Only a Sith – On Reboots and Absolutes

Posted on February 4, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

sw1-ross“Forever? ‘Forever’ is a word for children.”
– Master Kan, Kung Fu

After months of stories set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the new Star Wars canon has now moved whole-heartedly into the post-Yavin time period with the Star Wars and Darth Vader ongoing comic series from Marvel and next month’s Luke novel Heir to the Jedi. Advance review copies—or ARCs, as us super-cool blogosphere folks call them—for HttJ have been circulating for a while now, and already one prominent discussion topic has been whether it takes place before or after the events of the already-released Star Wars #1. I’m still working on my own ARC so I couldn’t speak authoritatively on that subject just yet, but I do think there’s something else worth asking right now: how badly do we need to know?

A while back I spoke about the continuity-shaking chaos that was the Legends post-Yavin timeline, and how impossible it was to arrange a logical sequence in which all the known events could take place. I expressed my hopes for the new canon as such:

“The exact chronology isn’t clear yet, but if HttJ takes place, say, six months after ANH, for god’s sake, make that clear in the story. I want to feel those six months in Luke’s character, and if a story in the comics takes place at the same point in time, Luke shouldn’t be there. If he gets so much as a papercut on the fourth day after Yavin, I want to see a band-aid on his finger on the fifth day, no matter how much time separates those two stories in the real world.”

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Oh Captain My Captain – The Essential Role of Hera

Posted on February 3, 2015by Feature Articles

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Star Wars Rebels’ cast is the show’s great strength. Every character has their own layers, depths beyond the stereotype they might be pigeonholed into if it were a different show. Nowhere is this better seen than in the relationship between Kanan and Hera and who the leader of the rebel group is. The assumption is, looking over the crew of the Ghost, that Kanan would be their leader. He is, after all, a former Jedi who has been living in the rougher part of the galaxy for years, a cunning warrior experienced in the dealings of the Rim and with the Force on his side. In practice, though, Hera is the one not only calling most of the shots, but also keeping the team from flying apart due to mistrust, differences and the simple friction of five (six counting droids) beings rooming together and constantly in each other’s faces.

Take the case of Ezra’s tutelage in the larger galaxy. Despite Kanan’s good intentions, he is still a rough and tumble man completely unaccustomed to being a teacher, much less a Jedi Master. There are times where he simply doesn’t see or know how to help Ezra with the questions he has. In those instances, Hera is usually the one to step in, as she does several times during “Vision of Hope”. She is the nurturing and encouraging maternal figure that Ezra very much lacked in his life until crewing aboard the Ghost, urging him to not give up on hope, even with setbacks like the betrayal of someone he trusted, and stepping in when an enemy tries to goad him, helping him to avoid edging toward the dark as he had at the end of “Gathering Forces”. Read More

End Date for the OT Characters – What Star Wars Can Learn From Carrie Vaughn

Posted on February 2, 2015by Halcyon Days

KittyRecently one of my authors, Carrie Vaughn announced the end of her main series. I call her ‘one of my authors’ because for the past 6 years I could always count on her to have a new book (or two) out each year. For someone who reads as much as I do this is important. Star Wars was winding down and not producing as much in the past and I have to have a book on me all the time. She’s an author that I’ve met and hung out with on several occasions over the years that I adore because she’s so personable and always forthcoming with the fans. For years she has said, “If you ever see the title Kitty Saves the World, that is the last book for my main character. So as an avid reader I’m sure you can all imagine my dismay at seeing her Facebook post a few weeks ago with the image of a new book with that title. One goes through various stages of grief all in an instant when one finds out a favorite series is ending. However, upon further reflection I heartily applaud Vaughn’s decision.

Carrie Vaughn is making a choice to end the story arc for her main character, a werewolf named Kitty. The supernatural world she created, though, is so much bigger than just the one character. So perhaps we will see books featuring other characters. She has already experimented with this and stated there is a big possibility for such books. She is doing what other authors who get bogged down with a certain set of characters should do. She is doing what Star Wars needs to do with this reboot. Another example of an author who knew when to walk away is Charlaine Harris whose books were the inspiration for True Blood. While I sometimes regret not being able to go to the bookstore and pick up the new Sookie Stackhouse book, part of me appreciates knowing there was an end for those characters. One could also look to J.K. Rowling who stopped at seven books for Harry Potter when she easily could’ve started next generation books with new bad wizards for the characters to fight (to be fair she still might do this.) I like having an end to a series. I didn’t realize how much I liked it until Vaughn’s recent announcement. Read More

When Gone Am I – Kanan and Ezra in the OT

Posted on January 30, 2015by , , , , and Not A Committee

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“When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be” – Yoda, 4 ABY

For all the deftness with which Star Wars Rebels has told its story thus far, one criticism that it can’t quite escape is something that many would say plagued the Expanded Universe more and more as it went on: it’s allowing Jedi to survive in the Dark Times. Pretty much by definition, every single Force-user roaming the galaxy doing good deeds in this time period makes Luke and his training in the original trilogy less unique. To some, it goes even further, stunting Luke’s actual importance at best and making Yoda and Obi-Wan look bad at worst.

But Rebels is still four-plus years out from the OT, and over eight years from the quote at the start of this piece. There’s lots of time left for any number of fates to befall Kanan and Ezra—and Ahsoka’s fate at the conclusion of The Clone Wars demonstrates the folly of assuming we know where any young Jedi’s story is going. That said, Yoda’s declaration, and his and Obi-Wan’s clear hopes for Luke as their one real chance of defeating the Emperor, offer almost as wide a range of interpretations as there are real possibilities. Some fans aren’t even that keen on them being alive in the period we’ve already seen them. Some don’t mind them being around as long as they don’t actually join the Rebellion—Luke should be the only Jedi with that distinction, they’ll say. And some are concerned only with Yoda speaking the truth in the most literal sense possible; Kanan and Ezra can be and do whatever they want as long as they’re dead by the time Luke shows up on Dagobah. Read More

Where Are We Now? The Settings of Star Wars

Posted on January 28, 2015by

One of the defining things about old Star Wars content is the sheer number of places we go, the environments, the unique planets. The Legends-verse gives us a variety of excellent inspirations for Episode VII-and-beyond settings, and we’ve seen a possibly familiar place already in the teaser. The story of Star Wars might be set in space, but it very much has more elements of fantasy and space-opera rather than a straight science fiction tale. Abandoned temples, jungles, deserts, crime lords’ palaces, and bustling cities all bring life to an expansive universe, making it feel lived-in. A space-based world that keeps in mind the places that aren’t space makes the story come more to life. These settings are just as important as the characters and plot, and we can’t really imagine the world of Star Wars without the settings around us.

617px-NJO_galaxy_mapThe galaxy is a huge place. We don’t know what the map of the galaxy looks like any longer, but when we did, it always had new corners to explore. Even heavily-populated areas like the Deep Core still held secrets, and an entire region called the “Unknown Regions” speaks volumes about just how little we know about the galaxy. The Republic, and then the Empire, and then the New Republic and its various successors, may have controlled much of the galaxy, but remembering how extensive the galaxy is reinforces just how much control they don’t have. Yes, it’s odd that the Empire keeps finding new places to hide in throughout the galaxy; yes, it’s strange that Sith temples and lost Jedi and new alien species turn up. But it works. In a setting as large as a galaxy, the infinite possibilities are what keep it moving.

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