Author: M. Dean Cooper

What Star Wars Can Learn From the DC Animated Universe

Posted on August 25, 2014by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

DCAU

As I’ve mentioned, well, repeatedly at this point, I’m unusual among my generation (and certainly among people with Star Wars websites) in that I didn’t really grow up with Star Wars. My first exposure to the original trilogy was the release of the Special Editions, at which point I was already almost 15. I have no memories of the films correlating with my early development, my understanding of narrative, or my appreciation of science fiction and/or fantasy. In fact, I’m still not really into sci-fi and fantasy to the extent that many SW fans are.

No, growing up, my thing was superheroes. My earliest genre memories are of the original Ninja Turtles cartoon in the eighties, which led to Spider-Man and X-Men in the nineties, which led to buying actual comics around 1995, which I’ve been collecting pretty much ever since.

But despite my natural affinity for Marvel properties, the genre throughline from childhood all the way to my college years was the DC Animated Universe. I was ten when the first episode of Batman: The Animated Series debuted in 1992, and I still remember it vividly all these years later—because that episode, spearheaded by visionaries Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, ended up ushering in an expansive new DC continuity that lasted more than a decade in animated form, and technically continues in comics form to this day. From Batman to Superman to Batman Beyond to Justice League (with the occasional Static Shock and Zeta Project thrown in for good measure), Dini, Timm, and others built a shared universe rivaling its comic-book predecessor (and in my opinion, often surpassing it in quality), developing disparate elements—and, crucially, voice actors—from series to series and era to era in a way that imbued each new story with a weight that’s rarely seen in children’s television. The DCAU taught me what expansive, long-form storytelling could do, and I owe my appreciation of continuity in Star Wars to that example. Here are some of its other lessons. Read More

The Expanded Universe Explains, Vol. IX – The Shuttle Tydirium

Posted on August 11, 2014by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

As I noted last time, rather than discontinue this series in the wake of the reboot of the Expanded Universe, I’m taking the opportunity to explore some of the areas where a reboot could do the most good; namely, events referenced in the films that have since been explained…and reexplained…several times. Some of these events are outright mutually exclusive, but most are just redundant, making stray bits of story only peripherally related to the films into sisyphean tales of lost and found and lost again, fighting and reconciling and fighting again, and of course, the long-distance relay race otherwise known as the theft of the Death Star plans. But first…

20. How did the Rebels steal the Imperial shuttle Tydirium?

A lot of the bigger inconsistencies in the EU were the result of the harsh dividing line between the old material that came out during and shortly after the Original Trilogy, when continuity was less of a serious concern, and the “modern” EU that started with Tim Zahn in the nineties. The theft of the Tydirium, however—probably by virtue of its placement in Return of the Jedi, and thus near the end of most of the early EU—wasn’t even mentioned until 1994, and was subsequently re-told twice more over the next decade or so. Read More

Sacred Shaaks – Eleven-ThirtyEight Goes Negative

Posted on August 8, 2014by , , , and Not A Committee

disneypyre

Despite all the hay I’ve made over wanting this site to be a source of positivity, I belong to the school of thought that says if you’re not making anyone angry, you’re doing something wrong. Between my natural contrarianism and a nagging aversion to treading the same ground as every other fan blog under the suns, now and then I’ll go out of my way to highlight a point of view purely because I don’t hear it very often. Even if I don’t personally agree with something, if I feel like there’s a fair point to be made that’s being denied a seat at the table due to nothing more than aggressive common consensus, I consider it our responsibility as a soapbox to expand that conversation rather than condense it.

While that philosophy has poked its head out at least a handful of times already, its most blatant expression on this site is one I haven’t really addressed overtly before—the phrase “no sacred shaaks” in our tagline up top. Totally aside from whatever my actual opinions are, nothing gets my back up more than a reasonable person being shouted down because their opinion is unpopular. One of the things I love about Star Wars is that it can be interpreted in so many different ways; nothing about it is wholly good or wholly bad, and to orthodoxically condemn or defend any one element is to reduce it by definition—but ask some fans and you’d never know it. Read More

Escape Pod: Winter

Posted on August 4, 2014by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

winterDespite the Prequel Era being off-limits during the heyday of the Expanded Universe, a few details did sneak through here and there that served to color in the pre-Republic period we would eventually see on screen, and while most of them were intentionally vague, for every outright error, there was a lucky guess. One of the best examples of this comes in the form of Winter, a character introduced alongside Thrawn and Mara all the way back in Heir to the Empire.

Winter was a close childhood friend of Princess Leia’s while growing up on Alderaan, who had also functioned as her attendant and decoy during state (and Rebellion) business. In the parlance of the prequels? She was Leia’s handmaiden.

In addition to her convenient physical resemblance to Leia (though her natural hair color was a stark white), Winter had a photographic memory, which led to her also becoming a highly effective, and notorious, intelligence agent for the Rebellion under the code name Targeter. Many an Imperial upper-cruster would recall sharing a delightful conversation with the beautiful young Alderaanian princess at a gala or banquet or what have you, when in reality they were being picked clean of intelligence and added to the flawless holocron that was Winter’s mind—all while the real Leia was likely off getting into trouble herself somewhere else. In fact, it’s reasonable to assume that Winter’s role as “backup Leia” played no small part in the princess’ status as a Rebel agent staying under wraps for as long as it did. Read More

What Tony Stark Can Learn From Star Wars

Posted on July 28, 2014by

In accordance with my goal of keeping this site reasonably positive, the normal function of our What Star Wars Can Learn From series is to highlight great things about other franchises that we feel would serve as valuable lessons for Star Wars—in other words, suggesting good stuff instead of dwelling on bad stuff. In the run up to this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, however, an interesting circumstance presented itself that required a somewhat different take on the concept.

First, allow me to start with some history. Just about fifteen years ago, the epic New Jedi Order novel series began with an ambitious set of goals: it aimed to move on from the long-drawn-out conflict between the Rebels and the Empire, while at the same time shifting the focus from Luke, Han and Leia to their children—and finally, to do all this in a more, let’s say grown-up, atmosphere where good and evil weren’t so simply delineated and where the good guys were in genuine danger. It was a controversial period in Star Wars publishing, but for better or worse, most people will at least agree that these goals were never met so perfectly and enthusiastically as in Matthew Stover’s Jacen Solo-centric novel Traitor.

The book began with Jacen having been captured by the alien Yuuzhan Vong invasion force, and remanded into the custody of Vergere, herself a bizarre alien of a different feather who claimed to have once been a Jedi of the Old Republic. In any event, her take on the Force was certainly much more nuanced than what Jacen—and us Star Wars fans—had grown up hearing. The Dark Side, Vergere suggested, wasn’t some malevolent exterior force, but was in fact a part of us all; only by acting through love or hate does one truly commit to one side or the other. Read More