Category: Obiwomble’s Outlook

We Are All Luke Skywalker

Posted on November 17, 2017by

—spoilers from Legends of Luke Skywalker ahead—

legendsoflukeTo say Ken Liu’s The Legends of Luke Skywalker has been keenly awaited would be an understatement. Since the great reboot that followed Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, there have been exceedingly few stories of what Luke has been doing after the fall of the Empire. There was Shattered Empire, but that was only one issue out of four and that was more or less it. For some the book has been a disappointment for its lack of actual ‘here’s what Luke really did next’ material. Instead, the book is of a far more playful and trickster nature, built around stories being told of Skywalker. Are they all true? That’s up to the reader, but there are hints that sometimes tip the deck one way or another. Expecting a book coming out ahead of The Last Jedi to have much in the way of revelations is expecting the impossible, the pattern was set by The Force Awakens. If there are major ‘this really happened’ stories, they will be next year, not now. Nor was the book ever deceptive about its premise in its marketing either.

The first story concerns an engineer spinning a tall tale to a rapt audience. It is subtly suggested the audience’s main interest is in how ludicrous a tale can be spun, for it is a tale of mad, bad conspiracy theories aimed squarely at the exploits of Luke, Han and Leia, with one aim: to drag them down and dismiss them as frauds. When the reader engages with this tale, the initial response may well be to opt for outraged dismissal: what a pile of crap, this is an outrage. Yet to do so would be to play into the story’s hands, Liu is quite aware outrage might result. Look further: When we read or watch or play a Star Wars story, we do so separately from our lives. Luke, Han and Leia are not actual people. What if they were? If you were living in that galaxy at the time of the films or after, if you heard three people led the war the take down the Empire that ran the galaxy, then how can you possibly live up to that? If they did that with their lives, what does that make yours? Easier, by far, to spin a few conspiracy theories that render them frauds as then you’re protected, no comparison to lose out to. Read More

Phasma v Inferno Squad: Dawn of Empire

Posted on September 25, 2017by Obiwomble's Outlook

—major Phasma spoilers ahead—

phasmanovelIt’s interesting that both of these books have come out in close proximity to each other. Each exists to promote a different item – Phasma is a Journey to the Last Jedi book, while Battlefront II: Inferno Squad tells you exactly what it is about. Both give an Imperial viewpoint, but they do so in very different ways.

Inferno Squad puts us in the position of four highly skilled Imperials – fighter pilots, military mechanic, and intelligence officer – and shows us how they view the world. Phasma is a biographical tale of its enigmatic lead, but is wrapped up in a far more interesting story of conflict with a First Order true believer. Of the two books I found Phasma the easier read. Both books sketch a very unpleasant picture, but only Inferno Squad attempts to give the reader an inside perspective of the Empire. The equivalent picture for the First Order and Phasma’s view of it is never covered in Phasma, instead it’s a story of how others perceive her.

It comes down to brutal honesty versus salesmanship. Inferno Squad seems to want to sell the reader on the worth of Imperial ideals. Phasma does not care about that, she does not care about you. You don’t like how she does things? Phasma says fuck you. She’s too harsh? Phasma says fuck you. Can’t she look out for anyone other than number one? Phasma says fuck you. The reader still gets a very clear picture of who and what Phasma is all about, but there is a lack of justification offered. There is character in Phasma who is all about justified belief and that’s Cardinal, the red stormtrooper who wants to know her origin.

Inferno Squad gives the most extreme, hardcore Imperial viewpoint there has ever been. There have been Imperial characters before – Legends’ Jahan Cross in Agent of the Empire, Baron Fel in X-Wing, more recently Rae Sloane in A New Dawn / Aftermath, however, in all three cases, it was either very clear they did not care for superweaponry as represented by the Death Star or they were ambiguous in their support of it. Inferno Squad dispenses with this and gives us Iden Versio, who we first encounter defending the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin while she still exults in the destruction of Alderaan by it. Just to hammer the point home further, if this first impression was not sufficient, the squad later drinks a bottle of Alderaanian wine as a celebration. Read More

Rogue One: Trailers, Tie-Ins and Fleet Junkies – Oh My!

Posted on December 19, 2016by Obiwomble's Outlook

–MAJOR ROGUE ONE SPOILERS AHEAD–

jedhatank

I saw this early Thursday night, 2D tickets bought easily, only a handful of people in the cinema too. And then, over the course of just over two hours, I got my head kicked in, metaphorically speaking. Oh and one hell of a buzz. Why? Well, in a word: Everything.

