#in the Jedi Academy trilogy of all media to be thinking about her in

[jayaorgana]

I mean, whatever you do, don't think too hard about Mon Mothma, man. That's how they get ya.

[alligatorjesie]

Hey OP are you blamings reylos for the reason Ben Solo didn't get a good redemption in EP9?

Something we had no control over? Do you think we run Disney?

I fuckin' wish.

God fucking knows if a reylo did do EP9 it would have been Good.

I would give away every egg left in my body to have EP9 retold by a goddamn reylo if it meant Ben Solo got a better redemption and since I actually read reylo fanfictions I know we can pull it off.

Because we have.

Hurricane Wars is a fucking reylo novel.

The first line in the book is quite literally 'I did this for the rats'

You know, that loving nickname you feckless antis gave to reylos.

I’m pretty fucking sure there is not a goddamn interview Anywhere of Thea mentioning how this is a reskinned reylo story exploring the deep inner workings of internalized racism because that's never what it fucking was.

Did OP... watch interviews of Thea talking about her experiences with racism and now they've mashing the concept of this story together with that interview because I can’t for the fucking love of god remember an instance where Thea rolled up to an interview and said This Story:

is anything but a modified reylo fanfiction. She mentioned how she added some Southeast Asian influences into the book that were not in the original fic but the original was based in the world of Star Wars so that makes since.

I remember that interview.

Editing a fanfic to be publish friendly takes A Lot of effort and isn't as simple as using the 'find and replace' feature in Microsoft Word like I think OP is assuming it is. There's plenty of opportunity to put in whatever new worldbuilding makes since for the story.

I’ve been following this publishing since I read Landscapes With a Blur of Conquerors, back when she was actively still writing it as reylo fanfiction.

Small segway in somewhat related conversation:

The Sword of the Jedi series is still my favorite fucking Star Wars fanfic by her I can't recommend this one enough.

a story still available on AO3 for free if anyone would like to check it out.

If you liked Hurricane Wars and love Star Wars you'll love this one.

It's a really fun 'What If' on the sequel trilogy where the change is 'What if Luke and young Ben found Rey as a child on Jakku and she got to grow up at Luke's Jedi academy?'

A far better storytelling of those characters than we got out of the actual media. I fuckin' blew through it in a week the first time I read it.

Go read it if you get the chance.

Anyways, returning to @shallanspren being a prick who talks out their ass and don't know diddly fuck about this fandom.

Who has just been posting hate to this fandom's tag since 2020.

They’re not a reylo.

In fact they sound so disgusted to read reylo fics that they made this shitass post but they’re going to sit there and tell me and everyone else here straight to our faces that they sat through reading the original fics, the entire books, along with reading/watching full interviews with the authors?

OP is full of shit.

They’re lying and they’re so full of fucking shit I can smell them from here.

They’ve never read the fanfics and they’ll never read these books so how the fuck would they know what the fuck is even in it? How would they know how they differ?

Now, I HAVE read both and I can tell everyone right now from simply having read the original fic; it’s very 'Alternate Universe/AU'. I mean, yeah, it uses some of the basic concepts of the ‘Star Wars universe’ but mostly it’s just new story using well established characters and themes.

So right from the start this fic was kinda it's own thing in it's own world with it's own rules and that's when it WAS directly a reylo fanfic.

Love Hypothesis/Head Over Feet was So Fucking AU besides borrowing the characters' basic personalities and names it was a whole ass original story.

There was nothing Star Wars Universe in that one At All.

Full Stop.

Adapting these fics into books makes both of them very original works because the source material was already very Alternate Universe as we like to say in the fanfic world. Ali never admitted on record she didn’t craft her own stories and I know she never fucking has because I've read So Many of her fics on AO3 back during that blissful period between The Last Jedi and EP9 that she could publish 30 more reskinned reylo fics and still have more to go. She was And Still Is a Very Proficient Writer and a Goddamn Treat of a smut writer.

They're fucking Great!

Way fucking better than regular porn. I can only watch a unempathetic guy rail a uninterested chick moaning the most fake 'Oh! God! Yes!' for the entire length of the video before that shit gets old.

With Ali's fics you can feel the horny but most importantly, The Love, and as a furry smut artist I'm Here For That Shit.

This woman is a Goddamned blessing to this fandom and now to published books too. She writes Such Good Smut she could make a sailor blush. I hope her many more years of happy writing with hundreds more publishing deals. I hope she becomes the next harlequin romance writer so she can continue to pay reylo artists to draw covers for her books God Bless they all fuckin' deserves it after the 8 years of constant bombardment with harassment and death threats from stupid fucks like @shallenspren have thrown at us over the years.

Telling a POC her experiences of racism ain't valid just because just so happens to be a reylo and had the audacity to talk about racism during an interview once and now OP has somehow conflated those two very un related things is kinda shit.

That's a shit thing to say. It's a shit opinion to have.

@shallanspren hates reylo and they'll say any fucked up shit to make these artists look bad because they’re mad and jealous about fanfiction writers making money off their Hard Earned Skills and that's kinda fucked up of them.

What @shallanspren said are lies.

They just made up lies because they're mad someone from the fandom they've been shitting on since 2020 told them the shit opinion they posted into the main fandom's tag is wrong and if they don't like the ship they're welcome to fucking leave that fandom's space.

They got so fucking butthurt about me telling them to fix their tags and leave this fandom alone they

Made Up Two Lies About People They Don't Even Fucking Know

OP ain't got a quarter of the skill to create loved things like either of these artists have because OP has spent too fucking long being bitter and hateful to a group of people for just being super passionate about something.

Too fuckin' blinded by hate to see why these stories are flying off the shelves. Reylos got fucking shafted by Star Wars because stupid anti fucks like OP here have made it their life's mission to spread lies and hate about this fandom by being the loudest minorities I've ever fucking seen. I know of one anti reylo on this website alone who has At Least 4 accounts dedicated to being a anti to this fucking ship.

And I know they're all the same person.

That's a lot of dedication to hate.

OP is so goddamn ignorant they're getting hung up on the fact these fics started out as reylo fics not realizing They Were Always Original Works.

Gorge Fucking Lucas didn't write these fics.

JJ or Rian did not write these fics.

These are original works, regardless of the characters they borrowed to make them. These fics would not exist if the writers didn't sit the fuck down and write them.

Saying these books ain't valid all because they started out as fanfics is fucking stupid. EP9 was written by 'professionals' and had a scene with three characters who know full fucking well Stormtroopers can fly say 'They fly now' so I know for a fact fanfic writers put more consideration into storytelling than JJ fucking Abrams or Chris chuckfuck Terrio ever did.

To simply Sit Down and Write takes Skill and Effort, something both of theses writers have in goddamn spades and OP has NONE of because all they post is broken English run-on paragraphs of shitass hateful opinions no one in the tags fucking asked for.

Live long and die fucking mad about it and stop telling lies about strangers because you're jealous they're more skilled than you OP.

Fuck's Sake.

[janiedean]

I remember that before the premiere of the last movie of the SW sequel trilogy it was going around that Palpatine had sex and had a kid and I just had to do a little bit of a remix, based on some asks that I remember reading on this very blog, so…

Cracktastic Tales presents… your dose of entertainment!

A senator hires an escort to ingratiate himself to Palpatine, who’s like why the hell not. Nine months later, the Chancellor is cursing the consequences of his actions. The escort (let’s call her, Xamie) has son, gives Palpatine the custody of the child, because she can’t support him financially and thinks he can give him a better life. It doesn’t help that the DNA test results are positive, nor does it help either that the media is having a field day. He christens the child after his protégé, Wilhuff Tarkin, and pretends to smile each time they tell him congratulations.

Afterwards, Palpatine buys a lethal nanny droid to take care of his disappointing progeny who’s lacks the Force and focus on his plans for Galactic domination. He also gives the child to babysit to Anakin when he visits, Jedi or senators he doesn’t like, such as Bail Organa, Padme Amidala, among others. So, young Wilhuff, nicknamed Wil by his droid Nanna (who hates the Chancellor), grows up being raised by the droid and many senators, and is neglected by his father.

Nearing teenagerhood, Wil witnesses the fall of the Republic and his father ascension as Emperor of the Galactic Empire. Daddy dearest sends him packing to boarding school, out of sight and out of mind. But it’s the best thing ever cuz he meets his best friend, Garoche, who turns out to be Tarkin’s son. On the other hand, the Emperor’s decision turns out to be very blood pressure inducing for him, due to his progeny’s teenage rebellion. The worst thing ever is Xamie’s reappearance in her son’s life, Vader protecting a well-known brothel, making friends with probable Rebellion sympathizers, amongst other things.

What almost makes Palpatine have a heart attack is Wil dropping out of the Imperial Academy to become a smuggler. He also manages to piss Wilhuff Tarkin on the process, when he helps Garoche desert the Navy because an order he had to do caused the deaths of many people on a mission he had. Other shenanigans include getting married to Lieda Mothma; ruining his father’s plans for his pacifist, Force sensitive brother, Triclops, whom he didn’t know about, as well as helping him runaway with a Jedi survivor he fell in love; and to top it all, he joins the Rebellion after Palpatine told him that he wouldn’t dare.

Eventually, Palpatine kicks the bucket after Vader offs him in the Second Death Star, everyone celebrates, and Wil changes his name from Wilhuff to his nickname after the new government gets established. He also gets a kick out of giving his brother Triclops and his family the Palpatine name, donating his father’s property to charities the man absolutely detested and enjoying his hard-earned peace after enduring his father’s tirades for years.

But Wil’s peace of mind gets interrupted sixteen years later with the appearance of his new youngest brother, Howler, and his family, who are running away from danger. It turns out daddy dearest didn’t die during the Battle of Endor. This leads to Wil being all like, dank farrik, old man, couldn’t you just stay dead!?

Long story short, Wil calls for a family reunion on what to do about that damnable old man. The consensus is to make a holocall to Leia about Palpatine faking his death, which leads to the Resistance getting founded earlier. The fledgling New Republic doesn’t have the funds to deal with the threat but give their blessing to do whatever needs to be done. This leads to Leia recruiting new people, rallying her old Rebel Alliance buddies; giving Han a call being all like, hey, how do you feel about smuggling again; sixteen-year-old Ben and a lot of his Jedi friends joining after Luke told them they weren’t old enough; and Luke joining, muttering about Sith not staying dead and how his nephew and his Jedi students should have waited until they were 18.

A couple of years later, Palpatine gets hoisted by his own petard after his Force sensitive grandchildren, Ken and Rey Palpatine, kick his wrinkly arse into oblivion and making sure he stays dead. And if one Ben Solo gleefully helps by blowing things up with his lightsaber and his blaster to help his fiancée, that’s another story. The End.

–

anon honestly can disney hire you because this is GOLD and I cackled all the way through and HONESTLY I WISH THIS HAD BEEN TROS BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WILDLY IMPROVED LKLGKKJLSGDDLGKJSG

[cartoonnonsensegirl]

The Cast of Justice! Excellence! Defense! Intelligence! (J.E.D.I.) and their Star Wars knowledge

Alexis Tano: Has seen the all the originals, but only one prequel: The Phantom Menace, and it was when she was like, 3, so she can barely remember it except for Jar-Jar and some of the other funny moments. She once told Patrice (who’s from Italy) that she thought Queen Amidala looked like she belonged in the Venetian carnival, and showed her the Episode I promo pics to prove her point. Patrice agrees, but she has never seen the prequels (more on her later). Has yet to see AOTC and ROTS. Alexis has also seen the sequels and the spin-offs. Has no idea The Clone Wars exists. Is not a big SW fan in general, and would rather watch Kim Possible or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Anatole Spacewalker: Has only seen the original trilogy. None of the prequels or sequels. Like Alexis, has never heard of The Clone Wars. He’s heard the Jar-Jar criticisms, but his main thing is that people called Darth Vader “whiny” in the prequels, and he’s afraid that the criticism may be true and it’ll ruin his image of Vader being a fearsome and intimidating villain. He liked the “I am Your Father” scene and considers it one of the best duels in movie history. The one modern SW movie Anatole may consider is Rogue One, because Alexis convinced him that it has great re-watch value. In all honesty, he’d rather be re-watching Lady and the Tramp with Patrice.

Obadiah Kenoly: Like Anatole, has also only seen the original trilogy. Finds Yoda funny in The Empire Strikes Back, and was initially shocked by the reveal that Leia was Luke’s sister. Is also jealous of Old Ben’s beard. Has heard of The Clone Wars but is disinterested.

Patrice Amaretti: Like her J.E.D.I. friends, has watched the originals, but really has not a care in the world for Star Wars. She does have a bit of prequel knowledge from some promo pics and movie stills she’s seen in magazines and online, but only that it’s the story of how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. And even though she has nothing against Leia’s character and strong personality, she thinks her design and costuming could use some work because, in Patty’s own words, “Its Space! You’d think there be more elaborate designer clothes and hairstyles with intricate headpieces! Not just a white dress and cinnamon bun hair”. Honestly, Patty would rather watch a cute, down-to-earth romantic comedy with tons of fashion changes for the female lead and a handsome male lead that is “Mr. Right” than watch a space fantasy. You know what movie she’d watch that has a space setting but also a cute love story? WALL-E. That one and Lady and the Tramp are her and Anatole’s movie night faves.

Yo Fu Wei: Has watched them all, but forgot the plots, he has.

Mace Windham: Has watched the originals and has just started the prequels. He’s been putting off AOTC due to all the deployments the J.E.D.I. Academy has been sending around the globe with their soldiers, but he’ll get to it someday.

Sidonia Palpatine: Has heard of Star Wars, has seen all the memes on the internet (and some clips in videos) when the senators critique her on social media, but never actually watched them until she finally sat down to start with the prequels. Up to now, she’s only seen TPM and AOTC. Doesn’t know the TV shows exist. While she has yet to get to the originals and sequels, she does think Luke is cute, and may also be partial to Kylo Ren for his “puppy-dog eyes”.

Bail Organic: Has seen all the movies. Has tried to convince Patrice to watch the prequels and sequels, but to no avail.

Moira Morgan: Same as Bail. She’s actually told Patrice that she might like Attack of the Clones for the cute romance moments, but the more Patty thought about it, she was like, “So if Darth Vader is Luke and Leia’s father, that means there was a Mrs. Vader...did she go evil too? Why is there no Mrs. Vader in the original movies? Did Darth Vader break up with Mrs. Vader? WHY WOULD ANYONE FALL FOR A MONSTER LIKE DARTH VADER?!!”, thus further pushing Patrice away from the franchise. Moira’s personal favorites are Return of the Jedi and Rogue One, and likes wearing necklaces with the Rebel Alliance symbol.

Rina Chomse: Has seen all Star Wars media, even though she’s not a big fan. She thinks Riyo Chuchi should have gotten more episodes in TCW.

Preston Kelsey: Has seen the originals and prequels, but not the sequels. Wishes to know the lore about the minor Jedi (not the J.E.D.I. Academy that he’s part of, but the Jedi Order in the movies) since he thought they were underused, and the alien designs are too cool to go to waste.

Captain Regis: Has not seen Star Wars

Commander Colby: Nope

Sergeant Republic Face: Nope

Alycia Spurgéon: Has seen memes and only clips. Okay, maybe the Genndy Tartakovsky cartoon, since it’s short and not lengthy.

Sheila Ti: Has seen the first six but has been putting off the sequels. The scene in Revenge of the Sith with the younglings makes her cry, so she usually skips it. She does find the Ewoks and Jar-Jar cute.

Lu Undulashian and Barrie Offerson: Would rather have a Disney sing-along marathon than watch Star Wars.

Kit Ferguson: Has seen them, but not a big fan. Like Preston, thinks all the minor Jedi were underused and just a plot device to be killed off in ROTS to set up the OT.

