#you like saw gerrera the most radical rebel?

[sleepymarmot]

After an entire season of Andor it’s still not clear to me whether its writers are aware of the deleted scenes from ROTS or consider them canon. They do know that Mon Mothma basically founded the Rebellion together with Bail Organa, before the Republic ever fell? They know that, right? In retrospect it’s bizarre how Luthen and Kleya treat Mon more like a money faucet than like a senior co-conspirator who’s been in this fight for longer than they have, and I can’t tell who’s being mean to her: the characters or the writers. 

Initially I was assuming that Mon had been keeping touch with Bail in the background, and we weren’t shown that because the show prefers to avoid the major characters from the Skywalker saga... But seeing how thoroughly Cassian’s backstory has been retconned, I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe the writers decided Cassian hadn’t been rebelling the entire time, and Mon hadn’t been rebelling the entire time, and the only one who’d been doing anything useful these past 15 years was not any one of the established rebel characters but their new fun OC. And then some other writer will come along with their own retcon and declare that well, actually, Luthen hadn’t been doing anything worthwhile either, and the circle will start anew.

[rotzaprachim]

totally forgot that not only was jyn’s famous whole “i’ve never had the luxury of political opinions” line said. under interrogation. which is when, point blank, people lie. but it’s also in reference to the rebels specifically wanting to use her to locate her foster father’s rebel cell that on the very least they are on poor terms with. 

and that immediately afterwards cassian says “really? when was the last time you were in contact with saw gerrera?” which is you know immediately calling her the fuck out on it being a lie. when was the last time you were in contact with the leader of the rebel cell even more radical than we are? 

i don’t think jyn was lying to protect saw, specifically, but i do think it’s a key moment of the Well Why Would a Character Lie To THe Audience Meme of people maybe not stating their most literal beliefs ever, and the rebellion versus partisans pressure points here are fascinating. i think jyn has a very messy relationship with saw, but whatever she feels towards him i think there’s an unease about what the rebellion would like her to do to the partisans specifically

[jaigeye]

everyone is forgetting that saw gerrera was taught by anakin and obiwan (white) lol

i do take some issue with sw writers plopping characters of color into villain/antagonist/not working with the ‘heroes’ role and the fans making incredibly racist memes, i just wanted to point out the fact that he was already on the edge of being a radical and anakin’s presence and training shoved him over the edge along with the death of steela. as a nonwhite person who has seen their own friends radicalized in Very similar ways, i dont think there’s anything necessarily wrong with how he’s being portrayed. i think he’s a good mirror of real life circumstances. the problem inherently lies with the fans, although again as i said it has disappointed me that fascinating, complex characters who are also poc or poc coded (barriss, saw, Reva, for some examples) are mishandled by sw writers and fans.

I think you're misunderstanding me here. Sure, it's a good point that yes, Anakin and Obi-Wan played a role in his life, but I don't think TCW is even a significant enough piece of media to base judgment of his character off if; Rogue One is where he really began to take shape as the character he is, not just a one-off arc character that was quickly forgotten. The nature of the clone wars anthology style is that unfortunately most characters motivations and actions are molded or influenced by the main trio, so I don't know if that argument holds up, although it is an interesting one I hadn't thought about.

My argument is not that characters of color cannot or should not ever be villains... Yet I would strongly disagree with categorizing him as an antagonist. Even in Rogue One he felt like a sort of indelicate attempt to show the political complexities of the Rebellion. That is both where my praise and issues with his writing begin.

Isolated, he himself is a very nuanced and interesting character. Placed in a space with the other Rebel leaders, however, it quickly becomes frustratingly clear that the only Black leader of great significance in the plot, on the same level of narrative importance as Mon Mothma, is a politically radical and aggressive Black man, plagued by delusions of victimhood/paranoia. This is as some might say, not cool. Imagine a sheet of paper with all the rebels and imperials on it. Who are the aggressive, intense characters who are ruthless? (Outside of Andor, because although flawed I feel they did a better job,) that list would include Saw Gerrera, Reva, and Moff Gideon. The good, harmless Black characters? Finn. Jannah, with a few minutes of screentime. Maybe Lando, but he too is always sidelined and we don't get a really good look at his motivations or character. Who else? There are others, but none with enough plot significance to really make up for this imbalance. Plus, a lot of those characters die.

If he were one among many Black Rebel leaders of varying political mindsets, I think my personal gripes with his writing could be resolved more. (However, Black fans opinion here would matter more than mine.)

The basic thing is that Star Wars writers do not know or care about your friends. They don't seem particularly tapped into the political realities of young radicalized minorities right now. We have to be more serious and objective here than this.

Their points of reference were most likely Che Guevara and Malcolm X, so on and so forth. i could handle that under certain circumstances. Andor did a pretty great job portraying him. The Rogue One book did a good job. Then the animations get their hands on him and, as is kind of inherent to the nature of kids shows, they have to pick someone to make the bad or scary decisions to show kid viewers that actually, changing the world through any means possible is a bad thing, and that you should usually use your words, be polite, and not be aggressive or demanding like these ~scary~ people performing direct action. Why did TBB and Rebels choose to take the one Rebel Black guy and make him try to win by putting children&other marginalized people at risk and using explosives and shit? in a real life context, when we focus on the motivations of the writers and not the content of the character, it gets concerning. It is not all, but many of the writers. It is not all, but I'd say most of the fans. The problem is a pretty big one. When u write him in such a way that people r blaming him for character's deaths and accusing him of parental abuse, the writers did something wrong too, not just the fans

Saw Gerrera is one of my all time favorite characters in star wars, because I think he's fascinating and full of potential. But it's really important to be objective about the inequalities in writing here, and pay attention to the way the very few Black characters in a narrative are portrayed.

[jyndor]

I'm seeing too many people be wayyy too reactive to some people's critiques of how the show is handling Cassian and yeah I get it because most of the criticism of the show has been dumb and xenophobic and racist and so I understand why people may be protective (fuck I'm protective of Cassian and the show) but let's not act like this isn't a deviation from Cassian Andor's characterization in Rogue One. Let's cut the shit and acknowledge that this is a change and a subversion of expectations, whether you like it or not. I'm tired of saying it at this point but since I guess people don't understand that many of us are not actually looking for him to be some perfect rebel soldier white knight, we want the grit and the mess and a lot of what the show is doing but not necessarily in this way.

I think it's just a matter of rejecting the premise they're presenting. I just don't love how it's all about showing Cassian things he should already know?

I don't think it's a matter of poor writing or not understanding where they're going or what the path is going to be - I get what they're doing, they're doing it superbly. I just don't agree with the premise that Cassian has to learn that revolution is good. I don't think that's appropriate for this particular character given what he says in Rogue One about his lifelong fight to a former child soldier. I think it's inconsistent with the intention of the film, to call out people who are for whatever reason sitting the revolution out (even if it's for trauma and exhaustion like it is for Jyn).

I feel like some people who are confused about why people are critiquing this choice by the showrunner and by the writers maybe don't get what we're saying. like guys I swear I understand what they're doing. it's effective - they're saying what they need to say in an intelligent grown way without talking down to the audience. I like that and I think that's why the show is so damn good. I repeat, I think it's the best show on TV. Period.

I know Cassian will grow into being the Cassian in Rogue One. Of course he will and I am sure it will be well done and satisfying and I hope they win fucking awards and praise and get hyped the fuck up. But I don't get why we are starting out with a Cassian who lives in relative comfort (although why he's living on a ship and not in the home he has with Maarva that seems relatively nice for the area I have suspicions but idk) compared to the girl who at the moment is LITERALLY HOMELESS because the cause abandoned her.

She was raised and radicalized by Saw Gerrera. That's her father, she's a fucking weapon - and her story is more appropriate for someone who has had to stay away from the organized cause for trauma reasons but is doing little important acts of Rebellion on her own (which she does). Wanna talk about personal acts of Rebellion? It works better through Jyn, someone who could choose Rebellion but who it wouldn't be forced on.

Whereas Cassian, as the show keeps saying, does not have the option to keep his eyes closed to fascism. So how did he do it from 16-21? And how can he - who has to know that Saw raised Jyn and therefore knows she was a child soldier if not that she was left behind - tell her that he has been in the fight since he was six???

It's inconsistent and believe me I've tried to make it work with Rogue One's characterization of Cassian but idk. How much clearer did he have to be? I'm sorry I don't think that's just headcanon of stans run amok. Trust me I want cassian to be messy and human and raw.

I am not being unfair, I know the show will take its time getting there and I love that! But the starting point feels wrong. It always has.

The intention of Cassian was as a mirror and a foil to Jyn. A mirror to Jyn because they both have a need to destroy the empire. A foil because while Jyn has been running from her true calling, Cassian has been fighting for revolution the whole time.

[cosmicmordecai]

No Saw Gerrera in LEGO SKYWALKER SAGA?

It never ceases to amaze me how much Star Wars media can treat its very few black characters. Despite having a very prominent status in Star Wars lore as among being the first rebel to the Empire, being trained in the art of warfare by beloved characters Rex and Anakin Skywalker, and being an elite fighter among the Rebellion, the character can’t shake not being given his due. He was also almost among the few characters with mastery in Teras Kasi, likely the first black character we would’ve seen using that martial art period.

