#anakin’s obsession with kenobi strikes again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sleepymarmot · 2 years

Text

Obi-Wan Kenobi, episode 6

This is just an anime battle. Obi-Wan remembers the people he wants to protect and levels up in an instant. Very weird to see in an American show from an American franchise.

Alright, when Anakin’s voice said “Anakin’s gone” I got chills. Wise of the show to remind us what his voice sounds like so that this moment would be unmissable.

Obi-Wan king of making the same mistake twice. His presence reduces Darth Vader to a lonely kid again and he just. Takes the words Anakin uses to lash out completely at face value. Like. I can’t believe all of these gifsets showed “I did” and left out “The same way, I will destroy you!” which, along with the tone of his voice, really clarifies the intent. This is the last scrape of agency he has. He needs to believe he did this to himself, he chose this, he wasn’t just a pawn who lost everything for nothing. And Obi-Wan doesn’t fucking get it. Truly this is hopeless. It takes a Skywalker to know one. And now we’ll cut to Tatooine to see how the fuck the only person who can solve this survives to do so. Nice sequence, by the way. Show us how Obi-Wan fails and then remind us of the person who won’t. And by now I truly can’t tell if this scene is absolving Obi-Wan of his lie to Luke, or condemning him even further by giving him the opportunity to do what he demanded of Luke and fail to do that for the second time. There are two solutions to this problem. Try to save him or try to kill him. For the second time, Obi-Wan chooses inaction. (Good thing he is in Star Wars, not Mass Effect; making a similar choice by accident cost me the galaxy in that one.) Now he doesn’t have the excuse of shock or urgency; he’s had time to think and he chooses the same thing. Well, at least this time he only turns his back on the galaxy, not on his former friend burning alive. (Which the show did not address enough.)

(Btw, the lighting looks great, but I can’t say I’m excited if it is really supposed to color-code how we’re meant to judge the truthfulness and moral correctness of every line in this exchange.)

Why does Reva wants to kill Luke anyway? She knows he’s important but she doesn't know he's Anakin’s son, right?

This doesn’t make a lot of sense. She says she failed her classmates by not killing Luke like Anakin killed them... Then she is horrified by the idea she became like Anakin. Hold on, you just said that’s what you were trying to do! At least she made the big decision fully by herself instead of being convinced by the Light Side White Man. I still don’t get what she knows about the twins and how. Did she somehow deduce that both Leia and Luke were Anakin’s kids... right after Leia slipped away from her?

And of course episode 6 is built around the parallels with Episode VI. This show’s entire structure has been echoing the two trilogies, but here it is the most prominent. One half is about Anakin peeking out of Vader’s mask and Obi-Wan being put in a situation Luke will be in the future but retracing his own steps from the past. The other is a villain from the Dark Side, Anakin’s mirror, decides that Luke will not die today.

Vader: He will not evade me again. And then he did! For like nine more years.

“Perhaps your feelings for your old master have left you weakened.” The ship manifesto screenplay strikes again lmao.

Vader, half a minute after That Rant: “Kenobi means nothing”. I already had that post about Anakin and never not having a master in his life in my drafts waiting for a re-reblog, now I really need to bump it up. Like it’s not an accident that the same word was just used! Vader confirms his commitment to the new master over the old one; on the other side, Obi-Wan insists that both he and Reva are now “free” of their obsession with Vader. Well, that's one way to find closure, I guess. Or, to be more precise... Obi-Wan, who is on the Light Side, and Reva, who abandons the Dark Side, get their closure by letting go. Anakin, who stays on the Dark Side, cannot let go, but is forbidden to acting on it — instead of closure, he gets despair.

Good moms show support for their children’s aesthetics and hobbies, such as: armed resistance against the oppressive state!

Alright, I laughed out loud at Leia seeing the man who saved her life and focusing on her pet droid (who nearly got them all killed) first.

Ooooh here comes the shitty overly gendered line! Oh fuck they played one of the classic themes during it. How dare they manipulate my emotions with the music that I don’t even remember the origin of!

It’s a shame Luke doesn’t look like his adult self the way Leia does.

So no final shot of Reva?! *throws phone*

#star wars #kenobi series #blah blah blah

1 note · View note

gffa · 4 years

Photo

Hi! Okay, so, to build this up a bit, I’ll cover what originally made the Council decide that training Anakin wasn’t a great idea: In the scene where they test him--which they agree to, so they are genuinely considering it, they’re not rejecting Anakin out of hand for being too old, otherwise they wouldn’t go through the effort or take the test seriously, as we see them do--they are very neutral towards him and nobody says anything like Anakin is bad and terrible or whatever. Nobody says feelings are bad or anything of the sort: Yoda: Hmm... how feel you? Anakin: Cold, sir. Yoda: Afraid are you? Anakin: No, sir. Yoda: See through you, we can. Mace: Be mindful of your feelings. Ki-Adi: Your thoughts dwell on your mother. Anakin: I miss her. Yoda: Afraid to lose her... I think, hmm? Anakin: (a little angry) What's that got to do with anything? Yoda: Everything. Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering... I sense much fear in you.

Mace says “be mindful of your feelings”, which is pretty much the opposite of denying that they’re there--MINDFULNESS: “a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.” Also in this scene, Yoda’s words are important, because he’s connecting Anakin’s reactions to the path to the dark side and Yoda’s lent a whole lot of narrative weight in this scene because it’s almost word for word how George Lucas describes the fundamentals of the Force: “Once you become afraid that somebody’s going to take it away from you or you’re gonna lose it, then you start to become angry, especially if you’re losing it, and that anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Mostly on the part of the person who’s selfish, because you spend all your time being afraid of losing everything you’ve got instead of actually living.” --George Lucas This shows that we’re meant to take Yoda’s words with extra consideration, given that he is absolutely, completely correct about how the dark side works. He’s not saying that “you have one bad feeling and you’re a dark sider forever”, he’s saying that “once you start letting hate seize on your heart, once you start murdering people out of hate and anger, you gotta live with that shit for the rest of your life”, and he’s warning Anakin that being unable to face your fears means they’re going to grab hold of you. Jedi have negative feelings all the time, we see them in the movies! From “perfect” Jedi like Mace and Obi-Wan and Yoda! And nobody says that, oh, no, I had a feeling, that was bad. Instead, they acknowledge it and work through those feelings and let them go--I mean, even the test for their younglings on Ilum or the tests from the Lothal Jedi Temple are designed around this concept. Hell, even as young as the creche, the Jedi teach their children that the dark side is part of them and that again echoes how George Lucas says the Force works, giving weight to the narrative correctness of the Jedi’s practices: “Qui-Gon whispered, “The dark side?” He knew it was a thing all beings carried within them, a part of himself he would learn to guard against—the crèche masters had taught him all that. --Master & Apprentice “Only way to overcome the dark side is through discipline.” --George Lucas Anakin, in this scene, has trouble admitting to his fears even existing, he gets defensive and angry--and that’s completely understandable, nowhere in the scene do they say he’s bad for it or anything like that. But it does mean he’s likely a poor fit for the Jedi at this point and half-training someone is more dangerous than fully training them. George’s commentary on Anakin supports this as well, that he doesn’t really want to accept Jedi philosophy: “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village.“ –George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary And George ties Anakin’s attachment (which is tied to possessive, obsessive feelings, not synonymous with any kind of care) to his mother for why he becomes Darth Vader, that it’s on his character, not on the Jedi: “[Anakin] turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.” –George Lucas, Time Magazine So, what changes? By the end of the movie, the Sith have undeniably returned, and they know that there’s still another one out there and they’re quite possibly going to be looking for a new apprentice:

Further, Obi-Wan says that he is going to train Anakin, whether he does so as a Jedi or whether he leaves with Anakin to go elsewhere. This is something that Jedi have done before and they’re pretty fine with it (Age of Republic: Count Dooku has Jak’zin telling Dooku that most Jedi think he’s gone off to create his own order of the Force and Dooku’s surprised by this, showing that the Jedi never lifted a finger to stop this or even scold him for it, they’re fine with it), but Obi-Wan has only just been Knighted, Anakin is so tremendously potentially powerful and doesn’t have a great mindset, so he really needs the community support that the Jedi provide. Even further, in the comic Age of the Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda makes a point to talk to Obi-Wan and say: “If you’re going to commit to training Anakin, you must commit.”