[haddocktree]

Dean DeBlois Talks the Care and Feeding of Flying Reptiles

The writer-director of DreamWorks Animation’s Oscar-nominated ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’ reflects on his long and loving journey creating the epic animated trilogy.

By Jon Hofferman and Dan Sarto | Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at 11:29am

In 3D, Awards, CG, Films, People, Virtual Reality, Visual Effects | ANIMATIONWorld | Geographic Region: All

Oscar and Annie Award-nominated ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,’ the final chapter in DreamWorks Animation’s epic animated feature trilogy, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Images © 2019 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

At this point, neither the How to Train Your Dragon animated feature film franchise, nor its longtime writer-director Dean DeBlois, needs much of an introduction. The epic adventure series, which debuted in 2010, has been both commercially successful and critically acclaimed, with the first two installments garnering an immense number of Annie Award nominations and wins, as well as being Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominees for Best Animated Feature. (How to Train Your Dragon 2 won the Golden Globe in that category in 2015.)

This time is no different: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has been nominated for an Academy Award and eight Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, and has won accolades from the National Board of Review, the Society of Voice Arts & Sciences, and the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, among others. Produced by Brad Lewis and Bonnie Arnold, The Hidden World delivers a heartwarming message about overcoming intolerance wrapped inside a tale about growing up, facing the unknown, and learning to let go. It also answers the burning question of what happened to the dragons that once populated the earth and lived in cooperation with humans.

So, as awards season rounds into the home stretch, and DeBlois faces his third round of Dragon-mania, it seemed like a good time to talk with him about this reptilian saga that’s become such a central part of his life.

AWN: In a presentation that you gave at the VIEW conference in October, you said that in general, you’re not very enthusiastic about sequels because, if you've done a good job, your story is told, and a follow-up can feel like an unnecessary add-on. What about How to Train Your Dragon made you feel that it provided an opportunity to do sequels the way they should be done?

Dean DeBlois: Well, I think it was a combination of three things. One is that I was a Star Wars kid and I loved the expansiveness of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I felt they took characters that I loved, expanded their worlds and increased the adventure, the peril. The characters were kind of maturing and growing up, and it had a big impact on me. And I saw in the Dragon world and its cast of characters the potential to do something similar. The world could be expansive, and we could grow up with the characters. In the time that it takes to make an animated movie, our fan base could be aging with the characters, which wasn't really something that I'd seen done before – where you take a cast of friends and then grow up with them. We would leap five years into the future and find a new organic problem that felt important and universal. So, that was part of it.

Then, I think it's also the conversation that I had with [Dragon books author] Cressida Cowell. Even though the narratives are quite different in the films and the books, I loved the idea that she was taking on this challenge of explaining what happened to dragons and why they aren't here anymore. I thought that was really intriguing, but also kind of gripping and emotional. The opening line of her very first book is, "There were dragons when I was a boy." That suggests they're gone. What happened to them? So, I loved taking on that challenge.

Finally, just being able to explain certain mysteries that were inherent in the first film. What happened to Hiccup’s mother? Is Toothless the last of his kind? If so, why? Just the idea that we might be able to take organic questions that we didn't have time to explain in the first movie, or didn't feel the need to, and make them into important questions in the context of the trilogy. As if we'd gone back in time and planted them there.

AWN: The emotional center of the storytelling in the films is the growth of the characters, their becoming adults and taking on adult responsibilities, even though they're still young. That’s really the best part of the films.

DeBlois: Yeah, it felt organic to me because I was thinking about what problem I could graft onto 15-year-old Hiccup that felt important. He now has his father’s love and admiration, he has the respect of the town, he has the attention of the girl he was secretly pining for, he has an amazing dragon that he could fly around on, and he ended an age-old war. It doesn't feel like a character who could have a problem until something really eventful enters his life. We needed to go to another rite of passage, which just naturally led to a 19-year-old in search of himself, when you've got two domineering parents of contrasting philosophies. A character who's on the run from his destiny at home, only to return to it with a renewed sense of self, was an appealing tale to me.

AWN: There's a large number of characters in the films, and they play pretty central roles. How do you ensure that you give them enough screen time and develop them enough so it feels that they really belong and have a reason for being there?

DeBlois: It's really tough and I don't know that we did, to be honest. I think that a lot of our characters are underserved. If we had a longer movie, if we could make a 120-minute movie instead of a 90-minute movie, we might be able to explore them more. But oftentimes the characters do become support characters. We do our best to give them moments, give them a laugh here and there, or give them a starring turn. But when you have an unwieldy group of characters, it’s really tough because you're always fighting the ticking clock of budget and time.

AWN: Speaking of characters, what makes a good villain and how do you determine how villainous to make your villain?

DeBlois: That is a very good question and I don't know that I have a very good answer. I struggle with villains. I find them boring if they just want power or money. Unless there's a bit of empathy in their desire, it just falls flat for me. Drago was meant to be a really interesting villain in How to Train Your Dragon 2. There was going to be a sea story that followed his survival and how he became marooned on an island that was home to a very aggressive dragon. He had to befriend this thing in order to fly off the island and get back to his armada. It was a very touch-and-go relationship because they were both very headstrong, but in the end, they established a mutual trust, and it changed him. Even with all of his heinous crimes, when he arrived in the third-act battle, he took the side of the dragon riders, fighting his own former cohorts. I liked that idea because it took what was admittedly a one-dimensional character and gave him complexity. But we didn't get to do that because, again, taking the time to do that story properly would have compromised Hiccup’s story. I regret it since I really wanted to do something interesting with that character.

We channeled some of that frustration into the development of Grimmel [in The Hidden World] and making him a villain for the times – an intolerant elitist who’s trying to crush blossoming ideas of peaceful coexistence. But he’s also a character who’s fun to watch onscreen – he has a kind of playful sensibility and likes the sound of his own voice. Enjoys the hunt, enjoys cornering his prey and forcing it to make desperate decisions. He’s a character without empathy, but he has a sense of humor.

Dean DeBlois.

AWN: To turn to the production side, did you use any virtual camera work or any tools that helped you visualize how you wanted to shoot this?

DeBlois: Yes, [cinematographer] Gil Zimmerman and his team – the layout team who provided us all the previs and the final layout of the movie – would go down to our mocap stage and pull up rough versions of our sets and don the outfits with the little ping-pong balls and actually work out a lot of their own choreography. So, if it wasn't a flight scene, if it was something that had a physical space where they could really block for action, they would come up with ideas that way. It's always dispensed with when it gets to animation, but the ideas are there and then the animators start from scratch.

AWN: How extensive was the previs? Were you using it more for storytelling or was it used more for camera and layout?

DeBlois: On this film, we started to invite the layout department into the storytelling. In other words, if there was a sequence that depended on visceral, kinetic movement – something that's hard to suggest on drawn storyboards – we would talk out the beats of the script pages with Gil Zimmerman and the assigned previs artists, and they would go off and develop it. If we knew there was going to be flight involved or some kind of complex set, we would either hand the sequence entirely to the previs artists or involve them really early.

I found I really liked this step and how far it has come in recent years, where so much of the finished idea can be represented quite clearly and closely in the previs. It used to be awkward to look at – characters that would slide across floors, and blank expressions, and robotic movements. It’s come such a long way that it’s something you can include in test previews with audiences, because it's full of color and it has lighting… it’s a very exciting new tool to use.

AWN: Like many top animation directors, you're going to be moving over into the live-action world. Have you always wanted to go this route? You've been directing animated films for a long time.

DeBlois: Yeah, after Lilo and Stitch, I took a look at my personal hopper of ideas that I was working on and I would say three-quarters of them were live-action. They felt like live-action films. I decided to go out there and just see if anyone was interested. I sold three of them. It got close with a start date on one of them, but they all kind of went on ice when there were administrative changes both at Disney and Universal. It was an exciting and frustrating period and it just feels like an itch that I didn't scratch. So now I have that opportunity to return to the world of live-action and hopefully get a movie going. I do so with caution because I know that so many things can fall apart very quickly in live-action, whereas in animation we tend to commit to the idea of making the movie, even if you have to change out people in the process.

AWN: Do you feel that your experience in animation gives you specific skills that you can apply in live-action production?

DeBlois: I think my storyboarding background definitely gives me the ability to communicate ideas clearly and visually represent them. Having spent so much time on the story side of things, writing as well, I feel as though I can clearly communicate the story we're telling and engage other people in contributing ideas and making it better. I think in any sort of filmmaking enterprise you need somebody who's going to be the guardian of the story, but still be open to great ideas, and I feel like I've been honing that skill over the years.

AWN: Last question. How does it feel to say goodbye to dragon world – after three really well-done, well-received, expansive, beautifully animated features? You completed the trilogy, you told the story as well as it could be told. What are your thoughts looking back on this huge body of work?

DeBlois: I'm very proud that we were able to reach the goal that we had set for ourselves, that we didn't have to creatively compromise much, and that we did it with largely the same team over the course of a decade. It's bittersweet because not only have we come to love the characters and the world, but we really like working together. We don't know if we're ever going to be arranged as that crew again. People have gone on to different shows, some have left the studio. It was a bit of a gamble to dedicate so much time to a trilogy, especially in the ever-changing landscape of studios. There were five changes in leadership on Dragon 3 alone. With every person that comes in, they have their own sensibility and their own tastes. And so, learning to work with each person and also giving them ownership can be tricky. Luckily, we were able to keep our North Star in sight and deliver the ending that we wanted.

[atamascolily]

@pleasantemperorpenguin said

   IDK. Dudebros I’ve seen hated TLJ/Sequel trilogy and Dark Fate for being ‘woke/sjw propaganda’, and the TLJ fans/Sequel fans I’ve seen were on the progressive side and didn’t think Kylo was right.    

I think it depends on where you hang out in fandom. Certainly, a lot of dudebros hated TLJ for exactly the reasons you mention, but not everbody who disliked TLJ is a dudebro. My particular circle of Star Wars fandom leans towards female-identifying progressives who dislike the ST because of what it does to our faves from the previous movies, while enjoying, appreciating, and celebrating the new characters (except for Kylo). I’ve also seen a LOT of “Ben Solo did nothing wrong!”/ “Ben Solo was abused by Snoke/Palpatine/Luke/Leia/Han/the universe and therefore isn’t responsible for any of the terrible things he did” / “Kylo is the real hero and shouldn’t have died” posts from self-identified ST fans here on tumblr.

It’s fascinating to compare the dynamics between the different factions of Star Wars fans with those of the Terminator franchise. I find it striking, for instance, that both the dudebros and Reylo shippers have wildly different politics from each other, but both groups love Kylo’s character and hate that he died in the last movie--for wildly different reasons. Meanwhile, I have observed two main camps of Terminator fans since the release of Dark Fate: women who loved Dark Fate and ship Grace/Dani hardcore, and long-time fanboys who despise it for killing John Connor. There are obviously folks in between, but I haven’t encountered them as much on the Internet thus far.

I find it fascinating that Dark Fate is frequently criticized for rehashing the previous films and making the old timeline meaningless, when one of the key themes of the Terminator films (as I understand it) is that human beings get caught in these loops  and repeat the same cycle over and over again until and unless they are able to break it. So Dark Fate’s decision to say, “well, you can change the future, but changing fate is harder because of the human tendency to keep building aggressive AI and then trying to destroy it” is well in keeping with the genre, tone, and aesthetic of the previous films, as well as a reasonable premise for a sequel.

In contrast, Star Wars is a fairy tale set in space, a fantasy--not a horror or a thriller where time loops and messages from the future are major plot points. While one of the themes of the OT is about breaking the cycles of the past and forging a new path, the ST’s reset feels crueler, because the OT is less focused on breaking down and killing off its characters, and I find the change in style, tone, and emphasis, to be jarring and off-putting. T2‘s ending is ambiguous; Return of the Jedi’s is not.

The ST also takes a very different track from the previously established Legends universe, in which Luke’s Jedi Academy ultimately succeeds (after a rocky start), and he marries Mara Jade and integrates family life with the Jedi Order. Legends!Han and Legends!Leia have a long and happy marriage with three awesome kids, and Leia isn’t kicked out of the New Republic because of her heritage. There’s a lot of stuff in Legends that isn’t all fun and games--plus a lot of weird shit that hasn’t aged well--but I don’t know if I would have been so wrecked by the ST’s decisions if I hadn’t spent a lot of time invested in a continuity that was, until 2014, canon.

(Confession: I stopped reading Legends when the first book of the New Jedi Order series killed off Chewie to show that “anyone could die” and things were going to get dark. I didn’t get back into the fandom again until a few years ago, largely because of the release of TLJ.)

I suppose you could argue Dark Fate did the same thing by erasing the events of T3, Salvation, and Genisys, but I don’t get the impression that fans were attached to those films the same way they were attached to T1 and T2. Or maybe they feel the way I do about some Star Wars Legends novels--”This is 100% garbage, but I love it, and I will fight you if you mess with it because of the bits I do love so much”. I honestly don’t know.

But maybe the biggest difference between Terminator and Star Wars for me is that I grew up with Han, Luke, and Leia, and their adventures in the Legends universe, and that’s a huge part of me on some deep emotional level because I read those books when I did. To see that ripped away on screen was personally upsetting for me, and I confess that much of my antipathy towards the reason for my faves’ unhappiness (Kylo Ren) may not be rational.

Meanwhile, I just watched Terminator for the first time last fall, with zero childhood expectations in the mix. A large number of people who report loathing Dark Fate self-report that seeing young John Connor in T2 was a formative and meaningful experience, and I get how that would hurt to see him die on screen. That doesn’t justify many of their other negative comments, but I can see from my own experience with Star Wars sequels how this could impact their feelings towards Dark Fate as a whole. 

tl;dr: sweeping generalizations about large groups of people are tricky, emotional attachments to media are real and valid, and I find the whole business of contrasts and parallels both within and between major media franchises really interesting.

[brooklynislandgirl]

I saw something on my dash and I feel the need to respond. I am not @ the person who wrote it because she is a lovely person who is just expressing her opinion, and mine of course drastically differs. It isn’t a call out post so much as a...different view which is necessary.

~*~ JJ Abrams: Is great at beginnings. He is very strong at creating an introduction but the man couldn’t follow through if he were given a map, a compass, a sherpa and put inside a wet paper bag. Plot bunnies have never been wrangled and in depth character work is not his strong suit. An excellent example of this is both Lost and the Star Trek series, another fandom that I have lived in practically all of my life.

Rian Johnson: Never heard about him before TLJ and I am absolutely certain I don’t want to have anything else to do with any of his work. Strong Character dynamics was touted as his strong suit and from what I saw in TLJ, there was more character dynamics in Seasame Street. As for Experimental Works, the key word is experimental, and sometimes the experiment fails. As for Original plots, well...there wasn’t anything original. I saw this movie twice over growing up and done better than what he did.

George Lucas: Great at coming up with a verse, phenomenal vision and desire to bring back/recreate the action-adventure series of the past and dropped us into the middle of a vibrant and intriguing world. Yes, the dialogue was occasionally clunky but forgivable. The FATHER of modern special effects, and it makes me wonder what would have happened if they HAD used his ideas and outlines for the Sequel Trilogy, rather than having his contributions scrapped. Just remember kids, if it wasn’t for George, we wouldn’t HAVE Star Wars. {Or Indiana Jones, Or American Graffiti or.....}

~*~

As for ‘people need to stop acting as if Star Wars is this award-worthy fanchise’, uhm shall we not mention the 7 Academy Awards, 8 Saturn Awards, the Baftas, the Nebulas, the People’s Choice Awards, and the LA Film Critic awards won by the original trilogy, or the 5 Oscar Nominations of the Prequel Trilogy? Cause I mean I can pretend they don’t exist, but that doesn’t mean that they will be miraculously erased from reality.