Instead of having this elite Rebel leader and fighter who happens to be more radical & extreme compared to Bail Organa or Mon Mothma, we get THE EXTREME RADICAL nobody trusts. We get characters in the Rebellion’s leadership who write him off in-universe despite the fact he tends to be ACCURATE in various matters (intel) or portray themselves as more moral despite having been arguably as bad or worse (Agent Kalleus). This is the same character that is the Empire’s most wanted man who ISNT force sensitive & has deemed him a enemy combatant JUST after Palpatine took because he’s that much of a threat. He’s not even the only one in the Rebellion willing to use extreme methods yet he’s oddly singled out by their leadership. Yet he’s just the crazy guy to the Rebellion until it’s too late. It would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that white characters who have far less under their belt get treated better in-universe by the narrative than the one black character who tends to have more going for him when you talk about operating in any kind of warfare with the Empire. He gets written off as a terrorist radical.

It’s telling that a character who in his worse characterization killed children on screen, contributed to the enslavement performed by the Empire (despite being a slave himself), sanctioned the kidnapping of force sensitives of ANY age to be tools for the Sith can be a main focus in the LEGO but Saw Gerrera? Constantly omit the dude.

[aion-rsa]

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 1 Easter Eggs Explained

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This Star Wars: The Bad Batch article contains spoilers.

While the Star Wars Original Trilogy has been explored thoroughly for more than 40 years, the period between the Prequels and the Originals is less well-trodden. Following in The Clone Wars and Rebels‘ footsteps, The Bad Batch takes a deep dive into the rise of the Empire. This means we get to see familiar characters, planets, ships, and technology in a moment of transition, as a Republic becomes something more twisted and sinister in the hands of the Sith.

Unsurprisingly, “Aftermath,” which is directed by Steward Lee, Saul Ruiz, and Nathaniel Villanova, and written by Jennifer Corbett and Dave Filoni, is full of connections and nods to other parts of the Star Wars universe.

Here are all of the Star Wars easter eggs and references we spotted in this episode:

Caleb Dume/Kanan Jarrus

– Jedi Kanan Jarrus was introduced and starred in the animated series Star Wars Rebels, where he was a maverick Force-user fighting for the good guys while rediscovering what it means to be a Jedi in a time when they’re persecuted. His previous name, before he changed it to hide from the Empire, was Caleb Dume.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

– The character’s origin story was first explored in the 12-issue Marvel comic book series Kanan by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz. While “Aftermath” only gives us the very early part of this story, the comic series goes into way more detail about how Caleb eventually became Rebel hero Kanan Jarrus.

Interestingly enough, The Bad Batch‘s version of events is slightly different to the opening of Kanan. However, the broad strokes are the same, including the presence of his Jedi Master Depa Billaba. In the comic, Caleb, Depa, and their clone troopers are resting around a fire when the Order 66 call comes in, not fully engaged in battle as they are in The Bad Batch. In both, master and Padawan become separated such that Caleb doesn’t know what became of Depa, which enables an early plot point for Rebels.

– Kanan is once again voiced by well-loved Star Wars voice actor Freddy Prinze Jr.

Omega

– Since she was first introduced in the trailers, mysterious new clone character Omega has been the subject of much speculation. Is she a new kind of clone? Does her name signify that she’s the final clone? No to the latter, since we see Tarkin examining a lab growing more clones in the episode.

But what we do know is that she’s the last of the enhanced clones. Like Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, and Crosshair, she was born a bit different, and we see that she’s ostracized by the other clones for it. The episode also suggests that Omega’s “genetic mutation” might be something the Kaminoans are trying to keep a secret. On the surface, she is simply Lama Su’s “medical assistant.” The locket on her head contains something of importance, but we don’t yet know what is.

– Omega is voiced by New Zealand actor Michelle Ang, whom you’ve previously seen on Fear the Walking Dead, The Twilight Zone, and Xena: Warrior Princess.

Order 66 and Revenge of the Sith

– “Aftermath” overlaps with events first established in Revenge of the Sith. The episode mentions Obi-Wan Kenobi’s final fight with General Grievous on Utapau, and even recreates part of the scene where Palpatine creates the Galactic Empire. Based on this timeline, we know the first episode of The Bad Batch also takes place around the same time as the series finale of The Clone Wars.

– The episode also directly addresses Order 66 and its aftermath. Order 66, which saw the Clone Army turn on and exterminate their Jedi commanders, is one of the most tragic events of the Star Wars saga. We wrote way more about Order 66 and how it worked here.

– The inhibitor chips that force the clones to execute Order 66 and become more aggressive in the aftermath don’t affect Hunter, Tech, Echo, Wrecker, or Omega. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for team sniper Crosshair, who quickly turns into the villain of the episode, as he tries to first kill Caleb and later betrays his friends at Tarkin’s behest. These control chips were explored in season six of The Clone Wars. Clone trooper Fives discovered their true nature but was killed before he could foil Palpatine’s plan. Captain Rex and Ahsoka Tano also discovered the chips and removed Rex’s in the final arc of season seven.

Shaak Ti’s Lightsaber?

One of the darkest scenes in the episode happens when the Bad Batch arrive back on Kamino. As they’re walking through the halls of their base, a group of clones pass by carrying a stretcher, a dead Jedi’s body covered by a sheet. Out of the stretcher falls a lightsaber, which some fans have speculated belongs to Jedi Master Shaak Ti, who died on Coruscant during Order 66.

The lightsaber doesn’t really look like Shaak Ti’s, but we don’t know who else might be in that stretcher. Let us know what you think in the comments!

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Kamino and the Clones

– The Bad Batch are also known as Clone Force 99, named after 99, a clone with “genetic mutations” who eventually gave his life in the war.

– Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su and administrative aide Taun We both appeared in Attack of the Clones as representative of the cloning industry, while Scientist/doctor Nala Se debuted on The Clone Wars. Their primary motive in their conflict with Tarkin in The Bad Batch is financial, but it does seem like Nala Se might also be trying to protect Omega.

– They’re still making young clones, as evidenced by the kids visible in the background. It’s unknown whether Omega ages at a normal rate or has the accelerated growth that brings most of the clones up to fighting form unnaturally fast.

– We see many different ranks and roles among the clones in this episode, including the green-armored sergeants and red-armored captains.

– In one scene, we see clones working on an E-Web heavy repeating blaster, which appears throughout the franchise, and was recently called out by name in The Mandalorian.

J-19 and Other Locations

– The Bad Batch come up with a plan to meet an old friend in Sector J-19. That sector is also known as the Suolriep sector, which is largely populated by desolate planets. Unsurprisingly, it is located in the Outer Rim of the galaxy. The sector first appeared in Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars.

– While Kamino is front and center here, the episode also visits the lush (and dangerous) jungle world of Onderon, Kaller, and briefly mentions Felucia, a beautiful planet that first appeared in Revenge of the Sith during the grim Order 66 montage.

Other Cameos

– Wilhuff Tarkin, later Grand Moff, has appeared in animated form before. He showed up in The Clone Wars and Rebels. Whether his CGI iteration in Rogue One counts as animation may be up for debate, but he’s certainly there.

The villain first appeared in A New Hope, where famous horror actor Peter Cushing played the man who “held Vader’s leash.”

– Saw Gerrera, who also appeared in Rogue One, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, is a radical freedom fighter who will go on to have a tenuous but helpful relationship with the mainstream Rebel Alliance. He previously helped his home planet of Onderon shake off Separatist rule with Republic help.

– Darth Sidious appears briefly in a hologram, as he declares the formation of “the first Galactic Empire, for a safer and secure society.”

– Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and General Grievous all appear in flashbacks in the episode.

– Grey is the clone commander who executes Order 66 at the start of the episode, killing Depa Billaba and attempting to do the same with Caleb. He first appeared in the Kanan comic series.

– Comic relief medical droid AZI-345211896246498721347 first appeared in The Clone Wars.

Ships and Technology

– The Imperial probe droid that stalks Clone Force 99 in the episode is derived from the Republic ones also seen in The Clone Wars. They’re already more outwardly ominous by the time of The Bad Batch, with more oddly-placed eyes and insectoid limbs instead of the rounder Republic version.

– The Batch’s ship is a modified Omicron-class attack shuttle named the Havoc Marauder.

Creatures

– Wrecker’s stuffed animal is a tooka, the cat-like species of which the Loth-cat that features often in Star Wars Rebels is one variety. They first appeared in The Clone Wars (also several cat-like species mentioned in various corners of the Expanded Universe preceded them) and were named after Star Wars animation executive producer Dave Filoni’s late cat.

– At one point, you can also see a Pikobi, a half-reptilian and half-bird species native to Onderon, Naboo, and Dagobah. The Pikobi first appeared in The Phantom Menace.

The post Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 1 Easter Eggs Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[notbecauseofvictories]

hello Sarah!! hope you're doing great. who are your three ABSOLUTE fave minor characters from star wars?

That’s…a very hard question to answer, which I did not realize until this moment! I never saw myself as a minor characters person, but something about those star wars lends itself to collecting a whole bunch of secondary characters and developing intensely specific headcanons about them which you would die for, probably.

However, I decided I would just pick my favorite minor characters from Rogue One/Solo/each of the Trilogies, since that’s easier.

Prequel Trilogy — Mace Windu

I’m not much of a Jedi person—my preferences are clearly oriented to the Rebellion and the regular old humans of the galaxy far far away. But I once wrote myself into having a lot of feelings about Mace Windu, and since then have never recovered. I’m still stuck on a Mace Windu who is stubbornly good, good in the most absolute sense, but also pragmatic and unyielding and cold and ambitious. 

I always liked the idea that Mace had a particular grudge against Qui-Gon—not for any particular personal reason, but. Well, they were approximately the same age, and where Mace had been playing the long-game to advance through the Order, Qui-Gon was off running all over the galaxy with his mouthy padawan, rescuing whoever he felt like and talking about mystic Force nonsense. Mace sees it as the waste of a good Jedi. (Qui-Gon has no idea.)

