Category: Opinion

In Defense of “Ugly” SFF Art

Posted on December 17, 2013by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

kickassjaina

Art is subjective.

Let’s get that out of the way, right up front. If you disagree with the perspectives expressed in this piece, I don’t think you’re a bad person. Misguided, perhaps, or even narrow-minded, but still, you’re entitled to like what you like for whatever reasons you choose to like it, and I’m equally entitled to roll my eyes at you.

Which is why I’m frequently exasperated when the Star Wars art of, say, Chris Trevas is regarded as being inherently good, and the art of, say, Scott Hepburn as inherently bad.

Trevas is an excellent artist, in my opinion—as is Tsuyoshi Nagano, the prolific Japanese artist whose name almost never comes up but whose work is goddamned everywhere. Outside of Star Wars, artists like Gabriele Dell’Otto and Greg Land are met with similar near-universal praise. All four artists are seen as exemplars of realism; of producing art that the viewer can almost believe is what a given scene or character would “really” look like. Exactly how well each of them pulls this off is again, subjective, *coughpornfacecough* but that’s fundamentally their shtick—it’s what lands a job in their inboxes instead of someone else’s.
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What Star Wars Can Learn From Mass Effect

Posted on December 13, 2013by Feature Articles, Pen and Paper
You can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard.
You can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but you’ll never be better than Commander Shepard.

In the previous incarnations of this series examining what Star Wars could stand to take a few lessons from, Mike Cooper examined the Avatar franchise (no, not that one) and Lucas Jackson took a long look at the exquisitely-executed pseudohistorical freerunning-with-a-side-of-murder simulators that comprise Assassin’s Creed. In today’s article, we’ll be probing another series of popular video games: BioWare’s Mass Effect, unhelpfully defined by Wikipedia as “a series of science fiction action role-playing third person shooter video games.”

For those whose knowledge of the franchise begins and ends with that vague, kitchen sink-esque description, we’ll take a few moments to elaborate on the nature of the games and the overarching story before we move on to the meat of the article. In Mass Effect, players take on the role of Commander [insert name here] Shepard, a highly-trained marine in the military of the Systems Alliance (the interstellar arm of humanity) in the year 2183, serving aboard the SSV Normandy, a state-of-the-art prototype stealth reconnaissance frigate.

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Top Shelf: Rogue Planet

Posted on December 12, 2013by Cry Havac
Rogue Planet, by Greg Bear

There are very few Star Wars books that really hold up as great works of art. Many are great genre entertainment, fun and excellent by the standards of tie-in fiction or pulp space opera adventure. But few are the kind you’d care to show a snooty friend to make the case for the literary merit of the Expanded Universe. One of the few novels to pass that bar is Rogue Planet, written by multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Greg Bear, and that’s why Rogue Planet belongs among Top Shelf’s collection of the best of the EU.

When I speak of literary quality, I don’t mean that Rogue Planet is comparable with Hemingway. Rather, that it examines deep themes with maturity and sports excellent characterization and prose. It is a serious, rewarding portrait of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship that explores ideas about life, morality, and responsibility in a grand, mystical science-fiction setting.

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Dear Fandom: Stop Trying to Quantify Everything

Posted on December 10, 2013by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

This is a Star Wars site, and I try hard to keep us on topic (our Twitter account is a different story). However, I also try hard to keep us looking at the “big picture” instead of the minutiae, and sometimes, that means talking about larger “geek culture” issues that might exhibit themselves in SW fans, but are by no means limited to them. As such, I’ll endeavor to use franchise-relevant examples in this piece more often than not, but it should be understood that I’m not levying any charges here against SW in particular.

I’m here to say that we need to get out of the habit of assigning numerical values to every little thing. Not everything needs a number attached to it. Not everything, pragmatically, really can have a number attached to it. And some things very much should not have numbers attached to them.

This extends to ranking things, as well. Let’s face it: everyone’s favorite Star Wars movie is Empire. It’s accepted wisdom. But that will never stop a SW geek from telling you so if they’re given the opportunity, and typically continuing from there into the other five films.

I’ve never been a big RPG person; maybe that’s why I feel a disconnect here. I know a lot of us grow up in that universe—where everything from the sharpness of your sword to the firmness of your constitution has an exact value without which the game doesn’t work. I played the Knights of the Old Republic games because I wanted to experience their stories, but leveling and friend:enemy ratios and dark side points were all things I had to endure, not valuable parts of the experience in their own right.
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Find a Way or Make One: Thrawn, Star Wars, and History

Posted on December 5, 2013by
“Elementary, my dear Pellaeon!”
Incidentally, Cumberbatch is on my short-list of actors who would make a great Thrawn. Hugo Weaving takes the cake, however.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy, was one of the most brilliant opponents ever faced by the New Republic. He outmaneuvered the heroes deftly, often defying impossible odds to accomplish stunning victories over the heroes. At the time of his death, Grand Admiral Thrawn had the New Republic on its knees. In a letter to a fan, Zahn described the blue menace as a composite of several figures: the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, as well as several historical military figures: Hannibal Barca, Robert E. Lee, and Erwin Rommel, among others. Thrawn’s deductive abilities are almost certainly drawn from Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is able to assemble an accurate picture of how a crime occurred through deductive abilities, impeccable observation skills, and the aid of his trusty compatriot Dr. James Watson, who serves as the narrator in the Holmes stories. One of Thrawn’s signature traits is his ability to deduce his opponents’ actions before they even begin said actions, through a thorough understanding of psychology, an encyclopedic knowledge of military tactics, and the understanding of alien mindsets through the study of alien art. He even has his own Watson, in the form of Captain Gilad Pellaeon, captain of the Star Destroyer Chimaera and later Grand Admiral of the Imperial Remnant.
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