Yes, the Franchise IS about Space Wizards and light sabers and princesses and pirates, but it is also a mythological treatise for a modern age, an in depth attempt to recreate both the nostalgia of past media and based on cultural/psychological archetypes far exceeding JUST being movies. And whether or not that was George’s intention, it has taken a life of its own and has now influenced at least 3 generations of human beings. Possibly more. 

The ST is far less developed, yes. Because no one cared. They only had to scavenge the best bits of the OT and PT and paste them together in whatever pseudo-order they could make fit, and added in things that made absolutely NO SENSE when they couldn’t. Specifically most of Luke’s “characterisation”, Rose-whomeverthehellshewas, and I mean to answer this I would have to write an entire other post. Was it boring? Yes. Was it Cookie-Cutter, you could say so, with a few minor exceptions, and if those were MY cookies, I’d have thrown them out. Oh. Wait. I DID.

I would also like to point out that a good 3/4ths of the novels if not more were written to cover the galazy AFTER Return of the Jedi. Any one or more of those stories would have been far better to adapt that what the ST trilogy has given us.  As for “The ST takes place over less than 1 year” and “TLJ specifically occurs in a period of less than 24 hrs” in regards to the PT and OT:

Attack of the Clones takes place over 6 days, in film. Revenge of the Sith takes place over the course of 5 days in which I don’t think Anakin really gets any sleep at all.

We must assume that all the films therefore occur within a week or less. Slivers of important events. We don’t get to see Anakin being trained over Ten years. We don’t see Luke going and training in the dark side before he appears on Jabba’s barge, and yet these things happened.

~*~

Bunny, no no no. Rey is NOT just Luke as a female with abandonment issues. Luke didn’t know how to use a light-saber when he first saw one. He didn’t know how to use the Force, and had to be trained by Kenobi and Yoda. Rey...didn’t need anything. Neither did Finn, actually. Luke was a good guy, yes, but he had his doubts, his fears, his learning period. Go back and watch the films. Anakin was really good at piloting, he was phenomenal at combat, but he had no social graces, he didn’t ‘people’ well, he struggled with abandonment {both his own and leaving his mother}, the flaws were very real and painfully so.

Anakin and Luke both had to undergo the Hero’s Journey, like Frodo and Siegmund and really, pretty much name any fantasy character that has ever been written. Rey has everything handed to her on a platter, doesn’t have any growth or struggle or really makes any choices of her own. She might have been a great character had she been handled with any degree of forethought or sincerity. Alas, we will never know.

If you’re going to quote George, quote him right, he specifically says “Twelve year olds” which is the age of the kids I work with on a daily basis and they do not have simple moralistic wold views. They have the seeds for very complex thought and I am often amazed by their ability to understand and expand on ideas in ways I hadn’t even imagined.

And maybe if you want to see black-and-white morality in Star Wars, that’s fine but it isn’t really the whole point. If it was... Anakin would never have fallen to the Dark side. He would have started there. Luke would never have left Yoda on Degobah to rescue his friends because that was NOT the right thing to do. The films are about choices, write or wrong, made by people in desperate situations. It is about how those choices shaped their history, how it made them into the people they are, but ultimately, they are about how important hope is, and how even someone who has made very bad choices, can ultimately find their way back.

Star Wars, the movies, is about Anakin and his Legacy.

And archetypes? They are the definition of depth, which is why they cross cultural/religious/gender norms. They are universal ideas that can be transitioned across but not changed from their fundamental existence.

TLDR: The Sequel Trilogy really is glorified bad fanfic and is trying to erase it’s legacy so that the Mouse can make money. We all know the Star Wars film series was really “The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker” and how bout we all stop pissing on that. If the past must die then let them have their dignity.

[metalgearkong]

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Review

12/20/19  ** Spoilers

Directed by JJ Abrams (Lucasfilm / Disney)

Among the current social media and the 24 hour advertisement cycle, if you wanted, its possible to piece together much of the plot of this movie, or any big blockbuster these days. Its for this reason I avoided every single piece of media about Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker before I saw it. Even when bombarded with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TV ads, and movie previews, I successfully dodged all snippets of the movie in order to be as surprised as possible once I sat down to see it. That night was tonight, and it’s felt like a long and arduous two years since The Last Jedi. Once again I have deeply mixed feelings about a new Star Wars movie, but I enjoyed myself more in The Rise of the Skywalker than I did in The Last Jedi, but not necessarily for shakesperian reasons.

The fans were worried about how The Rise of Skywalker would turn out, and as release day approached, reviews were already negative. I accidentally saw a Rottentomatoes critics score in the mid 20′s, and several videos were already uploaded to YouTube giving away that broad opinion of this film. This concerned me, as even critics liked The Last Jedi, which is one of my least favorite Star Wars movies. I let all of the negativity brush off me like a blaster bolt on Beskar armor. I went into The Rise of Skywalker rooting for it and looking to find every positive it could bring being the ninth main installment of the Star Wars saga. I was also ready for this trilogy to be over so everyone whining online could move on and obsess over something else. In an odd, semi-genuine, and semi-ironic way, I had tons of fun in The Rise of Skywalker, even acknowledging its horribly messy and rushed script.

Each of these Star Wars movies to me is like how a new chapter in the Bible would feel for a Christian, and the theater is my house of worship. The series’ trademark title blasted onto the screen among roaring trumpets, and I was ready. My auditorium applauded as the Star Wars logo shrunk to the background and the opening crawl appeared at the bottom of the screen. Seeing a new Star Wars movie in the theaters is always a holiday for me. Each film is a new addition to the lore of my favorite movie universe of all time, pulling from years as a kid before I can even remember the first time I saw it (thank you parents). This movie had me grinning from ear to ear, bringing out that inner child in me that Star Wars always used to do, something The Force Awakens partially did, and what The Last Jedi failed to do completely.

JJ Abrams continues his pension for fast paced scenes, but somehow still containing a ton of charm. We finally get to see Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), Chewie (Joonas Suotamo), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) all working together on the same mission. The characters have a ton of charisma between them, and it inspires me to think of the potential for them having been together more often in this trilogy. I enjoyed their quips and didn’t think it got out of control or relied too much on bathos. The first half of this movie moves like a racetrack, as our heroes move from one location to another pursued by the First Order enough to almost make me dizzy. This would turn out to be a running issue with the movie, and if JJ Abrams and the editor would have let each scene go a little slower and last a little longer, it would have been more appreciated.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is the Supreme Leader of the First Order, having murdered and usurped Snoke (Andy Serkis) in the last film, and is on a personal quest to track down what may be the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). The movie opens on this note, and having none of it spoiled ahead of time for me, found it to be intriguing and exciting. The Emperor is one of the best and most fleshed out characters in Star Wars, and I was curious to learn how he resurrected. Unfortunately the movie barely gives an explanation and we are simply left with the spectacle of what I call Necro Palpatine. However we do have it explained that Snoke was a mere puppet of Palpatine in some capacity, but we aren’t told to what extent, or any other kind of logical backstory. It both answers and raises more questions simultaneously, about both dark lords.

The Rise of Skywalker also goes out of its way in several places to help explain some of the more controversial elements of the prior film, and I appreciated it as a fan of the series who felt toyed with in The Last Jedi. It’s obviously a wink wink to the audience, but I’d much rather have it than not. Greatest of all was Luke (Mark Hamill) being redeemed, as he admitted he was not only wrong to go hide on the island, but toss his father’s lightsaber over his shoulder. The movie also tries to shoe-in more explanation of what Luke was doing after his Jedi Academy was destroyed, which included trying to find the Sith Wayfinder along with Lando Carissian (Billy Dee Williams). It’s not a great explanation of why Luke disappeared, and I wish this was clearly the plan from the beginning of the trilogy. The Wayfinder is basically a key to get to Exegol where Palpatine is hiding. It becomes Rey (Daisy Ridley) and her friend’s mission to find the Wayfinder, through various means and mcguffins. 

John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra returns one final time scoring a Star Wars movie. I heard a dozen of his old tracks throughout the film and I had fun naming as many as I could. For how much I love his leitmotifs and listen to his music ad noaseam, whether its giving me an emotional rush during a run or driving on the highway, I couldn’t recall any new music heard in this film. The first thing I did when I got home from the movie was try to download the soundtrack from Spotify but it wasn’t available yet. I still give this movie a big thumbs up for its soundtrack because although it isn’t new, the way Williams’ music is used and where it’s placed gave me goosebumps every time. Hearing Rey’s theme in just the right moments made me happy, and identifying other leitmotifs and variations of them were great to hear.

The acting all around was excellent for a Star Wars movie. Daisy Ridley as Rey is as great as she’s ever been, and the same goes to Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. All the side characters and comic relief did a good job as well. The banter between Finn, Poe, and C-3PO was a treat as well. Tony Daniels continues to be one of my favorite actors in all of Star Wars for conveying as much personality as he does without facial expressions and very limited movement. McDiarmid as Necro Palpatine gets very little screen time, but he’s hamming it up as the evil Emperor he’s always been, and I loved every second of it. I also deeply appreciate that the movie seemed to rely on puppets again, and one of the stand out side characters was a tiny engineer named Babu Frik (Shirley Henderson) who should have had more time in the movie.

The only “yikes” moment I felt was any time we saw Leia. It’s such a tragedy that Carrie Fisher passed away so unexpectedly, and least of all not able to finish this Star Wars trilogy. I listened to her audiobook The Princess Diarist and she seemed so excited, yet nervous, to be yet again the role that made her famous, and to complete episodes 7, 8, and 9. Her face seems to be animated on a stand-in actress, and her only lines were from old footage that was never used in Episode VII or VIII. This means Leia has very little to say in this movie, and probably had a lot less to do in the plot than she deserved to. The CGI simply wasn’t convincing for me and is the only aspect of the movie that put a lump in my throat for all the wrong reasons. On the flip side, Han Solo’s cameo was a terrific scene that also had me teary-eyed. It was a great call back to The Force Awakens, and served a purpose for Kylo Ren’s character. Harrison Ford did a perfect job, and it was just the sort of scene I didn’t know I wanted.

While much The Rise of Skywalker feels hastily cobbled together, and relies on way too many conveniences for the plot to keep moving, I found it to be a very satisfying time. You know that feeling when you’re extremely tired and almost feel drunk, and everything seems hilarious and flippant? That’s how I felt during this entire thing. I could see ridiculous script elements that either contradict or ruin lore left and right, but I think something inside me was just so happy to finally get this trilogy over with. I let the fan service envelop me even if it didn’t make sense or feel justified. Yes Rey is still a Mary Sue, yes we still got an underwhelming lightsaber duel (that she wins), yes there are too many characters, yes the plot and details can be nonsensical, yes this movie needed way more time to bake in the oven. But unlike a Jedi’s weapon, this movie may not be elegant, but it is a cathartic and satisfying experience, which is all I every hoped it would be. Now can we all take a breath and move on?

6/10

[thedunesea]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker Additional Tags: Angst, Sith Horror, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Love Summary:

On the inside, Anakin was devoured by his own inner fire. A moth to the flame, Obi-Wan knew that sooner or later he would be caught in the firestorm too.  

A vision of someone close to him dying has Anakin diving head-first into darkness; Obi-Wan goes to the rescue. Yes, they are just that predictable.

FULL TEXT UNDER THE CUT

[The holoimage shows a woman clad in standard-issue EduCorps garments. Her eyes are wide with fear, and the deafening noise of blasterfire intermingled with screams drowns her panicked words.]

We can’t get out. They’ve taken the walkway and the hangars. Cloud, Kit and Spike tried to hold them in hallway besh-three – they are dead.

[An explosion, somewhere not far from the speaker. Then the unmistakable clanking noise of marching droids.]

They’re coming in waves. Something – something has awaken in the tombs. We hear drums, drums in the deep – no! Force, no… they got through the blast doors!

[Another explosion. The clanking footsteps approach.]

We can’t get out. It’s the end... They’re coming.

[One last explosion, a scream, and the blue image crumples to the ground before disappearing.]

Silence fell over the High Council Room. The greatest Jedi Masters of this age sat motionless in their circle of wisdom; not a shadow of fear or doubt darkened their carven faces, but their silence said what their features did not.

After a few heartbeats, Yoda voiced what the others could not bear to even think.

“Awakened on Korriban, the ancient Sith have.”

***

Over the course of the years, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had become quite a connoisseur of desert planets. Even if his understanding of the hellish environment was still dwarfed by that of his former apprentice, who had grown up on Tatooine, he knew enough to realize with just one glance that Korriban was unlike any other such place he had ever seen.

The asteroid field through which the Resolute was slowly wading its way reminded him of a morbid image etched in his memory since his impressionable Padawan days, gray bloodflies flying in lazy circles around the putrid wounds of a man he and Qui-Gon had found days after he had died.

The image was morbid indeed, but accurate: the planet beyond the asteroid field was a putrid wound. There was something to the rusty color of its sands that spoke of millennia-old bloodstains on rugged cliffs, of fractured slabs still guarding desecrated tombs, an ill presence festering in every crack of the planet’s parched surface.

Not to mention the fact that the Force itself seemed to shriek away from the place.

Averting his gaze from the viewport and blinking away this unnecessary macabre line of thought, Obi-Wan cast a worried glance at his former apprentice, who was standing beside him and scowling at the planet below, horror and exhaustion carved deep in his features. Taking advantage of the fact that Anakin was too absorbed in his own musings to feel his gaze upon him, Obi-Wan took his time to study the boy he had watched turn into a man.

Nature had made Anakin tall and handsome; his training had given him broad shoulders and the lean, muscled body of a warrior. The loss of his hand had been a gruesome rite of passage to adulthood, a passage ultimately sealed by war, which had bestowed upon him a bronze tan and that trademark scar featured on the cover of half the Galaxy's holomagazines.

On the surface, Anakin was the perfect image of a Jedi – the poster boy of the Order, as Obi-Wan fondly called him. Sometimes he almost seemed to have come straight out of a holomovie on the Mandalorian Wars, and not because of his raw power, unlike anything else the Galaxy had seen in millennia, but because of his charming mix of dashing élan and natural leadership paired with a captivating smile and a generous heart.

On the inside, though, Anakin was devoured by his own inner fire. A moth to the flame, Obi-Wan knew that sooner or later he would be caught in the firestorm too.

“Master?”

Apparently, this time Obi-Wan had been the one too engrossed in his own thoughts to mind his surroundings; Anakin had averted his gaze from the viewport and was now staring at him, frowning slightly.

“Yes, Anakin?”

“What are you looking at?”

“You seem preoccupied,” Obi-Wan said, evading the question.

Anakin bit his lip, hesitating. “I wish they had assigned someone else to this mission, Master," he confessed.

Obi-Wan folded his hands in his sleeves, arching his eyebrows in an inquisitive frown.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Anakin explained.

Obi-Wan opened himself to the Force and almost recoiled under the onslaught of Darkness soaring from Korriban’s sands. Fighting to stand his ground, he reached out, following the tide of time beyond the horizon of the present moment, but the future was silent. He retreated back to the here and now, where Korriban stood as a catalyst of the Dark Side; beyond the evil of the place he could feel nothing amiss - at least no more than usual in an age of civil war.

“That’s strange,” he said at last. “I sense nothing. Well, other than that abyss of darkness we are happily walking into.”

His try for a lighter mood failed; he saw Anakin swallowing, a brief spasm in the curve of his throat.

“I wish we weren’t.”

One hand slipped out of a sleeve, going to rest on Anakin’s forearm.

“So do I, Anakin.” An affectionate squeeze. “So do I.”

A weary smile tugged at the corners of Anakin’s lips. The golden grins of the first year of the war had long since gone, taken away by so many half-averted disasters: Mortis, Zygerria, the Rako Hardeen debacle, the loss of Ahsoka were only the major catastrophes in a tragedy three years in the making. Obi-Wan had never thought he would miss the times of Cristophsis and Geonosis.