Original Trilogy — Mon Mothma

I realize this is sort of cheating, since Mon Mothma’s role is expanded on a lot in Rogue One, but she was original first, so it counts.

Anyway, I love Mon Mothma. I’ve come up with a whole world of headcanons for her, from her studying poetry in university to her relationship with Padme and Bail Organa (she and Bail don’t actually like each other much—but they respect each other and are too civilized to let anyone else know about it.) To how, after Palpatine became Emperor. she basically just said “fuck it” and made it her entire goal to make his life miserable and shout about tyranny on the Senate floor. (The Partisans smuggled her offworld just before the black squad had a chance to strike; that’s how she knows Saw.)

I just really like Mothma, this woman who is clearly more of a liberal politician than a glorious revolutionary, yet clearly is determined to have that role. She’s also…literally the only person who witnesses the Republic, the fall of the Republic, the rise of the Empire, the fall of the Empire, and the rise of the New Republic. I have to imagine that after the Empire falls, she becomes the George Washington of the New Republic, which in itself is a cool idea. (I keep meaning to write that post-war fic about Leia adjusting to peace, and how badly she fits inside it, how guilty she is about it, when Mon Mothma is thriving amid the rebuilding…)

Rogue One — Saw Gerrera

I love Saw Gerrera. I love him, specifically, in three ways:

1) Separatist-turned-Anarchist-for-Hire! I firmly believe that Saw spent most of his younger life as a Separatist, and learned all the ways of violent resistance there. So when the Republic becomes the Empire, he’s already ready to go, he’s got knowledge that’s suddenly very valuable and needed by a lot more worlds than used to want it. I still picture the Partisans as kind of roving band of violent revolutionaries for hire—if you’re the anti-Empire insurgency on planet X, you can send Saw Gererra a message, and in exchange for food & lodging, they’ll teach your people how make bombs and tap into frequencies and spy on your local Imperial outpost.

(this fic is tentatively entitled “saw gererra and his anachist’s cookbook crew kickstart the rebellion by building a huge network of insurgent cells on every planet from the outer rim to the core”)

2) The imagined agony that is Lyra/Saw! Listen, I realize I talked myself into this one, but—Lyra Erso was the one who knew Saw. Once Galen realized how deep in shit he was, she and Saw arranged to get them out of the Empire and into hiding. Their love affair was conducted almost exclusively via transmit, ala this headcanon I came up with ages ago. 

3) Feral Affection-Starved Wolfchild Adopted By Emotionally Ill-Equipped Radical, aka, Jyn Has Complicated Feelings About Saw Gerrerra, Who Is As Much Her Father As Galen Ever Was.

I literally did write a fic about this.

Solo — Enfys Nest

The minute she took off her helmet, I was sold. I love that she’s young, that she’s inherited this enormous burden from her mother. (If you’re going to kill off everybody’s mom, star wars, then you’re correct, the least you can do is make those moms baller freedom fighters.) I love that her gang is called the “Cloud Riders,” and that they’re integrated with the local people. I love her cape. 

Solo, for all its faults, had very good capes.

I will, someday, write that fic where Enfys and Saw and Mon Mothma bring their disparate factions together to talk about The Future of Rebellion In The Galaxy and everybody fights a lot about it, and there’s probably fraught sex, somewhere. It’s not a rebel convocation if no one’s having emotionally and politically fraught sex.)

New Trilogy — Phasma

I don’t pay attention to any star wars that doesn’t happen onscreen, but I heard through the fannish grapevine that Hux’s dad was the one who set up the new stormtrooper program. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with the idea that Phasma was the first-ever New Stormtrooper, like a proof of concept. A stolen child herself, raised by Hux the Elder to be a monster and a prodigy. (Literally, the translation of “Phasma.”)

This also means that a) Phasma has complicated feelings about Hux the Elder, who is the closest thing to a father she’s ever known, but definitely doesn’t see her as a human being; b) Phasma and Hux are weird sibling-like things, except not siblings at all; and c) Phasma can take all these awful twisted-up narratives about ownership, love, and humanity, and foist them all on FN-2187 in the most fucked up way.

I have a partial draft of this fic, and the google doc is literally titled “frankenstein, but space.”

[jyndor]

i hope you don’t mind me exploring this a bit on your post lol

vel is a class traitor who is trying so desperately to remove herself from the class of people she comes from - and everything they represent. it’s very interesting to have her be queer on top of that. it adds the element of personal stakes beyond just resenting her own class that mon doesn’t have. like im not saying vel has more radical politics than mon mothma just because she’s queer... since that’s very much not always the case with real life white wealthy queer people. but with vel, she is more radical, she’s on the ground. mon is certainly at risk but it’s different.

it’s like she’s closeted with her blood family (save for mon, the Ally lol) and able to be her true self with cinta and the rebels... in more ways than one. when she’s having to put on the mask - the hair, the makeup, the clothes, the disinterest in the world - she’s also hiding her true self. when she’s with the rebellion, she can wear her hair more naturalistically, she can love her girlfriend openly and she can be the very best she can be. instead of wasting away every day in the cold, sterile high society lifestyle mon is in.

the thing is, for someone like vel it’s easier to throw away the benefits of living a high society life than it is for someone like mon. being rich and having status and nice clothing and good food and drink is a nice thing and most people don’t want to give it up even if they do resent everything that high society represents - oppression, elitism, apathy, etc. to go from that world to a world of milking space sheep and sleeping on the ground, being on the run, that’s not a choice most people are going to make. for better or for worse.

so it makes me think that for vel life as a spoiled rich girl was so oppressive and aimless, that it felt so unnatural and soul-sucking to be in that life. and it seems pretty soul-sucking for mon mothma. but still, for mon the benefits of the lifestyle she leads outweigh the very significant negatives of having to hide her truth. because her truth is a choice - when you come from a privileged position like mon does, and i mean privileged in both class and also like in the context of marginalization, having a left/leftish and even progressive liberal politics is a choice. it is not the starting point - it takes a lot of time and active unlearning of so much that is just baked into life as a given from birth. that’s why it’s extremely uncommon to find someone like vel in real life revolutionary movements (although there are famously many class traitors in revolutions, but most revolutionaries are not especially not the ones on the ground). you’re much more likely to see someone be like mon mothma - academic, perhaps even putting a lot of money into causes, but rarely getting into the mud of the fight. and when she does she’s also unwilling to listen to people like saw gerrera who has lived experience that influences his politics and strategy.

vel seems to listen more to cinta - while she is considered the leader of the mission, cinta is more of a partner than a subordinate (which is partly why everyone is shocked that vel didn’t tell cinta about cassian being a mercenary). and vel leans on the whole team, it’s much more of a collective effort.

anyway vel and mon to me represent how the comforts of high society weigh against the costs of living a lie. and yeah for someone who lives with a homophobic family that doesn’t respect her, of course it’s easier to run from all that comfort.

The parallels between Cinta saying to Vel "maybe I'll be a spoiled rich girl" and Mon pleading with Vel to "be a spoiled rich girl for a while" was a moment. So small, but if there's anything I've learned from the 9 episodes so far, there's nothing that small enough to not mention again. They're building Vel's character as the spoiled rich girl turned Rebel leader for a reason and I can't wait to see what it's going to be.

[reelbrew]

Star Wars: Rogue One (2016)

If you’re a Star Wars fan, then for the most part, you’ll love ‘Rogue One’. Probably. There are new and exotic worlds, a plethora of unknown faces with names that are difficult to pronounce, let alone remember, and it all fits seamlessly into a universe we have come to recognize as household. Seeing all of this on the big screen can be awe-inspiring, the fan within feeling nostalgic over sights and sounds that light up our senses like a lightsaber. While these feelings for something alternatingly new and old may lead you to believe Rogue One is a well-oiled machine, it isn’t without its loose parts.

Before the title card even stretches across the screen, we are introduced to multiple characters that are both of Rebel and Galactic affiliation. Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), an ex-engineer turned farmer who is pulled back into his former job with the Empire by Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), an underling in the operation of the Death Star. A Galactic fighter turned traitor in search of Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), the radical freedom fighter and man who rescued Galen’s daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones) from a life of Empirical evil. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), the Rebel Alliance spy in search of the Death Star plans. A blind recluse who is the only connection between the Force, with the Jedi remaining behind closed doors for the first time in a Star Wars film.

If this seems like a lot to digest, it’s because it is. We are drastically thrown into the midst of the battle between good and evil right from the very beginning, as ‘Rogue One’ drops us off 19 years after the tumultuous events of Episode III. It may seem like a large enough gap within the films story, but in our time it feels like a couple of months (there is no Luke Skywalker to tell us otherwise). It’s jarring to begin understanding s fresh set of characters that run on their own timeline, but after the first hour or so, it becomes ultimately refreshing. Gone are the similarities that got so many riled up with ‘The Force Awakens’, instead offering up its own unique blend of humans, cyborgs, and aliens.

As things begin picking up pace after a necessarily drawn out and operatically dramatic opener with Ben Mendelsohn and Mads Mikkelsen (it’s no Deniro and Pacino, but it’s close), we can’t help but get swept up in what makes the Star Wars Universe so gripping. This is a film that knows when to slow down and when to hit warp speed. Consider ‘Rogue One’ the ‘Fellowship of the Rings’ of the series, as its exposition leads our rag-tag team on foot over being tucked away in a ship. It’s what allows us to become familiar with each character who we know will never truly surpass our fondness for the Leia and Han’s, and who have a much shorter shelf life.

