Category: Opinion

Shrines, Temples, and Tombs – A Look at Existing Beyond Death in Star Wars

Posted on January 21, 2015by

“I am here because you are here.” – Qui-Gon Jinn, “Overlords”

The release in March 2014 of The Clone Wars’ “Lost Missions” was seen at the time as a generous gift to the loyal but disappointed fans of the powerful and popular Star Wars serial. Abandoned story arcs would be resolved, secrets uncoiled, and, best of all, it would all be streaming on Netflix.

Almost a year later, it’s become clear that the “Lost Missions” were not just a gift to fans, but also a necessary statement at a critical time for the Star Wars universe; the prequel mysteries of the clones, Order 66, and the fate of Master Sifo-Dyas were solved. More importantly, the triumphant Yoda arc explored deeply the mythos of the Force and the secret of how some Jedi are able to maintain their identity after death. Read More

Everything Disney Needs to Know, It Can Learn from Luke Skywalker

Posted on January 19, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

lukefist

Probably the main reason my friend Pearlann, she of the numerous Expanded Universe Explains questions, never really got too into the EU herself was because she agreed with George Lucas on one key point: after Return of the Jedi, she felt, the story was over. She was never quite a movie purist; she’s read Dark Lord and Kenobi, for example, and even now is eagerly awaiting Heir to the Jedi—but she never had any problem with the notion that the Empire basically collapsed after Endor and all was right with the galaxy from then on.

While Lucas’s lack of involvement in EU plotting was a major factor for many, that’s probably as close as you could’ve come to an absolute dividing line between pro- and anti-EU fans back in the old days—whether one felt there was anything left to do with the characters after Jedi. In Mike Klimo’s Star Wars Ring Theory essay, which I’ve discussed previously, he details how the six films exist not just chronologically, but as a circle—how the two trilogies both parallel and mirror each other, and the extent to which Jedi even “links up” with The Phantom Menace to create a unified body of themes that begin in one place, evolve either positively or negatively, then return to where they began.

While the essay is very convincing, one can debate just how much of this detail was completely intentional on Lucas’s part—but what can’t be debated is that viewing the films through this lens as opposed to a strictly chronological one doesn’t really lend itself to the whole “expanded universe” thing. To a ring theorist, Star Wars is not unlike a clock; removing a piece would harm the entire structure, and adding extraneous bits and bobs would, too. What was Obi-Wan doing on Tatooine for nineteen years? How did Leia get her bounty hunter disguise? What happened in that nest of gundarks? None of that is relevant, and constructing explanations for them is superfluous at best, because that information isn’t in service to the clock. Read More

Musings on the Nature of Fandom

Posted on January 16, 2015by

sdcc-panel

Being a fan is a curious thing. It can bring people together, it can tear them apart. It can make someone shout, laugh and jump for joy, or it can be depressing, make them scream, cry tears of sorrow or rage. A fan does not merely like something or enjoy something, they make that something a part of who they are, a part of their personality, of their identity. Being a fan takes on all sorts of shapes and sizes and people become fans for a number of different reasons, almost always reasons that are very personal to them, reasons that can be hard to explain to someone who may not be a fan as well.

Being a fan of something is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Not all fans are created equal. People naturally experience things in different ways in all aspects of life, not only in being fans. Just as not all people are fans of the same thing, people who are fans may not be fans for the same reasons, or may not enjoy things the same way, or may have become fans at different stages of life, the list goes on. Someone may be a more critical, while another person is more accepting; one might be tightly wound, another may be more laid back. The size of a given fan group does not matter; no two fans will ever be exactly alike, no matter how big or small the fandom as a whole. Read More

Meet the Marvels: Jason Aaron

Posted on January 14, 2015by Six on the Wild Die

The first issue of Marvel’s new Star Wars ongoing is in stores today, and it seems like the Marvel announcement was just yesterday. There’s a certain mistrust among the hardcore fans about this comic’s quality and it’s easy to see why: Dark Horse Comics were a class act, one that is going to be hard to follow, and modern Marvel are an unknown quantity for a big chunk of the fandom.

Just who are these guys that are going to be headlining the new canon on a monthly basis in 2015? As we feel that most comic book fans are Star Wars fans, but not necessarily the other way around, we are going to profile a series of single issues penned by the authors of the new Marvel books (that’s what serious comic nerds call comics, “books”, get used to it). We are going to be spotlighting comics that we think could be the most representative of what to expect or, at least, the ones that feel closest to what their Star Wars book might end up being. And we are going to start with Jason Aaron and the first issue of Wolverine and the X-Men. Read More

The Art of Collaborative Continuity

Posted on January 12, 2015by

japcover

One criticism made of my Frankenstein Continuity piece published a few weeks ago is that it was based on an assumption that the makers of The Force Awakens and more did not wish to work with the Expanded Universe. That would be correct, but what if they really did? My prior piece considered only that there would be no interest or only half-hearted corporate interest in creating a horror-style fix. A genuine desire to be collaborative would open up a litany of possibilities.

Now before anyone says that that did not, nor is going, to happen, I’ll say this: where would be the fun be in that? The point of articles like this is to have a bit intellectual fun and look at what might have been, and perhaps, in some cases, what still might be. Read More