payoff: a cloaked, solitary figure unhooding himself to reveal an older, bearded Luke, who wordlessly, inscrutably regarded the tremulous Rey as she presented to him the lightsaber he had lost (along with his right hand) in a long-ago duel with Darth Vader, his father turned adversary. It was movie magic: a scene that, though filmed in 2014 and presented in theaters in 2015, is already etched in cinematic history.

The second trip to Skellig Michael? Maybe less of a thrill for an aging Jedi. Contrary to what one might have reasonably expected, that Abrams would have kept rolling in ’14, recording some dialogue between Luke and Rey in order to get a jump on the saga’s next installment—especially given that Skellig Michael is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with access limited to the summer months, and only when the weather is cooperative—once Hamill and Ridley had nailed their epic staredown, that was a wrap. It fell to Abrams’s successor, Rian Johnson, the director of The Last Jedi, the eighth movie in the saga, which opens this December, to painstakingly re-stage the clifftop scene, with the two actors retaking their places more than a year later.

“When I read the script for Episode VIII, I went, ‘Oh my God, we’re going back?’ Because I said I was never going back,” Hamill told me when I sat down with him recently at his home in Malibu. He wondered, in vain, if they could drop him in by chopper this time, “which is so clueless of me, because there’s no landing pad, and it would mar the beauty of it all,” he said. Hamill is a youthful 65 but a sexagenarian nevertheless; whereas the fit young members of the crew were given 45 minutes to get up to the now iconic Rey-Luke meeting spot—carrying heavy equipment—Hamill was allotted an hour and a half, “and I had to stop every 10, 15 minutes to rest.”

None of this was offered up in the form of complaint. Hamill just happens to be a rambling, expansive talker—in his own way, as endearingly offbeat a character as his friend and on-screen twin sister, Carrie Fisher, who passed away suddenly and tragically last December. Like Fisher, Hamill was put on a diet-and-exercise regimen after he was reconscripted into the Star Wars franchise. (Harrison Ford was under less obligation, having retained his leading-man shape because he never stopped being a leading man.) Over a spartan snack plate of carrot sticks and hummus, the man behind Luke held forth at length on this subject.

“You just cut out all the things you love,” he said. “Something as basic as bread and butter, which I used to start every meal with. Sugar. No more candy bars. No more stops at In-N-Out. It’s really just a general awareness, because in the old days I’d go, ‘Well, I’m not that hungry, but oh, here’s a box of Wheat Thins,’ and you don’t put the Wheat Thins in the same category as Lay’s potato chips, and yet I would sort of idly, absentmindedly eat these things while watching Turner Classic Movies, and ‘Oh, I ate the whole box!’ ”

Hamill had been dieting and training for 50 weeks before he learned, via the Episode VII script he finally received from Abrams, that he would not appear in the movie until its last scene, and in a nonspeaking part at that. On this, too, he has a lot of thoughts. Though he grants that the delayed-gratification reveal of Luke was a narrative masterstroke, he’d have done things differently if he’d had his druthers. Han Solo’s death scene, for example. Why couldn’t Luke have made his first appearance around then? In the finished film, the witnesses to Han’s death, at the hands of his own son, the brooding dark-side convert Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), are his longtime Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca, and the upstart Resistance fighters Rey and Finn (John Boyega).

“Now, remember, one of the plots in the earlier films was the telepathic communication between my sister and me,” Hamill said. “So I thought, Carrie will sense that Han is in danger and try to contact me. And she won’t succeed, and, in frustration, she’ll go herself. Then we’re in the situation where all three of us are together, which is one of my favorite things in the original film, when we were on the Death Star. It’s just got a fun dynamic to it. So I thought it would have been more effective, and I still feel this way, though it’s just my opinion, that Leia would make it as far as she can, and, right when she is apprehended, maybe even facing death—Ba-boom! I come in and blow the guy away and the two of us go to where Han is facing off with his son, but we’re too late. The reason that’s important is that we witness his death, which carries enormous personal resonance into the next picture. As it is, Chewie’s there, and how much can you get out of [passable Chewbacca wail] ‘Nyaaarghhh!’ and two people who have known Han for, what, 20 minutes?”

