Category: Opinion

The Quick and Easy Path: Politics and the Force

Posted on May 23, 2016by Feature Articles, The Works

or-senate

Politics have been part of Star Wars since the opening pages of Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of A New Hope told the story of how the Old Republic became the Empire not through a military coup, but because it rotted from within due to corruption. With the publication of Claudia Gray’s political drama Bloodline, and the revelation that its central conflict arose from suggestions by Episode VIII director Rian Johnson, politics are once again at the forefront of the Star Wars universe. But does the saga have a core political philosophy, or make a political statement? If it does, how does it relate to the overall philosophy of Star Wars? And can we use it to predict where the franchise might take us next?

Harmony and corruption in the old Republic

The Phantom Menace is the clearest statement of George Lucas’s political outlook, and we can use it as a starting point to follow this thread through the rest of his six-episode saga. On a narrative level, TPM is the story of Padmé Amidala, told mainly through the eyes of Qui-Gon Jinn: the core conflict against the Trade Federation is Padmé’s, and it is her choices – first to leave Naboo and appeal to the Senate, then to return and unite her people with the Gungans – that drive the story and give it shape. It is unlike any other film in the saga – not the mythic hero’s journey of a Jedi-to-be, but the story of a young woman’s political coming-of-age.

Padmé leaves Naboo because she believes in the ability of the Senate to save her people from the Federation. Arriving on Tatooine, however, Padmé is shocked to discover that there is still slavery in the galaxy, and that there are places where the laws of the Republic simply do not exist. Even Republic money is worthless out here, and the entire planet is controlled by gangsters. The implication is clear: the Republic doesn’t care about what happens on the galactic frontier. When we reach Coruscant, we discover that the Trade Federation, a corporation driven by profit, has its own seat in the Senate, giving it a voice in galactic affairs that is equal to any Republic system, and stronger than worlds such as Tatooine. Taking advantage of legalism and bureaucracy, the Federation is able to stall the Senate’s actions. Read More

Fatal Faves: Children of the Jedi

Posted on May 20, 2016by Six on the Wild Die
You want Star Wars? I got you, fam.
You want some primo Star Wars? I got you, fam.

So, this is my thinkpiece on why Bloodline is the greate– nahhhh, let’s talk about Children of the Jedi.

Picture yourself on the Internet, and try to imagine that everyone hates something that you love and hold dear. I know, unthinkable of, right? That kind of online hate? Who would do that? So you won’t believe how offended I was when Mike said that this new section, Fatal Faves, was going to spotlight indefensible areas and works of the Star Wars universe that we still love anyway, because fuck it. Because honestly, I feel like I’ve been defending Children of the Jedi for the last twenty years in a pretty badass lonely crusade, like some long-haired Toshiro Mifune ronin or some overweight Leonidas yelling “Roganda!!!!” before charging alone against the masses of the haters. So yes, I’ll say it here: I love Children of the Jedi and I don’t hate myself for it. Not most of the time. Sometimes. Only when it gets dark.

In this fandom saying that you love Children of the Jedi is like playing a selection of the best moments of RuPaul’s Drag Race before a Westboro Baptist Church congregation. If you admit that you drink the Kool-Aid of the Eye of Palpatine, you are hated by the Legends fans, you are also hated by the movie purists, hell, you are probably hated by people that have never read a Star Wars book but just found out that the book has a tuberculous plant called topato and a pet called pittin. “What’s wrong with you, freak!? Didn’t you recently throw a fit over the use of stupid words like flimsiplast instead of human words like paper? Why don’t you go back to your stupid continent? God, I’m a staunch Hilary supporter, but I’m voting Drumpf just to see you walled out of my country!” Read More

Fatal Faves: Shadows of the Empire

Posted on May 18, 2016by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

shit-eating-grin

A long time ago, in another millennium entirely, I had only just discovered Star Wars via the Special Editions and I was hungry for more. The Paradise Snare, book one of A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy, was my first SW book, but I didn’t actually choose for it to be—it was the summer of 1997, my fifteenth birthday was coming up, and I asked my mother to get me what seemed like the most exciting, natural entry point into the world of the Expanded Universe. No, not Heir to the Empire—Shadows of the Empire. I don’t even know how I actually managed to hear about it, since I didn’t own a single piece of merchandise at this point, but somehow there were enough remainders of its huge multimedia bonanza the previous year that it got through to my young, ignorant brain that this was an Important Story.

