The Freemaker Adventures and LEGO’s Piece of the Galaxy

freemaker-rowanrogerPremiering on the first day of summer, DisneyXD recently introduced us to the Freemaker family in the new show LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures. Following a family of scavengers, older brother Zander, younger sister Kordi, and Force-sensitive, twelve-year-old Rowan, with their battle droid Roger, making their way in the galaxy. The show is steeped in its love for the Star Wars galaxy and a fun side adventure for those who want just a little bit more out of the franchise that keeps giving, and giving, and giving.

The problem, for some fans, is that the LEGO series are usually made for children (as if that alone disqualifies a story) and that they aren’t canon. They’ve got a point – both Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo have confirmed that the series takes place outside of “the canon”. Does that mean that there is no place for the LEGO adventures in the lives of the most dedicated fans? Or does a non-canon series still have a lot to offer the fan who has seen it all?

My first introduction to the LEGO series was actually less than memorable. I had forgotten that I played the LEGO Prequel Trilogy game years ago when it came out on the GameBoy Advance. In the time that’s passed, I didn’t really connect with the LEGO video games (not out of disinterest in the franchise, but because I’m not much of a gamer). My interest was recently re-piqued when I saw the adventure starring Poe Dameron, BB-8, C-3PO, and Admiral Ackbar posted on the Star Wars Twitter page. Read More

Visions of the Future—Kanan and Ahsoka’s Struggles with Destiny

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Star Wars Rebels presents us with a look at two Jedi with similar pasts—Kanan and Ahsoka were both separated from the Jedi Order at the end of the Clone Wars, both spent their lives on the run, and both encountered a Sith Lord on Malachor—but entirely different futures. At the end of Rebels season two, we find the two Jedi on opposite ends of the spectrum: Ahsoka, after a duel with Darth Vader, walks away from everything; on the other hand, Kanan embraces the Force fully after a duel with Maul. What separates these two Jedi, and what of their pasts helped move them to embrace, or completely renounce, their Jedi pasts?

The two Jedi had similar experiences in the Order, like their initial struggles to find acceptance, their histories with troubled masters, and their earth-shattering expulsions from the Jedi Order. Ahsoka, at her first mission, the Battle of Christophsis, was not greeted warmly. Obi-Wan met her expecting her to be his apprentice, but was almost rejected by Anakin when it was revealed that she was assigned to him rather than to Kenobi. Under Anakin’s tutelage, Ahsoka took on a lot of the characteristics of her master. Toward the end of the Clone Wars, Ahsoka was framed for the murder of Jedi, clones, and civilians, and was put on trial by both the Jedi and the Republic. Because everything she knew turned against her, Ahsoka fled from the Order. Despite moving away from the Order, Ahsoka seemed to walk toward any path she found where she could help someone: she was instrumental in founding the Rebellion, she helped the crew of the Ghost find missions and help people, and she fought Inquisitors.

On the other hand, you have young and brash Caleb Dume. His master, Depa Billaba, was highly troubled after an encounter with General Grievous, who wiped out ninety percent of her forces. Caleb struggled to find a place in the Order, being known as highly inquisitive and almost disruptive at times. Caleb felt at home in the war and felt like he belonged on the battlefield more than he belonged anywhere else. Depa taught out of her brokenness, and used her experiences as a way to guide young Caleb. At the onset of Order 66, Caleb was forced to literally run from the Order to survive. Caleb kept running, took on the name Kanan Jarrus, and tried his best to avoid connections that could grow into meaningful relationships. For years, he ran. He continued to run until he was stuck: Hera helped him turn his running into something beneficial. Finding Ezra forced him to return, ultimately, to the Order and rely on the Force again completely. In a highly symbolic move, Kanan donned a mask of a Temple Guard, reversing the order that the Grand Inquisitor moved in: Kanan evolved from someone running from the Jedi to someone who fought to keep all of their ideals alive. Read More

Can a Force User Ever Be “Gray?”

