#also the sith are arrogant dicks

[phoenixyfriend]

Will you share what makes you ship Anakin/Cody? It's a pairing I'd never have considered, so I'm really curious what makes you interested in it!

This is an interesting question for a few reasons, but I think I should link this post first.

One of the ship dynamics I gravitate towards, especially for Anakin, is 'incredibly powerful/skilled person who is desperate to please, and the person who is largely unimpressed with their baseline level of skill and power, but will genuinely and meaningfully praise/acknowledge the thing they put a real effort into.'

I think Cody is really, really unimpressed with Anakin's shenanigans, and he shows it. He's a walking raised eyebrow with "and?" hanging in the air. He knows Anakin is powerful and great with droids, but can he hold his temper? Can he remember and implement the battle plan that Rex drew up? Can he [redacted horny challenge]?

Anakin wants to impress Cody, and Cody wants Anakin to behave, but also Cody wants to see what makes Anakin tick. He's a very strange and emotional man, and that's a bit of a challenge to figure out and settle, and Cody imo likes a challenge.

In my mind, they didn't love or hate each other on first sight, they were just... wary. Cody had just spent a few weeks getting to know his new boss, and said new boss had mentioned his brother-son at least twice an hour. Cody goes in knowing that Anakin is reckless, but a genius, and lacking in common sense. He's emotional and forgets to sleep when he dedicates himself to a task, and is still getting used to his new arm because he tried to fight a Sith Lord 1v1.

Anakin comes into this situation knowing that Cody is competent, and that Obi-Wan describes him as a good man, and that the two seem to get along pretty well. Being Anakin, he's a little worried about getting replaced, but this is someone Obi-Wan has to work with, and it seems to be on the up and up, but they've had a few weeks to get to know each other without him there, so he's anxious, because in Anakin's mind he is the only person that should ever be Obi-Wan's SiC, but also, Obi-Wan likes this guy alright and the guy in question has managed to keep Obi-Wan and a bunch of soldiers alive so far, so he can't be that bad, so Anakin should try to get along with him, or Obi-Wan will be disappointed, or even upset, and Anakin can't deal with that right now.

So they meet and it's awkward and they try to settle into a working relationship of some kind, and it mostly is... okay. Anakin snaps and gets aggressive sometimes, but Cody is just a wall to it. This isn't great for Anakin, personally, who's used to 'not taking this shit, will wait silently for you to stop being a dick with obvious judgement' from people like Windu, but it works. Cody doesn't enjoy Anakin's behavior, nobody does, but he can deal with it and he's seen a couple brothers come through injury-and-prosthesis with a short temper, so like. Sure. Whatever.

But then Anakin starts coming to Cody for help with tactics and strategy, because Obi-Wan is busy, but Cody is basically Anakin's peer, right? And Cody was super trained in this? And that determination from Anakin to get good at war--whether it's for the sake of Anakin's own ego and need to excel at everything, or for the sake of keeping Cody's own brothers alive--sparks some interest from Cody. Anakin is trying. He's not good at it, not yet, but he's sharp and he asks good questions, and he doesn't doubt Cody's expertise... at least, not too often.

But Anakin does that to Obi-Wan, too, so Cody doesn't take it personally. This is just Anakin's personality. It's a flaw.

It helps that Anakin is pretty. Cody knows everyone can tell. He's not the only one that's noticed.

Then Anakin gets promoted, they split for a few months of Anakin leading his own legion across the galaxy, and the legions come back together for Christophsis or something, and Cody gets to see that Anakin is more confident now, rather than just bluster and arrogance, that it's in his walk, in how comfortable he is with the arm, in the fact that he grasps Rex's battle plans with an ease that takes even some brothers a while to learn.

And Anakin still, the second they are in proximity, wants approval. Some of it from Obi-Wan, obviously, but some of it from Cody, too.

Cody likes that. He likes that this incredibly powerful, widely respected Jedi (who happens to be very pretty and basically the same age as Cody himself) wants his approval. Wants his attention. Wants to know that he's doing a good job.

Wants a firm hand to tell him when he's wrong, and to praise him when he's right, and to force him to still and settle when he's about to jitter out of his skin.

I think Cody finds Anakin fascinating before he finds him charming or forms an emotional bond with him, but it's a solid place to start from.

(And Anakin just... latched onto a person that was Good At Thing that paid him attention and then gave him positive feedback.)

(That's like half my Anakin ships, though. It is very easy to make this boy fall in love. The real challenge is figuring out how the other person reacts to Anakin being... Intense.)

#absolutely-flabbergasted #star wars #the clone wars #codakin #codykin #commander cody #anakin skywalker #phoenix answers asks #shipping

[thehollowprince]

I feel like a lot of people overlook the tragedy of the Prequel Trilogy, not because if was bad storytelling or anything of that nature, but because of the doom we all knew was coming. Even if you had only a passing knowledge of Star Wars before sitting down to watch the prequels, you would have an understanding of the tragedy this trilogy was going to end on. We all knew that the Jedi were going to fall and the Empire was going to rise.

Even knowing that, I find myself playing with "What If's"

What if Anakin had accompanied Windu and the other council members to arrest Palpatine? The master stroke that would have been. Like, I understand why Windu ordered him to stay. Despite so many claims to the contrary, Mace Windu was not a heartless and unfeeling dick. He (and the entire Council) knew that Anakin had a lot of respect and admiration for the Chancellor. Windu even says to Anakin that he senses the conflict in him before they head to arrest him and tells him to stay, which serves two purposes - to prevent Anakin from having to strike down a man he looked up to and also ensuring that Anakin didn't get in the way if he couldn't let go of those feelings.

