Bringing it Back: The Parallel Plot

Posted on February 24, 2015by

rr-rescueplan

The ideas of parallelism and the end of a story referring back to a way it began are, of course, hardly new or innovative concepts. Many great books, films and other forms of media close much the way they open, be it visually, thematically or even straight-up repeating themselves. A few weeks ago, I was make aware of a superb (and lengthy) article/essay that speculated on the circular storytelling model that united the Star Wars film saga into one united narrative. Whether you agree that such a pattern was George Lucas’s intention or not, the idea of parallelism is riddled through the Star Wars universe, a franchise where references to past material is expected far more than a wholly original concept.

When Kanan was captured, it meant that the Ghost crew had a decision to make: leave Kanan in the hands of the Empire, laying low somewhere until the pressure brought on by Grand Moff Tarkin blows over; or come up with some way to track him to where they are holding him and stage a daring Death Star-style rescue. It was a test of loyalty for the entire crew—loyalty to Kanan measured against loyalty to their mission; loyalty to their crew measured against loyalty to the greater good of Lothal, the sector, even the galaxy as a whole. Read More

Base Delta Fulcrum: The Lothal Conspiracy Theory

Posted on February 23, 2015by Six on the Wild Die

bdz

It’s always fun to speculate about what our favorite TV shows have ready for us. Shows like Twin Peaks or Lost turned the art of teasing and fueling fan speculation into an art, and why wouldn’t Star Wars Rebels get a piece of that cake, as small as it might be? The serial nature of Rebels, unlike the anthology structure of The Clone Wars, lets Dave Filoni and company drop hints and seed future storylines in a very organic and natural way. The traitor Senator Trayvis appears twice in the background before the episode that features him, for example, and these appearances hint towards his eventually revealed Imperial allegiance. Most serious fan speculation so far has been directed towards the identity of the mysterious Fulcrum, the main intelligence source of the Ghost crew and apparently also the hand directing Hera Syndulla’s actions, probably the main mystery of this season. Although recent spoilers appear to be strongly pointing in one direction, we prefer to wait until we see it with our own eyes, so we are all here awaiting the official reveal of Fulcrum’s identity in the season finale. But there’s another really interesting theory that’s been gaining adepts among fans because of how intriguing and macabre it is. Let’s call it the Base Delta Zero theory.

Most of the audience probably missed the first mention of Base Delta Zero in Rebels, as it’s a pretty hard one to spot unless you already know what to be looking for. In episode 1×03, “Rise of the Old Masters”, our heroes are watching Holonet News when Senator Gall Trayvis interrupts the signal to broadcast the news that Master Luminara Unduli is alive and in the hands of the Empire, the main focus of the episode. When the pirated signal goes out and Holonet News returns, we can hear a brief fragment of a sentence before Sabine turns off the holoprojector: “–and another successful planetary liberation utilizing the Base Delta Zero initiative.” The regular fan probably didn’t think anything of it, considering the fragment just some random mumble jumble and promptly forgetting all about it. The old timer? Well, let’s say my wife had to elbow me a couple of times to get me to stop laughing. Read More

Insert Coin to Continue: The Future of Star Wars and Video Games

Posted on February 20, 2015by

hero_kinect

It is an indisputable fact that Star Wars is, first and foremost, a film franchise. But while the movies will always be the most important part of the galaxy far, far away, it should not be forgotten that it also encompasses countless tie-in novels, comics, toys, and (the part relevant to this article) video games.

Beginning with a scrolling shooter based on The Empire Strikes Back released for the Atari 2600 in 1982, Star Wars games have been released in almost every genre you can imagine – from real-time strategy to first-person shooters to racing to ecosystem management (no, really). While the repercussions that the announcement of the sequel trilogy had for the Expanded Universe are by now well-known, we still have not yet seen the results of the video game license changing hands from LucasArts to Electronic Arts.

That there will be significant differences is inevitable: much time has passed since the golden age of Star Wars video games, with only a handful of notable titles released after (what we had assumed was) the saga’s completion in 2005. The era of the expansion pack is over, and downloadable content (DLC) is now the order of the day. Demos, too, have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Digital releases are the norm – and Steam the undisputed king among distributors. Popular new games have come, upended the status quo and redefined gamers’ expectations for entire genres, and gone. And so the question we now have to ask ourselves is this: what examples should Electronic Arts look to when developing new Star Wars games to ensure that they are as (and more) successful as their predecessors?

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The Darth Vader Art Award

Posted on February 18, 2015by Obiwomble's Outlook

vader-williamsonI suppose I could blame Cam Kennedy; after all, whatever else he might be accused of, few would disagree that the man nailed the art of drawing Star Destroyers and, perhaps more importantly, the art of drawing Darth Vader. Vader is one of Star Wars’ iconic characters but is deceptively difficult to nail. An example of this can be seen in Vader’s Quest, the story has art by Sir Dave Gibbons. Must be great, yes? There’s certainly nothing wrong with it technically, but Gibbon’s Vader does not look quite right, there’s something off. More recently I get the same sense from John Cassaday’s Vader, but not Salvador Larroca’s work in the companion title.

So if I were to give out a Darth Vader Art Award, who would be in the running and who would win?

Al Williamson (above)

A legend of comic art, Williamson’s contribution to SW was huge. He provided art for both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi adaptations and did a brilliant newspaper strip with Archie Goodwin after that until 1984. The re-issues Marvel are doing, with recoloured art, of the movie adaptations should show off his art. His cover for Classic Star Wars #3, Vader looming over a starfield, with the Executor under construction is an excellent composition. The way he depicts Vader is one that communicates power and cunning and an absolute sense of confidence, with a measure of pettiness as he chokes officers for failure. Read More

What Star Wars Can Learn From Marvel Television

Posted on February 16, 2015by

carter-cast

For all Marvel’s recent success at the box office with its Cinematic Universe, its small-screen efforts have thus far been a mixed bag. Most people will agree that its first series, Agents of SHIELD (I refuse to put the periods in there), got a lot better once it caught up with the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but there’s no doubt that it struggled at first to define itself, lacking both the personality and—more forgivably given its budget—the grandeur of the Marvel films. Their second series, Agent Carter, has improved by leaps and bounds over SHIELD’s debut even as SHIELD itself in its second season has begun to bring much more life and excitement to its proceedings with an expanded and more-colorful cast freed to the bureaucratic doldrums of the series’ beginning. Later this year, Marvel’s television roster will have doubled with the arrival on Netflix of both Daredevil and AKA Jessica Jones, with three more series to follow further down the line—and all within the same contiguous universe as the films.

For Star Wars fans, Marvel is the ultimate guinea pig for the Age of Disney. What success Marvel has had at the box office Lucasfilm now seeks to reproduce with both a sequel trilogy and no doubt several standalone films, and with more options for small-screen, lower-budget productions than ever before, it stands to reason that they’re watching Marvel’s television operations with great interest. Here are some things I think they should keep in mind. Read More