Director Gareth Edwards, previously taking on the lost world introduced by Steven Spielberg, flexes his muscle for franchise blockbusters, replacing the man-made Indominus Rex with the man-made Death Star. Edwards has a particular knack for pacing, placing us in a hailstorm of poorly fired Stormtrooper lasers once our dialogue driven story has temporarily worn out its welcome. It’s a welcome that is worn out fairly too often, as the script, while cutting to the point, feels watered down for the young Jedi’s of the families. It’s not so much an issue as it is a preamble to the marginally better dialogue that Lucas laid out with ‘New Hope’.

However, we aren’t here for the nuanced banter and witty one-liners, as quotable as the previous entries have become. No, for the most part we’re here for the nostalgia of a universe crafted for fans and the action that destroys it, in as much heart as ‘Rogue One’ carries (and it does tug on your heartstrings). If you’ve ever played the Star Wars Battlefront games, you can expect the same sprawled out epicness of a 65 plus man game, though our focus on our Rebel led mission is never lost. Despite an abundant amount of panned shots featuring a new planet to become lost in, Edwards’s camera and explosive set pieces tend to lead our eyes just where they need to be. It’s enough of a film where we don’t feel like we need to be holding a controller, despite another entry that forgets the power of prop magic.

Given our current state of affairs, the White Houses attempted travel ban a very real and terrifying thing, maybe the jolt and disorientation of something new, different yet comforting in its aesthetic is just what we need. Coexisting in our universe, where the powers that be attempt to tell us who is a threat and what names are synonymous with terror, perhaps a film with plenty of faces that aren’t familiar and names that sound unheard of is exactly what we need. For all its faults, ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ feels like a film that stands tall in the face of both fictitious and real tyrannical terror.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

can I just cry real quick about how brave bodhi rook is?? he's so DETERMINED to do the right thing and just has so much grit and will power even though he gets imprisoned and tortured while trying to get the info through. Then like DAYS later he's going on covert missions, stealing ships, etc all the while being completely fucking terrified because he was a cargo pilot and never did any of this. in conclusion, Bodhi is so strong and i'm dead

bodhi rook’s story is so important--

i always think that it must be so bewildering to be an inhabitant of the star wars universe--to be one among billions upon billions of sentient creatures inhabiting thousands of planets with wildly varying atmospheres, topography, food, biology, culture, ways of understanding the universe. add to this the incredible logistics that have to be employed to bring so much of this under one government and to make the ways of the empire--a way of dressing, a way of working, a way of thinking--the acceptable norm... it must be incredibly difficult to think that one person can make any sort of appreciable difference in all of this. opinions would run hot but they would also stay in the family room. principles are swallowed, misgivings rationalised. the immediate is far more dear than some other place in the galaxy far, far away, even though you know, in some part of your mind, that somebody else in that far away place is thinking the same of you. 

so this is where bodhi is--he doesn’t necessarily like/agree with his employer, but they are also the best way to ensure that he is paid and his family is safe. he signs up to fly for the empire, this alien--in the true sense of the word--force that’s inflitrated his homeland, robbing it of its most precious natural resource, and slowly stamping out its unique and proud cultural heritage. he even signs up to train for flying starfighters initially, plugging at it for two years before failing out and settling for flying cargo ships. i mean, it makes a lot of sense--this is slowly becoming the new normal, and for him at the time, flying starfighters was probably more glamorous than anything else. it’s my headcanon that bodhi’s always been... an individual prone to neuroses, his startle reflex dialled up to eleven with a slow simmering anxiety that permeates almost everything that he does. that probably disqualified him from combat, regardless of his actual flying skills. (and good thing for the galaxy too--he may have ended up as just another short-lived cloud of superheated gas in the cold stillness of space, insignificant and unmourned, had he actually gone on to fly a starfighter for the empire.) plus, the cognitive dissonance is probably not so jarring when he’s on long, lonely flights across the galaxy transporting equipment or tech, or when he settles with his friends from the academy for cups of caf and a game of sabacc, or in those all-too-brief vacations to home where he gets to see his family and say i missed you and i love you and i’ll be back and keep his promises.

then he gets posted on eadu--the heart and brains of the whole death star operation, and, i imagine, gets involved in the transportation of kyber crystals from his home planet. his city. jedha by now is a warzone--torn on one hand by the imperial forces and on the other by the radicals who oppose them. (this scene had such glaring real life analogues that i was on edge for the whole sequence.) bodhi, by now, has an inkling of what the death star can do. and, you know, sometimes it takes the war hitting home to really put things into perspective. bodhi can’t really ignore that dissonance anymore--by doing what he does, he is complicit in the exploitation and slow destruction of his home, and in the future obliteration of hundreds of planets and billions of lives. he has been complicit all these years without knowing--no, knowing, but filing it away until he can’t ignore it anymore. he can’t continue and he can’t leave and it’s like an ache in his chest, crushing his will and trembling in his fingers.

now. i don’t know if galen erso just happened to find this conflicted jedha pilot who wanted a meaningful way to make a difference, or if he deliberately had a jedha pilot assigned to his station so that he could get a message across to saw gerrera. either way, i can imagine erso and bodhi projecting all of their guilt and defence mechanisms on each other until guilt is solidified in bodhi’s mind just as surely as if his hands shaped the creation of this beautiful, terrible, apocalyptic weapon and not as if he were another small cog in that machine. he says later that he wanted to make this right by [himself]. he wanted to make amends. that’s really really powerful, and a burden he had had to carry alone and for too long.

(and this is why his moment of realisation, that phase where he reached within himself and found the strength to act on principle rather than pragmatism is as ugly as it is beautiful. finn’s awakening is a journey of self-discovery, where he is given a name and begins to find his place in the universe. bodhi’s... is when he realises that his choices have led to the loss of something vital to what he wanted to be when he started out--now all he has is a holodisc and a last, grasping chance to atone for what he perceives as an entirely galaxy’s worth of injustice. it’s inspiring but also unbearably sad in a way--knowing how it ends, and that the person who helped him to start this journey was a sad, complicated man himself, caught in his own web of guilt and self-deception.)

when he’s caught by saw gerrera’s rebels--where he repeats the words pilot and saw gerrera so many times that the words seemed to lose their meaning--he has lost almost everything. he’s a deserter now, which means he’ll be killed--or worse--on sight; he can’t be with his family ever again; whatever routines and comforts he’d worked to establish over two decades is gone. except this disc and saw gerrera, who is supposed to be his salvation. 

and then his salvation beats him around, mistrusts him, locks him up in a cage and tortures him in the name of interrogation.

(yikes.)

will we ever know the full impact of what bor gullet did to bodhi’s mind? is it possible for us to understand the trauma of having your sense of self invaded and your memories rifled through and picked apart at will? will we know the loss of things we never got to know in the first place--things that will die forever with jedha, and later, its lost son? i don’t know, but the sense of this inflitration of the most private of our parts--made visceral by the sickly sexual imagery of that tentacled monster twining around bodhi and creeping up his neck--is incredibly traumatic. when we next see bodhi, he’s sitting in his cell, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. he’s a bit lost in his head, and it takes the tether of his identity--of this mission that he’s given everything up for--to pull him back to the surface. 

i read/saw an interview somewhere where somebody asked riz ahmed about the aftermath of this torture, and he talked about how, after this, bodhi’s emotions were much closer to the surface than usual; how, while normally frenetic, bodhi was possessed of a different and higher nervous energy. he’s still in shock when they’re rescued by k2so, moving slowly and taking in the destruction of his home with a sort of dawning horror, and falling silent and still in the flight back to yavin four. later, he loudly agrees with jyn during her briefing to the council, and is the first to volunteer for her mission. he doesn’t get a lot of time to sit and emote about the stuff that he’s endured--that’s ok, he’s the everyman, it’s the rebels and heroes that get the nightmares--but he’s so frenetic at the same time, talking fast and nervous, like some ineffable thread of sanity is keeping him together while he’s almost vibrating out of it. 

(did i mention riz ahmed was so good? because he was.)

and in the final battle on scarif--we see bodhi occupy a space between scared out of his mind and scarily efficient. he gets them through the vital checkpoint--the planet-wide shield. he manages the battle in a way, right from the cockpit--by using the comms to distract stormtroopers away from their folks on the ground and encouraging other rebels to do the same. he knows exactly how to get the communication line up. and he does these things--sweaty, wearing his old crumpled imperial uniform still, shaking from anxiety and the horror of his interrogation screaming through the empty spaces in his head, running on barely any food and even less sleep. 

and when he dies, he dies alone--having finished his job, having atoned. this person, one among billions who stood up and found the strength to sacrifice everything he had and then all of himself and still fight for a side that had treated him so badly because he believed in its mission and his principles... that’s not the story that’ll go around the galaxy like the skywalkers’ or the solos’ because he went and got himself killed before anybody in the rebellion got to know him as anything other than that imperial pilot who defected and got the ball rolling on the battle against the death star. but his is probably the most important story of the rebellion--it’s the definition of rebellion in its most revered sense.

it makes sense that his name is packed with the most symbolism among the ensemble--bodhi, for enlightenment; rook--a gamepiece who, improbably, rebelled against the force controlling him, and also rook--an unremarkable bird, but one that refused to remain caged.