“If train him you must, young Kenobi... train him well.” Even as far back as Empire Strikes Back, Yoda has been emphasizing that a Jedi must be serious about this, you can’t half-ass it, given the depths of their powers, the ability they have to hurt others, and how the Force is a constant echo in their heads and they have to be disciplined against it (another thing George Lucas specifically says is how the Force works). “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” So, basically, the Council initially doesn’t want to accept him because they think Anakin would struggle too much with their ways (and that’s not throwing shade on him, not everyone is meant to be a Jedi and that’s not a bad thing for either path! as well as they’re kinda right, given George’s commentary on Anakin) and they wouldn’t be a good fit for each other. But then the Sith are back, if it was the Apprentice who died, then the Master will be looking for a new one and Anakin would be far too tempting, so they have to protect this kid, despite that they don’t actually seem to believe he’s the Chosen One (or that, if he is, it matters), especially if Obi-Wan is going to train him either way, and so they say, “Yeah, we’ve decided to accept him for the Jedi path, because it’s more dangerous to half-ass someone’s training than it is to truly commit to them and do it properly.” And, honestly, given how genuinely liked Anakin seems to be by the other Jedi, it wasn’t about having a grudge against him or anything, it was that they weren’t sure he was a good fit for their ways, but once he was accepted, they truly committed to him!

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #yoda #mace windu #jedi order #jedi council #meta #long post

345 notes · View notes

tvpeongsstuff · 3 years

Text

Supreme Emperor Obiwan Kenobi

New story idea.

After Mustafar Obiwan and vader do not have another run in for a few years. But, the first time they do Obiwan makes one of his distract my enemies while fighting comments. Vader gets distracted and loses again and Obiwan runs away. It keeps happening.

At first vader does not realize what this means until he and one of his henchmen (inquisitors?) get into a fight with Obiwan and Obiwan starts flirting with the henchman like he does when he is fighting his enemies and turns to vader and flirts with vader like he does with his enemies.

Anakin Skywalker, Obiwan Kenobi's padawan/brother/son, realizes that he is now just another sith obsessed with Obiwan. And, that to Obiwan he is no different than Ventress, or Dooku, or Grievous!

He doesn't handle that knowledge well. He goes even more crazy looking for Obiwan. He cannot handle being just anything to Obiwan. He starts looking for ways to increase his power tenfold. He starts training like crazy.

He pays top dollar for holorecordings (old or new no questions asked) of Obiwan fighting against other darksiders, criminals, and imperials. There are a few new videos. If any of them get in a lucky strike, vader makes them fight him. Inquisitors, the criminal underworld, and officers start getting chopped to pieces or killed. The imperials that survive get cybernetic parts. There are also a lot of older videos of Obiwan fighting with other Jedi, especially Anakin Skywalker. Those were supposed to be destroyed after the fall of the Republic. They make him feel...

Unbeknownst to both vader and sidious, the rebellion realize what's happening and start using vader's obsession to get vader to turn his sith fury on the complacent core worlds. They were the ones comming the info lines saying that Obiwan was on X planet or Y planet. Then when vader and his troops show up, they would broadcast the carnage. And, they carry out covert operations on other planets as they know those planets are vaderfree. For example, creating a spy network on Naboo, moving ammunitions through planet A.

The Rebellion recruits Obiwan to their cause. Bail reaches out to him, tells him the plan. They need him to distract vader. It's twofold: They don't want vader getting suspicious and they need vader to keep destroying coreworlds. He needs to be filmed looking heroic, walking through rich districts, passing by Core senators mistresses second homes, in the same are as a new important imperial's kept man (misters?). He is going to be their Katniss Everdeen (an ancient hero). People are going to get hurt but every jedi knows that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one.

It works! If there is a rumor that Obiwan is on a planet, vader shows up with squadrons and tear the area apart, torture people for information, etc. This backfires on him because he razes so many places the empire can't completely censor the videos before they get out. People stop calling in as much, no matter how good the bounty.

Palpatine is at first happy with vader's obsession. He's all, "Give in to the power of the dark side" and he loves cyborgs. But, vader is single minded in his pursuit. It's like he transferred all of the love he had for Obiwan into this chase. Palpatine knows how much Anakin loved Obiwan so...on the one hand let vader find him and kill him, cementing palpatine's rule and ensuring vader's complete loyalty. On the other hand, vader is wrecking core planets and undermining his hold right now.

Sidious orders vader to stop and concentrate on other things. Vader does not listen. He receives a holo showing Obiwan on Naboo visiting Padme's memorial. He freaks out, goes to Naboo, takes the entire 501st and the 212th. He questions the queen. He rips apart members of Naboo's ruling class. He breaks public monuments. His purge troopers pull people out of their homes and beat citizens in the street. All of this is being broadcast galaxy wide.

Naboo's gentry are comming palpatine on his private line complaining and asking him to control his maniac. The rebel broadcast and the regular broadcast are wondering if this new empire is going to keep infringing on the rights of citizens? Are the people hurt by the rampaging vader going to have any recourse? Perhaps they should return to a republic? Sidious can't let this stand. He looks weak. Vader is destroying his home planet and ruining his image.

He leaves Coruscant and goes to Naboo. This was all part of a plan by the rebellion and it worked perfectly. They sneak Obiwan into Coruscant. They needed both vader and the emperor off planet so that no one powerful would be around to sense Obiwan. The rebellion are going to rally support to their cause, build up the capital's spy network, and film holos of Obiwan on planet to play at a later date to embarrass the empire.

On Naboo, vader is mourning at Padme's tomb when sidious catches up to him. The rebellion have set up holo cameras to spy on vader's every move. Breha told them to set up low tech motion detector cameras at the tomb. When the emperor comes in he berates vader and shoots force lightning at him while Vader writhes on the ground and screams in pain. It all gets captured on holo.

S: "I do not care about these morons, Lord Vader. But, you need to get yourself together and stop embarrassing me. Use your grief to channel the power of the dark side!"

Vader (gasping and panting): Yes my master

S: You have been letting Kenobi make a fool of you. Perhaps he is better than you? Perhaps you do not truly want to kill him? Did you forget how he turned on you and cut you down? Do you not want your revenge?

Vader: Yes I want my revenge

Sidious: Good good apprentice. When next you meet pull on the dark side of the force. Show Kenobi what you are capable of. Let him be the one to suffer.

V: Yes master

S: Good we leave at once for Coruscant. Gather your men.

Meanwhile Obiwan had met with senators and businessmen sympathetic to the rebel cause. He's gone down to the lower levels and spread hope amongst the poor and downtrodden. He's used the force to heal. He's filmed at the barracks and the senate. Finally, he's at the jedi temple. Obiwan has been making poignant propaganda films. Now, he has to make one about the fall of the republic and the murder of the jedi. He does. It's heart wrenching.

He talks about life in the jedi temple. He talks about the camaraderie and love all the jedi are raised with, how he didn't realize people thought jedi were baby stealers. He explains that the jedi only took unwanted children, or children whose parents could not help them with their powers. Every jedi who wanted to could leave the order. No one was kept by force. All jedi were educated on their culture and traditions. And, he talks about that final day, the murder of the jedi in the temple, the slaughter of the younglings. . He talks about finding all their bodies after, the futile search for survivors, the desperate he harboured. He cries.

The rebellion thought that they would have more time. The emperor was supposed to stay on Naboo as is his wont and make nice with his fellow men. They did not expect him to come back immediately with vader, two starships full of clone purge troopers, and 7 inquisitors. They realize they cannot get Obiwan off planet. It's too late. Vader and sidious have sensed his presence.

Obiwan makes a decision. He could die trying to escape or he could make a heroic last stand. He has the rebellion set up holo cameras all around the area and go into hiding. He tells them to broadcast his last recording. Hopefully it will rally people to their side when he diies. They have to get themselves to safety. Obiwan knows he has to push vader into killing him quickly. He hides all of his most sensitive information deep behind his strongest shields. Then he meditates. He is as ready as he'll ever be. He has to trust in the force.

Sidious knows that this is the perfect PR opportunity. He has to counteract Obiwan's emotional appeal. He sends Vader with all the troops and inquisitors after Obiwan. Vader knows better than to fail him but back up couldn't hurt. Obiwan must die! He also orders all the empires holos to broadcast the fight throughout the galaxy. He goes to the senate and announces that "there have been reports that the jedi terrorist Obiwan Kenobi has been spotted on Coruscant. Not to worry. Not to worry. I have sent Darth Vader to deal with him. At long last we will be rid of the jedi menace and our glorious empire can finally know peace." This is also broadcast throughout the galaxy from the senate cameras.