Still, Hamill recognizes that the popular response to The Force Awakens—its stirring ending in particular—was overwhelmingly positive, his misgivings be damned. “As I said to J.J.,” he recalled, “I’ve never been more happy to be wrong.”

Besides, holding back Luke in VII means that Hamill gets a lot more screen time in VIII. And dialogue. This time, at last, Luke Skywalker talks.

II. A Long Way from Tosche Station

Rian Johnson, a sandy-haired, baby-faced 43-year-old Californian heretofore best known among cinéastes for his time-bending 2012 science-fiction film, Looper, is not only the director of Episode VIII but also its sole credited screenwriter. (Episode VII was written by Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt.) Earlier this spring, in a screening room in the Frank G. Wells Building at Walt Disney Studios, in Burbank, California, Johnson described to me the approach he took to writing The Last Jedi, the second film of the Rey-centered trilogy. “J.J. and Larry and Michael set everybody up in a really evocative way in VII and started them on a trajectory. I guess I saw it as the job of this middle chapter to challenge all of those characters—let’s see what happens if we knock the stool out from under them,” he said.

As it is, none of the main characters in The Force Awakens emerged from that picture in what can be described as a triumphal state. John Boyega’s Finn had been gravely wounded in a lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren. In a telephone interview from China, where he was filming Pacific Rim: Uprising, Boyega told me that, as teased in The Last Jedi’s first trailer, his character, Finn, begins the new movie in a “bacta suit,” a sort of regenerative immersion tank that, in the Star Wars galaxy, heals damaged tissue. Adam Driver, alluding both to Finn’s state and the scar seen on his own face in the trailer, told me, “I feel like almost everyone is in that rehabilitation state. You know, I don’t think that patricide is all that it’s cracked up to be. Maybe that’s where Kylo Ren is starting from. His external scar is probably as much an internal one.”

Johnson was surprised at how much leeway he was given to cook up the action.

But Johnson, in drawing up his screenplay, decided to raise the stakes further. “I started by writing the names of each of the characters,” he said, “and thinking, What’s the hardest thing they could be faced with?”

At the top of Johnson’s list: Luke Skywalker. When he was last glimpsed in Lucas’s original trilogy, at the end of 1983’s Return of the Jedi, Luke was basking in victory and familial warmth, reveling with Princess Leia Organa, Han Solo, and their rebel compatriots at a celebratory Ewok dance party. Turning away for a moment from the festivities, he saw smiling apparitions of his two departed Jedi mentors, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, along with his late father, Anakin Skywalker, restored to his unscarred, un-Vadered form after redeeming himself in death, sacrificing his own life to save his son’s and slay the evil Emperor Palpatine.

You’d have expected Luke to have shortly thereafter found a nice girl and settled into a contented existence on a tidy planet with good schools and dual sunsets, no more than a couple of parsecs from the Organa-Solos and their little boy, Ben. But no. Leia and Han’s romance didn’t last, and something heavy went down with twin bro. The result: the cloak, the hood, and monastic isolation of the damaged, Leonard-Cohen-at-Mount-Baldy variety.

So what happened to Luke? What we know from The Force Awakens is that he had been running some sort of Jedi academy when “one boy, an apprentice, turned against him, destroyed it all.” These are the words that Han Solo, prior to his death scene, offers to Rey and Finn—the inference being that the boy was Han and Leia’s son, and Luke’s nephew, Ben, the future Kylo Ren. “People that knew him best,” Han says of Luke, “think he went looking for the first Jedi temple.”