[sanerontheinside]

Saner’s Excessive Synopsis

@rusc-of-airgead here’s 45 - Share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet. from this post | come and ask me things

Considering how many fics I have, this is always a safe question. Whether I’ll stick to a synopsis, or instead plan out an entire story in one post, or even write bits of it as I go, however, is a toss-up. Here’s a Rogue fic, but I have barely written anything for this yet, so expect this to get out of hand:

Reincarnation is a bitch. (Or, waking up one day in your reality with memories of another is - highly inconvenient at best.) @oddlyexquisite, still blame you for this. :D pls enjoy. Also tagging @dr-fumbles-mcstupid​, @meggory84​, @godoflaundrybaskets​, @obaewankenope​, @lilyrose225writes​, @kyberpunk​, @meabhair​, @maawi​, @eclipsemidnight​. Come yell at me when you read this. 

Years ago, Galen Erso escaped the Empire with Saw Gerrera’s help. Instead of running and hiding with Saw’s rebels, though, Galen and Lyra make an early mistake and are picked up by the Alliance, long before Krennic could get a hold of them. Lucky for them, someone on the Alliance was familiar with Erso’s work, which means they actually had the option to defect. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Erso agrees to work for the Alliance instead. 

Erso has been working on various odd projects through the years. He’s the sw equivalent of a theoretical physicist, let’s say, so most of his work is more related to weapons and shields. 

Jyn grew up between hanging out with pilots and, occasionally, with Saw. The Alliance didn’t always consider him a radical. She’s a recruiter, one of the best the Alliance has. She knows what people want, she knows how to keep them from getting it. She hates it sometimes, luring a disenfranchised Imp out into giving up useful intel, getting them to do something for the Rebellion, knowing they probably won’t make it out alive and the Alliance doesn’t - can’t, doesn’t have the resources to - care about their fate. Not unless they have a mind like Galen Erso, and you can imagine how few of those there are. Number them between two Human hands, and that’s how many you’d still find who weren’t entrapped and closely guarded by the Empire. But if Jyn finds one, if she’s very lucky, she knows how to talk rings around them, too. (Perhaps she knows them best of all).

She works with Cassian, by the way, who taught her a great deal about recruiting. But she is small, and slight, and often overlooked. The first time she saw Cassian kill a contact who would have slowed them down, she didn’t speak to him for a day or more. She’s not an idealist, she’s a survivor, she learned enough in her early years on the run from her father and mother and Saw. She knows why, that’s not the problem. 

Maybe the problem is that she does it too. She sends her recruits back into the jaws of death and none of them will make it out, and she will never save them. She’s just never the one to fire the shot. And maybe, with too many close shaves between them, too many deaths on her heart already, with the knowledge that the Imps are still people even if the Empire never gave a damn (especially because the Empire never gave a damn), it makes her feel a bit sick, feel a bit like she’s no better. 

Cassian (bless the man) says nothing. Just gives her the time she needs. They’ve fought bitterly over this in the past, over how he can shove his guilt aside and fight for the Rebellion, fight for an ideal. But Jyn, the daughter of a man who chose to flee the Empire for better or for worse to keep his brilliant mind away from them, Jyn would sooner question an order that she thinks is wrong, would rather investigate on her own and not regret pulling the trigger later. Maybe she is naive still. She doesn’t care, it’s not something she ever wants to lose.

When the reports come in from Jedha, when the Empire begins its stripmining of kyber and theft from the Temple, when the rumours of it finally reach Galen, he is the first to realise what the Empire is using it for. He’s known for years that Empire wouldn’t need him to complete the project, known that they could figure it out without his mind, that he was completely replaceable. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have hopes they’d never figure it out. 

It’s why his projects for the Alliance are shield designs. It’s the reason he still works on shields while Draven pressures him into designing weapons. The only problem is, he still doesn't know how to beat his own weapon. So he begs the Alliance to stop the mining process, to send word to Saw, stage some kind of battle, something, anything, sabotage the project. Buy him more time. Defend Jedha - the Alliance does not have the resources - just NiJedha then! Send Jyn, he’ll talk to her, Saw will talk to her!

They send Jyn, and they send Cassian and K2 to watch her back. Jedha’s a rough place, after all, and there’s no guarantee that Saw will talk to her, or that he’s even still alive. In NiJedha, they meet Chirrut and Baze, and Bodhi. Bodhi, who is watching the Empire destroy what was once his home, the place he was born, the Temple that, before they tried to raid it, was much as he remembers. He watched the troopers advance on the Temple that first time, only to find that a small force of Guardians - a mere handful! - could hold them off with few injuries, maybe no casualties. 

When the Imps retreated, when the only people left near the Temple were the miners and the cargo pilots, Bodhi ventured out to the Temple, drawn to a familiar sense of it. Bodhi was one of the first to have odd flashes of awareness of some sort of past life, maybe because the Empire was busily burning out all of its pilots on stims, or maybe just because Bodhi was Bodhi. It’s hard to say. The first time he gets any sort of feeling of peace, though, is when he crouches down at the steps of the old Temple and sits there, for a time, with the remaining monks. Just breathing. Feeling the ground beneath him, basking in the sense of home, no matter how broken. 

It’s not like, in the last few years, he hasn’t had niggling feelings of wrong. Feelings that are treason, that he, at first, tried to bury. He doesn’t bury them these days. He studies them, at first in a detached sort of way. He watches, maybe better than anyone else. He forgets nothing. But once he accepts those feelings, once he realises that to the Empire his life is nothing, and he is not nothing - 

That certainty comes first, and this is important. It’s only after this that the Force starts dropping visions on his head, of a different life, of one where they had a few days to blaze a trail across the stars and bring hope to the Rebellion. 

Their first meeting is actually pretty similar [to the last time they did this]. Saw’s people interrupt a shipment of kyber. Chirrut picks a fight with the Imps. Baze grumbles, but follows him into the fray. Bodhi disables his own cargo ship and a few of the others. Cassian and Jyn pass off watching each other’s backs, and shoot one of Saw’s people. 

They all end up in the same one place at the end of the fray. Bodhi doesn’t have plans to steal or to give to Saw, because he never was on Eadu, he never met the person designing the Death Star, there was never even a flaw engineered into it. Saw’s rag-tag group of rebels shows up takes all of them anyway. 

Jyn spends precious time trying to talk Saw into helping them. It’s easier, and it’s harder. It’s still early days for the invasion, the resistance on Jedha is still strong. Planning a coordinated attack could still be possible, especially since Chirrut has half a mind to convince a few of the surviving Guardians to join in. 

( “It won’t work,” Baze tells him. 

“It will,” Chirrut insists. ���They’re fighting for their home.”) 

There’s a tense moment for Bodhi, when Saw has half a mind to throw him to the bor gullet all the same. Bodhi, who finds Saw just as scary as last time, if not worse. But Bodhi is rather like he was last time, too - scared, oh hells, terrified, but he’s never let that stop him before. Bodhi, who’s been watching, carefully, for the last several years, who knows where all the mining equipment is kept and how to sabotage it, and how to take over the weaponry. 

Aren’t you just cargo pilot? someone asks, mildly incredulous, when he’s just laid out all the positions and the exact scale of the forces they would be facing. 

Yeah, I’m the pilot, Bodhi says, deliberately dropping the ‘just’. But NiJedha is home - like Chirrut said. 

Saw looks at him oddly, with something that might be respect. He may as well, they can’t plan an efficient attack without Bodhi Rook. 

The resulting skirmish is... interesting. The monks, it seems, refused to join after all. Saw’s rebels cause a brilliant shiny distraction while Bodhi, Jyn, and Cassian disable the mining equipment and steal firepower. The weapons get passed on to Chirrut and Baze, presumably to be handed off to the rebels. 

Some of that explosive power does make it to Saw, but not all. That’s when they realise, the monks actually did agree to join the fight. Just, not quite as actively. They lay several charges at key weak points, blow the entrance to the mines and the foundation of the Temple. They destroy it all, bury the kyber. It’ll take a long time to get it out from under that rock, and it was never easy to reach in the first place. 

It’s after the skirmish that Jyn has her own vision. And Bodhi’s been keeping an eye on her and on Cassian, sometimes catching himself because he can’t say anything, can’t tell them how different they are, and how the same. Chirrut and Baze don’t mind that sort of familiarity, but he thinks it’s the familiarity they would have with another Jedhan. Or maybe because Chirrut is a Monk of the Whills, and always had the ability to see more than there was on the surface of you. 

So when Jyn’s vision hits, he’s there when she wakes up disoriented and horrified because it’s real, they died, and it was real, why are they here? He’s there because he knows how waking up feels, and it isn’t good, and he definitely couldn’t hold down his dinner last time. 

And it’s worse and it’s better, because it’s only a matter of time before the Empire gets the kyber, and outfitting Alliance worlds with the shield, if her father ever succeeds, might still take longer than they have, and they don’t know how to destroy the Death Star this time. 

Oh, but it’s worse. It’s so much worse because there is a countermeasure. Jyn saw her father before she left, she saw him and she saw Draven with him, and they were arguing, and she knows, she knows what he did, it just took her this long to put it all together. 

Because the Alliance doesn’t have the resources to fight, to build a superweapon - not like the Empire. Because the Alliance would needs something smaller, far more efficient, than a project of the Death Star’s scale. 

Because, in a fantastic play on the project’s name, her father knows how to bring Death to the Stars, and he knows how to do this at a far enough distance to outrun the blast wave while the system burns. Because her father is no fool, and he knows how to do this, has known for the last ten years. 

The only question is, if he didn’t want to give the Empire the Death Star, would he give the plans of the countermeasure to the Alliance? 

