Why Darth Sidious is Exactly What the Sequel Trilogy Needed

Posted on April 29, 2019by Obiwomble's Outlook

For all that it is an apocryphal line wrongly attributed to John Maynard Keynes, it is particularly apt for this article:

When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.

For the recent revelation that the Emperor will feature in Episode IX, along with the title being The Rise of Skywalker, changes things greatly. Now, of course, they could be playing games. Episode IX’s predecessor has become infamous for doing exactly that but this time? This time, I think not. They have put these two pieces out as a PR vanguard for the film. Each would be stunning by itself, but together? Well, gives new meaning to the old line of “always two, there are.” Combined they are a seismic bomb that could re-spin the entire trilogy, while also enabling it to take its place in the wider story.

I haven’t written for this site in a while, due to the destructive aspects of The Last Jedi. It was not just a case of killing Luke off, which has come to feel nastier as time has gone on, but that the film overall was highly destructive across the board. Speculate as to what will happen in the next film other than offing old characters? Er, with what? What is there to speculate with? As of the end of TLJ there’s twenty beings crammed into the Falcon against the entire First Order, with only Leia of the original trio left alive and the new trio comprehensively trashed to a far greater degree than anything ESB ever did. There is very little to work with here.

The new teaser trailer starts to supply the material to speculate with and the killer move in it is the final seconds – Death Star wreckage and a very ominous, very familiar laugh. Before I suspect they might have gone with a is-it-or-isn’t-it card but this time? Nah, they’ve gone: Fuck it, it’s the last film, we’ve no time for games, it’s the Emperor, ‘kay? Read More

The March of the First Order – How Star Wars Resistance Reveals a New Form of Evil

Posted on April 26, 2019by Guest Editorials

The First Order invasion of the Star Wars galaxy has been characterized on the big screen as efficient, effective, and merciless. The Force Awakens opens with a brutal First Order attack on a settlement on Jakku. While the movie goes on to depict the destruction of the Galactic Senate on Hosnian Prime by Starkiller Base, the details of the brutal methods utilized by the First Order to exert authority over individual planets are not fully explored on the big screen. The first season of Star Wars Resistance reveals the shocking truth behind the ongoing march of the First Order.

Home, Home on the Colossus

On the edge of Wild Space lies Castilon, the oceanic planet that serves as the setting for the first season of Star Wars Resistance. While the surface of the planet is covered in water, no land is necessary for the Colossus, an old supertanker depot that serves as a final refueling point before the Unknown Regions and also as a hangout for speed-junkie ace pilots. Far from the cosmopolitan Core systems – where planets which serve as the seat of the galaxy’s political and cultural power (like Coruscant and Hosnian Prime) are located – Castilon is, by the admission of Flix the acquisitions clerk, what most people mean when they say “the other side of the galaxy”. Read More

Star Wars Celebration Chicago: A Retroactive Diary

Posted on April 24, 2019by

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As I mentioned last week, this year’s event was not just my first Star Wars Celebration but my first major convention of any kind—after living in Pittsburgh for nineteen years I’ve only even been to our own Steel City Con once, and suffice it to say I wasn’t missing much. There was never much to draw me there content-wise, and the rest was just aisle after aisle of the type of knickknacks I could always find at my local comic shop if I cared to. I left behind most of my interest in merchandise years ago and I never had much interest in meeting celebrities, so what was left to get me there? Well, Pittsburgh-wise, very little. But thanks to this site, and the hundreds of people I’ve gotten to know online because of it, Celebration is able to offer not just an incomparable slate of programming but the opportunity to spend time with literally dozens of people I’ve come to think of as friends but never actually met.

Mind you, four days in California or Florida is generally out of my price range. I always told myself, though, that if they ever came to the northeastern United States I would make it happen. So when they announced Chicago as the next Celebration locale roughly a year ago, it was time to put up or shut up.

What follows is the full, unvarnished [1]Well, lightly varnished. story of my experience—both the headaches and the thrills. While I definitely had my share of the former, allow me to be very clear: I had a fantastic time, met lots of cool people, and have essentially no regrets. There were some huge unknowns that made my pre-show experience pretty stressful, but for the most part they were particular to me and my own choices and while I want to relate them authentically, they should not be taken as a warning. If you haven’t attended a Celebration before, I hope you find the below enlightening—but know that nothing can compare to doing it for yourself, an experience I strongly recommend. Read More

 

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↑1 Well, lightly varnished.

Master & Apprentice: The Tie-In Book The Phantom Menace Always Needed

Posted on April 22, 2019by The Works

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This review contains minor spoilers for Claudia Gray’s novel Master & Apprentice

Since the Star Wars “canon” was reset in April 2014, I’ve had a wish list of stories I wanted to see told, all filling gaps in the prequel era. While the first few years following the “reboot” focused mainly on the original trilogy, I held out hope that we would eventually see a novel about Padmé set between Episodes I and II; an origin story for Dooku’s turn to the dark side; and the great missing piece from The Clone Wars, the Siege of Mandalore. Someone must have been listening.

What I wanted more than anything, though, was a novel about my favorite character, Qui-Gon Jinn. And after her incredible short story “Master and Apprentice” in 2017’s From A Certain Point Of View, I knew I wanted Claudia Gray to write it. From the heartbreaking Lost Stars to her work with Leia in Bloodline and Princess of Alderaan, Gray has been one of the shining stars of the new novels. So maybe I was pre-programmed to like this. I can honestly say, though, that Master & Apprentice is everything I wanted it to be, and more: a look inside the mind and beliefs of Qui-Gon Jinn, an unexplored take on his relationship with Obi-Wan, and something of a love letter to fans of The Phantom Menace.

Read More

Star Wars Celebration Chicago: How Did it Stack Up?

Posted on April 19, 2019by , , , , and Not A Committee

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Mike: Last weekend’s Star Wars Celebration Chicago was not just my first Celebration but my first major convention of any kind. I had a blast and got to meet dozens of people from here and Twitter for the first time, but having technically covered the last few Celebrations here at Eleven-ThirtyEight and seen lots of rumblings about organizational issues (from both past events and this one) the thing I found myself most curious about as the weekend wound down was: how did Chicago stack up to the others?

I’ll be sharing more of my own thoughts soon, but suffice it to say that aside from a fair amount of stress over the status of my media application, I found the whole thing to be moderately logistically challenging but not to the point that it infringed upon my good time. If I wasn’t able to get into a panel I’d been hoping for there was always something new in the main hall to check out, or a friend to track down, or shitposting to do, so I never found it too bothersome.

But with this being my first con, I had no prior experiences to compare it to—better than average? Worse? Or typical? Luckily I had the novel opportunity to ask some of my staff writers—like, their actual physical selves—what most surprised them about this year. I should mention that while most of them are battle-scarred veterans of the convention floor, this was Abigail Dillon’s first Celebration as well—but I’m nice so I decided to ask her anyway. Read More