Category: Not A Committee

The Pitch – New Ongoing Comics

Posted on June 15, 2016by , , , and Not A Committee

vader25A few months ago, we ran a group piece on something I had been thinking about since Marvel started publishing Star Wars comics again—had the medium actually gotten stronger since the original Star Wars series, or would we look back on this era as being just as silly and dated as those early days of Jaxxon and Cody Sunn-Childe? What I noticed then that I hadn’t really considered before was that a good chunk of the regular staff here actually doesn’t read the comics and has little in the way of opinions on them.

Then last week, when I started thinking about what Marvel might come up with to replace the soon-to-conclude Darth Vader series, I decided to bring the question to the staff, and this time I wouldn’t accept “I don’t read comics” as an answer. It’s hard to argue that Marvel haven’t done a great job maximizing Star Wars sales among the existing comics audience, but I was especially curious what they might do to bring in all these superfans I knew who nevertheless barely touched the things. I got some interesting ideas back, to say the least—here they are.

Ben C: As Marvel takes the bold move of ending Gillen’s Darth Vader title, what’s next is a logical question, as is what they should do. The cynical response is to say Marvel will simply re-launch the book with a new creative team in a few months, pocketing the ker-ching generated by it. Here’s the non-cynical response: What if they don’t? What then? Well, over the last two years, Marvel have proved to be competent custodians of the Star Wars license. Due to some very smart creative combinations of writer and artist, with a mix of ongoing and limited series and a restrained use of events, the only question left to ask is what does Marvel have left to prove? Read More

Fatal Faves: The Jedi Academy Trilogy–Fond (?) Memories

Posted on June 8, 2016by and Not A Committee

jatcoverFor the latest piece in our Fatal Faves series, Megan Crouse of This Blog is Full of Words/HoloNet Digest and I got together to talk about the Jedi Academy trilogy! We both have fond memories of this much-maligned trilogy from our younger days, and we revisited them together. With much laughter, mocking, and nostalgia, here’s our conversation!

Megan: So I think maybe the first thing to discuss is whether the series even holds up – obviously we’re doing this because we’ll defend it, but would you recommend it to a fan who has maybe never read Expanded Universe material before?

Rocky: Hmm. I’d say probably not. I got into the EU due to JAT, but I also wasn’t super familiar with Star Wars before then, and didn’t know what other Star Wars books were out there. I think one of the reasons this series holds up for me is because when I first read it, I didn’t have a point of reference. But for most people, who have had at least some exposure to Star Wars? Probably not.

Megan: That’s funny that you say that, since it was one of my first exposures to the EU too. Reading it after seeing the sequel trilogy makes me realize how many parallels there are – Luke’s fears about his own power (which isn’t directly confirmed in the ST but could be a factor in his exile), Mon Mothma’s illness, Han being a father figure to a dark-haired ball of rage. That said, the corny moments are very corny and the awkward moments are very awkward (…everything, everything about Moruth Doole) so it might be a better introduction thematically than tonally?

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A civil chat about the uncivil politics of Bloodline

Posted on May 9, 2016by , and Not A Committee

john-boehner[1]

 

Here at ETE, we’ve been waiting for Bloodline with scarcely contained anticipation. Politics is a favorite subject matter of ours, and you can bet that a pre-The Force Awakens politics book with Leia as its main character basically checks off all of our boxes. So as the second of what’s looking to be five pieces on Claudia Gray’s latest contribution to the Star Wars universe, we have a little chat about different aspects and observations we’ve made about the book.

Sarah, Rocky, and I each couldn’t wait to start talking about the book. We’ve already heard some of Sarah’s thoughts on disparate points of view and how that affects the political dialogue in the New Republic. We’ll definitely have to chat some more about that. But first let’s start with some general observations on Bloodline.

