Category: Opinion

First of the New – Why Episode VII Needed to Happen

Posted on January 4, 2016by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

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When the Disney purchase and the sequel trilogy were announced, my immediate reaction was to be much more excited about the prospect of non-Episode “spinoff” Star Wars movies than about The Force Awakens, then just Episode VII. The Expanded Universe had told all manner of interesting stories in the Galaxy Far Far Away through the tropes and traditions of other genres, and not only did that sort of grab-bag approach appeal more to me off the bat, it just felt safer. Making an “Episode VII” was at best a necessary evil, something that had to be done to establish that this new generation of Star Wars films was as big of a deal as the first six and not just “The Further Adventures of…”; never mind the seemingly monumental task of getting all the original actors back and up to snuff, and never mind what that story might mean for the EU.

For a long time, though, I’ve been hearing whispers (and, I’m sure, lots of baseless speculation) that Disney had no intention of just making a sequel trilogy—the sequels weren’t just a thing they had to get out of the way, they were going to steer the boat, and if all went according to plan there’d be not three but at least six of them. Oy, I thought, Episode XII? Even leaving aside the presence of Anakin Skywalker, Chosen One and Almighty Main Character, making an “Episode” of Star Wars is a high bar, and brings with it all manner of expectations, from an in media res opening crawl to a John Williams score all the way to shot composition and wipes. Releasing an indefinite number of those would at best be a much bigger challenge than the spinoffs (which could at least succeed or fail on their own terms), and at worst, in comparison, would become boring.

Anyway, that was how I felt up until maybe six months ago. And now that I’ve seen The Force Awakens and lived with it for a bit, I think I get it: Star Wars is a serial again.

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Evil Takes Many Forms: The Genesis of the First Order

Posted on December 23, 2015by Imperial Court Circular

The-Force-Awakens-Frame[1](needless to say, spoilers for The Force Awakens ensue)

The First Order is the new villain of the Star Wars saga, and at first glance it looks a lot like the old villain. The First Order has the Imperial aesthetic down pat, if a bit further refined with more technological whiz-bang, sleeker starship architecture, and stormtroopers that appear “designed by Apple® in California.” Due to the film’s preference not to overexplain lore, audiences could be forgiven for thinking the Empire was still in charge. But there’s sufficient context in the film – and certainly in the background material – to give people the idea that the First Order is something different, a refashioned iteration of the Empire seeking to get back into power. It’s like the Empire, but different – changed. They’ve got the same trappings, but are something else – more intense, more driven, more fanatical. Some might say that they’re a little more black (cf. white), a little more overtly Nazi, than the Galactic Empire was. They are – but that’s not due to simplified storytelling, but because it’s the natural direction for the First Order to go. We hope to explain why.

During the cantina scene in The Force Awakens, Maz Kanata explains: (paraphrased) “Throughout the ages, evil has taken many forms: the Sith, the Empire, and now the First Order.” These forms of evil track with the enemies of the film trilogies, and while it’s tempting to say that they’re ultimately the same thing (the Sith create the Empire, which in turn lives on in the First Order) that elides the essential differences between them. The forms that evil takes depends on the role of evil in the saga and the context in which evil develops. To characterize these forms with a simple one-word descriptor, let’s describe the forms of evil as subversion, domination, and purification. Now – the villains of Star Wars have a lot more nuance than that, but those three words are a useful roadmap for charting the path from the “phantom menace” of the Sith in the Prequels to the resurgent First Order of the incipient Sequels.

Evil is not isolated to one or two villains, but acts upon the characters (primary or ancillary) in the story. One useful lens of looking at it is the evolution of the iconic white-armored soldiers of the Star Wars galaxy. Clonetroopers are bred to order, and yet develop individuality. Imperial stomtroopers, on the other hand, start out as recruits and conscripts and have their individuality steadily eroded away in the form of dehumanizing numerical designations as if they were automata (Edge of the Galaxy presents stormtroopers as emotionless husks, while the stormtroopers of Twilight Company still embrace humanity underneath their indoctrination). By the time of the First Order, however, early Imperial experiments in raising stormtroopers from birth have come to fruition and people who started out as normal human beings turn into unthinking tools of evil “raised to do one thing.” The Sith subverted a Republic, the Empire dominated a galaxy, and the First Order seeks to purify itself and everything else.

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The Force Awakens’ Over-Reliance on Nostalgia

Posted on December 22, 2015by A Certain Point of View

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This is not a spoiler-free review so proceed at your own risk.

Throughout the buildup to The Force Awakens, the phrase “Chewie, we’re home” summed up the sentiment that had everyone, myself included, excited for the return to the galaxy far, far away. The movie promised it would be an exciting new story that would return us to our childhoods and take us to that moment when we first discovered the magic that was Star Wars.

But as I walked out of the theater after my first viewing, my first thought was “…that’s it?” The post-Return of the Jedi narrative is supposed to be the Great Unknown of the Star Wars fandom. Unlike the prequel trilogy, we had no idea what was going to happen. Episode VII was the first step into this larger world and was the start of a story for a new generation of heroes. So why did I feel so underwhelmed?

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The Force Woke Up- And I Loved It

Posted on December 21, 2015by The Holocron

Finn_and_Rey_Jakku_Escape

This article is in no way, shape, or form spoiler-free.

There was a time when we all figured we’d never see a Star Wars movie in a theater again. I certainly didn’t expect to. And yet, at 7pm Thursday night, I was sitting there in a movie theater, watching the title crawl, listening to that music, and wondering if it was even real.

One of the biggest challenges for a sequel is maintaining the universe. One good movie is quite an accomplishment. Making a sequel can be a challenge; there are plenty of examples of sequels, three-quels, and more that do not hold up to the original. And there are of course franchises that have more than one movie whose quality is questionable. Just look at Star Wars- you could spend a lifetime on the internet arguing about the PT and just how good it is, and still never gain a consensus. We fans heard about The Force Awakens with quite a bit of understandable trepidation. Not only had we lost the expanded universe (which might not have always been much of a loss), but we were also waiting for a new movie (a new trilogy, even) made by people who were often new faces to the Star Wars universe. Let’s be honest- a lot of us were terrified going into TFA. Would it hold up?

I’m just going to use Han’s line. “Chewie, we’re home.” Read More

The Force Awakens and the Perks of the Great Mystery

Posted on December 18, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

—THE FOLLOWING PIECE CONTAINS SUBSTANTIAL SPOILERS, NATURALLY—

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It’s been almost three hours, and the thought I keep coming back to is how little we still know.

I had a few rough ideas prior to this evening for angles from which I could explore The Force Awakens in the aftermath of my first viewing, all of which had some real weight to them, but at a certain point the brain is gonna do what it’s gonna do, and that’s the Big Takeaway for me right now: everyone has been talking, and will continue to talk, about the various ways this movie restages things from A New Hope, but the forlorn desert dweller, the droid with vital information, and the superweapon, honestly? They’re superficial. The thing that The Force Awakens reproduces most perfectly from ANH is the sense of being plopped down into a strange galaxy without your bearings, and being caught up in momentous events before you even come close to getting them back.

For the seventh part of a serialized story, it’s kind of amazing how much (and how effectively) this movie operates with basically zero context. Most of the things us continuity dorks have been fretting over aren’t any clearer now than they were last week. Where’d Starkiller Base come from? Doesn’t matter. How big is the First Order? Big enough. Is the New Republic still around? Yes, but its capital was just blown up? I guess? Read More