Rogue One is far from a perfect film, it has flaws, it is a bit jumpy at the start, it does have to establish itself apart from the main films, but it gets right far more than it gets wrong. And those things it gets right? It gets gloriously right. This film lives up to being the first real Star Wars movie that shows us the war. It shows us those fighting it and it is not afraid to make a distinction between the two sides while also embracing moral complexity.

Yet, for those of us who watched the trailers, it is also a strange finished product. On the one hand the macro elements are all present – the ground battles, the worlds, the characters, but the changes in the micro aspects indicate the substantive reshoots. There are entire lines present in the earlier trailers that never appear in the film, there are shots that never turn up. It makes for a somewhat disconcerting viewing. What might have been the road not taken? Given the portraits of the Rebellion and Jyn in the trailers, I suspect it may have been a harsher picture. A more cynical and colder Jyn, a more battle-hardened Rebellion, which likely gave rise to the fear, not unwarranted, that viewers may not back both. Read More

Catalyst, Rogue One and the Clone Wars

Posted on September 16, 2016by Obiwomble's Outlook

deathstar-geonosis

Wait, I thought Rogue One was in the era of the Empire and all the good stuff, that it had nothing to do with the prequels? You may have thought that but it does not look to be so. For there is a prequel novel, Catalyst, which recently had a killer blurb come out:

War is tearing the galaxy apart. For years the Republic and the Separatists have battled across the stars, each building more and more deadly technology in an attempt to win the war. As a member of Chancellor Palpatine’s top secret Death Star project, Orson Krennic is determined to develop a superweapon before their enemies can. And an old friend of Krennic’s, the brilliant scientist Galen Erso, could be the key.

Galen’s energy-focused research has captured the attention of both Krennic and his foes, making the scientist a crucial pawn in the galactic conflict. But after Krennic rescues Galen, his wife, Lyra, and their young daughter, Jyn, from Separatist kidnappers, the Erso family is deeply in Krennic’s debt. Krennic then offers Galen an extraordinary opportunity: to continue his scientific studies with every resource put utterly at his disposal. While Galen and Lyra believe that his energy research will be used purely in altruistic ways, Krennic has other plans that will finally make the Death Star a reality. Trapped in their benefactor’s tightening grasp, the Ersos must untangle Krennic’s web of deception to save themselves and the galaxy itself.

After Revenge of the Sith in 2005, I thought we might get stories that drew on all six films, that the division between the trilogies might start to fade. It never happened. Oh, there were a couple of exceptions that really tried to make the most of the prequels – series like the Legacy comics, actually DHC really did try. On the whole? Nope. And we look to be heading for similar divided territory with the start of the sequel trilogy. Read More

I’m Watching The Clone Wars and It’s All Star Wars Rebels’ Fault

Posted on August 29, 2016by Obiwomble's Outlook

tcw-filmposterIt is. Really. If it wasn’t for the Rebels cartoon and its friends, the A New Dawn book and the Kanan comic, I’d still be able to not care about the Clone Wars cartoon. Well, that and someone deciding to reboot the entire line a couple of years ago…

If we go back but three years you’ll find I was quite adamantly defending the first Clone Wars run from being steamrolled by its fatter, younger brother! So, what changed? How did I end up in a position where watching the The Clone Wars’ opening movie came to be not only a good idea but a fun experience too? There hangs a tale…

I became interested in Rebels due to brilliance of John Jackson Miller’s A New Dawn, which focused on Kanan and Hera. Before then I had no reason to be interested, but those two characters got and kept my interest. Marvel also released a Kanan comic which delved into his origin tale in more detail. The first arc of that book also presented an entirely new take on the clones’ betrayal of the Jedi with Order 66. For anyone who had watched the Clone Wars cartoon, they’d likely have the full story of the chips in the clones and the sense of violation they inflicted. I did not have it but was intrigued enough by the pieces I had.

Even so, what about that animation style? I was far from an immediate fan – cartoony? Sure, but a bit too stylized. That cannot possibly work, can it? Again, all the fault of Rebels. Sure, Rebels is a few years on, the animation has advanced, it’s not quite so stylized – I can notice that only now, but nonetheless the series convinced me that Star Wars can work just fine as animation in the modern era. (Go back far enough and you’ll encounter the Droids and Ewoks cartoons which were fun as a kid, not sure how they’d hold up thirty years on.) Read More