Author: Jay Shah

Rebels Revisited: “When Have I Asked You to Trust Me and it Hasn’t Worked Out?”

Posted on November 28, 2016by , , and Feature Articles

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Mike: While it was as entertaining as Hondo episodes always are, the thing I found sort of perplexing about this week’s installment of Star Wars Rebels was that I’m not certain what they want us to think of Hondo at this point. He stands firmly apart from the assortment of quasi-recruits we discussed last week in that he has no direct interest in the Rebel cause and only works with them when he can get something out of it, but it seemed like the larger point of this episode was to suggest to viewers that Ezra is fundamentally mistaken in trusting him, and continuing their chaotic friendship is going to lead our heroes to a bad place.

But would that amount to sowing doubt for its own sake, or are Hondo and Ezra headed for a real split soon? It’s more likely, I think, that they’d want us to think they are in advance of a genuine hero moment for Hondo. For all the noise the characters make about him only being out for himself, the creators have always had so much obvious affection for the character (going back to his adventures with Obi-Wan and Anakin in The Clone Wars) that I have a hard time seeing him ever truly betray Ezra and the gang in a serious way—as Ezra notes, he may be sketchy but teaming up with him has always worked out in the end. Are they really signaling a change in that dynamic? According to Taylor Gray in Rebels Recon, Ezra feels genuine affection for Hondo because he reminds him of the carefree scoundrel he was as a child–so what did he take away from this week’s events that he didn’t know already?

Ben: Well, right now it seems to be a question of driving a wedge between him and Hera. Hera’s buckled down on the shenanigans as things have gotten more intense and serious, especially with Kanan being blinded and taking a backseat, and having Hondo (and Azmorigan) around is putting an agent of chaos into the mixture. I feel there was a bit of meta-commentary when Ezra mentioned that every time they team up with Hondo, things seem to work themselves out in the end. Even in this episode, they rescued the Ugnaught and got away with a hold full of proton bombs. Yes, it does work out, we know from a narrative standpoint that it will because Hondo is who he is from an out-of-universe perspective. But Hera doesn’t have our perspective, and neither does Zeb. Read More

Is the Empire a “White Supremacist” Organization? Should It Be?

Posted on November 23, 2016by , , , , , and Not A Committee

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Mike: Many, many moons ago, before The Force Awakens and before the Expanded Universe reboot, our own Jay Shah wrote a piece entitled Senseless Sexism in the Galactic Empire. His premise, in short, was a) that the Star Wars setting offered no logical explanation for an Empire that actively discriminates against female officers, and b) that in practice the EU’s attempts to engage with the issue had been flawed to the point that it would have been better left out altogether.

Jay was reacting to the simple fact that because Imperials are the bad guys—and more importantly, stand-ins for real-life oppressive governments—many are quick to ascribe any and all bad qualities to them. Surely there’s an anti-alien contingent, as witnessed in A New Hope and further supported by the prequel trilogy, but does the Empire actually discriminate against women, or people of color, as well? It’s easy to get that impression when every Imperial in the original trilogy is a white man (though the Rebels in ANH and The Empire Strikes Back aren’t much more diverse), but looking at their successors in the First Order complicates the issue—as do prominent non-film characters like Rae Sloane, who has largely been met with joy from fans for making the overall setting more inclusive, and demonstrating that anyone can be, well, “the bad guy”.

With all this serving as prelude, in the aftermath of last week’s heated US presidential election, Chris Weitz and Gary Whitta, two writers attached to Rogue One, tweeted the following:

Chris Weitz @chrisweitz
Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization

Gary Whitta @garywhitta
Opposed by a multicultural group led by brave women.

While nothing tossed off on Twitter (and since deleted) should be taken as canon, and it certainly can’t undo the existence of the powerful, serious black woman who becomes the nominal leader of the Imperial military after Palpatine’s death, I thought Weitz and Whitta’s comments (and let’s be real, the current events that prompted them) merited a revisiting of this topic. So I’ll put the question to all of you: as a separate matter from the “reality” of gender and race discrimination within the GFFA, which can never really have a definitive answer, is there value in explicitly, rather than allegorically, linking the Empire to misogyny and white supremacy? Can there be a sliding scale of interaction with real hate, or is it all or nothing? Read More

Controlling the Narrative — A Discussion with Pablo Hidalgo, cont’d

Posted on October 31, 2016by

Star-Wars-Propaganda-Poster-Set_Page_06[1]Today we conclude our week of Star Wars Propaganda coverage with the second part of our interview with author Pablo Hidalgo. This piece is a continuation of last Friday’s interview segment, where we discussed the development of the Propaganda book and how both it and its art was commissioned. Last Wednesday, I shared my own thoughts about the Propaganda book, particularly enthusing over how it used art and narrative to create an open and accessible form of world-building that enhanced storytelling seen in the Star Wars movies and novels. Appropriately, this second part of our conversation with Pablo focuses on narrative and in-universe storytelling.

My questions below are in bold, and Pablo’s answers are in plaintext.


Speaking of the in-universe work already done – one of my favorite parts of this book that it’s in-universe. I like in-universe work in general, whether it be travel posters or propaganda posters. How did it help in writing this book for it to be in-universe? You could have just as easily written it as an out-of-universe book like the Visual Dictionary. How does being in-universe help and what guided that decision?