That part of Luke’s legend, Johnson confirmed, is accurate. The site of Rey’s Force Awakens encounter with Luke is Ahch-To, the temple’s home planet, which bears a striking resemblance to southwestern coastal Ireland. Though their time on Skellig Michael was brief, the Last Jedi crew returned to the area for additional shooting on the Dingle Peninsula, a ragged spear of land that juts out into the North Atlantic. There, Johnson said, the set builders “duplicated the beehive-shaped huts where the monks lived on Skellig and made a kind of little Jedi village out of them.” Luke, it transpires, has been living in this village among an indigenous race of caretaker creatures whom Johnson is loath to describe in any more detail, except to say that they are “not Ewoks.”

That Luke is so changed a person presented Johnson with rich narrative opportunities. The Last Jedi is to a large extent about the relationship between Luke and Rey, but Johnson cautions against any “one-to-one correlation” between, say, Yoda’s tutelage of young Luke in The Empire Strikes Back and old Luke’s tutelage of Rey. “There’s a training element to it,” he said, “but it’s not exactly what you would expect.” This being the spoiler-averse world of Lucasfilm, the production company behind the Star Wars movies, that’s about as specific as the director is willing to get. (No, he won’t tell you if Luke is related to Rey, or, for that matter, what species the super-villain Supreme Leader Snoke happens to be, or which character the title The Last Jedi refers to.)

But Johnson was happy to talk about Hamill’s performance, which, he said, “shows a very different side of the Luke character.” In the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke was the de facto straight man, playing off Ford’s rascally Han and Fisher’s tart, poised Leia, not to mention the droid comedy tandem of C-3PO and R2-D2. Hamill? He was cast for his sincere mien and Bicentennial-era dreamboat looks—part Peter Cetera, part Osmond brother. He still catches grief, he noted, for one particularly clunky line reading in the first movie, when Luke responds to his Uncle Owen’s order to polish up their newly purchased droids by complaining, “But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!” Though his approach to the line was, he swears, deliberate—“I distinctly remember thinking, I’ve got to make this as whiny and juvenile as I can,” he said—Hamill admitted that his greenness as an actor left him with “somewhere to go later, where I wouldn’t make those kinds of choices.”

In his years out of the spotlight, Hamill has flourished as a voice actor, most notably playing the Joker in a series of animated Batman TV shows, films, and video games. He performs the part with a demented brio and an arsenal of evil laughs ranging from Richard Widmark manic to Vincent Price broad—a far cry from the gee-whiz wholesomeness for which he is best remembered.

Oscar Isaac, at 38 the senior member of the core cast’s “new kids” (Driver is 33, and Ridley and Boyega are in their mid-20s), is old enough to remember as a child revering Luke Skywalker. “So to be there, and to watch Mark revisit Luke, particularly in these scenes we were shooting towards the end of the film, was bizarre and jaw-dropping,” he told me. “It’s like when you see an old band re-unite and go on the road, and they don’t quite hit those high notes anymore—though in this situation it’s completely the opposite. It’s the fulfillment of where your imagination would take you when you imagine where Luke would go, or what he’s become.”

III. Significant New Figures

On the Disney campus, I sat in on a postproduction meeting in which Johnson was reviewing some scenes from The Last Jedi. Teams from Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm’s visual-effects division, were videoconferencing in from London, San Francisco, and Vancouver. On a big screen, Poe Dameron, Isaac’s heroic X-wing fighter pilot, was back in action, coaching a gunner named Paige, a new character played by a Vietnamese actress named Veronica Ngo. Another scene featured General Hux, the nefarious First Order commander played with spittle-flecked relish by Domhnall Gleeson.

Johnson loved what he was seeing but noted the presence of some “schmutz”—smudges around the edges—on the starcraft window that Hux was looking out of. “I don’t know, does the First Order not keep its windows clean?” he asked. “Did you guys play it that way before?”