Exactly how hard my mother looked for it—it would’ve been out in paperback by this point—will forever remain a mystery, but one way or another she eventually settled on Paradise Snare instead. I can only imagine what was going through her head as she browsed through things like The Crystal Star and Splinter of the Mind’s Eye before deciding for some unknowable reason that that was the right call, but in retrospect, it actually was a pretty good call. Not only was the HST a great story, but Paradise Snare being set as early in the timeline as it was led to me reading the entire Bantam era pretty much in chronological order, which had a huge impact on how I ultimately became familiar with stories like Dark Empire, the Corellian Trilogy, and yes, Shadows of the Empire. Read More

Star Wars: Bloodline – NOT a “Fix” Book!

Posted on May 16, 2016by Obiwomble's Outlook

cloakofdeceptionA “fix” book? What on earth is a fix book? Much as we may love it, over the years, Star Wars has acquired a deserved reputation for some quite off the wall plot concepts. Ideas like casually dropping the bomb that Vader is Luke’s father to the far more infamous taxation plot of The Phantom Menace. In some cases, a book comes out and addresses such plots head on. It considers how to either make a broken plot work or enhance an existing one that works adequately but could be improved. With the advent of the prequels, this became more noticeable but was not restricted to them. Is Bloodline one of these books? No, it isn’t. Why? Read on…

It was Cloak of Deception in 2001 that first showed what could be done to support the films. This took the much loathed foundation for the Republic Senate falling apart and sought to provide a logic that explained why the taxation of trade routes was so problematic. James Luceno also wove in pieces on the Jedi, on Darth Sidious and almost every other plot strand that the film had slung around with abandon. In the process, this prequel-to-a-prequel improved nearly everything.

Jump forward a year, to 2002 and the New Jedi Order volume of Destiny’s Way came out. It remains hard to know exactly how much of that series really was planned out and how much was winging it, the finale The Unifying Force suggests rather more improvisation than might want to be admitted. Now, I doubt that would make any difference but back then, you had to have a plan! Or claim to have one. Everyone seemed to get far more cynical about this stuff after Lost. Read More

Bloodline: Just the Story I Needed

Posted on May 13, 2016by

star-wars-bloodline-posters_crkkBloodline was just the Star Wars tale I’d been waiting for. I love politics, and I have been wanting a good Leia-centric book in which she’s really in her element as a politician. In that, Bloodline was outstanding- and it did indeed answer a good deal of my questions about The Force Awakens‘ political situation and just what had happened to the galaxy. I’m glad that not all of the questions were answered, and that there is still so much room to tell stories in the galaxy, but this was just what I needed to read.

Confession: I actually enjoyed The New Rebellion. A sudden crisis, bringing out internal conflict within the New Republic. Leia having her political competence questioned. Endless intrigue. This felt like a new reimagining of some of those themes, though with substantially better storytelling. Today on Twitter (yes, I write a lot of my articles the night before), there were many lists of favorite Star Wars books, mixing both new and Legends. Consistently, I saw Bloodline and Heir to the Empire, two books from dramatically different eras. Books that honestly don’t feel that different; twenty-five years and two GFFA’s apart, they feel so complementary. This is something that I, and many other old Legends fans, often need to keep us happy in Star Wars. I miss the feel of the Star Wars I grew up on, and reading a re-imagining of it brings me right back to this fandom.

Read More