The fight starts. It's epic. Obiwan battles Vader and the Inquisitors from the jedi temple to the senate rotunda. He knocks out 3 inquisitors and badly injures 2 more. He catches blaster bolts and directs away from him back to his enemies. He keeps flirting, and making jokes and puns. Vader is enraged. He starts fighting horribly. He loses focus and jumps in the way of his inquisitors. (They already know he's obsessed with Obiwan Kenobi and the suspect if one of them land the killing blow vader will destroy them.) He chops off one of vader's hands.

Obiwan: Did I unhand you? That must burn.

Vader becomes apoplectic. How is Obiwan beating him? Again? He remembers what sidious said and starts pulling on the dark side of the force. Vader is literally pulling all of the darkside energy on Coruscant into him. Here's the thing, there is no true dark side force energy. There is only the force that can be used for dark purposes or light purposes. The way the force is used taints the force around the user. Vader is actually pulling the force away from darksiders like the Sith.

Vader begins the drain Coruscant of its dark energy. He pulls the force out of all the inquisitors that surround him, draining them. This knocks all of them unconscious. He needs more power! He pulls on the dark energy around him that has been clouding the force on Coruscant. He pulls even harder. Several weak dark side senators fall unconscious. Dark side users around the planet start passing out. Still Vader needs more power!

Palpatine feels a drain on his powers. Too late he grasps what's happening; he tries to reach out to vader. "Stop! Stop!" he screams, " Stop this at once Lord Vader!" He tries to raise his shields but he and vader share a connection, sneakily placed there by him while vader was still a child. Usually the connection goes one way. He pushes doubts, fears, dreams, and pain on vader and sits back and enjoys the emotional turmoil. Today vader has blasted that connection wide open and is taking all of the force from him. He falls unconscious.

Obiwan Kenobi can see dark energy flowing into vader. Dark energy from teh inquisitors on the ground, dark energy swirling in from the air, an ocean of dark energy coming to him from the senate. Vadear is swarming in dark energy. Obiwan can feel the turmoil, rage, and hate. It feels like....anakin skywalker throwing a tantrum when he didn't get his own way as a child.

Obiwan knows how to deal with this, probably Anakin's biggest darkest tantrum. He opens the bond he has with anakin a little, looks into anakin, puts the right amount of force into his suggestion and says "Sleep." Vader collapses and Obiwan catches him with the force.

The flow of energy into vader immediately starts to slow down. From their connection Obiwan can sense all the people vader has been sucking dry. If vader stops draining them they will wake up, so Obiwan keeps the flow going.

All this time the battalions have mostly been standing by idly. They were ordered to take shots to incapacitate or distract the jedi, unless he somehow won. Then they were to kill him. They start firing immediately. With Obiwan's focus and the energy of all the darkside at his fingertips Obiwan is able to catch every single bolt blast. He starts moving towards the senate following the ocean of darkness, parting bolts in front of him like he is parting water. Some of the troops try to run up to him to fight him but they get caught and stuck. He is floating vader and the inquisitors behind him. The caught troopers start floating along with them also. As they pass, the bolts fire.

In the senate, chaos reigns. A few senators and the emperor have collapsed. Medics have been called for them. On their screens, Jedi master Obiwan Kenobi has bested Darth Vader and his inquisitors. He is walking through the blaster bolts of thousands of troopers. He has proven himself unkillable and now he is coming straight for them. Some of the weaker members of the senate try running away. Others call out to the Coruscant senate guards to protect them. An enterprising member orders the doors sealed. It makes no difference.

Obiwan Kenobi enters the senate. and jumps to the emperor's hover chair. Vader is hovering behind him still but he has left the inquisitors and the clone troopers at the entrance to the senate. The troopers are still firing at him indiscriminately. He is catching the bolts and directing them to the walls. He looks down at the emperor who is being treated by a medidroid, throws the droid away with the force, and closes his eyes for a few seconds. All the cameras are on him. Every household in the galaxy is watching. This is being projected to every screen on every warship. Imperial officers the galaxy over are watching from their posts.

He opens his eyes

Obiwan: By the ancient laws of this senate, and pursuant to charter 9 as set forth in the old republic, I name myself the vice chair of the senate Obiwan Kenobi. Alpha Tango Abera Cadebera Seven Five Thirteen.

There is a pause. Then a flurry of sound as all of the technology in the senate updates at the same time. The ancient code of the senate computers accepts Obiwan's passcode and turns the full power of the senate over to him. All connected systems update also.

Obiwan: Commanders execute order 4. Cancel order 66 and stop shooting.

All the clones stop shooting.

Obiwan: All powers are hereby handed over to me and whatsoever remains of the Jedi order. I declare myself Supreme Emperor Obiwan Kenobi.

Part 2

#Supreme Emperor Obiwan Kenobi #star wars #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #au #star wars fanfic #fixit #post order 66 #obi wan kenobi #darth vader #sheev palpatine #bail organa

38 notes · View notes

omegas-spaghettios · 4 years

Text

Disney & LGBTQ+

I am a Disney shill, i'll admit it. Their musicals and animated features are all wonderful, and their acquired properties like Marvel and Star Wars are borderline obsessions of mine. But I have one major problem (other than their money grabbing).

I'm Bisexual. I grew up in LDS Utah, in the very heart of it. I have been driven to be suicidal multiple times in my teenage years for how awful the culture is here against gay people. I oftentimes escape into what Disney creates, but i'm beginning to feel really hurt by them.

They refuse to give the LGBTQ+ community any sort of decent representation. They will champion that their new film is "A milestone for representation" then make it a scene they can easily cut out. In the live-action Beauty and the Beast their "groundbreaking" representation was a two second scene of Lafou dancing with a man. Valkyrie from the MCU is supposedly Bisexual but Watiti was never allowed to do anything with that. Then in Endgame it was an inconsequential scene of an unnamed character. Then in Rise of Skywalker it was two background characters who kissed. Then they pushed their new Love, Simon show from Disney+ to Hulu. The best we have gotten from them is in Onward with the lesbian cop, but again a background character with nothing but a passing mention of it. Nothing of substance.

Not to be rude and downplay what these characters mean to people, because something is better than nothing, but it feels pandering to me. Finnpoe was supposed to be canon and it didn't happen because of Disney. They keep claiming they support this community, but they make only passing mentions of background characters that can easily be removed for foreign markets. By doing this Disney tells me they only care about money, not what their representation actually means, and so it feels hollow at best.

What's frustrating is they make and support really good stories about LGBTQ+ feelings! Elsa is a great example of being forced to be closeted for something she was born with. She is ashamed and withdrawn and has tons of self loathing, and throughout both Frozen movies she grows to accept herself.

Likewise, The Clone Wars does this very well too. Granted, Disney did not make a vast majority of this show, but they continue to market it and allowed Season 7 to be what they wanted, so it still means something. The way the Jedi Order represses love and relationships strikes such a cord with me. What it does to Anakin is so realistically damaging and reflects how I was raised. Kenobi getting over Satine and living celibate in that show reminds me of all the gay people who are "strong in the church" and are denied their natural feelings. These people are shown to me, saying "you can make God happy too by denying your feelings!" And it clearly shows that Kenobi's experience also negatively affects Anakin, if not subtly.

So the point is is that Disney has the writing chops to craft AMAZING LGBTQ+ stories, but they refuse to. To explain let me tell you a story. The new short on Disney+ called Out is about a gay man coming out to his parents. It's short, harmless, and is only a drop in the bucket of their huge catalog on that platform. But my best friend's religious family hated it anyway, would not shut up about how awful it is, how they are sick of having gay people shoved down their throats, how they can't hate gay people without being hated on, and her family even discussed it with her grandparents.

Disney catters to these people. These awful, bigoted, hateful people. They cater to them for money. They don't make actual representation because all they care about is the bottom line. And I know they are a company, but they have so much money they can afford to make less of a profit on a few movies to really give LGBTQ+ something special, because they have proved they can make and support stories that strike a cord like that. But they won't. They don't actually care about my experiences, or my pain, or the escape they offer me. They only care about my wallet.

I know the upcoming MCU films The Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder are supposed to have more representation, but with their track record I am not holding my breath.

368 notes · View notes

twilightofthe · 4 years

Note

So...about that Obitine Anidala rant. Also, you said something about how Sidious and Obi-Wan are foils. I would love it if you elaborate. (Also, I love your blog.)