Side note: I also love how the first person Anakin runs to tell that Palpatine is a sith lord is Windu himself.

But back to my point: if Anakin had come with to arrest Palpatine, it would have gone a lot differently.

For starters, there's the fact that Anakin was one of the most powerful Jedi the Order ever had, even at the young age of twenty-two. And while he may not have been as experienced as the other members of the Order present for Palpatine's arrest, he more than made up for it in raw power. There's also the added benefit of throwing Sidious off balance. This is someone he'd spent the last thirteen years grooming to be his next apprentice, meaning that (presumably) he'd be a bit more hesitant to strike him down, especially after he'd just sacrificed his other apprentice earlier in the film.

The other half of what would have made that such a beautiful moment is the fact that Anakin was the "Hero of the Republic." Palpatine himself went out of his way to not only ensure that Anakin was put into high-win engagements, even going so far as to pull him out of situations he felt the Republic would lose (Umbara anyone?), but he also ensure that Anakin got a lot of publicity for it in the Holonet.

This is an individual that the Republic as a whole looks to as what they think the Jedi should be. If he was the one who arrested Palpatine for corruption and orchestrating the entire war that cost billions or credits and countless lives, the people would have stopped to listen. Even if ultimately they didn't believe him, they would have paused to listen, as opposed to if it was just Windu who had made the arrest.

It would have been Palpatine's own arrogance that would have led to his downfall and the disruption of a thousand years of sith manipulation, and probably the erasure of the Sith Order entirely.

It's a beautiful What If scenario, thwarted by the tragedy of the entire situation taking place in a prequel trilogy.

#what if scenario #anakin skywalker #sheev palpatine #darth sidious #mace windu #star wars

[vultures-and-scavengers]

missing

xiann doesn’t blink. she tilts her head. paladius’ artifact is dampening her force connection, but he’s a fool. nar shaddaa is her world. she learned how to fight and kill long before she learned how to send lighting streaking from her fingers.

breath in, breath out.

her lightsaber is in her hand. she flicks it on. she lunges. paladius parries, and she retreats before feinting to the left.

she doesn’t call on the force. paladius’ expression is growing tense. he’s on the verge of epiphany, but xiann won’t enlighten him. he pushed her older sister into the claws of the sith order.

no mercy.

she lunges again, feeling not the force, but the give and take of combat. she reads her opponent’s eyes and footwork, not the force.

he’s focused on her lightsaber. he misses her scattergun until it doesn’t miss him. take away the force: she is not a child. she is an assassin, since long before the sith imprisoned her with promises of power.

she does not monologue. she does not explain to him that she never needed the force to kill someone. she grabs tulak hord’s artifact, ignores the slimy feeling in the force surrounding it.

of course rylee and destris run the cult. the sith may not believe in one’s word, but xiann still remembers when reputation and the value of her word were the only things keeping her fed. she is not sith. she has only learned to fight like one.

she takes the force dampening artifact with her. she does not immediately return to dromund kaas. tyma goes, but xiann remains with her elder sister. intelligence does not want to lose watcher 51. korriban does not want to lose a prospective sith.

eventually korriban wins. her sister has to board a transport to the sith academy, and xiann is forced to return to darth zash. she thinks bitterly that the sith always win.

she resolves next to be the sith that wins.

#oc: darth cordatus #i changed her name #formerly she was #oc: pyrha caliga #thinking about the scene from kotor 2 where kreia asked what the jedi were without the force #and how xiann was 24 before she ever realized she could touch the force #also the sith are arrogant dicks #and paladius was super reliant on his artifact

[menaceborn-archived]

a lot of people are quick to assume that sith are all hot heated and short tempered, and that's mostly true, they're arrogant and that extends to not putting a lid on their anger for anyone. however in maul's case it's a bit different. he /was/ mostly trained as a sith, though he was never really supposed to become a full fledged sith and that showed in his training and upbringing. all sith discipline their apprentices for disobedience, and oftentimes for failure. for maul this was put to the extreme - zabraks have a higher pain tolerance than humans and i doubt it was a coincidence that sidious chose a zabrak as his apprentice. what this means is that maul is extremely controlled in everything he does because it's been hard coded into him since childhood that any sign of inefficiency or disobedience would lead to electrocution. logically, he knows sidious couldn't possibly be watching him at all times, but the paranoia and built up habits are still very much there so even after the events of TPM, even after he hasn't as much as seen a glimpse of sidious in years, you still won't see him act out on anger outside of combat. most likely he'll barely even show it.

