Second Look – Star Wars and Genre

Posted on July 7, 2014by

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the official launch of Eleven-ThirtyEight. While the newly-redesigned StarWars.com chose to celebrate our anniversary (okay, not really) by adding our site to their Community section (yes really), I decided to give the gang the week off. Some of you may remember that I did this last Christmas, as well, so given that this ended up being a nice opportunity for another break, I think I can go ahead and say Second Look is officially a biannual event from now on—once at Christmas, and once on our anniversary.

If you weren’t around last Christmas, Second Look is just what it sounds like: I’ve pored through the ol’ archives and picked out some of my favorite pieces from the past six months; things that maybe didn’t get as much attention as they deserved, or things that I just liked enough to want to read twice. I’ll be highlighting one such piece for each of the next five days, so stay tuned.

But first, I’m going to cheat a bit and reflect on not just one piece, but an entire series. Eleven-ThirtyEight’s most prolific series to date, in fact—Lucas Jackson’s Star Wars and Genre.

In his introduction to the series (which technically predates even the launch of the site), Lucas explained how genre offers the key to the Star Wars franchise’s near-universal appeal:

“The films demonstrated that the space opera genre was broad enough to encompass other styles of storytelling. The Expanded Universe has run with that breadth, drawing from all kinds of genres. It has even openly dabbled in genre crossovers that more directly and completely place genre stories into the Star Wars setting, such as Joe Schreiber’s zombie horror novels, the “Star Wars Goosebumps” series Galaxy of Fear, and the tragically-canceled “James Bond meets Star Wars” Agent of the Empire series. Since the very beginning of the Expanded Universe, when Han Solo and Chewbacca reenacted the plot of The Magnificent Seven on Aduba-3, only for the climax to involve fighting a giant monster alongside a Don Quixote stand-in, the EU has incorporated a stunning range of other genres into the Star Wars universe.”

While each entry in the series is enlightening on its own, Lucas’ most substantial accomplishment is to have compiled a breadth of topics worthy of Star Wars’ myriad roots. No matter what style of storytelling brought you here, chances are there’s a Star Wars and Genre article to explain it—and maybe even offer a new recommendation or two. Click any of the links below to be taken to a particular article, or click here to view the whole category at once, with the newest articles first.

The Pitch – Marvel Star Wars, The Next Generation

Posted on July 4, 2014by , , , , , and

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In our first “The Pitch” piece way back in November, we submitted some ideas for new Star Wars novels we’d like to see. At the time, the only books known to be forthcoming were Maul: Lockdown and Honor Among Thieves, and with the canon situation unresolved, no one really knew what to expect from Star Wars novels in 2014 and beyond—or whether there’d even be any.

Shortly afterward, the announcement came down that the Star Wars comics license would be transferring from Dark Horse to Marvel at the end of 2014. Now, six months later, we’re in much the same position with comics as we were back then with novels—the last of DHC’s new offerings will be along next month, and as yet there’s been no information of any kind on what Marvel will be releasing next year (though with San Diego Comic-Con in a few weeks, I suspect we won’t be in the dark much longer).

So this time, I asked the others to pitch their own Marvel comic series. This being our first Pitch article post-reboot, I also made it clear that ideas didn’t need to fall in line with the existing Expanded Universe. Here’s what we came up with. Read More

The Expanded Universe Explains, Vol. VIII – Han and Lando

Posted on July 2, 2014by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

Now that we’re officially living in a post-reboot Galaxy Far, Far Away, one could be forgiven for thinking my EU Explains series isn’t really relevant anymore. I, however, think no such thing. I love the Expanded Universe largely because of the context and depth it gives to the many ambiguous bits in the movies—the spice mines of Kessel? Bothans?—and even if it can no longer be entirely relied upon to bear out in future content (which, let’s admit it, was always the case), even the most oft-contradicted sources present a fascinating superposition of possibilities for those bits, and will almost certainly be sprinkled into the new canon here and there; likely even the Sequel Trilogy itself.

Understanding the possibilities, I think, is just as valuable as knowing things for certain. To that end, for the time being I’m going to capitalize on this lack of certainty and begin exploring topics that even the EU was never quite sure about—the bounty hunter(s) on Ord Mantell, for example, or how the Rebels got a hold of the shuttle Tydirium. I may even untangle the myriad tales of the Death Star plans. But first… Read More

Clone Wars Character Autopsy: Asajj Ventress

Posted on June 30, 2014by Feature Articles, Sidelong Glance

Last time, we looked at one of the leaders of the Separatist Alliance’s military arm. While General Grievous was urged to use the unorthodox in his fight against the Jedi, he was in the end a blunt instrument in Count Dooku’s hands, a hammer used to smash the opponents of the CIS. Of course, Dooku also had need of a scalpel during the Clone Wars, a more selective agent who would not mindlessly charge into battle, and in whom he could implant his own ideas and training, giving him a tool with which to possibly unseat his master one day.

Enter Asajj Ventress.

Ventress was created as a part of the Clone Wars multimedia project to give the Republic a mid-tier antagonist before Grievous was revealed, first appearing in the comics but making her mark in the Genndy cartoon series as well. It was in The Clone Wars, though, where she made her biggest impact, giving audiences a major female villain for the first time in Star Wars screen history barring the antagonist of the Ewok movie (because who remembers that?). But her gender was far from her only reason for her popularity. She was menacing, she was magnetic, she was intelligent and even funny at times thanks to her talent for sarcasm. She gave the heroes a run for their money, but was far from a one-dimensional villain, as we’ll see. Read More

Yes, There Are Gays in Space: Queer Star Wars Fandom

Posted on June 27, 2014by The Holocron

It’s June, traditionally Pride month. It’s time to talk about queer fandom and mention the very fact that it exists and matters. Especially in Star Wars- a fandom whose diversity issues have recently come to light with a bang- queer fandom has a place, and deserves to be discussed.

With all the talk of diversity and representation in fandom, we’re finally hearing from those who feel marginalized by mainstream culture. Let’s face it, the Star Wars fandom has been traditionally very unfriendly to those who aren’t straight white men. For years on end, the rest of us were shunted off to the sides and seen as anomalies, but that isn’t so any longer. Internet fandom has changed recently, and now Tumblr is quite the space for fandom. It’s a space with many voices that aren’t those of the ‘mainstream,’ a space where we discuss the need for representation in fandom, the possibility of queer characters, and the problems of mainstream media’s relationship to queer fandom. Slash fanfic has been for a while one of the few major representations of queer fandom- writers, often female, and sometimes queer, explore the possibilities that the mainstream media wouldn’t give us. It’s become somewhat stigmatized in some circles; what does that say about mainstream fandom’s attitudes towards anything that isn’t straight? When fan culture starts hearing the voices of those who aren’t what people may think of when they hear ‘fans,’ suddenly diversity matters all the more.

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