Awwwww thank you anon! I just be yelling on here!

*wheezes* okie doke! Tho I stress that this won’t exactly be a rant because I adore Obitine and Anidala and rant kinda implies aggression towards them, this is more of just a long-ass ramble because while I love them, I don’t always love the way canon portrays them in the narrative, particularly in relationship to each other, because I often do not feel that what the show is trying to push us to think about them is accurate to how they actually act and come across. Notably, the show attempts to draw comparisons to the two relationships that really don’t exist below surface level similarities. Again, these are my own personal opinions, and in fact, I welcome discussion! I truly do! Please politely debate me on this if you disagree!

(god dammit it got long again, so long I’ll actually put ur Sidious and Obi Wan as foils part in a separate post)

I’ll get to why exactly the show compares the relationships very strangely in a moment, but first we gotta explore the reason why it does this in the first place, which is that the Clone Wars show has decided to make Obi Wan and Anakin narrative foils to one another. Narrative foils, by the literary definition, are two characters that contrast one another. They don’t have to be the protagonist and the antagonist, these characters can be on the same side, basically the thing is that they have “opposite” personalities where if one character is hot, the other is cold, if one character chooses to go right, the other will go left. It’s usually used to show one character’s qualities as more favorable for the situation as opposed to anyone else’s.

TCW does this whenever they possibly can with Anakin and Obi Wan. I get its reasoning behind it. I do. The reasoning is that while Anakin is supposed to be a main character, he makes questionable decisions quite often and for the kiddies watching, those decisions must be seen as Bad even if the hero does it, so they have Obi Wan, the unquestionable good guy, encounter the exact same scenarios Anakin makes his questionable decisions in, and then has Obi Wan make the Right(TM) decision to teach the kids a valuable lesson. They turn Obi Wan into the voice of reason for the entire show, which turns basically almost everything Obi Wan and Anakin do into a constant competition in the narrative in a way the movies do not do (and I’ll get to the movies later). I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing, making them foils, but it’s definitely more of a show-only thing and it does it quite, quite often.

So yeah, TCW likes to compare Obi Wan and Anakin to the point that sometimes they try and use Obi Wan to diminish Anakin’s genuine trauma and struggles by going “well why didn’t you do it like THIS?” and I think that writing parallel plotlines for the purpose of shaming/criticism is kinda ://////, but that’s another rant for another day that again, if y’all wanna hear about, lmk

Anyway, the need to compare them absolutely made its way into their romantic relationships as well, as they acknowledge the similarities in the show, and Filoni and the crew explicitly compare the two relationships in interviews.

Basically my problem with how they try and draw said parallels can be boiled down to one quote by Filoni that a cursory Google search could not find but I know exists so y’all can take my word or not, that went along the lines of “Obi Wan and Satine are like Anakin and Padmé but better because they know how to stay unattached and let each other go. They’re a success story.” I disagreed with this quote so much it inspired me to write a whole-ass fic about it (Mutuals update: yes, it is coming soon, Darth Maul is just himself and therefore an utter pain in the ass to do a POV on and is fighting me like the bitchass he is)

My thesis that I will be arguing today is that while TCW tried to create Obitine as an Anidala parallel, they’re really not similar in the way the writers think they are. Obitine is not a success story to Anidala, they’re a goddamn tragedy too; the real parallel to Anidala is that Obitine also ended in death and tears despite making all the “right” decisions instead of all the “wrong” ones, and that is what is sad about them.

Like, on the surface level? Yeah, the crew-intended parallels are there. A fancy politician and a Jedi get together after the Jedi is assigned as the politician’s bodyguard. The first time they see each other in over a decade the guy’s first words are basically “damn girl you’re still hot”, there is Conflict(TM) and the choice to try and be together or stay yearningly apart because they are Forbidden(TM) to be together, and ultimately a Sith Lord fucks them both over because he’s obsessed with the Jedi and uses Politician Lady to his advantage, finds and exploits a vulnerability of hers, destroys her life’s work, and then lets her die to make Jedi Man sad. The difference is all that one pair said “yeah we aren’t gonna break the rules to be together” and the other said “fuck it yeah we are, let’s do this”

But beneath all of that, they real similarities are different and not at all focused on by the narrative. Obi Wan and Anakin are extremely different people, as are Padmé and Satine, so their relationship dynamics together will not be the same. You want to try and compare Obi Wan and Anakin and then compare Satine and Padmé like the crew attempts to, and you can’t, they have the same job but not nearly the same life. Namely, the funny coincidence is that Obi Wan and Padmé are much more similar in personality, while Anakin and Satine are also much more similar in personality, so the first time they meet again, it’s both Anakin and Satine as the one who’s been pining for over a decade and the one more actively pursuing the relationship, while Obi Wan and Padmé who are more like “uh, hi, wow, you’re hot and this is a Problem because I have a job to do pls don’t look at me like that but also I will Cause Problems On Purpose and flirt with you anyway because I can’t help it”. I get the Corruption TCW ep with Sati and Pads was mostly intended just to help Satine pass the Bechdel test and also show how similar the two leading lady love interests are, but it was a genuinely creative episode that actually ended up showing how much Satine and Padmé compliment each other instead of mirroring each other, much like Obi Wan and Anakin do.

And, onto my next point, despite the character parallels being wrong, the parallels in the relationship are different too. Like I said, the parallel isn’t that Obi Wan and Satine aren’t attached like Anakin and Padmé are. The parallel is that Obitine is actively running from what that attachment means instead of embracing it like Anidala is. The show would argue that since they try to avoid it, that they are able to live without one another, means they aren’t attached like the Jedi define it, but I argue that they definitely still are attached to a degree because they cannot give each other up. They held torches for each other from a timerange of 15 YEARS. Yes I know they spent an entire year together at a young and emotionally volatile point in their lives, but I stand that NO ONE is that hung up on their ex for that long unless there is some serious emotions involved. Anakin was hung up on Padmé for ten years, and that was because Palpatine was constantly bolstering those affections and reminding him of Padmé. Obes and Sati both-- or at least Satine, the show always makes Obi Wan’s feelings for Satine in return much more vague --held on to their feelings for five years longer without the influence of a Sith Lord.

And the thing is, they know it. Obi Wan and Satine are both fully aware that they haven’t been able to shake each other off like they should and that that is a Problem, that’s why they’re both a mite venomous with each other beneath the flirting at first, they’re both extremely frustrated with themselves for not being able to get over this thing they have, and frustrated with the other for being there as an active temptation.

And yet, they still are attached to each other. They try to avoid it, they definitely try, and that’s what makes them different from Anidala, but they are definitely still attached. You can see it in Obi Wan’s actions in Voyage of Temptation when Merrik is threatening to blow the ship, the way he hesitates in attacking him because that would be “striking an unarmed man”. Obi Wan Kenobi does not prefer violence, no, but he has never hesitated to cut a bitch before if it’s for the good of the many. This is the man who stabbed someone with a fork and threatened to eat him just to maintain his cover as a dangerous criminal. This is the guy who had no problem killing Zam Wessel for information to protect Padmé. This is a pragmatist who prefers peaceful solutions, but he does not hesitate if he feels it is a justified offense. But this time, when an entire shipful of people is at risk, Obi Wan hesitates. Because he doesn’t want to upset Satine. Because he’s probably thinking on how she told him that if he had killed the last terrorist they encountered, she wouldn’t speak to him, how she had criticized every time he used violence to escape Death Watch before. He hesitates because he’s putting her happiness, just for a second, over the sake of duty. Do I think that if Anakin hadn’t shown up to save their moral compasses, Obi Wan would have eventually taken out Merrik? Absolutely; hell, I honestly think Satine might have done it.

But the matter was, Merrik could have pressed the kill switch any second of Obi Wan’s hesitation, and Obi Wan knew that, and was hesitating anyway.

I am calling this attachment solely because if the situation was reversed, if this was Anakin and Padmé in this situation, with Anakin not taking out a dangerous criminal because he doesn’t want to upset Padmé (lol ignoring the fact that Pads 1000% would have shot that bitch, and even if she didn’t, Anakin would because he is perfectly fine with hurting his loved ones’ feelings if he feels it’ll keep them safe), god, the narrative would have eaten Anakin alive.

