Tag: Reviews

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

Finn_and_Rey_Jakku_Escape

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—

trailer-reydesert

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

Twilight Company: The Return of the Rebel Alliance

Posted on November 2, 2015by Six on the Wild Die

THIS REVIEW WILL HAVE SOME MINOR SPOILERS. ABANDON YE WHO ENTER HERE ALL HOPE.

twilightpatchStar Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company is not your typical videogame tie-in. Even though it borrows part of its title from a soon to be released FPS game (that promises to be quite spectacular), Twilight Company works on its own without the need of the Battlefront crutch. The novel is pure military sci-fi. It’s less glamorous than the Rogue Squadron novels and more gritty than the Republic Commando series. Our main characters are not starfighter pilots or special forces commandos: they are the infantry, the people fighting the Galactic Civil War in the frontlines. Most importantly, Twilight Company gives us a hard look at what being a soldier in the Rebel Alliance during a period of open conflict is like and boy, is it engaging.

Let me preface this column by saying that I still find hard to believe that Twilight Company is Alexander Freed’s first novel. Freeds displays a firm grasp of what makes Star Wars loved by millions around the world and introduces us to a new cast of multi-layered characters in a gritty-yet-epic story about war, choices, and why it´s important to fight for a cause. Twilight Company is military sci-fi at its best, so good that even those that usually don’t enjoy the “military” part of it (like this author) will enjoy it. This column is going to focus on something particular: on how this book managed to give us an unprecedented look at how the Rebel Alliance works through the eyes of its foot soldiers, those who might not be galactic heroes but still fight and die for freedom. Read More

The Secret Academy — the answer to why the Empire fell so quickly (Also: Why you should read Servants of the Empire)

Posted on October 19, 2015by Imperial Court Circular

(As ever, we will endeavor to avoid spoilers – but as usual, this piece is analysis as much as review so we’ll be discussing the plot in vague terms to make the points we’re making)

secretacademyAs the Journey to The Force Awakens campaign kicked off on September 4th, one of the many questions readers started asking was: why is the Empire falling apart so quickly? The obtuse answer is that this is what the story demands, and we’ll learn the full reasons on December 18th. But many of us thought the war would last far longer than in the Expanded Universe, where the Empire was driven out of the Core Worlds as early as five years after Return of the Jedi. Surely this time the war would truly rage on for many many years: but that’s not what happened. Suddenly, the Empire of the EU seemed a lot more solid and formidable. Folks speculated as to the reasons why, such as the collapse of central authority, the unwillingness of the Navy to waste time protecting a symbolic world like Coruscant, defections to the New Republic, etc.

The real question, though, was why nobody was bothering to fight for the Empire? Even discounting propaganda, surely folks might feel under threat by the rebels and would want to defend their way of life? The Alliance/New Republic approach to the war doubtless played no small part in the lack of widespread Imperial resistance on the part of the galactic citizenry (something that we may touch on in our next “Gray Matters” piece), but Imperial collapse signifies a widespread lack of support for the Empire. This is in marked contrast to both Revenge of the Sith – where the Empire was ushered in by thunderous applause – and the old EU, where the Empire had solid support for quite some time.

Jason Fry’s Servants of the Empire books in general and The Secret Academy in particular give us the answer. This series – among many things – explores the true lengths the Empire goes to in order to inculcate loyalty in its subjects, and it shows that the Empire’s attempts at gaining the populace’s loyalty are manipulative at best and outright programmed at worst. The Empire does not inspire devotion or loyalty, it instills it by force. But The Secret Academy shows us that indoctrination through propaganda and misinformation is the gentlest of the Empire’s methods, and it has more sinister ideas in mind for the future of the galactic populace. Edge of the Galaxy already explored the Empire’s exploitation of planets, Rebel in the Ranks illustrated the brutality inherent in Imperial training, and Imperial Justice showed us the dark side of Imperial oppression: but The Secret Academy shows the existential danger posed by the Imperial system and indirectly provides the elusive answer as to why the Empire fell so quickly. Essentially, the Empire doth protest too much: the sheer lengths the Empire goes to shows that even the servants of the Empire aren’t really willing adherents of the system. Read More