Author: Ben Wahrman

How Much Technology in Star Wars is Too Much?

Posted on October 7, 2016by , , , and Not A Committee

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With the recent return of Star Wars Rebels, we’ve finally been exploring the aftermath of Kanan Jarrus’s blinding last season. Kanan’s existing doubts and fears were only amplified by his handicap, and he spent months in apparent isolation before finally learning from Bendu how to use his Force senses in place of the real one he lost.

“Warrior learns how to see without seeing” is a time-honored trope that was all but made for Star Wars, and I loved seeing Rebels‘ take on it—I see the value in telling that story, not just for its own sake, but as a means of growing Kanan as a character and opening his mind to new paths. But at the same time, I admit I have a little suspension-of-disbelief issue with it: couldn’t the guy just get new eyes? Forget the ample prosthetic limb technology that we already know exists; if they can clone an entire army of dudes and age them at double their natural rate, surely they could clone him new biological eyes?

Well, maybe, but maybe not. Post-reboot, there are far fewer examples of cyborgs in Star Wars than there used to be, and the ones that we do see often are often portrayed as faulty or not quite optimal–so it’s unclear whether a robotic eye, or a cloned one, is actually possible, as counter-intuitive as that might be. The reality is, Kanan doesn’t have new eyes because that story wouldn’t be as interesting—just like Return of the Jedi wouldn’t have been as interesting if Luke had to duel with his left hand only. Read More

Rebels Revisited: “My Name is…Maul”

Posted on October 3, 2016by Feature Articles

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Bringing Darth Maul back to life was one of the biggest, and most controversial, changes brought to the Star Wars canon by The Clone Wars. At George Lucas’s behest, the Sith apprentice was brought back from the fate he met in The Phantom Menace, found half-crazed and ranting on a junkyard planet, only his rage and the power of the dark side keeping him alive. As TCW went on, Maul became one of the show’s strongest recurring antagonists, laying out insidious plots to try and regain his own power and to ensnare the ultimate object of his hate: Obi-Wan Kenobi.

When TCW ended its broadcast run after its fifth season, Maul’s ultimate fate was one of the plot lines that was left open-ended, after “The Lawless” brought his shared organization of criminals and Mandalorians down around him and Palpatine himself did something to his wayward apprentice, but explicitly left him alive. Following up on that, the comic series Son of Dathomir also avoided concluding his story, leaving him on the loose in a galaxy that was about to change from Republic to Empire.

Maul came back once again in the season two finale of Rebels, older but just as devious, and he once again escaped a definitive fate by fleeing his ersatz prison on Malachor. Maul’s appearance was the capstone to a season largely defined by the conflict between Ezra and Kanan and their opposite numbers on the Imperial side, where he introduced Ezra to the powers and dangers of the dark side. What stories took place in the time between then and the end of TCW are left (for the moment) to the imagination and vague hints about the “Siege of Mandalore”. Read More

Rebels Revisited: Room to Breathe

Posted on September 26, 2016by and Feature Articles

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Jay: The season three premiere of Star Wars Rebels was an interesting departure from the series norm. I’ve already heard a few people observe that it was less intense — both emotionally and in terms of action — than the opener of the last season, and I agree. I also think that’s a good thing: the story development reasons that required “The Siege of Lothal” to be a very harrowing experience for the characters militate a very different sort of development for the season three opener. That said, I don’t think the character experiences are any less intense just because their engagement with the villains was.

Vader loomed large over “The Siege of Lothal”. He had to — he’s Darth Vader. But more than that, he escalated and changed the stakes in a show where the Ghost crew — even facing the Grand Inquisitor and Grand Moff Tarkin — had a fairly easy time of it. He also drove the crew off of Lothal in a convincing fashion. These were all important for story reasons: it wasn’t just that Vader’s presence demanded that the heroes become overwhelmed, but that they needed an impetus to change the pace of the show and change its setting. “Siege” was exactly what the show needed, and it shocked the audience in all the right ways just as it provided the characters a great shock and opportunity for growth.