No, I won’t take criticism. I know how the show handles the Anidala dynamic. It would have shown Obi Wan popping up to take out the baddie as him doing the right thing and saving the day, and then Anakin would have been shamed for letting his feelings for his wife get in the way of protecting a shipful of people. THAT would be the Vader foreshadowing, none of this “only a cold-blooded killer” shit, no way would they ever stick that label on Obi Wan.

So yeah, I’m going off of the fact that if that would have been classified as attachment for Anidala-- which, it would, then. it counts for Obitine.

And then Obi Wan and Satine continue to be hung up on each other for the rest of the eps they’re in, Satine saying in words multiple times how much she loves and cares about him and wishes things could be different, and Obi Wan performing it in actions, risking his own neck and political standing to help her even when she’s a fugitive, probably personally putting in to send his own grandpadawan to help her later. Right up to the time when Satine decides that she is going to call Obi Wan when she is deposed. Not the Senate. Not any powerful politician friends. Not even the Jedi Order or the Council as a whole. She calls and addresses her distress call to Obi Wan alone. And Obi Wan, as now revealed to us by TCW S7, defies Council orders and breaks a century old neutrality treaty to try and bust her, a convicted murderer in the eyes of the Republic and Mandalore, out. He didn’t even know Maul had her. Just knew she was in danger and came running to her aid. He risks starting a potential war to come save her. They acted so in love that Vizsla was able to guess from being around them for like five seconds, and was able to tell Maul exactly who he would need to bait Obi Wan.

That is where the attachment comes from. It’s the fact that Obi Wan and Satine tried so, so hard to give each other up and do the right thing, but when it came down to it, they couldn’t lose the other one so they put them first when logically they shouldn’t. And thus, Satine ended up dead.

Now I know most people will argue with me that actually Filoni means that since they didn’t stay together after the year on the run, THAT is what makes them able to give each other up, and also the fact that Obi Wan didn’t go dark side and murder everyone when Satine died.

But I still think that at least the murder front is a fairly low bar to cross, and anyway, that just because they could live without each other didn’t mean they weren’t still attached. Anakin and Padmé were apart for 10 years and then even after that, they were apart almost constantly during the war. Just because they could live apart or even past the other’s death didn’t mean they weren’t attached, as they both still had not let the other go mentally and also broke rules to try and ensure the other would not die, even if the rules said they should let it happen.

So yeah, that’s my big theory. We can’t compare Obitine with Anidala by saying Obitine was a success story, we compare them by acknowledging that both struggled with attachments and letting the other go, but Obitine at least tried to the bitter end to do the right thing while Anidala didn’t really bother, and both ended up with dead women and broken men regardless, and that is the true sad parallel to me.

#ohhhhh my god i really gotta learn how to shut up lol #thanks anon! told ya it was long!#ask #asks #when we were young #star-crossed lovers #our only ho #peace out #one (1) hot mess #queen of my heart #anon

44 notes · View notes

dying-suffering-french-stalkers · 3 years

Note

Talk to me about Star Wars!! When did you get into it, favorite movies/tv shows, do you play the games, anything you wanna talk about! I love Star Wars, the prequels are my jam and it’s cool that you’re into it as well - 🎄✨SS✨🎄

I’m gonna go ahead and tag @ange-de-la-musique since the package with the reveal came before I had time to answer this :) I’m also putting this under a Read More because (to absolutely no one’s surprise) this got VERY LONG.

I first saw Star Wars (specifically, the original trilogy and The Phantom Menace) when I was about 7 or 8. The Empire Strikes Back has always been my favorite because I’m basic and because as a kid I was OBSESSED with the snow walkers in the first battle sequence. I also have a vivid memory of telling a classmate that I thought Jar Jar Binks was funny, so...there’s that :P

I rewatched the original trilogy a number of times as a kid, but I didn’t really pay that much attention or get into it until TFA was announced. Like a lot of others, I got caught up in the cultural zeitgeist, but I also got into a personal rabbit hole surrounding both the filmmaking and the narrative background of the original trilogy. It started me down a path that (with a number of other things) finally led to me getting more into classic film (particularly Lawrence of Arabia, and ohhhh boy if you’d been here earlier, you’d know just how into it I got! I own a truly comical number of books on T.E. Lawrence himself, but that’s veering too far from the original question. I also read Dune somewhere in there bc it’s the perfect bridge between LoA and SW, and also fun and iconic and all that.) I also became a huge fan of Ralph McQuarrie’s artwork, so you can imagine how pleased I was to see Rebels use his style to its fullest potential!

I also read a number of now-Legends books between 2015 and 2017, mostly Timothy Zahn’s. I thoroughly enjoyed his Thrawn trilogy and Hand of Thrawn duology (Mara Jade is everything I never knew I needed and I found I loved her relationship with Luke. Also the audiobooks are DAMN GOOD). Other Legends books I enjoyed were Zahn’s Outbound Flight and Choices of One and John Jackson Miller’s Kenobi. (I read a TON of fic in here too, including the Son of Suns trilogy, which is brutal but brilliant.) I also read some New EU books, including Ahsoka, Lost Stars, Bloodline, Thrawn (I never did read the rest of the new series), Catalyst, Guardians of the Whills, the beginning of the new Star Wars comic, some of the Darth Vader comic, the first issue of the Kanan comic, and more, but my favorite was BY FAR the Rebels prequel (and first New EU book) A New Dawn (John Jackson Miller and the incredible SW audiobook team strike again!). I remember being so utterly blown away by how atmospheric it was...and by how much pre-Rebels Kanan is my fictional type, HOO BOY. It was so impressive to me that something inherently non-visual nevertheless managed to capture Ralph McQuarrie’s style so well.

As you can probably gather from that, I LOVED the major animated series. While I definitely remember seeing trailers and other material for the 2007 Clone Wars movie and subsequent series, I never watched it until it came on Netflix years later. The Clone Wars, for all its inter-arc tonal issues, is now one of my favorite animated series of all time. When it’s good, it’s REAL GOOD, you feel? It, along with Stover’s RotS novelization, retroactively boosted my appreciation for the prequels and for Anakin specifically (ilu Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen I’m sorry I doubted you as a kid). There’s so much good material to dig into in the prequel era and I’m so glad that I and others have come around to it. Ahsoka and the clones live in my head rent-free. I also found Rebels fairly enjoyable, especially after season one. Like with TCW, the pacing/tonal consistency wasn’t always great, but a lot of good shines through in the end. I loved seeing TCW (and Legends!) characters in there, of course, but my favorite Rebels-specific characters were Kanan, Hera, and Kallus (also I got really emotionally invested in Kallus/Zeb haha WH O O P S).

I have never played a Star Wars game apart from my brother’s copy of Lego Star Wars for the Wii, but I hear there’s some good stuff out there!

I have...Many Thoughts about the sequel trilogy/Disney era, but this reply is already monstrously long and I think that’s gonna have to be a post for another time. My favorite films from the new era are The Last Jedi and Rogue One. I will say John Williams really went ham with the TFA soundtrack and it’s lowkey a Christmas album for me bc of how often I listened to it when it came out.

#this is a long one folks #star wars #asks #ange-de-la-musique #long post #poto secret santa #Anonymous

2 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

Star Wars: Best Darth Maul Moments from The Clone Wars and Beyond

https://ift.tt/2KQr8Q0

This Star Wars article contains spoilers.

Since his debut in The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul has demanded the attention of Star Wars fans everywhere. In 1999, Maul looked unlike any villain that had come before in the saga, and the movie’s high-energy lightsaber duel is still one of the most memorable parts of the Prequel Trilogy. It’s unfortunate, then, that Maul was originally created by George Lucas as a one-off character, present only to re-establish the threat of the Sith.

But you can’t keep a good character down. Maul returned in The Clone Wars season 4 to introduce even more chaos to the galaxy. Infamously unkillable, his obsession with killing Obi-Wan Kenobi and reuniting with Palpatine kept him going for much of the galactic conflict and well after the rise of the Empire.

Maul has been a Sith apprentice, a ranting hermit, and a powerful crime lord throughout his strange and storied life. Maul failed to become a Sith Master, as Palpatine tossed him to the side once his role in Anakin Skywalker’s story was over, but Maul never stopped trying to clamber to the top. As you’ll see in The Clone Wars season 7 and the Rebels animated series, Maul will fight until the very end to get what he wants.

Stream your Star Wars favorites on Disney+ with a FREE TRIAL, on us!

As we say goodbye once again to one of Star Wars‘ greatest villains, let’s take a look back at the former Sith’s best moments from The Clone Wars, Rebels, the comics, and beyond.