#sry if this is a huge block of text. im on mobile so i cant tell #to continue on from this: IN combat is where you'll truly see the more abhorrent and frankly terrifying sides of maul #it's where he's the most in his element. it's where he gets to let go and channel all that built up emotion to #and also where you see how sadistic he really can be #not that he acts like an angel if u happen to meet him outside of a fight #he's still prideful and if he neither respects you or fears you it shows #he genuinely is just as arrogant as most sith are #he just has a stupid amount of self control for all the wrong reasons #which SHOWS by the amount of times he's shown complete indifference to being directly or indirectly asked if his dick is tattooed #anyway uhh i should probably throw in a handful of trigger warnings here now before i forget #abuse / #child abuse / #physical abuse / #idk if I'm forgetting anything #i should mention that im not saying any of this to get anyone to feel sorry for him I'm just trying to explain why he acts like he does #it feels especially relevant imo bc it's very different from how maul acts in tcw and like #u kno i can say I'm canon divergent and ppl can say ok w/o rly knowing what that entails #so... here #this is what it entails

[gffa]

STAR WARS AND BAD FAITH INTERPRETATIONS: This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, as a way of me looking at in-universe events and characters through different lenses and as interesting exercises for myself, and came to a head for me when I was reading Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig. Throughout the books, there are smaller scenes of various characters who are used as illustrations as to how the galaxy is faring in the wake of the Empire’s fall, including a young orphan boy on Naboo:

While reading this section it reminded me how easy it would be to interpret this in bad faith--look at how the Naboo are failing this child!  Oh, he’s too difficult for them, so they just shove him aside because they can’t be bothered!  Look at how the Naboo are ostracizing someone who only ever tried to help the galaxy and was manipulated and taken advantage of by a Sith Lord, but instead of having empathy for him, they shun him and make him miserable! The people of Naboo are judgmental fucks who deserved what they got! Now, obviously, I don’t actually believe this and I think it runs pretty counter-intuitive to the narration of the scenes, which is about showing how damaged the galaxy is after the Empire and that it takes a lot of time and effort to heal from it.  But I could still make a bad faith argument about how the Naboo are really shitty and arrogant and only want to people people who fit into their pre-judged mold. I could make another bad faith interpretation argument about Padme Amidala as a character--they let a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD RUN THEIR PLANET!?  What the fuck, they trained her for combat, they put this impossible responsibility on her shoulders, including being responsible for going to war (which she did, with the Gungans), she’s practically a child soldier!  There’s no way she can handle that pressure, emotionally or mentally, but Naboo doesn’t give a shit about the mental health of their children! I mean, look at Padme in Revenge of the Sith, where she’s increasingly isolated because she doesn’t actually talk to anyone, none of the handmaidens stuck by her when it got difficult, none of her family is there for her, nobody from Naboo gives a shit about her, because they taught her that she can’t fall apart, that she’s not allowed to be fragile, she has to suffer in silence!  That’s why she’s all alone, because Naboo is fucked up and taught her all that. Again, obviously I don’t believe any of that, but I could make the case for it, when watching those scenes.  I could tie it together with Mapo and Jar Jar from Empire’s End and make a case for Naboo being the fucking worst who should be dragged loudly and publicly. Then there’s The Mandalorian.  Who has a set of religious beliefs and rigid dogma that he refuses to bend on and that everything that happened to him was his own fault, because he’d dragging the child into all these dangerous situations, he is literally endangering A BABY.  He’s so stupid that he doesn’t even try to take the tracker off the baby??  What the fuck, he doesn’t actually care about the welfare of that child he just kidnapped and refuses to give back, he only cares about what his wants. Because that baby has a family out there, but fuck that religious zealot Din Djarin because he stole the baby from them and refuses to give him back to the parents who LOVE HIM AND WANT HIM BACK. I mean, he won’t even take off his helmet in front of the baby WHO NEEDS TO SEE HIS ACTUAL FACE TO BOND WITH HIM BECAUSE BABIES NEED TO SEE ACTUAL FACES.  But his religious zealotry is more important than the baby’s wellbeing that he stole. For fuck’s sake, he can’t even find a caregiver or the baby, just LITERALLY LOCKS HIM IN A TINY STORAGE LOCKER AND LEAVES HIM ALONE FOR HOURS.  He’s literally locking the baby in a cage.  He barely ever holds the baby, he doesn’t get the baby any real toys, he doesn’t give him any skin to skin contact, all the baby has are LITERAL CHOKING HAZARDS TO PLAY WITH, he makes the baby walk for HOURS instead of picking him up to carry him, just lets him get nearly fucking eaten by a tooka, isn’t even FEEDING THE BABY, who has to forage for himself and Din just STANDS THERE while the baby chokes down that frog and is like, “Whatever.” He’s teaching the baby to be violent and angry, that’s why the baby chokes Cara Dune, because that’s exactly what this fucking dogmatic religious militant is teaching him. Again, I don’t actually believe any of that and it ignores a lot of what Din actually does/says and what the baby actually is capable of handling.  But I could make a bad faith case for all of it.  (And this is not a finger pointing exercise on my behalf, because genuinely everyone is allowed their own views and reactions towards Star Wars--so long as they’re not being a dick about those views.) So, you know, the point I’m rolling my way around towards--this happens a lot with the Jedi.  Context and narrative intention is often stripped away or made up to paint them as zealots and kidnappers who don’t give a shit about their own people or others.  That they’re choosing to be in this war, instead of how they were literally drafted into it, how the war chased them down and how they couldn’t just let people die when they could do something to try to help.  How the Jedi have repeatedly said that emotions are valuable, they’re normal, but you need to get a grip on them, because canon has also repeatedly demonstrated that people get really hurt when half-trained psychic space wizards don’t have their shit together.  Or how the Jedi kidnap children from their families, when we’re repeatedly shown that the galaxy is dangerous for Force-sensitive children and also, when people say no, the Jedi listen.  I mean, they have a secret list of Force-sensitive children, if they were kidnapping them, just go get them, no need to have a hidden list.  Also, the Bardottans said no and the Jedi stopped going there. If I’m willing to extend good faith to the people of Naboo and to Din, especially for complicated circumstances and that religious beliefs should be allowed to people and that adoption is a MAJOR theme in Star Wars, then I should be willing to extend that good faith towards the Jedi, too.  So, ultimately: The people of Naboo’s circumstances and actions are worthy of understanding and sympathy and good faith. Din’s circumstances and religious beliefs are worthy of understanding and sympathy and good faith. And, the Jedi’s circumstances and religious beliefs and actions are worthy of understanding and sympathy and good faith, too. All of them are worthy of the benefit of the doubt, a look at what they actually say and do in the canon, the context that goes with it, and understanding for how they’re doing their best in a galaxy that’s often putting people into impossible choices.

