Category: Opinion

Welcome the Sweet Embrace of Disappointment: Reading and Writing in a Shared Universe

Posted on July 29, 2015by Pen and Paper

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Being one of those eternal constants of life alongside death and taxes, disappointment has been an inseparable part of Star Wars (like countless other franchises) since the very beginning: many of those who enjoyed A New Hope were turned off by the darker turn taken by The Empire Strikes Back and welcomed the comparatively joyful Return of the Jedi, while more modern critics and audiences are often inclined to have quite the opposite reaction. The prequels are even more divisive, ranging from those who wish they’d never even been made to those who consider them vastly superior to the Original Trilogy. Reception for entries in the Expanded Universe span a veritable roller coaster of reactions.

Significant events, whether they be on screen or transmitted through the written word, are even more likely to arouse controversy and outrage, especially when the matter of major character death arises. Chewbacca and Mara Jade Skywalker come to mind, to say nothing of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will undoubtedly happen when the Big Three finally bite the proverbial dust. But, of course, a universe in which nothing ever changes and nobody of importance ever dies is hardly reasonable or suspenseful, either. So why is it that we’re so frequently disappointed by the products we buy, and what can be done about it?

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The Downfall of the Star Wars Film Universe

Posted on July 24, 2015by Sidelong Glance

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The Effects Wizards

The wonders of modern visual effects have brought some terrifically imaginative and amazingly realistic things to the screen in the past couple of decades. Ever since Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 let the computer genie out of the bottle, the limits to what can be portrayed on screen have shortened more and more each year. Since the turn of the millennium, technology has advanced to such a point where just about any world, creature or event can be created or re-created in lifelike detail, no matter how outrageous it is. It’s certainly hard to see how a good number of the modern blockbuster films most of us see each summer might have been made just twenty years earlier. They might have been made, certainly, but they would have looked a lot different.

As amazing as this has been for those who love movies, it has also had an unfortunate retroactive effect on films done before this time. Read More

Tabula Rasa: On Adaptation and the Solo Kids

Posted on July 22, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

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DISCLAIMER: while this post will be discussing major potential plot points in The Force Awakens, I have seen no real spoilers regarding the topic in question and what follows is purely speculative—and will remain equally valid even if the details don’t hold up.

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In a roundtable interview at BookCon last May, Adam Gidwitz, author of the forthcoming young-adult adaptation The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to Be a Jedi? addressed how his fairy tale-heavy background applied to writing a Star Wars book as follows:

“The main character of every fairy tale is an empty character. They don’t have a lot of personality traits. You know, Cinderella—we know almost nothing about her. And there’s a purpose for that. The purpose is that children can put themselves into [her] shoes…and you can follow in her footsteps. So, Luke, I think, is an empty character. He’s not like Han, with a sharply-defined personality, he’s not like Leia, who’s a real powerful woman. He’s brave, and he’s kind…that’s about it.”

This insight, Gidwitz explained, is what led to his decision to write the book as if the reader themselves is Luke Skywalker—an almost literal insertion of the audience into the story. Naturally, those of us who have been steeped in the Expanded Universe for the last twenty years could cite all sorts of personality details that snuck in at the edges of Luke’s character over the years, but the fact remains that he was conceived as an audience-identification character—and the value of that as the original trilogy unfolds is that his lessons become our lessons. Read More

On the Aftermath of the Aftermath Excerpt

Posted on July 20, 2015by Obiwomble's Outlook

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Late last week, an excerpt from the upcoming Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig was released. To say it proved divisive amongst fans would be an understatement, but disliking a particular writing style is hardly a big deal, no? If only it had stayed at that. No, some of those who greatly disliked it felt a need to add a qualifier to their criticism, that clearly the book was written for a younger and dumber audience, demonstrated by its short sentences and use of present tense. To these people, the excerpt was proof that their beloved Star Wars was being hijacked by short-attention-spanned Twitter addicts.

I would not begrudge anyone the right to dislike something on personal aesthetic preference. How a story does and does not appeal to an individual is going to be a highly subjective matter, that’s fine. What is not is slagging off a entire generation in a bid to give your personal criticism a perceived sense of greater legitimacy.

What set off this particular firestorm? Based on the excerpt, Wendig has opted for a quick, staccato rhythm to his prose which places the reader in the heads of the character as they respond to the situation at hand. It gives the reader an immediate sense of time and place, but with a corresponding level of chaos and incomprehension. In this respect, for me, the prologue set on Imperial Plaza in Coruscant was the more effective sequence. The rest of the excerpt is concerned with Wedge Antilles basically getting into deep shit with a couple of Star Destroyers. Yes, those are not good odds for anyone, Corellian or not. Read More

The Void: Exploring the Galactic Unknown

Posted on July 17, 2015by

Space is huge. It’s quite a bit larger than we are able to think about, and the concept of a light-year is truly incredible. How far can one travel in one year? Not even halfway to the next star over. But what about universes where faster-than-light travel is normal, where one can go across the galaxy for dinner if one’s hyperdrive is fast enoughCorellia_Antilles_Atlas, but there are still places too remote to easily access? There’s a fine balance in science fiction of allowing technology to be advanced enough to travel through space, while maintaining a sense of exploration and wonder. Star Wars accomplishes this feeling well, just by looking at a map of the galaxy.

Everyone knows where you start in the galaxy. The Core Worlds are the first settled, easiest to find and get to, and probably have most of the galaxy’s population. Beyond that, the Colonies, Inner Rim, Expansion Region, and Mid Rim show different stages of galactic settlement and exploration. As you get further away from the Core, there are fewer named planets and hyperspace routes. By the time you get to the Outer Rim, named worlds and known routes are few and far between. Within the Outer Rim, we see Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, areas that show you have truly left the civilized and mapped galaxy. The very description of a corner of the galaxy as the “Unknown Regions” is more than just flavor text. It’s a very accurate description of a part of the galaxy that is functionally a mystery. Best of all, the name Wild Space, applied to the furthest corners of the galaxy, is so remote that there is just simply nothing there. It’s a huge galaxy.

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