Duel of the Fates

The Phantom Menace is not a perfect movie, but the two-on-one lightsaber duel in the third act is a great example of the kind of action and physical storytelling that makes Star Wars such an effective and enduring movie franchise. Maul is a nearly voiceless demon dogging the heels of the good guys for most of the film, his powers obscured until he finally reveals himself on Naboo. For the audience watching this duel on the big screen, this was the first chance to see a full-fledged Jedi of legend dueling a Sith Lord.

Actor Ray Park was hired primarily for his ability to do the stunts and fight work. Choreographed by Nick Gillard, the lightsaber fight was acrobatic and wide-ranging, mixing in more melee than had been possible in the Original Trilogy. The climactic duel also introduced the double-bladed lightsaber to the Star Wars galaxy. The weapon and the character would be inseparable in fans’ minds for years to come.

Maul’s Return

How do you revive a character who has been cut in half? Just as in the world of comic books, Star Wars offers plenty of options. Since the Original Trilogy, Star Wars has made it common practice to rebuild mortally wounded and horribly mutilated villains, shaping them into a whole new threat. In 2012, The Clone Wars confirmed that there was more to Maul’s story than The Phantom Menace. Season 4 episode “Brothers” opens with the horror movie atmosphere of the scrapyard on planet Lotho Minor, where Maul has been living since his defeat on Naboo.

He fashions himself a new, arachnid-like body out of trash, and it fits the frightening philosophy of the Sith as well as Maul’s gruesome fate. Spider legs twitch and stab, allowing Maul to climb around his trash-filled cave. Maul has become a hybrid of person and machine, human and animal. He doesn’t keep the spider legs for long, only for a few episodes, but it’s one of the most dramatic changes to his look, and a frightening new possibility when it comes to what cyborgs in Star Wars can become. Spider Maul will haunt your dreams.

Rematch with Obi-Wan

Obi-Wan Kenobi is skeptical when he hears Maul is back from the dead. But their confrontation is certainly real. After his surprise return in “Brothers,” Maul beelines for Obi-Wan in the next episode, suitably titled “Revenge.” This is the first chance to see the Sith’s rebuilt legs in action. It also shows Maul’s ruthlessness, as he destroys an innocent settlement just to draw Obi-Wan to his location. With the help of Savage Opress, his newfound brother, Maul captures Obi-Wan and kicks off a couple of action-heavy episodes that re-establishes Maul as a force to be reckoned with.

The Shadow Collective

Try as he might, Maul can’t get back into Sidious’ good graces, so he throws the Star Wars villain version of a tantrum: he forms a gang. With the help of the Mandalorians, he goes on a killing spree in season 5 to take out rival criminal organizations in the name of his new Shadow Collective. It’s a sequence of slaughters where there are no good guys.

Maul uses his Force powers, intimidation, and overwhelming force to destroy or intimidate the Black Sun gang, the Pyke gang, and the Hutts, including Jabba himself, into joining him. Maul is back on top.

Taking Over Mandalore

After recruiting a group of rogue Mandalorian warriors known as Death Watch to his side, Maul has bigger ambitions: to take over the entire planet of Mandalore. In season 5’s “The Lawless,” he slaughters the planet’s reigning leader, Duchess Satine Kryze, as well as the leader of Death Watch, and claims the symbolic weapon of Mandalore, the Darksaber, for himself.

It’s a visually striking episode, with much of the action set inside the Mandalorian throne room. The Darksaber is also the perfect example of silly Star Wars lore taken to the extreme. It also, somehow, works, even when it returns in live-action in The Mandalorian.

Duel Against Darth Sidious

Much of Maul’s story in The Clone Wars is about a student who wants to return to the teacher who discarded him. But Sidious isn’t going to accept him back so easily. “The Lawless” also features a duel between three dark side users: Maul, Darth Sidious, and Savage. This is a three-way clash of red lightsabers, ranging up and down the edifices of Mandalore. It’s one of many examples of The Clone Wars‘ elevated Star Wars action, and it’s one of the series’ most exciting sequences.

There are no good guys here, but someone has to win: Sidious kills Savage and defeats Maul, sparing his former apprentice so that he may feel the sting of rejection for the rest of his life. This is the reunion Star Wars fans had been waiting for since Maul’s return and it goes about how you’d expect.

Facing Grievous

The Son of Dathomir comic was adapted from unproduced episodes of The Clone Wars, so it’s closely linked to the events on Mandalore. It also features the entire rogues’ gallery of Prequel era villains, pitting Maul, Sidious, Count Dooku, General Grievous, and Mother Talzin against one another. The fight between Maul and Grievous, in particular, is the stuff of fantasy “What If” scenarios and it’s a visual delight, even if it happens off-screen.

Games

Star Wars: 10 Darth Maul Facts You Might Not Know

By Megan Crouse

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress Story You Never Saw

By Megan Crouse

The Siege of Mandalore

One of the most hotly-anticipated conflicts of The Clone Wars did not disappoint. The Siege of Mandalore, which shows how the Republic took the Mandalorian homeworld back from Maul, features a lightsaber duel between the former Sith and ex-Jedi Ahsoka Tano. Though both have left their old orders behind, they bring all the acrobatics and Force powers one could want from a Star Wars fight.

This duel in Mandalore’s throne room and high above its capital city is an amazing use of setting, as Maul and Ahsoka climb up the rafters of one of Mandalore’s domed cities and balance themselves on thin beams. The fight also feels mythic, the two characters’ viewpoints clashing as much as their lightsabers.

The episode “The Phantom Apprentice,” in particular, shows that, despite being banished from the Sith, Maul is still one step ahead of the Jedi in terms of Palpatine’s grand plan. In fact, Maul instigates the Republic invasion in order to lure Anakin to the planet and stop him from becoming Sidious’ new apprentice — something he’s already seen in a vision before the Jedi even begin to suspect that Palpatine might be an agent of the dark side.

Maul’s Solo Cameo

Solo: A Star Wars Story spends plenty of time with the galaxy’s underworld. Throughout the movie, Han Solo and Qi’Ra tangle with rogues, thieves, smugglers, con men, and drifters, all leading to a big standoff with Dryden Vos, the leader of criminal organization Crimson Dawn. But Vos isn’t the true villain pulling the strings of the movie.

A big reveal is left for the end: Maul has been in charge of the criminal syndicate Crimson Dawn all this time, manipulating others the way Palpatine manipulated him. Maul doesn’t do a lot in Solo, appearing just for a few minutes to make Qi’Ra his new lieutenant, but he does ignite his lightsaber, showing he’s a step above most of the enemies the group has faced so far by virtue of his Sith legacy.

Maul’s Epic Death

Even though it seemed like he could survive anything, Maul had to die eventually. Luckily, the team behind Star Wars Rebels knew how to make Maul’s ending something truly amazing.

Maul has spent decades seeking revenge against his old Jedi enemy, while Obi-Wan has gone into hiding to protect Luke Skywalker, finding peace and coming to terms with the tragedy in his own life. The episode “Twin Suns” shows the final confrontation between Maul and Obi-Wan.

Although not a true adaptation, “Twin Suns” is loosely inspired by “Old Wounds,” a non-canon comic from the speculative comic series Visionaries. That comic, which was written and drawn by Aaron McBride, is also a great Maul moment unto itself, with a vivid lightsaber battle and the threat of Maul possibly discovering a very young Luke Skywalker. It gets to the heart of why Maul works as a frightening villain: a demonic-looking Sith with the drive to keep hunting you, even if you cut him in half.

“Twin Suns” chooses to go a more contemplative route than “Old Wounds.” While the basic setup is the same (Maul finds an older Obi-Wan on Tatooine), the lightsaber duel isn’t the focus in “Twin Suns.” Instead, one of the best Maul moments is actually an Obi-Wan moment. Their lightsaber duel is just one move, both of them considering their options but it’s Obi-Wan who actually finds the inner strength to carry it out.

In the end, Obi-Wan kills Maul, but also shows him pity, telling a truth that comforts both of them: Luke Skywalker, the one to bring balance to the Force, is still alive. Obi-Wan has escaped the cycle of revenge and ambition Maul has been stuck in his entire life, and he’s closer to the Force for it. It’s also a stunning farewell fit for a fan-favorite character like Maul.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post Star Wars: Best Darth Maul Moments from The Clone Wars and Beyond appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Comics – Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3d1zHU2

#aion-rsa #Comics – Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

December 27, 2019 at 09:20PM

The first Star Wars live-action television show, The Mandalorian on Disney+, made the most of Star Wars lore in its first season, which wrapped up with an explosive episode directed by Taika Waititi on Friday. In eight episodes, the show delved into the origins of the Mandalorian creed, gave fans insight into the political fallout of the Rebellion against the Empire and introduced an adorable, young member of Yoda’s unnamed species. (It also gave us an unexpected cameo from Jason Sudeikis as a Stormtrooper who punches said cutie.)