#padme amidala #din djarin #baby yoda #jedi order #jar jar binks #meta #novels #long post

[stairset]

Real talk Ki-Adi-Mundi always annoyed the fuck outta me even as a kid like he doesn't talk much but when he does he always sounds so fuckin arrogant and sure of himself like in tpm "imPOSSIBLE, the Sith have been extinct for a MILLENNIA" and also the Yoda arc in s6 of tcw when he kept acting so sure that there's no life after death as if his dumb bitch ass would know, like even Anakin was all "we don't know that for sure you literal dickhead".

Not to mention Mundi was one of the idiots who voted to expel Ahsoka despite the lack of any real evidence and he and Mace gave the most half assed apologies like. I'm sorry Mundi is just annoying as shit. The only time he was kinda sorta likable was during the Geonosis arc and that's it otherwise he can go fuck himself. His head is bigger than his dick energy to be sure.

#shut up tristan #this is a facts only blog

[thedogsled]

13x04 as you’ve never heard it before: Trek vs. Wars

Both do it right. Both make some mistakes. Both have good intentions. Both are brought up in 13x04. Both have crazy ass fans who need to inform you how much superior one is than the other. But uh. I just find it amusing that in a season so far that has presented us with such duality, an episode that opens with a Star Wars reference throws in a Star Trek one as well just for consistency.

I’m going to touch on both because it’s fascinating to me, particularly as both references are so clearly bonded to Jack. And I know, I know. They’re obvious pop culture references, but there’s more underneath the surface to them if that’s all you know them as.

Okay, so I’ve seen people talking here and there about Anakin and Ahsoka. I didn’t watch Clone Wars (though it’s sitting on my shelf right here, oops), so I don’t actually know about Ahsoka, but obviously Anakin is a big deal. 

I’ve seen meta comparing Jack’s potential arc to Luke’s and to Vader’s, but that’s because in a lot of ways their arcs are similar, it’s just that they have different outcomes. Luke, of course, has friends and family in his court, while Anakin is under the thumb of a master manipulator in Palpatine who essentially corrupts him because of his great potential power. There’s an easy line to draw there, of course, between Asmodeus and Palpatine. And so if you lean into the Anakin comparison, you have the following:

Anakin was not a child when he was taken in by Qui-Gon for training (I mean he was but by the standards of the Jedi Temple not really)

The Prophecy regarding Anakin said that he would bring balance to the Force (Ultimately he did, there were 2 Sith and 2 Jedi left)

The Jedi Council feared his power/influence and initially forbade his training

And then Anakin consequently lost all the people he cared about or who had faith in him, starting with Qui-Gon.

Which led to him being trained by Obi-Wan who was barely out of Padawan diapers and a bit of a rule breaker himself

And lets face it had a less than stellar upbringing too (But I guess the EU is no longer canon so w/e)

And don’t forget that Obi-Wan is pretty fucking depressed in general (He describes it as his fate to be sad) but he had just lost the person with which he had a profound bond

It’s no wonder Jack aspires to be more like Ahsoka. By Clone Wars Anakin - because of his skill and the lack of leadership experience of Obi-Wan - is a bit of a cocky dick. He endangers others. He’s arrogant, prideful, rageful, prone to outbursts of emotion and ultimately imperfect. The fact that he has such great power raises him above his peers, and those who train him begin to try to impede his process rather than give him - impetuous and unchallenged as he is - a position of wider influence. This leaves opportunity for Palpatine to prey on his feelings of how unfair this situation is. And ultimately? Anakin thinks he’s doing the right thing. He thinks he’s doing good because he’s been told it’s the right thing to do by someone he trusts.

"I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire."

Or paradise?

But Jack can be Luke too. The difference for Luke (just as it’s made clear in the scene of Jack in 13x04) is that he doesn’t want to become Anakin. Luke walks into that cave on Dagobah and in a nightmarish sequence this is the fear he’s presented with: that he and Vader have a great deal in common. (ftr he lops Vader’s head off and the mask explodes to reveal Luke’s face underneath) But it is this fear that allows Luke to choose his side.

This imo is a ray of hope for Jack. He knows what he wants to be: he wants to be good. He’s just not sure of what he’s feeling.

Which leads me to Spock.

Spock is also Jack. Now if you don’t know anything about Star Trek, you probably believe the hype: Spock is a green blooded alien freak from the planet Vulcan. He’s not. Spock is a half breed, half human and half Vulcan, and that’s why I’m going to compare him to Jack. That’s where these layers come from.