Jay: It’s a book we’ve waited so long for (excitement built for it even before TFA, before any of us had any idea what the book would be about, simply because of the “New Republic” tag it originally had). Being on the other side of that is still odd to me, but it’s a good feeling because we got the novel we wanted. We got the Leia political novel that not only teased the developing politics of TFA, that not only featured an excellent portrayal of Leia, but surprised a lot of us with the nuanced characterization of Ransolm Casterfo. We expected the intrigue and the politics, but I don’t know that we expected so many feelings from this book. I’m glad to get to know what Hosnian was like before it got blown up, glad to meet my apparent doppelgänger Casterfo, and will be on the #VoteLeia train for all eternity.

Rocky, what are your opening thoughts about the book?

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A Republic Both New and Familiar: The First Clues from Bloodline Emerge

Posted on April 25, 2016by and Not A Committee

bloodline-posters

First, a disclaimer: while this piece won’t be getting into major plot details from Bloodline (since we haven’t read it yet), we will be dealing directly with information from the three-chapter excerpt that was released late last week by instaFreebie [1]Editor’s note–this piece mistakenly credited the release to the Playcrafting newsletter in its original form regarding the political context and background of the sequel era. If you deem that to be spoilery, proceed at your own discretion.

Mike: So Jay, you and I have spoken on and off about Leia’s founding of the Resistance as a difficult move to judge from our perspective here in the real world—on the one hand, we know the First Order is a serious threat, but in-universe, it’s very easy to see how she’d come across to the post-Endor generation as an old soldier refusing to accept peace, or worse, as a warmonger. At the beginning of Bloodline we learn that after a couple decades the New Republic senate has polarized into two factions: the Centrists, who favor a stronger leadership role for the Republic and a more aggressive military, and the Populists, who prefer more power and autonomy for individual planets. While at first glance it seems sensible that Leia would be part of the Populist faction, it’s especially interesting considering that she’s on the verge of starting her own army.

What first struck me about this backdrop, though, is how believable it felt—at least to someone used to American politics, which are nominally divided into “federal” people and “state” people. Something you’ve brought up here multiple times is the danger of haphazardly translating contemporary political issues into Star Wars’ fantastical setting, when they don’t really apply. Not only does Centrists/Populists feel to me like an artful distillation of real political divisions, it feels like a very appropriate division for the GFFA to have at this point, when so many of its members would be ex-Imperials and ex-Separatists alike. It takes the sort of generic sense of “corruption” we already knew was coming (and which appeared to varying degrees of success in the Expanded Universe) and grounds it in the known history of the galaxy—just like I’ve been hoping for all along. Did you get a similar real-world feeling from it? Read More

 

References
↑1 Editor’s note–this piece mistakenly credited the release to the Playcrafting newsletter in its original form

What’s so Great About the Rogue One Trailer?

Posted on April 11, 2016by and Not A Committee

rogueonecast

As a certain muppet once put it: everything!

So, last week following the entirely unneeded teaser-for-a-teaser 10-second trailer, which still set the internet alight, out came a full teaser trailer for Rogue One.  What did we make of it? Read on….

Ben: After doing a very sharp, pull-up-that-thing-is-still-shielded about face on The Force Awakens I was very skeptical about this. I wasn’t certain what it would deliver or even how it could. Then the teaser trailer came out and … well, blew me away. Blew quite a few other people away too. For me, a large part of that success is seeing the original trilogy aesthetic recaptured and back on the big screen. Oh but there were lots of OT era stories! Yes, there were, before the reboot…. But no films. The original trilogy, outside of that material, has never had this level of care and attention given to it.

Not only that but it all looks so right. The teaser is full of some truly killer imagery: new stormtroopers, AT-ATs crashing a beach party, Rebel command room – and finally, the king one for me, a Star Destroyer cruising past a vast Death Star, being fitted with the superlaser dish! The aesthetic is perfect and great and…. It’s flawless.

While I remain very wary of TFA, I’ve been enjoying Rebels a lot and part of the reason is the look of it. It has an OT feel, albeit years before. It’s rendered through an animation filter but it’s still so good to see. But this trailer? This trailer gives us the real thing and damn, it really has been missed.

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