But perhaps the most thrilling callback to franchise folklore came in the final moments of the season finale when the villain Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) cut himself out of his crashed ship using a black lightsaber. The weapon has not appeared in any of the live-action films, but it is famous in the Star Wars extended universe. It’s called a Darksaber, and it used to be a prized weapon among the Mandalorians—before Moff Gideon got his hands on it.

Lightsaber colors have evolved along with the Star Wars saga. In the first two films, A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, sabers were exclusively blue (for Jedi like Luke Skywalker) and red (for devotees of the Dark Side like Darth Vader). Filmmakers introduced a green lightsaber in Return of the Jedi so that Luke could fight with a saber that stood out against the bright blue sky of Tatooine in the scene where he, Leia and Han escape Jabba the Hutt. (Up until then, lightsaber fights had taken place exclusively in dim locales.)

Samuel L. Jackson requested that his character Mace Windu wield a purple lightsaber in the prequel movies so that he could stand out during large fight scenes, like the one in the arena on Genosis in Attack of the Clones. And (spoiler alert for The Rise of Skywalker) Rey builds herself a new, yellow lightsaber at the end of the most recent Star Wars trilogy.

But the Darksaber has only appeared in Star Wars television series, never on the big screen. It made its debut in a 2010 episode of the Clone Wars animated series, carried by a man named Pre Vizsla (voiced, coincidentally, by Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau). Pre Vizsla was a terrorist who often fought with the Jedi.

However, Pre Vizsla’s ancestor, Tarre Vizsla, was the first Mandalorian to become a Jedi. Tarre Vizsla created the black lightsaber during the rule of the Old Republic (before the prequels). Unlike most lightsabers, the blade of the Darksaber is angled and looks more like a sword. The size and intensity of the blade can, according to lore, change based on the user’s emotions.

As discussed in the final episode of The Mandalorian, the Jedi and the Mandalorians were traditionally enemies. Tarre Vizsla becoming a Jedi led to a short truce between the two groups. Tarre Vizsla eventually became the ruler of the planet Mandalore. When he died, the Jedi took back the Darksaber and stored it in the Jedi Temple and the peace between the Mandalorians and the Jedi eventually fell apart. The Mandalorians later stole the weapon from the Jedi Temple when the Old Republic began to crumble.

The Darksaber became an important symbol among the Mandalore. Whoever held it became the leader of Clan Vizsla, one of the largest clans on the Mandalorian planet. The only way a person could become the master of the Darksaber was to defeat its previous owner.

Pre Vizsla and his clan helped save Darth Maul (the villain from Phantom Menace, who was an apprentice to Palpatine) after Obi-Wan Kenobi cut the Sith Lord in two at the end of that movie. (Maul survived using the Force.) Unfortunately for Pre Vizsla, Maul coveted the Darksaber and eventually the two dueled. Maul won the Darksaber from Pre Vizsla, and the Mandalorians became divided over whether to follow Darth Maul, a non-Mandalore, or a Mandalore leader instead. Civil War broke out on the planet.

Darth Maul later challenged his old master Palpatine (a.k.a. Darth Sidious) and Palpatine’s new apprentice General Grievous. Maul lost but did not die. He went on to become a crime lord (as seen in Solo). But in that movie, he uses his red, double-bladed saber (as seen in Phantom Menace). So it’s unclear what happened to the Darksaber between Maul’s battle with Palpatine and the rise of the Empire.

In a 2013 episode of the animated series Rebels, a Mandalorian weapons expert named Sabine Wren found the saber on Dothamir, the planet where Maul’s crime syndicate was based, after the Empire took control of the galaxy. She trained to use the Saber under Jedi trainee Kanan Jarus. (Another spoiler alert for The Rise of Skywalker: Kanan Jarus’ voice — more specifically Freddie Prinze Jr.’s voice — is among those that Rey hears during the final battle of that movie, along with Luke’s, Leia’s, Obi-Wan’s, Anakin’s, Mace Windu’s, Quin-Gon Jinn’s, Yoda’s and others.)

Sabine Wren went on to use the Darksaber to fight Imperial soldiers on Mandalore when they tried to wipe out the Mandalorian race. Sabine Wren gave the saber to Bo-Katan Kryze, who by virtue of holding the weapon became the new ruler of the Mandalorians. She is the last known owner of the saber before Moff Gideon appears with it in the show. That means the saber’s whereabouts are unaccounted for during the run of the original trilogy, when the rebels fought against and defeated the Empire.

Moff Gideon’s unlikely survival at the end of The Mandalorian suggests that he will be the big bad in the second season of the series. We’ll likely see the darksaber again and, hopefully, find out how he acquired it. Gideon seems to be obsessed with Mandalorian culture: He played a major role in the Purge on Mandalore and even went so far as to discover the true names of the foundlings — or orphans — who were rescued and trained by the Mandalorians, including Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), whose name we hear for the first time in this episode.

But if Din Djarin manages to somehow acquire the darksaber, that could make him the leader of the remaining Mandalorians. Perhaps that’s where this series is ultimately headed when it returns for a second season in fall of 2020.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

newstechreviews · 4 years

Link

#Blogger

0 notes

phooll123 · 4 years

Text

New top story from Time: The Darksaber Made a Crucial Appearance in The Mandalorian‘s Season Finale. Here’s Its Significance in Star Wars Lore

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2t7LY7J

1 note · View note

spynotebook · 7 years

Link

This post was originally published on The Portalist. It has been reproduced here with permission. For more from The Portalist, follow them on Facebook.

Unless you’ve been living in isolation on Ahch-To for the past six years, you probably know that we’re just days away from the release of The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi is a Star Wars movie, and it’s going to have Skywalkers and lightsabers and the Millennium Falcon and even porgs, whatever the heck they are. Hooray! But what is it going to be about?

This article includes everything you need to know before you walk into The Last Jedi, plus some stuff that you probably don’t, to be completely honest. The sections below are ordered from the most remedial to the most nerdy, so feel free to skip the start if you know your stuff—or to start right at the beginning if you’re seeing it with friends who don’t know you’re a Star Wars ignoramus.

The background: the Star Wars universe before The Force Awakens (2015)

The Last Jedi is a Star Wars movie. You’ve seen Star Wars, right?

If you haven’t, you should take time to watch some movies in the days ahead of The Last Jedi’s release. You don’t need to, because I’m about to give you the background, but you should, because (most of) the Star Wars movies are great. If you click this link, I’ll even tell you what order to watch the Star Wars movies in, which is a thing you actually have to think about with the Star Wars movies.

Anyway, here’s what you need to know about the ghosts of Star Wars movies past, which are certain to have an impact on The Last Jedi just as they did on its predecessor, The Force Awakens (spoilers follow, of course).

RELATED: The 7 Most Absurd Moments of the Star Wars Holiday Special

Force ghosts of Star Wars movies past. Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

Star Wars (1977) establishes the most important parts of the Star Wars universe. The galaxy is ruled by the Empire (bad), but there is hope in the form of the Rebellion (good). There are also Jedi knights (good), who are monk-like warriors with lightsabers. The original Star Wars opens with an Imperial raid on a Rebellion ship. Princess Leia is captured by bad guy Darth Vader, but not before stashing plans to the Imperial super-weapon (the Death Star, of course) in a couple of robots (“droids,” in the Star Wars universe) and firing the whole package off in an escape pod. Enter Luke Skywalker, a kid on a desert planet who stumbles on the droids, finds out that the father he never knew was a Jedi knight, hitches a ride off the planet with a smuggler named Han Solo, rescued Leia (or, more accurately, she rescues him), and eventually blows up the Imperial super-weapon as Darth Vader spirals off into space in a damaged ship.

Credits roll, but the story continues. Vader’s survival (and a huge box office return) set the stage for a sequel.The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is perhaps the best Star Wars movie and features the biggest spoiler since Citizen Kane: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father (that’s Empire’s spoiler, not Citizen Kane’s). From here on out, Star Wars is a family affair, and that family is the Skywalkers. Empire also features Luke training on a remote planet with a Jedi master (Yoda), a relationship it seems he’ll be on the other side of in The Last Jedi.