Vulcans breeding with humans is seen as a taboo, you see. It’s just not done. There’s all sorts of reasons for this (such as mating rituals) but among them is that Vulcans see humans as emotionally volatile (and unenlightened because of it). A half human child, therefore, is equally prone to this volatility. Spock attends Vulcan schools where he has disputes with other children and basically has to try twice as hard to BE Vulcan to prove that his human half doesn’t make him less than. This troubles his father, of course, because Sarek did fall in love with a human woman (two actually) and he loves and admires the humanity in his son. But Sarek - being wholly Vulcan - is never able to actually express this. Spock didn’t find out the true depth of his father’s feelings until he mindmelded with Picard in season 5 of TNG). Anyway, I’m wandering off topic.

The thing about Vulcans that is overlooked by haphazard pop culture references is that they do feel emotions. They feel them with deep intensity, but through societal pressure/meditation they’ve built a resilience to expressing them--a resilience that fractures every time their hormones go crazy. Spock struggles with his emotions because he has two conflicting halves to contend with, human volatile emotionality and Vulcan intensity with deliberate emotional repression. He is unemotional because he’s gone to pains to suppress it in the past, and identifying and empathizing/sympathizing with those emotions isn’t something his upbringing has trained him to do. Spock chooses to focus on his Vulcan side. As a consequence this half-Vulcan raised on Vulcan acts like a Vulcan because he doesn’t understand the emotions of the people around him, and is detached from something that a human upbringing could have taught him. Spock represents, therefore, an interesting example of duality because it is his choice which defines him:

Data: “As you examine your life, do you find you have missed your Humanity?" Spock: "I have no regrets." Data: "'No regrets.' That is a Human expression." Spock: "Yes. Fascinating."

(For those who don’t know Data’s story is more like Castiel’s, it’s a story about aspiring toward inachievable humanity)

(Author’s note: If you want an idea of how Vulcan culture works, it’s like imagine Toxic Masculinity: The Planet but instead of men being subtly forced to hide their vulnerability it’s generations of very long living, stubborn people being subtly forced to hide their emotions entirely. Nope, that still sounds like Earth)

So Jack is dumped in Dean and Sam’s world, fully grown, surrounded by all these emotions. He FEELS DEEPLY. He has strong and volatile emotions, just like Spock, that he has no understanding of how to demonstrate. Take, for example, that Jack went in to Mia and asked her to become his mother, the deep and intense emotion that motivated that arrangement. There is genuine emotion there, but Jack doesn’t know what to call it, how to identify with it, or if the feeling is good or bad (which is the greatest issue of all because he Does Not Want To Be Bad)--he only knows that it hurts. But what is he supposed to do with that hurt? Man up, maybe?

That Jack’s powers, therefore, are linked to his expressions of emotion is particularly interesting. Outbursts of emotion have been linked to power before in the show, and specifically parallels to Max Miller were brought up in this episode too. That’s no surprise. But Jack’s power is angelic in origin, so his being able to express it through emotion, which is arguably unangelic (though I have opinions on that, damn it) is a whole other kettle of cod.

Jack has been dumped in a world of emotion without the ability to empathize or sympathize. He’s trying, but it’s no surprise he’s having difficulty. Unlike Castiel who had years to begin to learn emotion long before he became human, Jack has been thrown in at the deep end, and it’s not helped at all that these tidepools of human grief are his window on that world because the one thing Sam and Dean aren’t being at the moment is emotionally consistent.

Anyway. I’d been staring at this gifset @elizabethrobertajones made and literally couldn’t put my inner trekkie to sleep. I’m sure this was meant to make more sense than it did originally, but it’s just my take on it. Both Anakin and Spock canonically experience strong emotions and both are taught by the institutions meant to train them that those emotions are dangerous. In Anakin’s case emotion helps him harness greater power. Both have to struggle with their duality, and both face prejudgement because of it. Ultimately despite their differences they both have to make a choice. Unfortunately for Jack, he has to deal with both aspects of his duality as a nephilim and whether his powers/emotions or possible lack of each make him good or evil.

Which leaves him struggling with one question: Who am I?

#meta #s13 spoilers #s13x04 #jack kline #star trek #star wars #duality #long post #spn spoilers #spoilers #parallels #emotional needs #empathy #sympathy #choice #team free will #good vs bad #pop culture references #otherness #toxic masculinity #bad parenting #grief #learning #humanity #the quest for humanity #channeling my inner star trek fan

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 4: A Rediscovery

STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE

Where it all started: a runaway ship and a jettisoned escape pod to Tatooine. This movie was and is truly great: iconic, consistent throughout, unique, creative, funny, exciting, with only a handful of dud scenes, particularly toward the end (surprising). The opening scroll of Episode 4 is one of the best scenes in all of the series, particularly good when you compare it to some of the later scrolls that sound like a 7th grader wrote it for a homework assignment entitled: “Use seven different adjectives in a three-paragraph mini-story.” And this movie also has the Cantina scene, which might be the best scene of all. 

A few other surprises: 

The movie drags in the end of the beginning, after the droids land in the desert. It takes some time to pick the meandering storyline back up. 

The scenes with Vader and Tarkin are always consistently incredibly well acted, scripted, and executed. They zip along and you feel like you’re in the room. 

The Obi-Wan / Vader fight was much better than I remember.

The Trench Run has not aged well. The tactics are asinine and sort of brought me out of the movie.

There is a terrible and wholly forgettable scene right after successful DS destruction and right before the iconic and awesome throne room / medal-giving scene at the end, and this forgettable scene suuuuuuucks. Maybe I was a little harsh, but singlehandedly kept Ep4 from being the best of all the movies. 