Oh, but he didn’t. It wasn’t his choice. Cassian stole the plans from him. The last time around, Galen had given the plans to Bodhi. In this world Draven gives an order, and Cassian - Cassian, who’s learned the value of orders where Jyn learned the value of questioning them - he obeys. 

Incidentally, Cassian is the only one without visions. 

(K2 has... ghosts in his programming.) 

[Author’s Note: I don’t bloody know, I’m working on it. I feel like, maybe odd quotes here and there that make no sense given the situation. Or - how does a robot describe déjà vu?]

Cassian and Jyn have never had so bitter an argument over what it means to fight for the Rebellion - and it doesn’t mean wiping out entire inhabited systems the way the Empire could destroy a planet or a city, Jyn shouts, not if the Alliance calls Saw’s rebels a group of radicals. They have never so disagreed on any of it, and the fight is virulent, and of course they say things that should not ever be said. Jyn yells that the Rebellion Cassian’s been fighting for since the age of six had trained him never to question orders and listen like the good meat clanker he is, setting both Bodhi and K2 off balance because that’s what the Empire does. Cassian shoots back that her father is the monster who made that weapon, but - 

But, no. Her father is the theorist who dreamed things up, things that should have purpose other than to kill. He wasn’t fool enough to ignore the devastation his creations could cause, but what could he do if he’d dreamt them up anyway? His terrible children, for each theory, for every calculation, for ever forward step and every improvement to weaponry or shielding, he always knew how else it could be used. 

He just never imagined it would be. Not until Jyn comes back to ask him, point blank, if he knows that the Alliance is building a weapon based on his designs. 

He does. It paralyses him. He'd thought that the Alliance would not be like the Empire. He still harboured a fading hope that if he bought himself enough time with the shutdown of the Empire’s kyber mining, he’d have a chance to finish the shields and then they would never need the weapon. But Draven is more than willing to strike first and question later, and Jyn knows this. It takes her assurance that Draven had had those plans for ten years, he’d scrapped together enough funds and stolen enough Imperial scrap to repurpose it and cobble together a death ray that could destabilise a sun. 

Galen prepares an open letter, makes an impassioned statement before the Alliance leaders, begging them not to use it. 

Because Mutually Assured Destruction is only a deterrent if nobody wants to die. It would have worked with Krennic at the helm of the Death Star project, but it will not work with Tarkin. 

And Draven... he’s more than willing to be the aggressor. More than willing to wipe out a system of Empire-occupied worlds. 

Jyn is the one to say the words her father cannot, the words no one else in the room will acknowledge, though they hang on everyone’s mind: it would make us no better than them and this is not what we fought for. 

The vote is devastating. After all, from a strategic point of view, if you have a countermeasure against the Death Star, and you beat the other side in the race to complete it - why not use it? 

[AN: Take this as a given: if they destroy the beginnings of the Death Star structure, in another few years the Empire will build another.]

Jyn walks out of the meeting, disheartened, to find Baze and Chirrut and Bodhi waiting at the gate. “Didn’t work, did it?” Behind her, Cassian shakes his head. 

After a few moments’ silence, Bodhi looks up and says, “So, anyone want to know what else they have on Scarif?” 

[renzywenzy]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review

*Spoiler Warning*

Holy shit. That was a damn good movie and a fine addition to Lucas Arts Disney’s Star Wars film series. Allow me to preface my review by saying that I have started writing this just a few short hours after watching the film but who knows when I’ll finish? I’ve digested it as much as I can and I’ve taken down notes of all the important things I wanted to talk about and now I believe I’m ready to start this review. That out of the way, here is my review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

So to start with this movie, I’d actually like to point out all the stuff that I did not enjoy first and then go to the positives. I don’t have much criticism so I wanted to get that out of my plate first. So here are the negatives.

Cons:

1.) The lack of compelling characters. This is probably my biggest gripe with the film. I was never able to fully invest in these characters emotionally. That’s not to say that these people have bad characterizations or that their dull. It’s just that they lack the emotional depth of other main characters before them. This is most likely because the movie itself doesn’t give them enough time to fully develop. Let’s take a look at some of these characters.

Felicity Jones plays the main protagonist, Jyn Erso. Jyn is the daughter of the former Imperial scientist and now kidnapped farmer Galen Erso (the mastermind of the Death Star) and her initial actions are motivated by the chance to meet her father again. Problem is I didn’t really care and that’s because the plot didn’t give enough time (or any time at all) to strengthen that father-daughter bond. That’s why when they finally meet each other again and Galen is killed, it unfortunately doesn’t evoke any emotion and it actually felt a bit flat. I really really wanted to care about her journey on being with her father again but I realized if I had to try so hard then the movie isn’t executing that aspect right. One of the main issues with Jyn is that her problems with the Rebellion aren’t explored enough. It’s just one of those aspects about her that’s mentioned in one or 2 scenes but not expanded upon in any sort of meaningful way. She reminded me a lot of Han Solo. Like Han in his initial scenes in A New Hope, Jyn is someone with a criminal background who does not side with anybody and only does things for her own benefit. That is until she becomes part of much bigger cause. This was an awesome aspect of her. However, even though she is bad ass (really bad ass by the way), she just lacks the charm of Han Solo and she doesn’t go through the same carefully handled character progression that Han goes through which is a huge shame. 

And then there’s Cassian Andor played by Diego Luna. Now with Cassian, I liked his inner struggle a bit more. His problem was that he kept doing bad things for the Rebellion and that he felt as if these actions are not justified. This could have made for some really good character progression but it’s just that his inner problems were solved just as quickly as they were introduced. Again, if the film had highlighted this aspect of him more than it did then Cassian would be a better character overall. 

Honestly, I would’ve given these issues a pass IF we would see more of these 2 in future films but seeing as how they died in the end (like I said, spoilers) then their characters’ potential growth is pretty much over and done with. 

2.) The story is nothing to talk about. Or at least nothing really exciting to talk about. After watching this film, all I could really say about it was that it was about finding the plans to the Death Star. That particular aspect of the narrative is strong but nearly (key word) everything around it feels pretty flat. There was just not enough life or any of that “wow” moment in the story. Any scene where I’m supposed to show emotion just does not work. It’s never given any weight so sadly it’s never earned. For example:

In that scene where Jyn is listening to a holocommunicator message from her father and she starts breaking down. Yeah that scene. I didn’t really care, it didn’t emotionally affect me in any sort of way, it didn’t make me want to see her reunite with her father and I found that scene pretty manipulative. Before you say I’m some sort of insensitive asshole, I have genuinely cried in films before but for those emotional scenes that had a lot of build-up and where the emotional payoff was earned. Same can not be said for most of the “sad” scenes in this film. Yes, there were characters here who I did like (and even love) but I still didn’t care for their deaths and we’ll get to those characters in a little while.

3.) The first act of the film is choppy. This is more or less piggy-backing off of what I just said about the characters not being given enough time to develop. 30 minutes into the film and I felt like it was all over the place. Introduce a character, skip, introduce another character, skip, sprinkles of exposition here, skip, introduce another character, and skip. There was a lack of focus that hurts the pacing. With issues #1 and #2 mixing together, I found myself asking “Are we supposed to give a shit?” a bunch of times at least in the preceding half. Thankfully, the focus is finally set and established by the latter part of the 2nd act and nearly, if not all of the 3rd act. Which bring us to the positives.

Pros:

1.) Now, going into a Star Wars film means that I had certain expectations. After watching the great Force Awakens, there was a certain magic that I was looking for that’s very hard to explain. What I will say is this: Rogue One offers the same kind of magic but presented differently. What I mean by that it has a darker and rougher tone than previous films. Probably the darkest that it has ever been. There was an image in the beginning that I’ll never forget that I wish I could show. I hope my description can suffice. The main character, Jyn, was being escorted (to prison, most likely) and the Stormtroopers escorting her had dirty armor. If memory serves me correctly, I don’t remember any Clone trooper or Stormtrooper from the originals, prequels, and even Force Awakens look so untidy. They’re usually in mint condition even during battle. But in here, they look like they’ve been through a lot of shit and are just tired. This was an image that showed me that this is going to be a Star Wars film with a dash of grit and for this film, it worked overall. The best part of the story is how the Rebellion/Republic aren’t presented as the heroic bunch of do-gooders that have an unwavering sense of morality. No no no in here they are willing to get their hands dirty and kill people who may not even deserve it. The character of Forest Whitaker, Saw Gerrera (Nice job in tying in this story with Rebels), represents what a radical extremist in the side of the Republic looks like. He’s not necessarily a good person. In fact, the people Jyn associates with aren’t clean cut themselves. They just happen to be a side that’s the lesser of two evils. 

2.) Speaking of the other evil, the Empire subplot that focused on the tension between main villain the Orson Krennic (who is a solid bad guy) and the CGI-laden Moff Tarkin (we’ll get to the CGI eventually) was pretty cool. The confrontations between the two men of the Empire were honestly some of the best scenes and it made me care about the villain a bit more. Yeah, Orson is an asshole who throws hissy fits and unfairly kills scientists who did nothing wrong and but seeing him be bullied and taken out by an even bigger asshole - who also takes Krennic’s credit - made me root for him a little bit (at least against Tarkin). Oh and that final scene where Krennic looked at the Death Star as it was about to obliterate the planet along with him was marvelous.