RELATED: Star Wars Gifts for the Jedi in Your Life

Yoda on the remote planet Dagobah. Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

The original trilogy wraps up with Return of the Jedi (1983), which goes back to the surprise-family well with the reveal that Princess Leia is Luke’s sister and Vader’s daughter. Vader both repents and dies in Jedi. Han and Leia get together. This stuff looms large in the new movies, as you might imagine, especially since we’ve somehow gone from the Jedi Return-ing to being down to The Last Jedi. Something has gone wrong, it seems.

Before me move on, let’s talk prequels. I haven’t bothered with the episode numbers yet, but Star Wars loves its episodes. Special editions and re-releases have changed the title of Star Wars (1977) to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, and the other two are Episodes V and VI, and technically have similarly clumsy titles now. The prequels filled in the beginning with Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (the Sith are the evil Jedi with red lightsabers). They were released years after episodes IV, V, and VI, and weren’t nearly as well-received, but you knew that. They track the story of Anakin Skywalker, destined to become Darth Vader, and also prominently feature Obi-Wan Kenobi, destined to be Luke’s mentor in the original movie.

RELATED: 50 Star Wars Quotes from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Ewan McGregor as Ben Kenobi in the prequels. Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

Oh, and it actually came out after The Force Awakens, but I’ll mention Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) here because of where it fits in the narrative. It’s a prequel that takes place immediately before the very first movie (i.e. between Episodes III and IV), and it isn’t really relevant to the new trilogy—though you should watch it anyway, because it is so, so dope.

More background: The Force Awakens (2015)

Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

After two prequels that everyone hated and one prequel that only some people hated, Star Wars was revived again after Lucasfilm was sold to Disney. The first big Star Wars release of the Disney era was The Force Awakens, which serves as Episode VII, a direct continuation of Episode VI—excuse me, I mean “Star Wars: Episode VI –Return of the Jedi.”

The Force Awakens returned Star Wars to some of its old conventions, rejecting the prequel trilogy’s love for the Episode part of the title, obscure politics, and, uh, bad acting. It also features a plot that closely parallels that of the original Star Wars. Some people think the derivative plot makes The Force Awakens a terrible movie, which is a fine opinion to have and share at dinner parties, and definitely not something that makes me want to remind you that the whole plot of Star Wars was completely derivative to begin with, anyway, man, so why don’t you just relax and enjoy things?

via GIPHY

Anyway, The Last Jedi will be a direct and immediate sequel to The Force Awakens, so you should just watch The Force Awakens. It’s just one movie! But if you really won’t, I’ll go ahead and spoil it here.

With the Empire gone, the Rebellion has established a Republic. But Luke Skywalker is missing and a new set of baddies—the First Order—is trying to re-establish the old Empire.

RELATED: Ralph McQuarrie: The Artist Who Made Star Wars Shine

Once again, we meet a hero (Poe Dameron) who stashes secret stuff (part of a map that shows where Luke Skywalker is hiding) in a droid (BB-88—the round thing) before being captured by a bad guy in black (Kylo Ren). And, once again, that droid finds a parentless hero (Rey) on a desert planet, and that hero discovers a calling.

We also meet a stormtrooper-turned-good-guy (Finn) and some heroes from the original trilogy: Han Solo, who has returned to his smuggling ways, and Leia, who goes by General instead of Princess now. It turns out that bad guy Kylo Ren is their son, but he’s obsessed with the wrong part of the family legacy—the work of his grandfather, Darth Vader. Kylo Ren is being guided by a very ugly dude named Snoke, who appears as an enormous hologram.

RELATED: 6 Swashbuckling Space Operas to Enjoy While You Wait for the Next Star Wars

Snoke in “The Force Awakens.” Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

The Force Awakens ends with a mashup of Star Wars’ greatest hits: a prison breakout on board a super weapon, a space battle to take out that station, a ground assault to take out the station’s “shields,” a lightsaber battle, and family drama. The last proves to be the biggest surprise of the movie, as Kylo Ren kills his father, Han Solo. But the good guys win out, the map to Luke gets put together, and Rey heads off to meet Luke Skywalker.

So that’s where we are now—but this raises plenty of questions.

The questions that The Last Jedi might answer

VIDEO

If one thing separates The Force Awakens from every other Star Wars movie, it’s that the film seemingly lacks a Skywalker at its center. All six previous movies starred either Luke or Anakin, plus extra Skywalker parents and siblings and Skywalkers-by-marriage. The Force Awakens puts its most prominent Skywalker, Kylo Ren, in the bad guy role, à la Vader, but our hero is not (necessarily) a Skywalker.

But, of course, we don’t know who Rey’s parents are. Could she be a Skywalker? Leia and Han don’t mention a daughter. Nothing has indicated that Luke has one. But Star Wars has always been about Skywalkers, and if The Force Awakens reminded a lot of people of the series’ first film, well, then there’s a certain twist that would make The Last Jedi very reminiscent of the second.

Speaking of Skywalkers, The Last Jedi is going to feature Luke pretty prominently. What’s he like these days? It seems he’ll be at least as reluctant a mentor as Yoda initially was in The Empire Strikes Back—and perhaps one that’s a good deal more cynical. Why is that? And what will his relationship with Rey be like?

Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

Rey isn’t the only character whose origins are a mystery. Who is this Snoke dude? Is he a Sith? He’s apparently not, but if he’s not, then … well, what the heck is he?

Rey may be off meditating and training, but Poe and Finn are still in the thick of things with General Leia. They’ll be joined by newcomer Rose Tico (a resistance maintenance worker). What’s on their plate in this one? The previews are pretty short on super-weapons for them to blow up. Will The Last Jedi be a quieter, sadder affair, as Empire was?

There’s another new character that’s getting a lot of buzz: Benicio Del Toro’s character, who we don’t even have a name for yet. He’ll meet Finn and Rose at a gambling resort and may help them break a code, and that’s about all we know.

As for the rest we’ll just have to wait to find out. In the meantime, though, at least we have lots of questionable fan theories.

What happens next? Fan theories galore

A quick warning before we move forward: while the fan theories listed below are just theories, they obviously could be correct. They also involve a deeper examination of preview footage and available details than you might usually have going into a new movie. So consider this your sort-of-kind-of-spoiler warning, if you care about such things. Now, onto the theories!

∙ Luke is Rey’s father:

This is the most obvious answer to the series’ current big question. It would be tidy and would be on-brand for the series. But it wouldn’t be surprising. Does that matter?

∙ Rey is Leia’s kid.

The only over obvious way to make Rey a Skywalker is to have her be Leia’s kid. But neither she nor Han Solo (the father of the only kid we’re sure Leia has had) seem to be looking for a long-lost daughter.

∙ Rey is a Kenobi.

This theory is very popular, but I really don’t know why. It’s largely based on Rey’s accent, which is not exactly unique in the Star Wars universe. It’s not clear how we’d end up with Kenobi children, and using Rey to connect Obi-Wan to the new movies seems like a solution to a problem nobody thinks exists.

∙ Rey is a Jinn, as in Qui-Gon from Episode I.

I mean, she’s not, but it’s a real theory, so here you are.

∙ Rey turns on Luke.

The case for this is largely based on preview footage.

∙ Luke is the bad guy.

The Skywalkers don’t have a great track record for staying not-evil, and Luke has some interesting lines in the preview. He allegedly went into hiding after his pupil Kylo Ren turned to the dark side—but hey, who knows what really went on, or what happened after that? This theory meshes nicely with the Rey-fights-Luke one, but is similarly short on evidence.

∙ Rey turns to the Dark Side.

If not Luke, why not Rey? She has a special connection to Kylo Ren, and Star Wars has always been about falls and redemptions.

∙ Kylo Ren turns to the Light Side.

It’s like the Rey theory but, like, opposite! A redemption arc for Kylo Ren seems inevitable, but it could just as easily be in store for Episode IX.

∙ Snoke is Darth Plagueis.

See, Darth Plagueis is a Sith Lord mentioned in the prequel who—you know what? It doesn’t matter, because we already know Snoke isn’t a Sith.

Are any of these worth the bandwidth it takes to display them? That’s hard to say. All we know for sure is that they’re fun to consider, and that we’ll get at least some of the answers when we return to a galaxy far, far away on December 14th.

(images: Lucasfilm)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes

itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes