There was one element of Star Wars Rebels‘ “Twin Suns” that eluded interpretation. Over the course of my multi-part close read, with every ridiculous theory I crafted for the episode’s name, I could not place it. Why were there so many shots of eyes that looked like the suns?

Maul’s eyes were the right color. Obi-Wan’s were similar to the blue of the twin moons, which served as a stand-in for the suns at night. There was a close-up of Ezra’s eye that made the pupil and the dot reflection look like the suns across the blue “sky” of his iris. Even Chopper had a moment where he was cropped by the frame so that only two of his optics were visible. “Twin Suns” did use eye close-ups and point-of-view shots to establish whose perspective the audience was to engage with, so these decisions were not wholly without reason. And yet I still could not make the connection to why these eyes resemble the suns, almost deliberately so.

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Writer Jody Houser continues her incredible work in making these dual-and-dueling Age of Republic issues rhyme with each other. The December releases focused on the public misconceptions of Jedi as warriors, using Qui-Gon and Maul to provide counterpoints on the topic. When the Obi-Wan issue was released, January’s focus was clear. Like Ryan at Mynock Manor I had anticipated the common theme between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett’s Age of Republic issues to be fatherhood. As someone who delights in familial themes in fiction, I was ready to tackle this head-on!

Unfortunately, despite my enthusiasm and the excellent work by Houser and her teams, I was hamstrung in my analysis. I found myself unable to go as deep into the characters as I had with Qui-Gon and Maul. Understand, I am about the farthest thing from a father as one can get: a childless woman.

Now that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion about fathers and fatherhood, but Obi-Wan’s (“Mission”) and Jango’s (“Training”) comics were focused very much on these men’s internal lives as fathers. That’s an area I am unfamiliar with, and I could not do these issues justice on my own. Fortunately, I happen to know some fathers. My own dad and one of my brothers were able to take the time to chime in with their own experiences.
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Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul are two characters who were introduced in The Phantom Menace, wherein they both were killed in an epic duel. Supposedly killed, that is, as both lived on all the way up to the doorstep of A New Hope, each of them drastically affecting the growth of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Therefore, it makes sense on a surface level for Qui-Gon and Maul to having dueling comic releases. But this isn’t just a nice nod and a wink to their shared screentime. There’s much more to be found in their texts’ comparison.

Age of Republic is a limited comic series that will run through March 2019, with a hero and a villain each getting their own issue every month along with an additional special issue combining the stories of other characters. The series kicked off in December 2018 with Qui-Gon’s and Maul’s comics, entitled “Balance” and “Ash” respectively, both comics written by Jody Houser.

Not only did Houser create two solid tales that give us better looks into these characters, but she also made them rhyme. George Lucas would be proud. “Balance” and “Ash” are a dance of contrasts, following the same beats of story while united by a particular theme: the galaxy’s perception of the Jedi.

Spoilers Ahoy…

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The Last Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie. I could gush about it all day. Canto Bight, Rose, D’acy, the duel on Crait, Finn and Rey’s hug, the scene in the novel where Rey and Luke dance, the themes, the emotional release, the technical prowess of it all. Marvelous! But for all that, there’s one scene in which I find no joy.

It feels a little odd. I’m looking at something that’s a technical and choreographic marvel, at something where the actors deliver stunning performances, at something that hits the right emotional beats of a story, both in its own subplot and in the interwoven narrative of the movie as a whole. I’m looking at such a well-executed scene in my favorite Star Wars movie, and I cannot like it. I have never liked it. Not the first time I watched it, not the last.

I don’t like the throne room battle sequence.

It’s purely an emotional reaction on my part, I can admit to that. I dislike the throne room battle on a gut level. And that’s okay, because emotional reactions are a critical part of the conversation around this movie. If we’re not honest about our emotional reactions, we’re not going to get anywhere.

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