3.) That brings me to my next positive point: The action-packed and thrilling third act of the film. There really is not much to say here except that it’s where shit hits the fan and the glorious blasting and dogfighting begins. The action sequences in these final minutes are so well-done. The rebel wings taking out the 2 Star Destroyers was a thing of beauty and the Darth Vader fight scene (if you can even call it a fight because it was extremely one-sided) was just plain bad-ass. One tiny negative I can point out is the continuity issue with the AT-T walkers. I thought Empire Strikes Back has taught us that tying them up was the only way of taking them down. I first thought that maybe the Empire upgraded their AT-T walkers because of how they were taken out in this battle BUT I remembered since everyone was destroyed by the Death Star, who’d be alive to tell them about the walker weakness? Just a small gripe in an otherwise massive positive.

4.) Donnie Yen as Chirrut Imwe and Aland Tudyk as the voice of K2SO. These two were the highlights of the supporting cast. Yen provides his usual martial-arts badassery as the blind but force-sensitive monk. In fact, his character adds more to the idea of the “Force”. It’s honestly refreshing to see (no pun intended) that this intangible power is present even with someone without the ability to see. This means that there is much more to learn and hopefully, Chirrut Imwe marks the beginning of more characters like him to appear in future movies. Maybe we’ll get a character with no arms at all and yet, still can kick ass just with his/her mastery of the Force. That would be a little silly at first but I believe it will work. 

Tudyk delivers a sarcastic brand of comedy that adds layers to droid characters. Although his jokes can sometimes be unnecessary, when they do hit, they hit hard. What I loved most about his character is that he really didn’t have that much character development. Now, I know development is important but the reason I didn’t need it from K2SO is that he is basically an expendable, comedy-relief character. Besides, because Jyn didn’t go through much character progression herself, I’d find it improbable for K2SO to become completely open and warm to her so his ongoing mild surliness was appropriate and consistently entertaining. 

5.) The fan service. Now there’s not a whole lot of fan service here like in the Force Awakens but there are just enough to put a smile on anyone’s face if they get the references. Some of them may have felt more forced than others (*cough* R2-D2 and C-3PO *cough*) but at the end of the day, I’d rather have them in than not at all. My personal favorite reference was seeing Cornelius Evazan and his buddy again. For those who don’t remember him, he’s the dude who has the death sentence in 12 systems. It was just awesome seeing him and his deformed face again and with his arm still intact. The biggest fan service here is arguably seeing Darth Vader and his daughter, Princess Leia, again. Speaking of which. 

5.)  I was a bit iffy about the CGI in this film. Particularly Moff and Leia but after thinking about it and after looking at their digitized selves again, I honestly didn’t mind it. It’s nowhere near as bad as the work done on Han’s head when Greedo shot first and it’s much better than I had initially expected. I honestly didn’t care if it was CGI, it was nice seeing Princess Leia again.

Ok, this part’s gonna get a bit serious. There was something a bit poetic about all this. About me watching this film on the precise day that I did. I had seen Rogue One just a few days after Carrie Fisher’s death (God rest her soul) and seeing Princess Leia at the time of watching meant much more than ever. When I saw her, it hit me and it really dawned on me that she was gone. She was a huge part of my childhood because I had the biggest crush on her when I first watched her in “A New Hope”. There was just an air of magnetism in her eyes and in her voice that attracted me. Not only that, she was really the first badass heroine that I had ever seen in movies. She was a strong woman who spoke to and for generations and for that, I’ll miss her badly. Damn, can you imagine how people will feel watching her in Episode 8? 

Overall, Rogue One is a strong entry in the Star Wars mythos. Solid performance from the cast even if the film doesn’t have the engaging characters like a Luke, Han, Leia, Rey, or Finn. It falters somewhat in the beginning but quickly picks itself up and goes all out in most of the 2nd act and in the entirety of the 3rd. While it may lack some of the personality and magic of previous films, it has its own unique depth by adding some grit to its more grounded tone. 

[glompcat]

That’s exactly why we know the Alliance’s propaganda bureau was making sure the imaging the Alliance put out (things like their name, the prominence of senators like Mon Mothma and Leia Organa in their materials etc) sent just the right message to the galaxy at large. That is also part of why the destruction of Alderaan and the Battle of Yavin were the turning points that they were.

There is lots of more information from fully canon sources under this read more (because this got pretty long).

From the book Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy by Pablo Hidalgo (2016):

Of course even with that carefully cultivated messaging, the Empire still would call early Rebel movements “Separatist cells” (See: Rogue One: Catalyst) and cast them as a resurgence of that conflict, and/or just flat out call the Rebellion a group of terrorists. Imperial propaganda art, as the Rebellion grew stronger, also was designed to evoke memories of the Clone War, and for this reason was often fashioned to resemble Clone War era propaganda. FOr the most part however, they mainly played up the “Law and Order” angle and called the Rebels terrorists.

There were propaganda campaigns that even went so far as to call the Rebel Alliance just a bunch of puppets of the Hutt Cartel.

I am not going to post any more of the excerpts from this book, because if you are interested in these things I very much recommend giving it a read for yourself. However I do hope that does help answer your question.

The Rebellion worked very hard to create and maintain a particular message about itself, to make sure they appeared a certain way to the people outside of their structure.

That image being put out for public consumption =/= what is going on within the organization itself. 

Rogue One: Rebel Dossier: Info & Intel on the Rebellion’s Bravest Band of Spies (2016) by Jason Fry is a collection of documents related to the Rogue One mission.

In it we see mention of how concerned the Rebellion was with the public perception that they were a Separatist cause, and their commitment to finding ways to directly counter that messaging.

We also see some of Bail Organa’s concerns about what it means to bring the many different factions that make up the Alliance together, and to maintain unity among them.

The Rebel FIles by Daniel Wallace (2017) is a collection of internal documents belonging to the Rebel Alliance’s official Historian and Archivist. This in-universe guidebook has writing in its margins from the leaders of the Resistance, who decades later are combing through these files to find wisdom that can help them with their own war effort.

It starts by right away telling us that one of Mon Mothma’s greatest concerns when crafting the Alliance’s internal structure was how to keep so many groups with so many radically different goals and beliefs united.

Early on in the internal discussion of what would make for effective propaganda, the crafters of the Alliance sized upon the way the Empire was treating former Separatist planets.

It is also clear that no matter what imagine the Alliance tailored for the public, so long as a group was willing to compromise and agree to certain concessions, the Alliance was actually willing to work with most anyone in the galaxy who might be able to help them take down the Empire (however when people like Saw Gerrera refused to hold to those concessions, the Alliance would have nothing more to do with them).

Cassian Andor is himself a great example of former Separatists in the Rebel ranks. He spent his youth fighting hard for the cause of the Confederacy, and clearly viewed his work with the Rebel Alliance as an extension of that. At age 26, and just 19 years into the Imperial Regime, he told Jyn Erso he had “...been in this fight since I was six years old,” clearly including a year of his time fighting against the Republic prior to the Empire’s creation.

I am only going to include one more thing from this book, because like with Star Wars Propaganda I really do think that if you are at all interested in the Rebellion’s internal structure you should buy The Rebel Files and read it.

This page in the book shows us that the Alliance’s knew where to locate, and were using old Separatist bases.

I’d love to see more meta about the fact that the Rebellion was named what it was not due to any particular romantization of the Republic, but because Palpatine’s entire government’s claim to legitimacy was dependent on portraying the Empire as an evolution and extension of the Republic.

By naming themselves the Alliance to Restore the Republic, the Rebels were directly undermining everything that the Empire was built on, and were calling Palpatine’s bluff on being a legitimate ruler.

This is made obvious when you consider how many former Separatists were in the Alliance’s ranks, and how one of the key central platforms of the New Republic’s constitution once they formed their government was that membership in the New Republic was fully voluntary. Any system that ever wished to secede was able to do so at will.

That is how and why so many systems were not a part of the New Republic in Bloodline. How and why Ryloth was able to become a fully independent system that had fuck all to do with the New Republic. How and why so many criminal enterprises, up to and including the First Order, were able to thrive in the decades that the New Republic was strongest - the New Republic’s charter was written with the Separatist system’s demand to be left alone very central to their platform, and because of that a whole lot of space never had anything to do with them - were fully self-governing with no acknowledgement of any kind of larger galactic law (things like laws against slavery,labor regulations, etc) because they simply didn’t want to. 

The decision to join or not was taken rather seriously by all systems in the galaxy. In fact the Aftermath books even told us that there was a time the Alderaan flotilla debated on if they wanted to enter into this union or not (we know they eventually did as Leia would go on to be their senator in the New Republic senate, but the book gave us a look at them debating on it and weighing the pros and cons).

One of the things I appreciate in Star Wars is there are no perfect political systems, and you can very clearly see how the events of previous eras influenced the choices that were made later on. Even the mistakes that result in the greatest losses come from very understandable beginnings.

[lazybarbarians]

Star Wars: Catalyst: A Rogue One Story by James Luceno

Ragnell: So, after a brief break last week (it was a holiday), we read Star Wars: Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel which you know is extra fun because it has an extra colon!

This novel is a prequel to the prequel everybody likes, set sequentially after the other 3 prequels that nobody likes. It takes place before the events of Rogue One. Spoilers, they build a Death Star. (Extra spoilers, a magic teenager from the middle of fucking nowhere blows it up.) But for those of you who watched that movie and ask “How did these people get into this situation?” then this is the book for you.

Kalinara: also, if you watched and thought “is it just me, or is Krennic really kind of obsessed with Jyn’s dad?” This book seems to clarify: yes, yes he is.

R: I must warn you, that this book contains graphic depictions of social climbing, child care, bureaucracy, workplace competition, shameless use of high school contacts for your own professional advancement, and several instances of unadulterated exposition about the nature of kyber crystals. Which power lightsabers.

