Author: Jay Shah

Rebels Revisited: The Matter of Simmer v. Boil

Posted on January 29, 2016by , and

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Ben: Star Wars Rebels‘ first season was a rather brisk affair. With only sixteen episodes’ worth of run time total, we were delivered character introductions, development of those characters, decisions with consequences and plot twists, and a satisfying, rousing conclusion that led nicely into a future full of possibilities. What that meant in terms of storytelling was there was little to no room for padding; every episode paid off somehow at some point, and plots that you might have thought for sure the storytellers had forgotten about wound up coming back.

The second season, by comparison, has had a good deal more than that, around twenty-two episodes, and of course we were all happy at the prospect of getting even more of the show and characters we loved. What I didn’t count on, and what caught a lot of people off-guard, is that the storytelling gears shifted. Rather than continuing to embrace the same taut pace, season two is taking its time with many things. We’ve been introduced to a load of new characters who all had the potential to recur, both good and evil, and a lot of hints and ideas about characters that may or may not pay off later on.

In “The Protector of Concord Dawn” for instance, we got hints about Kanan’s past during the war (directly referencing a current comic storyline, natch), as well as Sabine’s own Mandalorian pedigree, Hera’s position as Phoenix Leader, and the Rebel fleet’s scattered resources slowly coming together. All of it was following up on things that had been seeded earlier this season, but they’re far from concluded at this point. And we got a whole new faction of characters introduced in the Mandalorian Protectors, who might play a huge role later on, or might not play a role at all. Who knows? Read More

Rebels Revisited: Not Just a Mercy Mission – the Greater Stakes of Rebellion

Posted on January 22, 2016by and Feature Articles

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Jay: This week’s Rebels episode featured an interesting twist on the now-familiar Star Wars Rebels cameo. Instead of appearing to interact with the Ghost crew and develop their arcs in certain ways, Princess Leia basically carried the episode herself. This was an interesting approach to take, and while I’m strongly disappointed that Leia and Hera never had the chance to have a conversation about politics and rebellion (I’ve long considered Hera the Leia of the Ghost crew, the true idealist and believer in the cause) I found myself very interested in how they developed Leia’s character in a general sense. In the past, I’ve been pretty opposed to small universe syndrome unless a character cameo benefits the larger Rebels story. Here, I made an exception because I am horribly biased in favor of all Leia appearances in all media but it occurs to me that they did something different and rather interesting with Leia. Rather than using Leia to tease out character growth in the main show characters, they used Leia to tease out more information about Leia and the larger galactic state of rebellion. Without ever lifting the camera from Lothal, we got a look at what things are like elsewhere in the galaxy and that’s a pretty cool thing.

See, we’re usually limited to the perspective of the Ghost crew, which is just one rebel cell among many. A lot of folks in the audience — myself included — got rather antsy over staying on Lothal too long, and while the crew is moving about they’re still just a tiny, tiny piece in a large galaxy. They’ve only attracted Lord Vader’s attention because of Ahsoka’s presence and the whole Jedi thing, but they’re not really that important on the overall stage (yet?) despite running around with Sato and Fulcrum/Ahsoka. But running into Leia allows the small Phoenix operation to intersect, however briefly, with the grand galactic state of play. Read More

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Daughter: Rey Durron, and Other Fun Ideas

Posted on January 8, 2016by , , , and Not A Committee

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Let’s get this out of the way: even many detractors of The Force Awakens concede that Rey is the wonderful, nuanced female Star Wars lead we’ve always wanted but never dared to dream we would get. That was the case from the moment she popped up on our movie screens, and it’s enormously unlikely that any new information regarding her origins would change that. Her being a Skywalker would not diminish her value any more than Darth Vader being a Skywalker diminished Luke’s.

That said, I’ll be damned if it isn’t fun to guess! Speaking for myself, it all comes down to the execution; I can see a version of Rey Skywalker that I love just as easily as I can see one I hate, and that applies to all the possibilities. There’s more than enough evidence to go around (there’s even a spreadsheet out there, because of course there is) and keep us guessing and debating for the next eighteen months—at least!—so I wanted to see where we at ETE stand right now. Think of this as a snapshot more than battle lines; I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of our minds are changed as the months go by. Mine has already.

Speaking of which, I’ll be back at the end with my own totally batshit theory, because that’s how I roll, but where are you guys leaning right now? What’s the most important piece of evidence as you see it—or is it more your personal hopes than an objective analysis? Read More

Victory Lap – TIE Fighter’s Rerelease: A Surprising Disappointment

Posted on December 30, 2015by

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I feel sort of bad about this review — it’s apparently one of the most popular articles on this website, and it gives the impression that GOG’s TIE Fighter release was subpar. Everything I wrote when this was published is accurate, but since then, GOG has listened to its customers and has added (at no extra cost) the TIE Fighter Collector’s CD to the GOG.com release. This brings the number of versions of TIE Fighter included to three: the original 1994 floppy disk release, the 1995 collector’s CD, and the 1997 Windows “remastered” edition.

As I mentioned in the original review, the floppy disk release has incredible music but no voiced dialogue and rather awful graphics. The remastered edition has improved 3D graphics, voiced dialogue (though poorly digitized), and really bland movie music. The 1995 collector’s CD really was the ideal middle ground: it had the incredibly responsive and well-composed music of the original release, with voiced dialogue that isn’t poorly compressed, and with a higher resolution (and less painful) version of the original release’s polygonal graphics. The 1995 TIE Fighter Collector’s CD is the ideal version of TIE Fighter, and it’s the version I fell in love with. It’s the version of TIE Fighter that had such an impact on me that I became a fan of the Empire and to this day play a role as an Imperial Colbert on the internet.

So if my original TIE Fighter review made you hesitate to get the TIE Fighter release on GOG, let that hesitation be banished. GOG has listened, and we now have the best possible version of TIE Fighter available to play (along with all the previous supplemental materials). In my heart of hearts, I wish it were possible to get the original music and dialogue along with the 3D graphics of the Windows release… but wishes aside, I can enthusiastically and without reservation recommend the GOG.com release.

(And if you’re feeling really bold, I can recommend getting high quality MIDI soundfonts to run with the GOG TIE Fighter release that make the game’s instrumental music sound positively orchestral).

» Read more..

Evil Takes Many Forms: The Genesis of the First Order

Posted on December 23, 2015by Imperial Court Circular

The-Force-Awakens-Frame[1](needless to say, spoilers for The Force Awakens ensue)

The First Order is the new villain of the Star Wars saga, and at first glance it looks a lot like the old villain. The First Order has the Imperial aesthetic down pat, if a bit further refined with more technological whiz-bang, sleeker starship architecture, and stormtroopers that appear “designed by Apple® in California.” Due to the film’s preference not to overexplain lore, audiences could be forgiven for thinking the Empire was still in charge. But there’s sufficient context in the film – and certainly in the background material – to give people the idea that the First Order is something different, a refashioned iteration of the Empire seeking to get back into power. It’s like the Empire, but different – changed. They’ve got the same trappings, but are something else – more intense, more driven, more fanatical. Some might say that they’re a little more black (cf. white), a little more overtly Nazi, than the Galactic Empire was. They are – but that’s not due to simplified storytelling, but because it’s the natural direction for the First Order to go. We hope to explain why.

During the cantina scene in The Force Awakens, Maz Kanata explains: (paraphrased) “Throughout the ages, evil has taken many forms: the Sith, the Empire, and now the First Order.” These forms of evil track with the enemies of the film trilogies, and while it’s tempting to say that they’re ultimately the same thing (the Sith create the Empire, which in turn lives on in the First Order) that elides the essential differences between them. The forms that evil takes depends on the role of evil in the saga and the context in which evil develops. To characterize these forms with a simple one-word descriptor, let’s describe the forms of evil as subversion, domination, and purification. Now – the villains of Star Wars have a lot more nuance than that, but those three words are a useful roadmap for charting the path from the “phantom menace” of the Sith in the Prequels to the resurgent First Order of the incipient Sequels.

Evil is not isolated to one or two villains, but acts upon the characters (primary or ancillary) in the story. One useful lens of looking at it is the evolution of the iconic white-armored soldiers of the Star Wars galaxy. Clonetroopers are bred to order, and yet develop individuality. Imperial stomtroopers, on the other hand, start out as recruits and conscripts and have their individuality steadily eroded away in the form of dehumanizing numerical designations as if they were automata (Edge of the Galaxy presents stormtroopers as emotionless husks, while the stormtroopers of Twilight Company still embrace humanity underneath their indoctrination). By the time of the First Order, however, early Imperial experiments in raising stormtroopers from birth have come to fruition and people who started out as normal human beings turn into unthinking tools of evil “raised to do one thing.” The Sith subverted a Republic, the Empire dominated a galaxy, and the First Order seeks to purify itself and everything else.

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