“But we are Jedi, aren’t we, Master?” Anakin asked, then sighed and dropped his gaze. “And we will do what we must, whether we want it or not.”

***

The Republic archaeological research center built near the entrance of the Old Sith Academy had become a mass tomb: bodies – or what remained of them – were everywhere, sprawled across control boards, lying in crumpled heaps on the floor, some still in their beds. Trails of blood guided the troopers' steps. Death hung heavy on the air.

Unheard by all save Obi-Wan, the Force screamed in ghost agony.

The planet had been blockaded by Republic forces since the first months of the war; feeling safe under the protection of three star-destroyers, most of the archaeologists had been unarmed. No one could have figured death would come from below.

“Stay alert, men,” Obi-Wan said, his voice booming in the eerie silence. “They might come back.”

“They? What are they, Sir?” Boil asked, voicing what most of his brothers were without doubt thinking.

Obi-Wan kneeled beside the body of a young Zabrak woman; her chest sported two blaster wound, one for each heart.

“Droids,” he muttered.

“Clankers?” another man asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

“No.” Obi-Wan closed the women's eyes and got back to his feet, wiping his hands clean of her blood on his trousers. “Ancient droids, perhaps as old as the Great Hyperspace War. These blast points are too accurate for battle droids. Only supercommando are so precise, but there is no way they could have made planetfall without us knowing.”

“Droids still alive and kicking after thousands of years?” Cody asked, bewildered for probably the first time in his life.

“Yes. Such is the power of the Dark Side,” Obi-Wan said bitterly. “There were legends about this, bedtime scaretales for Jedi children, ancient tombs filled with assassin droids. There is always a bit of truth in old tales.”

“But where have they gone now? And why did they awake in the first place?”

Obi-Wan stroke his chin, deep in thought.

“Woke up on their own, these droids did not,” Yoda had said. “Activated them, someone has, someone powerful with the Dark Side.”

“I thought the problem was that the archaeologists had dug too deep... too greedily. That they awakened something."

“Perhaps. But the shroud of the Dark Side I feel. Darth Sidious I fear it may be.”

“But to what use, Master?”

“To test our resistance, perhaps, mmmm? Clouded everything, the Dark Side has. Beware, young Obi-Wan. Whatever you may see, trust it do not."

“I don’t know, Boil,” Obi-Wan said at last, relinquishing his reverie. “Perhaps the archaeologists triggered a trap. For now, though, the droids seem to have withdrawn.”

Or, perhaps, it was really a Jedi trap. Frowning, Obi-Wan tapped his comlink. Only time would tell. In the meantime, he had to make sure his men were safe.

“Kenobi here, awaiting status report.”

“Perimeter sweep complete, General. The area is clear. The squad in the dig site has reached the last check point with all green.”

“Very well. We’ll rendezvous at the opposite side of the Academy and go help Anakin and his men in the valley.” He tapped his commlink again, switching to his and Anakin's private frequency. A buzz of static met him. Unease crawled cold on his skin. He closed his eyes and tried to reach for him into the Force.

Anakin?

Darkness and silence. The Force, shrouded in timeless malice, seemed to close around him and jolted him out of his trance.

Fear gnawing at his heart, he turned to his men.

“Let us hurry, gentlemen. I’m afraid General Skywalker is in danger.”

"From the droids?" Cody asked, as he started to run.

"From himself," Obi-Wan said.

***

For a stunned moment Obi-Wan simply stood, staring at Rex in horror. A trickle of cold sweat run from the back of his neck down his spine.

“Anakin has done what?”

Another man would have probably recoiled at his tone of voice; Rex simply frowned.

“He has entered the inner chamber of the cave alone, Sir. There was some sort of… Force barrier, he called it, and we could not get in. The General thought you were in there - he had some kind of vision, said you were in danger. He sent us back here to look out for straggle droids.”

Exhausted and positively terrified, Obi-Wan brushed his fingers on the hilt of his lightsaber, searching his kyber for comfort, but not even the light of Ilum could pierce the encroaching darkness.

"Secure the perimeter, Rex, then call a med unit and wait for us. If we are not back in three hours, leave our hyperspace rings in orbit and return to Mandalore to join the rest of the battle group.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I…”

Imperiously, Obi-Wan raised his hand to stop the man's protests.

“Have I made myself clear, Captain?”

This time, Rex swallowed.

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Good.”

Then Obi-Wan turned on his heels and broke into a run, crossing the vast expanse of blood-red sand with a single-minded focus, leaping over fallen pillars and dashing among sun-bleached bones and effigies of evil monarchs of old.

Had the situation been less dramatic, he would probably had found the time to snort in amusement. Trust Anakin to rush headfirst into a Sith cave because of a darkside-driven vision of someone close to him being in danger - and trust him to follow suit.

***

Obi-Wan had seen the cave on the way from the Academy, a dark crevice opening in the rugged cliff on his left. The Force was so murky he had not felt Anakin's presence inside; he could not sense him even now that he knew where to look.

An old fear took him, the same fear he had felt as he stood behind the red barrier of light, helplessly watching Qui-Gon Jinn fighting Maul and dying at the Sith's hands.

He run as he had never run in his life. Winged creatures of darkness attacked him; he made short work of them, slicing through flesh and bone without even thinking. The Force guided his hand. Which aspect of the Force guided his hand was a question for another time.

When he reached a stone bridge arched across a gaping abyss, Obi-Wan knew his suspects had been founded. Straight out of a youngling’s nightmares, this was no mere cave: this was the tomb of Ludo Kressh, Dark Lord of the Sith.

Always an history enthusiast, Obi-Wan had read enough of the legends about the Sith Lords of old to recognize it. There were rumors about this tombs, whispers of arcane demons still wandering its depths, of dark magic so powerful it could drive a Jedi to madness.

According to ancient annals stored in the deepest vaults of the Archive, a Jedi Master of old had passed unscathed through the chambers, surviving all the horrors the tomb had unleashed upon them. The true nature of those horrors – ghosts, the records had called them – had unfortunately been lost to time; the most widely acknowledged theory was that the tomb forced those who entered it to witness memories that haunted them, fixed moments in time that could never be changed.

If it so, Obi-Wan defiantly thought, I have nothing to fear.

Dark as his past may be, filled with pain, anger and regret, there was nothing in it he could not face head-on. There was nothing he could not face head-on if it meant Anakin's life. Not even Qui-Gon Jinn's death.

He run across the bridge. A rock he accidentally hit fell down across the edge and plummeted into the abyss; no sound of it hitting the bottom ever came.

There it was, the Force barrier: electricity crackled in the air, purple sizzles of long-forgotten dark magic casting eerie shadows against the carved walls of the corridor beyond.

Obi-Wan opened himself to the Force, pulling at the faint threads of light to shroud himself in their warm protection. They broke apart under his touch, crying in distress as they met the darkness around him. He tried twice, then let go.

He didn't have any time to lose. He crossed the threshold unshielded.

***

Obi-Wan found himself in darkness – both in the realm of gross matter and in the Force.

He was standing on the summit of a slope; the ground under his feet was so hot its searing hit seeped past the soles of his boots. The only light in his pitch-black surroundings came from a river of molten fire flowing several feet below him. Still, the lighting was unnatural: not even the red glow of the lava could pierce the thick darkness that surrounded everything. Of one thing he was sure: this was no memory. He had never seen such a place place.

He stood there for a few moments, uncertain on what he was supposed to do. There seemed to be no way of crossing the river of flames, and somehow he knew that this was the direction he would have to go. Something moving at the edge of his line of sight caught his attention just as he was about to climb down the slope.

In precarious equilibrium on a small surface hovering across the lava flow, two figures of shadow were fighting each other, their blades shining in identical sapphire, a sight even more hideous than that of a red lightsaber.

The vilest blasphemy.

Jedi against Jedi.

Fratricide.

Aghast, unable to move, Obi-Wan stood and beheld the fight. The two warriors were good – incredibly good - and this made their duel even more horrific: Obi-Wan was an adept swordsman enough to know they were fighting to death. Still, he could not suppress the awe he felt before this show of skill. He hated to admit it, but it was a thing of beauty.

In all his years at the Temple and on the battlefield, Obi-Wan had never seen anyone fight like this. He had never even dreamed it was possible to fight like this.

A Jedi and a Fallen One.

There was no way of knowing whom was which.

It was a clash of fates. A shatterpoint of faiths.

A duel out of a long-forgotten hero tale.

As the paralyzed universe watched, the blinding sizzle of lightsabers went on. The two contestants fought without quarters, thrusting their blades in search of an opening, body slamming against body, fingers closing around wrist or around soft, frail throat, limbs contorting in a struggle to escape a death grip. Tremors shook the ground and the air; the tension piled up, electric, burning hot and thick in Obi-Wan's blood.

Mortified at the deep, dark thrill washing over him, he averted his gaze.

This was something more than a mere duel of fates.

This was something personal, a deadly dance on the thin line between love and hate.

Two souls beyond salvation making love to each other in the only way they could.

The two blades met again, pressing viciously one against the other. Roused by the sizzling noise, Obi-Wan turned back to watch and felt his hair standing on his arms. One of the two opponents disengaged, backflipping on the slope a few meters above the shore.

Obi-Wan knew, with the bone-deep certainty of the Force, that the duel was nearing its end.

Precognition, or, possibly, mere expertise in the art of swordsmanship told him what was going to happen. He felt the Force gathering around the taller figure, the one still standing on the hovering platform. The man would jump. And the other man would cut him down, probably with a savage mou kai, the Mark of Dismemberment.

This, at least, was what Obi-Wan would have done were he in his place.

He was bracing himself for the gruesome spectacle about to unfold before his eyes when a spurt of lava cast its smoldering light on the face of the soon-to-be victim.

"No!"

Darkness drowned his scream, and Anakin leapt.

It wasn't even a choice. Duty, trust and the overwhelming need to protect guided Obi-Wan's hand.

His own blue blade cut through the traitor's heart.

But, once again, he had been too late.

Just before he died, the unknown warrior had swept his blade in that forbidden move Obi-Wan had predicted, severing in one fell swoop both of Anakin's legs and his flesh arm.

The dead traitor crumbled to the ground in a dark heap, but Obi-Wan didn't even see; the only thing he saw was Anakin's maimed body sliding down the slope, towards the fire. Desperately, still screaming, Obi-Wan tumbled down the hill and gathered what had remained of his Padawan in his arms, cradling him with his eyes blinded by tears. When the stumps of Anakin's legs caught fire, they burned together.

The last scream on Obi-Wan's lips was Anakin's name.

***

“M-Master?"

Darkness. The ground shifting under him. A trickle of perspiration running down his neck.

"Obi-Wan?"

When he heard his name, Obi-Wan's eyes snapped open, but the darkness didn’t lift. He blinked twice, trying to make sense of his predicament. Now that he was almost awake, and more aware of his surroundings, he realized that the shifting ground under him was no ground at all. It was someone’s legs. Startled, he pulled up so fast his vision got black for a moment; he dropped back to his knees.

“Anakin?” he croaked as soon as he had regained his balance, belatedly appreciating the fact that, apparently, neither him nor Anakin of them were dead. He blindly groped around until his hands reached the body on which he had awakened. Anakin twitched under his touch.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Obi-Wan heard him snort. “It was a trap.”

Obi-Wan huffed in relief.  “Don't you say,” he said, tiredly mocking him. “Oh, Anakin. Will you ever learn?”

“I learnt from you. Spring the trap,” Anakin quoted, his sass somewhat spoiled by his still shaky voice.

“When we are together, not on your own.”

Obi-Wan could sense Anakin’s smile in the Force. “I knew you’d come,” he said. “Eventually.”

The memory of what he had seen before awakening sent a tendril of fear down Obi-Wan's spine: back then, he had been too late.

“Anakin,” he murmured. “Did you fight anyone?”

Anakin’s confusion echoed through the Force.

“Here, you mean? No, why?”

Sighing in relief, Obi-Wan realized his hands were still on Anakin's chest. He folded them on his lap.

“Nothing. I had a vision. You were fighting someone.”

"Who?"

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He’s dead.”

“Well, that’s what usually happens when someone is stupid enough to pick a fight with me.”

Obi-Wan didn’t reply. There was nothing amusing in his memory. Anakin, incredibly, was tactful enough to understand he had somehow hit too close to home, and changed the subject. "At any rate, no, I wasn’t fighting anyone. I was just lying here unconscious until you tripped over me."

Snorting, Obi-Wan called his lightsaber to his palm; the blade flared to life, casting its sapphire glow on them. They had been in darkness long enough.

Anakin was half lying, half sitting on the floor, his back propped against something that looked suspiciously like a sarcophagus. Behind it, Obi-Wan could make out what seemed to be the feet and the legs of a ridiculously tall statue of an armored warrior, whose body was lost in the shadows above. Cautiously, Obi-Wan stood up and inserted the hilt of his saber in a empty sconce on the nearest wall, so that it could cast its glow on them without him having to hold it.

“Lovely,” Anakin said, eyeing his surroundings in disgust. “The Sith certainly knew how to brighten up a place.”

“Anakin, it’s a tomb, it doesn't need being bright,” Obi-Wan remarked before he could stop himself, sitting down again beside Anakin.

Anakin waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” Wearily, Obi-Wan let his head thump back against the sarcophagus. “How in the blazes did you end up unconscious on the sarcophagus of a Sith Lord, Anakin? Honestly, I'm quite intrigued."

Anakin straightened, sitting cross-legged. “We were checking the cave for droids when I saw the Force barrier. I tried to reach out for it, but apparently the dark energy knocked me out for a while, and I think I had a vision." He frowned, his eyes glazed. "I was in a place I’ve never seen before, I’d say it was something like a military base – perhaps a space station. Some of the technology I couldn't recognize."

Trust Anakin to notice these kind of details even in a Sith-driven vision, Obi-Wan thought in fond amusement.

"The only thing I know is that I had to find you," Anakin went on, his voice now tense. "I don’t know why, but I had to. I could sense your presence, I knew you where there, but I couldn't find you... until I found your robes and your lightsaber in a heap on the floor. Then I woke up.” He blushed. "Screaming, according to Rex. I know this doesn't seem much, but trust me, it was creepy."

“And you thought that the best course of action was to come looking for me in a Sith tomb while you knew perfectly well that I was in the archaeological outpost,” Obi-Wan said, fond amusement now turning into frustration. He knew that this ferocious need to save everyone was one of the things that made Anakin so endearing, but it was a terrifying trait for whoever cared about him: it could only too easily become a self-inflicted death sentence.

Anakin shrugged. “Better safe then sorry.”

“I’m afraid that running headlong into a Sith tomb because visions fits more into the definition of sorry rather than safe,” Obi-Wan said in a tight voice.

Anakin jerked his head upright. “Obi-Wan, can you please knock it off?”

“Knock it off? You put yourself in danger and left your men and put me in danger and I have to knock it off?”

Indignantly, Anakin leapt on his feet. “How in the nine Sith hells did I put you in danger?” he spat.

“You knew I would come after you,” Obi-Wan said, dropping his voice and closing his eyes. Attachment. We have come to rely on our attachment to each other. Force preserve us. “You said that yourself. So you knew that I would put myself in danger to come and rescue you. Leaving our men behind.”

To this, Anakin had no reply. He dropped on the sarcophagus; the ancient stone croaked under his weight. “Ok. Sorry, Master,” he said in a flat tone, his head clasped in his hands.

Sighing, Obi-Wan got up and sat beside him.

“I’m not angry at you, Anakin, but don’t do this again,” he said softly. “You gave me quite a scare.”

Anakin blinked, turning towards him. “You… scared?”