Average score: 8.00 Standard deviation: 1.39

Opening scroll. 10. Perfection. Punchy synopsis of Rogue One, brings you right into the action, no superfluous words (again, a sin that is committed many times later on in the series). 

Chase and escape. 9. SUCH an iconic shot, with the Corellian Corvette desperately trying to outrun a Star Destroyer (we don’t know what they are yet, but they are mesmerizing images). Beautiful and unique music. After seeing Darth Vader crush in Rogue One, I wonder a bit why he didn’t just slaughter them all here, but I suppose he needs to make sure the plans are secure. The first look at Iconic storm troopers. Droids manage to advance plot without being annoying (spoiler: won’t last for long, because C3PO sucks). This set piece ends with an iconic shot of the jettisoning escape pod, beautiful sweeping planet shots, and Vader being a sharp badass. 

Tatooine droid landing. 6. The pacing is a bit slow. C3PO and R2D2 are iconic, but annoying here. Why do they shout at each other instead of transmitting signals, I find myself wondering? 

Jawas. 7. Super tense, eerie, spooky, and weird. Love this. No music helps. Manages to be funny without trying too hard, and lets the weird lead. Cool steampunk tech and funky droids. I still give it a 7 because the pacing is a bit slow. 

Searching in desert. 8. Why are the stormtroopers riding animals? No matter. The tension is rising right on cue. The Jawa... trailer? moving city? is really cool.

Meet the Skywalkers. 8. Love the uncle here. “Alright, shut up” to C3PO - crowd pleaser! Luke is whiny but not overly annoying. Seems very natural. Surprised R2 units aren’t worth more, but for reasons I’m not supposed to know yet. 

With Luke and Uncle. 8. Who is Obi-Wan Kenobi! Love the mystery here. The iconic double-sunset overcomes Uncle Owen being a dick. Great hinted line about “too much of his father in him.” ... “that’s what I’m worried about.” 

Speeder and sandpeople. 8. More mystery and weirdness. Great tension. Into it. 

Obi-wan. 8. More mystery, more intrigue. Great dialogue here as we learn more about the galaxy we’re in. We learn about the force (deeper than we learned in Rogue One). The backstory of Luke’s father doesn’t really make sense the way he tells it, but I suppose with hindsight that lack of clarity is forgivable. Why is he so willing to train Luke in the force - desperation? 

Death Star conference. 9. Tarkin is a badass. Vader is a badass. 

Tragedy at Skywalker farm. 9. Serious emotional heft here. Smoldering bodies. Wow. 

Leia tortured by Vader. 9. Short scene but so very well paced and tense.

Mos Eisley. 10. This sequence is just amazing. The Jedi mind trick, the Cantina. Music restarting after the lightsaber fight. All this interspersed with the tension of the droid search. Han crushes his intro, Obi-wan Dads Luke so hard. Greedo is great. Both shoot at the same time, so that controversy is solved. This scene will be considered for “best overall.” 

“Set your course for Alderaan.” 9. Near-perfect scene again with Tarkin. Short and well-paced to keep the story moving. 

Droid search and getting off Tatooine. 8. Great tension in the searching, I’m fine with the added Jabba scene to show how “deep” Han is in it, and the fantastic iconic shot of the Falcon taking off. Lots of fun.

Falcon chase. 8. Great tension and space shots. 

Alderaan destruction. 8. Great acting. Leia does her best, but it’s hard to get a sense of the destruction of the whole planet. Not much at stake since we haven’t seen it or met anyone from there. Rogue One did this better. 

Talking in the Falcon. 8. “Let the wookie win.” All sort of out of place after we just watched a planet get blowed up. Great Han stuff, great stuff with Luke getting a taste of the Force. 

Asteroid field Alderaan. 9. “That’s no moon.” Such cool shots. Falcon gets pulled into the Death Star. Vader is on point again. Just perfect pacing. 

Death Star sneaking. 8. The “first” (or second, in my order) of a long line of scenes where small numbers of rebels sneak around a large Empire base, but this one is fun. Good tension. R2 Hax0ring and Obi-Wan jedi ninja sneaking are fun. Not big into the stupid crackpot idea to save the princess from the jail, but the Han vs. Luke argument here is fun. C3PO manages not to be terrible, but also not good. 

Leia rescue. 6-8. The cleverness of the “my god, he’s loose!” Chewy prisoner plan is fun. Great sexual tension with Leia and Han from the get-go. Great, iconic trash compactor scene and first (and most natural?) “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Very annoying “3PO!!” repetition by Luke. The blaster accuracy and subsequent shitty hollywood rope-swing with Leia and Luke is kind of grating and that part is a 6. 

Vader and Obi-wan. 9. Starts out with yet another great scene with Vader and Tarkin. Watching Vader vs. Obi-Wan is so much more interesting after watching him go HAM in Rogue One - Obi-Wan must be powerful and dangerous. The fight is better than I remember, and you almost forget Luke’s annoying “Ben!?” exclamation. How does Luke get Ben’s lightsaber!?

Escape in the Falcon. 7.  Takes a while to get the scene setup, but builds some good tension. Great soundtrack, great effects. R2 putting the fire out is funny. “Great kid, don’t get cocky!” But why only 4 TIE fighters chasing them? What about the tractor beam? Why are these star destroyers so big? Why are you so happy that “we did it” when you’re still right next to a huge death star? 