He raised the question more deferentially than critically (and Ben Morris, the movie’s London-based VFX supervisor, said it would be no problem to de-schmutzify the pane). Until The Last Jedi, Johnson had never overseen a picture with a budget above $30 million. But the director betrayed no sign of being overwhelmed. He is a gifted filmmaker whose previous movies, especially Brick (his 2005 debut) and Looper, are visually distinctive and intricately plotted, the assured work of a cinema-drunk U.S.C. film-school grad who, in preparation for Episode VIII, steeped himself in World War II movies like Henry King’s Twelve O’Clock High and “funky 60s samurai stuff” like Kihachi Okamoto’s Kill! and Hideo Gosha’s Three Outlaw Samurai.

The anointment of Johnson as Episode VIII’s overseer is emblematic of the direction in which Kathleen Kennedy has taken Lucasfilm since she assumed the presidency of the company, in 2012, the same year that George Lucas, who had personally recruited her to take his place, sold the company to Disney. Though she reached out to Abrams, a proven wrangler of blockbuster series (Mission: Impossible, Star Trek), to initiate the current Star Wars trilogy, Kennedy has since picked filmmakers whose résumés are less important than whether or not she is a fan of their work.

Kennedy cut her teeth as a Steven Spielberg protégée—in the early 80s, when she was not yet out of her 20s, he entrusted her with producing E.T.—and now she, too, is keen on giving relative unknowns their big chance. Johnson was someone she’d had her eye on for years, she told me, admiring “how deliberate he is in his storytelling and the way he moves the camera.” The final film of the trilogy, due in 2019 and for the moment assigned the simple working title Episode IX, will be directed by Colin Trevorrow, who did not yet have the big-budget feature Jurassic World under his belt when he crossed Kennedy’s radar; he came to her attention via his first feature, the 2012 indie comedy Safety Not Guaranteed, and a recommendation from her friend Brad Bird, the Pixar auteur.

Part of what makes Lucasfilm’s new system work is that Kennedy has set up a formidable support structure for her filmmakers. Upon her arrival, she put together a story department at Lucasfilm’s San Francisco headquarters, overseen by Kiri Hart, a development executive and former screenwriter she has long worked with. The story group, which numbers 11 people, maintains the narrative continuity and integrity of all the Star Wars properties that exist across various platforms: animation, video games, novels, comic books, and, most important, movies. “The whole team reads each draft of the screenplay as it evolves,” Hart explained to me, “and we try, as much as we can, to smooth out anything that isn’t connecting.”

What the story group does not do, Hart said, is impose plot-point mandates on the filmmakers. Johnson told me he was surprised at how much leeway he was given to cook up the action of Episode VIII from scratch. “The pre-set was Episode VII, and that was kind of it,” he said. If anything, Johnson wanted more give-and-take with the Lucasfilm team, so he moved up to San Francisco for about six weeks during his writing process, taking an office two doors down from Hart’s and meeting with the full group twice a week.

Among Johnson’s inventions for The Last Jedi are three significant new figures: a “shady character” of unclear allegiances, played by Benicio Del Toro, who goes unnamed in the film but is called DJ by the filmmakers (“You’ll see—there’s a reason why we call him DJ,” Johnson said); a prominent officer in the Resistance named Vice Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern; and a maintenance worker for the Resistance named Rose Tico, who is played by a young actress named Kelly Marie Tran (and who is the sister of Paige, the character I witnessed in the scene with Poe Dameron). Tran’s is the largest new part, and her plotline involves a mission behind enemy lines with Boyega’s Finn, the stormtrooper turned Resistance warrior.

Rose and Finn’s adventure takes them to, among other places, another Johnson innovation: a glittering casino city called Canto Bight, “a Star Wars Monte Carlo–type environment, a little James Bond–ish, a little To Catch a Thief,” the director said. “It was an interesting challenge, portraying luxury and wealth in this universe.” So much of the Star Wars aesthetic is rooted in sandy desolation and scrapyard blight; it appealed to Johnson to carve out a corner of the galaxy that is the complete opposite. “I was thinking, O.K., let’s go ultra-glamour. Let’s create a playground, basically, for rich assholes,” he said.