“Of course I was. This place reeks of Darkness. Who knows what horrors still lie in these tombs. Wouldn’t you have been scared, were you in my place?”

“Well, that’s the reason why we’re here in the first place, isn't it? Beside me being a kriffing idiot, of course,” Anakin said, snorting. “I was scared.”

Obi-Wan sighed. The last thing he didn't want to deal with right now was Anakin's self pity. "You didn't tell me how you ended up here."

"Keep your pants on, Obi-Wan, I'm getting there."

Obi-Wan knew Anakin enough to sense that he'd rather not get there at all, if he could. "I assure you, my young friend, Sith visions most definitely don't make me want to pull my pants off," he said, trying to ease the tension.

As always, Anakin rose up to the bait. "I'm glad to hear that. Not that I would judge you, of course, but it'd still be quite kinky."

Obi-Wan let out a long-suffering sigh. "Anakin."

"Ok, ok." Clenching his fist, Anakin forced himself to speak. "I had another vision as soon as I crossed the barrier." He closed his eyes. "Do you remember the dead star we saw when I was a child? The white dwarf?"

Obi-Wan nodded, shifting closer to him and sliding one arm across his shoulder to pull him in a reassuring half-hug. He still remembered the blind panic that had taken old of a twelve-year old Anakin at the sight of the spent star, the tears streaking down his round, childish face when Obi-Wan had told him that, just as all things do, even stars burn out. Sighing, Anakin let his head drop on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "You had nightmares about it for years," Obi-Wan said.

"Still have," Anakin admitted wearily. "In the vision, I was standing on the bridge of a Star-destroyer, right before the viewport. It was empty - completely empty. No droids, no men, all consoles powered off, but the ship kept going. It was like it was caught in a tractor beam, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And I didn't want to let the ship go there, I didn't, but I couldn't move, I was just staring at it... I was paralyzed, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan felt a burst of pride swelling in his chest. He knew perfectly how much such a confession was costing him - the so-called Hero with no Fear. He tipped his head sideways to let it rest on Anakin's.

"It was the dead star," Anakin whispered. "Not the white dwarf we saw. It was the dead star of my nightmares. White. Solid. Dead.”

"Solid?" Obi-Wan asked, frowning. "A moon?"

"No, that was no moon," Anakin said, shaking his head. "I could feel the nucleus beneath the crust. Pure energy, like a kyber crystal. I know that stars aren't solid, but this one is. Was. I don't know how to explain." He frowned, as if in search for the right words. “It was sick – distorted. Abused. And I couldn’t stop falling towards it. I was just staring at it, even though I wanted it destroyed. I wanted to crush it, but it crushed me.”

Obi-Wan shivered, remembering Anakin’s maimed body sliding down the slope towards the flames, remembered how he had shattered the unknown man’s heart and how Anakin had died anyway. Their worst fears materializing before them.

“We cannot escape our deaths, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said softly. It was true, no matter how hardly he wished he could protect Anakin from this truth.

Anakin trembled under his fingers. “I know,” he said, his voice croaky. “I always thought death was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Now I’m not sure anymore.” He paused, biting his lip. “I don’t want to be afraid.”

Oh, Anakin. “It’s this planet,” Obi-Wan said. “And this tomb. If I am right and this is the tomb of Ludo Kressh, it is famous for being haunted.”

Anakin let out a faint snort. “Force, Obi-Wan. First geonosian zombie worms, now ancient Sith magic. You are a weirdo, not a Jedi.”

“Well, one of us needs to know what we are doing,” Obi-Wan protested, faintly offended. “Anyway, some scholars thought that the ghosts in this tomb showed the immutable facts of our lives.” Obi-Wan paused, and Anakin’s horror spiked in the Force. “I think they are wrong," he went on hastily. "I think that what we saw are our worst fears: you told me that yourself, you saw the dead star of your nightmares."

In an instinctive gesture of affection, Obi-Wan lifted a hand to card his fingers through Anakin’s hair; Anakin winced and grabbed Obi-Wan's wrist, pulling away from him. “Don’t.”

Obi-Wan froze, his hand limp in Anakin’s clutch. “I am sorry,” he murmured, afraid to have crossed an unspoken barrier. He couldn't deny that, affectionate as they were, it was unusual for them to be this tactile - only during the second battle of Geonosis they had reached such... intimacy. Obi-Wan could still remember the heat spreading through him as they bantered throughout the battle briefing, Anakin's sheer relief when he had found him still alive, the way they had struggled to find a moment away from peering eyes just to hug each other in a crushing embrace. He blushed as he remembered what he had dreamt in his painkiller-induced sleep after the battle. War had given them that intimacy, and war had taken it away from them before it could even bloom.

“No, no,” Anakin blurted, apparently grasping the surface of the thought - at least, Obi-Wan hoped it was just the surface. “I mean… My hair is soaked with sweat.”

Oh. Obi-Wan’s shoulders relaxed; his lips curled in a crooked smile.

“Do you think it would bother me?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve had your blood on my hands more times than I care to remember – and your vomit too, now that I think about it,” he added with a smirk.

Anakin grimaced in disgust. “Did you really have to bring that up? I was ten!”

Chuckling, Obi-Wan lifted his hand again, brushing his fingers against Anakin’s cheek. Anakin leant into the touch, his eyes fluttering close. Obi-Wan hadn’t seen him this vulnerable since after the first battle of Geonosis, in the aftermath of the loss of his hand. Back then, his fragility had been that of a devastated teenager who had broken down; now, though, it was a grown man deliberately shedding every defense before someone he trusted with his life. The realization made Obi-Wan shiver again; Anakin, apparently, misread the sentiment. He turned abruptly to face him, his hands raising to cup his face.

“What did you see, Obi-Wan?” he asked, his eyes wide and burning.

Obi-Wan straightened his back, painfully conscious of how near him Anakin was. “I don’t see how thi-”

“Tell me.” The voice of a General. Obi-Wan swallowed.

“I saw you die. I tried to kill the man you were fighting, but he got to you anyway. It was Qui-Gon all over again, only that this time I could have done something… But I failed.”

“Your worst fear is watching me die?” Anakin croaked.

Obi-Wan blinked. “Yes. Of course. What else?”

Anakin leant closer, so close that Obi-Wan could see every crack on his lips as they moved. “Because of Qui-Gon?”

There was no easy answer to that. The death of his Master had left him scarred; it had taken years for Obi-Wan to overcome the trauma. But somewhere deep in himself he knew that a life without Anakin by his side would have been his worst fear even if Qui-Gon had lived. To run away from the truth hiding behind his Master's death would have been a betrayal of Qui-Gon's memory and of Anakin’s trust.

“No,” he admitted slowly. “At least, not entirely. Perhaps the fear of watching you die and being unable to help is affected by my trauma, but... we are at war, Anakin. We both know that not even our abilities can guarantee that we will live to see its end. We march into each battle knowing it may be the last. It’s only natural that I fear losing you.” The more he talked, the hoarser his voice became, until his last words were nothing more than a rasping whisper. Anakin was so close, too close, and when he swept his tongue on his quivering lips, covering them in a thin film of moisture, Obi-Wan had to swallow a gasp. Something red and dark pooled in his groin. He remembered the wanton way Anakin had slammed his body against that of his unnamed opponent, the carnal heat of their fight. Blind jealousy shot through him, and he felt a black jolt of grim pleasure at the memory of his blade cutting through the man’s heart – the same ecstasy he had felt as he watched Darth Maul’s severed body plummeting down into the abyss.

“But you killed him?” Anakin asked, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “The man who murdered me?”

“Yes.” Revenge was not the Jedi way, and Obi-Wan tried to tell himself he had acted only to save Anakin. Without even realizing, he leant closer. His hand slid back into Anakin's damp hair. “I put a blade through his heart the moment he struck you down.”

“Good.”

For a long moment they stood together in precarious balance on the edge of the precipice, mouth a hair's breadth from mouth, just close enough that Anakin's warm breath fluttered on and past Obi-Wan's already parted lips.

Obi-Wan had always known that, once started, this was a fight he could not win; there was no fighting gravity, the eternal law binding gross matter and pulling him towards Anakin, the burning fulcrum of his life.

Not on a Sith Lord's tomb, was his only half-rational thought as he closed the distance between them.

Shaking, he let himself fall, pushing Anakin down with him and pinning him against the cold floor with his weight. Anakin's lips were there to catch him, warm and damp, primigenial.

Anakin kissed like he flied: bold and impetuous, smothering his inner fire in the absence of thought, his fingers tracing deep creases on Obi-Wan's back. For once, Obi-Wan soared with him, high among the stars, kissing him as he had never kissed before – as he had never done anything else before, with an abandonment he had never felt, with the same forbidden eroticism of the battle he had witnessed, his hands entangled in Anakin's hair.

They pulled apart, gasping for air, and guilt washed over Obi-Wan; frantically, he searched Anakin's face for a sign of regret for what had just happened. He found his eyes, and they were wide, darkened from arousal, impossibly blue in the light of Obi-Wan's plasma blade.

Gently, Anakin lifted a finger and touched Obi-Wan’s cheekbone, tracing a languid path towards his lips. Obi-Wan leant into the touch with a sigh and his eyes fluttered close, but only for the briefest moment: he could not bear to lose the sight of Anakin lying under him, eyes wide and wet lips slightly apart.

Anakin's hand slid back, his fingers curling against the short hair on the back of Obi-Wan's neck, pulling him down for another kiss, mouth against mouth, desperate, drowning. Obi-Wan's hands traced the lean lines of Anakin's body, a body he knew better than his own and yet didn't know; his mouth slid down Anakin's neck, kissing and licking, eliciting small gasps. He could feel Anakin's own desire burning in the Force, intermingled with his, their barriers falling one after the other, crumpling to dust.

Slowly, deliberately, Obi-Wan tipped his head back to watch Anakin as he pressed his hips down on his, grinding his already almost full erection against Anakin's. The small sound Anakin made as his lips opened in pleasure sent a dark flame of arousal through Obi-Wan's body; clumsily, hungrily, he let his lips slide down over Anakin's jawbone, leaving a trail of hot dampness and small bites that made Anakin whimper under his wandering hands.

Reverentially, he let them slide down Anakin's muscled chest, down towards his belt and further down. Anakin moaned again, thrusting his hips upwards into Obi-Wan; then, he opened his legs, letting Obi-Wan in between them, clutching his hipbones with his strong thighs.

"Oh," was all Obi-Wan could say, all rational thought crumbling to ashes in the firestorm, Anakin's own arousal pressing against his stomach.

Then, the firestorm was inside him, burning, a urge more powerful than that of sex, stronger than honor and duty and vows. Panicked, Obi-Wan froze, his lips stilling on Anakin's collarbone.

"Obi-Wan?" Anakin moaned, distress for the interruption intermingled with worry.

“Anakin. I-” Obi-Wan knew what he wanted - needed to do. It was only right that he did it before he and Anakin crossed this last barrier together - no more secrets, no more lies. Still, he stumbled on the words. They had been true before, and for others than Anakin, but Anakin was the first person for whom Obi-Wan was willing to say them out loud. The first person for whom the words were more important than anything else. The Force itself seemed to nod in tacit consent. “I-”

His commlink started to beep with the high-pitched tone of the emergency channel. Dismay flashed across Anakin’s face, and he looked away. Obi-Wan cursed softly, letting out a ragged breath and trying to compose himself before tapping the comm open.

“Kenobi.”

“General. We have an urgent message from the Jedi Council.”

Blast. With a sigh, Obi-Wan rolled off of Anakin and scowled at the black ceiling.

“Put it through, Cody. Standing by.”

Anakin had propped himself on an elbow, and was watching him with wide eyes still glazed with lust. Obi-Wan couldn't help smiling, and was rewarded by a grin as blinding as the light of Tatooine’s twin suns, even if a little giddy. The grin he had not seen on Anakin's face for years. Hope bloomed inside him, hope for a newly found trust after all the lies and the shadows of these three years of war.

“You were saying, Master?” Anakin asked, and leant over to kiss him swiftly, nothing more than a brush of lips against lips.

"Obi-Wan. "

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes in frustration, eliciting a smirk from Anakin, who pulled away.

“Kenobi here.”

“Obi-Wan. Coruscant is under siege. Grievous has kidnapped the Chancellor. We need you and Anakin back now to lead the rescue mission.”

Anakin was on his feet even before Mace had finished speaking, his fist clenched in rage and fear.

"What?"

Exhausted, Obi-Wan nodded.

“We are on our way.”

And perhaps it is better this way, Obi-Wan thought as they rushed out of the Temple. The place was tainted with darkness, and they had both been too emotional and raw. Too unbalanced because of those horrific visions of fears that would never become real.

This is not how I want it to be.

I will tell Anakin I love him when the war is over.

[aion-rsa]

The Mandalorian: How Luke’s Powers Compare to Ahsoka’s

https://ift.tt/3sNIrpO

Just last year, The Mandalorian’s unforgettable second season finale provided the early post-Original-Trilogy glimpse of Luke Skywalker for which Star Wars fans have long-craved. Yet, it was apparent that the Original Trilogy protagonist’s powers increased exponentially in the five years that passed in the timeline; a notion that reinforced the belief that Luke is the most powerful Jedi in the universe. However, the impressive live-action debut of animated icon Ahsoka Tano earlier in the season invited a debate on Jedi powers. It’s a topic that was recently reignited, thanks to comments from executive producer Dave Filoni.

The recent premiere of Disney+ documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 2 has proven profoundly revelatory about the technological magic that brought a Return of the Jedi-era Mark Hamill back onscreen in 2020 as Luke Skywalker for The Mandalorian “Chapter 16: The Rescue.” Interestingly, it also revealed the thought process that went behind the way that this rendition of Luke would be presented, powers-wise. After all, the scene in question, while poised to deliver the reddest of red meat moments to the fandom, still needed to be executed with the narrative discipline to present Luke as an awe-inspiring Force-powered figure while avoiding the pitfalls of making him an obscenely overpowered plot-lifting deus ex-machina manifestation. However, in explaining his though process on limiting Luke’s powers, Filoni unwittingly kicked an Ahsoka-shaped hornet’s nest.  

“It would be very easy to just make [Luke] so over-the-top skilled,” says Filoni. “But I was like, ‘You know, what’s interesting is he’s had training, but I don’t know who’s been teaching him sword-fight training lately.’ So, he had to have a style that was better than what we saw in Jedi, but fundamentally still of the same tree of sword-fighting technique. And his technique and Ahsoka’s technique should be very different. And technically, she’s had vastly more training than he ever has. She’s actually his senior, which is, I think, difficult for people to remember ‘cause of when these characters were created.”

Filoni’s comment led to a debate of sorts on (where else?) Twitter, the welcoming social media hub for measured, mature and always-respectful discourse over differing opinions. Possibly attributed to perceived bias on the part of Filoni (as Ahsoka’s creator), the comment was taken as a claim that Ahsoka is more powerful than Luke. While that, of course, remains subjective, his actually-stated notion of Ahsoka being Luke’s senior is factually accurate, based on the canonical timeline. Additionally, her training in the ways of the Force was substantially longer and more formal. While that doesn’t necessarily make her more powerful, it does likely mean that she’s more knowledgeable than Luke, not just from being older, but due to the pedigree of her Jedi training.

Ahsoka’s academic program started after being found by Jedi Master Plo Koon as a small child on her native planet of Togruta, after which she went through the regular academic wringer at the Jedi Temple under the direct tutelage of myriad Jedi Knights and Masters, patiently trained to harness her innate Force powers in what was to be a life-long learning endeavor. Indeed, the grandiose, elite life path of Jedi was first implied in The Phantom Menace when Yoda initially deemed an 8-year-old Anakin Skywalker “too old” to be trained in the ways of the Force. Clearly, Coruscant’s Jedi Temple is no one’s backup school.