Leia and Han. 8. These interactions are incredible. Luke is a schmuck here, and Han fucking with him is funny. 

Yavin 4 pre-attack. 6. Great tension-building with the Death Star getting to Yavin vs. planning for the trench run. Han leaving with the reward is great. Pacing is a little slow given how urgent this should be - what’s with all this pilot grabass? Luke and Leia is a mediocre scene. X-wing takeoff scene is fine at building suspense but is it really necessary? 

Trench Run. 7. Great action vs. Death Star approaching its range. Great aerial battle with TIE fighters. “X-wings too small for a huge battle station” trope will be repeated so many times you wonder why they build the ships so big. LOVE Vader getting after it himself in the TIE fighter. The A-wing trench run is very fun. Tarkin’s arrogance here makes no sense given Rogue One... he should know there’s a vulnerability. It’s a very tragic attack... everyone is dead and it comes down to Luke. But why are all the pilots simply acting as fodder for Luke? Why don’t they try to engage the TIE fighters? “Use the force!” and “The force is strong with this one!” are hokey but I guess that’s OK. We get Tarkin saving the scene with “you may fire when ready,” which is so well delivered every time. Han ex Machina at the end here. And Luke succeeds. 

Short celebration. 3. Vader is alive, straight into a god-awful scene. Sparse clapping and quiet “hoorays” and hokeyness all around. What the shit, Lucas? 

Ending celebration (Throne room medal scene). 9. Fantastic music and framing and imagery. R2′s back! Yay hokey!

Credits. Such memorable music. Fantastic. Credits in the stars. 

VERDICT

Yep, there’s a reason this movie launched a multi-decade world-changing franchise. Lucas’s vision is powerful but you can also see how he was helped along by great editing, and you can see where the editors met their limits (post-DS celebration scene... man, so bad). Most scenes were 8′s or 9′s, a couple 10′s in there, and only one score below a 6 at all. Great movie.

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[gffa]