Also, Lightsabers do not appear in this book. Not even once. Not even in a flashback.

We open with Galen and Lyra Erso, a pacifist scientist and his religious environmentalist wife, trying to synthesize kyber crystals on Vallt, a neutral planet in the Clone Wars while Lyra takes notes and prepares for impending motherhood. Just their luck there’s an insurrection and they get captured in an attempt to make Galen work for the Separatist. So poor Jyn is born while her father’s in prison. But not to fear, Krennic is here! Lt Commander Krennic, who knows Galen from Smart Dude School, arranges for their rescue because he thinks Galen’s specialty will really help him get to the Front Row of researchers on the Super-Secret Battle Station Project they have been assigned to.

Krennic uses a smuggler to get them out, and then destroys the new Vallt government for Orbit. Galen, of course, does not accept a military job immediately and instead offers Krennic a way out of military service. Which is sweet but a major character misjudgment So Krennic greases the works of the Republic so that Galen can’t leave Coruscant, and is bored out of his skull and eventually accepts a mind-numbing QA position on another planet. Towards the end of the war, that planet gets the shit bombed out of it and the Ersos again have to flee back to Coruscant. But the war is over! And the Jedi are dead! So, no need for a military job, right?

Still, Galen does need a job so it’s Krennic to the rescue again. With a “clean energy research project” using kyber crystals. He even has a suitcase full of them. Which Lyra points out probably came form the lightsabers of murdered Jedi but really, he’s offering the chance to build UNLIMITED ENERGY for the New Galactic Empire. That can’t be sinister, right?

Little does Galen know, Krennic’s been working behind the scenes at the Empire, convincing Palpatine’s Vice, Mas Amedda (Remember the creepy blue dude with the horns and headtails? He gets lines!) to back him while he maneuvers against Governor Tarkin to gain influence and monitors the Ersos to make sure Lyra’s not radicalizing her husband.

The time goes on and Galen gets more into his work, and Lyra gets offworld with a friend and gets to see the environmental devastation being wrought by the Empire on protected lands. And things aren’t adding up from their POV. They finally have a talk about it, then confront Krennic. Krennic handles the confrontation so poorly it confirms he’s evil and that Galen’s research has been weaponized. Fortunately, this coincides with Krennic using his favorite smuggler against Tarkin, and Tarkin sending the guy back to Coruscant to make him a spy in Krennic’s organization. Because no one in the fucking Empire gives a fucking fucking about their actual job except guys like Galen Erso who lose faith in the system when they realize their labor has been twisted to evil. Of course, because Krennic used the same smuggler to escort Lyra off-world before, and because the smuggler knows Saw Gerrera this blows up in both Krennic and Tarkin’s faces because he arranges to distract Krennic and smuggle them off Coruscant.

The book ends on some really sweet interaction between Jyn and Saw, and promises that the beginning of the movie is just a few years away.

I do enjoy tie-in books, because I can always picture the actors in their roles. (And through the miracle of the internet can find images of them at the age they’d be during a prequel!) I have long had a problem with Star Wars books, though, because I always have to look up the species online to picture them. But that’s just a small nitpick. If a Star Wars books is funny, quick-paced and adventurous with an engaging hero I can get over that. Oddly, this book is… none of those things. I don’t hate it, I kinda liked it, but if not for the movie I think it’d have bugged me.

K: It’s definitely a “prequel of a prequel” situation. As a stand alone novel, it’s definitely lacking. There really isn’t an overall plot, as I’d define one. And while we have an effective villain, we’re stuck in a position where we can’t get a lot of closure, because that closure will happen in Rogue One itself. As a prequel though, it’s pretty effective.

R: See, this book starts off very very slow. Krennic is the most interesting viewpoint character early on, though it picks up when they bring in Tarkin. (Man I love Tarkin.) Can’t say I grew fond of Has or would’ve been sad if he’d died.

K: This book definitely utilized Krennic well. I think Krennic, like Tarkin, and probably Hux in TFA, represent an interesting, almost banal type of evil. They may get a grandiose gesture or two, but the true nature of their triumphs and schemes are not going to be showcased in a movie like Star Wars. The quiet machinations, social climbing, sneaky backroom financial dealings and so on could perhaps make a good sci-fi version of House of Cards, but they’re not going to waste a filming budget on that when we could have lightsabers instead.

But that’s where books like this one can come in handy. In Catalyst, we get to see Krennic at his most effective. He really is more than just the hapless ineffectual douche that Tarkin and Vader metaphorically shove into a locker.

R: I knew the final fates of the Ersos, so it was hard to get too engaged with them. After a while, I got into the second part, though, I got invested. Galen and Lyra start to come alive after then. Lyra’s faith becomes evident in her reactions to the anti-Jedi propaganda and the kyber crystals, and her husband slowly starting to parrot that stuff. We get to see her keep her head and her wits about her as the Emperor, aided by legions of guys like Krennic and Tarkin, rewrites reality. We can see how a man like Galen Erso ended up in the situation he was in, how naive he could be, how he meant well but couldn’t resist when everything he wanted was placed on a silver platter in front of him with the label “Cruelty-Free!”, and how his curiosity and desire to understand the kyber crystals had him rationalizing all sorts of things away.

K: I really liked Galen and Lyra too. We got to appreciate Galen a bit during Rogue One, of course, as someone forced into Imperial service but taking what steps he can to get the word out and sabotage what he’s created. But here we get to see exactly how he fell into that situation. And it’s very sympathetic.

One thing that I think tends to get lost when we discuss older Imperial characters, whether they be the real assholes like Tarkin and Krennic, or more hapless ones like Galen, is that they didn’t start off as Imperials. They started out as soldiers or scientists of the Republic. Palpatine was the Chancellor before he was the Empire, and he had a very long time to lay the groundwork of his most evil deeds long before he named himself Emperor, or Darth Vader came blasting into the picture. The true change from Republic to Empire, from flawed-but-fundamentally-well-meaning-democracy to a totalitarian dictatorship was slow and gradual, and a lot of people were blind to what was happening until it was too late.

R: With this book we see different levels of that too. We see how Has, Galen, Krennic, and Tarkin all ended up sliding into the Imperial machine due to the Clone Wars, for different motivations and different rewards and different levels of satisfaction.

K: Lyra’s faith was an interesting note, and something that I’ve really liked about the new Disney canon. In the old Expanded Universe, the Jedi were very much like Han describes them in A New Hope: hokey religious practitioners with little to no connection to every day life. Even after Luke brings back the Jedi Order, they are very separated from the day to day life of the citizens of the Republic.

The Disney canon so far, from Catalyst, Rogue One, Heir to the Jedi and so on, have painted a different picture of the way that the Jedi and the Force interact with common people. A woman like Lyra, who has never met a Jedi in her life, can still venerate the kyber crystals and their connection to the Force. The rebels still give Jedi blessings. Different cultures still tell stories of those of their number who went off to become Jedi, and treasure their heirlooms. It becomes clear in the new canon that Han’s dismissal of the Jedi, or that Admiral who scorned Vader and got choked for his trouble, are yet other demonstrations of Palpatine’s powers and machinations. He’s cut the Jedi off from common, ordinary people. That’s not the natural state of events.

I think maybe when we do see Luke’s idea of a Jedi Order, we’ll see something very different from the isolated little boarding school/temple on Yavin IV. But maybe something more organically linked to the people. (And hopefully something that would allow more to survive/escape Kylo’s treachery.)

R: I like that aspect too. It must be leading up to whatever we’ll see Luke set up, and I really don’t want the later purge to have been as effective as the first. I think there should be a handful running around who’ll show up in the next two movies.

I also like the Jedi being a specialized practitioner of a faith that is actually pretty widespread. They’re like priests in the Disney canon, which suits Luke a lot. In Shattered Empire Rucka has Luke planning an espionage mission with a volunteer pilot, and killing a bunch of Imperials during it, but afterwards Luke and the volunteer sit down and discuss whether or not she should leave the army. Not from the point of view of whether or not it’s good for the Alliance, but whether or not it’s the right choice for her. Like a Chaplain would. And it’s a role that really fits Luke Skywalker’s character arc

Of course, even with that in mind the Sith-Jedi thing is still a sectarian dispute. So after Palpatine has cut off the Jedi from the common people, and driven belief in the Force underground… has he replaced it with anything? Are there non-Sith Force-believers out there who are like a dark side version of the Guardian of the Whills or Church of the Force?

Aside form that, I wish we’d had more Saw. I thought the end bit with him was lovely, and very sad in light of his role in the movie. In the early years of the Empire, saw Gerrera greeted defectors with kind words and admiration. By the time of the Death Star, he’s so paranoid he tortures the messenger and holds the message in terrified uncertainty about its truth. It’s tragic.

And, much as I grouse, I appreciate a little exposition on kyber crystals. They’re confusing little things. I guess, with this book establishing they can’t be easily synthesized they’re even more confusing (are the Sith using natural crystals or do they just have a method?), but it’s good to have a little material on them and know how difficult it was to power the Death Star.

But really, if anything’s worth reading in this book, it’s the inner workings of the Empire. Rogue One let us know both the Empire and the Rebellion were logistical nightmares. Rebels tells us why the Rebellion is so screwed up. Catalyst tells us why the Empire is so screwed up. How all of the secrecy and backbiting and political jockeying that has run rampant in Palpatine’s organization is doing in the Empire piece by piece. But going by the Vader-Emperor relationship in ESB and ROTJ, we can surmise that in-fighting is a top-down trend.