Read more

TV

How The Mandalorian Resurrected a Jedi to Cover Luke’s Surprise Role

By Joseph Baxter

TV

What The Mandalorian Means for Ahsoka Tano’s Future in Star Wars

By John Saavedra

Indisputable facts state that Ahsoka was wandering the galaxy toward the end of the Clone Wars as a formidable apostate Jedi well before Luke was even a forbidden gleam in the sand-hating Anakin Skywalker’s eye. We even witnessed a notable step in her extensive training process in Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ 2008 series-launching feature film, in which an adolescent Ahsoka—already a skilled fighter—was first assigned as a Padawan learner to an initially-reluctant Anakin. Naturally, we saw Ahsoka’s skills evolve for years on the series, tested against the events of the titular war, and she would even rise to supreme splendor years later upon resurfacing on Star Wars Rebels to take on Darth Vader. Consequently, by the time we reach the post-Return of the Jedi era of Rosario Dawson’s live-action Ahsoka on The Mandalorian, she clearly achieved a sagely level—not just when comes to her signature two-lightsaber combat style, but also deep wisdom regarding her spiritual connection with the Force, through which she was able to reveal Baby Yoda’s true name as Grogu. In the very least, most can agree Ahsoka would have a lot to teach Luke—that is, if they haven’t met already, which we don’t know for sure.

Nevertheless, in a stark contrast pertinent to our pandemic era, Luke Skywalker was the original distance learner; a product of formerly-lofty institutional standards loosened out of necessity (in this case the extermination of the Jedi Order). His in-person training was—at least, as portrayed in the Original Trilogy—severely limited to a few fundamentals imparted ever-so-briefly by Obi-Wan Kenobi on the Millennium Falcon, and later from what amounted to a few days of Force training on Dagobah with Yoda. Consequently, in the arena of formally recognized Jedi credentials, Ahsoka is an Ivy League university graduate with workplace experience from years fighting the Clone Wars. Luke, on the other hand, came off a fast-tracked Jedi GED to earn a Jedi Skills Certificate from the proverbial online school of discovered Jedi texts and holocrons, making him a galactic Zoom class student, presumably deprived of opportunities to physically implement what he’d learned.

Of course, those ideas don’t necessarily seal the deal in the Luke/Ahsoka debate (if it even is a debate), since the true extent of Luke’s post-Jedi education is not really known. While “The Rescue” didn’t answer the question of who’s been teaching Luke advanced lightsaber techniques, the ease and stylistic panache with which he single-handedly dispatched a heavily-armed and armored platoon of Moff Gideon’s robotic Dark Troopers make it abundantly clear that his combat skills somehow evolved substantially from the rudimentary wide swipes and overhead caveman-swings showcased in Return of the Jedi. Thus, Luke’s upgraded skills seem attributed to something far more substantial than ancient books. Additionally, his life in the post-Original Trilogy, pre-Sequel Trilogy remains fertile ground in the Disney-designated franchise; a state due in no small part to the company’s canonical erasure of the vast array of Expanded Universe books and comics, now dubbed the “Legends” lore, which extensively showcased a now-apocryphal version of that era.

However, as we’ve seen with the Force, combat skills don’t necessarily make one more powerful, at least not in the manner through which the Jedi view the balance of the universe. For example, Qui-Gon Jinn was defeated in a duel with a mere Sith apprentice in Darth Maul, but his spiritual knowledge facilitated a subsequent trail-blazing ascension to the living Force, becoming the first fully-manifested Jedi Spirit, as vaguely teased in the Prequel Trilogy, and showcased on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Moreover, Matthew Stover’s novelization of Sequel Trilogy closer Revenge of the Sith provides a key contextual moment omitted from the film, since Qui-Gon appears to Yoda fully-manifested as a Jedi spirit, offering to teach him the technique. At that point, the ancient and conventionally more-powerful Jedi master admits his hubris and exercises humility, stating to the spectral Qui-Gon, “A great Jedi Master you always were, but too blind I was to see it. Your apprentice, I gratefully become.”

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

Pertinent to this point, the version of Luke we saw over 30 years beyond the timeline of his monumental Mandalorian moment in sequel films The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi may have been—to much controversy—disheveled, disenchanted and oddly-indifferent, but he was able to demonstrate some unprecedented Omega-level abilities (to borrow from the X-Men’s parlance). This idea proves that Luke’s Force education—such as it was—was nevertheless substantial enough for him to form a Jedi Academy to carry on the lost traditions—tragic ending of said academy notwithstanding. Consequently, any earnest debate about which Jedi is more powerful would likely require far more detail and nuance than the various agendas of the Twittersphere are able to conjure.

The post The Mandalorian: How Luke’s Powers Compare to Ahsoka’s appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2UYcFdg

[klcthebookworm]

Reproduction in the GFFA Part Three: Using it in Fanfic

Nobody has given me a better name for artificial wombs based off cloning tanks for the GFFA as discussed in Reproduction in the GFFA, so I'm using gestational chambers. And since I can't sew up a Free Ryloth Twi'lek costume right now, I decided to give you guys some summary fic as to how I would introduce the concept of gestational chambers to the GFFA. It probably won't become a more polished story because of other writing projects, unless someone else wants to take it as a plot bunny and go.

Setting is post-Luke/Callista break-up and after Mara Jade acquires Jade's Fire. I'm a little fuzzy on that time period in Legends continuity. I own Children of the Jedi and Darksaber, but I don't remember reading the second one. And I don't remember if I had read Planet of Twilight and never bothered to buy it either. But this is set before the Hand of Thrawn duology and probably the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy too.

Best Laid Plans

Mara delivers some supplies to the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 and arranges for a few days stay, sparring practice, catching up with the Jedi she knows, uses showing off the Fire's flight capabilities as a pretense to get to talk to Luke alone. Luke is excited by her improvements to the ship, and doesn't ruin the outing by being morose about his break-up or by nagging Mara to finish her training. So she jumps into what she wants to tell him. "I've been saving my credits to buy my own ship, but I got the Fire without spending the bulk of it. So I decided to spend it on a baby instead."

Luke is a little shocked. "You and Lando need funds for a baby?"

"I'm not having a baby with Lando. We're not involved like that any more." (Keeping the relationship cover story intact.) Before Luke can derail the conversation into unnecessary condolences, she continues. "There's a clinic on Coruscant, very private and discreet, that uses gestational chambers. That's what I have to pay for, but I can keep working without any danger to the baby."

"That's not how it's done on Tatooine," Luke teases. "I never thought about them."

"Most people don't unless there's fertility or genetic compatibility issues. But since I don't want a clone, I need donor sperm. I can use sperm the clinic has or supply my own donor. Would you want to have a child with me?"

Luke never saw that request coming, but Mara defends her choice. Out of all the men she knows, Luke has the qualities she wants for the father of her child. And she's seen him with his niece and nephews and knows he wants a child of his own. But no pressure, think about it and meditate on it. Luke tells her regardless of his choice, she will make a wonderful mother.

Luke does meditate on it and they talk about what type of parenting partner does Mara desire (whatever he is comfortable with). Luke has a vision of a boy and girl with Mara's hair, and that's what sways him over to saying yes. Mara leaves Yavin 4 with Luke's deposit in a specimen jar.

Time lapse because I'm undecided at what stage of fetal development the future baby boy is at. Luke makes a trip to Coruscant to see what's happening and Cilghal has a list of questions/observations she wants answers to about fetal development of a Force Sensitive baby. He catches up with Mara. She's planning out the Fire's new cabin configuration to house a baby on board. He wants to know when they plan on telling everyone and has an offer for later. Cilghal, Kam, Tionne, Leia, and Han have all told him he needs a break from the Academy, so what if he traveled with her after the baby is born. No interference with her business, just two adults bonding with their infant.

Mara likes the idea, but before she has an answer, the HoloNet blows up with the story that Luke Skywalker is having a baby with far too many accurate details. Mara is livid and goes to the clinic. Luke heads to Leia and Han.

Han questions Luke on why when Luke confirms the story is true. Luke is bitter in front of him and Leia. "None of my relationships have lasted long enough for children and the children's services considers my lifestyle and lack of co-parent detrimental to me adopting a child. Are you really that surprised?"

Mara arrives at Leia and Han's quarters with news that Fey'lya was behind it at the same time Leia's aides figure it out. His motivations is apparently to spoil any political ambitions Luke has. "But I don't have any political ambitions," Luke protests. More importantly, Mara doesn't want to prevent Luke from seeing/raising his son because of all this. She knew about his notoriety before asking him.

Another time lapse fill in with whatever you want between Luke and Mara. Everything is going quiet again media-wise and then the clinic alerts them both: the gestational chamber with their baby has been stolen. The evidence at the clinic points to a Force user with a lightwhip, Lumiya. You can substitute another villain if you'd like; I thought she'd be fun for the previous history she's had with Luke and Mara separately.

So they're off in the Fire to rescue their son. They briefly stop at Yavin 4 for supplies, namely Luke's shoto and materials to make one for Mara. The perfect opportunity to nag Mara about training, but Luke doesn't take it, which is almost as upsetting as her plan to keep her son safe was ruined by Lumiya of all people. On Luke's part, I think he's finally learned futility in asking for what he wants. It has never worked with Mara and it didn't work with Callista.

Close quarters on a ship, intense training sessions demanded by Mara so she can get her shoto technique up to par with her other skills, and it doesn't take long for one spar to devolve into a make-out session. Spurred on because as the first kiss happened, Luke picked up on Mara's mental demand Don't pull away; you always pull away. Challenge accepted and it escalates quickly after than.

Luke wakes up from his post-coitus doze in Mara's cabin alone in the bed. And he has enough alone time to get deep into what the hell just happened thoughts before she returns from the galley with two mugs and wearing his tunic.

"Regrets already?" Mara passes him a mug of hot chocolate and perches on the edge of the bunk.

"I don't regret this, but I am confused. You never gave me any sign you were interested in more than just friendship."

"I never? I all but poured myself into that silver flight suit at the opening of the Academy for you and you never noticed!"

"I noticed you never wanted to stay with me. You always ran back to Karrde."

"You never wanted me to stay, just my talent in the Force. Karrde cares about all of me."

That observation from Mara deflates all of Luke's defensive huffiness. "I never meant it like that. All everyone has wanted out of me was being a Jedi; what else do I have to offer? I am sorry, Mara. You deserved more consideration from me and I failed you." While Mara's still processing that unexpected apology, he continues. "That explains Lando. He cared about the whole woman and expressed that. Smarter man than me."

"Wait, you've been jealous of Lando all this time? But you've had relationships. You ran to other women."

"Jealous of you with Lando, yes. Ashamed of myself for feeling that over your happiness when I should have felt nothing but joy for you both, yes. Of course I tried to move on. I know what to do when I'm not the wanted one."

Mara explains how the whole thing with her and Lando was just a cover story. "I never intended to make you jealous. I thought you didn't want me."

"I want you. Wanted you for so long. Do you want me? Do you want to continue?"

Mara puts down her mug, straddles his lap, and gives him a chocolate-flavored kiss. "Yes."

So after they've reached this level of understanding, they defeat Lumiya and return their son to the clinic. He's fine, and his parents are officially a couple.

The end I came up with is Luke comes back from meetings or something and finds Mara hovering over the sani. "We should have never had sex," she growls at him.

"But we're good at the sex." Luke starts to comfort her and gets down on the floor with her. "Why do you want to stop?"

She glares at him. "That's not what I said." She presses his hand against her stomach. "I'm pregnant. You got me pregnant."

She's not really angry under her morning sickness grumpiness, but her plans! She used to be GOOD at planning things. Luke is ecstatic and declares it must be a girl based on his earlier vision. The end.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. I learned a bit about my inspiration process. Dialogue comes first with the situation that creates the dialogue. Action sequences come later and that includes fight and sex scenes, which probably explains why I gloss over them in first drafts and have to make a concentrated effort to expand and explain them. And if anyone wants to flesh this scenario out to a full story, you've have my blessing.

[koridonna]

star wars reading guide.

hello and welcome! i’m here to help guide you through star wars media, specifically, the books! there are an intimidating about of star wars book out there, but since disney reset canon, thankfully only a handful of them are canon. i’m going to go over every book that is currently canon, as well as where i suggest you start reading.

the order below is the order i suggest reading them in (if you really want to read all of them), as well as a brief summary for someone who just wants to read more about their favourites. this order starts with books that center around characters familiar to us taking actions relevant to the star wars story told in the movies, then branches out more into the star wars universe. most of the novels have some relation to the a movie or tv series, which are listed in parenthesis.

the books under the “canon?” section are books that i don’t think are technically canon, but were written after disney took over star wars and are treated basically as such by the star wars creative teams. these are books mainly meant for younger audiences.

and on to the books!

catalyst by james luceno (rogue one)

one of my favourites! this book goes over the creation of the death star, which starts during the ending of the clone wars. we learn here the history of the erso family and their relationships with figures such as orson krennic and saw gerrera, as well as galen’s role in the death star project. not a lot of action here, if that’s your thing, this book is more about the characters.

bloodline by claudia gray (the force awakens)

this books takes place a little ways before the force awakens, when her son is training to be a jedi and leia is a senator in the new republic. it goes over the events that lead leia to create the resistance, and also leia’s thoughts on her father.

thrawn by timothy zahn (rebels)

a good read for fans of rebels! written by the same author that wrote the original thrawn trilogy when he was fighting against the trio from the og trilogy—that’s no longer canon—has written a book about thrawn’s early days in the empire and how and why he got there, and his relationship with lothal governor arihnda price.

heir to the jedi by kevin hearne

this takes place soon after a new hope, at the very beginning of the galactic civil war, before luke received jedi training. he’s been tasked with saving a cryptographer who will join the rebellion if she’s reunited with her family. luke, uh, still has a bit of a crush on leia in this one.

dark disciple by christie golden (the clone wars)

a part of the clone wars legacy, this is a novelized form of an unaired eight episode clone wars arc (thanks, disney) where the jedi plan on assassinating count dooku. the council determines their best attempt at ending the sith lord is to have quinlan vos team up with asajj ventress, a former sith acolyte. this will spoil the clone wars arc about savage oppress/the witches of dathomir.

the aftermath trilogy by chuck windig (the force awakens)

this trilogy bridges the gap between the return of the jedi and the force awakens with all new characters. it leads up to the battle of jakku and shows the empire’s attempts to regain control after the founding of the new republic. includes chewie and han action! the books in this trilogy are, in order: aftermath, aftermath: life debt, and aftermath: empire’s end.

battlefront: twilight company by alexander freed (the empire strikes back)

this takes place during the galactic civil war during the empire strikes back, and follows the sixty-first mobile infantry, known as twilight company, as they are told by rebellion command to retreat from the mid rim due to heavy losses. however, during this retreat, a new element is introduced into the equation, and twilight company makes a bold attempt at targeting the very heart of the empire’s military machine. based on the video game battlefront.

a new dawn by john jackson miller (rebels)

here we see where hera and kanan meet before rebels, when hera was a pilot fighting against the empire and kanan was hiding from imperial forces by jumping around a drinking. when the empire comes into conflict on the planet kanan’s currently on, his initial response is to jump ship, but he is eventually drawn into the fight.

tarkin by john luceno

occurring before rogue one, tarkin is working on the beginnings of the death star. the rebellion has not yet been created, but former separatists worlds are still suffering, with some making attempts to fight back against the empire. here we get to learn about the grand moff’s past, as well as his relationship with darth vader.

phasma by delilah s. dawson (the last jedi)

once, phasma was a warrior from a primitive world, but now she is the first order’s most feared stormtrooper. one of her rivals, a stormtrooper called cardinal who wears crimson armor, seeks to know more about phasma’s past to attempt to dirty her reputation through a resistance spy who has learned the truth about phasma’s past.

