Author: M. Dean Cooper

The Problem With Legends as an Alternate Universe

Posted on February 29, 2016by

A fun game I’ve played once or twice since the release of The Force Awakens is to try and pinpoint a moment in time where you could tip the post-Endor timeline, Back to the Future-style, from the Expanded Universe’s version to the sequel trilogy’s version. As I recall, the best mstarwars94idea I could come up with was Leia getting pregnant with Ben immediately—like, “the night of the Endor celebration” immediately. The impending child not only accelerates her coming to terms with her heritage (and motivates her and Han to marry sooner) but gives her a huge extra reason to end the war with the Empire as soon as possible. Sure enough, Leia taking an even more aggressive role in the military campaign brings about a swifter military victory, and perhaps even further motivates complacent core worlders to rally behind her as a post-Empire figurehead. This has all sorts of random ripple effects, too—different people come to lead the Imperial Remnant, Luke perhaps founds his new Jedi Temple sooner, and so on.

Of course, while a fun thought experiment, this is complete nonsense. The truth of the matter is that the sum total of the “Legends-verse”, as many are inclined to think of it, is under no circumstances a single coherent timeline that could be switched on or off like a light bulb. Lucasfilm’s efforts to keep it consistent over the years were herculean and admirable, but I’ve come to believe that a more accurate way of looking at Legends is as a plethora of “pocket universes”, which fit together more nominally than absolutely. Read More

Rebels Revisited: Too Far Gone?

Posted on February 26, 2016by , , and Feature Articles

rr-kallusponders

Mike: The good news is, this is the episode I’ve been waiting for since Star Wars Rebels began. I am a giant sucker for “the bad guy comes around” stories; it’s a big reason why I was such a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it may explain why the original trilogy spoke so strongly to me when I was younger (or maybe it’s the other way around). While the institution of the Empire is quintessentially one-dimensional, puppy-kicking, muahaha-ing capital-E Evil, Star Wars at its best has never been a one-dimensional story; it’s about—pardon the word choice—human characters making human decisions in the midst of galactic-scale moral crises. As The Clone Wars got on in years it started moving characters around on its moral axis, usually toward the “more evil” side, and it’s very exciting to see Rebels finally take its first steps past a one-dimensional Empire by nudging Agent Kallus, its longest-surviving antagonist, ever so slightly toward the “good” column.

The bad news is, I’ve been waiting for this since the show began. As much as I want to see the show make Kallus sympathetic (at all), I can very easily see an argument for it being too late. Kallus may not be an evil force of nature like Vader was, but he’s hardly a confused teenager like ATLA’s Prince Zuko, either. He’s performed any number of evil deeds in his career, even bragged about them, and forcing him to develop a grudging warrior’s respect for Zeb, while very welcome, isn’t exactly the profound moral crisis Vader faced when expected to kill his own son.

Of course, this could simply be an attempt to add more dimension to the character—and give the amazing David Oyelowo a little more to work with—without really changing his alignment. Maybe it’s about motivating Kallus to investigate the disappearance of the Geonosians, so that he might stumble upon the Death Star—a much bigger moral crisis for an Imperial “everyman”. Or it could be akin to Ventress’s arc in TCW; Kallus decides he doesn’t want to serve the Empire but isn’t about to oppose it, either. But wherever the story goes, the reason for any character development along these lines would be to earn some degree of sympathy for Kallus from the audience, and after a season and a half of mustache-twirling, that would be a huge task for a show that delights in presenting the deaths of stormtroopers as comic relief. What do you guys think? Could you actually see your way to rooting for Kallus someday? Read More

The Expanded Universe Explains, Vol. XII – Galactic Cartography and Astrogation

Posted on February 17, 2016by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

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While The EU Explains dates back to the earliest days of this site, and thus before the reboot actually took place, that seemed a likely enough prospect that this series was conceived less as “what are the definitive answers to these questions?” than as “how did the Expanded Universe address this?” The EU’s version(s) of the theft of the Death Star plans, certainly, isn’t going to hold up much longer, but if we don’t learn from the past we’re doomed to repeat it and all that—so I feel it’s helpful for both old fans and new to reflect on how these things were dealt with in Legends so that we might gain insight into what might happen in the new canon, and just as importantly, what we might hope to avoid.

To that end, this time around I’m going to realign my targeting computer and use The EU Explains to comment on The Force Awakens directly, and investigate one of the biggest questions that has arisen from the film—not to provide definitive answers, but simply to suggest some. After all, one of the hallmarks of the new canon is not to explain background details when the story doesn’t absolutely demand it, so knowing there are at least possible answers might be the best we can hope for anytime soon. Read More

Rebels Revisited: Can Good Guys Do No Wrong?

Posted on February 12, 2016by , and Feature Articles

rr-yushyn

Mike: Who knew the space whale episode would be so controversial?

Where “The Call” continues Star Wars Rebels’ streak of episodes with gorgeous and interesting new visuals and skillful staging and humor, it has provoked fresh debate amongst many fans about exactly when and why the protagonists will choose to kill people—especially striking after “The Protector of Concord Dawn” dealt overtly with the subject for the first time just a couple weeks ago. In that episode Sabine clashes with Kanan and Hera when she wants to take revenge against the Mandalorian Protectors—potential Rebellion allies—for almost killing Hera. This week reshuffles the deck in an unexpected way by pitting Ezra (and eventually Kanan) against Hera in defense of the purrgil, whose lives Hera could give a womprat’s ass about. For my money, the episode does sufficient legwork in justifying Hera’s flippant attitude by explaining that she’s lost comrades to purrgil collisions in the past (she is a professional spacer, after all), but it ignores a much more interesting point: they’re all totes on board with wiping out the Mining Guild goons.

Now, not much is known about the canon Mining Guild (or the Legends one, for that matter), so it’s very easy to assume that they’re much worse than just innocent civilians making a living. But the script certainly doesn’t seem very concerned with getting that across, so it’s just as easy to assume this episode is about our heroes robbing and murdering people who did nothing worse than stand their ground. The directing all but delights in this; we get a quick look at the second TIE pilot moments before Ezra shoots him down, and a nice long look at Boss Yushyn being carried to his apparent demise in the jaws of an angry purrgil. Read More

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tolerate the Starkiller

Posted on January 25, 2016by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

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Let’s face it: at least among adult Star Wars fans, there aren’t a whole lot of people who unreservedly love the Starkiller plot thread in The Force Awakens. To those, like myself, who do love the movie overall, it’s seen as a necessary evil or at worst an isolated misfire, while those who dislike the movie see it as perhaps the worst of a long list of haphazard original-trilogy knockoffs.

In the months leading up to the film’s release, as the existence of a superweapon became apparent, I made my feelings clear that I’d have been happier without it, or at least with a different spin on the idea—it being a bluff for propaganda purposes, for example, rather than a functioning weapon. Nevertheless, the film came out and boy, was it ever functional.

While I’d still say that it’s the weakest element in an otherwise very strong movie, the more I’ve thought about it, and the more I’ve learned about the First Order, the more I’ve come to terms with the Starkiller—what it represents out-of-universe, and what it suggests about the sequel-era GFFA in-universe. Read More