Author: M. Dean Cooper

My Way or the Hyperlane – Feminism, Slut-Shaming and the New Fan Conservatism

Posted on March 31, 2014by and Not A Committee

sabine

Mike: In addition to the many, many larger conversations that sprung up in the wake of the reveal of Star Wars Rebels‘ main cast of characters last month, some of us here at Eleven-ThirtyEight noticed an odd undercurrent to people’s reactions to both Sabine and Hera; well, maybe not odd, but unfortunate. Loosely speaking, it seemed as if people had certain preconceived ideas about what a good female character should be like, and were judging the females of Rebels one way or another less by their apparent merits and more by what they found “acceptable” for Star Wars—or even for popular fiction generally.

This warranted a response of its own, I felt, but as someone who’s fully aware of the specter of “mansplaining”, I asked guest writer Mia Moretti, author of the aforelinked™ “race factor” piece, to join me for a discussion of these issues. Read More

Escape Pod: Hoojibs

Posted on March 18, 2014by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

As I’ve mentioned before, my first exposure to Star Wars was the Special Editions. When they were released in a VHS box set later in 1997, each tape began with a little 10-minute featurette detailing some of the changes made to that particular film. Being brand-new to the franchise, these featurettes were my first exposure to George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Dennis Muren, and so on, and the behind-the-scenes world of Star Wars as a whole—and as such, they’ve stuck in my head in a way that weirdly eclipses their actual importance as early “bonus content”. Case in point: my op-ed category title here at Eleven-ThirtyEight, Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks, comes from a quote by Mark Hamill referring to the Death Star battle in A New Hope.

Another line that’s always stuck with me comes from a little later, when Lucas is discussing the dewbacks—whose presence on Tatooine was scaled back due to the limitations of the physical puppetry at the time. The formative ingredients of Star Wars’ universe, he said, were plot, naturally, his own “psychological eccentricities” (no kidding, right?), and finally, whimsy: “I wanted to give a kind of random, real-world feel to everything.” The dewbacks, he explained, were there for whimsy. Read More

The Pitch – We Fancast Episode VII For You—Deal With it

Posted on March 14, 2014by , , , and Not A Committee

downeyHeath Ledger as the Joker.

Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark.

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.

Marrying a beloved character with a living, breathing actor is always going to be a controversial process—especially if you’re trying to reinvent them to a degree. Your movie won’t be out for a year or more, and now irate fans have all the time in the world to mock even the idea that this person could become their favorite character. This guy, as the Joker?? Are you serious??

Part of the problem is that characters in print media, especially comics, can look vastly different depending on who’s illustrating them—my ideal Tony Stark may be nothing like your ideal Tony Stark, and we could both have valid points because all there really is to go on is “white, black hair, goatee”. That’s why taking a slightly askew angle with your casting can be such a powerful move—in Downey’s case, launching an entire filmic universe on the back on one man’s likeability—because it imbues a distinct human element to what is often, honestly, a very bland sketch of a person. People freaked out about Jesse Eisenberg being cast as Lex Luthor in the Batman/Superman movie, and hey, that movie may yet be a train wreck, but Eisenberg screams “rich asshole” to the moviegoing public already (much like Downey screamed “hard living”), and that’s far more important to producing a resonant Lex Luthor on the big screen than whether he’s old and/or bald enough. Admittedly, it’s hard for me to say what Christopher Nolan saw in Heath Ledger that screamed “Joker”, but hell if he wasn’t proven right.
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Checks and Balances, Part II – What the Force Wants

Posted on March 10, 2014by Feature Articles, Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

In Part I of Checks and Balances, I speculated that Anakin Skywalker’s true purpose as the Chosen One was not only to kill Darth Sidious, but to “prune” an ineffectual and misguided Jedi Order down to a lower number which could more easily evolve to meet the challenges of the modern galaxy. Not everyone will agree with a perspective that doesn’t necessarily see the Jedi as positive actors in the Force’s interests, but it was important to start there so that you might understand where I’m coming from here in Part II.

A few years back, while reading a book on demography called The Coming Population Crash, I started wondering what the Jedi Order would look like if unchallenged for its entire 25,000-year history, given what we’ve seen of Force sensitivity’s heritability. From there, it occurred to me that perhaps the Sith were meant to exist, from a cosmic point of view—that widespread, high-level Force use was something of a threat to the general galactic population, and the fact that both Jedi and Sith—in service of the Force’s natural dualism—were constantly trying to wipe each other out was in reality a form of population control, baked into the galaxy’s natural state, to keep it from ending up with a civilization comprised entirely of dangerous and unpredictable Force wielders.
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Checks and Balances, Part I – Son of the Suns

Posted on March 7, 2014by Feature Articles, Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

obi-chosenone

This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.

—Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover [1]Per the introduction, all quotations in this piece come from Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover.

In my ongoing feature The Expanded Universe Explains, I go out of my way to maintain a lighthearted, conversational tone to add a little flavor to what is essentially just a recitation of secondhand information—book x said this, which was expanded upon by a stray line in reference book y. It’s all fairly absolute, to the extent that made-up information can ever be absolute.

What I mean to say is, I originally thought about covering this topic in an EU Explains piece, but I have to admit that as clear as it may seem to me, there are few things in the Star Wars saga that are more subjective than the Prophecy of the Chosen One. Reasonable minds can disagree on the following, but this is How I See It.

What does it mean for Anakin Skywalker to have brought balance to the Force?

When those blades met, it was more than Yoda against Palpatine, more the millennia of Sith against the legions of Jedi; this was the expression of the fundamental conflict of the universe itself.

Light against dark.

Winner take all.

Like most things of any significance in the Galaxy Far, Far Away, the history of the Sith is long and convoluted. By the time you read these words, the final thirteen episodes of The Clone Wars will have made their debut on Netflix, including an arc revolving around this very subject. But while the details are constantly evolving (to use a charitable word), what we can say is this: the dark side has always been with us.
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References
↑1 Per the introduction, all quotations in this piece come from Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover.