Category: Opinion

Inward Eye, Outward Hand – Chirrut Îmwe, Han Solo, and “Force Sensitivity”

Posted on January 20, 2017by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

chirrut-scarif

Baze was terrified. Chirrut was not. In the instant before he’d risen from the bunker, he’d questioned his own wisdom: How might he separate the will of the Force from his will, his ego, demanding action where action was unneeded? But there was no doubt in his heart now. The Force expressed itself through simplicity, and all it asked of him was to walk.

I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

Is Chirrut Force-sensitive?

The more we learned about him prior to the release of Rogue One, the more people found themselves asking this question. Cassian Andor even comes close to asking the question himself within the movie, and the answer Baze Malbus gives him isn’t much more definitive than the one Rogue One offers viewers: he’s no Jedi.

That much is clear—Chirrut is not currently, nor was he ever, a Jedi Knight. He’s part of a new group called the Guardians of the Whills; devout followers of the Force, but not necessarily wielders of it. Baze certainly seems content with his giant-ass cannon. But that’s not usually what people mean when they ask, is he Force-sensitive? What they mean is, could he have been a Jedi? Is the Force warning him when a blaster bolt is about to come his way? With training, could he levitate things, perform mind tricks, and so on?

Personally, I doubt it. But to look at what Chirrut can do and ask “what if?” is to miss the point of Chirrut’s abilities entirely. Read More

Rogue One, Representation, and the Problem with Rationalizations

Posted on January 13, 2017by A Certain Point of View

RogueOne

About one and a half years ago, we got the first cast picture for Rogue One, and the general consensus (myself included) was celebration of the ethnic diversity, followed almost immediately by dismay at the heavily male cast. But after the first trailer surprised us all with the appearance of Mon Mothma I was hopeful for Rogue One and optimistic that there would be more women. Unfortunately, my fears were proven right when I finally sat down in the theater to watch the movie and it turned out to be a pretty big sausage fest. An ethnically diverse (and quite attractive) sausage fest, yes, but still a sausage fest. 

It’s disappointing because I had high hopes for a movie whose cast represented a range of countries and ethnicities. I was hoping it would continue in the thread of The Force Awakens and make a concerted effort to show a wide range of women as well; I’ve written before on the lack of women of color in Star Wars and I was hoping Rogue One would prove me wrong. But it goes to show that allyship in one area doesn’t always translate to allyship in another. We should definitely celebrate when Star Wars does well. But we should also accept that it will make mistakes…and as fans we should hold it accountable when it does.

It’s hard to admit when things we love aren’t as perfect as we’d like them to be. I’ve found this to be especially with something like Star Wars, where people tend to structure their entire identity around the fandom. So I understand wanting to rationalize away the flaws rather than admit that our favored franchise didn’t put its best foot forward. And there’s been a rash of rationalizations as of late: Leia’s slave bikini is empowering because she uses it to kill Jabba. Padmé didn’t die of a broken heart, Palpatine actually drained her life essence to save Anakin. Rogue One doesn’t show a lot of women in the Rebellion because they were trying to be faithful to how it looked in A New Hope. Read More

Knowledge and Defense: The Ways of the Force

Posted on January 11, 2017by Guest Editorials

obideathsmile

“A Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense; never for attack” – Yoda

The above quote by Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back is one of the foundational quotes for understanding how the Jedi were supposed to operate. Gifted with their connection to the Force, which they honed through discipline and training, they were to confine their actions to gaining knowledge and to defending others. If they go on the offensive, they fall prey to the temptations of the dark side.

This idea was a major theme of Return of the Jedi. We see Luke throughout that film wavering between light and dark. While walking into Jabba’s palace and Force choking a couple of guards is a badass move, it’s not the job of a Jedi to be cool and powerful. There’s a reason Luke enters the palace in shadow with a big black cape flowing behind him – will he fall like his father?

Before the Emperor, the times when Luke comes close to falling are when he goes on the attack, goaded by his love of his friends. The Emperor says that his friends will die, and Luke attacks. Note, this is not defending his friends – it won’t stop what is going out there. It is an attempt at revenge. It is simply attack. Likewise, when Vader goads him into attacking, he’s not doing anything to actually protect Leia. Instead, he is acting on his passion. That is why the Emperor cackles, “good” when Luke defeats Vader. Luke hasn’t been acting as a Jedi; he has been on the attack, following his passion, acting without knowledge.

Contrast this with the redemption of Vader, who is returned to the light side of the Force when he acts simply and solely to defend Luke. Vader gains no power by this act. In fact, he suffers. It doesn’t placate his passions (especially as originally scripted without the “noooooo”). He simply is defending Luke. That is the way of a Jedi. Read More

Putting the “War” in “Star Wars”: Rogue One, genre and the future of the franchise

Posted on December 30, 2016by

article1

“It’s called Star WARS” – Gareth Edwards

The success of Rogue One with critics, fans and at the box office will have come as a huge relief to Lucasfilm. Not only does it show that the series can succeed without centering on the saga of the Skywalker family, it also indicates that the wider audience are open to the idea of entirely new kinds of Star Wars films. Rogue One has been lauded both for its gritty vision of war, and for its morally grey portrayal of the Rebel Alliance.

For fans who follow Star Wars outside the films, and have read Battlefront or seen the Clone Wars “Darkness on Umbara” arc, the idea that you can tell a “gritty” war drama in this world is nothing new. Rogue One, to us, might not seem like a radical departure, but to the eyes of the general viewer it is something entirely different. It is a bold move for a franchise to make after forty years, and seven films which have stayed fairly close to the same format: despite some aesthetic and tonal differences between and within the episodic “saga” films, they are all essentially mythic “hero’s journey” space fantasy tales, with a visual language that is part Flash Gordon, part Kurosawa. The risk of shaking up such a familiar format after all this time shouldn’t be downplayed.

The furthest the films went in terms of playing with genre before now was during the first hour of Attack of the Clones, where the paranoid thriller of Obi-Wan’s film noir-inspired investigation into an assassination attempt is intercut with old-fashioned courtly-love melodrama: all lakes, flowers and fireplaces. The jaggedness of this contrast, though, is one of the things AotC receives criticism for, and in any case, it returns to a more traditional Star Wars feel for its final act. Rogue One is something new – it is resolutely attempting to tell a story in another genre, the “war movie,” but set within the universe of Star Wars. Read More

Ragtag to Battle Ready – A History of the Rebel Fleet

Posted on December 23, 2016by Feature Articles, The Armchair Admiral

raddusbridge

Introduction

Fast starfighters, massive capital ships, and epic battles. These are all elements of the Star Wars saga, most notably in climactic trilogy-ending movies like Revenge of the Sith or Return of the Jedi. This past weekend many of us were treated to what fans are already saying is one of the most epic, most daring, and best-executed fleet battles in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In the movie’s climactic third act, we see the first formal engagement of the Alliance Navy against the evil Empire over Scarif. Sharp-eyed fans and Fleet Junkies of every persuasion noticed a lot of ships, both old and new. Yet these ships aren’t included just for visual pleasure or as Easter eggs, they are actually part of a much bigger story that has been weaved together throughout the new canon overseen by the Lucasfilm Story Group. The growth of the Rebel fleet, from its earliest days as a loosely-affiliated collection of rebel cells to the formal Alliance Navy we see in Return of the Jedi, is a story of adversity, daring, courage, and hope. From ragtag cells to a battle-ready fleet, this is the story of that evolution. Read More