Canto Bight is also where viewers will get their multi-species fix of gnarled aliens and other grotesque creatures, a comic-relief staple of Star Wars movies since Luke Skywalker first met Han Solo amid the cankerous and snouty inhabitants of the Mos Eisley cantina. The Last Jedi is dark enough as it is, so Johnson has made a point of infusing the movie with levity. “I didn’t want this to be a dirge, a heavy-osity movie,” he said. “So one thing I’ve tried really hard to do is keep the humor in there, to maintain the feeling, amid all the heavy operatic moments, that you’re on a fun ride.”

IV. Sister Carrie

Daisy Ridley has her own tale to tell of Skellig Michael. Part of the reason she looks so convincingly weary at the conclusion of Episode VII is, she said, “that I had just vomited. I had adrenal exhaustion, and I was very, very sick.”

The second time up the cliff, she was in good health and pleased to be re-united with Hamill. But the overall making of Episode VIII proved more psychologically fraught. “When I was doing Episode VII, I was kind of being washed along in a torrent of excitement and unexpectedness,” she said. “When we came around to do the next one, it was a bit more scary, because I knew the expectations, and I understood more what Star Wars means to people. It felt like more of a responsibility.”

The conflation of real-life and character narratives is not lost on Hamill.

Fortunately for Ridley, she had become acquainted with a woman who knew a thing or two about such issues. There was no human being on earth better equipped to shepherd Ridley through what she was experiencing, as both the star of a movie franchise and a feminist model to young girls, than Carrie Fisher. “Carrie lived her life the way she wanted to, never apologizing for anything, which is something I’m still learning,” Ridley said. “ ‘Embarrassed’ is the wrong word, but there were times through it all when I felt like I was … shrinking. And she told me never to shrink away from it—that it should be enjoyed.”

This is a common refrain among the new generation of Star Wars actors: that Fisher was the one who taught them how to deal. Boyega recalled that when there was a backlash against his appearance in the first Force Awakens teaser trailer, released in November 2014—the sight of a black man in stormtrooper armor drew ire from racists and doctrinaire Star Wars traditionalists—Fisher counseled him not to take it to heart. “I remember—and forgive me, I’m going to drop the f-bomb, but that’s just Carrie—she said, ‘Ah, boohoo, who fuckin’ cares? You just do you,’ ” he said. “Words like that give you strength. I bore witness in a million ways to her sharing her wisdom with Daisy too.”

Fisher had a bigger role to play in The Last Jedi—General Leia Organa logs significantly more screen time in Episode VIII than she did in VII. Isaac, who filmed several scenes with Fisher, said that, like Hamill, she delivered a rich performance, giving her all as an actor, rather than treating Leia’s part as an exercise in feel-good sentimentalism. “We did this scene where Carrie has to slap me,” he said. “I think we did 27 takes in all, and Carrie leaned into it every time, man. She loved hitting me. Rian found such a wonderful way of working with her, and I think she really relished it.”

For his part, Johnson quickly formed a deep bond with Fisher as a fellow writer, spending long hours with her at the eccentric compound she shared with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, in the Coldwater Canyon section of Beverly Hills. “After I had a draft, I would sit down with her when I was working on re-writing,” he said. “Sitting with her on her bed, in her insane bedroom with all this crazy modern art around us, TCM on the TV, a constant stream of Coca-Cola, and Gary the dog slobbering at her feet.” (For visuals on this characteristic state of affairs chez Fisher, I highly recommend Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens’s HBO documentary, Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.)

Fisher completed her part in Episode VIII late last summer, when principal photography on the film wrapped. “She was having a blast,” said Kennedy. “The minute she finished, she grabbed me and said, ‘I’d better be at the forefront of IX!’ Because Harrison was front and center on VII, and Mark is front and center on VIII. She thought IX would be her movie. And it would have been.”