For one thing, it’s more fun because I get to play a character, rather than my usual character of the omniscient third-person narrator. By playing a character – I don’t really do a lot of fiction, though, this book is technically classified as non-fiction. It is a work of fiction though, because this book is describing a fictional space in the way that it does. So as a result, I don’t get to do a lot of character work in the material that ends up being published. So this is my chance to be a character, which is fun. The thing that it [does] is that it allows you to play with point of view, and it gives you a stronger ability to editorialize and duck out of conversations that you may not be ready to talk about. An example is, if I was going to tell you the history of any country—if I was going to tell you the history of the U.S.—I would edit that to tell you what I thought was important for you to hear. But sometimes when it comes to telling histories of fictional universes, there’s this weird burden to tell you everything. That would be the equivalent of me telling you the history of the U.S. and starting with, “When the Earth cooled, the landmasses distributed themselves…” but you don’t need that information. As a result, an in-universe narrator can take for granted what you as an in-universe reader should already know. And the funny thing is, those are things that maybe haven’t been defined, such as the origins of certain institutions and the origins of certain parts of history. But I can avoid getting into that detail because presumably you already know that even though outside that universe [you] don’t.

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Behind the Propaganda — A Discussion with Pablo Hidalgo

Posted on October 28, 2016by Interviews

Star-Wars-Propaganda-Poster-Set_Page_05[1]On Wednesday, I shared my thoughts on how the Star Wars Propaganda book made wonderful use of the medium of an art book to tell a worldbuilding story about the Star Wars galaxy that was grounded in a sense of familiarity for the audience.  I discussed how the in-universe method of storytelling worked well to discuss the subject of propaganda, and noted that the book was just plain fun. Since I liked the book so much, I wanted to talk to the author about how the book came together and what ideas went into putting the book in its final form.

Here’s Part One of my interview with Star Wars Propaganda author Pablo Hidalgo; join us Monday for Part Two. My questions are in bold, and his responses are in plaintext (except for anything inside brackets).

 

How did propaganda become one of the first subjects for a reference book in the new Star Wars canon? The book contains art and propaganda, but also narrative – in what ways is this a better (or just different) starting point than a more traditional Essential Guide type of book?  

The idea of a propaganda book crossed my desk as a fully-formed idea. I’m not sure who originated it, but I first heard of it from my editor Delia Greve, who’s at Becker & Mayer (the company that packaged the book). Before she was able to talk about [it], she just kind of dropped me a line: ‘I’ve got something that I’d really love for you to work on. I can’t tell you what it is yet, but I hope you’re available.’ But when she had a fully-formed pitch that was approved by Lucasfilm, she basically gave me a run-down on what a propaganda book could be, and I was all for it. As to what this format offers in comparison to the old Essential Guide format…the Essential Guide format in the late nineties and early 2000s when it was thought that most of our spaces of time in the timeline as far as storytelling goes were already filled up. But now that we’re telling new stories on TV, in movie theaters, and in books and comics, we can’t take it for granted that there are big spaces in the timeline yet to be filled by stories. That makes it difficult to do an Essential Guide where you’re trying to fill in all these blanks. So instead we’re able to focus on very focused works like a Visual Dictionary or this book that takes a different conceit by being focused on a specific subject like propaganda and telling it from a specific point of view, like an in-universe author.

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Star Wars Propaganda: Worldbuilding Through Art and Story

Posted on October 26, 2016by Imperial Court Circular

Star_Wars_Propaganda_New_Cover[1](Programming note: this piece is the first of three about Star Wars Propaganda. On Friday and next Monday, I’ll be posting a two-part interview with the author, Pablo Hidalgo.)

Like a lot of people, I’ve been looking forward to the Star Wars Propaganda book ever since it was announced. WWII-esque propaganda posters for the Empire and Rebellion have been a part of Star Wars merchandise (and fan creation) for a long time, because they just fit into the old-timey milieu of Star Wars. There’s a certain sense of familiarity to the Star Wars setting – that despite the space opera dressing, the galaxy far far away actually feels rather like ours. Star Wars echoes our history, myth, and fairy tales. And while fairy tales and myth may seem different from familiar history, it’s the myth-making of propaganda that makes the World Wars (or the nostalgic ad campaigns of the 1950s) seem like cultural touchstones as familiar to us as the stories we grew up with.

Star Wars Propaganda is written by Pablo Hidalgo, and is illustrated through the efforts of artists gathered by Becker & Mayer, and is published by Harper Design. But after the publishing pages, everything about the book treats it as if it’s an art history treatise written inside the Star Wars galaxy. See, the central conceit of the book is that it’s written in-universe and all the propaganda posters seen within it are actual pieces composed by actual in-universe artists (even the captions for the pictures refer only to these fictitious propagandists and/or sponsors). The book’s notional author, Janyor of Bith, is a propagandist whose career saw him through an era of patriotic Republic and Imperial paintings to protest paintings on behalf of the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance (it’s worth pointing out that Janyor was mentioned as an artistic inspiration for Star Wars Rebels’ artist-provocateur Sabine Wren in the episode “Idiot’s Array”). The in-universe storytelling is my favorite conceit of this book, because it allows Star Wars Propaganda to weave together the body text and art into a work of storytelling in its own right: telling the story of propaganda, galactic politics, and even of Janyor’s own personal journey in a way that’s more fun and compelling than out of universe narration might have been.

The book begins with an introduction by Janyor, where he states that propaganda is a true form of art, and that art and war are tied together in the same way that politics are tied with war. He’s discussing a fictitious universe, but the observations he makes ring true to life. The book’s about Star Wars propaganda, and the history is the history of that galaxy – but it echoes our own history and myth. The artwork illustrates that story in a literal sense, but it tells its own story through the evolving art styles and subject matter. Someone could get the whole story of the book focusing on the art alone or the text alone, should any such reader be inclined. The art and text help make the setting feel more genuine and lived in; it’s a verisimilitude that the films and television shows have which helps the world the characters inhabit feel more real.

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