“Steps Into Shadow” was different. For one thing, it would be a little unconvincing if Thrawn were to show up and 1) be defeated or 2) defeat the Ghost crew but be prevented from finishing them off. Instead, his presence was slow and methodical — he made himself known as a threat, but in that very deliberate and methodical way that Thrawn does. As Dave Filoni pointed out in an interview, Thrawn is very different from someone like Tarkin (or the other villains that the Ghost crew has faced) — Thrawn is not a politician and he doesn’t have a need to show immediate results. He’s after the bigger picture. That alone makes him terrifying — the finality with which he dismissed the entire Phoenix force by saying, “that is not the Rebel fleet,” says it all. He’s playing to win, and that will take time. Read More

To Novelize or Not to Novelize—Is There Any Question?

Posted on August 1, 2016by , , , , and Not A Committee

anh-novelMike: Sometimes you can know something without really being conscious of it—and often you can be very much aware of something without fully grasping its implications. One such fact occurred to me recently: getting a new Star Wars film every year means that there is every reason to believe that we will also be getting one film novelization every year. In perpetuity.

Going off of Del Rey’s recent publishing schedule (though Disney-Lucasfilm Press adds an interesting new dimension to this), that amounts to roughly one in five “adult novels” from now on. When the prequels were coming out, there were around seven adult novels per year instead of five, and of course only one movie every three years—meaning roughly five percent of Del Rey’s output at the time was novelizations, versus twenty percent now. That’s a huge shift.

Now, I’m not here to say I want to return to seven original Star Wars novels every year. Even with the excitement of the new canon, what we’ve gotten over the last couple years has been more than enough new material to sustain my interest as a reader, while leaving enough energy for me to check off an old Legends book once in a while. My interest is strong, but my time and energy have waned as I’ve gotten older—so while I’m actually grateful that the publishing has slowed down a bit, I’m also more choosy about what I really do want to read.

And I don’t know that I want to read a new novelization every year. While most people will agree that at least one, Revenge of the Sith, was able to break out of the box of, let’s say unremarkableness, that firmly contains most novelizations, that’s only one out of seven—and The Force Awakens seemed to confirm that RotS was the exception to the rule rather than a new priority. I don’t think it was bad, it was just…unremarkable. The fact is, the basic mission statement of a novelization doesn’t demand a whole lot of an author, and plenty of good ones have failed to break out of that box, or even, seemingly, to try. I get why they exist, I don’t really expect Del Rey to stop doing them anytime soon, but—I’m seriously wondering if they’ll soon stop being worth my time. Read More

Clone Wars Character Autopsy: Saw Gerrera

Posted on June 24, 2016by

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It’s been a long time since we had one of these, so let’s recap exactly what we aim to accomplish. Character Autopsy as a term means a deeper look into how a character is portrayed, digging into their subtext and motivations and trying to figure out what makes them tick. Thus far, the articles in this series have focused on characters from The Clone Wars and were focused on their portrayal within the show’s context to form a basis for how they could be portrayed in future media.

So let’s talk about Saw Gerrera. Saw appeared in four episodes of TCW, through one extended season five arc that took place on the classic Expanded Universe world of Onderon. It was just announced that he would be making the jump from the small screen to the big one as portrayed in Rogue One by the esteemed Forest Whitaker. But who is he? What makes him tick? And why would he stumble out of the shadows asking prospective rebel agents about what they will become if they continue to fight the Empire?

We first see Saw as the self-appointed leader of the resistance against the Separatists on his world, along with his sister Steela and Lux Bonteri, the recurring-not-love-interest to Ahsoka Tano. Saw is a reckless and straightforward sort of person, focused on fighting the enemy and relying on Bonteri and his sister to be the diplomat and voice of reason respectively. He has the infectious enthusiasm to lead, but lacks the tact to soften the blows he strikes for the cause. Read More