lords of the sith by paul s. kemp

cham syndulla, the father of furture rebellion general hera syndulla and defender of ryloth during the clone wars attempt to protect his planet from the empire’s wrath. in their attempt to take ryloth, the twi’lek homeword, darth vader and darth sidious are stranded on ryloth’s surface, the sith master and apprentice have to work together, something sith are not the greatest at doing. darth vader’s mind... is not a fun place to be.

battlefront ii: inferno squad by christie golden

as a result of the destruction of the death star, inferno squad, an imperial special forces unit, is created to destroy the partisans, saw gerrera’s extremist rebel group. based on the video game battlefront ii. (placed at the bottom of the list as i haven’t read this one yet)

canon?

ahsoka by e. k. johnston (the clone wars/rebels)

with the rise of the galactic empire and the issuing of order 66, ahsoka lives in hiding. this novel bridges the gap between when she leaves the jedi order and when appears in rebels as fulcrum with her dual white lightsabers. includes flashbacks from the siege of mandalore because we never got to see that! (thanks again, disney) it was written for young adults.

from a certain point of view by various authors (a new hope)

this is a collection of 40 short stores written for star wars’s 40th anniversary. each of the stories tells the point of a view of a different character during the events of a new hope.

before the awakening by greg ruka (the force awakens)

three stories that tell the lives of finn, poe, and rey before the events of the force awakens. finn in a stormtrooper being trained by the first order, learning that signs of humanity from stormtroopers is looked down on by the order. rey is working as a scavenger on jakku. poe defects from the new republic, and proves himself as a valuable member of the resistance. intended for children 8-12.

leia, princess of alderaan by claudia gray (the last jedi)

before rogue one and a new hope, leia is the princess of alderaan, who has come to learn her parents are parts of an organized rebellion that she is determined to join whether or not they approve. its intended audience is young adults.

rebel rising by beth revis (rogue one)

here we learn about jyn’s life as a rebel on her own, without saw gerrera’s cadre behind her and years before she fights along side cassian andor. it was written for young adults.

lost stars by claudia grey (the force awakens)

the empire has gained control of the last worlds in the outer rim, and on one of these worlds jelucan, thane kryell and ciene ree bond over their love of flying. eventually, they fall in love and both enroll in the imperial academy, but disillusioned with the empire, thane defects and joins the rebellion. this story culminates in the battle of jakku.

thanks for reading! i hoped i helped you on yours stars wars reading adventure, and that you enjoyed these novels and what they add to the stars wars universe as much as i do.

[duhragonball]

I feel like I haven't as active lately, although I guess that's a matter of perspective.  Work's had me busier than normal, and my sleep schedule's all fouled up from that.  Right now my goal is to spend all day writing, and since there's no new episode of Dragon Ball Super to talk about, I'm gonna discuss the four Star Wars novels I re-read. 

I'm a big fan of the Sith.  My favorite characters in the Star Wars movies are all Sith Lords, followed by Luke, Chewbacca, Lobot, and Wat Tambor.  None of that Dark Jedi crap, or whatever Kylo Ren is supposed to be.  I get genuinely irritated whenever I see Sith fanart that includes Asajj Ventress, because even though I like Ventress, but she's no Sith and she never will be.  

Consequently, I never had any use for the "Star Wars Expanded Universe" unless it delved into Sith lore.  This didn't happen a lot, since the Sith were key players in the movies, and there were stricter editorial controls on how they could be used in the books, comics, cartoons, edible underwear, etc.  The Sith would appear in a lot of other media works, but generally they didn't introduce a lot of backstory like the Prequel Trilogy did.  

Fortunately, they did publish some novels in the late 2000's that scratched my itch.  The Darth Bane trilogy expanded on the life of a Sith Lord mentioned very briefly in the novelization of "The Phantom Menace".  In the movie, the Jedi Council initially believe "the Sith have been extinct for a millennium".  When they learn otherwise, Yoda notes that there are always two Sith at a time, "no more, no less".  The novelization connects these two ideas by establishing that there were once many Sith Lords in the galaxy, until a visionary named Darth Bane reformed the order by establishing the "Rule of Two".   While the rest of the Sith were driven to "extinction", Bane and his apprentice, Darth Zannah, continued their order in secret, and the Sith in the movies are the inheritors of their efforts.

For a lot of years, this was all anyone really knew about Darth Bane.  In 2001, there was a short story entitled "Bane of the Sith", and Dark Horse Comics published a miniseries entitled "Jedi vs. Sith", which depicted the climactic battle that saw the destruction of the old Sith order.  Darth Bane was a minor player in the story.  He stayed out of the fighting mostly because he had no respect for the Sith leaders, and so while they were all getting killed in the final act, he was recruiting a child to join his new order.  Mostly, though, these stories simply illustrated the same basic points made in the Phantom Menace novel.  

Published in 2006, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction went further than that by assembling these stories into a Bane-centric story.  The author, Drew Karpyshyn, detailed the entire early life of the character, from his early adulthood as a miner, to a brief career as a sergeant in the Sith's army, to his training in the Sith Academy on Korriban, to his disillusionment with the Sith status quo.  While the events of "Jedi vs. Sith" are used in the novel, Karpyshyn added the twist that Bane was secretly engineering the Sith defeat.  

It's a really good read, because it does a great job establishing an anti-hero as a protagonist.  Bane is one evil dude, but he also has a refreshing sincerity and pragmatism about him.  He's grateful for the opportunity to learn at the Sith Academy, but when he realizes the Order's shortcomings, he refuses to compromise.  His colleagues think he's wasting his time consulting old scrolls written by the ancient Sith Masters, but if you've watched the movies, you know Bane's way works, at least for a thousand years longer than the system he replaced.  As cruel and malicious as Bane is, you can still root for him as a man with a vision.  His opponents can't see past the ends of their noses, and that makes them more frustrating than the atrocities they commit on the battlefield.  

The two sequels, Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil, mostly focus on Bane as he pioneers his new order.  He trains Zannah to be his apprentice, works to accumulate as many old Sith records as possible, and tries to become as powerful as he can while Zannah tries to decide when and how to kill him and take over.  Re-reading these, I realized they weren't quite as good as they were the first time, mainly because Darth Zannah doesn't have a whole lot going on.  She basically agrees with all of Bane's teachings, so there's not as much conflict between them as there was between Bane and his teachers.   When I finished the last book, I really wanted a sequel about Darth Zannah or her eventual successor, Darth Cognus, but now I'm not so sure it would have been worth the trouble.  Bane had a messianic quality about him because he altered the course of history.  He changed the game, while Zannah and Cognus were just following the trail he had already blazed for them.

This sort of brings me to the fouth book I read, Darth Plagueis by James Luceno.  Published in 2012, Plagueis was sort of a spiritual successor to the Bane trilogy, as it also attempts to expand lore introduced in the Prequel Trilogy.  This time, the story focuses on the "Sith legend" Palpatine shared with Anakin in Episode III.   In the movie, Plagueis was used as a way to suggest that the Sith possessed the means for Anakin to save his wife from dying, and Palpatine deliberately crafts the tale to imply that Plagueis was a somewhat decent fellow who only used his dark side power to protect "the ones he cared about".  

The book exposes that idea as a distortion of the truth.  The only things Darth Plagueis "cares about" in the novel is himself, and his menagerie of test subjects used for his bizarre experiments.  This doesn't come as much of a surprise, since Palpatine always twists the truth to suit his purposes.  Besides, Darth Plagueis wouldn't be much of a Sith Lord if he didn't put himself ahead of the rest of the universe.  The problem is that it's not enough to build a novel around.  The key aspect of Darth Vader, for example, is that he really was a tragic, conflicted villain.  He really did get into the Sith game because he had loved ones he wanted to protect, and he was brought down by this noble quality.  It's that extra complexity that allows Vader to star in six whole movies.  

Plagueis--at least the version provided by Luceno--has no such redeeming quality.  He's just an asshole who doesn't want to die, which isn't particularly innovative as motivations go.  Several other Sith Lords in the Expanded Universe pursued the same goal.  The only hook to Plagueis is that he might have actually succeeded, except we already know he didn't succeed because Palpatine told Anakin that he was killed by his apprentice.  So most of the book feels like an exercise in futility.  Plagueis spends the entire book working on plans and projects which will be abandoned or perfected by his more charismatic sucessors.  In the end, he manages to survive all the way into the events of "The Phantom Menace", which is a pretty brazen retcon, but it serves to demonstrate how he's outlived his usefulness.  Even if he can cheat death, he no longer has a place among the living.  He's reduced to a bit player in his own story, but Plagueis himself never really catches on to this, and it's kind of dull watching him meander through the second half of the book without a clue.  

I struggled with this book the first time I read it, because Luceno seemed determined to namedrop every fictional name, place, species, or event that he could cram into the story.  It sort of suits the concept of the Sith as clandestine power brokers with a hand in everything that happens, but the Sith in the movies never had to go to such lengths to get that idea across.  The second read-through just confirmed my original complaint.  Much of the book is an extended callback to other, unrelated EU stories.  If Darth Maul hurts his arm in a comic book, you better believe Luceno mentions it in the Darth Plagueis novel, even though it has nothing to do with the plot.  

The reason I'm discussing all of this on a Dragon Ball blog is because when I re-read these books, it reminded me just how much of an influence they had over the fanfic I've been writing for the past couple of years.  Like the Bane and Plagueis novels, I'm trying to expand a handful of lines from one episode of DBZ into a fully realized character.  In particular, I always took some cues from the way Darth Bane was a forgotten figure from a thousand years ago, but he still managed to leave a lasting legacy.  And I liked how Bane was a transformative figure to the Sith, but his peers rejected him as a heretic and a fool.  It nicely mirrors the way the Jedi of the prequel era failed to recognize what they were dealing with in Anakin Skywalker.  

Both orders sort of adopted this mediocratic system.  The Sith of Bane's early years were basically warlords, fixated on glory and honor more than the underlying principle of the dark side of the Force.  They thought having lots of Sith Lords working together made them stronger, but it only encouraged individual weakness.  They embraced passions, but without any overriding sense of purpose.  So they'd kill and conquer and make love but they weren't really fufilling their true goals.  The Jedi of Anakin Skywalker's career were obsessed with micromanaging the Force.  They'd take custody of Force-sensitive beings at birth, forbid any and all attachment to the physical world, and basically do whatever they could to suppress emotionalism.  This was all meant to prevent any resurgence of dark side practitioners, except this only exacerbated the problem.  The Jedi never wiped out the Sith to begin with, so trying to prevent a revival of their kind was pointless.  The sterile, unfeeling nature of their order probably did more harm than good.  

In the same vein, I've been trying to establish the Ancient Super Saiyans as similarly transformative figures, since Goku was clearly a repudiation of all the Saiyan culture Raditz boasted about when the Saiyan race was first introduced.  Like the Jedi, the Saiyans tested their people's potential from birth, and showed little tolerance for dissent or new ideas.  Like the ancient Sith, the Saiyans were constantly undermining their own efforts with their infighting.  A strong leader could force them to work together, but only up to a certain point.  More critically, that strong leader couldn't risk letting anyone else rising to his level, which means that his political survival would necessarily be at odds with the natural evolution of his people.  

I haven't really delved into this in my story yet, but I'm getting closer to it, which I guess is why I'm trying to get the idea sorted out in my head.   What I've been driving at this whole time is to establish a Super Saiyan who's clearly beyond her people, but they're too stuck in their ways to appreciate it.  Lord Kaan was skeptical and somewhat afraid of Darth Bane, but he couldn't really get rid of him either.  Mace Windu didn't trust Anakin Skywalker, but he couldn't really do anything about it.  

And that may be what's been holding me back with Luffa's conflict with the Saiyans.  I need them to be able to do something about her, but that flies in the face of the analogy I've just drawn.  Unlike Darth Bane, Luffa has to fizzle out, and get lost in the dustbin of history.   Whatever she's trying to sell to the Saiyan people, it won't get accepted until Goku brings it back a thousand years later.  

On second thought, that isn't so unlike Darth Bane after all.  Something that stuck with me on my second reading was the opening scene of the Path of Destruction.  Before Bane joined the Sith, he was a cortosis miner basically living out the lyrics to "Sixteen Tons".  To offset his enormous debt, he would try to hustle people at card games, using his nascent Force powers to manipulate their emotions.  In the book, this backfires, because he manages to win a large pot one night, but  he inadvertently drives one of his opponents into a murderous rage.  Bane has to kill him in self-defense, and since the dead man was in the Republic Navy, he's forced to leave the planet and join the Sith military to avoid arrest.  

So while Bane had the skill and patience to win the game, he never got to collect his prize.  Even if he had collected, the money would have just gone to his creditors, so it would have made no difference.  At first, it seems like his joining the Sith is a sign of success and greatness, but it really isn't, at least not for him personally.  Bane founded a Sith Order that went on to take over the galaxy, but Bane himself never lived to see it.  For all the work he put into it, he still ended up dying on some backwater planet, which would have been his fate if he had stayed in the mines.  Similarly, Darth Plagueis was trying to bend fate to his will, only for fate to bend back in turn.  Even if he had accepted his obsolesence, he would have been no better off.  

I suppose this is the point to being an idealist.  None of these characters were planning to enjoy a peaceful retirement.  They weren't even trying to accomplish great things in their lifetime.  They were just following their beliefs as far as they could possibly go with them.  The final outcome was irrelevant.  

[ardeawritten]

I know I’m years too late in fandom-time to moan about this, but I’ve been rereading some SW Legends books in quarantine and having Thoughts about the new Disney media. I don’t have any big gripe against them as SW-associated media but Disney doesn’t handle depth the way some of the authors did.

Stuff I wish they’d shown us on screen:

-The tragedy of prophecy. Luke sees Ben's future, but acting to prevent it would place him in the role of monster and his moment of wanting to prevent it is what made it happen. I wish this was explored in the context of "this is why emotions can be dangerous for the Powerful." If you love one thing too much, you risk letting yourself destroy what you think threatens it and become the monster, a la Anakin becoming Vader. Instead it's just Luke's Big Mistake.

-Influence of alien culture and value systems. The aliens were set dressing in the films. Would have loved to see more than just "prosthetic on a human" for alien characters and cultures. Even in expanded universe it's rare to have non-human POV characters who feel truly alien, but the Joiner Wars at least tried to integrate the otherness of a non-human hive race with a differing value system. The Bollywood alien dance number? Cute but jarringly out of place.

-Other Jedi traditions. This is the perfect moment to drag your Grey Jedi and Dathomir Witches and the animal-totem folks from I Jedi and the Corellian Jedi peacekeepers out of the woodwork. We've had three generations of beige Jedi; give me a force-sensitive lady in scale armor riding a sentient Rancor. You could have done a three-second pan of "we're all here" like the planet celebration montage and included so much more!

-Non-human Jedi. And I'm not talking about Yoda. Give me a Jedi Hutt (Hint: Legends has one) or a force-sensitive tree or SOMETHING not two-armed two-legged in face paint.

I recently re-read I, Jedi, which overlays the Jedi Academy trilogy through a different viewpoint character and it really does highlight the nonsense that went on in Legends at times, from ancient evil Force ghosts to clone Palpatines to Luke's dive into the dark side to the moral quandaries of what to do with a repentant planet-killer and Generic Superweapon #1823. The dramatics of the new trilogy aren't what bugged me, it was their lack of depth beyond them. I want a Jedi on screen like Corran Horn, who plays detective and creates a Jedi alter-ego because he can't quite grasp that that's what he is for real, or like Mara Jade, a charismatic fire-cracker covering deep insecurities, self-doubt and a villainous past. Rey wasn’t bad, but they didn’t really give us anything new with her desert-orphan-scavenger-quest-for-family background.

