“What is this?” – Interrogating the “Casual” Reactions to Rogue One

Posted on June 13, 2016by and Interviews

When the first teaser trailer for Rogue One was released last April, a whole bunch of people who would identify themselves as Star Wars fans on some level found themselves seeing for the first time evidence of a movie that was unequivocally connected to the franchise, yet had little in the way of familiar characters—no Rey or Finn, no Luke or Leia, no Anakin or Padmé. The only recognizable face in the whole thing was Mon Mothma, but she looked a lot younger than she was in Return of the Jedi—what was this?

https://twitter.com/salsapantz/status/718191455068626945

While I have no interest in teasing or belittling these people for not following the ins and outs of Lucasfilm operations the way a lot of us do, I have to admit I found this oddly fascinating—not just confusion about the story and how it related to the existing movies, but even about whether it was an authorized Lucasfilm production, or some kind of off-brand remake a la Never Say Never Again, the unofficial James Bond movie.

So last month I came up with a short questionnaire and passed it out to several people, with a lot of help from the trusty David Schwarz, that you might call casual fans. The first couple questions revolved around The Force Awakens, with the goal of establishing their current perspectives on the franchise and its “main” story. Once that was done, I then got into their thoughts on the Rogue One trailer and premise in more detail; those responses are reproduced below with my own thoughts and conclusions peppered throughout. Read More

The Pull to the Light: Redemption and Salvation in Star Wars

Posted on June 10, 2016by The Works

vaderunmasked

The first six Star Wars episodes tell, in part, the story of the fall and redemption of Darth Vader. This is a common interpretation, supported by George Lucas’s own statements. But is Darth Vader truly redeemed, and what do we mean by that? What actually happens to him at the end of Return of the Jedi? This question is crucial to understanding the thematic core of Star Wars, and we must attempt to answer it if we are to speculate on the future of our newest villain: Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo.

Darth Vader

Before we explore this, we have to ask what is meant by “redemption.” Like many questions dealing with the English language, the answer is more complicated than it first appears. The first definition given by dictionary.com is:

1.

an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed.

This definition relies on the idea that a person atones for, or “redeems”, a mistake they have made. Is this what Vader does? This is a value judgement, so we may all come to a different conclusion, but on the whole, I would have to argue that he does not. 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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Why the End of Darth Vader is Great News for Star Wars Comics

Posted on June 6, 2016by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

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No, not the end of Darth Vader the character—I just couldn’t resist using that amazing image by Phil Noto. I’m talking about Darth Vader, the ongoing comic series by Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca. When the series kicked off in February of last year, Gillen was very clear that this book had a specific story to tell: how its titular character went from his embarrassing defeat and loss of the Death Star in A New Hope to perhaps the height of his power, leading Death Squadron in the hunt for the Rebel base in The Empire Strikes Back. Earlier he likened the arc to that of Frank Underwood in House of Cards, and while that series has gone to great lengths to keep its, ahem, house of cards standing much longer than the story it’s based on, Gillen announced last month that he had gotten to his endpoint faster than even he had anticipated:

“…we’ve always said all the way through, from Darth Vader #1, that this was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. And we kind of looked where we were after Vader Down, and we realized we were probably actually nearer to the end than we thought we were. And it was a situation where we were like, ‘Okay, it’s better to actually end this story in a way which we think is the most effective. We don’t want to pad it out extraneously.’ That was the kind of thing, we were like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the end of this particular story,’ in which case it’s a natural place for Vader to move on.”

While I’m a big fan of Gillen’s writing and Vader has often surpassed Jason Aaron’s Star Wars series over the past year, I met this news with a certain amount of relief. In the world of comics, especially from Marvel and DC, a creator getting to tell the entire story they set out to tell—and then, maybe just as importantly, actually ending the series at that moment—isn’t as common as you might think. So knowing that Gillen was allowed to wrap things up in a way that doesn’t just tee up a new creative team a month later is a big sign that Marvel’s Star Wars line is being handled in a healthy way, and makes me more excited to see where they go from here. Read More

Fatal Faves: Darksaber

Posted on June 3, 2016by Sidelong Glance

darksaberYou know how many people with the benefit of hindsight like to rag on Kevin J. Anderson’s work? A lot, including myself. But that’s hindsight; in his time he was an extremely influential (and prolific) author throughout most of the Bantam Expanded Universe, and regardless of the critics a lot of his works are still beloved by fans. Because of his proliferation, his work was often among the first stories that thousands of burgeoning young fans read. That includes me. My first “adult” EU book was the anthology Tales of the Bounty Hunters, where, I’ll be honest, I loved KJA’s IG-88-centric story “Therefore I Am” second most out of all of them. (What was the first? “The Last Man Standing”, of course.)

Once I had moved from the short story collections and into full-fledged novels, I was given a number of Bantam-era novels from a used bookstore for a birthday. It was a mixture of them, no complete sets, meaning I owned a third of the Crispin Han Solo trilogy, a third of the Bounty Hunter trilogy, and so on. One of the books was the KJA scribed Darksaber, a lesser book of his, not as high-profile as the Jedi Academy Trilogy or as landmark as Tales of the Jedi. The book blew my mind in a lot of ways, I recall reading it through several times, and going back over my favorite chapters more often than that.

Here’s the thing. I enjoyed so much of Darksaber, and it made such an impression on me that scenes are still stuck in my mind today. That’s more than I can say for most of the other books I had in that era (Slave Ship anyone?). When I think of the Bantam era, I think of the X-Wing series first, and then Darksaber, even before Heir to the Empire. It so perfectly exemplifies the era of Star Wars publishing for me. The story, the characters, the plot(s), the twists, everything is just so pulp, so Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Read More