The Force Awakens’ Over-Reliance on Nostalgia

Posted on December 22, 2015by A Certain Point of View

chewiewerehome

This is not a spoiler-free review so proceed at your own risk.

Throughout the buildup to The Force Awakens, the phrase “Chewie, we’re home” summed up the sentiment that had everyone, myself included, excited for the return to the galaxy far, far away. The movie promised it would be an exciting new story that would return us to our childhoods and take us to that moment when we first discovered the magic that was Star Wars.

But as I walked out of the theater after my first viewing, my first thought was “…that’s it?” The post-Return of the Jedi narrative is supposed to be the Great Unknown of the Star Wars fandom. Unlike the prequel trilogy, we had no idea what was going to happen. Episode VII was the first step into this larger world and was the start of a story for a new generation of heroes. So why did I feel so underwhelmed?

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The Force Woke Up- And I Loved It

Posted on December 21, 2015by The Holocron

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This article is in no way, shape, or form spoiler-free.

There was a time when we all figured we’d never see a Star Wars movie in a theater again. I certainly didn’t expect to. And yet, at 7pm Thursday night, I was sitting there in a movie theater, watching the title crawl, listening to that music, and wondering if it was even real.

One of the biggest challenges for a sequel is maintaining the universe. One good movie is quite an accomplishment. Making a sequel can be a challenge; there are plenty of examples of sequels, three-quels, and more that do not hold up to the original. And there are of course franchises that have more than one movie whose quality is questionable. Just look at Star Wars- you could spend a lifetime on the internet arguing about the PT and just how good it is, and still never gain a consensus. We fans heard about The Force Awakens with quite a bit of understandable trepidation. Not only had we lost the expanded universe (which might not have always been much of a loss), but we were also waiting for a new movie (a new trilogy, even) made by people who were often new faces to the Star Wars universe. Let’s be honest- a lot of us were terrified going into TFA. Would it hold up?

I’m just going to use Han’s line. “Chewie, we’re home.” Read More

The Force Awakens and the Perks of the Great Mystery

Posted on December 18, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

—THE FOLLOWING PIECE CONTAINS SUBSTANTIAL SPOILERS, NATURALLY—

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It’s been almost three hours, and the thought I keep coming back to is how little we still know.

I had a few rough ideas prior to this evening for angles from which I could explore The Force Awakens in the aftermath of my first viewing, all of which had some real weight to them, but at a certain point the brain is gonna do what it’s gonna do, and that’s the Big Takeaway for me right now: everyone has been talking, and will continue to talk, about the various ways this movie restages things from A New Hope, but the forlorn desert dweller, the droid with vital information, and the superweapon, honestly? They’re superficial. The thing that The Force Awakens reproduces most perfectly from ANH is the sense of being plopped down into a strange galaxy without your bearings, and being caught up in momentous events before you even come close to getting them back.

For the seventh part of a serialized story, it’s kind of amazing how much (and how effectively) this movie operates with basically zero context. Most of the things us continuity dorks have been fretting over aren’t any clearer now than they were last week. Where’d Starkiller Base come from? Doesn’t matter. How big is the First Order? Big enough. Is the New Republic still around? Yes, but its capital was just blown up? I guess? Read More

Looking to the Past: Star Wars Rebels and West End Games

Posted on December 16, 2015by Six on the Wild Die
Yes, I first owned the sometimes hilarious Spanish translation. Leave me alone.
Yes, I first owned the sometimes hilarious Spanish translation. Leave me alone.

Since the first announcement of the Expanded Universe reboot, it was said that what now is known as Star Wars Legends was still going to be used, not as gospel but as an inspiration and source for the new canon. And there’s perhaps no better place to see that The Powers That Be were not kidding than in the romance that the Star Wars Rebels cartoon has with the old roleplaying game published by West End Games, a game that introduced such classic concepts as Imperial Inquisitors, the Imperial Security Bureau or Interdictor cruisers, concepts that have lately graced our TVs. But why the WEG game? What makes such a venerable source so suitable to become part of the backbone of the new continuity?

West End Games published the very first Star Wars roleplaying game. The first edition of their game was released in 1987, and soon became the most authoritative source of reference material on anything related to the Galaxy Far Far Away. Initially having nothing to base their sourcebooks on but the original trilogy, the novelizations and radio dramas, and Brian Daley’s Han Solo novels, the developers of the roleplaying game took on the task of expanding this universe and not only dissected and classified the existing sources, but also put together a pretty thorough description of almost every corner of the Star Wars universe. In the times before Essential Guides and Visual Dictionaries, WEG published dozens of roleplaying manuals covering topics as vast as the Galactic Empire itself or as narrow as the legal situation of scouts in the New Republic era, describing almost every single nook and cranny of the galaxy with a level of detail that probably has never been reached again. Read More

Rebels Revisited: Promises, Expectations, and the Season So Far

Posted on December 14, 2015by , , and

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Mike: For over a year now, Star Wars Rebels has been Lucasfilm’s biggest product. Sure, excitement for The Force Awakens has always been another animal altogether, but until now, it’s mostly been an abstract item that can be teased and speculated about but not directly engaged with—and certainly not on a weekly basis. With Rebels officially on its midseason hiatus, it finally takes a definitive backseat to the film, and for many, permanent second-class status. If you were on Twitter Wednesday night, you had a front-row seat for this process, as mere minutes after “Legacy” ended a new Chinese trailer appeared and quickly swallowed up nearly all Rebels discussion—this week’s poignant long-term ramifications (and Clancy Brown) be damned.

As major television series go, Rebels is still young; it may have several seasons yet to develop its characters and relationships in a way that rivals the depth of a Finn or a Rey—it’s certainly got much more running time to work with. But if it’s going to punch its weight in a franchise that’s releasing one movie a year for the foreseeable future, Rebels can’t afford to coast on our existing goodwill. As much fun as I’ve had following the show so far, I have to admit to feeling somewhat underwhelmed by “Legacy”, especially as compared to last year’s midseason finale “Gathering Forces”. Maybe it was the return to Lothal, or the lack of a feeling of danger from the Empire and the Inquisitors (in their minute or so of screentime) compared to the confrontation with the Grand Inquisitor at Fort Anaxes, or maybe I was just bummed by the apparent cliffhanger (“Gathering Forces” was the conclusion of a two-parter, while “Legacy” appears to be the first half of one), but looking at the whole show up to this point I can’t help but see certain aspects as a step backward. Read More