...Can I have a loving and diverse Jedi found-family with multiple species and Force traditions set against the backdrop of rebuilding a planet-sized artificial Coruscant to replace the one that got destroyed by the Disney Ball?

[khalilhumam]

Former Yugoslavia's brutalist architecture shines in new Star Wars fan film

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New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/former-yugoslavias-brutalist-architecture-shines-in-new-star-wars-fan-film/

Former Yugoslavia's brutalist architecture shines in new Star Wars fan film

The Monument to the Unknown Hero atop Mount Avala became a Jedi shrine

Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Scene shot in the catacombs under Tašmajdan park in Belgrade. Photo by Tamara Antonović. Used with permission.

At the end of last year, a Star Wars fan film with a difference enjoyed its online premier. Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story is a 25-minute short movie made by a volunteer crew composed of around fifty professional filmmakers, film students and members of Serbia's Star Wars fan community. It is written and directed by the award-winning Serbian filmmaker Stevan Filipović. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ThsXKVbO90] The film was shot on locations near the Serbian capital Belgrade. The futuristic Monument to the Fallen Soldiers of the Kosmaj Partisan Detachment from World War II atop Mount Kosmaj and the Monument to the Unknown Hero of World War I atop Mount Avala were both successfully transformed into Jedi landmarks. The apocryphal story is set before the real Star Wars movie The Force Awakens and depicts the demise of the Jedi order perpetrated by Kylo Ren. Global Voices got in touch with Filipović to talk about the movie. Global Voices (GV): Your movie received very positive media reviews, and was lauded by local StarWars fans. Fan fiction rarely sees this level of production. How did you manage it? 

Stefan Filipović (SF): I think one can easily underestimate how much Star Wars means to people around the globe. It's a crucial part of our identities, much more than some local cultural phenomena, at least for a lot of people of my generation. I think we could never do something like this — get a completely professional film crew, and such amazing actors, for a non-profit fan film — if we all didn't share a lot of love and respect for this fictional universe George Lucas has created.

Left to right: Darko Ivić, Stefan Filipović and Slaven Došlo on the set of Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Photo by Tamara Antonović. Used with permission.

But, the other key was the story. I didn't set out to make a fan film, I wanted to make this really personal story, that happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. I think people reacted to that, saw the raw emotions and the potential of it, very early on. Darko Ivić, who plays Nol in the film, was there with me from the very start when I started dreaming about this film.  And then Slaven Došlo went to Disneyland, and brought me a gift — Yoda's lightsaber, and I knew I wanted him to portray the younger brother, Kess. He has this mix of naïveté and pain that I thought was integral to the character. Jana was selected through casting, but the moment she walked in, we thought — that's Mala. The rest of the crew was something of a filmmaker's dream. We had great support from Hypnopolis, the company that has produced all of my films. Basically, everybody who volunteered to help was listed as a co-producer, since we didn't have a budget. In the end, with almost no resources, with shared love for Star Wars, and connections from my previous three feature films, we got quite literally the top Serbian film crews in all fields: from stunts to world-class visual effects, professional color grading, award-winning sound designer, through amazing creatures and prosthetic make-up effects, insane music (available on our YouTube channel), and — of course — great help from the students of the Academy of Arts, where I teach.

A scene from Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Photo by Tamara Antonović. Used with permission.

GV: Artists from the Balkans, like Zoran Cardula from North Macedonia, have in the past explored visual similarities between Star Wars iconography and the brutalist architecture of former Yugoslavia. Your film has brought this connection to a whole new level and through a completely new medium. How did you decide on those particular monuments?

SF: There is something very deeply ‘Star-Wars-esque’ in the stories and legends of former Yugoslavia, or, rather – vice versa. The epic exodus and rebirth of WWI, and then — chaos, civil war, Tito's rebel partisans from all nations who overcame their differences to fight a great evil (the Nazis), their victory, peace, the creation of this New Republic, which leads to another rise in nationalism and the fall of the Republic… It's hard to separate our actual history from a synopsis of the entire Skywalker saga!

Jedi Temple in Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story, photo by Tamara Antonović. Used with permission.

So, these relics from our past were perfect to create the atmosphere of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy — built after the wars, on the ruins of the bygone era — they represent the history which Nol and Dust never had a chance to learn from, yet which shaped their destinies. So, Ivan Meštrović's masterpiece, the Mount Avala Monument to the Unknown Hero became a Jedi shrine, and the Mount Kosmaj WWII monument became ancient Jedi ruins. From a filmmaker's perspective, the Brutalist ex-Yugoslavia architecture was very modern, created in an age where we were looking to the stars, to the future, for inspiration. That makes it stand out today. Both of these locations had mystery and majesty, and I really feel they add something unique to the film. We were very fortunate to get permissions to film there.

GV: The main characters of Breaking Point are commoners. In the official Star Wars movies, members of two ‘genetically superior royal families’ (to paraphrase David Brin) and their entourages tend to run the show. Rogue One (2016) is perhaps an exception. Do you consider your short a part of a trend anticipating ‘democratization’ of that universe, with stories that explore wider social issues through the experiences of people from all social classes?

SF: Yes, well, there's that famous quote from Clerks, about all the workers who built the Death Star and their untold stories. But, seriously, I think Star Wars mythology is now so rich and detailed that it can be compared to many of the existing, historical, myths around the globe, at least in scope and sheer level of detail. The place of the pop-culture in our modern societies is yet to be analyzed by historians and social anthropologists, but, I think it's safe to say that these modern pop-cultural myths occupy a very important place in our lives. In that respect, I feel Star Wars is now more than just another franchise, it's an integral part of global cultural heritage. So, it was interesting to me to try to find a local angle, to try to add to this mythology from our own point of view. We could never make something like The Crown here, but that doesn't mean we don't have amazing stories of our own to tell, and we sure as hell can make films like Dirty Dozen or Rogue One. And class is an important part of that. So we made the entire backstory of Breaking Point about class, in a way. It was interesting for me to imagine — could a poor kid, with no education, and no family, who grew up in the mean streets of Serbia in the 90s become a Jedi Knight, this zen warrior-monk? Or do the wounds that we all have, from the wars, the politics, crime, make us emotionally unstable, unfit? How can we escape that?

Jana Milosavljević as Mala in Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Photo by Tamara Antonović. Used with permission.

The protagonists of our film had really tough childhoods. They were separated, the older one became a drug dealer to survive. The younger one was sold to slavery to the same Dickensian crime boss who once owned Han Solo – Lady Proxima. Mala, the Twi'lek girl, was a sex worker from her early teens. They were then rescued by Luke Skywalker, and now they are training to be Jedi, but they have these gaping wounds in their hearts, all of them. These wounds are the weaknesses that the Dark Side exploits through Ben Solo, the future Kylo Ren. But, it's not Ben Solo who turns them against each other — it's their own fears and weaknesses and old wounds that make the brothers go for each other's throats. In short, they represent the history of the conflicts that led to the breakup of former Yugoslavia. Brothers, killing each other, over past wounds and revived nationalism. That rise of toxic nationalism in the former Yugoslav countries has a striking resemblance to the revival of the Empire that Ben Solo was rooting for, and that is a major political point in the sequel trilogy. I'm sorry they didn't elaborate on this backstory as seriously as George Lucas did when he was creating Star Wars films. Especially in the contemporary world, where we see the reemergence of politics that we all thought defeated so many years ago, and that have caused so much pain and suffering.

Final scenes of Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Photo by Tamara Antonović. Used with permission.

GV: Critiques of Breaking Point focused on length of the film. They wanted more. Do you plan any sequels?

SF: The ending was supposed to be mysterious, poetic, kind of elusive, like a dream. Kess dies, finding his faith again, because of the only pure thing in his life — his love for Mala. So, it's a completed story for us, and we don't plan to make a sequel. But making a prequel would be really interesting — Nol, Kess and Mala living on Corellia, before Luke Skywalker rescued them. On the other hand, perhaps it would be too dark for Star Wars. I don't know… We'll see. Difficult to see, the future, as Yoda once said.

GV: Science fiction and fantasy had been integral parts of mainstream culture in former Yugoslavia, currently very few authors from the region work in these genres. As a feature film director, you have been an outlier in this sense, with the successful fantasy film Shaitan's Warrior in 2006. In Next to Me (2015), you tackled the intersection between new technologies and society. Do you see potential for more sci-fi production in Serbia, or the wider the Balkans region?

SF: I don't care much about “genre” or “sci-fi” or other labels. I think the obsession with “genre vs. arthouse” is a very weird European phenomenon (much like the formulaic obsession with genres is a weird American phenomenon), and it kinda makes us lose focus on what really matters — telling good stories, writing from the heart, creating compelling characters that matter to the audiences. I think we have here the potential to dream about anything we want, but we often choose not to dream, and rather to create films made to fit European financing strategies and schemes. This results in movies that feel more like a product than your average Hollywood fare, minus the virtue of being watchable. And this is the reason people are more inspired by quality TV and games than movies these days. So, in short, yes — I think we can do pretty much whatever we want, but we need to fight for a different financing system to enable it and different standards to realise the potential of thinking “outside the box”.

< p class='gv-rss-footer'>Written by Filip Stojanovski · comments (0) Donate · Share this: twitter facebook reddit

[leo7962]

Star Wars and the Feminism

A new feminist hopes

Before I start talking about feminism, you should know about what feminism is. Feminism is a heterogeneous group of political, cultural, economic and social movements whose objective is to look for equity of rights between men and women, and to eliminate the domination and men’s violence over women because of social roles according to the gender, in addition to a social and political theory.

Feminism is defined by the RAE (Stands for Real Spanish Academy) as a "principle of equal rights for women and men”. The definition of this concept has been a subject of debate among different authors and has even generated different social and cultural movements (Feminism, n.d.) as a movement for the transformation of society, has a vocation to influence the way in which reality is conceptualized and in scientific discourse. As the feminist movement gains relevance in the academic world, an independent theoretical body is generated with its own conceptual tools. (Feminism, n.d.)

The counterattack of feminism

Star Wars universe is dynamic, exciting and inspiring. It is a space opera in its truest sense, combining an intricate web of political maneuvering, space battles, duels and occasionally romantic subtext to death with lightsabers. But there is an imbalance in the force that has nothing to do with the Jedi. There is an imbalance between male and female roles in everyone's favorite space saga, with most of the characters played by men, as feminine roles are minimized whenever possible.

But the intrinsic problem of the female figures in the war of the galaxies can be even more treacherous than the own Darth Sidius. It is not easy to be a woman in any universe, but that may be especially difficult in a galaxy far, far away, where the only obvious female models are a princess and a queen, both intimately related to the dark lord who tries to control them.

So, why is it so hard to accept a strong feminist identity anywhere, even more so in the case of an intergalactic war? Women live with the expectation that they need to fill several roles during their lives. Thus, it is not surprising that there is a conflict within many of them about how they would behave in the absence of efficient male models. Could it be that some of the women in Star Wars have the determination to bring feminism to strength?

Now Princess Leia and Queen Amidala are instantly recognized figures in popular culture, the question persists: Do they represent women in a positive way? Will they be strong feminist models or damsels in danger? Will they be able to inspire people in the same way as men in the films?

And what does it mean to be a strong female model? Depending on who you ask, the criteria may be very different, all based on different views of what it really means to be a woman. Therefore, if it is already extremely difficult to articulate what it means to be a "strong woman" in almost any human context, imagine a galaxy with a great diversity of species and races such as androids, who celebrate together by the fall of the second star of the death. Now, let's try to capture that joy with the main character women of the saga. For that reason, female models presented in the media are generally little examined critically, being simply accepted as "good enough" that were not different from the traced representation of women in our own culture. Therefore, generally those feminine images that are "good enough" are not really represented in a real way for feminists.

What does it mean to be a strong woman? Practically the same thing as a strong man, only with different parts in the body. Most feminist philosophers would agree, to varying degrees, with that argument. So, it is important to understand what feminism means. Feminism is not an institution that aims to subjugate men and affirm a feminine paradigm dominant. Instead of that, it is an institution that insists on equality between the sexes be it in the city of Bogotá or in any planetary system: " Feminism is the radical idea that women are people". (Shear, 1986)

There are many voices demanding the equality of the sexes, which unfold into branches with their own approaches. The feminist’s radicals argue that a "strong woman" avoids all taxes and stereotypes women during the long history of patriarchy. Ecofeminists take those ideas more to the point between oppression of women and the environment as a mean of gaining power. Liberal feminists call for absolute equality between genders at all levels, as far as cultural. feminists are concerned about the strength in the differences between genders. Each of these perspectives is valid, but there is no “überfrau”, or "super woman", with which all aspects of feminism could agree, in some way, to incorporate an ideal strong woman.

That might be the main problem; trying to portray any honest type of female model: nor a single woman can represent all that it means to be a woman, no matter how strong she is. You cannot be at the same time an efficient maternal model and a strong example of a woman who chooses not to have children. That is the first point where Star Wars freckle. Now Leia is amazing, she cannot represent all aspects of the female experience. She is just a space princess firing laser weapon. How can we expect her to concentrate the whole package of the strengths of feminism itself?

The return of feminine power

What we want from female roles is the same as we expect from male roles: that they are dynamic and interesting, and that they show growth in the face of challenges. In the six films of Star Wars, there is only a limited number of women who at least have a chance to achieve those ideals. Can we consider them strong women?

In the original trilogy, we have only one main female character: Princess Leia Organa, a member of the Alderaan royal family and leader of the rebel Alliance. She is, without a doubt, a powerful model for young women. Unfortunately, beyond Leia, there is barely Aunt Beru, who has the largest female role in the original trilogy but is killed later in the beginning of the Episode IV. Despite that, Leia is dynamic, challenging the men she finds in front and surpassing them in physical ability, mastering of weapons and even words, even saying in the face of the Grand Moff: "I recognized its stench when I approached the ship. " The whole original trilogy depends on it, since, in the first place, it is Leia who triggers all the action.

Betty Friedan, a pillar of the second wave of feminism. She publishes the famous sentence in his book the feminine mysticism: "You can have everything, only not at the same time" (Friedan, 1963). She gives that advice to all the women individually, assuring them that there are several stages for satisfaction in their lives. That idea also sums up the real problem with women in Star Wars. When any figure is presented as strong, she can easily be the subject of badly placed criticism: Leia is sexualized, Padme is just a recipient for motherhood and Ray is just a female model of a strong woman. The problem is that, as Friedan suggests, we cannot "have everything" in any of those women. Therefore, we continue in the attempt to find that perfect feminist model in the media.

Since Leia is the only great female character in the original trilogy, her decisions be a representative portrait of women in general. Beyond that, anything she did wrong or without thinking - like exploiting Jabba's ship with innocent slaves’ abortion - creates an image about all women. But if there were a better female representation, there would be no problem in evaluating Leia as an individual character, in contrast to Leia as representative of women in general.

The context matters, however wonderful a female figure may be, its effectiveness and legacy can only be sustained if the society around allows that to happen. Star Wars women are a definition of strong and are not afraid to show it, if they had a chance. considered individually, they offer the same potential as any male character. They are strong, expert and certainly have a "strength" to be recognized. But they are few and live on the margins of society. Maybe the next big battle in that galaxy is very, very distant to the women's struggle, seeking equality as a queen strategist, a warrior princess and a porous Jedi.

References

Feminismo. (s.f.). Recuperado el 21 de 1 de 2019, de Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminismo

Friedan, B. (1963). The Feminine Mystique. En B. Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (pág. 36). New York: Norton.

Oliveira, F. P., Ferraz, T. C., & Ferreira, L. C. (2001). Idéias feministas sobre bioética. Revista Estudos Feministas, 9(2), 483-511. Recuperado el 12 de 2 de 2019, de http://scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=s0104-026x2001000200009

Shear, M. (1986). Review of A feminist Dictionary. En New Directions for women.