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The concept of a Gray Jedi—one who walks the line between both the light and the dark sides of the Force—is popular among many in the Star Wars fan community. And I don’t blame them! After seeing the dogmatic, stuck-up Jedi of the prequel trilogy, who wouldn’t want to add a bit more of the passionate flair characteristic of the dark side? And why shouldn’t Jedi be allowed to use some Force lightning on their foes every now and then? In our postmodern era, with anti-heroes like Batman and Deadpool, doesn’t it seem that a strict adherence to the light side is a bit…old fashioned?

Yet while at first glance the existence of a Gray Jedi seems possible, and maybe even admirable in theory, I will argue that the canonical Star Wars universe leads us to reject this possibility. A Force user who willfully attempts to use both sides of the Force over the long term cannot hope to maintain their internal moral compass—ultimately they will fall. Read More

Not Her Father’s Star Wars: Raising a Daughter in the Disney Era

“I think…this is a good movie.” - Anne, a few days prior from turning 3, uponwatching A New Hope for the first time, her first Star Wars film.
“I think…this is a good movie.” – Anne, a few days prior from turning 3,
upon watching A New Hope for the first time, her first Star Wars film.

When my daughter Anne was born, I was a bit of a lapsed Star Wars fan. As a kid in Junior High and High School I dove into the new (and not just to me) Expanded Universe. I devoured the Zahn trilogy novels as they were released, bought the monthly issues of the early Dark Horse Comics as I found out about them (I started monthlies with Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith and Dark Empire II), and fully embraced the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project. I saw all the Special Editions in the theatre, slowly downloaded the Episode I teaser trailer, stood in line for Phantom Menace tickets, did midnight madness for action figures, went to the very first showing in my hometown, actually did enjoy the movie, and then I went off to college, where my interest in Star Wars media in general somewhat, well, went away.

Now, to be clear, Star Wars hadn’t done anything to offend me. I didn’t rage-quit the fandom. I didn’t hate George Lucas or accuse him of doing dark things to my childhood. My notice and interest just went firmly into the periphery. I didn’t hate Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith at all, I didn’t feel like they did any sort of violence to childhood memories like some appeared to have believed, but, well, they were to me, just Movies That Happened, and movies that I saw, and enjoyed as I enjoyed many of the other movies I’d seen.

When The Clone Wars animated film came out, I noted its existence, but circumstances didn’t permit me to get to a theater to see it. I didn’t have cable at the time, and didn’t have the strong need to begin watching the series as it aired on Cartoon Network when it came on.

It was, again, a thing that existed, and that was cool in theory, but not a Priority. Read More

The Scars of Concord Dawn—A Physicist Overthinks Star Wars Rebels

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Star Wars art designers seem to have a tendency to carve chunks out of planets lately, be it to make them part of a massive superweapon, to create a hellish and/or exotic landscape, or to show that a place has gone through serious turmoil over the centuries. The latter of those led to the newest depiction of Concord Dawn in the Star Wars Rebels episode two weeks ago, “The Protector of Concord Dawn”, as shown in the picture above. Now, I won’t lie; it looks very cool, and makes for a beautiful and interesting background, more memorable than just what a normal planet with some moons in the darkness of space would be. But still—and Mike knew this when he tempted asked me to write this piece—I can’t put my astrophysicist’s brain aside when looking at it, and as such I can’t help but wondering: could a place like this really exist? Would a planetary body retain that shape after some unknown cataclysm blows away a big portion of it into fragments, or would everything collapse pretty soon under its own weight?

To answer this, one must first gather some basic information. For example, how big is the world in question? In the episode, the surface where the Protectors’ camp is located seems to match what we see of this bigger object from space. And if we assume that it is, we can tell that it has quite an Earth-like gravity (although lower gravity in Star Wars is typically represented like this, too), a comfortable atmosphere with clouds, landscapes that don’t seem so bad harboring what look like rivers or lakes, and an intact half that looks very much like a semisphere. Taking all that into account, I’d say this world is somewhere between the sizes of Mars and Earth (6,000 to 12,000 km in diameter). This is important because size and roundness are related when it comes to planets—If you make a list of all the objects in our solar system, you’ll see that everything with a size of 1,000 kilometers and up is round, no matter how violent its past. The biggest impact basins are no more than a few kilometers deep. Even the Earth is the result of the collision of two planet-sized objects that merged to form a bigger one, and we wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for the fact that this is how the Moon came to exist. Read More