When I was conducting the interviews for this story, the Star Wars family was still mourning Fisher’s unexpected death, which occurred on December 27, 2016, four days after she suffered a heart attack on a flight home to Los Angeles from London, and just a day before Reynolds suffered a fatal stroke. (The Star Wars “family” includes family in the literal sense: Fisher’s daughter, the actress Billie Lourd, appears as a Resistance lieutenant in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.) Fisher had celebrated her 60th birthday just two months earlier.

“Out of everyone, Carrie was the one I really became friends with and expected to have in my life for years and years,” said Johnson. “I last saw her in November, at the birthday party that she threw at her house. In a way, it was the perfect final, encapsulating image of Carrie—receiving all her friends in the bedroom, with Debbie holding court in the living room.”

Fisher’s death doesn’t change anything about The Last Jedi except make it more poignant: the film farewell of both the actress and the character. But it does change Episode IX, for which, as Fisher hoped, a central role for Leia had been planned. Kennedy, Trevorrow, and the Lucasfilm team have been compelled to swing from grieving into pragmatic mode, working out how to reconceive the next film in the saga, which is scheduled to start shooting in January.

One option that is not on the table is to reanimate Fisher’s Leia via C.G.I., as was briefly done in Rogue One, last year’s stand-alone, non-trilogy Star Wars film, created when she was alive. More extensively in that film, Grand Moff Tarkin, a character played by the late Peter Cushing in the first Star Wars movie, was brought back to life using C.G.I. jiggery-pokery and motion-capture technology that involved the use of an actor who physically resembles Cushing. Plus, Lucasfilm had the Cushing family’s consent. However, said Kennedy, “we don’t have any intention of beginning a trend of re-creating actors who are gone.”

V. A Disturbance in the Force

Mark Hamill, for all of his agreeable loquaciousness, winced when I brought up Fisher’s death.

“I can’t say that phrase, what you just said: Carrie’s name and then the d-word,” he said. “Because I think of her in the present tense. Maybe it’s a form of denial, but she’s so vibrant in my mind, and so vital a part of the family, that I can’t imagine it without her. It’s just so untimely, and I’m so angry.”

Their 40-year relationship truly was sibling-like, Hamill said, rife with affection and squabbles, though their earliest time together mirrored, to some degree, Luke and Leia’s uncertain early dynamic in the movies. In The Empire Strikes Back, the film before the film in which they learn that they are twins, Leia plants a big smackeroo squarely on Luke’s lips—not far off, Hamill said, from their reality as young co-stars. Working on the first Star Wars movie, “we were really attracted to each other. We got to the point where we were having our make-out sessions—and then we pulled back,” Hamill said. “A great way to cool any amorous feelings is laughter, and Carrie had this sort of Auntie Mame desire to find humor in everything. We also realized that, if we did this, everything would fundamentally change. It’s the When Harry Met Sally plot—can we still be friends after intimacy? Wisely, we avoided that.” (Hamill has been married to his wife, Marilou, since 1978.)

Ridley says, “Carrie lived her life the way she wanted to, never apologizing.”

Working together on the new trilogy gave Hamill and Fisher a chance to rekindle their benignly rancorous brother-sister dynamic. Both were staying in London, commuting distance from Pinewood Studios, where most of the non-location scenes of Star Wars movies are filmed. They held a competition to see who could get to a million Twitter followers first. (Hamill won; “I told Carrie, ‘Part of your problem is you write in these impenetrable emojis.’ Her tweets looked like rebus puzzles.”)

And, being the ages they were, they discussed mortality. “We got to talking about one of our favorite scenes in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which is when Tom and Huck go to their own funeral, and they’re up in the balcony, hearing their own eulogies,” Hamill said. “So then I said, ‘Look, if I go first, just promise me you’ll heckle my funeral.’ And she went, ‘Absolutely, if you’ll do the same for me.’ ”

The constant conflation of the Star Wars cast’s real-life and character narratives is not lost on Hamill, who inadvertently caused a kerfuffle last year during an appearance at the Oxford Union Society, when he described Daisy Ridley as “roughly my daughter’s age, and that’s how I relate to her.” As he knows from experience, sometimes the conflation is quite valid. Losing Fisher really has been like losing a sister.

Which speaks to the emotional resonance that has powered the saga from the start. “When you look at the stories themselves, they’re about personal tragedies and losses and triumphs,” Hamill said. “It’s all part and parcel of the same thing.”

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Definitive Preview was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline

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emptymanuscript · 7 years ago

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So, let’s tackle openings a little. Openings are hard. And the advice for them is kind of an annoying mishmash. “Open with a bang” And how do you make a bang in a leisurly historical epic? “Start as close to the action as possible” Well how close is that? “Grab your readers with the first sentence and never let them go.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The first thing you’re going to have to understand about openings is that you will almost certainly rewrite it. I changed extremely little in my opening scene for H&M and still rewrote it maybe 6 or 7 times. So, don’t sweat it too much at the beginning. You can come back and fix it when you know what it has to do better.

So what does an opening have to do? It has to set up questions that will be relevant to the rest of the story. It has to engage the reader (Don’t worry I’ll come back to that). It has to set up how the universe of the story stands at default and suggest how that is malignant. Ideally, but by no means always, it should set up part of how we will judge success or failure at the end. Often, but definitely not always, it introduces us to the characters we’ll be following. And if you get through all of that, the problems with your particular opening probably can’t be answered by general advice. Which is where you want to be. Every halfway decent story is a unique problem.

Ok, Questions: what questions do you need to set up? Some of the what if questions of your story. You can think of it like dominoes, the questions put at the start of the story are the ones whose answers will lead to the next set of questions in the book. Think of it like a funnel. At the beginning there are many possible answers but you’ll be narrowing it down to one answer that will kick off the next question. However before you even start the opening, prior questions have already funneled down to this moment. What genre is this story? What are the main stakes (life v death, love v lonliness, success v insignificance, etc)? And I would strongly recommend your MICE quotient, will the point of the story be to primarily illustrate a place, an idea, a character, or the events? Now why those three? Because those are the three things your reader should be the least in the dark about and things you can put on the cover before a reader ever starts reading. But they can also be reflected in the questions that you have in your opening. You can set up those choices to set up new questions.

An example. In 11/22/63 Stephen King opens with the line “I have never been what you’d call a crying man.” Before reading that line I knew that this was a book about time travel, so sci-fi-ish; that the stakes are going to be arranged around the assassination of JFK, since the papers from two outcomes are all over the cover and JFK was assassinated on 11/22/63. The MICE Quotient, no way for me as a reader to know yet. But I got a good inkling I’m reading a character story from that first line. Because it sets up who? is the MC and the very first question is why? isn’t he a crying man. What’s the difference between the crying and the non crying man? What possibility for exception to this ‘rule’ am I going to run into? Note that these are mostly character based questions, so that’s how it is molding my expectations. And there is the implied connection. What does being a crying man have to do with 11/22/63? All these questions are implied after having read only one line. And you can see how they are already narrowing what the story can be about, setting up the tumblers of new questions to be about this person and their emotions rather than about time travel, even though we know time travel is coming. Which gives the next question, how? will time travel illuminate his emotional inner world.

Stephen King is very good at this. JJ Abrams is very good at this. But it all comes down to setting the stage in such a way as to provoke some subconcious curiousity. Which is one of the ways you engage a reader. Set up some questions, give some answers, and hopefully you’ve got the reader willing to ride along for a little while.