More details from Dooku: Jedi Lost: - Dooku’s biological sister (Jenza) says she learned about the Jedi from a documentary about them on the HoloNet! - The planet of Serenno is probably named after the house that rules it and has been for ages.  While I think it sounds like the family uses mononyms, if he was going to have a full name, it would be Dooku Serenno. - “Legend has it” that the planet was once part of the Sith empire but Jenza’s great-great-great-great-something-grandfather led the charge against them.  When Dooku was like, “Whoa, I thought it’d be the Jedi who did that!” his sister says, “Like a Serennian would let someone else take the credit!”  “If you believe the stories--and my father does, passionately--grandaddy Serenno fended them off single-handedly.  And the other houses submitted to his authority.” So, dump an entire salt shaker on that, but it’s certainly interesting in terms of furthering the whole unreliable narrator aspect of this story and in giving us detail about House Serenno. - When Dooku sees an ancient dragon statue of mystical importance on Serenno, he halfway hears it in his head even before he reaches out.  When he touches it, there’s a huge quake all around them, but worse is that there’s a screaming roaring in his head--another instance of how being Force-sensitive can really kind of suck in this galaxy sometimes! - Count Gora is furious when he hears Dooku’s name, screaming in front of him (at Yoda, who just rescued Dooku and Jenza from the quake collapsing rubble on top of them) that he never wanted to see him, that “He’s not my son!”  An interesting turn of how biological families aren’t always so great in the GFFA. Later, we find out (via Yoda) that Count Gora immediately contacted the Jedi when he realized what Dooku was, but had left him outside the castle walls, no clothes, no shelter, nothing to identify him.  There were spine-wolves in that forest, Dooku later finds out from research, if he hadn’t been found, he could have been killed.  Yikes, some people REALLY hate Force-sensitives in this galaxy. When Dooku comes back for a funeral (and because he desperately needs to comfort Jenza), Gora stumbles over him and attacks him physically, calling him a “freak”.  (By this point, Dooku’s definitely losing perspective and objectivity because of his desperate need to stay connected to Jenza and the whole funeral affair ends in a GIANT CLUSTERFUCK.) - Man, Dooku is a real shit in this!  He’s so determined to prove himself, no matter that nobody’s asking this of him, that he’s furious when Sifo-Dyas points out that he’s not the one lifting the rocks up off them.  Some embarrassment about being wrong (because it’s Yoda rescuing them) is understandable, but he’s definitely crossing the line about how pissed he is that he was better than everyone else. He comes back around later, there’s a decent person still in there right now, especially when he’s joking around with Sifo-Dyas, but his first instinct always seems to be an arrogant rage.  They’re all out to get him, he’s better than all of them, that his reaction is “I could have been so much more!” when finding out that he was royalty instead of just a common person.  He works through it each time, so Yoda’s concerned, but it’s not like That Kid’s A Walking Minefield, because the whole point of what the Jedi teach is that it’s not a one-time-and-you’re-done mastering of yourself, it’s a lifelong process, and there will always be a back and forth on this. - Yoda says that he’s worried about Dooku, he senses a lot of confusion there, and that they need to focus on him, rather than Count Gora being a dick to everyone.  Later, he visits him in the infirmary and apologizes, saying he was wrong to take him to Serenno.  (Which makes one wonder why he did anyway, presumably, because he thought that the connection to his home culture was important?) - Dooku gets a parcel while at the temple, it’s just handed to him and nobody intercepts this or anything, which seems to imply that it’s fine. - It’s not really said if Jenza was “stolen” because he’s from the Serenno family or because he was a Jedi or even because he’s the Separatists’ leader, it could be any of them. - Man, if supplementary material wasn’t so obscure, Dooku/Sifo-Dyas would be a HUGE pairing, they are SUPER bantery and adorable. - Ky saying all the things Asajj said about his corpse are a lie, and that she cried over his death.  Dooku saying the Jedi just left them on Rattatak, they could have come for her at any time~, but they didn’t~, Ky’s voice telling her not to listen, that she knows that’s not true.  MY HEART IS BREAKING FOR ASAJJ ALL OVER AGAIN. - The holos on the walls of Dooku’s personal cabin on his airship remind Asajj of Rattatak and she’s surprised to find she still misses the dustball that was her home.  I AM HAVING SO MANY ASAJJ FEELINGS. - One of the holos also talks about the Lost Twenty, confirming that they were Jedi Masters who became disillusioned, Yoda says.  Interestingly, this knowledge isn’t really hidden, it’s available as soon as someone asks and Yoda says it’s a good question.  The scene is, of course, wrapped up in unreliable narration to a degree, because it’s a scene of Asajj watching a holo of Dooku telling his sister about his day, and already he’s been established as being kind of real snotty and arrogant, there’s a sense of snobbery and disillusionment himself towards his surroundings (the narration of the scene has a brief moment of showing giving up wealth for the life of a Jedi is a HDU sort of thing, those were my riches!), but I think it’s reasonably reliable to assume that the basic details are right. Someone asks what happened to them, did they fall to the dark side?  The other Master and Yoda say, no, not all of them, some of them became leaders, others taught.  But most just vanished. “Remember them, we must.  Honor them, we must.  Learn from our failure.”  “Our failure?”  “To keep them where they belong.  But, the past they are.  The future, you are.”  And it’s clear that, given that they’re allowed to leave and the examples we have in canon of Jedi leaving are treated warmly by the Jedi Order (until they go full Sith, obv.) and Age of Republic - Count Dooku shows us that they don’t keep tabs on them, that Yoda doesn’t mean they’re wrong to leave, but that the Jedi should honor the memory of them and keep working to understand those who begin to disagree, to work to make themselves a better place for all of their people.  That if those Jedi felt they had to leave their home and people, they should be remembered and not just dismissed as “Oh, they didn’t understand.”  But that they should work to make sure everyone feels like they belong. - THE EVIL BACKGROUND MUSIC EVERY TIME DOOKU OR SIFO-DYAS STARTS DOING SOMETHING SHADY IS HILARIOUS. - GOD, DOOKU, WHAT A DICK.  He’s so mad that Yoda’s just sitting in the garden and meditating and not talking to him and it’d be easy for the reader to go OMG WTF YODA, except then Dooku (who is relating this to his sister) is INCENSED because HOW DARE YODA TREAT HIM THIS WAY, HE’S THE BEST, MASTER SINUBE SAID IT HIMSELF, HE WAS THE BEST STUDENT HE HAD, HOW DARE YODA IGNORE HIM, IT’S AN INSULT!, and you realize, oh, shit, Yoda is doing something about this, not just that he’s stepping in when he senses Dooku’s confusion, but taking on an active role to try to help him, because Dooku is real full of himself and Yoda’s trying to help him address that underlying problem. But doing so through the way the Jedi teach and the way George Lucas believes is the best teaching method--by forcing the student to start thinking about what’s going on here.  Not to just “drill and kill” rote answers into Dooku, because that’s not going to work, but to guide him to critical thinking skills.  UGH, I LOVE THE LITTLE FROG MAN. - Whoa, there’s some really interesting connections to the political unrest in the galaxy that led up to the Clone Wars, about how the “brave new Frontier” of the Outer Rim isn’t telling you about the organized crime that’s on the rise out there, and it’s touching on SO MUCH of what’s covered in Star Wars: Propaganda and reminded me SO STRONGLY of this passage from the book:

     “With eyes toward expansion into the uncharted reaches of the Outer Rim, the traditions of the Core became passé. Opportunity beckoned from beyond the borders of the Mid Rim worlds. The congested planets of the interior were saturated with messages of promise lying outward, a reversal from long-held notions that Coruscant represented the icon of advancement. Republic wordsmiths and artists collaborated to create a sense of civic duty, of manifest destiny, and of deep obligation to spread the Republic banner from Rim to Rim.      “For the well-settled and wealthy elite of the galaxy’s most crowded centers, such notions were quaint but uninspiring. It was the citizens of the Inner Rim, those who had been crowded out of opportunity in the Core, who answered the call for new life in the frontier of the Outer Rim. The Core Worlders became more enamored with the fleeting distractions of fame and fashion, transitory fascinations with sophistication that left little room for messages of faith or tradition that the Jedi exemplified. The lack of representation in the galactic mindshare undoubtedly fixed their future, as dark forces were on the rise that would poison the public sentiment toward the Jedi in the decades to come.” (--Star Wars Propaganda by Pablo Hidalgo) As always, if you want to get an overview of how the politics of the galaxy shaped everything, from the Republic before the Clone Wars all the way to the First Order, that book is excellent and an amazing read.

#count dooku #sifo dyas #yoda #meta #novels #dooku jedi lost #dooku jedi lost spoilers