Moving on. What else engages the reader? Tension. Tension is the engine that drives story. And it is incredibly hard to rev up to even a decent speed, let alone full speed, from word one. It’s very easy to make it all seem too melodramatic if you go right for it. Myself, I say go for the melodrama better too much than too little but that’s kind of a fringe opinion. Instead, think about getting up to speed or just shifting the momentum of a large object. It takes time but you’ve got to start. You need, even at the beginning, some amount of tension between the possibilities of the story. These can be implied like with the 11/22/63 opening, don’t cry, should cry. Which immediately grows into a sort of professionalism vs humanity when he is grading the paper of someone who clearly isn’t up to snuff but who evokes his sympathy. These are small stakes and low tensions but you can already see it growing. This is why you’ll see advice about mirroring the the main conflict in some kind of miniature in your opening. By having the small stakes, small tension, moments and then building them up you give the illusion of the story accelerating, and accelerating in one chosen direction.

Ok, I admit, it isn’t just tension that engages readers but it is the easiest thing to control. Beyond curiosity which I already mentioned there is the “cool” factor. This is whatever sense of wonder or fascination you can give to a story. It seems to me that audiences actually have profoundly little patience for the “cool” factor. Especially in the beginning. You’ve got about a paragraph to be “cool.” And it’s one of those things that holds a lot more power deeper in the story than it does at the opening. This is one of those things we can’t steal very well from movies. You can steal it a little, if you’re sure your audience is going to find it ultra cool. But not very much. So use with caution.

There are two types of the hero’s journey. They are deeply related. They are obnoxiously referred to as the Male and Female journey. Which I just have to let go of. This is me living with it even though it is wrong to classify them that way. One of the things that both types have in common is that there is an ordinary world, the way the universe has defaulted to being for them, and there is a flaw in that ordinary world. In some way the ordinary world is incapable of continuing to nourish the hero. In the male journey this is often pretty simplistic, the ordinary world isn’t capable of protecting itself and the hero has to take on that role. In the female journey this is usually more toxic, the ordinary world is a (gilded) cage designed to keep the hero in and the hero must escape. Neither of these events happen in the beginning but the shadow of those truths are in the beginning. They’re part of the tension by illuminating how the ordinary world is malignant and presenting that in contrast to the wellbeing of the main character. You’re hinting at why this state of affairs can’t last. And this is really the hint to where you begin. You begin in the ordinary world as the flaw in it starts to reveal itself. This gives you enough time to establish what the ordinary world is like while setting it up to break in the immediate future. My favorite bit in movies that does this is in the original Star Wars (the definitional male journey for our age) where Luke and his uncle argue about Luke going to the academy and Luke whines that he’s going nowhere and goes out to watch the twin suns set. It’s visually striking and you can see that he isn’t content to stay in his normal world, he is so discontent that something is going to have to give. But that’s not the first time we see that conflict. We have the shadow of it when Luke whines about going to Tosche Station, luke wants to do one thing and his uncle says later, after important things. Even in the very first scene where we meet Luke, his desire to be elsewhere from the dull world of moisture farming is right out in the open. It’s a small tension, a small flaw, but it’s there from his first scene.

Finally (I can hear you cheering) there is helping with the victory condition itself. This is a lot of how the satisfaction of openings and endings happen, when you can feel the long arm of the opening at the end. If we start with someone not being a crying man and end with him either a deeply emotional man, an emotional wreck, or someone so walled off from his emotions that he’ll never cry again, it will ring completest. Even if crying isn’t mentioned in the end. What it shows is that the conflict of the tale was present from the beginning and we have passed from the shadow of it, to the struggle of it, to its final disposition. “We’re doomed. There’ll be no escape from the Princess this time.” is something like the fourth line in Star Wars. And Leia is front and center in the alternating shots between the rebels and Tarkin who is trying to blow her up. So Luke is in many ways the answer to this early question: how will the Princess escape? How will doom be averted? In the middle of the movie, Luke helps save Leia from the Death Star but it’s only a temporary reprieve, she’s not really spared from that doom until the Death Star explodes. It’s gone through a lot of iterations and motivations but part of what makes the ending feel right is this line in the opening. So think about how you want your story to resolve, or just the final conflict, and put a shadow of that in your opening.

And I will shut up now.

#creative writing #writing advice #unsolicited advice #god oh god why can't i shut up and say something short for once?

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